Accessibility Services (ZAB)

What should you look out for?

Key principles to follow

• Use style sheets to mark headings as such.
• Create lists using the standard formatting feature in programs such as Word.
• Use tables only for data and make sure each row or column has heading information.
• There should be no important information in the header or footer.
• Create a table of contents for longer texts.
• Use a reader-friendly sans-serif font, such as Calibri, Arial or Liberation Sans.
• Avoid special formatting such as underlining, words in capital letters and italics.
• Use flush-left paragraph alignment, single spacing, and right side is ragged
• Line spacing of 1.5.
• Create vertical spacing by formatting paragraph spacing and not by inserting blank lines, horizontal spacing using tabs and not spaces.
• Use a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1.
• Avoid hyphenation
• Do not convey information through colour alone.
• Provide alternative text for graphics. Graphics used solely for decoration should have a blank alternative text.
• Add graphics using the wrap text option ‘In Line with Text’ in Word

What can I do?

Inform yourself about accessibility issues

If you handle digital content, then you should always think in terms of accessibility when you create documents, websites, and other digital formats. Be aware of the steps and measures you need to take.

To help you become more aware of accessibility issues, we offer a whole range of guides, good examples and practices for you learn and adopt. In training sessions, we will explain how to create accessible websites and what to look out for in documents.

We are also producing explanatory videos which we will add to over time, with examples of different aspects of accessibility and how to take them into account when publishing content, or showing how screen readers ‘read aloud’ a document. For many users, this often leads to surprising insights, which otherwise may not have come to their attention.

Application

We offer various tutorials and tips on how to create and check accessible documents.

If you want to create accessible documents, we offer tutorials for various programs, such as Microsoft Word.

Here you will find methods and tools that you can use to check documents for accessibility.

Our A-Z list of typical errors that can cause a document to be inaccessible and how to fix them can help you with specific problems.

Material package for accessible teaching

This material package in Moodle is intended to provide important tips and concrete instructions to help make digital teaching more accessible.

The central core of the material package is made up of clear checklists on various aspects of accessible digital teaching. In the first section, you will find checklists for creating documents that are as accessible as possible. These include Word, PowerPoint, Excel and PDF. In the second section, you will find checklists for planning accessible teaching. These provide information on the advantages and disadvantages of certain teaching methods and hybrid teaching, for example, and are illustrated with good practice examples. In addition, our material package contains a knowledge database with further basic information on topics related to (digital) accessibility in university teaching, which can be found in the third section.

In the fourth section you will find the implementation aids, which are linked to the checklists and provide in-depth information on the individual points as well as instructions for implementation in the named programmes. All checklists and implementation aids are also available for download in the fifth section.