The Student Perspective

When Learning Isn’t Accessible

As instructors, we strive to build meaningful, engaging learning experiences. But what happens when a course isn’t designed with accessibility in mind? For students with disabilities, small barriers can quickly become major roadblocks. Sometimes making it difficult or even impossible to participate fully. When technology is accessible, disability becomes far less limiting. But when it’s not, the burden shifts unfairly to the student to find workarounds or miss out. This is the human side of accessibility and it’s why thoughtful design in our digital classrooms matters so deeply.

Canvas Student Features for Accessibility

Canvas includes a variety of built-in accessibility features designed to support diverse learning needs and help all students succeed. Whether they use screen readers, prefer to listen to content, need visual adjustments, or rely on keyboard navigation, Canvas offers tools that make it easier to access course materials, stay organized, and participate fully in your classes.

The Microsoft Immersive Reader is an inclusively designed tool available on all Canvas pages and through the alternative formats download options. It allows students to listen to text-based content, supports reading comprehension through a clean and customizable interface, and provides translation into multiple languages. This tool is designed to enhance accessibility and support a wide range of learning needs. Review the Immersive Reader guide to learn more.

Canvas is tested for screen reader accessibility using the most widely used screen reader and browser combinations, including JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack. These pairings are selected based on current usage data and are updated as user preferences evolve.

Canvas includes built-in keyboard shortcuts to support faster navigation and improve accessibility. To view a list of shortcuts in individual discussions, announcements, or the Rich Content Editor, press Alt+F8 on a PC or Option+F8 on a Mac. To view shortcuts on the Assignments Index page, Modules Index page, Gradebook, and SpeedGrader, press Shift+?. Keyboard shortcuts are available on several key Canvas pages, including Announcements, Assignments, Course Settings (Navigation tab), Discussions, Gradebook, Modules, New Quizzes, the Rich Content Editor, and SpeedGrader. For more information, view the Canvas Keyboard Shortcut resource document.

The User Settings page hosts feature options to enhance accessibility. In Global Navigation, click the Account link, then click the Settings link, Feature Options will appear as the last section on the page.

High Contrast UI

When enabled, this feature offers higher contrast in buttons, tabs, and other areas throughout Canvas. Learn how to turn this feature on by visiting the high-contrast guide.

Underline Links

When enabled, this feature underlines hyperlinks in navigation menus, the Dashboard, and page sidebars.

Dyslexia Friendly Font

When enabled, this setting replaces the default font in Canvas with OpenDyslexic, an open source font created to help increase readability for readers with dyslexia.

When enabled, students are able to access and download a range of alternative and accessible formats for files uploaded to Canvas using Ally. These alternative formats are automatically generated.

  1. In a Canvas course, select the Ally alternative format icon Ally icon for alternative formatslocated next to the page title or any linked resource.
  2. Select the alternative format you would like to use.
  3. Select “Download” to download the file to your computer.
  4. Open the file on your computer with assistive technology or another application.