Make an AI study guide accessible by treating the generated text as a draft, then checking its accuracy, structure, language, visuals and reading order before sharing it. Start with trusted course material and a clear purpose; use real headings and text equivalents for meaningful visuals; then review the finished file with accessibility tools and, where possible, readers from the intended audience.
1. Set the guide’s scope before prompting
Decide what the guide needs to help someone do: recap a lesson, prepare for an exam, practise vocabulary or review a process. Identify the intended readers and the authoritative course material the AI should use. List the concepts or sections that must be included so important material is not accidentally dropped.
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Do not upload confidential or restricted course content to an AI service unless you are authorized to do so. If the source material is incomplete or unclear, the guide should flag that limitation rather than fill gaps with guesses.
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Give the AI a specific task and describe the shape of the output you need. For example:
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Using only the course material below, draft a study guide for [intended reader] to help with [review purpose]. Give it a meaningful title and a small number of clearly named sections. Use concise explanations, define necessary technical terms, and include review questions with answers and brief explanations. Preserve the key concepts. If the source is unclear or does not contain enough information, flag the gap instead of inventing details.
These instructions can make a draft easier to work with, but they do not prove it is accurate or accessible. A 2026 exploratory preprint by Hector R. Amado-Salvatierra reported pooled rubric compliance scores of 24.2% in a generic condition and 96.7% in a WCAG-configured condition. The study used one model, one artifact per condition and content type, and one evaluator; its persistent-profile condition was not exercised. Those results are limited to that experiment and do not establish typical performance or show that a prompt alone can make a guide accessible.
3. Check every learning claim against the source
Factual accuracy and accessibility are separate reviews. Compare the draft with the course material before polishing its presentation. Pay particular attention to details that can change the meaning of a lesson:
- Definitions, especially where a familiar word has a technical meaning.
- Dates, names, quantities, units and formulae.
- Cause-and-effect statements and the order of steps in a process.
- Review questions, answer keys and explanations.
- Claims, examples or conclusions that are not supported by the assigned material.
Correct errors, restore essential omissions and remove unsupported additions. Do not let a fluent explanation or a correct-looking answer key stand in for comparison with the original source.
4. Give the document real, navigable structure
Use the authoring software’s built-in title and heading styles rather than making text merely look like a heading with bold type or a larger font. Arrange headings in a logical hierarchy: the document title first, followed by section headings and any necessary subsections. Use descriptive labels that tell readers what each section contains. Headings and labels should describe their topic or purpose, as stated in WCAG Success Criterion 2.4.6; programmatically identified headings also let assistive technology expose a document outline for navigation.
Use numbered lists for a sequence and bullet lists for related items when those forms make the material clearer. Avoid creating a dense wall of text. In Word or similar editors, inspect the outline or navigation pane to check that headings appear in the intended order.
5. Edit for comprehension without stripping out meaning
Prefer familiar words, concise sentences and short blocks of text. Define necessary jargon when it first appears, and replace vague references such as “this” or “the above” when readers might not know what they refer to. Keep the wording precise enough to preserve the concepts learners need to understand.
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6. Make meaning available beyond appearance
For every meaningful diagram, image or chart, provide an equivalent in text or make the same information available elsewhere in the guide. Do not use color, shape, position or visual emphasis as the only way to communicate a distinction; state the distinction in words too. If an image is purely decorative, ensure it does not distract from the information readers need.
Use tables for simple data comparisons, not to position page content. Give tables clear headers so readers can identify what each row and column represents. Check that links make their destination clear from their text rather than relying on a bare URL or an instruction such as “click here.”
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.7. Review the rendered file in more than one way
Run the accessibility checker in the editor, but treat its findings as one part of the review. A checker cannot determine whether the material is factually correct or whether a learner can follow its explanations. Combine these checks:
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- Structure: inspect the document outline or heading map and confirm that the hierarchy and reading order make sense.
- Automated checks: run the editor’s accessibility checker and address the issues it identifies.
- Listening: use read-aloud or a screen reader to catch awkward wording, confusing order, pronunciation problems and missing context.
- Visual presentation: check contrast and, where appropriate, view the document in greyscale to see whether meaning still depends on color.
- Audience feedback: where possible, ask someone from the intended audience to locate information and answer sample review questions.
Accessibility Standards Canada’s CAN-ASC-3.1:2025, “Plain Language,” recommends structural review, listening checks, design checks and testing with intended audiences. These methods complement one another: none replaces checking the guide against its course source.
8. Choose a format that preserves access
For material published online, HTML is generally the better choice when feasible: GOV.UK’s document-publishing guidance recommends HTML for online content and notes that PDFs can be difficult to use with assistive technology. The right format still depends on the reader’s needs and how the guide will be used.
- HTML: suits online publication and can work with browser or device settings. Keep headings, links, images and tables accessible in the page itself.
- Word or another editable document: can support editing and annotation, provided it uses semantic heading styles and is checked before distribution.
- PDF: may be required for a fixed-layout or distribution context, but exporting a file does not automatically make it accessible. Preserve its semantic structure, check the resulting file, and provide a usable accessible alternative where needed.
Whatever the format, review the actual version readers will receive; a well-structured source document can lose useful structure during export.
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