More than Compliance: Accessible e-Learning that Makes a Difference

4. Make research-based decisions on ways to incorporate accessibility into your current and future products.

e-Learning development and design decisions must be based on current research, which is widely available on the Internet. New applications, publications and white papers are posted daily. It is also helpful to network with peers through Web sites, conferences and local user groups. Learn from the mistakes of others.

The Microsoft accessibility Web site is requisite reading for serious developers of accessible e-Learning in a Windows environment. Two especially helpful documents for e-Learning practitioners are Guidelines for Keyboard User Interface Design and Making Your Applications Talk.

5. Be creative and seek innovative ways to engage your learning audience in interactive multimedia.

Some e-Learning practitioners assume that an accessible product should be stripped of graphics, animations and rich media. It is just the opposite: People who are deaf thrive on visual stimulation.

The key is to use simple graphics with good contrast on a plain background, and to provide succinct, educationally-relevant descriptions of graphics, animations, videos and other visual screen events. These descriptions can be text tags that are read by a screen reader, embedded human or synthesized speech, or a combination.

Drag-and-drop or matching exercises can be replaced with a multiple choice activity that uses graphics, text and audio.

Figure 3 shows a fully accessible multiple choice exercise using graphics instead of text. The user hears and sees the instructions, then tabs to, or clicks on, each of the screen elements to obtain an image description.

Figure 3 This multiple choice exercise uses graphics instead of text and is fully accessible.

Interactive video can be adapted by adding a sound track that includes narrations, or by timing text-to-speech files to movie events. Well-designed video will eliminate the need for excessive narration.

Learners with visual limitations can also be provided with supplemental materials that have tactile information. Drawings, diagrams and flowcharts can be printed onto special paper that is thermally or chemically treated to raise the print. There are several companies that will do this for a fee. In other cases, puff paint or other textures can raise lines to indicate lines, directions and processes. Section 508 guidelines do not prohibit the use of materials that will enhance the learning experience for people with disabilities, as long as these are used as a supplement and not as a replacement for accessible interaction.

Simulations are a bit trickier, but within the realm of possibility. Pairing learning with support materials during simulations might be a workable alternative.

6. Develop prototypes as you go, and field test them.

“Not about me without me” is a term that underscores the absolute necessity of having people with disabilities be part of accessible e-Learning design and testing. An e-Learning practitioner can design a course that is Section 508 compliant and can play with assistive technology (i.e., screen readers, alternative selection devices, magnifiers and so forth). However, it is impossible to envision how accessibility features will affect the student until it has been tested.

This is not a difficult task, but it requires dedication and follow-up. In addition to field testing by our target audience, we rely on about half a dozen people with disabilities to test our prototypes. Two of them are more active than others. Suzanne, who is blind, has a home-based business that tests Web sites and converts documents for Braille.

Michael is shown in Figure 1 with his Pathfinder augmentative communication device manufactured by Prentke-Romich. He uses a head-mounted infrared laser pointer as he scans to activate a key. His keyboard includes customized macros and keyboard arrangements that minimize mobility and focus requirements.

The Alliance for Technology Access is an organization that can assist with product testing through its national network of assistive technology resource centers, individual and organizational associations and technology vendors and developers.

Prototype testing will yield valuable information about accessibility, use and educational effectiveness. Here are some things we learned from our first run consumer testing:

• Deaf students and visual learners are incredibly bored if you strip out visual effects.
• Students who use image descriptions will be “turned off” by long and irrelevant narration.
• If your course has highly-compressed audio, it can create an echo that is irritating to someone whose hearing device picks up high frequency noise.
• Follow the Windows design for navigation and organization because it is an intuitive skill. (This is possibly the easiest and most overlooked aspect of accessible design because students will perform better if they can draw upon “pre-learned” movement and organization.)

Here are some other examples of how instructional designers and developers can overlook the obvious.

Figure 4 shows a movie in a 320X240 pixel window, with embedded captions. This is an illustration taken from the Apple Web site at http://www.apple.com/accessibility/hearing/index.html#quicktime, intended to demonstrate the capabilities of QuickTime’s closed captioning feature. Note that closed captions are added through QuickTime scripts, and the developer controls details such as the size of the caption text. The particular example shown may comply with Section 508 guidelines, but unless it is played on a full screen, these particular captions are going to be unreadable — especially if the user has vision problems in addition to hearing loss. This is an issue that developers must keep constantly in mind — even though a tool makes a feature available, it is up to the developer to make the content accessible.

Figure 4 This movie complies with Section 508 guidelines, but the captions are unreadable.

Anti-aliased text can result in reduced visibility when highly magnified. Figure 5 shows Arial in Flash using Microsoft Magnifier with a setting of 8. Figure 6 shows the same text using system-based font. Decisions on font style, size and contrast should be based on research, testing and consumer input.

Figure 5 Arial regular anti alias text from Flash

Figure 6 System-based Arial regular text

10 tips to retrofit existing courses

Limited budgets and minimal accessibility of existing courses need not deter efforts to improve the level of accessibility and use, even in small steps. Here are some simple ways to get started.

1. Clean up screens and get rid of unnecessary adornment and busy backgrounds.
2. Test your products with consumers to analyze where you can do immediate improvements, and plan for more extensive renovation later.
3. Analyze screen and text contrasts, and change as resources permit.
4. Accompany on-screen text with human audio as much as possible.
5. Add speech “bubbles” to audio (i.e., captions).
6. Break up long dialogue into multiple screens.
7. Add keyboard navigation that follows the Microsoft default.
8. Provide scripts in multiple formats (.doc, .pdf but not .rtf).
9. Add focus indicators tied to cursor.
10. Build “paired learning” experiences into computer-generated training to offset accessibility issues.

And, finally, if you have no resources for accessible e-Learning but want to get started, seek ways to involve people with disabilities in the testing and design of current and future e-Learning products. The cost is minimal, and the pay-off is great!

Conclusion

Exclusion of people with disabilities from the Internet or from e-Learning opportunities cannot be fully corrected by guidelines, standards, legislative mandates, court rulings or government intervention. Inclusion is a matter of the heart. It stems from a personal desire to do the right thing, and to take the initiative for change. This change can be made now or later, through baby steps or bold directives. The technology is available and affordable. The risk is minimal. The costs are manageable. Designers, developers, managers, educators and corporate leaders have the ability to create an electronic environment that either supports or disregards the needs of people who depend on technology for independence, enjoyment, employment and communication. The long-term dollar return on investment may be negligible. Yet, for people who want to experience freedom from computer-imposed restrictions and participate in the benefits of independent learning, the pay-off is immeasurable.

References

U.S. Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/prod/3/97pubs/cenbr975.pdf and http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/wm406.cfm?renderforprint=1

Center for Disease Control, www.cdc.gov

The American Workforce: Strong Facts Trump Weak Myths, Tim Kane, Ph.D., http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/wm406.cfm

American Immigration Law Foundation, IMMIGRATION POLICY FOCUS, Volume 1, Issue 2, September 2002, http://www.ailf.org/ipc/ipf0902.asp

Government Technology, Accessibility Course Targets Industry, Darby Patterson, May 21 2003,http://www.govtech.net/news/news.php?id=52340

Standards for Electronic and Information Technology: An Overview, http://www.accessboard.gov/sec508/summary.htm

Buy Accessible,http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=2

Laws & Standards,http://www.webaim.org/coordination

IBM Accessibility Center,http://www-03.ibm.com/able/

Keyboard Equivalents for Actions, http://www-306.ibm.com/able/guidelines/software/swkbdequiv.html

Sun Microsystems Accessibility Program,http://www.sun.com/access/developers/updt.HCI.advance.html

New York State Attorney General’s Office, http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2004/aug/aug19a_04.html

Accessibility of the Internet in Postsecondary Education: Meeting the Challenge,http://www.webaim.org/coordination/articles/meetchallenge

The Condition of Information Technology for Special Education Students, in Federal Region VI: A Summary of Findings, Southwest Educational Development Laboratory for The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research (TIRR), Disability Law Resource Project.

Instructional software accessibility: A status report. http://www.atap.org/software%20accessibility%20survey.htm

http://www.atia.org/AT_Compatibility_Guidelines_v1.05.pdf

JAWS — http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_downloads/jaws.asp

Window Eyes —http://www.gwmicro.com/

ZoomText — http://www.aisquared.com/index.htm

Refreshable Braille Display, http://www.deafblind.com/display.html

RealSpeak TruVoice,http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/comp.speech/Section5/Synth/truvoice.html

DragonNaturallySpeaking,http://www.scansoft.com/naturallyspeaking/

Avatar sign language software, http://www.vcom3d.com/

Guidelines for Keyboard User Interface Design, http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnacc/h...

Making Your Applications Talk, http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnsmart...

http://www.ataccess.org/default.html

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