Moodle Best Practice Guide
Accessibility standards
The Legislation
The EU Directive: Accessibility of Public Sector Websites & Mobile Apps (2018) is the name of the legislation which details accessibility on public sector websites, University Virtual Learning Environments are included within this. We've highlighted the main areas we need to act upon as a University delivering content online below:
- All FE / HE institutions should ensure that websites / learning environments are ‘perceivable, operable, understandable and robust’ (Art. 4. Web Accessibility Directive)
- Institutions must provide an inclusive and accessible experience to all learners
- Institutions should be aware of accessibility and transparent about policies and practices
Some key dates to keep in mind are:
- 23 Sep 2018: The regulations became law
- 23 Sep 2019: Deadline for VLE content (intranets) (if newly published or revised)
- 23 Sep 2020: Deadline for recorded video (if newly published) & older public facing content
What does this mean?
The EU standards mentioned in the legislation above are based on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA. These guidelines lay out a number of rules that websites should follow to ensure as many people as possible can access them. We are working to ensure that we meet these guidelines.
A summary of main points are detailed below:
- Text should be organised with headings (h3-h6 in Moodle)
- Images / videos should have text descriptions
- Users can engage with websites through use of keyboard only
- Websites should be designed to work with assistive technologies / other user tools
- Content should be easy to find and customisable to needs of end-user e.g. reflow, reformat & magnify (up to 200% of original size)
