Universal Design for Learning (UDL) - accessible documents

Finding a lack of engagement with resources on Akoraka | Learn? Maybe it’s the formatting. With a few simple tweaks, you can make your documents accessible for the majority of learners.

Microsoft Accessibility Checker

Did you know that all Microsoft Office products have an accessibility checker built in? All you need to do is click on it and it will identify any issues.

You can find this on the Ribbon – Review – Check Accessibility

Best of all, if there are any issues, it will fix it for you. Just click on the prompt.

So easy! Although step by step instructions are available on the Microsoft support page  

Why is this important?

By starting with accessible documents, it reduces the need for further modifications.

·         Gives structure for easy navigation

·         Ensures images are clear or have alternative descriptive text

·         Looks at sufficient colour contrast

·         Keeps the accessibility features even when converted into other formats e.g. PDF

Give it a go! 30 seconds now, time saved editing later.

Step it up a notch

Go even further with the following:

·         Use a sans serif font (Arial, Calibri, Verdana)

·         Minimum font size: 12pt

·         Use heading styles

·         Have the original Microsoft document available for download

If you want to find out more about accessible documents, or universal design, please contact Inclusive Education (inclusive@lincoln.ac.nz)