Overview
In our quest to make Boom Cards compliant with new accessibility requirements across the United States, Boom has introduced a number of new tools to make optimizing your decks easier than ever. This article outlines the evolving recommendations for creators and Boom Publishers, and it outlines some recommendations for complex use cases.
Advice for Approaching Accessibility
Feedback from Boom Publishers has made one thing clear—retrofitting old activities that were made without accessibility in mind can be a daunting task.
That’s why we’d like you to begin by looking forward. Consider how you build your new materials. Making your new decks accessible is not just the right thing to do; it’s also likely to be a requirement for many public schools in the future. If you want to keep your Boom Cards in the largest number of classrooms, considering Universal Design for Learning in your new curriculum development will be a strategic approach for longterm success.
For most creators and publishers, the number of decks that you make accessible will be left to your discretion. For Premier Publishers only, we are advising the following:
By June 30, 2025, the Publisher has updated the majority of their catalog with accurate accessibility status. This means you have complied or opted out. Publisher has at least 25 decks that meet two or more accessibility criteria (motor, visual, and audio) available in their catalog. These can be new decks or updated older decks.
Premier Publishers must adhere to stricter requirements because the Boom Passport catalog will be advertised to public schools in the United States, and those customers have already flagged accessibility as a major consideration in their purchases.
New Tools
Knowing that there is buyer demand for accessible resources, Boom wants to make it simple to retrofit your existing activities wherever possible. To that end, we’ve introduced some tools to make the process of scanning and labeling your resources easier.
Scanner
First, we’ve introduced a scanner that you can use to see if an existing deck is already optimized for accessibility. This tool can be found in the Deck Details modal inside the Boom Studio under the Play tab.
When you scan a set of Boom Cards, you will be notified about any missing alt-text. If you have all the required alt-text in the deck, visual and audio accessibility will be toggled on. If you do not have any drag and drop functionality in the Boom Cards, motor accessibility will be toggled on.
You can manually turn off visual, audio, or motor accessibility if you know that the deck is not appropriate for any of those learners. For example, a searchlight game would probably not be accessible for a blind or low vision student. You could manually toggle the visual accessibility off for that activity. A music deck that requires sound recognition would not be appropriate for a deaf or hard of hearing learner. In that case, toggle audio to the off position. Any deck that requires fine motor skills, such as complex drag-and-drop or manipulation of small elements, should be marked in the off position for motor accessibility.
The scanner will not assess the Boom Cards for z-order, since that requires subjective human assessment. As a reminder, z-order determines the sequence in which a screen reader or navigation tool will move through the elements in the Boom Card. The logical order for a card depends on the context, so a scanner cannot adequately assess or optimize z-order.
For an overview on how to optimize z-order and alt-text, check out this article.
Automatic Alt-Text Labeling
Now, you can add alt-text to a sound or image from the Asset Manager. Then, when you add the element to decks in the future, the alt-text will automatically populate. You’ll still have the option to manually adjust the alt-text within the Deck Editor.
Here’s how to try it! Within the Studio tab, navigate to Images in the Asset Manager. Upload an image, then click Edit Details. Label the Accessibility field with the alt-text that you would like to use for that image within your Boom Cards.
This process also works in the reverse.
If you upload an image or sound directly within your Deck Editor and you add alt-text, the element in the Asset Manager will also be auto-populated with alt-text. This means that no matter where you add the alt-text, whether it’s in the Asset Manager or within the Deck Editor, the element will have automatic alt-text when you use it in the future.
We hope that this saves you time building accessible resources!
Complex Use Cases
We’ve received lots of questions about how to handle alt-text for Boom Cards made with flattened background images. In these cards, text and images may still need alt-text labels, but the scanner will mark them as having all alt-text fields complete.
First, we do not recommend relying on the scanner for these decks, since the scanner tool will give you a false positive on visual and audio accessibility. Although all fields appear to be filled, there are text and image elements missing alt-text.
You can apply alt-text to flattened background images by overlaying blank text and answer choice elements. To do this, you can begin by marking the background image alt-text as “none.”
Next, you will need to add the text box or answer choice element.
After you have added another element on top of the background image, delete the content from the new element. After you delete the content, you will see the alt-text field appear in the properties panel and in the Selectable List.
This technique can be used to add alt-text to both text and imagery within a flattened background image. If you already have an answer choice or text element over the background image, you can simply add the alt-text directly to that element.
If you need to describe the entire flattened background image with alt-text, you can do so in the field at the center of the screen beneath the deck title and the card size. That accessibility text field will always be read first by a screen reader.
Additional Resources
We are here to help you improve your resources, and would be happy to answer technical questions about accessibility best practices. Please direct questions about accessibility to help@boomlearning.com or the Boom Creators Facebook Group. Questions posted to that group will viewable by Boom Publishers, as well as Boom Card creators who publish to their School Store or for their own personal use. You can also check the Boom FAQ Help Center for up-to-date technical FAQs.
