Course Accessibility: Headings, Links, and Color Contrast

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Today we’re going to start our dive into the new Canvas Accessibility Checker and tackle a few of the issues it checks for. We’ll cover the rest of the items next week, but for now, we’ll focus on the text-based items.  

Before we start looking at the individual items, let’s chat about how to get to this tool and run the report. In your course, find the “Accessibility” link in your course navigation and click it. The first time you go to this page, you’ll get a note that says you have not yet scanned your course and a prompt to scan the course.  

Once the scan is complete, you’ll see a graph detailing the kinds of issues and a list below detailing the resource affected, the number of issues as well as a button to fix them from this page, and info about the type of course item it is.  

The “fix” button is one of my favorite parts of this tool – it allows to you see all of the issues identified for a particular resource, resolve them while still on this page, and even jump directly to the resource with the error if you want.  

Now that you know what to look for on this page, let’s dive into a few of the things this tool checks. 

Headings 

Canvas checks for three different issues when it comes to using headings in your course – using a Heading 1 (H1) on a page, skipping heading levels, and using headings that are too long.  

Using a H1 

Only one H1 can be used in a page to adhere to accessibility standards, and that H1 is automatically applied to the page title. When using headings inside of a page, your largest heading should be a Heading 2 (which is also why there’s no H1 option in the Canvas paragraph styles options).  

The Accessibility Checker will identify any rogue H1s in your content and remind you that an H2 should be the highest level of heading used in a resource. In the “fix” tab, Canvas gives you two options to resolve this issue – changing the heading level to an H2 or turning it into a paragraph.  

If you have a rogue H1, remember that you may have other heading level things to check in your resource one it’s changed – you’ll want to go to the resource to make sure the rest of your headings “stack” properly (e.g., old H2s will likely need to become H3s, H3s become H4s, etc).  

Skipping heading levels 

Canvas will also help you identify if you have skipped a heading level – but there are some limitations to what Canvas can do. As their documentation states, “The tool does not check if the first header starts with H2 or whether the headings are sequential with the rest of the content in the page.” 

Similarly to your options with a rogue H1, Canvas will prompt you to fix the heading level (pull it up a level to the one that was skipped) or turn it into a paragraph. You can select an option in this sidebar, but you may also want to check the resource itself to make sure the rest of your headings are shipshape!  

Too long headings 

Canvas will also check the number of characters in a heading and notify you if it crosses 120 characters. If you encounter this issue in the Accessibility Checker tool, Canvas will gently ask if you meant it to be a paragraph and prompt you to change it to be a paragraph.  

You can use the provided button to change it into a paragraph, but you can also use the “open” or “edit” buttons to jump directly to the resource and complete a more nuanced edit – keeping part of the heading as a heading and either eliminating the rest or changing it to be a paragraph below the heading.  

Links 

The Accessibility Checker can also help you identify any places where a link is erroneously broken into two separate, adjacent links that use the same URL. The fix for this one is easy – Canvas gives you a simple button to merge the separated links into one link.  

Color contrast 

Finally, Canvas will now help you make sure that your text adheres to the proper contrast ratios for text color / background color. This will likely not be an issue for most people, but it is something to keep an eye on if you use the highlight tool or change your text color in Canvas.  

This is an extreme example, but you can see that for this large text example, it is difficult to read against the background color. For this issue (as well as for a small text issue), Canvas suggests a new text color that will meet the contrast guidelines.  

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If you have questions about this tool, Canvas support is here to help! You can contact them through the “help” menu in Canvas. The CTL is also here if you want to discuss accessibility as a broader topic – contact us at ctl@cedarville.edu.  

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