With 35 million students and teachers using Canva every single month to bring their ideas to life, we’ve seen firsthand how designing engaging content has become an enabler for creativity, collaboration, and enriched learning. We’re committed to providing our suite of design tools⁠(opens in a new tab or window) to students and teachers for free, because we truly believe design should be accessible to everyone.

We also believe everyone should be able to use Canva independently, regardless of their circumstances or starting point, which is why we’re committed to encouraging accessible design from the start.

Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day⁠(opens in a new tab or window) — an important opportunity for us to be talking, thinking, and learning about how inclusive design can impact lives. Part of our vision for Canva for Education is ensuring that we’re creating inclusive, accessible classroom experiences that are beneficial for learners of all ages and abilities. We’re constantly learning and striving to improve these experiences for students and teachers around the world.

While we know we still have plenty of work to do in this area, we wanted to provide some tips for fostering an accessible classroom where every student feels empowered to succeed. From alternative text and video captioning to translating your designs in a simple click, we hope these features inspire you to create more accessible content.

Describe your images and elements using alternative text

Building accessibility into designs with alt text enables learners with visual impairments to experience your designs. Creating this inclusive learning environment can have a significant impact on the academic and social-emotional growth of students with visual impairments or other learning differences. Canva’s alt text function is available for all library images, uploaded images, videos, shapes, lines, and graphics.

Enhance readability with vibrant color contrasts

In the world of design, color contrast is key to ensuring students can clearly read and interpret content. By incorporating high-contrast elements, teachers can create visually captivating materials that engage all students. Choosing bold color combinations like a vibrant blue background with crisp white text is an example of an effective contrast ratio that makes content easier to read. Check out this handy contrast checker⁠(opens in a new tab or window) from WebAIM.

Caption your videos for inclusive storytelling

Videos have the power to captivate and inspire students, and this impact can be increased with the addition of captions. Teachers can turn on Canva’s auto-generated captions to enhance instructional videos, enabling all students to follow along and learn at their own pace, regardless of their hearing, cognitive and learning abilities, and those who are less fluent in the language spoken.

Embrace diversity with translated designs

In the classroom, it’s incredibly important to foster a sense of belonging and inclusivity to create powerful learning environments. By embracing translation, students can engage with educational content in a way that celebrates their diverse backgrounds. With our Translate⁠(opens in a new tab or window) feature, you can translate text into an entirely new language with just a few clicks!

Use clear and concise language

Designing with plain language is a simple yet powerful way to promote accessibility and increase comprehension for learners of all ages and abilities. Kick off your design with the most essential information to engage and motivate your students. Structuring your content in bullet points, tables, and headers are effective ways to promote comprehension.

We’re only 1% of the way there

Creating accessible teaching materials has been a core focus for our team, and we’re excited to be launching some new features soon to further support teachers and students. Though we’re proud of the progress we’ve made, we know we have a lot more to achieve in this space by bringing more accessibility features into our platform in the future as we work towards a more inclusive product.

If you have any suggestions or feedback for our team on how we can continue to improve in this area, we’d love to hear from you⁠(opens in a new tab or window).