Goals
The goals of this activity are to motivate:
- How screen readers interpret and convey assignment/web content
- The importance of alternative text, proper semantic markup, and accessible curriculum design
- Common accessibility issues in assignments and course materials
This activity works best when participants are familiar with the course content, and can work in groups to engage in meaningful discussions about accessibility.
Instructions
- Divide participants into small groups (3-5 people).
- Using a screen reader, navigate through the obscured assignments.
- Participants should attempt to identify which assignment is being referenced based on the screen reader output.
Our experience shows that the absence of proper alt-text and semantic structures makes these assignments difficult to navigate. Since the assignments heavily relied on images and code, screen readers fail to capture the full context, leading to confusion among participant groups.
Obscured Assignments
We scraped three assignments from our introductory course sequence, ensuring that semantics were preserved. This means removing all non-essential elements not related to the content (e.g., navigation).
These examples were made using the source code from their EdStem assignment representations. They contain a variety of accessibility issues for you to identify and discuss, as the EdStem styling and non-essential elements have been stripped.