Making Our Content Accessible

This edited book’s format is compliant with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (AODA). The tools used to build this safe sport edited book are structured to ensure that our content reflects the POUR principle, meaning that the resource is Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework used in the creation of this edited book gives students multiple ways to engage with content and demonstrate their knowledge by providing interactive content, audio recorder/written response opportunities, and videos.

To achieve AODA compliance we spoke with colleagues in the Centre for Pedagogical Innovation at Brock University and attended workshops including “Making Accessible Content with Pressbooks”, funded in part by eCampusOntario. We also conducted accessibility tests using the NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) screen reader in the Chrome browser.

Pressbooks is designed to be accessible for users of all abilities and compatible with screen readers and other assistive technologies. We opted to pursue accessibility over aesthetics in many cases. For example, while formatting a page using the table function may result in a nicer layout, it would not be accessible for an individual using a screen reader. Here are some of the main items we focused on to ensure this edited reader is accessible. 

Alt Text

• All charts, images and figures required to convey information are uploaded with alternative (alt) text. This ensures all information is retained for those using screen readers or assistive devices. Because alt text fields in Pressbooks have a limit of 125 characters, many of our figures with longer descriptions needed to be shown in a different way, so after each figure with a longer description we included a hyperlink to the full image description at the end of the chapter.

Captioning

• All of the videos in this edited book are embedded directly from YouTube, which has its own automatic captioning feature.
• English transcripts have been created for each video in the edited book and are provided as PDF files. They can be accessed by clicking on the “Transcript” hyperlink listed in each video caption.

Colour

• The colours in this edited book adhere to the minimum standards for colour contrast ratios as set by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) which can range from 1:1 (there is no difference between the colours) to 21:1 (the highest difference possible). Each colour combination passed a contrast checker test.

Headings

• Headings are nested in proper sequence and provide people who use assistive technologies with a way to navigate through the chapter text. Using proper HTML headings in sequence (ie H1, H2, H3) enables users to distinguish between topics and subtopics regardless of heading size or indentation.

Icons

• Icons indicating activities such as “In Practice” or “Case Study” are created to convey information, and to aid readers with wayfinding through the text.

Screen Reader

• Screen reader accessibility has been tested on the entire edited book with the NVDA screen reader in the Chrome browser.
• All hyperlinks in this edited book are programmed to open in the same tab, to ensure screen reader access.

Text Alignment

• All of the text in this edited book is aligned left to increase accessibility, since some individuals with cognitive disabilities may have trouble reading blocks of justified text, or text that is aligned to both the left and right margins.