Blog Posts

March 11th, 2026: Disability Simulator Experience 

Accessibility in eLearning is a topic that you hear a lot about in instructional design circles. Perhaps you are familiar with Section 8 or WCAG AA, and AAA.  You're likely already including closed captions, and perhaps alt-text.  Maybe attended a workshop or read an article.  But why is it important? Some may think of accessibility strictly as a legal compliance issue.  But standards and laws were written to meet a need to protect people and their rights.  Therefore, it is also an ethical decision to make digital learning accessible.  Even in circumstances not protected by law making a choice to do the right thing and incorporate accessibility standards and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) will open more opportunities in education and workforce development.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a model that was  inspired by the principles of Universal Design in architecture with the premise that if you design for accessibility from the beginning you create a better design for everyone, and avoid the expensive costs of refitting.  The UDL guidelines for learning are based on scientific insights into how humans learn and are grouped into three broad categories: Multiple means of Engagement, Representation and Action & Expression.   The stated goal of UDL is" learner agency that is purposeful & reflective, resourceful & authentic, strategic & action-oriented." (CAST, 2024). While designing something different for each individual is impractical, incorporating strategic choices into our learning materials that influences the desired learner agency is a sound ethical choice that support everyone.  

A barrier to creating accessible learning is that many of us lack awareness of the challenges that people face when interacting with computer.  One way to raise awareness is to experience the frustration of not being able to access materials or complete a task due to a design issue yourself.  This week in my grad school course, "Social, Ethical, and Legal Issues in Instructional Design" we were tasked with experiencing the web through a variety of disability simulators and share our experience.

 I chose to try out the Colis Color Blind Filter, the NVDA screen reader for sightless computer use, and two filter available through Funkify: Contrast and Keyboard Only Navigation.  The experiences confirmed for me some things I had read and heard about web accessibility, but added an emotional and experiential element that simply knowing the facts did not arouse.   The UDL principles which go beyond web accessibility suggest "offering action-oriented feedback (8.5)."  (CAST, 2024).  In this blog I offer myself action oriented feedback from the experiences I had with my own material, and I hope that you can apply it to improve your own design.  

Colorblind simulator 

Yellow + Blue = Green is a foundational lesson in color I remember from elementary school.  And according to algebra, Green - Blue = Yellow, and Green - Yellow - Blue. Viewing a page from my portfolio website through the Coblis color blind simulator drove this home. My green arrow is not always green.  This experience reinforces the recommendation to not use color alone as an indicator of meaning. And to pay attention to the background and foreground with texts.  For example, Red and Green are fun Christmas colors but shouldn't be mixed in text.  On a related note:  I recently saw a version of Uno that includes a symbol for every color.  See this article: Uno is finally getting a colorblind-friendly edition | The Verge. (Liao, 2017).  It's important to remember that creating accessible learning and play can be better for everyone!   Thisis what Universal Design for Learning is about, and this concept specifically with aligns with the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principle 1.2, "Support multiple ways to perceive information" (CAST, 2024). 

NVDA screenreader 

The NVDA screen reader  is a free reader designed for sightless access to computers.  There are many different shortcut and commands included in the program, and I did not have the time to become very skilled with it's use.  But just doing a little dabbling was enough to point out some weaknesses that I overlooked in my design which aligned with the recommendation for creating digital learning materials to "Add ALT-text and avoid embedding a lot of text within images" (Power, 2023). 

 The first thing that I noticed was that in a student workbook that I designed the screen reader did not read the title because it was embedded in an image created in Canva.  I have now made an adjustment to include the title in the alt. text description.  The second thing that I noticed was that there the speech bubbles on the title page were all read as "speech bubble, rounded rectangle corners" then the words.   I am not sure yet the best way to change this, but it was a reminder that I can hide unnecessary shapes from a screen reader in our eLearning program, or "mark as decorative" in most programs, and this will keep the narration of the screen more concise and meaningful.   

Another tip about designing for screen readers is to use the built in features for headings, subheadings, etc. which gives clarity to the audio output of the reader to the user. (Power, 2023). I have incorporated that into this blog page design to make it more screen reader friendly.   

Keyboard Only Navigation

The No Mouse (Keyboard Only) simulator from Funkify lets users navigate the web without a mouse.    The issues that became clear to me in this experience was that drag and drop is not possible without a mouse.  As a designer, I love including a drag and drop activity to break up reading in an eLearning.   But it is not worth frustrating a learner by requiring an that cannot be done. At the least, it should be able to be bypassed, but the best solution is to include an alternate activity.  I have now redesigned the Hazard assessment activity into a matching activity which accomplishes the same goal.   The second snag I ran into is trying to answer the knowledge check question shown above, where there are three answers.  There were two issues: first, the tab key would not take me to the second two answers, second, even though I could get to the first answer clicking enter did not select the radio button.  I have more research to do to see how to change this in Storyline to be keyboard accessible.

Low Contrast

As I get older, I find myself wanting more light when I read, and often playing the glasses on, glasses off game.  When I can' read something well there is a lot of mental energy put into the decoding of what I see. This leaves less energy for actually comprehending and applying the text.   Experiencing the web through the Contrast simulator by Funkify brings another level to this need for concentration, and a strong reminder to use strong contrast for text.  In the posted examples, the first picture is the title slide from a PowerPoint I developed, compared with one shown with a 50% reduction in contrast.  The subheading text is still readable, but really starts to fade. By a quick change to black text, I could increase the contrast to make it easier for readers. When I entered the values into the WebAIM: Contrast Checker, a tool I  began to use after this project was developed, the contrast for grey subheading text on the orange background failed with a 2.96:1 ratio.   I can fix this by changing the font to black instead, or lightening the background.  

References

CAST. (2024). About Universal Design for Learning. https://www.cast.org/impact/universal-design-for-learning-udl  

Funkify Disability Simulator. (n.d.) www.funkify.org

Power, R. (2023). Accessibility in online learning. In Everyday instructional design: A practical resource for educators and instructional designers (Chapter 17). Pressbooks. 

Liao, S. (2017, February 6).   Uno is finally getting a colorblind-friendly edition | The Verge.

NV Access (2021). Join the NVDA Revolution! Finally, a Fast, Functional, & Totally Free Screen Reader. [Web page]. https://www.nvaccess.org/about-nvda/ 

WebAIM Contrast Checker. (n.d.).  https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/