Conforming Alternate Versions

Last updated: 5/21/2025

Purpose

The conforming alternate version is primarily intended to be the first accommodation provided to users who encounter an accessibility-related barrier within an eCourse and need/want an alternate method for experiencing and completing the eCourse.

Keep in mind

Even though you’ll be preparing a conforming alternate version, policy and law still require you to make a good faith effort, utilizing the resources reasonably at your disposal, to ensure an eCourse is as compliant as possible with the required technical standards
You should still prepare a conforming alternate version even if an eCourse successfully passes all the required WCAG criteria, as users may seek reasonable accommodations for disability-related challenges beyond those reflected in the WCAG criteria

Design

According to the WCAG definition, conforming alternate versions must:

Conform at the designated level: under the new regulations for the Americans with Disabilities Act, this means WCAG 2.1 AA
Provide all of the same information and functionality: refer to the Same information and functionality section, further below
Be as up-to-date as the corresponding eCourse: i.e., anytime the eCourse is updated, the conforming alternate version must be updated accordingly as well

Nature

Conforming alternate versions are often provided in the form of an accessible PDF, but HTML format could be used as well.

Provision

WCAG dictates that conforming alternate versions be made available to users in at least one of three prescribed ways; however, institutions may seek to provide access in alternative ways that adhere to the spirit of WCAG and providing equal access while integrating other institutional processes and requirements and maintaining compliance with policy and law. Check if your institution has its own method for providing access to conforming alternate versions.

For eCourses that will be offered through the UC Learning Center

Instead of providing access directly to an eCourse’s conforming alternate version, provide users with instructions (including contact information) to contact their location’s UC Learning Center administrator and request reasonable accommodations.

To comply with the spirit of WCAG and ensure users are made aware of how to acquire a conforming alternate version, these instructions should be provided in as many of the following locations as are possible:

In the email notification sent to users who are required to take the eCourse and/or who have registered to take the eCourse
In the eCourse’s description/Activity Details page within the UC Learning Center
As early as possible within the eCourse, such as in an early accessibility information or instructions slide

Once a user has contacted their UC Learning Center administrator, the administrator will provide the conforming alternate version and work with the user to ensure their completion of the eCourse is recorded in the LMS.

Sample statement

The following sample statement and UC Learning Center Contacts by Location web page link can be provided to users in the ways described above to meet this requirement:

If you have any difficulty engaging with or completing this training and would like to request reasonable accommodations, start by reaching out to your location’s UC Learning Center administrator, whose email address can be found through the UC Learning Center Contacts web page linked here.

Same information and functionality

The alternate version should seek to provide an equivalent learner experience as the eCourse; this means:

Providing all the information conveyed through slide audio, video, text and non-decorative graphics combined in a single alternate version

Provide audio information via a transcript
Provide video information via an alternative for time-based media
- You may even seek to additionally provide access to the videos within another platform, like YouTube
Slide text should be provided even if it merely summarizes or highlights information already provided through an audio transcript or a video’s alternative for time-based media
- eCourse users have an opportunity to experience how the eCourse developer chose to summarize or highlight the audio/video information for users, so users who rely on the conforming alternate version should be able to experience that as well
Providing all the same semantic text structure as is present in the eCourse, including hyperlinks, lists, headings, etc.
- For example, if certain text is structured as a four-item list within an eCourse slide, it needs to be presented as a four-item list within the conforming alternate version
- Heading hierarchies should maintain the same relationships as are present within the eCourse, but they may be transposed to different heading levels within the conforming alternate version
  - For example, in an eCourse, slide titles are programmed as Heading 1s, with child headings within slides starting at the Heading 2 level, but the conforming alternate version uses the Heading 1 level for its title, requiring that slide titles be programmed as Heading 2s and that child headings within slides start at the Heading 3 level
Providing all non-decorative graphics, with the same alt text and/or text equivalent as are provided for each graphic within the eCourse
Providing an equivalent opportunity to engage with quiz questions and other interactive exercises
- You may need or want to strategically utilize structure in order to provide an equivalent experience around interactivity; refer to the next section for examples

Understanding alternatives for time-based media

Under WCAG, an alternative for time-based media (WCAG definition) needs to accomplish the following (examples provided further below):

Provide all audio information, including:
- Transcripts that convey everything said
- Labels that convey who is speaking at any given time
- Text descriptions of music and sound effects that are intended to convey information; see Sound Effects and Music within the DCMP Captioning Key for guidance on how to describe in text these forms of audio
Provide all non-decorative visual information, including:
- All text displayed within the media
- Text descriptions of information being conveyed through graphics within the media, if not the graphics themselves with alt text or text equivalents
Provide the above in the same exact sequence as they’re provided within the media
If audio information and visual information are offered simultaneously within the media and intended to be consumed simultaneously — i.e., they support each other such that a viewer could not fully understand or experience one without the other — they need to be presented in the alternative for time-based media in a way that conveys this connection
Provide an equivalent experience for any time-based interaction included within the media
- For example, if a video asks users to pause it at a certain moment and visit a link, the alternative for time-based media should provide those same instructions, sequenced according to where they occur in the video, and the link

In the alternative for time-based media, users should be made aware which information is audio information and which is visual information. There is no prescribed way of doing this, and there are many methods you can employ. Whichever method you use, just make sure it is clear to users, and don’t hesitate to provide instructions if needed.

For example, the first two examples below use [ ] to convey visual information, including speaker labels. If those examples were included in a conforming alternate version, they might be preceded by text that explains, “In the following video transcript, essential visual information will be wrapped in [ ].”

“Talking head” example of an alternative for time-based media

If a video features a single person talking to camera for its entirety, you may only need to convey the briefest bit of visual information at the start, like so:

start of example [Professor Scott speaking to camera]

Hi everyone. Today I’m excited to talk to you about how Louis Armstrong influenced modern American music, including, I’d bet, your favorite stuff that’s coming out these days… end of example

More complex example of an alternative for time-based media

For more complex videos, additional visual cues and speaker labels may be necessary.

start of example [Sydney Thomas, Daniel Tanaka, Michael Williams and Miranda Jimenez sit in lounge chairs arrayed in a wide semi-circular on a stage, in front of a backdrop featuring the UCSF Health logo.]

Crowd murmuring

[Sydney:] Hello everyone! I’m so happy to see so many of you here today for this important panel discussion. I’m curious, for our speakers, have any of you visited us before?

[Michael Williams and Miranda Jimenez raise their hands]

[Daniel:] I haven’t, Sydney, but my niece just graduated from the amazing Global Health masters program here, so I do have a little bit of a connection.

Crowd cheers

[Daniel:] Yeah! We’re all very proud. end of example

Example of synched audio and visual information in an alternative for time-based media

This Introduction to Health Care Privacy (PDF) example uses table structure to connect audio and visual information that are intended to support each other and be consumed simultaneously.

Notes on this example:

Other means for conveying connected audio and visual information can be used; employing table structure isn’t required and should only be done if the table can be made properly accessible
Providing time stamps isn’t required but may aid learners who use the alternative for time-based media to supplement their experience with the media

Utilizing structure to provide an equivalent experience for interactivity

Consider the following example of a multiple choice quiz question:

start of example Q1: What is 2+2?

3 (incorrect)
0 (incorrect)
4 (correct)
5 (incorrect) end of example

This example does not provide an equivalent opportunity to try answering the quiz question, because users encounter the possible answer choices in parallel with being informed whether each choice is correct or incorrect; that is, they never have an opportunity to consider all the possible answer choices independent of knowing which are correct and incorrect. Conversely, eCourse users get to encounter all the answer choices before learning which are correct and which are incorrect.

Next, consider this version of that example:

start of example Q1: What is 2+2?

Correct answer: C) 4 end of example

This experience would be more equivalent, but it’s still, arguably, not optimally equivalent. Why?

Consider the experience of a screen reader user reading linearly through that content. Hopefully they’ll have registered that they’re reading through a 4-item list, and hopefully they’ll deduce that answer choice D is the last possible answer choice, but they may miss or fail to connect that information, and/or they may choose to continuing reading forward regardless, in which case they would encounter the correct answer, perhaps before they were ready to hear it, depriving them of an equivalent opportunity to try answering the question.

Compare those two versions with the following version of this example:

start of example Q1: What is 2+2?

Correct answer:

C) 4 end of example

Now, if a screen reader user reads forward past the 4-item list, they’ll encounter a stand-alone label that essentially tells them, “if you utilize one more read forward command, you’ll encounter the correct answer, so don’t read forward unless you’re ready for that.”

If you want to go above and beyond to provide an equivalent experience, you could even use links within the conforming alternate version to provide the equivalent experience of actually selecting an answer choice.

For example:

Incorrect answer

That is incorrect. Please try again.

Correct answer

C) 4 end of example

Electronic Accessibility