Accessibility Review
After going through my course with MSU’s Quickstart Accessibility Guide, I was able to identify some strengths and weaknesses.
In terms of text, I specifically selected the WordPress theme because it has a white background with dark text. This contrast will hopefully make my website easy to read. To differentiate important points, I tried to work with different font sizes–often by using headers–rather than highlighting or changing the color of the text. This also allowed me to use a plug-in that used the headers to create a table of contents at the top of the page. For lists, I was sure to use bullets to indicate the structure. I deliberately avoided numbered lists because I did not want to denote any sort of hierarchy in my points.
The weakest part of my website is probably the use of multimedia. While at this point I do not have any graphs, images, or charts, I will probably need to incorporate them at some point and will need to be sure I provide alternative text. The closest I thing I have is the schedule chart in the syllabus, for which I chose a simple layout and clearly labeled columns. I had originally considered doing a video for my welcome page, but I switched it out with a powerpoint. With the video I would have provided captions and a transcript, but I’m not sure how to make an embedded powerpoint more accessible. This is definitely something I will need to investigate further.
To make links clear to everyone, I avoided any sort of heading like “click here.” Instead, I always included some sort of descriptor of whatever was on the other side of the link. For readings, I linked the full title and author. For digital tools, made the name of tool the link but included a description next to it. I believe all external links are accessible, but I will need to consistently check back and make sure an appropriate level of accessibility is maintained by those websites. If not, I’ll have to replace some of the course material.
One topic I need to investigate further is whether my course content is keyboard navigable. I have limited expertise in this area, and while from my limited knowledge I believe the website is accessible in this way I definitely need to do more research on this front.
Reflection
This week really made me think a lot about previous websites I’ve been a part of building, and how they could be improved in terms of accessibility. For instance, I’m recalling a DH project I consulted on that used dark text on a dark tan background. If that basic level accessibility was not met, I can’t help but wonder what other things many beginning DH projects need to do to ensure the accessibility of their websites. I also really began to think about the problem of linking to non-accessible websites, or websites that were once accessible but have not been kept up to date. If an article is on a website that is non-accessible, the best action would probably to get that material from a different source, but what about unique projects? In the DH course I’m creating, I feel that a lack of accessibility goes against the ethical values I’m trying to instill in my students. As such, if a DH project is inaccessible I will do my best to avoid including in the course content or using it in a context in which my students and I can go through the project and figure out what would need to be done to make it accessible.