Accessibility from the Ground Up: Understandable eLearning Uses Plain Language

“Accessible eLearning Benefits All Learners” explores the reasons for creatingaccessible eLearning content. This Spotlight concludes a four-part series onhow to remove different types of barriers that learners might face:

• “Accessibility from the Ground Up: Build Captions and Usable Design into All eLearning” describesaccessibility for learners who are deaf or hard of hearing.
• “Accessibility from the Ground Up: Without Glasses, You Couldn’t Read This Content” addresseslearners with visual disabilities.
• “Accessibility from the Ground Up: Remove Barriers to eLearning Content” considers mobility issues that create barriersto online access.

Making content understandable 

Ensuring that content is clear and unambiguous is much morethan an accessibility issue of concern to people with disabilities, though ithas obvious benefits for learners who are deaf or have autism, dyslexia, orcognitive or other disabilities that affect their ability to access or usewritten language. Writing in plain English and using additional formats—such asvisual media to accompany text, or captions with audio—aids all learners,including those who are English learners or have limited literacy skills. It alsoensures that eLearning content is accessible to any busy employee who is tryingto learn complex material about an unfamiliar topic.

This is the essence of the “U” of POUR: understandable content. Understandable content is usable content.All the captions and alt text descriptions in the world are useless if learnerssimply don’t understand the material.

• Know your audience; if you can be certain thatevery learner has the same basic knowledge, it’s reasonable to skip basicinformation. But that’s rarely the case. It is generally wise to include thebasics while enabling advanced learners to skip introductory sections.
• Build in features for people who have difficultyremembering things to make it easy for learners to search for content or reviewcontent they have already covered, and allow unlimited access to exercises thatoffer spaced repetition and skills practice.
• Include supplemental material and additionalresources, such as illustrations, infographics, videos, and animations. Thisserves multiple groups of learners: Learners who want to explore a topic moredeeply benefit from the additional materials. The non-text materials areessential for learners with some cognitive disabilities, low-literacy learners,and learners who have dyslexia.

What is “plain” English?

Writing in plain English provides learners with theinformation they need in a way that is easy to read and understand:

• Use simple, everyday words; avoid idioms andcultural references.
• Avoid jargon, and explain any specialized wordsor acronyms that you do use.
• Keep sentences short. Comprehension drops offdrastically when sentence length increases beyond about 20 words.
• Be clear and specific.
• Avoid redundancy.
• Use active verbs.
• Introduce one idea per sentence and one conceptper paragraph.
• Organize content logically. Use HTML5 tags tomark headers, body text, etc.

Non-native English readers, a group that includes people whohave been deaf from birth, generally have a smaller vocabulary of more basicwords than highly educated native English speakers. According to Wanda Blackettand Andrea Kenney of Deaf Heart Design,an accessible eLearning company in Ontario, Canada, deaf adults tend to have avocabulary equivalent to that of a hearing child in the fourth grade, and theylack the casual understanding of idioms and cultural references that hearingchildren absorb from their environment. Kenney adds that up to half of adultsin the developed world struggle with literacy issues; using simpler words andclear writing removes a major barrier to understanding. (Editors’ note: While we respect the knowledge of the experts citedin this paragraph, these are generalizations based on their experience, andthere are certainly many deaf individuals who are exceptions—many of themnotable—to those generalizations. The key point, it seems to us, is that clearwriting and appropriate vocabulary helps to ensure that all readers understandyour text. Know your users, and write for them. See “Personas Place Developer Focus on Learners’ Needs” for suggestions on ways to ensurethat you are meeting the needs of learners.)

Beyond content

Building understandable eLearning requires attention toelements other than content: Navigation, the way exercises work, the structureof required learner interactions, even the “look” of the text must all be easyto understand. Following these design tips helps:

• Do not use all caps.
• Use clear fonts. Serif fonts help low-literacyreaders recognize the shapes of words more easily than do sans-serif fonts.
• Keep the design simple and the navigation clear.The eLearning does not have to follow a single linear path, but menus andoptions should be clear and choices obvious.
• Remember to use both symbols and colors fornavigation controls—say, a blue, right-pointing arrow to move forward and ayellow, left-pointing arrow to move to a previous page.
• Controls that open menus, flip quiz cards, oraccess additional materials should be clearly labeled.

If these guidelines sound like common sense or simply gooddesign, that’s because they are. Creating effective, clear content ensures thateLearning is accessible to a broad range of learners, regardless of theirability level, prior knowledge of the subject, or technical savvy—the central goalof universal design.

How accessible is my content?

Well-designed eLearningcontent likely already has many elements that make it accessible and put it onits way to meeting the R of POUR: robust.This content will have:

• HTML5 tags for page and section headers, lists,and tables
• Meaningful hyperlinks
• ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) attributesfor complex elements
• Alt text for images and video
• Transcripts and captions for audio elements

While technology is a moving target, designing eLearningcontent that meets WCAG 2.0 and Section 508 standards helps ensure maximumaccessibility for the largest number of learners.

Not sure where your content stands on this spectrum? Severalonline tools are available to evaluate web pages, mobile content, and othereLearning content. W3C maintains a list of accessibility evaluation resources,and other organizations, including WebAIM, anonprofit web accessibility consulting organization based at Utah StateUniversity, offer accessibility evaluation tools and checklists for Section 508 and WCAG 2.0 compliance ontheir websites. WebAIM’s color contrast checker lets you enter two colors in RGB hex format to checkthe level of contrast.

The WAVE tool (webaccessibility evaluation tool) lets you enter a URL; it then analyzes the pageand produces a report with warnings, errors, and alerts that tell you what iswrong (and what is done correctly!).

Maintaining an accessibility focus throughout the design anddevelopment process results in eLearning content that is usable by a broadvariety of learners. User-focused and universal design approaches, along withiterative development models that include audience testing of prototypes orearly versions of a product, are compatible with this focus. In largercompanies, a group of 10 or 15 employees, including employees withdisabilities, can user-test and provide feedback on features of a product. (See “Learning Leaders: Nick Floro Talks About Learning Architects” for a discussion ofhow this could work.) This might not be feasible for small-scale in-houseeLearning projects, and it’s not the only option.

Asking learners how they use a product, watching them work,or having a discussion with employees about their experiences with eLearningcan help developers identify needs or issues they should address in the designand development of eLearning content. This information can identify problemsthat no one on the design team anticipated and lead to better design, greaterusability—and improved learning.