Planning to take the Basic PDF Accessibility course offered by Deque University? Here's my review!
This weekend I completed the Deque Systems, Inc (Deque University) course on Basic PDF Accessibility.
Why did I sign up for this course?
Lately, I’ve been running into a lot of inaccessible content that interrupts my ability to take action or to get what I need. Whether it is video meetings/recordings without captions or PDFs with broken links and missing tags, I’ve been spending a lot of time educating others on how to make content inclusive/accessible just so I can get access to the things I need. Multiple people have also reached out to me for support to improve document accessibility, and I am recognizing I would be better off creating a resource to direct folks to when they come to me for support. I don’t have the time to support folks individually for free. Taking this course is helping me better define how to build out my own resource guide.
What course learnings were my highlights?
This is my first legitimate course on document accessibility! To date, I’ve turned to YouTube whenever I couldn’t figure out something on my own, and it was nice to have a more systematic review of document accessibility tools, terms, and best practices.
It is an advantage to have a deep understanding of Manual Tags Pane (<HTML> format) given the Reading Order Tool has more limitations for data content
Language must be designated in both the Tag name and Properties to be accessible to screen readers
Use Real Headers across all of my documents - not just PDFs
I tend to be the document corrector, not the creator. This meant that I rarely applied headers outside of the PDF accessibility check. Using Headers in Google Docs has been amazing for ready-made Document Outlines and I didn’t realize it also supported accessibility!
What is covered/offered in this course?
This course provides step by step walkthroughs of the core elements of document accessibility including:
Creating accessible source documents
Converting documents to tagged PDFs, automatically/manually adding tags/elements, and
Automatically/manually checking the document for errors - focusing on Microsoft Suite and Adobe Suite (Adobe Pro and InDesign)
What is not covered/offered in this course?
This course does not discuss financially accessible tools. I was disappointed there was not a module dedicated to the Google. Microsoft 365 and Adobe were used for all examples and are costly products that I and other orgs/individuals do not pay to use.
It would have been great to cover newer creator tools like Canva (offers a free and paid version) that are shifting the prevalence/use of tools like Microsoft and Adobe.
This course also does not provide any kind of hands-on learning for course content that is completely action-based. There were no learning exercises or videos. All content consumption is passive and course participants are not granted access to any of the paid tools that are reflected in the course.
Did I get what I wanted out of this course?
Pretty much! The course is described as “Basic” and I would agree with that designation. I’m still hungry to learn more nuances - especially as related to Complex Table accessibility, and more complex considerations are covered in the follow up course for this certification program - Advanced PDF Accessibility: Complex Tables and Forms. I’m excited to dive into the Advanced course next!
To whom would I recommend this course:
Anyone who creates documents for public consumption (Marketing Managers, Digital Creators, Designers, Educators, Business Leaders etc.)
NOTE: “Public” includes employees, students, citizens, patients, etc.
What’s Next?
I’ve been resisting the urge to pursue a full Accessible Document Specialist Certification, but I enjoyed this course much more than I expected. It reminds me of the feeling I got in coding courses - I love the logic puzzles and learning nuances I hadn't noticed before. So, we’ll see if I’m updating you with a new title in a few months.
