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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 Instructure Community, an online portal to learn, share, and engage alongside other educators, 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 3 | Pillar One: Headings
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.