Accessibility Solutions Best Practices for eLearning Content

Technology provides a platform for creating engaging and interactive eLearning courses, improving people's learning. However, learners with disabilities tend to feel distant from those who are not disabled. Although eLearning is efficient for driving better results, its basics must accommodate all learners. Accessibility solutions play a crucial role in equalizing the ground for all learners. If you are a content creator or learning management system manager, there are best practices to consider when developing eLearning courses. Here are some guidelines you should know.

What are Accessibility Solutions

Accessibility solutions in learning mean designing content that caters to all learners, including those with learning, physical, auditory and visual disabilities. However, a small company creating its first eLearning course or an expert learning and development manager may not know about the accessibility of content.

For example, if a learner logs into the learning management system and goes through a course, there are questions they must answer. However, if the learner suffers from hearing loss, they will not understand the content. Even if they are visually impaired, they may not fully engage with their content.

These scenarios clearly explain why it is considerable to build accessible eLearning content.

Why are Accessibility Solutions Crucial for Learning?

1.       Better Learning Experience for Everyone

Accessibility solutions improve learning for learners with physical disabilities and all learners in general. By upscaling accessibility solutions, all users can seamlessly understand, perceive, navigate and interact with online content. Your content should consider accessibility for someone with poor internet connections or using obsolete computer hardware.

2.       Disability Is More Prevalent

There are different forms of disability auditory, visual, speech-related, physical, learning, cognitive and neurological. Furthermore, your audience dealing with aging effects and physical injury may also need accessibility. Therefore, during the development of learning and development strategies, consider these diverse needs to ensure inclusivity for everyone. For example, adding a screen reader to read out information to visually impaired learners.

How do you make a Learning Platform Accessible?

Today, web accessibility is easy to achieve with the available LMSs. These solutions take accessibility seriously and will incorporate best practices. In addition, training administrators must understand the common challenges learners with disabilities face in accessing learning content. For effective implementation, planning steps should take an inclusive approach.

Accessibility Solutions Best Practices

Using accessibility solutions to create eLearning content must follow guidelines and best practices. These international guidelines act as a checklist for ensuring content is accessible for learners with disabilities.

WCAG 2.0 Principles and Guidelines

The W3C designed web accessibility standards based on four core principles. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) explain that content should be;

·         Perceivable – Users must identify content elements using at least one of their senses

·         Operable – Users must be capable of using controls, navigation options, buttons, and interactive elements on a web interface

·         Understandable – Users must understand information and how to operate the digital interface

·         Robust – Digital content should be robust enough for various users to interpret.

Following these steps ensures that educators and administrators can realize the current state of affairs and develop solutions.

Great content publishing platforms have all the resources to make eLearning accessible. Therefore, content creation, organization, and formatting should consider these best practices.

1.       Create Multiple Format Content

A text alternative must accompany all content that is not in the text. Therefore;

·         Images with ‘Alt tags’ must effectively describe the image representation

·         Video content must include captions with the audio details

·         Audio content must have transcripts

·         All forms must have labels

All other visual multimedia must provide descriptions for readers to understand the context.

2.       Organize and Structure Content for Clarity

The web page display does not entirely capture the organization and structure of the content in the HTML markup. This is because screen readers will not read the page the web browser presents visually. Although basic HTML skills are essential, your LMS's formatting tools will create a worthwhile markup. Here are ways to do it.

·         Use appropriate styles to organize the content headings

·         Consider using bulleted and numbered lists to avoid using hyphens

·         Avoid using text colors or highlights for text to standout

As you implement HTML markups, visual styling may not be as necessary because the content is clear and understandable for users with learning disabilities.

3.       Ensure Consistency in Content and Navigation

Accessing a new interface is always challenging, even for learners with abilities. Maximizing content and navigation consistency ensure content is well organized and displayed. The learning curve is, therefore, manageable, improving accessibility for everyone. Consider giving users a platform tour or adding navigation tools to set them on the right path.

So far, we can agree that accessibility solutions are imperative to engage and educate learners effectively. While these best practices deliver better results, there is a need to engage learners with disabilities to understand their challenges. You can implement accessibility on your digital platforms to scale content delivery and audience reach.

Original Source Content

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