确保电子学习的可访问性

Did you know that more than 1 out of 4 adults in the US alone is living with a disability? Accessible learning and ensuring inclusion is no longer a choice; it's a need.

If you manage a workplace, you need to make it accessible to different needs. If you run an academic setup, you need to ensure accessible learning. Even if you’re heading a retail store, you must make it accessible for everyone!

Today, we will talk about accessible eLearning, an intrinsic part of our education and training systems. Accessible eLearning is about delivering education and training material digitally so that everyone—regardless of abilities or disabilities—can benefit from the content equally.

This means that all education and training courses must be inclusive, and that’s why we need accessibility in eLearning.

The Need for Accessibility in eLearning

For many of us, turning on the laptop and opening the LMS platform to access and learn our course material is a simple, routine task. But for thousands of people, this seemingly straightforward task is no less than a challenge.

It's a daily struggle for them due to their limited abilities, which is unfortunate because it's something beyond their control.

This is the key reason we need to make holistic efforts to make eLearning platforms and all kinds of eLearning material accessible to everyone. 

Ensuring accessibility in eLearning is a challenge in itself. However, the benefits far outweigh the efforts you need to put in to make it a reality.

Inclusivity

No matter what disability or struggle your learners have, whether physical, cognitive, sensory, or other, everyone must be given equal opportunities to learn. When you create such an environment, everyone feels welcomed and respected.

This will also improve your talent pool, and you will benefit from the diverse ideas and suggestions these learners bring.

Better Outcomes

The best part about inclusivity and accessibility is that the efforts lead to an improved outcome. 

So, it's not just people with different abilities who will benefit from it; even those without disabilities find the resources easier to understand and are often better engaged as a result.

Compliance

As we said, accessibility is no longer just a requirement. It's a need, a statutory requirement. In many countries, for instance, the WCAG and ADA standards govern it.

So, by making your course material accessible today, you will ensure compliance with the established standards that eventually everyone will have to adhere to.

How to Ensure Accessibility in eLearning?

The best thing is that you can make your material more accessible easily via certain accessibility features on LMS platforms like Coursebox. 

You can make your content inclusive with just a few minor tweaks and clicks here. The platform is already clean and easy to use, with a nice user-friendly interface, making it easy for people of different abilities to use.

Some other important considerations for accessibility in eLearning are:

Awareness and Understanding

The most important factor in making your online eLearning courses accessible is understanding the types of disabilities the learners may have. Unfortunately, many of us don’t know much about disabilities and, hence, the needs of these learners.

Hidden or unseen disabilities, such as cognitive issues, are even harder to comprehend. So, awareness is a must. The more you know, the better you will be able to meet the needs of these learners.

For instance, if you have learners with visual impairments, you can assist them by providing audio descriptions of the content. If you have learners with hearing disabilities, you can place audio transcripts or captions on the audio content.

Then, there are others with physical and cognitive impairments. Knowing about their disability in detail will help you build the course material around their specific needs. 

For example, if someone on your team of learners has a cognitive disability, you can break down the course structure into smaller parts or modules with a quiz right after each. This way, it will be easier for them to digest the chunks.

Accessibility Guidelines

Today, we have several written guidelines and standards for eLearning accessibility.

WCAG guidelines are a set of technical requirements and criteria for ensuring that all eLearning material is accessible to everyone. We also have the Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) specification and the Section 508 standards, which must be complied with.

You need to know them to ensure compliance with the guidelines.

Accessibility Tools

Fortunately, we can use many tools and technologies to bring accessibility to eLearning content.

Today, we have screen readers, speech recognition software, and magnification or zooming tools, which make the content easy to read.

Some platforms have automated accessibility checkers and validation tools to see if the course material meets the accessibility guidelines. There are also accessibility experts and third-party validation services you can opt for to check for material accessibility.

However, the best approach is to conduct a pilot test with a group of your learners.

Accessibility in e-Learning: Major Challenges 

Making the content accessible can pose several challenges. While part of the content may be easy to make accessible, making the complex or interactive parts of the content accessible can be tricky.

Moreover, ensuring that the same material is available and accessible on different devices and platforms can also be challenging. 

Time and Cost

Adapting the whole content structure to make it accessible will obviously take a lot of time. You have to add captions or more features to make it easy to access on different devices.

Sometimes, you may have to purchase software or tools to make it accessible or hire a workforce. This will increase your overhead costs.

Awareness

One of the biggest challenges in making content accessible is the lack of awareness. Most of our audience is not aware of the kind of challenges people face or the facilitation they need.

That's why they don't know how to tailor their content accordingly. Moreover, there is also a lack of awareness about the legal requirements. So, there’s a dire need for regular training and using different resources to make all people at all levels aware of inclusivity.

Technology

Using the right tools and platforms for improving accessibility in eLearning will require specific expertise and experience. 

That's why we have LMS platforms like Coursebox, where things like translating, dividing the course into modules or chunks, and other such features are automated.

How to Improve Accessibility in eLearning 

Promoting awareness and training is the key to making your eLearning program accessible. You must train your developers, instructors, and other stakeholders and inform them of the guidelines and best industrial practices in inclusivity and eLearning.

The key is to ensure everyone is on the same page and the content is accessible for all. Only then can your learners engage and make the most of their learning experience.

Here are some industry-wide practices and strategies you can adopt to make your eLearning course meet the compliance guidelines and workable in your organization.

Add Audio and Visuals 

Design your entire course structure around audio and visuals. Many learners prefer audio or visual versions of the course. Still, the content must also be available in text, such as translations or captions, which will benefit those who have trouble hearing or keeping up.

If you can't skip the visuals, you must make the content compatible with your audience using assistive technologies like screen readers.

These add closed captions and provide transcripts or alternative text and language translations. The same can also be done on Coursebox.

Include Subtitles 

If you must include a video or audio in the beginning, add an introduction before them. This will introduce the content to your readers and help them engage.

Subtitles are a must in all kinds of multimedia you use. You can add them via closed captions or include a separate transcript field so individuals with visual, learning, or hearing disabilities can access and understand the material. 

Keep the Graphics Simple 

You can only improve the readability of your text by making the contrast high or using different color tones. You can also increase the text size to make your content more readable.

Use a plain background so the text stands out and avoid cluttering the screen.

Use Your Words Wisely 

The choice of words matters greatly, especially for those with cognitive disabilities. Write everything in detail to describe it and ensure there’s no confusion.

For example, instead of saying, “Click here,” write, “Select this link to learn more about this topic.” 

Ensure Compliance with the WCAG Principles and Guidelines

WCAG principles and guidelines are the international standards for accessibility based on four core principles for web accessibility. 

Source: Harbinger Group

According to these, all digital content should be:

• Perceivable
• Operable
• Understandable 
• Robust

This means the user should be able to identify your content and its elements using one of their senses. They must be able to use the control buttons and other navigation options in the user interface.

Then, they must also be able to understand all the information and operate the interface or platform independently. Lastly, the content should be robust so that it can be understood and interpreted by a wide range of agents, such as assistive technologies.

Tips to Increase Accessibility in eLearning 

Here are some additional tips and tricks to make your content accessible to a broad audience.

• Avoid using heavy vocabulary and keep the content as simple as possible. Use short sentences for better understanding. 
• Use visuals and text together for a better understanding, especially for those using assistive devices. 
• For better learning, keep your content compatible with different formats and ensure it is available in text, audio, and video forms.
• Test your content on WAVE or Lighthouse to edit it for accessibility
• Do not use flickering text; it may trouble or disturb those with cognitive disabilities and visual issues.
• Include features like pause, rewind, and replay options in videos so learners can revisit the content multiple times and understand it at their own pace.

Conclusion

请记住，eLearning 中的无障碍功能不再只是你需要勾选的方框；必须为旅程中的每位学习者赋能。今天，我们有像 Coursebox 这样的 LMS 平台，你可以用它们来设计引人入胜、包容和易于访问的内容。

加入我们，让我们建设一个未来，让每个学习者都有平等的机会坐在教室里。