Michigan Tech staff and faculty have access to the LinkedIn Learning library. There are several courses or course modules that are recommended for people who develop or manage web sites, or create content (documents, presentations or videos) that are loaded on webpages.
Specific university employees may have required accessible technology training assigned in addition to the resources detailed below. Review this information on accessing the LinkedIn Learning library to start learning.
Accessibility for Web Design
Appropriate for: Web content editors, Web Developers Content Creators
Overview
Are you doing everything you can to make sure your sites are accessible and easy to use? Learn practical accessibility techniques to ensure your web designs can be viewed and used by everyone. Internationally recognized accessibility expert Derek Featherstone walks through examples of common web interaction flows, and then steps through considerations and tactical strategies for each component, to assure that people with disabilities can easily complete those tasks. Learn the proper use of color, contrast, and motion, and find out how to design keyboard interactions and touch interfaces; incorporate images, sound, and video; design accessible forms; structure content at the tag level; and balance responsive design with accessibility.
Topics include:
- Using color, contrast, and animation in an accessible way
- Making experiences accessible via the keyboard
- Working with touch gestures
- Image and multimedia accessibility
- Form accessibility
- Responsive design and accessibility
- Structuring content
UX Foundations: Accessibility
Appropriate for: Web Developers
Overview
The Internet has removed many obstacles to communication and interaction. However, when websites, technologies, or tools are poorly designed, they can create barriers that exclude people with disabilities from using the web. In this course, you'll learn how accessibility lowers the barrier to entry, by providing equal access and opportunity to people with a diverse range of hearing, movement, sight, and cognitive abilities. Derek Featherstone introduces the core concepts of accessibility as they apply to UX design, including an overview of the assistive technology visitors may use to access your projects. He includes practical examples, from re-creating visual interactions to writing great alternative text; introduces different personas and their unique challenges navigating the web; and shows how to make accessibility a regular part of your design workflow. Once you learn the foundations, you'll find that the benefits of accessibility--enhanced search, improved usability, and increased audience reach--aid your designs almost as much as they aid your users.
Topics include:
- What is accessibility?
- Managing flow
- Ensuring proximity in your design
- Understanding how screen readers and voice recognition programs work
- Designing for hearing, vision, mobility, and cognitive issues
- Considering accessibility in layout
- Integrating accessibility into your content strategy
Wordpress: Accessibility
Appropriate for: Web content editors, Web Developers
Overview
If you build a website with WordPress, build it with accessibility in mind. Making your content, themes, navigation, and other site features accessible helps everyone—including visitors who want to find your site through search engine results.
This course, merging WordPress coding with accessible web design techniques, helps you make sure your website meets modern accessibility standards. You'll learn how to use the power of WordPress to quickly build a beautiful and accessible website that can be used by people with different types of abilities. Author Joe Dolson provides a broad introduction to accessibility and then focuses on practical steps to make sure your WordPress themes, plugins, and content are accessible and usable to all.
Topics include:
- What is web accessibility?
- Understanding the benefits of accessibility
- Building accessible forms
- Adhering to theme guidelines
- Creating accessible navigation
- Working with images, media, and other accessible content
- Integrating plugins
- Testing your site for accessibility
iOS App Development: Accessibility
Appropriate for: Web Developers
Overview
Millions of users rely on assistive technologies to help them make phone calls, send text messages, and access apps on their mobile devices. By leveraging the various accessibility technologies built into iOS when developing your app, you can help to ensure that everyone—regardless of their needs and abilities—can enjoy the app that you've created.
In this course, explore the different accessibility technologies that are built into iOS, and learn how to build apps that all users can access. Follow Kevin Favro as he explains how to audit your app for accessibility problems, and explores various iOS technologies—including VoiceOver, a screen reader that lets you use phone even if you don't see the screen—and other considerations that might prevent someone from effectively using your app.
Topics include:
- Reviewing the accessibility features in iOS
- Exploring accessibility settings
- Working with VoiceOver
- Exploring Switch Control
- Using the Accessibility Inspector
- Using VoiceOver to audit your app
- Reviewing Dynamic Type
- Reducing transparency
- Reducing motion
- Setting bold fonts and darker colors
- Understanding how elements are opted into the accessibility system
- Making custom objects accessible
- Working with the VoiceOver rotor
- Working with Guided Access
Android App Development: Accessibility
Appropriate for: Web Developers
Overview
Learn how to create applications that everyone—regardless of their abilities—can independently interact with and enjoy. In this course, join instructor Renato Iwashima as he steps through the fundamentals of digital accessibility and usability for the Android platform. Renato provides a quick introduction to digital accessibility, explaining what it is, why it's important, and how to work with accessibility features such as TalkBack and Switch Access. He also covers the key principles of universal design and explains how to implement the fundamentals of accessibility and usability; add meaning and operability to user controls; improve the user experience for accessibility services; and test your Android app for accessibility.
Topics include:
- What is accessibility?
- Using TalkBack and Switch Access
- Key principles of universal design
- Communicating meaningful error messages
- Providing a clear hierarchy of information
- Adding meaning and operability to user controls
- Providing unique and meaningful labels
- Improving the user experience for accessibility services
- Creating and handling custom accessibility actions
- Testing your app for accessibility
Creating Accessible Documents in Microsoft Office
Appropriate for: Instructors, Content Creators
Overview
This course shows how to make accessible Office documents in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Accessibility expert Glenna Shaw begins by describing what it's like for those with visual, hearing, or movement impairments to experience regular Word and Excel files and PowerPoint presentations. Glenna goes through the essential steps of creating documents that are accessible to all—those using assistive technology and those not—including applying useful headings, formatting tables for ease of use, naming sheet tabs in Excel, using slide layouts and following z-order in PowerPoint, and adding captioning to presentations.
Topics include:
- Making hyperlinks more accessible
- How color impacts accessibility
- Using heading styles in Word and Excel
- Formatting tables in Word
- Naming sheet tabs
- Using slide layouts and fonts
- Adding captions to presentations
Acrobat DC: Creating Accessible PDFs (2018)
Appropriate for: Instructors, Content Creators
Overview
Accessibility means making sure your content is available to as many people as possible. When you make your PDFs accessible, it means adding tags, bookmarks, alt text, and other information that makes the files readable and navigable to users who are visually or mobility impaired. Using the latest versions of Adobe Acrobat DC, Microsoft Word, and Adobe InDesign, it's now much easier to create valid, accessible PDFs. In this course—completely revised for 2018—Chad Chelius shows how to take an existing PDF file and remediate it for users of assistive software. He then introduces two workflows for creating accessible PDFs from scratch—one in Word and one in InDesign—with some special considerations for Excel and PowerPoint. Along the way, he offers techniques, tips, and tricks to make accessibility easy to incorporate in every document you publish.
Topics include:
- What is accessibility?
- The screen reader experience
- Setting up Acrobat DC
- PDF remediation workflow
- Tagging content, including lists and tables
- Adding metadata, bookmarks, and alt text
- Generating a PDF with Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign
- Creating accessible PDFs from PowerPoint and Excel
- Adding hyperlinks
- Controlling tag and reading order
- Adding cross-references and tables of contents
Acrobat DC: Creating Accessible PDFs (2015)
Appropriate for: Instructors, Content Creators
Overview
Accessibility means making sure your content is available to as many people as possible. When you make your PDFs accessible, it means adding tags, bookmarks, alt text, and other information that makes the files readable to users who are visually or mobility impaired. Using Acrobat DC, and other tools such as Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign, it's now much easier and faster to create valid, accessible PDF files. In this course, Chad Chelius explains why accessibility is important and what features an accessible PDF should include, and shows how to streamline the process of creating accessible PDFs using Word, Excel, PowerPoint, InDesign, and Acrobat DC.
Topics include:
- Understanding the experience of users with visual impairments
- How to know if a PDF is accessible
- Setting up Acrobat DC
- Tagging content, including lists and tables
- Adding metadata, bookmarks, and alt text
- Generating a PDF with Microsoft Word
- Creating accessible PDFs from PowerPoint, Excel, and InDesign
- Controlling tab and reading order
- Adding cross-references and tables of contents
Advanced Accessible PDFs
Appropriate for: Instructors, Content Creators
Overview
The process of remediating a PDF—making sure its structure and tags are compliant with accessibility guidelines—is far from straightforward. The techniques outlined in this course will help you manage complex layouts and add advanced features like security, form fields, and links, while keeping PDFs accessible to users with disabilities. Author Chad Chelius shows how to work with tables, create PDF forms, and add links and security, with Acrobat, Word, InDesign, and LiveCycle Designer, addressing the remediation issues that go beyond the everyday.
Topics include:
- Working with merged cells in a table
- Adding a table summary
- Making scanned PDFs accessible
- Securing accessible PDFs
- Working with text boxes in Microsoft Word
- Adding and remediating footnotes
Teaching Techniques: Making Accessible Learning
Appropriate for: Instructors
Overview
Do all students have equal access to the learning resources and opportunities in your classroom? Learn to provide accommodations to make learning accessible to students with disabilities and meet Section 508 compliance for digital learning. In this course, Oliver Schinkten reviews the different types of disabilities and challenges students may face, and how the use of assistive technologies such as screen readers and closed captioning help to support learners.
Topics include:
- What is accessible learning?
- Accommodating different needs, from vision impairments to lack of digital access
- Adapting presentations, responses, and timing
- Using an LMS to make learning more accessible
- Adding alt text to images
- Adding closed captioning to videos
Canvas Tips, Tricks, and Techniques
Appropriate for: Instructors
Overview
This course shows how to customize Canvas to create a more collaborative classroom. Find out how to check if your content is meeting accessibility guidelines, and then how to make essential adjustments using proper heading structure, links, and alternative text on images.
Ch.4 Accessibility of Content:
Foundations of Accessible Elearning
Appropriate for: Instructors, Content Creators, Designers
Overview
Providing accommodations to make learning accessible is a focal part of training and education. But how do you remove the barriers to effective learning when your classroom goes online? In this course, Oliver Schinkten explores accessibility and fairness in elearning, giving you strategies based on best practices to keep your classroom open and meaningful for all.
Dive into the specifics of how to create an accessible elearning experience. Focus on concrete tactics like designing for screen readers, understanding the proper use of contrast and color, utilizing visual and auditory queues, and publishing content for equitable systems. As elearning continues to grow, it’s more important than ever to ensure that your course is easily accessible to your learners. Learn best practices with Oliver and find out what you need to know to bring better learning access into your curriculum plan and put it into practice at your organization.
EPUB Accessibility Using InDesign
Appropriate for: Content Creators, Designers, Instructors
Overview
As digital books aren't constrained to the printed page, they're a great deal more malleable than traditional publications. Ebooks—which are essentially HTML and CSS in an EPUB wrapper—can be output or altered to meet the needs of readers who use assistive technology or have a situational disability. In this course, learn how to create cleaner, more accessible ebooks using Adobe InDesign. Instructor Laura Brady provides a thorough introduction to EPUB accessibility, going over key principles, techniques, and tools that can help you manipulate InDesign to boost a book's accessibility. Laura covers how to separate style and content, improve the navigation and structure of your content, and clearly describe images. Plus, learn about making pagelists and working with tools like the Ace accessibility checker.
Topics Include:
- Why incorporating accessibility is important
- Why style and content need to be separate
- Tricking InDesign into exporting HTML5
- Building a thorough TOC
- Structure in trade and academic publishing
- ARIA best practices
- Handling images and image descriptions
- Marking print-equivalent page breaks
- Defining languages
- Accessibility metadata
- Testing with screen readers