Overview

Accessible content benefits everyone. Designing your content to be more flexible and adaptive makes it easier to understand, more organised, and allows you to reach a wider audience. This guidance offers advice on how to include some simple adjustments to your documents and learning resources to enhance their accessibility and to improve student engagement.

Contents

Designing for digital accessibility

Requirements for the accessibility of digital content in Learning Space are in accordance with the Public Sector Accessibility Regulations 2018 which ensures equal access to websites, online resources and apps to everyone regardless of their differing access needs.

Note iconNote: View the Digital Accessibility Sharepoint site for more information on the topic of digital accessibility.

Do and don't tips for designing for digital accessibility

Understanding how to make accessible content ensures it is usable by everyone, whatever their access needs. Refer to the do and don't tips below to enhance the accessibility of your documents and learning resources. 

Tip 1 

Do use a combination of colour, shapes and text to convey meaning.

Don't rely on colour alone to convey meaning.

Two graphics demonstrating how colour can be used to convey meaning. Graphic One: A green button with the text start. Graphic Two: three coloured circles red, yellow and green with no text but could be interpreted as red for stop, yellow for wait and green for go.

Tip 2 

Do use sufficient colour contrast and a readable, sans serif font.

Don't use low colour contrast or small sized serif fonts.

Two yellow circles, one with black text and the other with white to demonstrate differences in good and insufficient contrast.

Tip 3 

Do align text to the left and follow a logical and consistent layout.

Don't justify or right align text and follow a complex layout.

Two icons of a computer screen, one with left aligned text, the other with right aligned text to visually demonstrate the differences in these two types of text alignments.

Tip 4 

Do use headings, sub-heading and bullets to create emphasis.

Don't use bold, italics or underlines to create emphasis.

Two examples of how to create text emphasise. One using headings and bullets, which is recommended, and the other using underline which should be avoided.

Tip 5

Do use heading Styles in Microsoft Word to define content structure.

Don't use text size in Microsoft Word to define content structure.

Two examples of how to define structure in a document. One using heading styles which is recommended and the other using font size, which should be avoided.

Tip 6

Do provide alternative text for images.

Don't mark images as decorative if they contain information.

Graphic showing how some images require alternative text and some can be marked as decorative.

Tip 7

Do use a textbox with a solid background on images to increase contrast.

Don't place low contrast text over images or patterned backgrounds.

Two squares with patterned backgrounds, one with black text written on a white rectangle to increase legibility and the other contain white text which is difficult to read.

Tip 8

Do write descriptive and meaningful hyperlinks.

Don't write uninformative hyperlinks such as 'Click here'.

Two text examples of how to write meaningful hyperlinks. One 'view style guide' is descriptive and recommended whereas example two, 'click here' is not meaningful or descriptive and should be avoided.

The 'Designing for digital accessibility' graphic below, displays the do and don't tips that have been mentioned above. It can be downloaded to reference as a quick visual guide when you are designing documents or learning resources.

Question mark iconFurther Support 

For further support on Learning Space, or to report any issues with this guide, please get in touch with the Digital Learning Team via dlsupport@falmouth.ac.uk. Alternatively, please refer to the numerous help guides found on our Knowledge Base. 

View the Accessibility Statement for all of our support guides.