Working with Student with visual impairments

Tell Me

1. Review all of your course material to see if it is accessible.

2. First make sure all of the materials are electronic.

3. Next determine if your documents contain any images (images will not be read by text to speech software.

   1. If you have images make sure to add a description (this is a photo of a mountain range in Tibet).

   2. If the entire document is an image (jpeg scan) it will not be read and Is not accessible.

4. Will you be showing any films?
   
   

   1. For a blind student, we first ask What is important about this film?

      1. Is it for the audio lecture accompanying the visual?

      2. is the visual important part for the learning objective?

   2. Descriptive video is becoming more available however often times the Media center in the library will be able to provide us with the scripts (this will include the visuals)

5. Keep in mind the Office of Student Disability Services is a resource for you.

Quick Check for a digital PDF document

1. Open the PDF document with Adobe Reader.

2. Can you select and highlight the text?

3. Can you have the text read it back to you?

Go to Adobe Reader’s View menu, select and activate Read Out Loud then select Read this page only or Read to the end of document to listen to your document.

4. If you are scanning a document, have you completed Optical Character Recognition (OCR) or Text Recognition process to see if your document can be read aloud?

5. If you have included images, photos, diagrams, etc., have you provided alternative text or captions to describe the key message in your images? Screen reader will not read/recognize images or any non-text objects. If answers from (2) to (5) are “yes”, your document is accessible.

Quick Check for a digital Word document

1. Do you have any web Links in your document? If yes, provide a meaningful label for your website, hyperlink this website label and include the URL.

2. Do you include any Images, photos, or videos in your document? If yes, provide alternative text to describe your images or photos, and add captions for your videos.

3. Do you have any Structure for your document? Use heading styles feature to assign structure for your document and the “spacing before and after” paragraph feature under heading styles to format or modify the space between paragraphs.

4. Do you include any Table in your document? Avoid using Tab key to format your tabular information. Note the logical reading order in your table is from left to right and one line at a time. Repeat the table header row on top of each page if your table expands more than one page.

Quick Check for a digital PowerPoint document

1. Do you have any Structure for your slide document? To ensure structure

a. use one of the build-in slide layouts, except the blank one, under New Slide to create new slides.

b. click Outline pane of your slide to ensure your text will be read in logical reading order.

c. include a title for each slide.

Texts NOT displayed on the Outline pane will NOT be read.

2. Do you have any web Links in your slides? If yes, provide a meaningful label for the website, hyperlink this website label, and include the URL.

3. Do you include any Images, photos, non-text object, or videos in your slides? If yes, provide alternative text to describe your images/photos, and add captions for your videos.

4. Do you have any Chart or table in your document? Use the embedded chart or table tool within the slide layout to create your chart or table. If you want to use your original data, attach both the original source data and the chart, and provide a description to explain your chart or table.

Important Reminder Avoid using colored or highlighted text as the only method for emphasize key points. Use bold or text to describe and emphasize your key messages in addition to color or highlights.