Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication Tom Gibbons Instructional Designer South Seattle College Center for Extended Learning

What is Universal Design? Rubik’s Cube for Blind Persons, Konstantin Datz, http://www.konstantindatz.de/wp-content/gallery/rubiks-cube/thumbs/thumbs_thumbs_rubikscube_015.jpg Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Who does Universal Design help? Everyone. Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication Why Bother? It’s an issue of social justice and diversity. Following UD principles makes communication clearer and more consistent. It’s the law. Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Document Formatting Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Document Formatting Use headings Use descriptive hyperlinks Use list styles Add alt text to graphics Use tables appropriately Be aware of color and contrast Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

What is the purpose of a heading in a document? Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Headings create visual hierarchical structures for information access. When used correctly, headings and styles also create machine- readable semantic structures that reflect the visual hierarchy. Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

1. Use Headings Creates easy, consistent visual structure Creates underlying semantic structure for other devices Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Headings apply to all document types Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

1. Use Headings Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

1. Use Headings Resources: http://webaim.org/techniques/semanticstructure/ http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm http://webaim.org/techniques/acrobat/ Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

2. Use Descriptive Links Resources: OR: http://webaim.org/techniques/semanticstructure/ http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm http://webaim.org/techniques/acrobat/ OR: Semantic Structure from WebAIM US Government’s Section 508 Page Styling PDFs from WebAIM Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

3. Use List Styles Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Remember to ask, “What does this image mean?” 4. Use Alt Text Remember to ask, “What does this image mean?” Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

4. Use Alt Text Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

A slime mold on the forest floor 4. Use Alt Text Describe the image—don’t just give it a title. Gross! OR A slime mold on the forest floor Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

4. Use Alt Text Try to avoid creating images out of text If you feel you need to for design purposes, make sure to use alt text Keep it short If you can't keep it short, be sure to include a text-based alternative Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

What is the purpose of a table? Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

5. Use Tables Appropriately Keep tables simple Don’t use tables for complex layouts: Tables are for tabular data. Use headers for columns and rows Use technology to help you: http://accessify.com/tools-and-wizards/accessibility-tools/table-builder/ Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

6. Be Aware of Color and Contrast Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

6. Be Aware of Color and Contrast Color Insensitivity and Low Vision Resources: http://www.dasplankton.de/ContrastA/ http://gmazzocato.altervista.org/colorwheel/wheel.php http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/ Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Eliminate image-only email Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Eliminate image-only email Include your web-optimized poster (or better yet, link to it), but also include a text equivalent to the visual information Use Word to style your email and then copy and paste into Outlook Send email directly from Word by using the “Send to Mail Recipient” command (it’s in File > Options) Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Eliminate image-only email Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Mobile access and why it’s an important barometer Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

How can captioning help everyone? Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCm1Emtqo_Q Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Captioning Three different examples of a short video can be found starting here: https://seattlecentral.instructure.com/courses/969196/pages/video-sample-1 Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Captioning Also include an accessible transcript for audio and video Video and audio aren't randomly accessible If you create a 10-minute video and caption it, you might as well include the transcript. Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Captioning Help with captioning in Canvas http://guides.instructure.com/s/2204/m/4152/l/98632-how-do-i-create-captions-for-new-or-uploaded-videos-in-canvas YouTube https://support.google.com/youtube/topic/3014331 Panopto https://seattlecentral.instructure.com/courses/1012721/pages/captioning-recordings Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

What is the value of a PDF? *This section on PDFs owes a debt of gratitude to Terrill Thompson and the folks at the University of Washington DO-IT. They’re awesome. Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Save documents as tagged PDF Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Adobe PDF Three general types: Image Text document with no underlying structure Tagged, well-structured document Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Is My PDF Tagged? Ctrl (or Command) + D Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Use a tool that supports tagged PDF And maybe a few others: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2011AprJun/0061.html Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Follow a few basic rules Use heading styles Use other built-in structural features (lists, tables) Add alternate text to images Define language, especially if document contains foreign language content Save/Export to a tagged PDF Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Didn’t follow these steps? PDF accessibility can be repaired in Adobe Acrobat Pro. For more information about creating accessible pdfs: http://uw.edu/accessibility/pdf Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication

Additional online resources Accessible Technology University of Washington http://uw.edu/accessibility AccessSTEM http://uw.edu/accessstem Universal Design Strategies in Teaching and Communication