Panorama’s accessibility checklist is based on the international accessibility standards outlined by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Currently, Panorama checks for PDF, DOC, DOCX, ODT, RTF, PPT, PPTX, ODP, HTML, XLSX, XLS, ODS, and GIF file types.
Understanding Issue Severity
There are three levels of issue severity: Minor, Major, and Severe.
- Minor issues typically have a low impact on usability, are easy to overcome, and can be fixed with minimal effort.
- Major issues significantly hinder usability, are more difficult to overcome, and may take more effort to fix.
- Severe issues prevent access entirely, are impossible to overcome without intervention, and generally take the most effort to fix.
Instructors should prioritize correcting issues severe issues first, major issues second, and minor issues third; however, as a USC best practice it is suggested to remediate all issues to achieve our goal of making courses as accessible as possible. Refer to the Using Accessibility Reports Subheading of the Panorama guide for instructions on remediating accessibility issues.
Accessibility Checklist by Document Type
PDF Checklist
DOCX, ODT, & RTF Checklist
| Issue Name | Default Issue Severity | Issue Explanation and Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| The document is malformed | Severe | Panorama guidance for “The Document is malformed” issue |
| Insufficient contrast between foreground text and background | Major | Panorama guidance for “Insufficient Contrast” issue |
| Table does not have a header | Major | Tables should have header rows and columns to ensure conversions to accessible formats are accurate. See more information on the WCAG Guideline: 1.3.1 Info and Relationships. Microsoft guidance for “Missing Table Header” issue. |
| The document does not have any headings | Major | Panorama guidance for “Missing Headings” issue |
| The document heading structure does not start at one | Major | Panorama guidance for “The Headings Do Not Start at 1” issue |
| The document is missing a title | Major | Panorama guidance for “Missing Document Title” issue |
| The item does not have an alternative description | Major | Panorama guidance for “Missing Alt-text” issue |
| Text should not be justified | Minor | Panorama guidance for “Text Should Not be Justified” issue |
| The document does not have the correct language set | Minor | Panorama guidance for “Incorrect Language Set” issue |
| The document’s heading structure goes beyond six levels | Minor | Panorama guidance for “Heading Structure Goes Beyond Six Levels” issue |
| The font size is smaller than 9 points | Minor | Panorama guidance for “Small Font Size” issue |
| The hyperlink text is not descriptive | Minor | Panorama guidance for “Non-descriptive Hyperlink Text” issue |
| The image is not inline with the text | Minor | Panorama guidance for “The Image is not Inline with Text” issue |
| The language set is not specified for this content | Minor | Panorama guidance for “No Specified Language Set” issue |
| This element should be formatted as a list | Minor | Panorama guidance for “Element Should be Formatted as a List” issue Note: The above example shows the issue in HTML documents, but the explanation applies to other document files like Word documents. To resolve the issue in Word, use either the bulleted or numbered list feature. |
PPT, PPTX, & ODP Checklist
| Issue Name | Default Issue Severity | Issue Explanation and Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| The document is malformed | Severe | A malformed document is a document that has structural or formatting errors or is corrupted or incorrectly encoded. In some cases, malformed documents may be recovered within the application used to create the document by using its built-in repair capabilities. Microsoft guidance for trouble shooting a damaged file |
| Insufficient contrast between foreground text and background | Major | Panorama guidance for “Insufficient Contrast” issue |
| The document is missing a title | Major | Panorama guidance for “Missing Document Title” issue |
| The item does not have an alternative description | Major | Panorama guidance for “Missing Alt-text” issue |
| The slide does not have a title | Major | Slide titles help screen readers correctly communicate content to screen readers. Titles should be succinct and descriptive. Microsoft guidance for adding slide titles |
| Check reading order | Minor | Panorama guidance for “Check Reading Order” issue |
| The document does not have the correct language set | Minor | Panorama guidance for “Incorrect Language Set” issue |
| The font size is smaller than 9 points | Minor | Panorama guidance for “Small Font Size” issue |
| The hyperlink text is not descriptive | Minor | Panorama guidance for “Non-descriptive Hyperlink Text” issue |
| The language set is not specified for this content | Minor | Panorama guidance for “No Specified Language Set” issue |
XLSX, XLS, & ODS Checklist
| Issue Name | Default Issue Severity | Issue Explanation and Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| The document is malformed | Severe | Panorama guidance for “The Document is malformed” issue |
| Insufficient contrast between foreground text and background | Major | Panorama guidance for “Insufficient Contrast” issue |
| Sheet does not have text in cell A1 | Major | Panorama guidance for “Missing Text in A1 Cell” issue |
| Table does not have a header | Major | Panorama guidance for “Missing Table Header” issue |
| The document is missing a title | Major | Panorama guidance for “Missing Document Title” issue |
| The item does not have an alternative description | Major | Panorama guidance for “Missing Alt-text” issue |
| The font size is smaller than 9 points | Minor | Panorama guidance for “Small Font Size” issue |
| The hyperlink text is not descriptive | Minor | Panorama guidance for “Non-descriptive Hyperlink Text” issue |
HTML Checklist
| Issue Name | Default Issue Severity | Issue Explanation and Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| Alternative description longer than 120 characters | Major | Alternative descriptions must be succinct and should be no more than 120 characters. |
| Insufficient contrast between foreground text and background | Major | Panorama guidance for “Insufficient Contrast” issue |
| Table does not contain content | Major | All HTML elements should have a purpose for being in the document. Either content should be put into the table or the table should be removed. |
| Table does not have a caption | Major | Panorama guidance for “Missing Table Caption” issue |
| Table does not have a header | Major | Panorama guidance for “Missing Table Header” issue |
| The item does not have an alternative description | Major | Panorama guidance for “Missing Alt-text” issue |
| The item file name should not be the alternative description | Major | It is fairly common to default the alt-text of an image to its filename. However, these names are usually not descriptive (often due to the presence of the file extension) and should not be used in place of a proper alternative description. |
| The item should not have a placeholder text as an alternative description | Major | A placeholder attribute should not be used as an alternative to a label. The placeholder is a short hint intended to aid the user with data entry so it should not be identical to the label element. The placeholder may not be available to assistive technology and thus may not be relied upon to convey an accessible name or description — it acts similar to fallback content. |
| This page is missing a header | Major | Panorama guidance for “Missing Page Header” issue |
| This Vimeo video does not have human-generated captions | Major | Including accurate captions for Vimeo videos is essential to enhance their accessibility. This provides an alternative means for users with hearing impairments to access and understand the content. If you are the owner of this video, you can add captions manually by using Vimeo’s caption methods. Before proceeding with the following steps, please ensure that you have saved your captions as a plain text file. See more information on the WCAG Guideline: 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded). Vimeo guidance for adding captions |
| This YouTube video does not have human-generated captions | Major | Panorama guidance for “YouTube Video Does not have Human-generated Captions” issue |
| Adjacent links contain the same URL | Minor | Adjacent links with the same URL should be a single link |
| The document’s heading structure is not properly nested | Minor | Panorama guidance for “Document Heading Structure is Not Properly Nested” issue |
| The font size is smaller than 9 points | Minor | Panorama guidance for “Small Font Size” issue |
| This element should be formatted as a list | Minor | Panorama guidance for “Element Should be Formatted as a List” issue |
| This link should have a descriptive title | Minor | Panorama guidance for “This Link Should Have a Descriptive Title” issue |
GIF Checklist
| Issue Name | Default Issue Severity | Issue Explanation and Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| The document is malformed | Severe | Panorama guidance for “The Document is malformed” issue |
| This GIF has an increased risk of inducing seizures | Major | Panorama guidance for “This GIF has an increased risk of inducing seizures” issue |