Nuts and Bolts: It’s Not Just About “Compliance”: Accessibility in eLearning

A couple of days ago I was talking witha vendor that resells eLearning courses. Their “eLearning strategist” explainedat length about how carefully she vets the products they resell. When I pointedout that the courses from one of the companies are not accessible to, forinstance, learners with visual impairments who use screen reader software like JAWS(Job Access With Speech), the vendor said, out loud: “Well, we have a lot ofclients and no one has ever complained about that before.”

I’m not sure which is worse: thatan eLearning “strategist” is so unconcerned about accessibility issues, or herbelief that complaints don’t exist because she hasn’t heard them.

Disability and different ability

For me the idea of making our productsusable for everyone isn’t about some theoretical user in some theoreticalcompany. My work involves contact with the state School for the Blind andSchool for the Deaf as well as our vocational rehabilitation division, all ofwhich employ multiple workers with myriad challenges while serving a publicwith special needs. My Google-loving husband will always struggle with lowvision, a significant recent life change for him. A friend lost most of hishearing when a bomb exploded near him in Afghanistan. Many people have learningdisabilities or physical conditions that can affect memory or problem solving.

And it’s not only about disabilitybut different ability: I was hired into my first training job ever as aliteracy tutor for workers threatened with job loss if they could not meet newstate standards for completing written certification tests. 2012 data from theBureau of Labor Statistics says the median age of the American worker is 41.9 (https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_306.htm). We’re talking about a lot of people who would appreciate a larger font orthe ability to turn the volume up.

How well do you know your users and their needs?

So it’s disturbing to me thatawareness around this continues to be such a challenge even in a time wheneveryone preaches universaland user-centereddesign. I’ve found in my career that many in L&D, especially novicedesigners, are usually more unaware than badly-intended. An SME recently pushedback about helping create a rich description of a training video because,“Blind people will never do this work anyway!”

That’s a big assumption, andthere’s a lot of room between 20/20 vision and complete blindness, and thatperson’s boss who has low vision might want to review the video, and, well, sowhat? It’s an hours’ worth of work. Arguing about it took longer than justdoing it. I’m frustrated that awareness is still such a challenge. Why don’tmore people care?

“Accessible” means accessible to everyone

For those of you newer to thisfield (after all, this column is supposed to be “Nuts & Bolts”)accessibility in eLearning may be something that’s just isn’t on your radar—yet.Briefly, your eLearning materials really should be accessible to everyone,including those with challenges like low vision and blindness, hearing loss anddeafness, learning disabilities, and mobility problems. This means havingcaptioning for narration, and avoiding making learners make decisions using onlycolor (for instance, indicate “correct” with a green check instead of a greendot), and avoiding interactions that can only be completed using a mouse ortrackpad. It means giving choices between, say, listening to or reading anassignment. It may mean providing ALT tags for images or richer description ofan onscreen idea, or adding controls for videos. It means rethinking your overallapproach.

There are myriad resources for the designerwith little knowledge of this. If it’s new territory for you please look overthe universal and user-centered design resources mentioned above. Do a diveinto (US) Section 508 of theRehabilitation Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

If you’re still wondering why youshould care, take a look at this settlementbetween the Pennsylvania State University and the National Federation for theBlind in which accommodation was addressed as a civil rights issue. Othercountries have their own requirements, often largely mirrors of the USstandards, so search a bit for guidelines pertinent to the country where youwork—or where your products are deployed. Testing for accessibility is easy:Google around for accessibility checker tools. Sometimes basic testing is builtinto software you might be using already, like PowerPoint or your favoriteauthoring tool. Take a look, too, at the assistive technologies that may be inplace in your workforce, like screen-reading software or big keys for typing.

I can’t cover the details of allthis in 1,000 words, so if I’ve piqued your interest I’ll try to boil it down: Don’tthink of it as making eLearning “accessible” for special people. Think aboutmaking it usable for everyone.

• It’s not just about “being blind.” It’s also havinglow vision, difficulty detecting contrast, or difficulty with colors. Per the 2010US Census data, of the eight-million people who have impaired vision, two millionare completely blind.
• It’s not just about “not hearing.” One of theagencies I work with sends front-line workers to eLearning kiosks that have nosound. Government funding being what it is, that reality is not likely tochange soon.
• Reading issues may have nothing to do withvision: many organizations employ workers with low literacy skills.
• It’s not just about “mobility.” Many of usemploy workers who rarely use a keyboard in their work and find them awkwardand frustrating.
• It’s not about extremes or just designing for thedisability. It’s about designing for every user who might access your work.

Finally? It’s not just about being“compliant.” It’s about doing the right thing.

Want more?

 While I was researching this piece I found a great article by Martie Buzzard that offers a much more in-depth view ofaccessibility. It’s 11 years old, but mostly holds up. Do give it a look.

Jean Marrapodi offered a greatsession on this at the 2015 eLearning Guild’s Learning Solutions conference.See her slides and resources.

My November 2010 column provided an overview of color blindness and other visionissues.

Editor’s Note

The eLearning Guild’s October 28 & 29, 2015 Online Forum, “The Business Side of Learning: Management, Measurement, and More” will have a session on accessibility, led by Stevie Rocco.