Modified on March 5, 2026 to remove the “subscribe” option. This blog has been retired and replaced by the S.P.I.R.I.T. newsletter.
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening Compliance Rockstars, Clinical Researchers, Ethics Educators, and Investigators from around the globe!
I hope you are doing well! This has been one crazy year so far. To think we are already in March. I wanted to take the time to have a step back from these current events that have occurred. Though the previous posts have relevance to the research and compliance world…
I wanted to get back to the basics of this blog.
As the name suggests, the purpose of this blog is to promote scientific trust and research ethics education. In light of this, I also find it important to discuss how we should be teaching research ethics.
In today’s post, I want to describe how to make your training documents more accessible. If you have been following from the beginning, you may be thinking to yourself…
What a minute…didn’t Tasha already write a post like this?
Well, you’re right. I did write about a similar topic. However, I wanted to revamp this post to discuss what I have learned over the course of my careers.
You may not know this about me, but I didn’t always work in research and compliance. I’ve also been trained as an auditor and an analyst. This may explain why I am detail oriented.
Financial analysis and project management are tough topics. I remember being humbled my first semester of accounting. I thought to myself, if I can do calculus and differential equations, accounting should be a breeze. Boy, was I wrong! Though I had my tail between my legs, I still managed to rise to the occasion.
Even within these careers, I have always been fascinated with training and outreach. I thrive on understanding how people learn and if folks are engaged with what I’m attempting to teach. I also look for ways to make complex topics easier. I don’t like to over-complicate things. The simpler I can make something for someone, the better I feel I understand it.
They always say teaching something is the best way to become an expert at a topic. Even with this mindset, I prefer to “always be a student of my craft”. It’s natural to constantly be learning and evolving, as we all know life isn’t stagnant.
Therefore, I want to share top tips I’ve learned to make documents more inclusive. You won’t find the old post as it has been deleted (bye-bye, gone). As a general reminder, these are my own interpretations. Any legal information discussed within this post should be discussed with your institution.
Let’s get ready to learn!
What is accessibility?
When I look up what accessibility means, there are various definitions depending on the context. I really like how California State University Long Beach defines this term:
Accessibility is about providing a means for users with disabilities to access the same information and services that users without disabilities are able to access.
I like to think of accessibility as making training documents easy to comprehend and review for everyone. Accessibility makes it a level playing field. When it comes to folks with disabilities, the top ones to me are those with visual or hearing disabilities. Someone with color blindness or hard-of-hearing should be able to use the same training materials I create for someone who doesn’t have these disabilities.
Why is accessibility important?
Aside from the humanity aspect, it’s the law! Directly from the website itself, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protects people with disabilities from discrimination.
It is a Federal civil rights law that protects people with disabilities from discrimination in many areas of life.
Accessibility as a tenet of research ethics
Circling back to a statement I made earlier:
The purpose of this blog is to promote scientific trust and research ethics education.
In light of this, I feel we should understand how accessibility can be viewed as a tenet of research ethics. When I think of human subjects research ethics, I automatically think of the Belmont Report. If you’ve conducted research with human subjects or taken a bioethics course, you may be familiar with this report. The Belmont Report has three principles:
- Respect for persons
- Beneficence
- Justice
With respect to accessibility, I’d like to discuss the Justice principle. Directly from the Belmont Report:
Who ought to receive the benefits of research and bear its burdens? This is a question of justice, in the sense of “fairness in distribution” or “what is deserved”.
Justice can also be understood as:
Equals ought to be treated equally.
The formulations of Justice include:
- To each person an equal share,
- To each person according to individual need,
- To each person according to individual effort,
- To each person according to societal contribution, and
- To each person according to merit
I really spent some time trying to find the perfect image to describe the Justice principle with respect to accessibility. I finally came up with the image below:
Simply treating everyone as equals doesn’t fulfill the accessibility requirement. Referring to the picture, we can see the unfair distribution represented by “equality”. The Justice principle indicates that equals should be treated as equals. But what about those who are “unequal” to the “group of equals”? You can certainly provide accommodations, but accessibility is really about equity. Equity can be described as the formulations listed in the Justice principle.
Equity is about treating people fairly in accordance with their needs.
Top tips for training document accessibility
Tip #1: Ensure you have documents available as a PDF and a Microsoft Word document
I love this tip! This isn’t something I necessarily learned from a training session or workshop. Word documents are great because you can edit them and make notes.
I used to do this all the time when I was learning something new (especially in college). It would be helpful for me to make my own annotations directly into a handout.
Conversely, PDFs are great for distribution. If you just want a “clean copy” of a training handout, this is the best way to go. When you’re creating training handouts at your institution, you should strive to have both types of files available.
This is especially important if you embed objects in your files. This is when you link a file into your working file. The user will be able to click on the file and access it. If you only have a PDF version of your working file, the user will not be able to access the embedded object. This is why you should have a Word version and a PDF version.
Tip #2: Use Alt Text for images in your Microsoft Word document
What is Alt Text?
Short for alternative text, is a short description of an image in a training document. Typically, 1-2 sentences is the sweet spot for describing an image.
You may be wondering to yourself…
How is this different than adding a caption to your picture?
Though I’ll define captions below, alt text is specifically for individuals who have visual disabilities. Alt text is meant to quite literally describe the image in the handout.
Let’s review the picture used above from McMaster University. The text underneath is a caption adding a description of the image. An example of alt text of the image would be:
There are three whiteboards at varying lengths and with standing prop stools. At each whiteboard, there are two people standing and one person in a wheelchair.
As you can see, alt text literally describes the image itself. While a caption provides additional context or explanation about the image.
Tip #3: Always use the headers feature to separate topics (and to use the cross-reference feature)
The next three tips are related to formatting your training documents. Now, let me explain why I especially love this tip:
I like to think of this tip as a “two-for-one” combo!
Using headers in your training handouts is a great way to make different topics stand out. This helps folks visually see what you plan to discuss. Be sure to make your headers meaningful (i.e., the header should be concise and accurately describe the context beneath it).
Headers also work well if your training handout has a table of contents. When you use headers, you will be able to use the cross-reference feature. This essentially serves as a hyperlink. When you go to your training handout’s table of contents and click on the link, it will take you directly to that section in the handout!
Say goodbye to doom-scrolling! With the cross-reference, you can get to the desired section in seconds.
Tip #4: Use ordered (numbered) and/or unordered (bulleted) lists in lieu of long-winded paragraphs
Now if you’ve seen my profile picture on the About Us page, you may have noticed that I wear glasses. Interestingly enough, this does NOT fall under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Even though I technically don’t have a visual disability, I do have ADHD!
Therefore, I strongly appreciate this tip! I hate reading through long-winded sentences and paragraphs. Lists just make life easier! Regardless if you have ADHD or not. I’d take lists over long paragraphs any day. With my attention span, lists are much better for me (and in general…for everyone who also suffers from short attention spans).
Tip #5: Use descriptive text when adding hyperlinks to your documents
Now, I’m totally guilty of this…
How many of you when writing an email or updated a website have written something along these lines?
“Click here for more information”.
That’s a HUGE NO NO! You should always use descriptive text when inserting a hyperlink to your training handouts. In lieu of the statement above, you could say:
“Click the following link for Tasha’s Insights“.
This way, the user of the file knows what the hyperlink is actually to!
BONUS TIP: Get feedback on your training document’s accessibility by those with individuals with disabilities
This is the ULTIMATE tip!
I absolutely love getting feedback from folks. Especially if it’s a product I developed for them. You should also do this at your institution, especially from folks with disabilities. This way, if they find the document readable…or should I say accessible, then you know you’re on the right track.
I hope you found this content useful in developing your training materials!
