Canvas Accessibility Tools
Accessibility Benefits Instructors and Students
Making your course content more accessible benefits all students by making materials easier to find, use, and understand. Accessibility is a process, and you don’t have to tackle everything at once — support and training are available at every step. Some fixes are quick and simple, while others may take more time, but even small changes can make a big difference.
Canvas includes three tools to help you check and improve accessibility. While they share similar goals, each offers unique features that can be useful at different stages of your course design process.
A built-in tool that automatically scans Canvas pages, quizzes, assignments, and discussions. The Canvas Accessibility Checker is ideal for checking individual pages as you build or edit them.
The DesignPLUS page editor has a built-in accessibility checker for common issues. You can use the DesignPlus accessibility checker while creating your page content.
Read more about each of these resources below. You can also reach out to CIDI or Digital Accessibility Services for help.
Canvas Accessibility Checker
The Canvas Accessibility Checker is a built-in tool on Canvas pages, quizzes, assignments, and discussions that helps identify and remediate accessibility errors in course content. It will automatically scan the content created in the main editing window (otherwise known as the Rich Content Editor or WYSIWYG editor) for common accessibility issues.
To open the Canvas Accessibility Checker:
- Click the Edit button (top right corner) on a Canvas Page.
- Click the human stick-figure icon below the editing window to open the Canvas Accessibility Checker.
- A side panel will open on the side of the screen with issues (or tell you if there aren't any).
If it does detect any accessibility errors, the icon will feature a blue bubble with the number of errors inside.
Additional Resources for Using The Canvas Accessibility Checker
Ally Accessibility Tool
Ally is a built-in tool in Canvas that helps you make your course content more accessible for all students. It works behind the scenes to scan files, pages, and other course materials, giving you feedback on accessibility issues and clear, step-by-step guidance on how to fix them. With Ally, you can quickly see where improvements are needed and prioritize the most important fixes.
Ally Accessibility Report
The Ally Accessibility Report gives you a quick snapshot of how accessible your course is. It highlights easy fixes and flags any major issues that need attention. By adding the Accessibility Report to your course menu, you can review the accessibility of all your course content in one place and quickly see which items to address first.
Learn how to access your Course Accessibility Report.
Ally Page Editor
You may have noticed red, orange, or green icons in your course. These appear in the top-right corner of the page editor and next to files, documents, and other pieces of content. Clicking on any of these icons shows how accessible that content is and offers guidance on how to improve it. You can also use the icon in the top-right corner of the editor to review all accessibility issues on the page at once.
Student Alternative Formats
Besides helping you make your content more accessible, Ally automatically provides your content to students in formats that can help them access your content more easily. For example, a student can download an audio version of a PDF file from your course to listen to on their way to school.
Additional Resources for Using Ally
Some of the feedback that Ally provides is quick and easy to fix while other content may require more resources. Much of the feedback on how to fix your files can be found directly in Ally, but additional help on improving content is available Open External Link .
- Your students have access to the alternative formats they do not see the feedback icons on individual files.
- The first time an alternative format is created it may take a few minutes, but after that it should download right away.
- It may be helpful to clean up old content from your course, you can use TidyUP! to identify and delete old or unused content.
- Check out this Ally Quick Start for Instructors Guide
Open External Link
for additional information including:
- Learn more about the Ally Accessibility Scores Open External Link
- Understand the Instructor Feedback Panel Open external Link
- Ideas on how to Improve Content Accessibility Open External Link
- Supporting Diverse 21st Century Learners through Universal Design for Learning Workshop from Dr. John Scott
DesignPLUS
DesignPLUS includes an accessibility menu that helps you find and fix common issues like contrast errors, missing alt text, heading problems, and broken links. These built-in tools make it easier to improve accessibility as you build or update your course content.
To open:
- Click on the rocketship icon at the top right corner of the page.
- Navigate to the human stick-figure icon in the DesignPLUS menu.
Additional Resources for Using DesignPLUS
We suggest beginning with the Canvas Accessibility Checker or Ally when fixing accessibility issues. However, all three of these tools work in similar ways and are all designed to help you make your course more accessible. Try them out to see which you prefer—using them together often gives the best results. And remember, support is always available from CIDI or Digital Accessibility Services if you need help.