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Accessibility Made Easy
Canvas Course Accessibility Checklist
When developing content in Online@UT (Canvas), it is easy to adopt design habits that may appear visually acceptable yet inadvertently create significant accessibility barriers. While course pages might seem well-organized and appealing to sighted users, their layouts can be difficult to navigate for individuals using assistive technologies. Screen readers rely on the underlying HTML structure, rather than visual formatting, to interpret and present content. As a result, what looks fine on the surface may not be accessible to all users.
Familiarize Yourself with the Checklist
To help instructors address visual formatting inaccessibility, the Instructional Design Services at Instructure, the company behind Canvas, has created a Canvas Course Accessibility Checklist. The checklist outlines how to ensure accessibility compliance using the Canvas Rich Content Editor (RCE). Use the checklist as a reference for the accessibility options within your course.
Follow us each week for Accessibility Made Easy articles, where we’ll address each checklist item in further detail, provide examples, and help you use the tools available to make your course content accessible.
WEEK 6 | Pillar Four: Color & Color Contrast
Color is an important aspect of designing a course and is often used to emphasize words and phrases. However, certain color combinations can make it difficult for learners to read. It is important that proper colors are used in your course so that no learner has trouble accessing the information.
Learners who are blind, low-vision, or colorblind will not be able to differentiate between the content you are trying to emphasize or highlight if you use only color to convey meaning. Color can be used to convey meaning as long as that meaning is also indicated in some other way, such as using italics, bold, a symbol, an identifier, etc.
Color contrast refers to the difference between the color of your text and the color of your background. Without sufficient contrast, the content will be difficult to see for everyone. For those with low vision, it may even be unreadable. If you decide to apply color, you should use light-colored text on a dark background and dark-colored text on a light background.
Color Tips
- The Canvas Accessibility Checker (link takes you to The Instructure Community) will alert you if there is insufficient contrast.
- Use color paired with additional identifiers (text, symbols, etc.) to convey meaning.
- Use color combinations that provide sufficient contrast to distinguish text from the background.
- Avoid using font colors to convey meaning, for example: “All items in RED are required.”
Descriptive links provide users with the proper context of where the link will take them when clicked. Link text should be meaningful and descriptive to ensure clarity for all users. Well-crafted link text enables users to understand the purpose and destination of the link before selecting it, enhancing both usability and accessibility for individuals using assistive technologies, particularly screen readers, which may read the entire URL character by character.
When linking to websites or external URLs, be sure to clearly identify the destination to best suit your users’ needs. When linking to an individual file, use the document title or add a clear description of its content, mention the file type (e.g., PDF or DOCX), and use action-oriented text like “download” or “view”. Non-descriptive links do not offer enough information for users to determine whether the content is relevant, reducing overall accessibility and user experience.
Images have both aesthetic and educational value. Alt Text stands for alternative text and is a short description that conveys image content or function to users who are not able to visually perceive an image. This ensures that the image is conveyed in an accessible, meaningful, and inclusive way. Assistive technology tools access the image by reading the alternative text in lieu of visual perception. Additionally, alt text will load for users with slow internet connections or when the browser fails to load.
Should you always include alt text? Not always. To determine whether an image requires alt text, first we must decide what the purpose of the image is with respect to the overall page context. If the image conveys information that supports the surrounding content, it should have descriptive text. If the image is purely decorative (primarily for visual appeal), the image should be marked as decorative.
A “decorative” image is one that…
- does not present important content,
- is used for layout or non-informative purposes, and
- does not have a function (e.g., is not a link).
When in doubt on where and when to use Alt Text, refer to the Alt Decision Tree to help you decide.
Review an alternative text example and additional guides and resources.
Headings are one of the most common errors in content design. Rather than using the designated heading styles with their default appearance and font size, content creators often apply bold formatting and manually increase the font size to mimic the appearance of headings. While this may achieve the desired visual effect, it fails to establish the proper semantic structure.
Review incorrect and correct examples.
Headings communicate the organization of the content on the page and should not be used to style content. Properly styled headings give users of assistive technologies (AT), such as screen readers, the ability to navigate a page for structure and interpret content effectively (just as sighted readers tend to do). Think of heading styles like an outline. In an outline, sub-sections are nested within the “superior” section.
Headings are nested by their rank (or level). In Canvas, the most important heading has the rank 2 (<h2>), and the least important has the rank 4 (<h4>). Headings with an equal or higher rank start a new section, and headings with a lower rank start new subsections that are part of the higher-ranked section.
Review content organized using headings.
TIP: Skipping heading ranks can be confusing and should be avoided where possible. For example, make sure that an <h2> is not followed directly by an <h4>.
The 7 Pillars of Accessibility are practical strategies most relevant to achieving accessibility in course materials and learning platforms. These seven pillars can be used to create accessible content and allow for creating a learning environment where all users can engage, learn, and actively participate.
7 Pillars of Accessibility
- Headings: Use clear heading structures to organize content and aid navigation.
- Alt Text / Alt Tag: Provide meaningful descriptions for images to support screen readers.
- Descriptive Links: Use link text that clearly describes the destination or action.
- Color / Color Contrast: Ensure sufficient contrast and avoid relying solely on color to convey meaning.
- Lists: Format lists properly to help users understand relationships between items.
- Tables: Use headers and structure tables for clarity and screen reader compatibility.
- Closed Captions: Include captions for video content to support deaf and hard-of-hearing users.
Credit: Instructure. (2025). Fundamentals of accessible digital content in Canvas. [Online training course]. Canvas Training Services Portal.
Over the next several weeks, we will dive deeper into each strategy, providing explanations, examples, and tips.
WEEK 1 • Canvas Accessibility Checker
Canvas provides an Accessibility Checker to ensure content within the Rich Content Editor (RCE) meets accessibility standards. This tool reviews your content and ensures that it meets basic accessibility standards, including image alt text, sufficient text color contrast, and correct table usage.
You can use the Accessibility Checker to design course content while considering accessibility attributes. Keep in mind that this tool only verifies content created within the Rich Content Editor. For a quick video overview and step-by-step instructions, visit the How do I use the Accessibility Checker in the Canvas RCE? support guide.
Coming soon: the Course Accessibility Checker, a course-level interface that enables instructors to identify, remediate, and validate accessibility issues across Canvas-created content. This course checker will initially support Pages and Assignments.