Wednesday 1 May 2024

Studying for an exam after many years

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

I am now taking my daughter's advice on revising for the exam and I started using flash cards. People have already made flash cards and have kindly shared these resources online. However, I wanted to create physical cards so that I can use revising time to not be on the computer. 



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
Inaccessible Tweet with many accessibility issues

The tweet lacks image descriptions (alternative text), uses non-Camel case hashtags which are in the middle of the tweet, and way too many emojis. Let’s see how this tweet will be read by a screen reader for a user. Screenreader software is used by people who are blind or visually impaired as well as people who find it difficult to read screen text. Play the audio to hear the screen reader version. The transcript is also available.

Listen to the inaccessible Tweet on the screen reader

Transcript: Inaccessible Tweet
Posting this tweet to demonstrate the importance of accessibility link hash no access hash link “P” “O” “O” “R” accessibility this is inaccessible too many emojis no alternative text hashtags in the middle without camelcase clapping hands sign image clapping hands sign image clapping hands sign image rolling on the floor laughing image rolling on the floor laughing image rolling on the floor laughing image yawning face image thumbs up sign image thumbs up sign image thumbs up sign image person raising both hands in celebration image person raising both hands in celebration image person raising both hands in celebration image image image link 3:25 PM times the 16th of December 2022 status.

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
Accessible Tweet showing good practice

Let’s see how this tweet will be read by a screen reader for the user. Play the audio to hear screen reader version. The transcript is also available.

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.

So here are some things to remember when creating an accessible social media post:
  • 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

Last Tuesday, I ran the first accessibility awareness workshop at the University of Reading with the Student Support and Engagement team. My colleague, Mira, was also there to help me facilitate the workshop. I planned the workshop to be delivered in person with a lot of activities for the participants to take part in. With twelve people in the room, it felt like the pre-COVID time when we used to have many in-person activities and meetings. 

We first looked at the importance of accessibility. I like using the video Experiences of Students with Disabilities created by WebAIM in my workshops. Though it was created a while ago, this short video provides a good insight into students’ lived experiences. The video shows students using various assistive technologies and as the first workshop activity, the participants were given the chance to use Windows Narrator, the built-in screen-reading app for Windows, to get exposure to assistive technologies. 

Participants using screen reader software


Then we discussed the legal landscape, especially the difference between providing reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act and the more proactive nature of the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations. We also looked at web content accessibility guidelines and how detailed they are. 

The next part of the workshop focused on what we can do to make content more accessible. We looked at the use of colour. Having sufficient colour contrast between foreground and background is important to make text easily readable. WebAIM colour contrast checker can be used to check colour contrasts and it helps to interpret the colour contrast according to the current accessibility guidelines. This is a short interactive, e-learning activity on Accessibility: Colour Contrast Checking. We also talked about colour vision deficiency and the importance of not using colour alone to differentiate information. I used a lot of video clips to show how screen readers would read accessible and inaccessible content. I used this to demonstrate document structure, tables, and alternative text. When you see how assistive technologies make use of the metadata it is easier to engage with the accessibility good practices because you know what you do makes a difference. 

As the final activity participants in groups looked at a Microsoft Word document ladened with accessibility issues and tried to resolve the problems and make it accessible. We had a lot of time to discuss various issues colleagues have seen over time as well as to refer to the daily experiences of people with hidden disabilities. 

At the workshop, we also had Cambridge simulation gloves and Optima Simulation Specs so that the participants could experience how some of the mobility/dexterity and visual disabilities can affect people in their daily lives. 
Participants using Cambridge simulation gloves



We got very good feedback and the pre and post-survey asking specific questions about accessibility awareness showed a marked increase in awareness. I am already looking forward to the next accessibility workshop! 
Post-it notes with scribbled feedback



The accessibility workshop was fantastic for my professional development. I gained a much greater understanding of the topic and how it relates to my individual work context. Rather than it feeling like a complicated added responsibility, I now see accessibility as a mindset that will benefit everyone from students to colleagues. It was very interactive and I have walked away with easy to execute practical examples and strategies. Mathew Haine, Student Outcomes Manager (Awarding Gap)

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



Listening to and watching a demonstration of the LaTex and how PDF export loses the structure of equations made me think of the number of inaccessible learning materials we could be having. It is definitely something that we all will have to work on.

So I am looking at how MathJax can be included in a standard HTML page like this blog page.

If I try to include the Pythagoras theorem's equation for hypotenuse I will have to type something like 
hypotenuse  = (a^2+b^2)^0.5 because I am not familiar with MathML to make it work.

But now I can use MathJax. You add these two lines into the HTML code.

<script src="https://polyfill.io/v3/polyfill.min.js?features=es6"></script>
<script id="MathJax-script" async src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/mathjax@3/es5/tex-mml-chtml.js"></script>

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

Web AIM contrast checker is the tool I use all the time to check colour contrast. Recently I noticed that they have made it better by allowing the option to pick colour using colour picker. So now there are three ways to provide colour you want to test:
  1. Hexadecimal value
  2. RGB value
  3. Using colour picker
I created a new video to demonstrate this new feature. If you are not familiar with hexadecimal or RGB representation of colour, view the short video Find Digital Representation of Colour (RGB and Hexadecimal) first.



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

Accessibility awareness badge

Milestone badges on Accessibility Awareness Journey
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


This piece of work looks at Emergency Remote Education (ERE) in Sri Lanka during the Covid-19 first lockdown in March 2020. With Prof. Shirley Williams I worked on this project trying to reach grassroots experience of lockdown homeschooling both in the UK and in Sri Lanka. 

The research used an online questionnaire to gather data and as expected the data showed that these came from an affluent group of Sri Lankans as the computer penetration is low within the country. We reached out to school teachers from various schools in different parts of the country to balance out the lack of response from people who did not have ready access to the internet and or the digital literacy to take part in an online survey.

This research showed how important it is to reach all groups of people that represent a study and if researchers are not able to reach them directly how indirectly you could reach them. For example, due to lockdown restrictions, we were not able to reach people face-to-face or distribute questionnaires. But by reaching out to school teachers from various settings we were able to represent, at least in part, the group that would otherwise have been excluded.

You can read the full paper from the Asian Journal of Distance Education.