Interactives Accessibility: Best Practices and Remediation

Digital content created with applications such as Articulate Storyline or SoftChalk offers many benefits for teaching and learning. While these tools allow educators to design lessons that include quizzes, videos, simulations, and clickable activities, which help students stay engaged and actively involved in the learning process, there are two major obstacles to consider when using these platforms: – accessibility and cost of ownership

Key Takeaways

• Determine if the content can be presented in other more accessible format within Canvas that is still interactive and visually pleasing.

Start with Intention

Interactive content supports different learning styles by combining text, visuals, and audio, making complex information easier to understand. It also provides immediate feedback, helping learners identify mistakes and improving their understanding right away. In addition, this type of content can be accessed online at any time, giving students flexibility to learn at their own pace while allowing instructors to track progress and improve instruction.

Before using interactive content such as Storyline or Softchalk in your course, pause and ask the Foundational Question:

Does this content need to be delivered in this format?

In many cases, content may be more accessible when presented as a Canvas Page or as a Panopto video, both of which provide greater flexibility for screen readers, captions, and navigation. Interactive content uploaded through SCORM packages directly into Canvas are not scanned by Yuja and do not receive an accessibility score. These items are often difficult to access by students using screen readers because the final product format is not accessible or the built in accessibility tools are not sufficient to make the interactive fully accessible. 

If the answer is Yes, this content needs to remain in an interactive format, please explore the accessibility options within the application. Otherwise, consider using one of the other more accessible application.

Accessibility and Interactives | This video explains how to evaluate the accessibility of interactive learning materials and use a decision tree to determine whether they should be removed, recreated in Canvas, or redesigned with support from an IDEAS liaison.

Accessibility Resources by Content Type

This section provides file-specific guidance to help you identify and fix accessibility issues across common content types used in Canvas. The IDEAS team offers open labs, training sessions, and individualized support throughout the semester to help faculty meet accessibility expectations with confidence.
Click on a content type below to access step-by-step resources, best practices, and remediation support.

• 
  📄 PDF
  
• 
  📊 PowerPoint
  
• 
  📝 Word Document
  
• 
  📈 Excel Document
  
• 
  🔧 Interactive Content
  
• 
  📑 Canvas Content
  
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  🧭 Accessibility Guide Overview
  
• 
  ⚙️ YuJa Course Report
  
• 
  ⚠️ YuJa Troubleshoot Guide