Social Media Accessibility

• Keep it short, usually 1-2 sentences. Don’t overthink it.
• Consider key elements of why you chose this image for your document, instead of describing every little detail.
• No need to say “image of” or “picture of.”
• But, do say if it’s a logo, illustration, painting, or cartoon.
• Don’t duplicate text that’s adjacent in the document or website.
• End the alt text sentence with a period.

When adding images, consider why you have chosen that particular image and what you want it to convey. 

Example: This image will be used on a page about the Women's Basketball Team's Championship.

Poor Alt Text: "UMass Amherst Basketball Team Player."

Useful Alt Text: "Basketball stadium with a UMass Amherst Women's Basketball Player throwing a free throw with a teammate in the background."

Alt text for logos should reference the image's purpose. They may or may not include the word logo.

Example: This is UMass Amherst's new seal of the iconic spire of Old Chapel used on many branded materials. 

Poor Alt text: "UMass Amherst." 

Useful Alt text: "UMass Amherst's Maroon Old Chapel Spire Seal."

If the image is being used to link to another page, the alt text should describe what will happen when the image is clicked (rather than what it looks like). 

Example: This question mark links to a help page and is intended to encourage users to click if they need support.

Poor Alt Text: "Question Mark." 

Useful Alt Text: "Contact Support."

Customize your design experience with keyboard navigation, light and dark modes, and options for color contrast. You can now also create accessible designs by adding Alternative Text and turning on auto-generated captions for videos.

See our keyboard shortcuts to help you design on your device.

Switch between light, dark, or even sync with your system settings. See Light and dark mode settings for details. Enabling high color contrast is also available.

Enable captions to let more people watch and interact with your videos. These are available for all spoken-word video and audio content in Canva.

Avoid surprises with video and audio by choosing how videos play on your Canva designs. Set it from your

Settings > Your account tab > Accessibility.

Describe your images and elements using alternative text. This enables people with visual or cognitive impairments to experience your designs.

Automatically translate pages of your designs to make them accessible worldwide. We currently support over 100+ languages.

You can let on-screen messages stay longer by enabling this setting. From the homepage, go to

Settings > Your account tab > Accessibility.

Optimize your design's accessibility for screen readers. From your selected design, press File. Select

Language. Select dropdown to select your language from the list. Select language to choose the language and confirm the one used in your design.

PDFs now include heading tags and reading order, enhancing the reading experience for screen reader users. This feature is available for all PDF-published documents.

To support the diverse needs of different audiences, you can turn on or off the Reduce motion setting when viewing or presenting designs.

More Information on Canva Accessibility Features on the Help Center

Computer:

• On the editor, select the element or image you want to add an alt text.
• Click the more options icon that appears, then select Alternative text.
• Enter the description in the text box, then click Save.

Mobile:

• On the editor, tap the element or image you want to add an alt text.
• Tap the more options icon that appears, then select Alternative text.
• Type in the description in the text box that'll appear, then tap Save once done.

Keep it brief and concise. Describe the image using a few words to avoid long and overwhelming text.

Be helpful and clearly explain what the image conveys. Avoid using unnecessary words and only provide information that is relevant to the context.

Use file names that perfectly describe what's in the image to make it easier for people to find it and figure out what it's for.

Use it to rank your website higher in search engine results. Adding relevant keywords can also help your SEO.

Exporting and sharing a design with ALT text is available for images and elements when shared via its design share link and Canva Presenter mode.

We’re working on adding more, but right now, it’s available for the following exports:

• PDF
• PPTX
• HTML
• Canva design share link
• Canva Presentation mode

Alt text won't be included in your downloads of certain image and video formats (e.g., PNG, MP4, AVI).

User Settings: The User Settings page hosts two feature options to enhance accessibility. Learn how to change user settings.

• High Contrast UI: When enabled, this feature offers higher contrast in buttons, tabs, and other areas throughout Canvas.
• Underline Links: When enabled, this feature underlines hyperlinks in navigation menus, the Dashboard, and page sidebars.

The Rich Content Editor supports multiple accessibility features for easy creation of accessible content:

• The Rich Content Editor includes an accessibility tool that checks common accessibility errors within the editor. This tool can help you design course content while considering accessibility attributes and is located in the Rich Content Editor menu bar. Learn how to use the Accessibility Checker in the Rich Content Editor.
• Alt text should be added when embedding external images. Learn how to embed images from the web in the Rich Content Editor.
• Closed captions should be embedded for videos uploaded to Canvas. Learn how to view and manage captions using the Rich Content Editor.
• Headings for table columns and rows can be changed in either the Rich Content Editor or the HTML Editor view.

1. Click Reply in the discussion
2. Click the image icon (looks like a mountain) to upload an image from your computer
   1. 
3. If you wanted to use an image from your Canvas account files click on the arrow next to the image icon to display the following menu. A window will open. In that window browse to and select the picture file.
4. Once you've selected the picture file, click on the image in the rich content editor, select "Image Options" and from there you'll be able to type a description in the Alt text box (you can also adjust the image size), then click Update.
   1. 
5. Make other changes to your discussion post as needed, then click "Post Reply".

In addition to this, you can also check your accessibility issues using the button with the person standing in a circle.

On Desktop

• press the User settings button > App Settings > Accessibility

On Mobile

• Head to your User Settings by pressing your avatar on the bottom right > App Settings > Accessibility

Discord is currently adding a Saturation slider to the Accessibility Settings Tab that allows users to adjust the contrast of the colors in the client for our users with color sensitivities.

This allows for the reduction of saturation of colors within the application, for those with color sensitivities. It does not affect the saturation of images, videos, role colors or other user-provided content by default. There is a sliding scale that reduces the saturation, found in the accessibility section in the app settings.

You can set Sticker animations to Always animate, Animate on interaction, or never animate. 

Text-To-Speech has been available to all users on Discord for some time now, but over the years we've listened to your need to adjust the speed at which message content is read back to you. Which is what led us to build the Text-To-Speech Slider. You can get text-to-speech by using /tts command.

From User Settings > Accessibility, use the Text-to-Speech rate slider setting to adjust the speed at which you would like text read back to you.

After adjusting the speed, you can preview the Text-to-Speech rate by clicking on the ‘Preview’ button.

For more information about Text to Speech, check out this article.

If you’re on a Windows device, you can Sync contrast settings on your Discord client if you have Windows High Contrast Mode enabled on your device. Check out this article to find steps on how to enable High Contrast mode on Windows.  

With High Contrast Mode enabled on your Windows device, Discord will adopt its theme colors. You can choose to opt-out by turning off Sync contrast settings.

With both High Contrast Mode and the client sync enabled, your original Theme settings for your client will be disabled (i.e. Dark & Light themes). If you prefer to keep Discord’s theme colors on your client even with High Contrast Mode enabled on your device, you will have to disable Sync contrast settings from your Accessibility settings tab. This will reactivate your original Theme settings.

This setting will only take effect if you have enabled High Contrast Mode on your Windows device first. Otherwise, if you have High Contrast Mode disabled on your device, you won’t see any changes to Discord when you interact with Sync contrast settings.

From your Accessibility settings tab, you can Sync contrast settings with your Windows contrast theme. You can only enable/disable if you have Windows High Contrast Mode enabled from your device’s settings.

Have any feedback about contrast settings? Let us know in our Accessibility Feedback form. 

You can learn more about changing your Discord client’s appearance at this article.

On Discord, server admins and moderators can set up permissions for their server members through a role system. A server’s various roles can be identified by color, which defaults to applying a color to your username, or server nickname, based on your highest sitting role of that server. However, users have told us that some role colors make a username or server nickname illegible against their selected Discord theme. To solve for this, users can now determine how role colors are displayed in their personal view of their Discord client.

Go to User Settings > Accessibility, then navigate to the Role Colors section. You can choose from:

• Show role colors in names
• Show role colors next to names
• Don’t show role colors

Profile themes allow Nitro subscribers to customize the color of the background and border of their profile cards in Discord. If you would prefer for the background colors of all profile cards to be uniform in color in your personal view of the Discord client, you can apply your client theme to profile cards with the Sync profile themes setting. This is ideal for people who have chosen a client theme so that text is easier to read and this setting applies that client theme preference to profile cards.

1. Go into your User Settings by clicking the Cog/Gear Icon (⚙︎) at the bottom-left corner of the app.

2. Select Accessibility from the left hand panel, then scroll down the page to find the Profile Colors section.

3. Toggle on the Sync profile themes. This is also where you can disable the sync of profile themes and the Discord client theme to utilize the color gradation options for profile themes.

Looking for other accessibility features not listed in the Accessibility Settings page? Check out:

• Accessible Drag and Drop FAQ
• Image Alt Text

1. Hold down ctrl (PC) or command (Mac) on your keyboard.
2. Press + to zoom in or - to zoom out.

1. Click Photo/Video at the top of your timeline or Feed.
2. Choose a video from your computer, then click Post.
3. We'll notify you when your video is ready to view. Click the notification or the gray date and time at the top of the post on your Feed or timeline.
4. Click three dots button in the top right and select Edit post.
5. Click the edit button from composer > select Add captions from the left dropdown menu.
6. Click Upload next to Upload captions and then select a Subrip (.srt) file from your computer.
7. Click Save.

1. Click your video to expand it.
2. Click three dots button in the top right and select Edit post.
3. Next to Captions click the X next to the file you want to remove.
4. Click Save.

Automatic alt text uses object recognition technology to provide a visual description of photos for people with visual impairments. You can replace this text to provide a better description of a photo. Keep in mind that this description will only be read if someone is using a screen reader to access Instagram. REMEMBER: Reread what the automatic alt text says, as sometimes it may be wrong or misleading.

1. Start by uploading an existing photo to Instagram.
2. Choose a filter and edit the image, then click Next.
3. Click Accessibility, then write the alt text in the box.
4. Click Share to post.

1. Above your photo or video, click the three dots in the upper right hand corner.
2. Click Edit.
3. Click Accessibility, then write the alt text in the box.
4. Click Done to save your changes.

A picture is worth a thousand words, but alt text is only 100 characters. It is highly recommend writing an additional image description in the captions, or attaching an image description as the first comment to provide more information about an image and different elements included. For example, alt text tells someone that there’s a puddle on the floor, and image description tells someone that the puddle on the floor is in the middle of the floor and it’s orange juice.

Adding Image Descriptions to a new post:

• Add an open bracket at the end of your caption: [
• Add the phrase “image description:”
• Type out/copy and paste whatever you want to add.
• Close the bracket at the end of your description: ]
  • [Image description: Five UMass Amherst students next to a white board studying chemistry.]

Adding image descriptions to an existing post:

To add a longer image description to an existing post

• Click on the three vertical dots at the top of the post
• Click “edit”
• Edit the caption of the photo to include an additional image description

Make sure to:

• Write out any important text.
• Explain what's in the photo.
• Identify who is in the picture.

While using light text on a light background or dark text on a dark background may look interesting, many people with low vision or color deficiencies will have trouble reading information. Make sure there is good contrast between text and background colors and that fonts are easy-to-read. This is especially helpful for student run clubs and event profiles.

Adding Alt Text on Desktop:

Adding Alt Text on Mobile:

1. From the share box at the top of your LinkedIn homepage (desktop experience), click the Video icon.
2. In the pop-up that appears, click Select video to share.
3. Select the video you’d like to share from your desktop.
4. From the video preview that appears, click Edit in the top right corner to view your video’s settings.
5. Click Select Caption to attach a SRT file and confirm your selection.
6. Add any additional text or hashtags and click Post.
   • Once the video is uploaded, processed, and ready to view, you will get a notification. The closed captioning will be viewable at that time.

Live transcription

When you record a meeting, transcription starts automatically.

To start a live transcription only:

1. Select More actions three dots button in the meeting controls.

2. Choose Record and transcribe, and select Start transcription .

All participants see a notification that the meeting is being transcribed. Participants can choose to can choose to hide their identities in meeting captions and transcripts.

Obscenities are obscured by asterisks.

Hide or show a live transcription

1. Select More actions three dots button  in the meeting controls.

2. Hover over Record and transcribe .

3. Select Hide transcript  or Show transcript.

Download a transcript

When the meeting is over, the transcript is immediately available in the meeting event on the calendar. By default, meeting organizers and co-organizers can download it as a .docx or .vtt file.

You may also be able to give others permission to download a transcript, depending on policies set by your IT admin.

To download a transcript:

1. Select Chat  in Teams.

2. Open the past meeting chat.

3. Select Recap.

4. In Recap, select the dropdown arrow next to Download  and choose the type of file you want the download to be.

Magnify screen content

With the Magnifier tool you can enlarge the whole screen (Full screen) or just a part of the screen (Lens pane) to make text and items on the screen easier to see.

1. To quickly start Magnifier, press the Windows logo key+Plus sign (+).
2. To zoom in, press the Windows logo key+Plus sign (+). To zoom out, press the Windows logo key+Minus sign (-).
3. When the focus is on Magnifier, you can change its settings on the Magnifier toolbar. Press the Tab key or Shift+Tab to move on the Magnifier toolbar. To select an option or options list, press Spacebar. To exit an option or options list, press Esc.
4. To exit Magnifier and close the tool, press the Windows logo key+Esc.

For more information, go to Use Magnifier to make things on the screen easier to see.

Use high contrast color

With the high contrast mode, the enhanced color contrast can help you see text and items on your screen better, making it also less straining on your eyes. For instructions, refer to Change settings in Teams.

Turn captions on and off

For persons who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, live captions allow to see what others are saying.

To start and stop using live captions in a meeting, go to your meeting controls and select More options > Turn on live captions or Turn off live captions.

Change your background during a meeting

Reducing visual distractions can be especially helpful for persons with visual impairment or cognitive communication difficulties, for example. When the background is blurred or there is a steady image, it is easier to focus on the person speaking.

1. To alter your background while in a meeting, go to your meeting controls and select More actions > Show background effects.
2. Select Blur to blur your background, or choose from the available images to replace it. To upload an image of your own, select Add new and pick a .jpg, .png, or .bmp file from your computer.
3. You can preview your chosen background to see how it looks before you apply it.

Record a meeting

A meeting recording can be helpful for people with cognitive difficulties, for example. You can go through the recording at your own pace as well as go back to double-check anything you might have missed.

To start and stop recording in a meeting, go to your meeting controls and select Start recording or Stop recording.

You can find the recording in the meeting chat history. To open the chat history, go to your meeting controls and select Show conversation. If you use Microsoft Outlook, a link to the meeting recording will also be sent to your email.

To view a list of all available keyboard shortcuts, press (Mac) or (Windows/Linux) from Slack on your desktop, or visit Slack keyboard shortcuts and commands.

Navigate Slack with your keyboard, has more information on keyboard shortcuts.

Once you upload a file or image into Slack, there is an option to edit the file’s details. When users select this, a window opens that allows them to rename the file and add alt text. Many people skip this step, but alt text is an essential tool for web accessibility. Managers should ensure that all employees know about and use this feature. 

GIFs do not have an alt text option in Slack, but Slack encourages users to add captions to GIFs. In Slack, the proper way to add a caption is to type /giphy #caption "insert the description in quotes" [giphy search term] in the message bar. The caption is then overlaid on the GIF and will be readable by screen readers.

Instead of pasting a long URL into a message, use descriptive linked text. Provide context on the link and where it will take you when you click it. For example, add a link to the text "complete the online form" and let everyone know if the form will open in a new tab.

Try to make your channel names clear and descriptive, even the silly or casual channels. Following a consistent naming convention can make navigating channels with a screen reader easier. It's common to include dashes between words in Slack channels rather than blocking text together—for example, #social-media-analytics instead of #socialmediaanalytics. The separation helps screen readers read the words more clearly.

• Break down walls of text to create a clear message.

  Apply bullet points and white space. Bold important words (but use this sparingly).

Note: captions are only available in English and not saved once the huddle ends. 

Take notes in the chat (also called the thread) as needed by clicking the conversation bubble icon in the lower right corner of the screen.

Add a topic to display a topic header by clicking the gear icon at the bottom of the screen. 

Closed captioning is available for huddles. Transcripts are available for all recorded videos. 

Include a descriptive file name for all videos and audio before posting. Access audio transcripts by clicking the three-line icon in the audio player.

Text-to-speech converts typed text to a voiceover that plays over the text as it appears in the video. This feature is particularly helpful for visually impaired or blind users.

Text-to-speech can be added during video editing by tapping the added text then selecting, “Text-to-speech”.

Auto captions transcribe a video’s spoken audio into text. This feature helps viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing enjoy content without missing context.

Users can add captions during video editing after they’ve uploaded or recorded a video. The text is automatically transcribed and can be edited before it’s displayed on your video.

This feature will initially be available in American English and Japanese, with additional language support in the coming months.

Sometimes, automatic captions on TikTok are incorrect. Make sure to double check to make sure words sync correctly.

Web Browser

• High contrast mode
• Reduce motion
• Video autoplay on/off
• Font size customization
• Dark / Dim modes
• Display color customization

iOS

• Pronounce # as hashtag
• Include username in Timeline option
• Read shortened URLs option
• Magic Tap action to compose post
• High contrast mode
• Video autoplay on/off
• Open links in Reader view
• Font size customization
• Dark / Dim modes
• Media preview
• Sound effects

Android

• Pronounce # as hashtag
• Reduce motion
• Video autoplay on/off
• Media preview
• Dark / Dim modes
• Sound effects
• Font size customization

We’ve enabled automatic closed captioning on all Enterprise VOD content, giving team members the power to search for keywords in any relevant video and find the exact moment they’re looking for, in just seconds. Auto captions are available in English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish to users on any paid plans. These captions are enabled by default for Enterprise users.

Vimeo Enterprise and Advanced customers can enable automated closed captions on their live streams. Closed captions on live streams make it possible for those with diverse levels of aural abilities, language comprehension skills, and learning styles to consume and enjoy live content. You can learn more about what they are, and how to implement them, here. 

• Support for subtitles and captions: Vimeo allows creators to either upload their own subtitles and captions or use AI to generate captions in 7 different languages. To turn on captions or subtitles when viewing a video, click the CC button in the player's bottom toolbar.
• Support for multi-audio tracks: Vimeo allows you to include multi-language or descriptive audio, commentary tracks, and more, which means you can further customize your viewer experience and reach more people.
• Higher color contrast: To ensure users of all sight abilities can fully experience videos on Vimeo, our player will now maintain a default color contrast ratio. 
• Clearer focus states: For users who rely on their keyboards to navigate, we've added changes that make it clear which element in the player is active at any given time. Users will now see a blue or white box around the active element, with a high color contrast.
• Better support for screen readers: For users who rely on screen readers (e.g. JAWS, NVDA), we ensure that any element in the Vimeo player can be read accordingly.

1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.
2. From the left menu, select Subtitles.
3. Select the video that you'd like to edit.
4. Click ADD LANGUAGE and select your language.
5. Under "Subtitles", click ADD.
6. Then choose from one of the options to add your subtitles and captions.  

Edit Caption Text:

1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.
2. From the left menu, select Subtitles .
3. Click the video you’d like to edit.
4. Find the language you'd like to edit, hover over the details under "Subtitles" select Duplicate and Edit .
5. Click inside any line in the caption track panel and edit the text.
6. Click PUBLISH when you're done.

Edit Caption Timing:

Remove captions

To stop captions from showing on your video, you can delete them completely from your video and Google Account.

1. Sign in to YouTube Studio.
2. From the left menu, select Subtitles.
3. Find the language you’d like to delete, hover over the details under “Subtitles” >  click Delete.
4. You’ll be asked to confirm that you want to delete the captions. Click DELETE CAPTIONS.

Transcripts are a simple way of creating captions. They contain the text of what is said in the video and may contain video chapters. You can enter a transcript directly in your video or follow the steps below to create a transcript file.

Transcripts work best with videos that are less than an hour long with good sound quality and clear speech. The transcript file should be in the same language as the dialogue in the video. After you've created your file, follow the instructions to upload it to your video.

Format your transcript file

Type the text of what was said in your video and save it as a plain text file (.txt). You can convert other formats (like Microsoft Word, HTML) into a plain text file or you can use native programs on your computer like Notepad.

To get the best results, use these formatting tips:

• To force the start of a new caption, use a blank line.
• To designate background sounds, use square brackets. For example, [music] or [laughter].
• Add >> to identify speakers or change of speaker.