Designing accessible Moodle courses
Section outline
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In the following, we would like to give you an introduction to the topic of web content with minimal accessibility barriers and show you how you can structure and design your Moodle course with very few barriers. The next important step is then to create learning material that is as accessible as possible. You will find further information on this topic in Section 6.
An increasing share of important information is now communicated and provided in digital form, e.g. via the Internet. This includes news, alerts and educational or entertainment services. Thanks to digitalisation, a growing number of people are getting access to such information, which in turn allows them to participate. However, some presentation formats on the Internet can create barriers that obstruct access to the content. This results in a situation where people with disabilities are often unable to find digital services or use them or participate in them on equal terms. It is only if websites, technical infrastructure (e.g. learning platforms) or learning material are made as accessible as possible (minimal barriers) that people with disabilities are enabled to access information and use digital learning opportunities.
There are laws stipulating that accessibility must be ensured; it is a means that facilitates the use of digital services for virtually everyone. Clearly structured and designed websites, documents or Moodle courses allow people with limited mobility, partial sight, blindness, deafness or conditions that affect learning (e.g. autism spectrum, dyslexia, dyscalculia), people with ‘temporary’ disabilities or limitations resulting from age to find and use (digital) learning opportunities without any additional barriers.
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This section is about the design and structure of your Moodle course. The core areas of keeping barriers to a minimum in a digital context are:
1. Good readability- contrast-rich presentation
- visually and logically understandable text structure
- easily readable font
2. Intuitive and clear navigation- option to hide ‘unnecessary’ areas
- opportunities to navigate without the mouse, using only the keyboard
3. Readability of contents using screen readers- reducing content to what is essential (on overview pages such as the course page of a Moodle course)
- minimising side blocks that are not needed
- readability (by screen readers) of PDF documents
4. Visualising audio information- transcribing/subtitling lecture clips
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Consistency within the course
In order to make them more convenient for all users, Moodle courses should be set up in a sensible, understandable and consistent manner. This does not mean that every course needs to have the same structure. However, care should be taken to ensure that each Moodle course has a sensible and consistent structure and offers a clear overall experience.
The image below is an example of an unstructured course. Some important information is not available centrally within the topic at the top, for example. The individual topic sections are also not arranged chronologically. In general, it is not clear to the participants in this example which resources are relevant and when they are to be worked on.
In the following, we would like to show you how you can design your course consistently.
Start page
Put a document (an accessible PDF file, if possible) at the start of your course, giving your students an overview of the Moodle course (course content/agenda; learning objectives/success criteria; division of contents into those that are relevant to examinations and those that are not; information on bonus points/tasks/examinations; names of contact persons; accessibility information).Headings and paragraphs
Headings and paragraphs help structure a page. Through the Atto editor, Moodle offers you different headline styles, referred to as paragraph styles. Please make sure to use these options for formatting. This will make the identification of headings by tools such as screen readers more reliable. In addition, use meaningful headings that appropriately reflect the relevant section.
These are examples of headline styles in the default version:
Heading (large)
Heading (medium)
Heading (small)
Pre-formatted
Paragraph (default)
Bullet points
You should also use the functions provided by the Atto editor to format both unordered and ordered lists.
Arranging resources
Within the same course, the sequence of content that is used repeatedly should always be similar. This makes it easier to find resources.
Example: you have a section for each week or each topic within your course. You make material available at regular intervals, e.g. the lecture slides, a text that is to be read and prepared, an exercise sheet and other resources. Arrange these resources in the same order for each topic/each week wherever possible. This allows resources to be found faster and more reliably.
Naming resources and activities
The resources are not only to be arranged systematically, but also named using a fixed pattern. When choosing a name, it is important to include significant key words that indicate what exactly the resource in question is, e.g. ‘Slides Lecture 1 held 28 June 2022 topic xy’.
Furthermore, people who use screen readers often search the website for certain key words and formats. Using key words can help them find what they are looking for. -
Colour contrast
Adequate colour contrast is necessary for many partially sighted users to properly perceive visual content. This also applies to individuals with colour vision deficiency or colour blindness. Therefore, you should use contrast-rich colours for texts and captions, ideally with a 3:1 ratio. You can use the colour contrast checker to assess your Moodle course (see Tools). The following sentence illustrates the significance of colour contrasts: as opposed to the previous text, this sentence is low contrast and thus difficult to read for users with both partial and full sight.
In your Moodle course, various colours are available in both the default or the Atto editor (‘paintbrush’ icon). The shades of blue combined with the black default font colour constitute a suitable contrast ratio. If you need further colours, select the relevant word and click the greyscale ‘paintbrush’ icon within the colour selection menu. Another dialog window opens in which you can assign further font colours:
Bear in mind that a suitable colour contrast ratio is required if documents or content are to be printed in black and white or read on monochrome screens such as e-paper displays.
Colour selection
Avoid using the colours green and red in your Moodle course. If use of these colours cannot be avoided, mark important information, for example, using additional icons or add a suitable description to the content.
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Image source: Pixabay/Larisa-K/Pixabay licenceImage content should always include an alternative text, which can be read out by special software. Descriptions of images allow blind people to grasp the content of the image and thus get all the information that people with eyesight have.
In Moodle, you can enter alternative texts for your images directly while uploading them.
A brief digression into technology
The alternative text is then stored in the source code of the website. The <alt>-
tag is used for alternative texts in HTML. Based on this tag, screen readers can automatically identify the alternative text and read it out. Using your browser’s developer options, you can have the source code and thus the alternative text displayed in code. 
Please note: Complex image content can often not be appropriately described in an alternative text. In such cases, it may be necessary to include a detailed description in the body text or create an alternative in text form.
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Tables
In the early years of the Internet, tables were frequently also used in the formatting and layout of websites. This should be avoided under all circumstances. Assistive software (such as a screen reader) is able to identify tables. However, if tables are used for something other than their intended purpose, their content might not be presented in a sensible manner. Therefore, only use tables to present data.
Moodle provides an easy-to-use table tool in the Atto text editor.
Example of a table: ‘Number of vegetarians in a hypothetical company with 100 employees’ Gender Vegetarian diet Non-vegetarian diet Male 30 20 Female 15 33 Other 1 1 -
LaTeX
is a software package that facilitates the use of the TeX typesetting system by means of macros.
This allows (among other things) the mathematical script of formulas, symbols, etc. to be rendered correctly. Thus, LaTeX is directly supported in Moodle by means of (activated) filters and the corresponding code is rendered (displayed) correctly in the browser output.In this way, entering
\sqrt{ x + y }will result in the following output:
In this context, it is important that you work in the code view (see item 1 in the figure below) or enter the TeX code there in the Moodle text editor. Alternatively, the graphic equation editor (see item 2 in the figure below) can also be used.
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Language use
In a university context, we can generally assume that teaching staff and students have achieved a certain level of language proficiency. However, the German language can be rather complex and it can be helpful to have a clear idea of the target group that the text addresses when writing a text:
- If you wish to provide information to a large group of individuals, such as first-year students or new members of staff, the presumed level of knowledge of the target group should be borne in mind when compiling content.
- In most cases, international staff and students have the required German language skills. Still, this group of people may have difficulties following content or may need more time to process complex information.
- Many people have difficulties reading on screens. Clearly structured online texts in which the important messages can be easily identified make it easier for them to access information.
Therefore, it is recommended that important information, such as lecture dates or important information on examinations, be formulated concisely. If necessary, provide information in both German and English.
Technical terms and abbreviations
Technical terms and abbreviations are initially unknown to many users. Users with certain conditions may also have difficulties understanding unusual words or abbreviations. This also applies to users whose native language is not German.Equally, screen reading software has problems pronouncing uncommon abbreviations correctly. If you would like to use abbreviations and technical terminology in your Moodle course, compile a glossary (‘Add an activity or resource > Glossary’). When the ‘Glossary auto-linking’ filter is enabled, the terms stored in the glossary will be automatically linked whenever they are used in text fields, descriptions or headlines within the Moodle course.Furthermore, it is helpful to flag abbreviations when they are first used in a Moodle course, either by adding the written-out version in brackets after the abbreviation or by tagging them with <abbr> in the source code.
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Structuring your Moodle course in an accessible manner is a first important step in making teaching content accessible to students with disabilities. However, it is just as important that you provide accessible learning material and make it available in your course. Please find some links (in German) offering tips, information and training opportunities for designing your class in an accessible way.
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- Open Moodle course on keeping barriers to a minimum from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (German only)
- Blog entry in Hochschulforum Digitalisierung: Assessment processes for the technical aspects of inclusive digital learning opportunitiese by Dr. Björn Fisseler (Fernuniversität in Hagen; only available in German)
- Open Moodle course on keeping barriers to a minimum from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (German only)
