9 Accessibility

Planning for accessibility

The RMIT Digital Accessibility Framework outlines the ‘objectives, principles and standards we need to meet to ensure our digital information and services are accessible’.[1]

This chapter will help you plan for accessibility from the beginning of your project. It is based on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)[2] standards and the CAUL OER Collective Open Educational Resources Collective Publishing Workflow: Apply Accessibility Standards.[3]

The Accessibility Toolkit [4] provides further guidance specifically for open textbook creators in the Pressbooks environment.

Tips:

Check the accessibility of any web content, including Pressbooks publications, using the WAVE Evaluation Tool (free browser extension).[5]

The Hemingway Editor online tool[6] will assist with accessible language.

Organising content

Parts, chapters and sections

Organise your content into parts and chapters, with chapter sections as appropriate.

You may choose to only use chapters to divide your content if your book is not lengthy or logically divided into larger chunks.

Tip: In the Pressbooks environment, you can divide your resource into parts, and divide the parts into chapters. 

Within chapters, use headings to divide further into sections and subsections. Use the in-built heading options in the Pressbooks visual editor to create a meaningful content hierarchy.

Note: Using the inbuilt heading options is essential for screen reading software to correctly interpret the content for visually impaired users. Do not skip heading levels.

Numbering

  • Number parts numerically with Roman numerals (Part I, Part II, etc.).
  • Number chapters consecutively from the beginning to the end of the resource (e.g. Chapter 1 – Chapter 25).
  • Do not number sections.

Tip: Pressbooks templates automatically number parts and chapters as described above.

Part, chapter and section names

  • Capitalise each word in part names.
  • Capitalise each word in chapter names.
  • Use the inbuilt heading styles in Pressbooks for sections within chapters (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.).
  • Use sentence case for section headings.
Note: Pressbooks templates will define how part and chapter names are capitalised on the page. However, the chapter and part headings will appear as you have typed them in the table of contents. Section headings will also appear as you have typed them.

Navigation

Include part, chapter and section names in the table of contents up to heading level 1, as shown in the figure below.

Tip: In Pressbooks you can set the table of contents to include section heading 1 level using the settings Appearance > Two-Level TOC.

 

 

Pressbooks table of contents
Table of contents in a Pressbooks publication, showing part, chapter and section (heading level 1) titles.
Note: If you import your content from a Word document into Pressbooks, it will automatically use the headings created in Word. It will use heading level 1 to define chapters.

Images

Images should be supported by textual information unless, purely decorative.

  • Include contextual or supporting details in the text surrounding graphs, charts and maps.
  • Don’t rely on colour to convey information.
  • Include alternative (alt-text) descriptions of image content or function.
  • Do not include descriptive text (alt-text) if an image doesn’t convey content or information, or if the information repeats what is in the adjacent text.
Tip: The Web Accessibility Initiative Alt Decision Tree will help you decide what alt-text is required.[7]
Note: Pressbooks automatically assumes no alt-text is required if you leave an image alt-text field blank. There is no need to insert “” if you are publishing in Pressbooks.

Links

  • Hyperlink any web addresses rather than inserting URLs.
  • Hyperlinked words should describe the resource being linked to – don’t use generic text such as ‘click here’ or ‘read more’.
  • If a link will open or download a file (like a PDF or Excel file), include textual reference in the link information with the file size and/or number of pages (e.g. ‘[PDF 28 pages]’).
Note: Many referencing styles, such as APA, require a retrieval statement in the form of a URL. To meet accessibility standards, add a hyperlink to the resource title.

Tables

  • Include row and column headers.
  • Include titles or captions.
  • Don’t merge or split cells.
  • Have adequate cell padding.

Multimedia

  • Create a transcript for each audio resource containing:
    • the speaker(s) name(s)
    • all speech content
    • relevant descriptions of speech
    • descriptions of relevant non-speech audio
    • headings and subheadings.
  • Caption dialogue and/or narration, and describe all relevant non-speech content.
  • Include audio descriptions of contextual visuals (e.g. graphs, charts).

Formulas

  • For simple equations, use symbols that will be correctly interpreted by screen readers (e.g. minus signs instead of hyphens).
  • For complex equations or formulas, use MathML or write in such a way that they can be translated into MathML (e.g. written in LaTeX and rendered with MathJax).
  • Do not include equations as images with alt-text descriptions if MathML is not an option.
Note: Pressbooks includes MathJax integration via the LaTeX tool within the visual editor. There is also an option to use the WP QuickLaTeX plugin which allows you to write native LaTeX syntax directly into your books without wrapping shortcodes. Contact the RMIT Open Publishing Team for assistance with activating the plugin.

Font size

In Pressbooks, font sizes for web versions are set to meet accessibility requirements. 

When choosing settings for a PDF version, choose font size 12 points or higher for body text. Most other elements in your book are proportional to the body font size and will change accordingly.

(Material in this chapter from Images onwards is adapted from “Open Educational Resources Collective Publishing Workflow: Apply Accessibility Standards” by The Council of Australian University Librarians, The CAUL OER Collective is licensed under CC BY 4.0)[8]

Accessibility resources

Use the following resources to learn more about making your open publication fully accessible.

  1. RMIT University. (n.d.). Digital accessibility. https://www.rmit.edu.au/about/our-values/diversity-and-inclusion/accessibility/digital-accessibility ↵
  2. Centre for Accessibility. (n.d.). How do I achieve the WCAG standard? https://www.accessibility.org.au/guides/how-do-i-achieve-the-wcag-standard/ ↵
  3. The CAUL OER Collective. (n.d.). Open Educational Resources Collective publishing workflow: Apply accessibility standards. https://caul.libguides.com/oer-collective-publishing-workflow/design/apply-accessibility-standards CC BY 4.0 ↵
  4. Coolidge, A., Doner, S., Robertson, T., & Gray, J. (2022). Accessibility toolkit (2nd ed.). BC Campus Open Education. https://opentextbc.ca/accessibilitytoolkit/ CC BY 4.0 ↵
  5. WAVE (n.d.). WAVE browser extensions. https://wave.webaim.org/extension/ ↵
  6. Long, A., & Long, B. (2021). Hemingway editor. https://hemingwayapp.com/ ↵
  7. W3C Web Accessibiliy Initiative. (2017). An alt decision tree. https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/decision-tree/ ↵
  8. The CAUL OER Collective. (n.d.). Open Educational Resources Collective publishing workflow: Apply accessibility standards. https://caul.libguides.com/oer-collective-publishing-workflow/design CC BY 4.0 ↵

License

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RMIT Open Press Style Guide Copyright © 2022 by RMIT University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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