Edit for Accessibility
Purpose: Edit PDF Files to Meet Accessibility Standards
Created Using: Adobe Acrobat
Created For: Technical Editing and Style (TCID 3120)
Edit for Accessibility
Editing for accessibility is taking content and ensuring that it is usable by all people. Accessibility edits ensure documents are readable, understandable, and navigable. This is especially important for people with disabilities that might have significant barriers to accessing information.
Context
The final project for TCID 3120 had students editing nine documents for a chemistry class at UCCS. There were three distinct phases of editing starting with the creation of a style guide, next was general document editing, and then the accessibility edits could be completed. Students were given a total of six weeks to accomplish all tasks. The editing was completed inside Adobe Acrobat, so most students had to use a remote desktop to gain access to the university’s full Adobe licenses.
I knew very little about accessibility prior to this assignment. None of my previous classes had anything about accessibility in their curriculum. What I did know about accessibility came from messing around with accessibility settings inside video games such as menu narration and color blindness. I am mildly color blind (deuteranomaly), and I do occasionally struggle with some green-brown colors.
Analysis
My partner and I edited the documents to Adobe Acrobat’s internal accessibility standards. Adobe uses the WCAG 2.0-2.2 and ISO 14289-1 accessibility standards that meet most international accessibility requirements. Adobe Acrobat has an accessibility “wizard” that is supposed to make editing for accessibility a simple operation.
There was a lot of time to wait while the other students did their share of the editing, so I did study up on accessibility prior to beginning. Unfortunately, I was not prepared enough for the difficulty of using Adobe Acrobat’s accessibility tools. A lot of the edits were simple, such as adding alt text and tagging pictures. However, most of the edits were very confusing and Adobe’s sparse instructional guides made editing difficult. I ended up spending hours watching YouTube tutorials to properly tag documents.
Reflection
The difficulties in accomplishing the edits taught me a lot about Adobe and the importance of accessibility. I learned a lot about Acrobat and how it might be a little outdated and difficult to use at times, despite being so widely used. I also learned about accessibility in documents, and how it is a lot more complex than I had thought before this assignment. Accessibility is a skill that I should invest more time in. There are plenty of self-paced accessibility training courses online that I will start looking into this summer.