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.

Tuesday 23 February 2021

 Zoom webinar transcripts and accessibility: What our students think

This is a blog post I wrote for UCEM and it was published on 23rd February on the UCEM Blog. The original post can be found from UCEM on Zoom webinar transcripts and accessibility: What our students think.




In the summer of 2019, after Zoom was first introduced as the webinar platform at UCEM, we asked our students and staff about their experience of the new software. The survey captured 283 students’ and 27 tutors’ views of the new system. In my research paper ‘Transcripts and Accessibility: Student Views from Using Webinars in Built Environment Education’, I have concentrated on two questions to explore the uses of transcripts as I was interested in looking at how these were perceived. The paper is published in the European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning which provides open access to the full research paper.

97.8% of the students have watched at least one recorded webinar session, demonstrating the importance of recorded webinars for our students. Only 144 students (52.7%), however, had used the audio transcript, 14 students (5.1%) were unaware of the availability of the transcript facility and 115 students (42.1%) indicated that they had not used the audio transcript facility.

A follow-up question, ‘Did you find the transcript useful? Why?’, was asked of the students who indicated that they had used transcripts. Out of the 130 students who answered this free text question, 104 students (80% of those who responded to this question) agreed that the transcripts were useful while 14% indicated that the transcripts were not useful. Out of the 92 respondents from non-English speaking countries (excluding respondents from majority English speaking countries), 40 responded to the free text question, ‘Did you find the transcript useful? Why?’. Only two respondents said that the transcripts were not useful. The large majority, 95% of students who have English as a foreign language and responded to the question, found transcripts a useful addition to understand what is being said in the webinars.

Many students who have used the automatic transcripts found them to be useful.

One response stood out for me:

So useful! Amazing. The search functionality is revolutionary. If I vaguely remember something being said in the webinar but can't quite remember where or when I used to have to watch almost the entire webinar again - and it took so long to load. Now, I just type a word and everything comes up. It's amazing. Ok, the audio transcript is not always spot on, but frankly it's amazing how much it does pick up especially with different accents and pronunciation of words and acronyms. Really love it.

The study has some limitations which are discussed in the paper, including the reliance on anonymous self-directed surveys. This is UCEM’s first implementation of automatic transcription for webinar recordings. There could be an element of ‘novelty factor’ affecting the student responses too.

The study found that many students appreciated the availability of automatic transcripts despite their less-than-perfect accuracy level. Students used transcripts mainly as a tool for searching within a video. This small study shows that students used transcripts in multiple ways:

  • skipping to a specific location in the video
  • as notes
  • as an accessibility aid
  • to overcome unfamiliar accents and words such as technical terms
  • to follow the pace of a fast speaker
  • to study ‘on the go’ – in quiet places, for example
  • to catch up if distracted
  • compensating for poor audio and/or connectivity
  • as an alternative format for video
  • as an aid for non-native English speakers.

Other key results from the survey were:

·         despite 31.1% of students not using any Zoom guidance provided by UCEM, 89.3% agreed with the statement: ‘I was able to join the Zoom session with ease’

·         97.8% of the students have watched at least one recorded webinar session. 89.4% students agreed with the statement: ‘Do you agree that Zoom provides good quality audio and video?’  

·         of the students who have previously used Blackboard Collaborate, 72.9% preferred Zoom

·         81.5% of students prefer facilitated webinars. Students identified three main functions performed by facilitators in webinars: monitoring chat and supporting the smooth run of Q&A during a webinar; helping with technology; and helping with non-subject specific information

·         many students watch recorded webinars and want them to be available soon after a webinar

·         there were some instances where students in certain localities (especially parts of the Middle East) could not access the software due to local restrictions. For these students, the recorded webinars were made available on a video-sharing platform.

To find out more about the study, take a look at the full research paper.