Barrier-free course design

The moodle platform is a complex system with constantly evolving code. The user interface can be adapted the real content is created by the lecturerers and their colleagues. For this reason we can't guarantee for 100 percent that moodle or a website based on moodle is absolutely accessible or not.

Accessibility is not a state but a process of continuous improvement in response to the users and the technical environment.

Below you find some hints for creating a moodle course room nearly barrier-free.

Headlines

Headlines structure the text on a page and thus improve readability. Headings also allow users to quickly navigate through a page or document using assistance software. Please also use paragraph formats for structuring your body text.

Body text

Font styles such as bold, italic, underlining or any other color should not be used, as users with assistive technologies are often not aware of such font styles..

Font color

Please do not use red or green font color for highlighting text – people with a red green weakness are hardly or not able to read these texts. We recommend a blue font color oder bold text.

Images

If you use images on your moodle page don't forget the alternative text – this is also output if the image cannot be loaded.

Hyperlinks

When creating links, make sure that the link behavior is consistent - opening in the same or in a new window.

We recommend the following procedure: 

• Links within the course should be opened in the same window
• Links to external websites should be opened in a separate window.

If possible, work with descriptive links - so use an anchor text that describes where the link leads to. A simple “click here” link is not a descriptive link.

Simple URLs such as https://moodle.org should also be avoided, since users with assistive technologies have to listen to the URL read out, but cannot find any descriptive text.

To create a descriptive link in the moodle course room,

1. Select a descriptive link text.
2. Click on the link button in your text editor.
3. Enter the url and activate "open in a new window" if necessary.
4. Click on "Create link".

Creating a barrier-free PDF document

PDFs must be searchable text in order to be read by assistive devices. PDFs created in Microsoft Word or Open Office are usually searchable – scanned book pages, on the other hand, do not, as they consist of a single image.

Use bookmarks to mark sections and chapters in multi-page documents to make navigation easier.

How to create a barrier-free PDF from a word document:

• use style templates
• use tabs for indents – no spaces
• use alternative texts (alt text) for images
• set the document language
• pay attention to high contrast ratios
• important information do not belong to header or footer