by Pragati Kamath

About the Author: Pragati has worked at international corporations such as Allianz, Kraft Foods, and Wipro and is actively seeking an instructional designer role where she can combine her knowledge of learning design and professional experience in international projects. Her philosophy for learning is that we can learn something new every day through the variety of our life experiences, and she tries to leverage that when creating learning experiences for others.

Fun fact: Pragati is fluent in English, Hindi, and German and can get by day-to-day with a smattering of Mandarin coupled with hand gestures!

Introduction

In her article Accessibility in Design, Lucia Liu describes Accessibility as “how many people can use the interface. This usually involves designing for people with various types of disabilities, such as vision, hearing, mobility, cognitive, etc.” As eLearning designers, we should ask: how can any eLearning module be experienced to the fullest extent by the most number of people? 

A deaf student joined my class when I was in grade 7, but she left within a few short months. Although I did not understand it at the time, my school environment could not support her learning needs. She had a hearing aid and was able to lip-read, but she clearly required additional support. Reflecting back on this memory, some best practices¹ teachers and students could have been taught in order to better support her include maintaining eye contact whilst communicating and speaking slowly, clearly and steadily. While everyone was wonderful to her and she made many friends, she was unable to access learning effectively or comprehensively that year. 

Similarly, the recent pandemic caused students all over the world to adapt to new methods of remote, online learning. While most may have adapted fairly quickly, those with disabilities were disproportionately impacted. The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), mentions in its report How has the pandemic affected students with disabilities?, that “early evidence suggests widespread and lengthy interruptions in students’ specialized services, which essentially disappeared overnight at the outset of the pandemic.” Take a moment to consider a deaf student being provided audio lectures or a visually impaired student relying on eLearning that primarily incorporates visual media.

As eLearning designers, it is clear that we should aim to maximize the accessibility factor of the learning materials we create.

Text on the teal background reads: +1 BILLION disabled people in the world

The question is “How?”

Daniel Schwarz provides a comprehensive list of How-Tos in his article A Concise Guide to Accessibility Design. Here are some pointers from his list, which can be adapted easily for designing eLearning:

✨ Designing for vision loss ✨

1. Adding alternative text to images, graphics and visual media
2. Adding subtitles and alternative text for multimedia content
3. Optimizing color contrast and color combinations
4. Optimizing font sizes 
5. Incorporating screen reader assistance
6. Optimizing Typography for Dyslexia

📌 Accessibility factor illustrated by this eLearning example: Yvonne Urra-Bazain optimizes color contrast, font and white space to make this visually clean design.

🔎 Select this link to view the example:  Articulate 360 Accessibility Challenge | Zenni Face Shape Guide | Yvonne Urra-Bazain

✨ Designing for hearing disabilities ✨

1. Combining audio with a transcript or closed captions
2. Combining video with a transcript or closed captions
3. Adding visual indicators for sound

📌 Accessibility factor illustrated by this eLearning example: Alicia de Billy combines audio with captions. Do read the accompanying Style Guide for more information regarding captions and transcripts.

🔎 Select this link to view the example:  Articulate 360 Accessibility Challenge | Stay Safe at Elk Island | Alicia de Billy

✨ Designing for motor disabilities ✨

1. Using simple gestures such as tapping, with large-enough tap targets
2. Avoiding difficult gestures such as swiping, drag-and-drop or sortable activities
3. Ensuring enough time for users to complete tasks
4. Designing responsively for desktops, tablets and mobile devices

📌 Accessibility factor illustrated by this eLearning example: Kimberley Fields replaces a drag-and-drop sequence with a simpler tap sequence.

🔎 Select this link to view the example: Articulate 360 Accessibility Challenge | Name animals in Spanish | Kimberley Fields

✨ Designing for cognitive impairments & learning differences ✨

1. Improving navigation, show the learner their progress via a progress bar
2. Avoiding auto-play of audio or video
3. Implementing consistent use of language and images
4. Using simple language wherever possible, avoiding metaphors or idioms that can be misunderstood
5. Providing multiple representations of content

📌 Accessibility factor illustrated by this eLearning example: Pragati Kamath consistently uses the term “Resume” to avoid confusion with other terms such as CV

🔎 Select this link to view the example: Articulate 360 Portfolio Sample | Shortlisting Candidates | Pragati Kamath

Resources:

A great place to start when building accessible eLearning courses is with the help of an Accessibility Checklist. For example, this comprehensive list by Lesley University serves as a helpful guide to check if “Your Course Content is Accessible”? The list operates on multiple levels, allowing the designer to deep dive on various aspects of building a module, such as documents or design elements, in order to maximize the accessibility factor of the eLearning course.  

Most instructional designers believe that designing with Accessibility in mind will improve the quality of the eLearning design overall. By ensuring that design elements such as consistency, simplicity, and multiplicity are incorporated, we can create an engaging and enriching eLearning experience for all types of learners. 

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References: 

Liu, L. (2018) Accessibility in Design

1: Hearing, Speech & Deaf Center (2022) Deaf 101 – Hearing, Speech & Deaf Center (hsdc.org)

2: Schwarz, D. (2019) A Concise Guide to Accessibility Design (WCAG 2.1, etc.) ~ UX Tricks 

Morando-Rhim, L. & Ekin, S (2021) How has the Pandemic affected students with Disabilities (crpe.org)

Bleich, C. ()  How To Achieve Accessibility In eLearning: 4 Principles | EdgePoint Learning

Anderson, D (2022) Give Your E-Learning Course an Accessibility Makeover #353 (articulate.com)

Wilson, D (2019) The A to Z of UX — A is for Accessibility: 12 tips for designing an inclusive user experience | by Darren Wilson | UX Collective (uxdesign.cc)

Lesley University (2021) Accessibility Checklist : Support Hub (lesley.edu)

Title Image Credit: made in Canva by Pragati Kamath