As a supplement to our recently released report on authorship and accessibility, we have compiled this list of resources that explain how authors can make their works more accessible in a variety of media formats. It is our hope that these resources will amplify the message of the report and encourage authors to make accessibility a part of their workflow when creating digital content.

 

Books

Dave Gunn, Accessible Books Consortium: Accessible eBook Guidelines for Self-Publishing Authors

This explanation of how to create accessible e-books isn’t just for self-published authors; it is useful for anyone wishing to create a digital book with accessible features. These guidelines define key terms and explain how to make e-books accessible for a range of platforms, including Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBooks, and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Press. A checklist at the end provides a handy summary of the material.

Apple: iBooks Authors: How to Make Your Books Accessible

This guidance describes how to include descriptions of images and objects in iBooks and provides other handy tips for creating accessible iBooks.

 

PDFs and Documents

Adobe: Create and Verify PDF Accessibility (Acrobat Pro)

Adobe’s detailed guide to PDF accessibility explains how to create accessible PDFs and check the accessibility of existing PDFs. Adobe guides you through setting a logical reading order, checking color contrast, tagging images, and everything in between.

National Center on Disability and Access to Education: Creating Accessible PDF Documents in Adobe Acrobat

This one-pager and accompanying video explain how to use Adobe’s accessibility wizard and address common issues.

Microsoft: Microsoft Accessibility Center

Microsoft has also created a suite of accessibility guides for their products, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, that explain common issues (such as handling images and links) and how to correct them.

National Center on Disability and Access to Education: Creating Accessible Microsoft Word Documents

This one-pager was last updated in 2018 and provides quick tips on using heading styles, alternative text, and other features in Microsoft Word to make documents more accessible.

 

Video

University of Washington: Creating Accessible Videos

This guidance provides an overview of video accessibility, including information about captions, transcripts, and audio descriptions. It also links to instructions on how to make accessible videos on a variety of platforms, including YouTube, Panopto, Canvas, and Facebook.

YouTube: Add Your Own Subtitles & Closed Captions and Use Automatic Captioning

YouTube’s tutorials explain how to create and upload closed captions to YouTube videos and how to review and make changes to YouTube’s machine-generated captions.

National Center on Disability and Access to Education: Captioning YouTube Videos

This one-pager and accompanying video were last updated in 2018 and explain how to add and edit captions on YouTube videos.

 

Images

Benetech: DIAGRAM Center Image Description

This guide from accessibility nonprofit Benetech explains how to correctly describe images to print-disabled users—very useful for providing helpful alt text and other descriptions that include necessary information while leaving out details that can confuse screen reading tools.

 

Mathematical Equations

DIAGRAM Center: Accessible Math

Another excellent resource from Benetech, this guide explains how to make printed mathematical equations and diagrams accessible to readers with limited or no vision.

 

Websites

W3C: Web Accessibility Tutorials

Last but not least, this collection of tutorials for website accessibility is presented by WC3, the international standards organization for the World Wide Web.