Open Feedback Panel

Open the feedback panel

Ally provides you detailed feedback and support to help you become an accessibility pro. Learn about accessibility issues, why they matter, and how to fix them. Green is the goal!

After you upload files in your course, Ally produces an accessibility score for each file. In lessons with multiple files, the accessibility score is shown for each file. In areas where you access files, the accessibility icon is located to the right or left of the file.

Select the Accessibility score to open the feedback panel.

Ally’s feedback panel shows you a preview of the document’s content as well as detailed feedback and support to help you fix your accessibility issues.

Not sure where to find your accessibility scores? Jump to View File Accessibility.

Ally Preview Content Issues


Preview the document

The instructor feedback, in-browser, preview shows the content for PDFs, Word documents and PowerPoint documents.

Highlights

The preview highlights where specific accessibility issues can be found in the document. Highlights show every occurrence of one issue type at a time. For example, if your images are missing alternative descriptions, the highlights show you every place this specific issue occurs. If your document also has poor text contrast, select that issue in the feedback panel to see the occurrences of that issue highlighted.

Highlights are provided for these issues:

  • Images without an appropriate alternative description
  • Text fragments with insufficient contrast
  • Tables without table headers

All other accessibility issues are not highlighted in the preview.

Missing text description

Text contrast

Scanned PDF

Preview tools

Use the tools above the preview to explore the issues in your document.

  • Move through the document preview page by page.
  • See how many times a specific issue appears in the document.
  • Jump between the issue highlights.
  • Hide or show the highlights.
  • Zoom the preview content in or out.
  • Download the original file.

Ally Instructor Feedback Panel Guidance


Step-by-step guidance

For accessible files, Ally tells you what you did correctly. For files with Low to High scores, Ally shows you the issues and gives a step-by-step guide on how to fix them.

  1. Accessibility score: See the overall score for the entire file.
  2. All issues: Select All issues to see every issue in the file. This view shows you by how much the score can improve by fixing each issue. Find the issue you want to start fixing and select Fix.
  3. Description of issue and step-by-step help: See the description for an issue with the file. Ally organizes this feedback in a decision tree, so all you need to do is read the directions and respond to the prompts. Learn what the issue is, why it matters, and how to correct it appropriately.
    • Select What this means to learn more about the issue.
    • Select How to and follow the steps to improve the file's accessibility. 

      These instructions change depending on the file and the accessibility issues found. For example, with a PDF you may see instructions on how to make the PDF tagged. Select How to Make a PDF Tagged.

  4. Upload: Upload updated files to replace the existing one.

Watch a video on improving file accessibility

Select your LMS below to view how to access and improve your file accessibility through Ally's instructor feedback.

Blackboard Learn

The following narrated video provides a visual and auditory representation of some of the information included on this page. For a detailed description of what is portrayed in the video, open the video on YouTube, navigate to More actions, and select Open transcript.


Video: Ally for instructors explains how to view file accessibility for files you upload to your course.

Instructure Canvas

The following narrated video provides a visual and auditory representation of some of the information included on this page. For a detailed description of what is portrayed in the video, open the video on YouTube, navigate to More actions, and select Open transcript.


Video: Ally for Instructors in Instructure Canvas teaches instructors how to improve the accessibility of their files in the context of their own course.