Accessibility means the consideration of human diversity in digital services. To guarantee the accessibility of webservices, the EU has enacted an Accessibility Directive. In Finland, accessibility is required also by the Act on the Provision of Digital Services, which applies to the online content and services produces by universities and other authorities. The law applies to certain public digital documents produced by students, particularly bachelor's and master’s theses.
An accessible thesis
These are the main points on how to create a documet that is accessible to disabled persons via text-to-speech-tools eg.
- Use the OUAS thesis template, because it is been created as structurally accessible as possible.
- Create simple and descriptive headings.
- Provide an alternative text to images. This does not mean caption text.
- Use tables to present information. Create tables using the Insert Table command in Word.
- Check, that the document language is set in document settings.
- Provide a title for the document in the file properties.
- Provide a descriptive name for the file.
- Use the MS Word's Check Accessibility function to inspect the accessibility of your document.
- Convert the Word file into PDF/A file.
