Accessibility and Remediation

Having digital content meet Web Content Accessibility (WCAG)  2.0 AA Standards for accessibility supports all Endicott faculty, staff, students, parents, and community members to engage with Endicott resources and events.

Checking for Accessibility

There are many tools for checking if documents, slideshows, files, or other digital content are accessible.

Remediation

In order to ensure that all digital content at Endicott is accessibility to all learners, digital files often need to be remediated. Here, we provide resources for remediating the Top 5 most common accessibility obstacles.

If you would like one-on-one or small group training and support on remediating specific files, please reach out to staff in Academic Technology or the Center for Accessibility Services.

1. Alternative Text (alt-text)

Alt-text is the text that is displayed when an image fails or is unable to load or is read by a screen reader. It is a short description of an image that highlights the most important parts for the viewer to take away.

Canvas

Add alt-text to images using the Rich Content Editor (RCE) or the Ally Accessibility Report tool.

Microsoft

Add alt-text to images in Microsoft Office products including Word and PowerPoint.

Google Drive

Add alt-text to images in Google Drive products including Docs and Slides.

Adobe Acrobat (PDF)

Add alt-text to images in a PDF using Adobe Acrobat’s Accessibility tool.

2. Descriptive Hyperlinks

Rather than hyperlinks (URLs) being visible in full, a descriptive hyperlink provides context information about a link. The descriptions should be clear and concise based both on the context of the link and what a viewer should take away from that link. Phrases like “click here” should be avoided as a part of the descriptive hyperlink.

Canvas

Embed a hyperlink in text using the Rich Content Editor (RCE).

Microsoft

Create or edit a hyperlink in Microsoft Office products including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and more.

Google Drive

Embed a hyperlink in text within Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets.

Adobe Acrobat (PDF)

Add a link using the editor function in Acrobat. Unless a document is created in Adobe Acrobat, you will likely need to remediate the original file to have descriptive hyperlinks before converting it into a PDF

3. Headings

Headings allow users with sight or who use a screen reader to quickly navigate and jump to important parts of a website, document, slideshow, or other file. Comparatively, headers are a designated space at the top of a document or file that can repeat, often including a file name, date, logo, etc.

Canvas

Use the built-in style formats, allowing for a Heading 1 (limited to the page title) and up to 5 sub-heading levels (H2 through H6) in the Rich Content Editor (RCE).

Microsoft

Identify a particular heading style as customize the style format for consistent across a document, slideshow, or file.

Google Drive

Select and customize different heading level styles to Microsoft Office, but not Google Slides nor Sheets.

Adobe Acrobat (PDF)

Change the tags of a particular section of text if the text does not have a necessary “heading” tag.

4. Captions and Transcripts

All videos should have captions available to be enabled. YuJa, Endicott’s media management tool, can auto-generate captions and transcripts that should be human-checked.

YuJa

Auto-generate caption and transcripts for human-checking before embedding or hyperlinking in a file or website. As of July 2026, videos that you upload to or create in YuJa will automatically get captions. For videos on YuJa that do not have captions, you can request auto-generated captions.

YouTube

Auto-generate captions for human-checking before embedding and hyperlinking in a file or website.

5. Color Contrast

Having adequately contrasting colors is possibly the most difficult component of accessibility, especially if you are remediating an already existing document. Black and white are the best colors to ensure adequate contrast and readability. Tools like WebAim can check if two colors adequately contrast. One common problem is between a highlight color (or background color) and a font color.

Canvas

Identify and remediate color contrast issues using either the Accessibility Report or the native Accessibility Checker.

Microsoft

Microsoft’s Accessibility Checker will identify any places in a document or PowerPoint that have poor color contrast and identify ways to address it.

Google Drive

Because Google Drive does not have a built-in accessibility checker, users should use WebAim to confirm if colors contrast appropriately and make changes as necessary.

Adobe Acrobat (PDF)

Adobe’s Accessibility Checker will check for color contrast issues in the file. Unless a document is created in Adobe Acrobat, you will likely need to remediate the original file to have appropriate color contrast before converting it into a PDF. You can also indicate that a PDF viewer “use high-contrast colors” when opening.