1 FILE NAMING

·      Simple and meaningful names

·      Clean up file names if required

·      Avoid special characters and try to keep filenames to 8 characters

CANVAS GUIDELINES

·      Naming module headings, discussions, assignments

·      Adding title/subject as first line in discussions

·      Adding a counter in module headings

 

2 FORMATTING

·      Awareness of screen reader capability on interpreting formatting

·      Modifying default font sizes by edit or CSS in pages

·      Utilize HTML to add tags and ARIA codes

·      Make links and titles short and meaningful

 

3 NAVIGATION

·      Reduce or if possible eliminate the use of site sidebars and breadcrumbs

·      Consistency between pages and navigation within site

·      Modular design

·      Avoid the use of browser buttons (ie. Back, Forward)

·      Minimize steps the user needs to get to their end destination

 

CANVAS GUIDELINES

·      Use modules to guide the user through the course

·      Eliminate the need for listing or access to Assignments, Discussions, Quizzes, Pages, Files links on the navigation bar

 

4 COLOURS

·      Limit reliance on colours for context

·      Use of solid colours, contrasting colours or greys

·      If using background colour or image, be able to differentiate the background from text colour

 

5 COURSE / PAGE DESIGN

·      Simple and clean design

·      Easy navigation

·      Minimal use of decorative items

·      If using decorative items only if it enhancing the user experience of the site/course

·      Accessible by all devices (web, mobile, tablet)

 

CANVAS GUIDELINES

·      Landing page considerations: Modules or Custom Front Page

 

6 ACCOMODATION AND FLEXIBILITY

·      Design for all; disabilities & abilities all considered

·      Flexible design with ability to update the site and add in accommodations

·      Plan the site before implementation. Know how you want your site to look like and how your users will experience the site/ course

·       

7 IMAGES AND MULTIMEDIA

·      Embed multi-media when possible and avoid need to download to view

·      Provide text transcript

·      Use commonly supported file formats

·      AUDIO

o   Flexible file formats (mp3, wma, wmv)

·      VIDEO

o   Use subtitles for voice/speech caption

o   Use captioning for textual representation of video that includes:

§  Voice/Speech

§  Action

§  Cues

§  context

o   Consider quality vs file size. Larger file size may cause delays due to buffering

o   Decide on self-hosting (requires a video server) or link from another service (no control over reliability)

 

CANVAS GUIDELINES

·      Compatible Video and Audio formats for Canvas (http://bit.ly/1B8J5yK)

·      Videos not be unless hosted on a public service (ie. Vimeo)

·      Workaround is to embed using HTML code.

 

8 USE OF “PLAIN LANGUAGE”

·      keep language clean and simple

·      using concise wording

·      keep only necessary content and leave out “nice to knows”

·      use short sentences

·      SIMPLE, SHORT, NECESSARY

 

9 HTML * (applies to accessibility only)

·      Structured HTML is screen reader friendly

·      Ability to add descriptive tags, ARIA codes to enhance integration with screen readers

 

10 DOCUMENTS * (applies to accessibility only)

·      PDF

o   Avoid scanning documents as images; use OCR to convert to text

o   Tagging items within document for easier searching (ie. Alt text for images, headings, columns etc)

o   PDFs and Assistive Techologies: http://adobe.ly/18vIbAT

o   Adobe Acrobat Accessibility guides: http://adobe.ly/1NB3guw

·      Microsoft Word

o   Guidelines to creating accessible documents: http://bit.ly/1ELZr1s

o   Use accessibility checker in Microsoft Office 2010 and newer

o   Use short heading titles

 

 

Date Created