Elearning Accessibility Playbook

In many ways, we're expected to created learning experiences that are accessible anytime, anyplace by any user on any device. We throw our all into mobile-first and micro-learning and changing the way we design and develop. Yet many organizations and developers continue to put accessibility on the backburner, relegating it to the realm of compliance-only.

Too many of our elearning projects are inaccessible simply because we don't take the time to think about design the best experience for all of our users. To help make the case for accessible design and help instructional designers and developers get their heads around what they actually need to do, we've created a playbook with 5 keys to accessible elearning.

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  1. Get to know the Standards

    2.

  2. Accessibility First

    3.

  3. Accessible Design is Good Design

    4.

  4. Do What You Can with What You Have

    5.

Play 01

Get to Know the Standards

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Before even beginning to talk about or design for accessibility, you should explore what accessibility really means to an online audience. Accessibility is not merely a matter of screen readers. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), written by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) are the resource for making sure that web content is perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. By aligning your development with these key areas, you take steps to ensure that people with disabilities across the wide physical and cognitive spectrum can access your learning experience with ease.

    To Do

  • Before you get in a tizzy about accessibility, familiarize yourself with the WCAG 2.0 guidelines
  • Talk with stakeholders about the target audience of your content
  • Consider the levels of conformance with WCAG 2.0 (Level A, AA, and AAA) and talk with stakeholders on how deeply you need to get into accessibility for a particular project. Not all projects will be the same.

    Ask Yourself

  • Who is my target audience?
  • Will the people in my audience be able to perceive the content I create?
  • Will the people in my audience be able to operate my interactions?
  • Will the people in my audience be able to understand the content I've written?
  • Will my design lend itself to being accessed by current and future technologies? Will it degrade well?

Play 02

Accessibility First

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You've probably heard of a mobile-first design philosophy. In short, when designing web content, this methodology advocates for making your content work for a mobile audience, first. Good instructional design should take a similar accessibility-first approach. Instead of trying to retro-fit your design with accessible activities and interactions, you should begin by thinking about and designing activities, interactions, and design structures that are usable and accessible for your entire audience. Once your design works in an accessible format, you can then augment the design with non-essential animations, images, and interactions. In that way, you ensure that your audience has access to the same information and activities that are equally rigorous.

    To Do

  • Early in in your project, ensure that you know your audience and what they will need.
  • During prototyping and design phases, begin by designing universally accessible context, information, interactions, and activities
  • Ensure that all essential information and activity works technically and instructionally before augmenting the design with non-essentials

    Ask Yourself

  • What is the essential information that users need from this experience?
  • What is the context and purpose of my activities?
  • Is my activity usable and instructionally sound without extras?

Play 03

Accessible Design is Good Design

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The truth is: information that is not accessible is poorly designed. Even if you could (rightly) assume that you had exactly 0 disabled or impaired people in your target audience, a well-designed project will make it easier for everyone to use and understand your learning experience. Many accessibility advocates turn to captions as an example. Even users who are not deaf or hard of hearing use captions on a regular basis, for example, when they are in a noisy room or when they can't put on earphones. Another example often used is a subway map. Though colors for the various lines can be understood by non-color blind users, a better-designed map that used more than just color to distinguish the subway lines would make the map easier for everyone to use.

    To Do

  • Every good design process begins by having conversations with stakeholders and users about the performance goals and what they need
  • As you design and re-design based on feedback and testing, seek to improve the usability of your experience with every iteration
  • Consider universal design and accessibility as a product that serves the bottom line of your organization and opens up your design to a wider range of potential users

    Ask Yourself

  • How can I improve my design so that it's easier for everyone to use?
  • How can a better designed product help the organization meet their performance goals?
  • How can I design my product so that it reaches more people?

Play 04

Do What You Can with What You Have

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Rapid development tools have democratized the development of elearning. Whereas, in the past, an instructional designer might have worked with a small team of graphic designers and software developers, many instructional designers today are also developers using particular software. While this enables us to quickly create prototypes and slick designs, it also robs us of the flexibility that we might have had in working with a team of individuals who could design a unique experience that exactly met our users' needs. While nearly all of rapid development tools have made great strides in implementing easy-to-use accessibility features, they aren't perfect and can sometimes seriously limit your design capabilities. While these limitations can frustrate, as designers, it's incumbent on us to do as much as we can, given the tools we have.

    To Do

  • Use the accessible first methodology
  • Know your design tools and their limitations so that you can design around them
  • If necessary, be prepared to create alternative versions of your interactions and content

    Ask Yourself

  • What accessibility features do my tools have?
  • Would it be better to create an alternative, less accessible version instead of one version?