Best Practices

Avoid color-coding

• Don't rely on color alone to convey meaning. To ensure accessibility for students with color-blindness or low vision, always pair color-coding with text labels, shapes, or patterns. If it doesn't make sense in black and white, it needs a secondary indicator.

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• 1 Best Practices
  • 1.1 Avoid color-coding
  • 1.2 Use a color analyzer
  • 1.3 Create color-safe charts and graphs
  • 1.4 Use alt text, captions, or long descriptions on all images
    • 1.4.1 Word and PowerPoint
    • 1.4.2 Google Docs and Google Slides
• 2 Related articles

Use a color analyzer

• To ensure readability for students with partial sight, low vision or color blindness, always maintain a strong contrast between text and background colors. High color contrast designs reduce eye strain and makes digital resources accessible to everyone.

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• Typically, the best color choices to achieve a high color contrast are dark foreground or text colors and light background colors. It is considered a best practice to verify the color contrast of PowerPoint slides and other visuals using a color contrast checker to ensure accessibility.

Create color-safe charts and graphs

• Don’t rely on color alone for effective graphs or charts. These can be difficult for students with color vision deficiency to interpret. To ensure accessibility, supplement color with contrasting textures, patterns, or direct text labels so datasets remain distinguishable in any format. Learn more about data visualization.

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Use alt text, captions, or long descriptions on all images

• Make images accessible with alternative text (alt text). Provide a clear, concise description for all photos, illustrations, and charts. Ensure all text within an image is included in the alt text. If the visual is too complex for a brief tag, you can provide a long description in a caption or separate document. Learn more about alt text.

Word and PowerPoint

• Right click on the image and select “View Alt Text” and Add your alt text.

• or click the “generate alt text for me” button.

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Google Docs and Google Slides

• Right-click the item and select Alt txt. Enter a description in the Description field (not the Title)

 

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