Web & Document Accessibility Training
About the Training
One of the requirements of each Assistive Technology Act Program is to provide training in at least one of the areas of Information and Communication Technology. To start this endeavor, we will first be addressing electronic document accessibility. Thanks to Minnesota’s State AT Act program, MN STAR, and the MN State Office of Accessibility, we are able to present you with seven modules on Microsoft Word Accessibility. All artwork and presentations are the property of the state of MN.
These presentations are designed to be interactive, and self-paced. These training modules are absolutely free; however, please fill out the required survey below for our federal data submission.
Required Survey
Please fill out this survey for our federal data requirements.
Document Accessibility Training Modules: Microsoft Word
Module 1: Intro to Accessible Documents
Module 1 provides a brief introduction to why it matters to ensure your documents are accessible.
Module 2: Working with Styles
Module 2 introduces styles, how to use them, and how they help make documents accessible.
Module 3: Working with Colors
Module 3 explains the role of colors in accessible documents and how to ensure that you use colors properly and effectively.
Module 4: Formatting with Columns, Hyperlinks, & Objects
Module 4 demonstrates how to ensure that your paragraph and text formatting, such as columns, hyperlinks, and pictures are accessible.
Module 5: Working with Tables
Module 5 shows you how to design and create accessible and usable tables. It also defines when it is not appropriate to use tables.
Module 6: Document Basics & Accessibility Checker
Module 6 reviews the last steps you should take every time you create a document to ensure that it is accessible, from setting properties to using the Accessibility Checker.
Module 7: Converting Word Documents to PDF
Module 7 outlines the process of creating a PDF document from your Word document, and a quick review in how to ensure that the PDF is accessible.
Resources
Other Microsoft Document Accessibility Resources
- Creating Accessible Documents-University of Washington
- Microsoft Accessibility Video Training
- Accessible Word Documents from Microsoft General how-to guide to help you create accessible Word documents.
- Accessible Powerpoint Slides from Microsoft General how-to guide to help you to create more accessible PowerPoint presentations.
- Accessible Excel Documents from Microsoft General how-to guide to help you create more accessible Excel documents.
Accessible Social Media
- DigitalGov Social Media Accessibility Toolkit An easy-to-use reference that details how to create more accessible social media posts. Not every social media platform lets you create fully accessible content. This Toolkit gives a lot of tips about the most common platforms to help you to do everything that the platform supports. It also gives you information about how to make sure that people can contact you if they need to, which is critical when a platform does not support accessibility.
- “10 Tips for Making Your Social Media Posts Accessible to Everyone” from Be My Eyes A quick and easily digestible list of ways to make your social media posts accessible to all.
Accessible Multimedia
- WebAIM on Captions, Transcripts and Audio Descriptions A primer on accessible multimedia that discusses video captions, audio transcripts, and audio descriptions. This provides examples as well.
- The National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) Part of WGBH in Boston which was the first broadcast network to caption a television program. NCAM has resources and information about creating high-quality, accurate captions. Look for their new, free captioning tool, CADET.
- Captioning Key from the Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) While focused on educational content, the best practices under Captioning Key are informative for anyone that oversees or creates captions. Use the navigation buttons at the top of the main content to read the standards.
Accessible PDF Resources
- Creating Accessible Documents-University of Washington
- Adobe PDF Accessibility OverviewA great place to start to learn more about accessibility in PDF documents, straight from Adobe.
- Creating Accessible PDFs Details Adobe’s tools for creating accessible PDFs.
Web Accessibility Resources
Testing websites for accessibility is a service that is in very high demand. These free tools will help you to test web and non-web content for accessibility. Disclaimer: no automatic tool catches everything. Manual testing is necessary, and information about manual techniques is in the list below as well.
- Accessible Web Page Design Course and Web Accessibility Testing Basic Course Two free, self-paced classes offered by AT3 to help you design accessible websites and perform basic website accessibility checking.
- World Wide Web Consortium Accessibility Evaluation Resources A fantastic set of resources from the W3C ranging from a set of Easy Checks to get you started to a report generator and template for reports.
- World Wide Web Consortium Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool List Part of the Evaluation Resources above, this page lets you select the set of accessibility standards that you want to check, languages, page types, and other criteria, and then shows you tools that fit your needs.
- WAVE Website and Browser Add-ons From WebAIM, the WAVE uses algorithms to test websites for accessibility. A great tool for websites without a lot of interaction, and a good tool for web applications as well. The WAVE tests for structure, reports on things like alternative text for images, and points out places where JavaScript or ARIA might be on a page. It also tests color contrast.
- The Paciello Group Colour Contrast Analyser A small but incredibly flexible tool that lets you select a foreground color and a background color. The tool then tells you the contrast ratio between the two and shows whether the ratio meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The tool will work on web pages and Office and PDF files. If you can open something on your computer then this tool will let you check it.
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