LARP Show and Tell:�Practical tips for accessible research documents and activities

Dr Chantel Davies

Introduction

• Informal session to learn about basic accessibility for improving documents.
• No prior knowledge required.
• Navigate with a keyboard and screen reader (NVDA).

What is accessibility?

• Ensuring people can access and use the same information, products and services.
• Removing barriers to access.

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Essential for some people, but useful for anyone.

Why does accessibility matter?

• Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
• Based on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2.
• Equality Act 2010.
• Protects people from discrimination in the workplace and wider society.
• Public sector bodies need to make websites and mobile apps usable by disabled people.
• Assistive technologies.
• Alternative formats for content.

Types of disabilities and impairments

• Permanent: long-term conditions that are not expected to improve.
• Temporary: short-term conditions that are time-limited.
• Situational: caused by environmental factors or other situations.

Guided tour with ‘Susan’

• Heading levels, paragraphs and text alignment.
• Tables in Word and Excel.
• Alternative text – “alt text” – for logos, decorative images and charts.

Colour vision deficiency

• 1 in 12 men.
• 1 in 200 women.
• Red (protanopia and protanomaly)
• Green (deuteranopia and deuteranomaly)
• Blue (tritanopia and tritanomaly)
• Greyscale (monochromacy or achromatopsia)
• Red-green is the most common (99%) of all cases.

Colour vision deficiency: example

• Color Blindness Simulator for Images – Upload or Paste Image URLs

Charts, colours and contrast… oh my!

• Don’t rely on colour alone to convey information.
• Choose an accessible palette if you can.
• Check contrast.
• WebAIM Contrast Checker.

Additional resources

• 13 Days of Accessibility.
• Do’s and don’ts on designing for accessibility.
• WCAG 2.2 Guidelines.
• SCOPE: an example of good accessible design.