MAKING DIGITAL LEARNING TRULY ACCESSIBLE

At the core of Fenturi is beautifully designed digital learning solutions that incorporate expert User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) best practice techniques. Both of these schools of thought are vital to our design process, improving the usability and quality of the learning for the end-user.

A successful discovery stage will lay the foundations for an impactful and accessible learning experience. By finding out what the subject matter is, how much time learners have, what level of competence is needed, and who the learning is for. We can then build an understanding of the true purpose of the learning. From there, we can then design and build a learning solution that perfectly suits the learner, creating an improved learner experience that’s accessible for all.

Over the last few years, we focused our efforts on making the digital learning we create free of bias. Bias impacts every factor of learning design from its narrative to the visual designs to the audio track. Since our work on this, we have improved the inclusivity of our learning and helped thousands of learners resonate with learning which better reflects the world in which they live.

This year we are have continued to make progress in this space, as we try to deliver to our belief that everyone within an organisation should have access to the same standard of learning and development opportunities. Introducing conversations early on with our clients at the discovery phase, allows us to discuss accessibility, and explore requirements to address issues such as low digital literacy, visual impairment, or limited experience of learning in the past.

Rather than accessibility being viewed as an additional layer of complexity and cost, it can actually be a simple way to generate greater value, because it brings the learning content to the maximum number of people.

To illustrate this point, we have collected examples of how you can approach making a digital learning course accessible for the visually impaired:

• Keyboard accessible navigation
• Alt text added to all elements, so that they can be read by a screen reader
• Audio description for video and animation
• Reviewed and tested by our quality control manager and visually impaired learners

The majority of these techniques are based on best practice user experience design. However, we acknowledge that the last four bullet points are specific to addressing visual impairment and do include additional costs to produce.

Crucially if established early in the briefing process, an experienced agency can design the maximum creative impact and efficient form of execution to deliver the best possible value. Far less efficient and therefore more costly, is retrofitting these techniques afterward.

To work with an experienced digital learning agency that wants to prioritise accessibility fill out the form below. To read more about UX and UI’s role within accessibility follow the link. For more insights into how we managed to reduce bias within our learning process follow the link. To speak to us directly, you can call on 0117 440 1000, email at hello@fenturi.com or fill in the contact form below.