WYSIWYG Accessibility

Get real-time feedback from Ally in your course content editor. Open your course WYSIWYG or VTBE content editor to see the Ally score indicator. As you create content, the Ally score updates in real-time. Select the score to learn more about the issues and follow step-by-step guidance on how to fix them.

Video demo Ally Instructor Feedback for WYSIWYG content

How do I see my accessibility score on my WYSIWYG content?

Ally’s accessibility score icon is only visible when you create or edit content. You need to be in edit mode to see the score on your WYSIWYG or VTBE content.

Go to your course content and edit it to see the score.

WYSIWYG content supported in your Learning Management System (LMS)

How do I use the Ally score on my WYSIWYG content?

Create or edit content in your course WYSIWYG editor. As you type or make changes, the Ally score updates immediately. Scores range from Low to Perfect. The higher the score the fewer the issues.

Learn more about Ally’s accessibility scores

Once you know the accessibility score, you can begin to explore the accessibility issues and improve your content to raise the score.

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!

Select the Accessibility score to open the instructor feedback. Make quick fixes directly in the panel and preview window. Select All issues to see every issue in the file and decide what issues to fix first.

Ally score on the right above the editor toolar

After you are done, close the Ally feedback panel and save the updated content in the WYSIWYG editor to save your changes.

Changes won’t be saved until you save from the WYSIWYG content editor.

Open Instructor feedback panel. A preview of content is on the left. And quick fix options are on the right.

What accessibility guidance does Ally give for my WYSIWYG content?

Ally does the same checks on WYSIWYG content as the checks on attached HTML files. Results from the checks are reported in both the instructor Course accessibility report and the Ally Institution Report used by administrators.

Feedback and guidance on WYSIWYG content are not available for every issue yet. WYSIWYG guidance is available for these accessibility issues:

Text with insufficient contrast
Heading order
Image without a description
- When adding standalone images to WYSIWYG content, you must manually add its metadata —such as alternative text— again, to ensure its accessibility. Once alternative descriptions are directly added to images on the WYSIWYG page, these will be retained when a course is copied.
Image with redundant descriptions
Tables without headers
Tables with empty headers

"The HTML's heading structure does not start at the right level" is an issue reported in the Course accessibility report as well as the Institution report. There's no guidance for this issue in the WYSIWYG editor because of heading levels on the page outside the editor.

Supported WYSIWYG content in your LMS

Blackboard Learn Ultra

Modification of alt-text for images in content will be available in a future release.

Create or edit WYSIWYG content to see the Ally score.

Go to a supported WYSIWYG content.
Select Edit from the three dots in the corner of the content box.
The Ally score appears above the WYSIWYG editor toolbar.

Ally supports these WYSIWYG content:

Information in the parenthesis refers to the related column heading in the Course Report export.

Content Folder (application/x-folder)
Content Item (application/x-item)
Learning Module (application/x-learning-module)
Lesson Plan (application/x-lesson)
A link to a Forum (application/x-link-discussion-topic)
Web Link (application/x-link-web)
Embedded LTI application (application/x-lti-launch)
All other WYSIWYG content types including Blank page and Module page (application/x-page)

Blackboard Learn Original

Create or edit WYSIWYG content to see the Ally score.

Go to a supported WYSIWYG content.
Select the Options menu for the content.
Select Edit. The Ally score appears on the right above the WYSIWYG editor toolbar.

Ally score appears above the content editor toolbar on the right of the screen.

Ally supports these WYSIWYG content:

Information in the parenthesis refers to the related column heading in the Course Report export.

Content Folder (application/x-folder)
Content Item (application/x-item)
Learning Module (application/x-learning-module)
Lesson Plan (application/x-lesson)
A link to a Forum (application/x-link-discussion-topic)
Web Link (application/x-link-web)
Embedded LTI application (application/x-lti-launch)
All other WYSIWYG content types including Blank page and Module page (application/x-page)

Moodle

Atto editor is now supported.

Create or edit WYSIWYG content to see the Ally score.

In your course, select Turn editing on.
Go to a supported WYSIWYG content.
Select Edit. The Ally score appears on the right above the WYSIWYG editor toolbar.

Ally supports these WYSIWYG content:

Information in the parenthesis refers to the related column heading in the Course Report export.

Assignment (application/x-assignment)
Book (application/x-book)
Book chapter (application/x-book-chapter)
Discussion topics (application/x-discussion-topic)
Forum description (application/x-forum)
Glossary description (application/x-glossary)
Glossary entry (application/x-glossary-entry)
Label (application/x-label)
Lesson description (application/x-lesson-description)
Lesson page (application/x-lesson-page)
Page content (application/x-page-content)
Page introduction (application/x-page-intro)
Section (application/x-section)
Syllabus (application/x-syllabus)

Canvas

Create or edit WYSIWYG content to see the Ally score.

Go to a supported WYSIWYG content.
Select Edit. The Ally score appears on the right above the WYSIWYG editor toolbar.

Ally supports these WYSIWYG content:

Information in the parenthesis refers to the related column heading in the Course Report export.

Announcement (application/x-announcement)
Assignment (application/x-assignment)
Discussion Topics (application/x-discussion-topic)
Quiz description (application/x-quiz)
Syllabus (application/x-syllabus)
Page (application/x-page)

D2L Brightspace

Available for the Classic content experience.

Create or edit WYSIWYG content to see the Ally score.

Go to a supported WYSIWYG content.
Select the content to edit it. The Ally score appears on the right below the editor.

Ally score appears below the content editor toolbar on the right of the screen.

Ally supports these WYSIWYG content:

Information in the parenthesis refers to the related column heading in the Course Report export.

Web Links (application/x-link-web)
Module (application/x-module)

Schoology

WYSIWYG content is not supported in Schoology at this time.

Flexible structure in D2L

For D2L instances, Ally can navigate through the different org units. For example Campus > Department > Course. The structure is considered from the LMS institutional hierarchy and can consider multiple levels of Org Units and configurations. Ally considers each org unit in the report as a "department" but you can navigate through the hierarchy using the breadcrumb on the top left-hand side. If you want to activate this feature you need to ask for a support ticket.