Word - checking accessibility

Peer reviewing is a great way to learn gain greater insight into learning outcomes for an assignment and also improve your own skills.

My peer and I, Kathy, have decided to review each other's work to help us meet course learning outcomes and support each other.

Yesterday she sent me a 'before' and 'after' version of Word document she had created and I'm going to critically appraise its accessibility. To start with, I searched online for guidance on critique the accessibility of Word documents and thought I'd use IBM's document checklist.

Images
When creating Word documents it's good practice to add alternative text for an image. This is possible in Word 2000 and 2007 for a PC, but not the Mac version so this is something I can't go into the images to check.

In the original document the images are not labelled consistently, this has been done in the second document. However, the labels aren't very descriptive. Kathy has chosen quite a tricky document, explaining how to use a computer programme through the use of screen-grabs and text. A true alternative version would need to be created for visually impaired users describing their navigation around the system. For example instead of 'Figure 1 - Login Screen', 'Figure 1 - Login screen with two text enabled fields. The first is for entering a username and the second is for entering a password'. Writing alternative text is quite an art as you have to remember the user may not be able to see the image so you have to describe / explain the important parts. It's a skill I'm constantly trying to improve.

However, I can roll over the images to see the alternative text. Kathy has creatively used this to give instructions, for example on one image giving the user a prompt to 'choose a good image as this will identify you'. Ideally instead the alternative text should serve the equivalent purpose of the information supplied in the image. Particularly as users are unlikely to roll over an image to get instructions.

At the top of the document a header image has been used which contains a brand name, email address and phone number. This information does not need to be in an image and could be taken out and added to the document as text.

Document structure
The first document contains some use of styles, whereas the second document is consistent with the use of 'Heading 1', 'Heading 2' and 'Heading 3' which will aid navigation for screen-reader users.

Where hyperlinks are given the full URL is the text on the page which identifies the purpose of each link. This is useful for screen readers and for other learners who I imagine would print out the document.

Navigation
The document is 10 pages long and does not include a table of contents, which would be useful for navigation.

Colour
The original document is predominantly black text on a white background. In the 'after' version it is light blue text on a white background which I find more difficult to read as there is less contrast.

In comparison to the original document, some text information has been formatted to blue text in a text box with a sand coloured background. This looks very appealing to the eye, but text in a text box doesn't change when a whole document's text is reformatted or the background colour changed to suit the learner. It's preferable to not have information in a text box.

To emphasise a point sometimes words are put in underline. I would leave these just as bold as it suggests the web convention of them being hyperlinks.

Layout
I found the layout of the document easy to read as for the majority of time paragraphs were not split over pages.

On the original document the images were small and randomly on the left or right hand side of the page. In the second document the images were laid out more uniformally which made it easier to read.

On the original often red labelling arrows went over the body text, this was removed in the second document making it easier to read.

Some of the text boxes bled over the print margin of the page, this could mean only part of the document and information printed out.

Interactive
The final part of the document has some interaction where a user can rate the document. I didn't quite understand how to answer some of the questions, it looks like the drop down boxes don't work. I couldn't get the radio buttons to work either.


Kathy also sent over a web version of the document. I'm not sure how this makes a document more accessible but all options are always worth exploring! I opened the file, but text was laid ontop of each other so there maybe a compatibility issue between my Mac and her PC as I know it was legible on her computer.

I found reviewing the document a really useful exercise as it gives me plenty to think about when creating mine!