Moodle as an online learning technology tool, is designed to support many accessibility needs. However, it is the instructors use and design of a Moodle course that allows it to shine, or not. Below are some basic tips and links to online resources to help instructors design their actual course page with accessibility in mind.
Basic Tips
Section Headings: If using a Topics format, or labelling your sections in some way, your headings should use a 'Heading' format (Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3 - they are hierarchical). Do not just increase the font size.
Text: Text should be high contrast and easy to read (e.g. black text on a light or white background in a simple font, not white text on a yellow background in an unusual font, to use an extreme example). It is annoying and distracting, even for those with no disability.
- Do not underline text. Underlined text should be exclusive to links.
Links: Links should be descriptive, clearly identifying where the link goes, and make sense when read out of context. "Click here" isn't necessarily helpful to users who aren't using a pointing device, particularly if they're having the computer read the page to them quickly or skipping from link to link to find information.
- Helpful link: "Fall 2010 Course Listing."
- Less helpful: "Click Here for Fall 2010 Course Listing."
Audio and Video: Whenever possible, links to a text-based transcript should be provided, particularly for important information such as academic procedures or course materials. Think about whether you need to provide a more extensive description (e.g. fully captioning audio or video, or providing transcripts) of content for your students.
Tables: Should not be used for layout purposes. For example, to position text or images in a specific place on a page. Pages with layout tables may display incorrectly or differently in some browsers, and may create accessibility problems. Screen reading software will, unless specifically directed to do otherwise, simply read the text from left to right and top to bottom, which may be confusing if the tables are intended to display text in separate columns.
Known Moodle Accessibility Issues
- Chat Activity: Incompatible with the screen reader, since it cannot find the chat box.
- Drop Box: The screen reader sometimes fails to spot the Browse button, but is able to read correctly Upload file.
- Quiz Activity: Questions that passed the screen reader test were: multiple choice, true/false and matching.
- Glossary: The screen reader fails to spot the search button, so the learner would have to read the whole list of terms included in the glossary, until she/he could find a particular term.
(Reference: moodle.org)
Further References
How to Guide for Creating Accessible Online Learning Content: This guide from CANnect explores accessibility issues and provides straight forward advice and guidance about creating usable content whether you are a novice or advanced author of course content.
Testing Moodle for Accessibility: This report is presented on one page; it is approximately 9,000 words long. This version was published September 10, 2009.
