Creating educational content that works for everyone -- including students with visual, hearing, motor, or cognitive disabilities -- is not just the right thing to do. It is often legally required and it improves the learning experience for all students.
Key Accessibility Principles
- Perceivable: Provide text alternatives for images, captions for videos, and sufficient color contrast
- Operable: All functionality must work with keyboard navigation
- Understandable: Use clear language, consistent navigation, and helpful error messages
- Robust: Content must work across different assistive technologies
Practical Steps
- Use proper heading hierarchy (H1, H2, H3) for screen readers
- Add alt text to every meaningful image
- Provide transcripts for audio and captions for video
- Use semantic HTML structure
- Test with screen readers like NVDA or VoiceOver