“Accessibility allows us to tap into everyone’s potential.”
I (Carla) recently read this quote by Debra Ruh, an advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities. It stood out to me because our team is constantly striving to learn about and implement accessibility guidelines and inclusive practices in our facilitation and learning design work.
One area where this discussion comes up frequently is in the many e-learning modules we develop for clients in Articulate Storyline each year. When doing so, whether we are writing plain language content, ensuring good colour contrast, or designing effective interactive activities, we are always asking ourselves how we can ensure that all aspects of the learning experiences we create are accessible and achievable for every learner.
An example that Beth posted about recently on our social media platforms is about drag and drop activities. These simple click-and-drag interactions come as a built-in option in Storyline but may be difficult or impossible for learners with a mobility impairment to complete. Knowing this, we now only create interactions that include keyboard-controlled alternatives, such as a click-and-reveal, matching, or sequencing option.
A similar example is the issue of hover states, which are rollover effects that require a mouse. We might change the colour of a button when a mouse hovers over it to indicate a clickable object, but hovering over an object isn’t recognized by a screen reader. As such, when we use hover states in our courses, we now provide a keyboard-accessible alternative along with it so that the learner is instructed to “hover over or select” the button on the page.
Making interactive content accessible to every learner is important to us and we are always learning new ways to do so. This is because we want every learner to be able to engage in the e-learning courses we create.
If you use Articulate Storyline and want to learn more about increasing the accessibility of a course, check out a few of their recent accessibility-based webinars at:
https://community.articulate.com/articles/accessibility-for-e-learning-webinar-series-2023
And if you have any tips or ideas to add, please let us know! We’d love to hear from you.
