Overview

Now that we understand the challenges that electronic documents present to people with visual impairments, and that these impairments can be permanent, temporary, or situational, it’s time to learn some basic concepts about document design. Incorporating these basics into your electronic documents not only makes them “screen-reader ready,” it also has some added work efficiency benefits as well!

After completing this section, you will be able to:

• Explain to others/self the basic principles of accessibility for materials that include text and still image.
• Identify semantic function of text on a page.

Section Tasks:

• Read about visual accessibility.
• Share what you have learned with a colleague and reflect upon your understanding.
• Identify semantic structure in a sample document.

Basics of Visual Accessibility

There are two concepts to keep in mind when creating accessible documents:

1. Document navigation
2. Semantic document structure

Document Navigation

Imagine the following scenario: you’re in a book club reading a long novel. During one of the discussions, someone mentions a passage on page 243, which is somewhere towards the middle of the novel. Imagine now, that instead of your novel being in the traditional book format (also known as a codex), it’s in a scroll format. Instead of flipping to page 243, you need to unroll your scroll until you reach the middle of the book.

This scenario gives you a sense of what can easily happen to a person who listens to a long document using a screen reader. If the document does not have built-in navigation, the person needs to listen to the entire document until they hear the part they are looking for.

Just as most novels come with built-in navigation features, such as page numbers, tables of contents, chapter headings, and section markers, we should consider adding the equivalent features to our electronic documents. In order to do this effectively, we need to understand what semantic document structure is.

Semantic Document Structure

Whenever we set up a document, we communicate meaning through more than the words on the page. We also communicate meaning through the visual layout of the document. We change font size to indicate titles and section headings. We use bold font, or italics, or color to emphasize important text. We add indentations or extra spaces to make our paragraphs distinct. These are all visual features that we easily recognize in a document.

The question we need to consider is, how do we convey this same meaning to someone who is accessing our document through a screen reader? Think of the challenges an electronic document poses to someone with visual processing issues. A screen reader needs some extra help to translate those meaningful visual features.

Fortunately, most modern programs for creating electronic documents have built-in features that enable us to provide those screen readers with some extra assistance. The two most important tools are:

1. Use Styles to create semantic document structure:
   • Headings to create navigable sections.
     • Heading 1 is the main section title
     • Heading 2 is for subsections under Heading 1
     • Heading 3 is for subsections under Heading 2 (and so on)
   • Normal for paragraphs.
   • Bold and italics for special emphasis only
2. Use the Alt-Text feature to create short descriptions of meaningful images and mark decorative images

Put It Into Practice

Explain to your neighbor (or reflect individually) your understanding of the basic principles of accessibility. Which principles surprised you? Which principles made sense? Which did you already know?

Test Yourself

Can you identify Headings and normal text in a Word Document? Download and open the NHCC Campus Connection document in Word. Identify each block of text as Heading 1, Normal Body Paragraph, or Heading 2 as appropriate. You may type your answer inline with the block of text or use the “Insert > Comment” feature to record your answer. Feel free to work individually or in teams.

When you have finished, use the NHCC Campus Connection Key to check your work.

In the key, the mark-up that I chose is indicated in square brackets at the beginning of each block, for example, [Heading 1].

How did your choices compare to the Key? If you marked your document differently, what was your thought process? If you made different choices, justify your thinking (there is more than one way to apply Styles based on how you are interpreting the meaning of the visual aspects of the text).