From our November 2020 Digital Accessibility Experts Live Webinar Creating e-learning that can be used by everyone (POSTER)
Due to the pandemic, wherever learning is happening at the moment – whether in workplaces, universities or schools – it is happening remotely.
So our Digital Accessibility Experts Live webinar in November 2020 was on the importance of digital accessibility in e-Learning, to make sure it can be used by everyone.
Why it’s important…
Covid has had a significant impact on all types of remote learning, whether it’s for school-age children learning from home, students distance learning, or employees switching to online learning platforms for professional development or training.
Whoever the audience, making sure that material is fully accessible is critical so you don’t lock anyone out from learning.
We’ve reviewed the accessibility of lots of different e-learning content and platforms over many years, and know that it’s not just e-learning content authors who need to make their work accessible, it’s the people creating the Virtual Learning Environments that they put them into, and the people who buy the VLEs and e-learning content for their companies, universities or schools.
So here’s a poster with some hints and tips to each of these groups get it right.
The poster
Here’s an image of the poster. It has a brief alt-text summary. Click here for the full text of the poster.
Download the poster
Here’s the PDF download of the poster.
We’d suggest you print it off and put it somewhere in your team space to remember the needs of your users who may be very different from you…
Feel free to share it freely with anyone who you think would appreciate it. Like the gov.uk posters, we’ve made it available under a Creative Commons license which allows everyone to share, use and build upon the poster provided is is used non-commercially and keep the appropriate attributions (Hassell Inclusion and Creative Commons logos).
Want more?
If you’re interested in hearing more about accessibility in e-learning and education:
- Check out some of our innovations in accessibility in e-learning at Hassell Inclusion in our blog Beyond Inclusion and Reverse Inclusion: How fully engaging with the needs of disabled and elderly people can turbo-charge innovation and profitability and case study Reflex Arc: gesture recognition can take you places
- Learn more directly in one of our ‘Speed Dating’ sessions which enables you to gain better insights into how people with disabilities use e-learning, by speaking directly with people with those conditions.
- Sign-up for the Hassell Inclusion newsletter to get more insights like this in your email every month.
Transcript of the text on the poster
3 key groups that are involved in the delivery of e-learning need to think about digital accessibility:
Platform creators
- Take a strategic approach to accessibility up-front. You may not be able to sell your platform to schools, universities or companies if you don’t.
- Ensure the navigation journey to content within your platform’s virtual learning environment is accessible. If it isn’t, it doesn’t matter how accessible e-learning content is, some people won’t be able to get to it.
- If your platform provides tools for creating e-learning, make sure they allow creators to add accessibility hints (e.g. captions for videos, alt-text for images).
Content creators
- Consider the different learning needs and preferences of your learners. Provide alternative media formats to help all learners reach learning outcomes.
- Text should be brief, easy to understand and right for the reading age of your audience.
- Videos are great for people who are dyslexic, but need captions for people who are deaf, and audio-description for people who are blind.
- Animations make learning fun, but are distracting for people who are neurodiverse. Make sure they can be paused.
- Make sure all content and assessments are able to be navigated via keyboard, is accessible for screen reader users, and text is clear when viewed with 200% bigger font.
Platform & content buyers
- Be clear in your accessibility requirements from e-learning platform and content creators from day one.
- Before buying a platform, ask suppliers for evidence of how accessible it is (usually via a VPAT). Check if the platform can be customised and personalised to make accessible learning experiences
- Specify a consistent look and feel that all your content suppliers should adhere to.
- If your e-learning content comes from an external supplier, put accessibility in the contract. If it comes from an internal person or team, make sure they are trained in accessible content production.
