Creating accessible documents

Overview

This session provides practical steps to make your Word documents more accessible, including features such as meaningful headings, clear alt-text, descriptive hyperlinks, simple tables, and readability improvements. You will learn how to use the Accessibility Checker tool and what to look for during manual accessibility checks. This session will include live demonstrations and real-world document examples. Word documents work effectively as accessible source documents that can be made into HTML pages and PDFs. Please bring your own Word document to work on.

Speaker

Julia Burke helps make accessibility part of everyday work. She brings over 10 years of experience in accessible learning design and facilitation. Burke has conducted disability inclusion research to shape evidence-informed learning experiences. She has designed, authored, and taught higher education courses on learning design, digital writing, collaboration, and accessibility.

Host

W. Francis Fung is the Senior Manager, Skills Development and Employment at March of Dimes Canada. He is lead for stakeholder engagement activities at IDEA and co-lead of IDEA’s Incubator  Hub on  Employment Support Systems. Fung has a master’s in education, community rehabilitation and disability studies from the University of Calgary, and a BSc in psychology from Trent University. He holds a number of designations and certifications related to vocational rehabilitation and evaluation, as well as disability management.

About the IDEA Speaker Series

The IDEA Speaker Series provides an opportunity to hear guest speakers talk about their efforts to create stronger and more diverse labour markets that include persons with disabilities