This post was contributed by Amy Hofer and Veronica Vold. It excerpts content from the Open Curriculum Development Model, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
This post shows how authors can practice universal design moves with their figure captions that will make their multimedia more accessible to all students.
To see how these concepts are applied to a three-year curriculum development project, visit Effective Multimedia Figures [Website]. Additional posts on a universal design approach to accessibility:
- A Universal Design Approach to Links [Website]
- A Universal Design Approach to Accessible Figures [Website]
Use Captions to Show Alignment
Figure captions are a key place to show how all the elements in your chapter work together to support student learning. They often pose a question, draw a contrast, or explain a concept. Figure captions for images, media, and tables must be clearly connected to chapter learning objectives. Additionally, they can include a statement or question inviting students to make connections with lived experience.
Consider the following language for directing student attention in these caption templates:
- Presented as an example of an idea in the text: “Figure X. As you watch [the title of the media element], keep [a main idea from the chapter] in mind and consider the ways that [the topic of the media] relates to [the chapter’s overall topic.]”
- Framed as a pedagogical element with questions: “Figure X. [The title of the media element] is a [#]-minute [format type] that exemplifies [a main idea from the chapter]. Listen specifically for [a connection with the chapter’s overall topic] and answer the following questions:”
Be descriptive, so that readers understand the purpose of the image without needing to read the rest of the page. Direct reader attention to the information the image conveys in a new, but related, way to the paragraphs of text around the image. Finally, keep it short. If you find yourself writing more than one or two sentences in a figure caption, shift any additional phrases to the surrounding paragraphs of text.
Example 1: Photo Caption
This example shows how figure captions prompt readers to connect with the chapter themes more deeply through reflecting on lived experience. The first caption, below, is a label that functions like alt text. The second caption identifies the image with more detail and asks a question.
Figure 1. We provide two captions for this image. What caption would you choose?
- Activist Tarana Burke.
- Black activist Tarana Burke is the founder of the #MeToo Movement. How has #MeToo changed your willingness to talk about sexual violence?
Both captions contain figure numbers and concise statements. However, the second version helps students focus on key chapter concepts and encourages critical thinking.
Example 2: Chart Caption
Captions for complex images connect with chapter learning outcomes and provide a pointer to the long image description with the linked phrase “Image description available.” In this example, the first caption describes the chart, while the second caption shows the reader where to focus and includes a prompt that connects to the chapter theme.
Figure 2. We provide two captions for this image. What caption would you choose? Image description available.
- Chart illustrating higher food insecurity among women.
- In this chart, we see that women experience more food insecurity than men, in every region of the world. In Africa, more than half of all people experience hunger. This rate of food insecurity has also increased around the world between 2015 and 2020. How do you think COVID-19 might have impacted world hunger? Image description available.
The first caption highlights the primary point of the chart. However, the second caption provides more details, such as the upward trend towards 2020, and encourages students to think critically about how COVID-19 may have affected global food insecurity. To learn more about writing image descriptions, visit A Universal Design Approach to Accessible Figures [Website].
Example 3: Video Caption
In Mental Disorders and the Law, author Anne Nichol deliberately incorporates both images and media to support the Universal Design for Learning principle of multiple means of representation. In a chapter on the history of deinstitutionalization in the United States, Anne incorporates a short video on the concept of dignity of risk rather than providing a text description alone. We’ve reproduced how she did this in the block quote below; to see what the video looks like in Anne’s book, visit Section 1.5 Deinstitutionalization and Disability Rights [Website].
Allowing people with mental disorders to seek lives in the community permitted them the dignity of risk—that is, the ability to potentially fail that accompanies an opportunity for growth. The concept of dignity of risk was first introduced by scholars in the 1970s and 1980s, but it has become a central tenet of self-advocates who continue today to argue that many forms of perceived “protection” place unacceptable limits on the lives of people with disabilities. The concept and importance of dignity of risk are explained by a self-advocate in the required video linked here (figure 3).
Figure 3. Watch this short video to hear a self-advocate explain the dignity of risk, and consider how this concept relates to deinstitutionalization. Transcript.
Note that Anne introduces “dignity of risk” in text in the preceding paragraph. She uses the figure caption to reinforce the concept and to challenge students to attend to their own thinking while watching the video. She asks students to consider how this concept applies to a central theme of the chapter. She also chooses a video that features a self-advocate who is a person of color. With this choice, Anne amplifies the voices of people with disabilities and works to ensure that students of color and students with disabilities see themselves reflected in chapter content.
Together, these design choices address multiple criteria for success (for more information on our criteria, visit the post High-quality Curriculum Design with an Equity Lens [Website]):
- Learner Focus: Chapter includes multiple forms of media that are relevant to the text.
- Representation of Diverse Voices: Chapter includes diverse images, voices, viewpoints, or perspectives.
- Accessibility: Videos include accurate captions, audio description, and transcripts (including when shared as optional content).
- Oregon Context: Figure captions for images, media, and tables are clearly connected to chapter learning objectives and include a statement/question inviting Oregon students to make connections with lived experience.
Conclusion: Why are Figure Captions so important?
Often authors and instructors incorporate multimedia because they want to honor learner variability and diverse ways of representing information. This is an important first step to implementing Universal Design for Learning.
However, without figure captions, the meaningful relationship between multimedia and surrounding content will be unclear to students. Moreover, future educators who want to adapt or reuse content may miss the point or mistakenly conclude that the figure is merely decorative. Taking the time to create figure captions ensures deeper engagement with the chapter learning objectives.
Funding
Our grants drew from Governor’s Emergency Education Relief funding and the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) in the U.S. Department of Education (eighty percent of the total cost of the program is funded by FIPSE, with the remaining twenty percent representing in-kind personnel costs funded by Open Oregon Educational Resources).
The contents of this post were developed under a grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, (FIPSE), U.S. Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.
Description for Figure 2
Globally, and in every region, the prevalence of food insecurity is higher among women than men.
A line chart shows moderate or severe food insecurity for both women and men in different regions of the world from 2015 to 2020. The lines are often close, but women are always more food insecure than men. Throughout the world, food insecurity has risen for both women and men (from around 20% in 2015 to over 30% for women in 2020). The two lines diverge the most for Latin America and the Caribbean, where food insecurity went from approximately 25% in 2015 to over 40% in 2020. Food insecurity rates for both men and women are highest in Africa (almost 60% for both men and women in 2020) and lowest in North America (between 10 and 15% in 2020).
Data source: State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021 [Website], prepared by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO.
This simplified version was created by Michaela Willi Hooper and Kimberly Puttman and licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Transcript for Figure 3, Dignity Of Risk
[Max Barrows, Outreach Director of Green Mountain Self-Advocates]: One thing that is really big in self-advocacy and the work that I do and we discuss it a lot is the dignity of risk. The dignity of risk is the opportunity and the right to make mistakes. It’s one thing to be told things through lecture but how else can you learn if you don’t make mistakes. Life is about learning from the mistakes you make.
I appreciate and we appreciate protection from people but please don’t protect us too much or at all from living our lives. We are going to have to encounter failures through decisions that we make. But the way to conquer that is to get up on your feet, brush yourself off, and learn from that because people grow by encountering failures and making mistakes in their life. It’s really the number one way of learning of where lines are drawn and also it helps with learning about yourself.
The dignity of risk is one of many opportunities that people with disabilities deserve to have. It’s one thing just to give them like only a select few but clearly, even saying in the Americans with Disabilities Act, people with disabilities deserve to live their lives with no limits of opportunity. It really opens the doors for people with disabilities to really discover what is out there and to take advantage of what is out there and not be limited to only certain things due to the overprotection that people with disabilities unfortunately have to live with.
Licenses and Attributions
This post is adapted from “Module 3: Working Toward Accessibility: Expanding Your Universe of Learners by Veronica Vold, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
“The dignity of risk” excerpt is from Mental Disorders and the Criminal Justice System by Anne Nichol, licensed under CC BY NC 4.0.
Transcript for Dignity of Risk by UVM Center on Disability and Community Inclusion is included under fair use.
Figure 1. TW2018_20181128_2MA2849_1920 by TED Conference is licensed CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Figure 2. Globally, and in every region, the prevalence of food insecurity is higher among women than men by Michaela Willi Hooper and Kimberly Puttman is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
