Resource guides

Overview

The principal behind Access is universal design. The idea is that all your students should be able to read what you produce as easily and efficiently as possible. This will ensure maximum benefit from the time and effort you put into your class resources.

There are also other benefits. They’ll be revealed in the following pages; but basically, it boils down to future. IF you put all these guidelines in place, the results will not only help you and your students, they’ll be more flexible and useful in general. Technology is becoming increasingly prevalent; and your accessible documents will easily be transformed into online resources which could have uses far beyond your classroom.

At the most basic level, there are two rules of thumb when writing accessible documents, no matter which application you use to write with. Whether you use a Mac or a PC, even these small considerations will always make your work visually clearer to all your students.

Font

There’s a huge range of fonts available to you on your machine, from the sedate Ariel to the outrageous Wingdings. However, it is important that you never go below 14 point size when writing for large print, and that you use fonts which have no seraphs. Ariel, Verdana and Tahoma fall into this category and you may know of others. Fonts without seraphs are far easier to see, particularly if you are projecting your document from a distance.

Colour

As with fonts, your colour choice is almost endless. However, it is recommended that for visual clarity, you use high contrast in all your resources. That is, dark background with light foreground, or vice versa. This doesn’t mean you’re restricted to black and white, but it pays to be careful when combining colours. If you find that the result isn’t as clear as you would like, imagine how it might be for your students, particularly those with low vision.

Even if you do nothing else, your documents will be far easier to read and your time and effort will be more highly rewarded. However, it is *strongly* recommended that you look at the following pages, because there is much more that you can do to add value to what you produce, with the expenditure of only a little more time and effort.

Applications

These sub-sections include guides and "how to's" which will help you get the most out of popular applications like Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint, also with popular file types such as PDF's.  There are also examples of where your students can get books online.  We hope to keep expanding this range, so check back often.