When you run UDOIT, you will see a list of errors and suggestions. Here are 5 of the most common errors that we've seen appear.

This screen reader sample will show you what the "Hyperlinks" section of this page would sound like. There are two issues to notice here:

1. The first image has an appropriate Alt Tag describing the content of the image. The second image on has the default Alt Tag which is the name of the file. In this case "hypericon.png." The name of the image is not usually useful information.

2. Notice the difference in how the two links are read. In the first example (the bad one) the screen reader spells out the entire link and then spells it out again as the value. That's annoying. In the second example the name of the link is read to the user, and then the link is given as a value. This gives the user much more information about the link, and they can skip over the value if they're not interested.

1. Hyperlinks

Image showing an error in which the links don't have appropriate text content

Design Tip - Instead of listing a hyperlink as https://ccs.instructure.com/courses/1181412
You can instead write the name of the link, eLearning Faculty Development and click the following icon

Image showing the correct icon - an image of a link - that shows users how to name a hyperlink

This icon allows you to enter the whole URL for the website.

2. Captioned Videos

Image showing an error in which the video content doesn't have proper audio captions

eLearning recommends learning how to auto-caption your videos using Youtube or Panopto. This doesn't make your course or video 508 compliant, however, it does make your course more accessible than without them. [If you are contacted by DSS that you have students in your course who need specific modification we will need to be sure to have accurate captions for your course videos. Contact eLearning if this situation arises.]

3. Tables and Headers

Error that shows when a table doesn't have header to give context to students using a screen reader

Giving a table a header helps learners understand the context of the information in the table. If you are using a table only to design or layout your content, and the table doesn't have anything to do with the meaning of the content, you can disregard this error.

4. Bold/Italics

error showing when bold or italics is used to organize a document

Using bold and italics shouldn't be used to structure or organize a content page. Use heading styles for that. Bold and italics are better used for highlighting or emphasizing specific text. Often, we will make a section of text bold and give it a larger font size to organize sections of a document. This style of page building, which we are all guilty of, presents a lot of challenges to non-sighted students when they are trying to navigate a content page.

5. Alt Text

UDOIT error showing that Alt Text needs to be supplied to images

Be sure that if the image is conveying meaning, you provide a similar written description. If your image isn't conveying meaning, it is still good practice to describe what the image is of.

When you are building a content page and you want to add an Alt Text to an image click the "embed image" embed image icon.png
icon. Here you can add your description.

Click next below to move on to the discussion about the UDOIT tool.