Finnberry does Ed-Tech

I've skipped a couple of guidelines because either we've already covered them or they are not relevant to most people (other than web developers). I might come back to one of them later but I wanted to move on to something that is relevant to everyone. Contrast This is the guideline that I seem to spend the most time fixing when clients send me documents or presentations to check for WCAG compliance. I'm not sure whether people just forget it or genuinely can't tell when the contrast is getting dodgy. This guideline has got more detail than the others and says: The visual presentation of text and images of text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1, except for large text, which has a ratio of 3:1.  The obvious immediate issue here, is how you know that. I'm going to address this in reverse order, starting with the contrast ratio and then going back into colour codes. WebAim Contrast Checker Before we watch the video, just open this page: Contrast Checker To use it,...

This one should be quite quick and I was tempted to skip over it but maybe there is something to raise awareness of... It says: Content does not restrict its view and operation to a single display orientation, such as portrait or landscape, unless a specific display orientation is essential. The only place where I regularly see an opportunity to restrict the orientation to a particular display is in Storyline, the software where I design most of my eLearning. I don't think I've ever used it though. Why would you want to restrict a person's choice?  What I do want to make you aware of is that in some editors, Blogger included, you can preview and see how it would appear on different devices and different orientations. I find this quite useful just to check that my posts are readable in all displays, especially if I'm using pictures or video.  So, there are six icons. Let's go through each one and what it shows. 1. Monitor - this shows what you would see on a normal c...

The guideline says: Instructions provided for understanding and operating content do not rely solely on sensory characteristics of components such as shape, colour, size, visual location, orientation, or sound. What does that mean? We come back to colour in more detail in a later guideline but this one is really very general. It refers to any item on the page that isn't text or a described image... things like navigation buttons, ways of categorising, making choices... anything where the user has to choose based on a colour, a shape, where something is on the page... that kind of thing. What do I need to do? This could be misinterpreted as an instruction to avoid the use of colour, shape, position and so on... but all it really is, is a reminder that you need more. You can have an arrow at the bottom of the page for your next button, but just make sure it is labelled in such a way that a screen reader can read it. It may need alt text, for example. I think one of the worst offender...

This guideline says: When the sequence in which content is presented affects its meaning, a correct reading sequence can be programmatically determined. What does it mean? Most things are read in the order that we see them. If you create a Word document, a screen reader will generally start at the top of the page and read it all in order to the bottom of the page. However, think about a PowerPoint presentation. This is not just a top to bottom reading of text and images. Things could be anywhere on the page and the reader generally uses visual clues to help know what order to read it in. I don't know about you, but when I create a PowerPoint presentation (and this equally applies to other slide-based apps, like Storyline), I create text, then copy and paste bits to amend and move around the slide. Then I might add pictures and move them around. If I do nothing else, a screen reader will read it in the order I created it... which is rarely the correct order! Another issue that affec...