I have now started studying for IAAP exam Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC). While I thought I was working towards the qualification for a while now, in April I realised there has been a syllabus change in 2023. This is the latest body of knowledge available on IAAP website IAAP CPACC Body of Knowledge October 2023
Tharindu's MOOCs Blog
Wednesday, 1 May 2024
Studying for an exam after many years
Thursday, 26 January 2023
Accessible Social Media: Tweets
In this blog, I am going to discuss how to make your Tweets accessible. I have created accessible and inaccessible Tweets using my account to show as examples and used Windows Narrator to record the audio of the screen reader experience.
Inaccessible Tweet
Inaccessible Tweet with many accessibility issues |
Transcript: Inaccessible Tweet
I hope you agree with me that was not a great experience. Now, let’s try to make this tweet more accessible by adding alternative text for images, using Camel case for hash tags, adding only necessary emojis and including hash tags and Twitter handles at the end of the message.
Accessible Tweet
Accessible Tweet showing good practice |
Listen to the more accessible Tweet on the screen reader
Transcript: Accessible Tweet
Posting this tweet to demonstrate the importance of accessibility. This is more accessible. Use emojis only when necessary. Add alternative text for images hashtags in camel case at the end. Link hash no access. Link Hash poor accessibility. Thumbs up sign image. Link image demonstrating bad practice of green and red use to differentiate answers. Link image answers differentiated by red and green cannot be distinguished by a person with monochromacy achromatopsia.
The second version of the tweet is more accessible because:
- it makes it easier for the user to follow the content as there are no hashtags (or Twitter handles) in the middle of the tweet
- Camel case is used for hashtags making them read correctly
- Emojis are used sparsely making it easier for the user to understand the Tweet
- Images are described.
- Use hashtags and handles at the end of the post
- Use Camel case for hashtags
- Use emojis sparsely and only when necessary
- If you are using images, describe them by including an alternative text description
There is good
practice around the use of colour and more information on creating accessible content on the Digital Accessibility
at the University of Reading web space. View Resources about making content more accessible.
Tuesday, 29 November 2022
Conducting My First Accessibility Awareness Workshop @ University of Reading
Friday, 23 September 2022
Making equations accessible
Today I watched the JISC Accessibility Clinic recording A collaborative approach to maths accessibility learning a lot about the challenges in making math or STEM content accessible.
I have used MathJax and MathML with Moodle and have blogged about it earlier in my work at UCEM.
- Using MathML with Moodle
- Mathematical Equations in Moodle
- Accessibility of Mathematical Equations with Screenreader
- Generating MathML Code for Equations with MathType
hypotenuse = (a^2+b^2)^0.5 because I am not familiar with MathML to make it work.
Then write your code
<p> \ [hypotenues = \ sqrt{a^2+b^2}\]</p>
There are no spaces between backslash and the character next to it but to show how to write the equation I am adding spaces
Then the MathJax will make it look like
\[hypotenues = \sqrt{a^2+b^2}\]
There are obviously some notations to learn.
MathJax documentation on Writing Mathematics for MathJax
\[...\] for displayed mathematics
\(...\) for in-line mathematics and lots more for various operations.
Tuesday, 1 February 2022
Find Colour Contrast
Sufficient colour contrast is important to make it easier for people to recognise foreground from background. There are three WCAG 2.1 guidelines on accessible colour contrast and they are:
1.4.3: Contrast (Minimum) AA
- Text contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1
- Large text 3:1
- 18 point text or 14 point bold text is judged to be large enough
1.4.6: Contrast (Enhanced) AAA
- Contrast ratio of at least 7:1
- Large text 4.5:1
1.4.11: Non-text Contrast AA
- UI component and graphical objects to have 3:1 contrast against adjacent colours
- Hexadecimal value
- RGB value
- Using colour picker
Wednesday, 3 November 2021
UCEM Accessibility Awareness Course
I really wanted to create an accessibility awareness course that is open to anyone. I learned a lot about accessibility from MOOCs such as "Access MOOC" and "Professional Web Accessibility Auditing Made Easy" by Ryerson University when these were available free for everyone. However, a lot has changed since 2016 and now most of the courses are paid for even on MOOC platforms.
My application to a funding body to create an open course was not successful. Since then I have taken the time to create this course for UCEM and I hope I would get the chance to publicly make it available with CC license.
The course consists of sections that offer seven milestone badges leading to a final Accessibility Awareness Badge.
Find more about the Launch of the UCEM Accessibility Awareness Course
These beautiful badge images were created by my colleague Asma Hussain
Wednesday, 23 June 2021
Emergency Remote Education: Experience from Sri Lanka during Covid-19
Digital Divide |