Creating Accessible Content

Disabled individuals are important and necessary contributors to and consumers of research, yet they are often excluded from academic spaces. Here at CURL, we want to reduce barriers to participation and welcome the disability community to comfortably access, participate in, and benefit from our events.

You can help! We ask that CURL conference presenters consider ways in which they can make their work more accessible.

We’ve compiled suggestions below that can apply to any event with presentations, and we strongly recommend you do further reading at the links provided. You have valuable things to teach—and everyone deserves to learn!

Talks

Removing Visual Barriers

Text and graphics should be simple, clear, and visible. Use large fonts and high light-dark contrast to maximize visibility.
Break large blocks of useful text into separate, progressing slides. Where possible, choose simple graphs over complicated ones.
Verbally identify AND describe important graphics, e.g: “Here in the corner, we have Figure A. It’s a blue bar graph that illustrates the relationship between study methods on the x-axis and average test scores on the y-axis. Study method A obtained the highest average test score, with 85%, study method B was slightly lower, with 75%”… etc.

Removing Auditory Barriers

Label important graphics using highly visible text, e.g: “Figure A: The relationship between [concept] and [concept.]”
Include text versions of important points in the same order that you describe them verbally. Presenting them in a different order, or with very different wording, can be confusing for people who are hard-of-hearing or who struggle with auditory processing.
Ensure your text includes all the details needed to understand your point. E.g: a line reading “Victorian gender roles?” is vague; “In what ways does [book title] criticize Victorian gender roles?” is not.
Providing handouts or online documents that match your slides and general script can make an enormous difference for people who are Deaf, hard-of-hearing, or who struggle with auditory processing!
If available, use a microphone. When taking questions from the audience, offer them a microphone or repeat their question into yours.

Combining Audio/Visual Accessibility

Using too many slides with lots of small text creates a barrier for people with visual impairments, yet using too few slides with vague, overly simple text creates a barrier for people with hearing problems and people with auditory processing delays! These needs don’t have to be contradictory: sort through them by clarifying your goals.

Your goal is not to have as few slides as possible—it’s for your slides to progress at a digestible pace.
Your goal is not to have the shortest text—it’s to have succinct, useful, visible text.

Posters

Succinct wording allows you to use a larger font size. This helps people who struggle to hear your presentation and people who can’t stand very close to your poster.
If your poster is too detailed for a larger font size, consider making large-text printouts (16pt+) on standard paper available for visitors to hold and read themselves.
Use high light/dark contrast between the text and background. Colour-based contrast, such as bright red text on a bright green background, may not be readable for colourblind people.
Add space between rows, columns, and categories of information to help with visual organization.

Social Media, Web Content, and Digital Displays

Alternative text

Screen reading technology, which is used by blind people to access the internet, can read text and certain elements of code aloud, but cannot “read” images. Alternative text enables blind people to access and understand your images. For this reason, you should avoid placing body text within images where possible, and add alternative text to important images.
Depending on your content format, alternative text can be added via an “alt tag” (an invisible piece of code) and/or via image descriptions or captions (text that is visible and placed as close to the image as possible.)
Alternative text should describe what is important and necessary for the blind person to understand the content and purpose of the image.
- Example 1: Photo of a person used as an advertisement for future CURL conferences. “Sharon Johnston smiles while standing in front of her research poster at the 2019 CURL Fall Exhibition. She has long hair and a stylish infinity scarf. Other research posters are in the background and the room is full of visitors.”
- Example 2: The cover image for a text-based infographic carousel used on Instagram. “Text on a plain background reads, ‘Examining Jack Maggs.’ Below the text is a small photo of the novel Jack Maggs by Peter Carey. The cover of the novel is a painting of a group of 19^th-century Londoners.”
Alternative text should suit a particular purpose and audience. Here are two contrasting examples.
- A museum providing alternative text for a painting may use detailed, artistic language about all features of the painting to evoke similar emotional affects as viewing the painting.
- A school providing alternative text for an instructional photo in a textbook would succinctly describe only the important information required to understand the accompanying instructions.

Captions

Include captions or subtitles with videos to help people who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, or who have auditory processing difficulties follow along.
Instagram and Youtube both offer auto-captioning! To maximize the accuracy of auto-captions, use a clear microphone in a very quiet room when recording your video, and use only very quiet background music or no background music. Applying a noise-removal filter to your voiceover before adding background music helps too!

Digital displays

If running a digital display at an in-person event, ensure your display can be zoomed in on, have its volume adjusted, etc.
Ensure navigational buttons visually contrast with content text (for visibility), are relatively large (so they are usable for people with motor difficulties), and include descriptive links (e.g: “Visit my website” rather than “Click here”).

Further tips for Websites

Assistive technologies such as screen readers and browser plugins use headings as links to provide in-page navigation. To ensure these technologies work, heading levels (whether applied with coding or with a visual builder) must cascade in the correct order. The page title should use “Heading 1” format, and body content should use Heading 2, 3, 4, etc. Don’t skip heading levels when creating subsections!
- As an example, on this page, Heading 1 is used for “Creating Accessible Content”. Heading 2 is used for “Social Media, Web Content, and Digital Displays”. Heading 3 is used for “Further tips for Websites”.
If using tables in PDFs or Word documents, ensure the tables are formatted accessibly. Learn how in the “further reading” section below.
Use alt text to describe any important images, including logos and major photographs or illustrations. Alt text is not required for unimportant images.