Accessibility

Moodle's goal is to be fully accessible and usable for all users regardless of ability.

This page describes the current state of accessibility in Moodle as well as our plans for the future.

Established practices

Moodle core developers spend a lot of time making sure new developments are accessible. Part of the process when building new code in Moodle is to follow established best practices and part of the process for accepting new code into core is to test pages carefully and gather feedback from experts.

Screen-reader support

From Moodle 2.7 onwards, supported screen-reader/browser configurations are described in release notes.

Conformance to standards

The Moodle platform is a complex system with many parts. Its code is always evolving. Modules can be enabled and disabled. The interface can be heavily customised using themes and thousands of settings. Actual content can be produced by any teacher or any student. As such it is impossible to say with 100% certainty whether Moodle or any site based on Moodle is absolutely accessible or not. Accessibility is not a state, it is a process of continuous improvement in response to our users and the wider technical environment.

WCAG 2.0

• When deciding how Moodle should present its content for best Web accessibility, the WCAG 2.0 guidelines is followed.
• We hope to have document here soon discussing how well Moodle meets WCAG 2.0 requirements.

ATAG 2.0

• As Moodle is a place to construct content (as well as consume content), we also refer to the ATAG 2.0 guidelines.
• In Moodle 2.7 a new editor Atto was added that not only helps to improve how everyone can use the editor itself, but also helps to improve the accessibility of the content produced with it.

ARIA 1.0

• As many parts of the Moodle user interface are dynamic and interactive, we follow the ARIA recommendations to inform assistive technologies, such as screen-readers.

Section 508 (US)

• As Moodle is used by US Government agencies, the US Section 508 amendment can be relevant to Moodle.

Discussions

One of the main places accessibility work is being carried out right now is on the Moodle Accessibility Collaboration Group mailing list, see http://collaborate.athenpro.org/group/moodle/

There are also many discussion on issues in the Moodle Tracker

Known Bugs and issues

This is the main list of accessibility issues, organised by priority. This list is always changing.

Areas of ongoing development

• Filepicker
• Forum

See also

Accessibility for Moodle Developers

• Try the Accessibility plugin on http://plugins.moodlebites.com