A more accessible Google Form means more of your users can complete it. In this video, we cover ways to make your form more accessible:
- Allow autosave
- Offer assistance
- Use text instead of date field
- Add captions to images
- Make sure image content is available to everyone
- Reference needed videos
- Write descriptive links
Resources
Transcript
An accessible Google Form means more of your users can submit it.
In this video, we cover easy choices to make your Google Form more accessible, like: Allow autosave, Offer a way to get assistance, Use text fields instead of the date field, Add captions to your images, Make sure images with text or content are available to everyone, Reference needed videos, and write descriptive links.
Let’s get started.
Allow autosave
First, let’s make sure that autosave is enabled. Autosave automatically saves people’s progress, so they can come back to the form later. It can help out any user who might need more time filling out the form.
Let’s go to the settings to check if ‘autosave’ is turned on. To get there, I’ll select the Settings tab at the top. Then, select Presentation and go to the ‘Disable autosave for all respondents’ option at the bottom of the section.
Disable autosave for all respondents’ is switched off, which means autosave is working.
Offer assistance
Next, to help make sure all users can complete this form, we’ve provided a way to reach out if there are questions or requests. We tell them to call or email us for assistance. This is an easy way to account for any unforeseen issues.
Use text instead of date field
This next question uses the built-in date picker. Date pickers are notorious for being difficult with assistive technology. Our article linked below demos this. Instead of using the date field, we can use a more accessible text field.
Now, we’re using a text field for the date. We’ve also included instructions to tell the user to enter the date as two digits for the month, two digits for the day, and four for the year.
Add captions to images
This question includes an image, but its caption field isn’t filled in. In Google Forms, the caption acts as the alternative text, which is what screen readers announce when they get to an image.
Since this image is missing a caption, there’s nothing for the screen reader to announce, and the user has no way to know what’s in the image.
To add a caption, select the image options icon on the image then Caption. Now, add the alternative text to the caption field.
Make sure image content is available to everyone
We’re going to take image accessibility one step further. It’s easy to add an image that has a lot of content in it, like an image of a lot of text, a table, or a chart. The problem is there isn’t a way for assistive technology to access that content. Assistive technology like screen readers and braille output devices can interact with HTML content but can’t determine what is in an image.
That means an image can’t be the only way to get that information. You could put it in the question text, description, caption field, or link to a webpage with the content.
For example, in this question, responders need to refer to a volunteer schedule before selecting a shift, so we link to an HTML version of the schedule instead of uploading a screenshot of it.
Reference needed videos
Next, we have a video that the responder needs to watch before answering the next question. In Google Forms, a video gets its own content block, but the title text doesn’t become a heading in the form. This matters because screen reader users often navigate using headings.
This can make it easy for the video to get missed.
To make sure your responders have all the information they need, you could reference the video in your question to let them know it’s there, or you could add a link out to the video.
Write descriptive links
For the video, we added a hyperlink in the question and included descriptive text so that people know where the link takes them.
In this next question, we have another hyperlink, but it just says Click Here.
We don’t really know where this link is taking us, so we don’t know if we want to click it.
Now, we’ve given the same link more descriptive text.
The user now knows exactly where this link will take them.
Recap
We made a few small changes, but they all helped make a much better experience.
Next time you create a Google Form, remember to check autosave, offer a way to get assistance, use text fields instead of date fields, add captions to images, make sure images with text or content are available to everyone, reference needed videos in the question, and write descriptive links.
For more ways to make your Google Form accessible, check out our article linked below.
Subscribe for more accessibility videos.