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Library Accessibility

Resources for KPU librarians and staff on improving the accessibility of library resources and services.

Introducing 'Narrator'

Note: Kelsey was away, so this part of the presentation didn't happen.

What is Narrator?

Narrator is the name of Windows' screen reader. All computers with Windows OS have this screen reader. 

Narrator's commands and keyboard shortcuts have recently been redesigned to better mimic professional, third-party screen readers. 

There are other, third-party screen readers that are popular. JAWS and NVDA are the most popular third-party screen reader. JAWS is $1000 for a home license. NVDA is free and open source. 

Internet browsers also have accessibility options that users may utilize.

How to Use Narrator

To activate Narrator, press and hold "[windows icon] + ctrl + enter".

Microsoft has a comprehensive Complete Guide To Narrator that is also available in PDF, Word doc and Braille.

'Scan Mode' is the default mode for the most common activities, such as navigating websites, email and apps.

Chapter 3: Using Scan Mode has a list of all the keyboard commands in this mode. 

There is also an appendix: Narrator keyboard commands and touch gestures with all the commands using Narrator's Standard Keyboard Layout.

Centre for Equitable Library Access (CELA)

Microsoft's Complete Guide to Narrator

Academic Search Complete

EBSCO Accessibility Page

Mulliken, A. (2017). “There is nothing inherently mysterious about assistive technology”: A qualitative study about blind user experiences in US academic libraries. Reference and User Services Quarterly, 57(2), 115. https://doi.org/10.5860/rusq.57.2.6528

Reference Interviews with People with Disabilities

Note: Kelsey was away, so this part of the presentation didn't happen.

General Suggestions for serving people with disabilities

  • Approach users so that you can be seen. Face the user and make eye contact.
  • Introduce yourself, at least by title and function. Ask how you can help.
  • Avoid making any assumptions based on an apparent disability.
  • Do not generalize from one impairment to others. Just because a person with a visual impairment cannot see you clearly doesn't mean she can't year you or answer questions.
  • Talk directly to the user who want the service anot not to the companion, aid, or communication tool.
  • Ask what formats the person prefers.
  • Be clear and concise in your choice of language.

(Ross et al., 2019)

From Catherine Sheldrick Ross, Kirsti Nilsen, & Marie L. Radford. (2019). Interviewing People with Disabilities. In Conducting the Reference Interview : Third Edition: Vol. Third edition. ALA Neal-Schuman. 

 

Kelsey's Script suggestions

  • "Do you have a preference on how you'd like me to relay information?" (such as email the links used in the interview, dictate results on the screen, describe the screen)
  • "What is the most helpful way for me to relay this information to you?"
  • What is your preferred format?
  • "Please let me know if you'd like me to pause and explain something further, or if I am unclear."
  • If you have only a certain amount of time to dedicate to the reference interview, I like to bring it up at the beginning of the interaction. I might say something like: "Just so you know, after 45 minutes I will have to go attend a meeting. If we aren't done before that, we can arrange another time to meet to make sure we cover all your needs."

 

Brown, M. and Freund, L. (2010, December). SPEC Kit 321: Services for Users with Disabilities. Association of Research Libraries Digital Publications. https://publications.arl.org/Services-for-Users-with-Disabilities-SPEC-Kit-321/

Canadian Library Association (CLA), Accessible Collections and Services Network. (2016, August 26). Guidelines on Library and Information Services for People with Disabilities. CFLA-FCAB. http://cfla-fcab.ca/en/guidelines-and-position-papers/guidelines-on-library-and-information-services-for-people-with-disabilities/

Kazuye Kimura, A. (2018). Defining, evaluating, and achieving accessible library resources: A review of theories and methods. Reference Services Review, 46(3), 425-438. https://doi.org/10.1108/RSR-03-2018-0040

Ross, C. S., Nilsen, K., & Radford, M. L. (2019). Interviewing People with Disabilities. In Conducting the reference interview: A how-to-do-it manual for librarians (Third ed.). ALA Neal-Schuman.

Accessibility Resources

Web accessibility: essential for some, useful for all.

-- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative.(2020). Web accessibility evaluation tools [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/bn1XJSjc_qM

Workshop Learning Outcomes

I hope you’ll learn a few simple strategies to improve accessibility that you can apply right away to some of the resources that you create. Specifically, I hope that you will:

  • Be aware of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
  • Understand why it is important to:
    • Use headings to structure your document
    • Provide alt-text descriptions for images
    • Give links context
  • Know how to address errors in these three elements in Word documents and LibGuides.  
Note: I am NOT an expert on web accessibility. I'm just beginning to learn about this myself. But we don't have to be experts to take some simple steps toward improving the accessibility of our resources. There are many useful guides and tutorials available to help.

KPU

British Columbia

Federal

What is WCAG? 

  • WCAG = Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
  • pronounced WOO-kag
  • international guidelines developed by W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
  • often used as benchmark for minimum accessibility expectations, and for evaluating accessibility of websites (e.g. see reference to WCAG in KPU's Web Accessibility Statement)
  • has had several iterations; current version is 2.1
  • different "success criteria" levels, from bare minimum to most stringent: A, AA, AAA

POUR: The 4 Principles of WCAG

Copied from WCAG 2.1 at a Glance: ; we'll be looking at elements that support the highlighted principles today

Perceivable

Operable

Understandable

Robust

Improving accessibility of Word documents

Chris will be using the content of the "Bad Example" document below as an outline for this part of the session. We'll also use it in class for hands-on practice identifying and fixing accessibility issues in Word documents.

Improving accessibility of LibGuides [H2]

Springshare does a pretty good job of supporting accessibility within LibGuides. Most accessibility errors are introduced by LibGuide creators. With a bit of awareness, you can avoid most of these.

We'll focus on the same three major categories of errors as we did with the Word document:

  1. Lack of structure (headings),
  2. Missing alt-text for images, and
  3. Unclear links.

Resources:

Why use headings in LibGuides?

  • allows people using screen readers to navigate easily within guide
  • improves the readability for all users by structuring content in an organized way

Working with headings in LibGuides

  • DO NOT:

    • use only font formats (e.g. bold font or larger sized font) or colours to create "headings". Screenreaders will not recognize these as headers. 

  • DO:

    • use the heading options under the Format tab  
    • use headings in the correct order to structure your text: broadest (largest) to narrowest (smallest) 
      • Springshare tries to prevent you from introducing errors with the sequencing of headings. When you edit a rich text box, you cannot select Heading 1 or Heading 2 levels. Those are reserved for the title of the libguide page (H1) and the titles of content boxes (H2).
        • Note: you can override this restriction using HTML code in the Source editor, but you should not do so

Screenshot of Format drop-down menu in LibGuides' rich text editor showing headings options

Heading levels in LibGuides: [this is an H3 level heading]

 
  • Heading 1 (largest): Title of libguide page. Should not be used for anything else.
  • Heading 2:  Content Box labels. Should not be used for anything else.
  • Heading 3: The first level of heading within a content box.
  • Heading 4: The second level of heading within a content box.
  • Heading 5: Next narrower level.
  • Heading 6: Narrowest heading level.

Why is alt-text important?

It is important that you provide alternative text for all images included in your guide content.

Alternative text serves several functions:

  • Assistive technologies such as screen readers use it to make the content and function of your images accessible to those with visual or certain cognitive disabilities.
  • It is displayed in place of images, should image files fail to load in a web browser or when a user has chosen to not view images.
  • It provides the ability for search engines and assistive technologies to access image content separate from the page content.

Create alternate text in your LibGuide by going to the text editor and filling out the Alt Tag field on the Insert/edit Image screen.

How to Create Good Alternate Text

  • Provide alt-text for all images.
  • Consider the context and function of your image.
  • Alternative text should:
    • describe the content and function of the image
    • be as accurate and as succinct as possible
  • Alternative text should not:
    • include information such as filename or file type
    • use “Image of...” or “Graphic of...”
    • repeat information which is contained in the document itself
  • If the image is decorative and does not appear within a link, then the alt-text should be empty.
  • If the image is functional (e.g., an image within a link) then the alt-text should describe the function as well as the content.
  • If an image includes text that is relevant to the page content, include the text in the alt-text.
  • Remember that screen readers always read the alt-text, so image-heavy pages take a long time to read using a screen reader.

Credit: Copied entirely from Queen's University Library. (2020). Creating accessible LibGuides: Images. 

Two ways to add alt-text to image in LibGuides

Option 1: Add alt-text in Image Manager Library before you upload image

Screenshot of Image Manager Library showing option to add alt-text before you upload an image.

 

Option 2: Edit image properties

Screenshot of Image Properties box showing option to add alt-text.

Hyperlinks are used to link your document to a website or another document. Screen readers recognize links and make them searchable.

  • Ensure that the Hyperlink has context and describes where it leads.
    • For example; if linking to more information about a topic, instead of “click here", use "for more information visit our Topic page".
  • In addition to making link text unique, make it descriptive so that it is understood out of context.
    • Screen-reader users can adjust their software to read only the links on a page.
    • Links should provide enough information when read out of context.
  • When linking to a file, indicate the format and document size. For example: Accessible Documents (PDF 75KB).

Please Note: Copying and pasting content from outside sources can sometimes make a resource inaccessible. Use the remove formatting function to eliminate code that may be problematic.

Credit: Copied entirely from Queen's University Library. (2020). Creating accessible LibGuides: Links. 

There are many online tools and software that can help you to evaluate the accessibility of a website. However, no tool can detect all errors or issues. At best, they only catch about one third of issues. Knowledgeable human assessment is always needed.

Testing tools we'll look at today

Further reading

Use the WAVE or tota11y tool to check one of your own libguides and fix any errors you find!

Demo box with LibGuide errors that hinder accessibility [H2]

We will look for accessibility issues on this libguide using tota11y and WAVE.

Heading bad example 1

  • Problem: Uses font formatting (bolding, increased font size) to emphasize text, instead of using the Headings built into LibGuides to structure the text. A screen reader would not know that this text was any more important than surrounding text, and could not use it to navigate the page.
  • Fix: Make this a Heading 3. The title of the box is a Heading 2. Since this box does not have tabs (which would be H3), we would use H3 for the first level of heading inside the box.

Heading bad example 2 [this is Heading 4 level]

  • Problem: Although this heading DOES use the built-in heading settings (which is good), the heading level is out of sequence. It skips to Heading 4 level, when it should be Heading 3 (see note under "Heading bad example 1", above.). 
  • Fix: Make this a Heading 3.

Bad example of image with no alt-text [this is Heading 3 level]

  • Problem: the image contains text and important information but has no alt-text so it will be ignored by screenreaders.
  • Fix: add alt-text such as "Screenshot of Summon result showing the Cites link to display sources cited by the article."

Bad example of link: [this is Heading 3 level]

Queen's University Library provides tips on creating meaningful links in LibGuides at this link.

 

  • Problem: The link provides no context for the reader and is not meaningful if read on its own. Screenreader users may display list of links on page without surrounding text to navigate a document; they would only see the words "this link".
  • Fix: Select meaningful text to use as the anchor for the link.