Accessible Document & Material Design Guidelines

By: Carmen Willings
teachingvisuallyimpaired.com
Updated November 28, 2025
Designing accessible materials ensures that all learners—including students with low vision, blindness, CVI, color vision differences, or reading disabilities—can access information independently and efficiently. The following guidelines reflect best practices for creating clear, readable, and assistive-technology–friendly documents.

Avoid All Caps

Avoid using ALL CAPS in headings or extended text. All-uppercase text reduces letter-shape recognition, slows reading, and increases visual strain for readers with low vision, dyslexia, or cognitive fatigue.
Instead, emphasize using:
  • Bold
  • Italics
  • Underlining
  • “Quotation marks”
Reserve capitalization for proper nouns, acronyms, and standard title case. Avoid decorative effects such as text shadows, outlines, and glow effects, which can blur letterforms and reduce contrast. Clear, sentence-style text improves readability, supports accessibility, and presents a more professional appearance.

Text Alignment

  • Use left-aligned text for maximum readability. This makes it easier for students—especially those using magnification—to locate the start of each new line.
  • Avoid centered, right-aligned, or fully justified text.
    • Fully justified text creates irregular spacing, which interrupts reading fluency and comprehension.
  • Do not hyphenate words at line breaks; this disrupts decoding and understanding.

Color Contrast

Use high-contrast text and background color combinations to improve legibility and reduce visual fatigue. Strong contrast helps students quickly locate and read information across classroom materials and digital content. Effective color combinations include yellow on blue, white on red, yellow on black, and black on hot pink Avoid low-contrast combinations such as gray on white, yellow on light green, red on black, blue on purple. Apply high contrast consistently across documents, displays, labels, and learning materials to support clarity, independence, and accessibility for all learners—especially those with low vision.

Adequate White Space

  • Ensure sufficient spacing above and below text, between paragraphs, and between lines.
  • White space prevents clutter, reduces visual load, and improves comprehension.
  • For dense content, spread information across multiple pages rather than crowding a single page.
  • Use spacing intentionally to show grouping and hierarchical relationships between items.

Keep Backgrounds Plain

  • Use simple, uncluttered, solid-color backgrounds.
  • Avoid busy patterns, gradients, photos, or textured backgrounds.
  • Dark or neutral matte backgrounds reduce glare and enhance clarity for individuals with CVI or low vision.​
  • Plain backgrounds ensure that text remains the most visually salient element.

Use Built-In Tools

Always use the built-in tools provided by your software when adding features such as headers, titles, tables, or illustrations. These tools are designed with accessibility in mind, ensuring that documents can be read and navigated by everyone, including individuals using assistive technology. Avoid creating custom elements, such as text boxes or charts made from shapes, as these can break accessibility and make content difficult or impossible to access. Using the built-in features correctly helps ensure that your documents remain fully accessible and user-friendly. 

Headings & Titles

​All documents, slides, and web pages should include clear headings and titles. Use the built-in heading styles provided by your software rather than simulating headings by simply enlarging or bolding text. Built-in styles include embedded codes that make content navigable for screen reader users, allowing them to skim and locate information efficiently. Proper use of heading levels is also essential for creating tables of contents in longer documents or books. By incorporating structured headings, you improve both accessibility and overall organization, making your content easier to read and navigate for all users. Benefits:
  • Enhances navigation for screen reader users
  • Supports automatic table of contents creation
  • Allows readers to skim or jump to sections efficiently
  • Creates predictable structure across documents

Alt Text Guidelines

Alternative text (alt text) must be provided for all images and objects to ensure accessibility for screen reader users. Alt text should be:
  • Brief and concise
  • Content-driven
  • Fact-based
  • ​Appropriate to the purpose of the image
Decorative images, such as borders or background graphics, should be marked as decorative so that screen readers ignore them. When writing alt text, focus on what is important and pertinent to the passage, describing the content factually without including opinions. Begin with general information and, if needed, add specific details, allowing users to skip lengthy descriptions if desired. ​To add alt text, right-click the image and select “Edit Alt Text” or use the accessibility option under the “Picture Format” tab.
​Alt text ensures equitable access to visual content. By following these principles—conciseness, context, objectivity, and clarity—you ensure that images and objects are accessible to all users. General rule:
  • Start with the overall idea (e.g., “Bar graph showing test results…”)
  • Add essential details only when necessary for understanding
​Resources such as the Diagram Center by Benetech, Microsoft’s accessibility guidance, and WebAIM provide best-practice guidelines for creating effective alt text.

Don’t Convey Meaning with Color Alone

Avoid relying solely on color to communicate key information. This is especially important for:
  • Charts
  • Maps
  • Graphs
  • Worksheets
  • Directions
Supplement color with patterns, labels, symbols, textures, or written explanations so that all users—especially those with color vision differences—can understand the content.

Images & Objects: In-Line Placement

​When adding images or objects to a document, it is important that they are set in-line with text rather than using text-wrapping options. Screen readers can only read images and objects that are in-line, so using wrapping features can make content inaccessible. In most word processors, you can adjust this by selecting the image, opening the layout options, and choosing “In-line with text” instead of any text-wrapping setting. Ensuring images are in-line helps maintain accessibility while preserving the document’s readability for all users.

Using Lists

When creating lists, always use the built-in bullet and number formatting provided by your software rather than custom symbols or images. Include adequate white space between lines to improve legibility. Ensure that all text is oriented horizontally—avoid vertical or mixed text directions. Use numbered lists only for items that follow a specific sequence; otherwise, use bulleted lists for clarity and readability.

Columns

Columns should be used only when necessary, as they can make text more difficult to read, especially for individuals with low vision or those using magnification devices. If columns are used, provide adequate spacing between them to maintain readability. Always use the built-in column feature in your word processor rather than simulating columns with tables, as tables can be misinterpreted by screen readers and suggest relationships between content that do not exist. Proper use of columns with sufficient white space helps ensure accessibility while maintaining an organized and visually clear layout.

Accessible Tables

Tables should be designed to be accessible for all users, including individuals using screen readers. After inserting a table and adding data, identify the header row so it can be recognized by assistive technology. Use table styles that include horizontal and vertical lines to make it easier to track information across rows and columns, and ensure that all text is oriented in the same direction. Avoid merging or splitting cells, as screen readers cannot interpret these properly. When appropriate, include a caption and alt text for the table. Alt text provides users with a summary of the table’s content, allowing them to determine whether they need to read each individual cell. Because screen readers announce each cell’s position along with its content, reading tables can be tedious, so use them only when necessary and ensure they are fully accessible.
Summary of Guidelines:
  • Identify header rows
  • Use visible horizontal and vertical lines
  • Avoid merged or split cells
  • Keep consistent text orientation
  • Add alt text or a caption summarizing the table’s purpose
  • Use tables only when necessary—screen reader interaction with tables can be time-consuming

Headers, Footers & Watermarks

​Including titles, author names, and page numbers in headers and footers is helpful for print readers, particularly in multi-page documents, as it aids in organizing and assembling pages. Headers and footers should use the same font and size as the main document, and page numbers should be positioned in the outer corners of the page for easy reference, especially in double-sided documents. Keep in mind that screen readers cannot access information in headers, footers, or watermarks, so do not place essential content there. Watermarks should be used sparingly, as they can reduce legibility and create visual clutter, making the document more difficult to read for individuals with low vision.

Descriptive Filenames

​Using descriptive filenames helps all users identify the purpose of a document and makes it easier to locate, open, and switch between multiple files. Each document should have a unique filename to differentiate it from others. When managing multiple versions, including the date in the filename can help track changes. Additionally, placing a number at the beginning of a filename can assist in organizing files in a specific order for easy access and navigation.

Check Accessibility

​Modern versions of Windows include a built-in accessibility checker that screens for common accessibility issues. While this tool is helpful, it cannot identify every problem, so human judgment is essential. Review text and background contrast, reading order, and the overall quality of printed materials to ensure full accessibility. Although Google Docs does not currently have a built-in accessibility checker, following universal design principles and best practices for accessible content can help ensure your documents are usable by all readers.
​However, human judgment is essential. Accessibility checkers cannot detect:
  • Cluttered layouts
  • Excessive complexity
  • Ineffective contrast choices
  • Inappropriate visual backgrounds
  • Braille errors
  • Low print quality
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and thoughtful design will ensure accessibility even when using platforms without robust checkers (e.g., Google Docs).

​Digital Text Considerations

​When presenting digital materials:
  • Allow students to adjust font size, style, contrast, and background colors.
  • Provide content in accessible formats (e.g., tagged PDFs, Word docs, EPUB).
  • Ensure compatibility with screen readers and refreshable braille displays.
  • Avoid embedding important text in images.
  • Design materials to reflow responsively when zoomed.
Students may benefit from using built-in accessibility tools such as screen magnifiers, screen readers, or "reader mode" features that strip distractions and reformat text.

​Paper Finish

The type of paper used can significantly affect readability. Glossy or shiny paper can create glare, making text difficult to see, particularly for individuals with low vision. To enhance legibility, choose matte or uncoated paper, which reduces reflections and provides a more comfortable reading experience. Selecting the appropriate paper finish helps ensure printed materials are accessible to all users.

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