Quick Tips for Web Accessibility

Clean up your files!

When using the Ally tool to assess accessibility, unnecessary files in your course will skew your score. Go through your files and remove anything unused — the fewer files you have to fix, the better.

1. Add Document Titles

A filename like Week3_reading_final_v2.pdf tells a screen reader nothing. Give each file a clear, meaningful title that describes its content.

2. Set Document Language

Go to File → Properties → Description → Language Field and set the language for each document. This helps screen readers pronounce content correctly.

Fix Common PDF Issues

1. Alt Text

Add alt text to all images in your documents. AI tools are great at generating short (~100 word) descriptions — see Making Images and Videos Accessible for guidance.

2. OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

Scanned PDFs that haven’t been run through OCR cannot be read by a screen reader. Two options:

  • Acrobat built-in: Tools → Scan & OCR → Recognize Text
  • HumTech Luna (higher accuracy): Email up to 5 documents at a time to ritc@humnet.ucla.edu

3. Document Structure

Structure communicates reading order to screen readers — it isn’t just visual formatting.

  • Use headers and formatting: These signal hierarchy and order, not just appearance.
  • Auto-tag in Acrobat: Prepare for Accessibility → Automatically Tag PDF.
  • Check tab order: Press the Tab key to navigate through form fields, links, and interactive elements. Focus should move logically — generally top-to-bottom, left-to-right.
  • Verify tab order settings: In Adobe Acrobat Pro, open Page Properties and set Tab Order to Use Document Structure.
  • Reading Order tool: Found under Accessibility in Acrobat — use it to review how tags are structured and confirm correct reading order.

Available Tools

A number of tools are provided by UCLA or freely available to help check and improve the accessibility of your content:

Tool What it does
Ally Accessibility Tool Built-in BruinLearn tool that checks all your course content for accessibility issues.
Siteimprove Register your site to have it scanned for accessibility issues on a regular basis.
Kaltura All media uploaded through Kaltura can easily have AI-generated captions added.
Screen Reader Test how a screen reader would “read” your document to catch issues before your users do.