DDX On-Demand sessions are recorded videos you can access starting at this date and time and watch at your own convenience.

If it's not visible, most individuals don't openly announce that they have some sort of learning or physical disability or challenge unless they're asked. Knowing that, instructional designers must create content to be as accessible as possible in order to be able to engage audiences of all backgrounds. But how can we ensure that we're creating training content that is comprehensible and usable to the broadest spectrum of participants? That is where the universal design for learning (UDL) principles come in handy. By following UDL principles, you'll be able to create training content that's easily navigable and understandable for all users so that even if a participant has dyslexia, visual impairments, or is an English language learner, they can still navigate and comprehend the content just as successfully as the rest of their colleagues.

In this session, you'll learn about what universal design for learning is and who UDL benefits. (Spoiler: the answer is it benefits everyone!) You'll explore the best practices on how to create training content that is the most comprehensible and engaging for the vast majority of participants through techniques like using the tools within Word and PowerPoint to make files screen reader-friendly, identifying which format of presenting materials is most accessible, identifying which materials should include alternative formats, and more. You'll leave this session knowing that developing an accessible training course doesn't mean you have to strip out all of the "bells and whistles”, instead, there are ways to make a training course both engaging and accessible to a wide variety of audiences if you just follow some very basic UDL principles.

In this session, you will learn:

• Why universal design is a more effective approach when it comes to designing and creating training for participants
• Which format is the best way to present different types of content (i.e., text information, videos, outside sources, etc.)
• How to create and present materials in a flexible manner so participants from all backgrounds are able to access and engage with the content easily and demonstrate what they know
• How to use different platforms to convert materials into accessible formats (i.e., built-in tools within Word and PowerPoint to create accessible documents, Adobe Acrobat to tag PDFs, YouTube as a preliminary video captioning tool)
• Which materials within a training need alternative formats to be accessible
• How to identify the typical problem areas that may go unnoticed during training development

Audience:
Designers, developers, managers

Technology discussed:
Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, YouTube, Adobe Acrobat