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Accessibility personas
Accessibility personas
This site from the UK government includes a series of personas of people with different access needs and required supports. In addition to the personas are simulations where you try to complete tasks on websites as these people with disabilities experience them. You can see how poor design affects their ability to complete tasks, as well as see an improved design that makes it easier for users with disabilities to use websites. Even though this is more about general web content, a lot of this applies to elearning as well.
·personas-prototype.herokuapp.com·
Accessibility personas
Inclusive Learning Survey
Inclusive Learning Survey
Will Thalheimer and Ingeborg Kroese have developed survey questions to help measure how inclusive learning experiences are. You can read about the research, development, and pilot process on the website. The survey questions are available for free with a CC license.
·inclusivelearningsurvey.org·
Inclusive Learning Survey
Alt Text: What to Write
Alt Text: What to Write
How do you write good alt text? What images need alt text? This article from the NN group answers both questions. I learned something new about adding periods to the end of alt text.
End alt text with a period, even if it isn’t a full sentence. The period ensures that the screen reader pauses after reading the alt text.
Summary:  Images are decorative, functional, or informative. Skip alt text for decorative. Describe the action for functional. Convey the message for informative.
·nngroup.com·
Alt Text: What to Write
ViddyScribe
ViddyScribe
AI-generated audio descriptions for videos. This is a way to improve accessibility and make videos more available to blind and low-vision users. Audio descriptions are time-consuming to create manually, which means most orgs skip them. This could potentially be a way to improve accessibility quickly and cheaply.
·viddyscribe.com·
ViddyScribe
#BasicDesign — Never Use Pure Black in Typography
#BasicDesign — Never Use Pure Black in Typography
Explanation of why to avoid using pure black for text for online reading (which applies to websites and elearning). This article talks about how to pick shades of dark gray that are both readable and align with the color scheme.
White with code #FFFFFF has more striking brightness compared to pure black with code #000000. The brightness polarity requires the eye to work harder to read pure black text on a white background.
·uxplanet.org·
#BasicDesign — Never Use Pure Black in Typography
Apple's New AI-Based Accessibility Features Are Pretty Wild
Apple's New AI-Based Accessibility Features Are Pretty Wild
AI may be able to make technology more accessible to more people. AI-generated captions and transcripts are already making it easier to make audio and video content accessible (even with the inevitable errors). Allowing technology to be controlled with eye movements rather than a mouse or keyboard is a significant potential leap for accessibility.
·lifewire.com·
Apple's New AI-Based Accessibility Features Are Pretty Wild
Storyline Accessibility and Mayer's Principles - Scissortail Creative Services, LLC
Storyline Accessibility and Mayer's Principles - Scissortail Creative Services, LLC
Kayleen Holt shares tips for creating accessible courses in Storyline beyond just adding closed captions. This includes tips for adjusting the focus order when you have animated content, providing a "skip animation" button for screen reader users, and allowing users a choice to autoplay media or not.
·scissortailcs.com·
Storyline Accessibility and Mayer's Principles - Scissortail Creative Services, LLC
10 Rules You Need to Create Great Captioned Videos – Meryl.net home
10 Rules You Need to Create Great Captioned Videos – Meryl.net home
Meryl Evans shares rules for creating great closed captions. While these are described as rules for videos, this applies to other elearning too.
10 guidelines for accessible captions: Readable, accurate, synchronized, length, position, sound, credits, voice changes, speaker identification, and motion with one or two sentences describing each one.
·meryl.net·
10 Rules You Need to Create Great Captioned Videos – Meryl.net home
Twine Screen Reader: A Browser Extension for Improving the Accessibility of Twine Stories for People with Visual Impairments | Interactive Storytelling
Twine Screen Reader: A Browser Extension for Improving the Accessibility of Twine Stories for People with Visual Impairments | Interactive Storytelling
Twine exports stories to HTML, so in theory the content should be reasonably accessible to screen readers (as long as you add alt text for images etc.). In practice, some of the Twine-specific HTML elements don't always work well with screen readers. This paper discusses how the authors created a screen reader browser extension to improve the accessibility of Twine stories built with Harlowe and Sugarcube (the two most common story formats).
·dl.acm.org·
Twine Screen Reader: A Browser Extension for Improving the Accessibility of Twine Stories for People with Visual Impairments | Interactive Storytelling
Transcripts | Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) | W3C
Transcripts | Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) | W3C
I have been creating both basic and descriptive transcripts for a project with animated microlearning videos with a lot of visual information. However, I didn't know the name for that descriptive transcript until now. Most people I have talked to have been unsure how to handle transcripts for animated videos, but this page explains it.
<p><strong><em>Descriptive transcripts</em></strong> for videos also include visual information needed to understand the content.</p> <p><img src="/WAI/content-images/wai-media-guide/braille.jpg" alt="" class=" normal right"></p> <p><em>Who:</em> Descriptive transcripts are needed to provide audio and video content to people who are both Deaf and blind. They are also used by people who process text information better than audio and visual/pictorial information.</p>
·w3.org·
Transcripts | Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) | W3C
Standard or Extended Audio Description: Which Do You Need?
Standard or Extended Audio Description: Which Do You Need?
Explanation of the difference between standard and extended audio description for making videos accessible. Extended audio descriptions pause the original content to allow more time for description, extending the overall time of the video.
Videos that lack natural pauses or contain a lot of important visual information can be tricky to describe without interrupting the original audio. In these cases, extended audio description is necessary.
·3playmedia.com·
Standard or Extended Audio Description: Which Do You Need?
The Audio Issue
The Audio Issue
"Against Access" by John Lee Clark is a very different view of accessibility than you might find in more prominent channels like disability Twitter. The author is DeafBlind, and he talks about how many efforts at accessibility fall short of meaningful experiences. This article is worth reading just for the DeafBlind perspective, which isn't typically included in most accessibility discussions. For example, how would you make a version of the game UNO usable to DeafBlind players? Not just accessible with Braille that references colors they can't see--but an enjoyable game, tailored to their experiences?
·audio.mcsweeneys.net·
The Audio Issue
WebAIM: Captioning and Sign Language Interpretation in Zoom: Features and Pitfalls
WebAIM: Captioning and Sign Language Interpretation in Zoom: Features and Pitfalls
Thorough guide on using captions and sign language interpreters in Zoom. If you are moving beyond automatic captions to provide additional accessibility options in meetings and training with Zoom, read this article to find out what's possible and what pitfalls to watch for.
·webaim.org·
WebAIM: Captioning and Sign Language Interpretation in Zoom: Features and Pitfalls
Recordings - IDEAL22: The Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility for Learning Conference
Recordings - IDEAL22: The Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility for Learning Conference
All recordings from the IDEAL 2022 conference by the TLDC. Hear Bela Gaytan, Kayleen Holt, Bridget Brown, Devin Torres and others speak about inclusive learning. This was a free conference, and the recordings are available even if you didn't attend live.
·thetldc.com·
Recordings - IDEAL22: The Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility for Learning Conference
Does Text Alignment Matter for Accessibility and Usability?
Does Text Alignment Matter for Accessibility and Usability?
Centering text makes it harder to read, especially for longer paragraphs. This hurts accessibility and usability.
The reason why center text alignment is horrible for user experience is that with each new line the user reads, there is a brief moment where the user has to find where the next line begins – decreasing the users reading speed.
In my opinion centered paragraphs are only acceptable up to a point, 3 lines of text to be specific. Anymore, it becomes too displeasing to read each line after.
Primary page titles should be okay centered as they tend to not have as many words and therefore lines of text. Most page titles aren’t long enough that text alignment becomes an issue with usability. However, with secondary titles (h2’s) and anything under should always be left-aligned to match its paragraph text.
Left text alignment should be used in 95% of cases to help your readers read at an optimal, undiminished reading speed.
You can use center alignment in small doses like main page headings without detracting from the user’s experience.
Only use justified text for mediums where its commonplace like material books or e-books.
The only commonplace acceptable use of right alignment is navigations on websites.
·thewebsitearchitect.com·
Does Text Alignment Matter for Accessibility and Usability?
Accessible color palette builder
Accessible color palette builder
While there are lots of tools for creating color palettes, this is the first one I have seen that so clearly notes the accessibility of different combinations. Even if you create the palette using another tool, you could check it with this free tool to note which colors have sufficient contrast when used together.
·toolness.github.io·
Accessible color palette builder