Research Guides: Accessibility in the Library: Create, Write & Publish

Why should I make my documents accessible?

The Mansfield Library supports the creation of accessible resources, providing tools and space for creation as well as research and study. When creating content in any format please consider the ways in which you can make your product as accessible as possible to a wide audience. This guide provides some basic best practices for creating accessible materials and links to more information on where you can get more information and/or help.

Data Curation

Accessibility Data Primer

Get Help on Campus

This is all so complicated I don't even know where to start.

Contact the Library's Accessibility Liaison, Teressa Keenan at 243-4592 to set up an appointment.

I've never taught online before, what do I need to know?

Contact UMOnline, they have training and instructional designers available to help you.

How do I get media captioned or transcribed for use in my class?

Call Accessible Technology Services at 243-HELP (4357) or Contact Office for Disability Equity at 243-2243 or do it yourself.

I'm faculty at UM, where do I go to get help with my Moodle site?

Check out UMOnline's Moodle Resources page or Contact UMOnline via email: umonline-help@umontana.edu or phone: (406) 243-4999

Where can I go to learn how to make my own documents and media accessible?

There is allot of help available right here on campus. Check out the Tutorials and Training website, explore courses via LinkedIn Learning for UM, or look for more do-it-yourself tips in the right hand column of this guide.

What about copyright?

Copyright can be a complicated and confusing topic, but it doesn't have to be scary. For help contact Tammy Ravas or visit the UM Solutions center to find out more about campus wide captioning services and how copyright policies may affect captioning and media conversion.

Creating Accessible Videos, Audio, Podcasts, and other media

Key considerations:

Provide captions and/or a transcript
Narrate any actions you are performing so audio descriptions are automatically built in to the finished product

Learn more about University of Montana captioning services, and their guidelines and tutorials

Learn more about University of Montana audio description services

Creating Accessible Books, Syllabi and other Documents

Key Considerations

Use headings to organize the structure of your content
Include proper alt text for images
Give your links unique and descriptive names
Use numbered/bulleted lists
use color with care
Use tables for tabular data, not for layout
Design forms for accessibility

Learn more about University of Montana document accessibility review and remediation services

DIY - Do it Yourself Tips for Media Materials

Video, Audio, Podcasts and Other Media

Standards for high quality Captions Use the DCMP Captioning Key to get tips for creating high quality user friendly captions for your videos
10 free Tools for Easier Video Captioning A list a benefits and shortcomings are summarized for each tool
DIY Workflows for captioning & transcripts Article from 3PlayMedia
How to Create Captions for your You Tube videos Do you want to reach a wider audience with your YouTube videos? In this video I discuss the benefits of adding closed captions/ subtitles for YouTube videos, how to quickly and easily edit the auto-generated transcript created by YouTube and mention some very important things to keep in mind.
Presenting (PowerPoint) with real time captions PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 can transcribe your words as you present and display them on-screen as captions in the same language you are speaking, or as subtitles translated to another language
Standards for high quality Audio Description Use the DCMP Description Key to get tips for creating high quality user friendly audio description for your videos
How to Create Audio Description for YouTube with YouDescribe Audio description cannot be automatically generated like captions and must be done manually by people. Luckily, there is an amazing service that allows volunteers to write and create audio description for YouTube videos called YouDescribe. Today, I will be sharing how to create audio description for YouTube with the free YouDescribe website.

DIY - Do it Yourself Tips for Print Materials

Books, Syllabi, and other text documents

Make your Outlook email accessible Article provides step-by-step instructions to make your email messages accessible
Understanding Document Accessibility A Reference book for Creating Accessible Office Documents
Microsoft Word Tips for using Microsoft Word to create accessible and user friendly documents
PowerPoint Tips for creating accessible and user friendly PowerPoint presentations
PDFs Tips for creating accessible and user friedly PDF documents
Google Drive Tips for creating accessible and user friendly documents in Google Drive
EPUB (from Word) Tips for creating accessible and user friendly EPUB documents
EPUB (from Pages) Learn how to use advanced options in Pages to create a digital book in EPUB format
Microsoft Publisher Tips for creating accessible & user friendly documents with Microsoft Publisher
Adobe InDesign Tips for creating accessible and user friendly documents with Adobe InDesign
Using InDesign to create accessible forms With InDesign you can create an accessible fill-able PDF form that meets 508 standards for online document accessibility. This covers 6 design steps for building your forms properly. Forms created this way require nearly no additional markup from Adobe Acrobat.
MathTyoe Tips for creating accessible and user friendly math equations
Pages Tips for creating accessible and user friendly documents in Pages (Mac OS)
An alt Decision Tree This decision tree describes how to use the alt attribute of the element in various situations. For some types of images, there are alternative approaches, such as using CSS background images for decorative images or web fonts instead of images of text.
Making Images Accessible how to make images accessible. Topics include writing ALT text as well as working with complex images such as maps, graphs and equations. Many techniques for providing additional image descriptions for complex images can also benefit sighted students.