Digital Accessibility Tip: Using Formatted Lists

Looking to expand your knowledge of digital accessibility and learn quick strategies that you can easily integrate into your workflow? CATL’s blog post series on digital accessibility catalogues some helpful tips and tricks we’ve shared in our Teach Tuesday e-newsletter!

In this tip, we’ll discuss how to create accessible lists.

Canvas editor showing a numbered list with proper formatting and related HTML and toolbar options.

Lists are an incredibly useful tool for making a series of items or steps more readable, whether it be with an unordered (bulleted) or ordered (numbered) list. For sighted users, there are a number of ways to manually create lists, but did you know that screen readers rely on special HTML tags to read lists correctly? Because of this, it is important to use the built-in list tool in Canvas, Microsoft Word, and other text editors, rather than manually typing numbers or dashes. Using the list button will apply the appropriate HTML tags to your list, ensuring that they are compatible with screen readers and other assistive devices. To learn more about this concept and see examples, visit the WebAIM guide on lists.

Looking for More Tips?

Explore even more quick tips in our Digital Accessibility Tips post, where you’ll find a growing list of strategies to help make your course materials more accessible.

Further Accessibility Training

Ready to dive deeper into digital accessibility? Essentials of Accessibility for Faculty and Staff is a free, self-paced, online course that will teach you the basics of digital accessibility and accessibility best practices for several key applications that UW-Green Bay employees may use in their daily work. We encourage you to self-enroll in the course to learn practical approaches for remediating digital accessibility issues in a variety of use cases and applications.

Connect with CATL

You are not alone in your accessibility journey! While CATL cannot advise on the legal specifications of Title II, instructors are always welcome to schedule a consultation with us or stop by our office (CL 405) to discuss the accessibility of your teaching materials.

Graphic that says "Digital Accessibility Tips"

Digital Accessibility Tips

What is Digital Accessibility?

Digital accessibility standards provide guidelines for creating content, tools, and technology that anyone can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with, regardless of ability. Users with certain disabilities may rely on assistive technologies, such as screen readers or speech-to-text tools, to interact with digital content. To work properly though, these assistive tools require digital content to meet certain technical accessibility standards. When digital content does not meet these standards, it creates a barrier to information and can negatively impact a person’s daily life.

Adopting digital accessibility best practices not only supports users with disabilities and those who rely on assistive technologies, but it also increases usability for all users. For example, using clear headings and descriptive link text in a document enhances comprehension for everyone.

What are the Legal Requirements for Digital Accessibility at UWGB?

In 2024, the Department of Justice published their final rule for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This update defined Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Version 2.1, Level AA as the technical standard for the accessibility of web content and mobile apps. Public universities are required to meet these accessibility standards by Spring 2026. This includes not only university public websites and mobile apps, but also digital courses materials.

At UW-Green Bay, accessibility isn’t just a legal obligation. It’s a shared commitment to equity, innovation, and inclusive learning. Meeting these standards may involve some changes to how we design and share content, but they can be implemented in manageable steps, and CATL is here to support you throughout the process.

CATL regularly shares tips in our Teach Tuesday e-newsletter on how you can make accessible design a regular part of your workflow. This page brings those tips together so you can revisit them anytime or catch up on anything you’ve missed. Each tip includes practical, actionable steps to make your digital materials more accessible.

Explore the Topics Below to Learn More

Further Accessibility Training

Ready to dive deeper into digital accessibility? Essentials of Accessibility for Faculty and Staff is a free, self-paced, online course that will teach you the basics of digital accessibility and accessibility best practices for several key applications that UW-Green Bay employees may use in their daily work. We encourage you to self-enroll in the course to learn practical approaches for remediating digital accessibility issues in a variety of use cases and applications.

Connect with CATL

You are not alone in your accessibility journey! While CATL cannot advise on the legal specifications of Title II, instructors are always welcome to schedule a consultation with us or stop by our office (CL 405) to discuss the accessibility of your teaching materials.

Digital Accessibility Tip: Reviewing Your Scanned PDFs

Looking to expand your knowledge of digital accessibility and learn quick strategies that you can easily integrate into your workflow? CATL’s blog post series on digital accessibility catalogues some helpful tips and tricks we’ve shared in our Teach Tuesday e-newsletter!

In this tip, we’ll discuss the digital accessibility of a scanned PDF and how to tell if it has been run through an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) scan, a process which converts images of text into selectable, readable content for screen readers.

What is a Scanned PDF and How to Tell if Your PDF Has Been OCR Scanned?

A scanned PDF is typically created by taking a photo or scan of a printed page. What you end up with is essentially an image of text, not actual text. This means screen readers and other assistive technologies cannot interpret the content.

To determine if your PDF has been processed with Optical Character Recognition (OCR), try selecting or highlighting the text in the document. If you can click and drag your cursor to highlight individual words or sentences, the file likely has OCR. If not, the text/content is just an image and can’t be read by assistive tools.

Conducting an OCR Scan: Video Guide

Watch the video below to learn more about how to check your PDFs documents and run an OCR scan on a PDF in Adobe Acrobat in about 2 minutes!


It is important to acknowledge that OCR scanning is not perfect and can misinterpret characters, especially if the scan is blurry, the lighting is uneven, or the original print is faded or handwritten. It’s important to always review the OCR output and correct any errors in Adobe Acrobat before sharing the document with students. UWGB Staff and faculty have access to Adobe Acrobat through Creative Cloud.

Please also note that OCR should not be used for larger scanned works that may infringe copyright. If in doubt, it is better to find a web alternative or an accessible online version through our library’s online databases.

Looking for More Tips?

Explore even more quick tips in our Digital Accessibility Tips post, where you’ll find a growing list of strategies to help make your course materials more accessible.

Further Accessibility Training

Ready to dive deeper into digital accessibility? Essentials of Accessibility for Faculty and Staff is a free, self-paced, online course that will teach you the basics of digital accessibility and accessibility best practices for several key applications that UW-Green Bay employees may use in their daily work. We encourage you to self-enroll in the course to learn practical approaches for remediating digital accessibility issues in a variety of use cases and applications.

Connect with CATL

You are not alone in your accessibility journey! While CATL cannot advise on the legal specifications of Title II, instructors are always welcome to schedule a consultation with us or stop by our office (CL 405) to discuss the accessibility of your teaching materials.

Digital Accessibility Tip: Adding Captions to Instructional Videos

Looking to expand your knowledge of digital accessibility and learn quick strategies that you can easily integrate into your workflow? CATL’s blog post series on digital accessibility catalogues some helpful tips and tricks we’ve shared in our Teach Tuesday e-newsletter!

In this tip, we’ll discuss how to add machine-generated captions to your videos and edit captions in Kaltura (My Media).

Adding Machine-Generated Captions to Kaltura Videos

Adding machine-generated (automatic) captions to your own instructional videos is as simple as uploading them to your Kaltura (My Media) library. Kaltura will automatically create and apply machine-generated captions to new video entries, making your videos more accessible to all students.

Note: If you use any Kaltura videos that pre-date Dec. 1, 2021, you will have to manually request machine-generated captions, which takes just a couple clicks.

Editing Closed Captions for Kaltura Videos

Machine-generated captions can go a long way in terms of media accessibility, but they are not perfect. That is why it is important to review and correct automatic captions to ensure that there are not significant errors that would hinder a student’s understanding of the video content. Kaltura has a built-in captioning editor that you can use to correct the captions on your Kaltura (My Media) videos. Watch the short video below to learn how to use the caption editor in less than four minutes.

If you use videos in your course that are hosted by a platform other than Kaltura, CATL encourages you to check to see if these videos have captions. YouTube videos created in the last few years usually have auto-generated captions labelled “English (Auto).” Many companies and organizations that publish YouTube content will add professional (edited) English captions with proper capitalization and punctuation, which are usually just labelled “English.” Try to stick with media sources that offer professional captions whenever possible.

Looking for More Tips?

Explore even more quick tips in our Digital Accessibility Tips post, where you’ll find a growing list of strategies to help make your course materials more accessible.

Further Accessibility Training

Ready to dive deeper into digital accessibility? Essentials of Accessibility for Faculty and Staff is a free, self-paced, online course that will teach you the basics of digital accessibility and accessibility best practices for several key applications that UW-Green Bay employees may use in their daily work. We encourage you to self-enroll in the course to learn practical approaches for remediating digital accessibility issues in a variety of use cases and applications.

Connect with CATL

You are not alone in your accessibility journey! While CATL cannot advise on the legal specifications of Title II, instructors are always welcome to schedule a consultation with us or stop by our office (CL 405) to discuss the accessibility of your teaching materials.

Digital Accessibility Tip: Creating Functional and Meaningful Links

Looking to expand your knowledge of digital accessibility and learn quick strategies that you can easily integrate into your workflow? CATL’s blog post series on digital accessibility catalogues some helpful tips and tricks we’ve shared in our Teach Tuesday e-newsletter!

In this tip, we’ll discuss how to detect and remediate broken links and how to write useful, meaningful link text

Checking for Broken Links in Canvas

  • The Canvas link validator can quickly scan your course for potential broken links, including links to unpublished or deleted content, links to resources in another Canvas course, and links to external webpages that are returning “page not found” errors.
  • After updating the broken links identified by the validator, use the “Restart Link Validation” button to run a scan again.
  • Consider using the link validator at least once before the start of each semester and whenever you make substantial content changes to a course.
  • To learn more about remediating broken links, see this CATL resource on avoiding broken links in Canvas.

Creating Meaningful Links

  • Providing meaningful text for links helps users understand what to expect when they click a link. It clearly conveys the destination or action of the link and also makes it easier for users who rely on assistive technology to navigate between links.
  • Unfortunately, people too often simply paste a website URL at the end of a sentence when creating a document or web resource. Screen readers will read out URLs letter-by-letter, including hyphens, slashes, and other characters, which is why using long or complicated URLs should be avoided as link text.
  • For links with long URLs, use a concise description of the resource or page as the link text instead. (ex: UW-Green Bay Mission Statement).
  • Short URLs, such as a site home page, can also be used as link text (ex: uwgb.edu).
  • Another common error is using vague phrases like “click here” as link text. Link text should instead be informative, descriptive, and make sense out of context.
  • In most applications, you can create a hyperlink with meaningful text simply by highlighting the text you want to add a link to and selecting the “insert link” option from a toolbar or the right-click context menu.
  • To learn more about these concepts and see examples, visit the WebAim guide on links and hypertext.

Looking for More Tips?

Explore even more quick tips in our Digital Accessibility Tips post, where you’ll find a growing list of strategies to help make your course materials more accessible.

Further Accessibility Training

Ready to dive deeper into digital accessibility? Essentials of Accessibility for Faculty and Staff is a free, self-paced, online course that will teach you the basics of digital accessibility and accessibility best practices for several key applications that UW-Green Bay employees may use in their daily work. We encourage you to self-enroll in the course to learn practical approaches for remediating digital accessibility issues in a variety of use cases and applications.

Connect with CATL

You are not alone in your accessibility journey! While CATL cannot advise on the legal specifications of Title II, instructors are always welcome to schedule a consultation with us or stop by our office (CL 405) to discuss the accessibility of your teaching materials.