Accessibility

Accessibility is the ability for anyone to participate in a learning experience, or use a product or interface, regardless of any disability or individual need they may have - and without having to ask for special accommodations.

Definition

Accessibility is the intentional consideration of all the people who may use the learning experience or educational product and to be as inclusive as possible when considering who may use it. An accessible experience or product enables anybody who participates to engage with the media content, technologies, and people, regardless of any disabilities or access needs of the learner.

Universal design (or Universal Design for Learning - UDL) is another framework that is commonly used in design to enable all learners to participate in the educational activity.

The needs of all participants are inclusively considered during the design and development of an educational product. Experiences and products that are accessible include features for everyone to use the design without prioritizing certain sensory abilities or backgrounds (most commonly, sight and sound).

Additional Information

A designer who practices accessibility in their designs is considering every person who may encounter their learning product, regardless of disability or background. Accessibility is a part of considering the audience of a learning design.

Accessibility principles that suggest what should be considered in designs have emerged in recent years to provide designers with common issues and challenges that are encountered by users of products, especially in those that use computers or digital technologies.

By committing to being accessible in your design, you are taking a proactive and inclusive approach to enabling every learner to benefit from your educational experience or product that you design. You do not have to make an educational design simpler or less rigorous to have the design be more accessible.

Although it is impossible to anticipate every single need of the learners who might encounter the learning experience that you are designing, some initial review during the analysis phase might reveal some of the common issues and participant needs that might arise with using the educational design. Additionally, there are multiple principles and standards that have become best practices for considering accessibility in educational products to give designers a framework to work from when considering accessibility.

A design that provides multiple ways for people to interact with information and considers the accessibility needs of learners is said to be accessible.

Common accessibility principles to consider in designs include:

Consideration of access, in that learners need to be able to access and use the design in the first place. For digital technologies, they need access to hardware, as well as possibly a strong connection to the internet. For in-person experiences, there may be costs associated with your product that are difficult for participants to overcome.
Consideration of vision, in that not everyone can see images or text on a screen and may need to use assistive reading technologies or have images/videos described to them. Images should not be the only medium conveying
Consideration of sound, in that not everyone may be able to hear audio that is in the learning product. Audio should not be the only medium conveying information
Consideration of navigation, in that not everyone
Consideration of color, in that not everyone sees and interprets color in the same way. Colorblindness should be considered in color choice, especially when distinguishing between colors is a necessary part of the
Consideration of information redundancy, in that people may consume information easier in different ways. Information should be provided redundantly, in that video should have text subtitles and captions
Consideration of activity, in that everyone can participate in learning activities with the same level of accessibility. Scheduling conflicts, technology accessibility, and the learners' home or social life may all influence how someone participates in learning activities.

"The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect."

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web

Tips and Tricks

Design universally for anyone who may use your learning design, regardless if they have a disability or not. Try to include multiple forms of information. When you plan for everyone from the outset, it reduces the need to make special accommodations at a later time on a case by case basis, and reduces the potential discomfort experienced by learners in having to ask for accommodations.
People need to have the technologies and resources to use an educational product or experience. But they also need enough prior experience with similar designs to use it as well! Ensure that everyone can use a design by placing tutorials, supports, and help options to improve a person's ability to use the design.
Try to anticipate redundant ways to present information to all of the people who may use your design. This includes giving multiple redundancies in information to not only people with certain disabilities (e.g., vision, hearing), but also thinking about how people might navigate any interfaces. What is obvious to someone may not be so to another!

Related Concepts

Examples

None yet - check back soon!

External Resources

The W3C (a web design organization) issued a common set of principles for accessible web and technology interface design that is used in most industries.
The Educator's Accessibility Toolkit by Ontario's Universities provides a useful checklist of things to consider with accessibility and states some specific benefits to maintaining universal and accessible design in educational products.