Universal Design in Web-Based Instruction

Universal Design in

Web-Based Instruction

Designing for Accessibility and Usability in Online Courses

Lisa RichardsonThe University of Southern Mississippi

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Presentation Notes

Portions of this presentation were previously presented at the 13th Annual Sloan Consortium Conference on Asynchronous Learning in November, 2007. The title of that presentation was: “I Don’t Have to Take the Stairs, but I Still Can’t Get to Class! Accessibility in Online Courses.” This topic is a significant piece of my dissertation research. Please direct questions, suggestions, and requests for re-use/re-print permission to Lisa Richardson, [email protected]. All of the information here, including the slide layout and design, is copyrighted 2007-2021.

Do You Really Know Your Students?

Over 4% of enrolled undergraduate and graduate students nationwide have disabilities requiring some sort of accommodation (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006)According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, 95% of colleges and universities surveyed reported that they used websites to deliver distance education courses, yet only 18% reported that they followed accessibility guidelines to a major extent (Waits & Lewis, 2003). Given that navigating an online course can be difficult for the average student, designing courses with accessibility in mind really means improving usability for all students.

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Presentation Notes

Because there are likely far more students with disabilities enrolled in online courses than actually report their status, it is important to design course sites that serve all students. Universal design removes the necessity for students to identify themselves as having difficulty.

http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-ds_name=ACS_2006_EST_G00_&-_lang=en&-_caller=geoselect&-state=dt&-format=&-mt_name=ACS_2006_EST_G2000_B18010


What is Universal Design?Ron Mace – coiner of the term “universal design;” architect with polio who advocated for “barrier-free” design, was also wheelchair-bound“Universal design is the the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the fullest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design.” –Ron Mace (Center for Universal Design, n.d.)

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Ron Mace and his colleagues founded the Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University. The Center advocates UD, and still works with the Design School to promote integrated, almost invisible, barrier-free design within beautiful aesthetics.

What is Web Accessibility?

The law.Section 508: 1998 amendment to the Rehabilitation Act that requires federal agencies to make their electronic and information technologies accessible to people with disabilities (Access Board, n.d.)Designed to eliminate barriers to the effective use of technologyApplicable to colleges and universities as recipients of Title IV financial aid funding and via Section 504, which prohibits discrimination in education against students with disabilities

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These points explain why universal design is just good practice overall. There have not yet been any lawsuits decided regarding students with disabilities’ inability to access online course sites or information.

What is Usability?

“That quality of a system that makes it easy to learn, easy to use, and encourages the user to regard the system as a help in getting the job done.” (Georgetown University Information Services, n.d.)

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This definition, from the Georgetown U. website, is the best I’ve come across so far. It is, in fact, the most usable definition of usability that I could find anywhere.

Does it Really Matter??When a student must wade through difficult navigation and unclear sequencing to use your course site, you increase their cognitive loadThis means that they will need to use more valuable brainpower figuring out your site with little left for learning your contentThis is based on Sweller’s (1988) cognitive load theory, and it’s the reason I stress clean, universal design as a method for improving learning outcomes (aside from the legal obligation)

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If students cannot get to the content of your course because the site is bogged down with bandwidth-stealing graphic objects and confusing navigation, they will often give up and drop out of the course. This may account for some of the high attrition in online courses.

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

An independent collaboration of developers, communications professionals, industry leaders, policy analysts, and researchers working to promote tools & products that optimize use of the webWeb Content Accessibility Guidelines

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The guidelines listed on the W3C site are offered primarily to professional web developers, but there are a few laymen’s versions available on the site, as well as the tips on the next slide from The University of Washington.

http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php

AccessIT’s Design Tips

Provide text alternatives for visual content (the ALT function)Caption or provide text alternatives for audio contentAvoid using color to convey important info

Use a cascading style sheet (.css) insteadUse relative (rather than absolute) units

75% vs 400x680 pixelsSmall, medium, large font sizes instead of 12, 14, 18 pt

Provide a clear, simple design (AccessIT, 2002)

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AccessIT article @ U of Washington, 2002 – National Center on Accessible Information Technology

Before

You Design That Course Site, Ask Yourself:

Does this course belong online?Requirement or elective?Foundation course for major?

What are the course objectives?What do you want students to learn?How is the topic best delivered F2F?

Adapting your pedagogy to online delivery

How do YOU teach?

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In general, do your students have consistent and reliable access to the internet at home? Before you say: they can access the internet on campus – is your campus infrastructure reliable? What are the lab/library hours? Adapting pedagogy: Can I effectively adapt my personal teaching style to convey the same information in an asynchronous environment? Do my beliefs about the way students learn support online teaching? Constructivism may be the way to go here – you *can* establish a classroom community that fosters collaborative learning online – but it takes purposeful effort on the part of the professor AND the students.

Building a Website (…is easier than you think!)

Independent course sites vs. course management software

GooglePages/DreamweaverMoodle, Blackboard/WebCT, LiveClassroomSecond Life

Plan, plan, PLANThe site map

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Presentation Notes

The site map: create all of your pages on postcards, and arrange them in a way that makes sense – think of what links need to be on every page, this is your site navigation. ****I suggest that you build an independent site if at all possible because it’s easier to design it right the first time than to attempt to retrofit something that is already difficult to use. Blackboard and Moodle are enterprise-level course management systems, with the main difference being that Moodle is a free, open-source product. BlackBoard and Moodle are working at various rates to make their products more accessible, but again, original design is better than adapting a flawed design. Wimba’s LiveClassroom is a synchronous virtual classroom environment where instructors and students can interact in real time via microphone and 2-way video. The challenge in accessibility is that screen readers cannot keep up with the live chat area or interpret graphics on the virtual whiteboard. Second Life is a 3D virtual world in which users’ avatars can move about and “live” as they do in “real life.” (Linden Labs, 2008). It has its own issues as a web-based, visual medium. Some users see it only as a “game” where access to all is not a requirement. However, with more and more educational entities offering coursework for credit via SL, it is important that they not exclude certain student populations: those without the necessary computer power or bandwidth, and/or those using assistive technologies to access the internet.

Home PageProfessor

Contact Info

Syllabus

Unit 1Unit 2

Resources

A (very, very simple) Site Map

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Give students “a way out” from every page, and think about how a student may intuitively see the page.

Lisa’s Favorite Course Design Tools

(For Independent Course Sites)

Google PagesFREE website with WYSIWYG authoring and hosting with 100MB of space, includes ability to edit HTML directly and more

Webstyle 4Buttons, headings, logos, and more!

Camtasia 5Screen recorder, latest version offers captioning during production

Dreamweaver CS3Professional-level website authoring software, WYSIWYG, more flexibility and better template designs ($$)

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Presentation Notes

Dreamweaver is a great WYSIWYG package. Once you know which tools do what, you can design a visually pleasing and efficiently usable course site. WYSIWYG = What You See Is What You Get

Templates

Designing a TemplateOrderUniformityDesign aesthetics

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Presentation Notes

Templates help you to ensure order and a uniform design for your site that allows users to get used to the navigation and page organization. This allows new users to move through your site intuitively, provided the information they seek is where they expect it to be. This is another reason why pre-planning your site map is important. This video is from a series I am producing for faculty and K-12 teachers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gojFk0y4v8

The Bells & Whistles

Judicious selection of “cool stuff”Does this item require a high speed connection?Will this slow down the overall loading of the page?Can I deliver this content in another manner?

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Be aware of your student population and the variety of difficulties associated with being required to take a course online. Even students dedicated to participation can be stumped by a lack of a cable/dsl modem; reliable transportation to campus to use the facilities, think ACCESS.

Accessibility & Usability

Remember: good design addresses the needs of all possible users, without specifying “who uses what.”The implementation of universal design means that you would test your site using tools such as:

IDS Caption for .wmvALT tags – descriptions of graphic elements on the web pageVarious assistive technologies available for free from The Trace Center at the University of WisconsinThe Web Accessibility Toolbar from AIM

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*If users accessing the site with assistive technologies can use your site as well as those accessing the site directly, you have achieved universal design. -IDS Caption is a way to slow down .wmv files so that you can add the required captions so that they play in time with the video. -You can use some of the tools on the Trace Center website to test your course and check its usability be students accessing via assistive technologies. - The Web Accessibility Toolbar can be downloaded to your browser to test individual pages on your site for potential accessibility issues.

http://www.usm.edu/ids/idsproducts/index.html

http://trace.wisc.edu/world/computer_access/multi/sharewar.htm


http://www.webaim.org/articles/ais/

Testing Accessibility & UsabilityHeuristics are methods that use trial and error to solve problems (Oxford Dictionary & Thesaurus, 1996)Heuristic evaluation

Evaluating sites for possible errors in user interface designThrough site statistics, assessment resultsUtility, learnability, efficiency, retainability, error messaging, satisfaction (Nielsen, 1994)

Who?YouYour campus’ Office of Disability AccommodationsColleaguesSTUDENTS

When?ALWAYS.

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Presentation Notes

Heuristics use trial and error, user judgment, and experience to solve problems. They are also known as “rules of thumb”

Conclusion

Implementing universal design in your online courses ensures that you are meeting the legal requirements of Sections 504 and 508, and more importantly, the needs of as many of your students as possible. The tips and tools listed here are not hard to use, and help is often readily available. If you need help or support – just e-mail me at doktadivah(at)gmail.com and I’ll be glad to assist.

ReferencesAccess Board (n.d.). E-learning: Conforming to Section 508. Retrieved July 21, 2008 from http://www.access- board.gov/sec508/e-learning.htm

AccessIT (2004). Assuring that IT in distance learning courses is accessible. Retrieved July 21, 2008 from http://access-it-online.info/public/showpub.asp?num=106

Center for Universal Design. (n.d.). About universal design. Retrieved July 21, 2008, from http://www.design.ncsu.edu/cud/about_ud/about_ud.htm

Faulkner, S. (2005). Using the AIS web accessibility toolbar. Retrieved July 21, 2008 from http://www.webaim.org/articles/ais/index.php

Georgetown University Information Services. (n.d.). Data warehouse: Glossary. Retrieved July 21, 2008, from http://uis.georgetown.edu/departments/eets/dw/GLOSSARY08 16.html#U

Google. (2006). Google Page Creator. Retrieved July 21, 2008 from http://pages.google.com

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Formatting issues in transferring the formal references from Word to PowerPoint led to the two separate lists: One exclusively of links, the other formal APA references for citations in this presentation. A full and complete list is available upon request.

http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/e-learning.htm

http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/e-learning.htm

http://access-it-online.info/public/showpub.asp?num=106

http://www.design.ncsu.edu/cud/about_ud/about_ud.htm

http://www.webaim.org/articles/ais/index.php

http://uis.georgetown.edu/departments/eets/dw/GLOSSARY0816.html#U

http://uis.georgetown.edu/departments/eets/dw/GLOSSARY0816.html#U

http://pages.google.com/

References, 2Institute for Disability Studies. (2008). Transcribe and caption Windows media using IDS Caption. Retrieved July 23, 2008 from http://www.usm.edu/ids/idsproducts/idscaption/index.html

Linden Lab. (2008). What is Second Life? Retrieved July 21, 2008 from http://secondlife.com/whatis/

Moodle. (2008). Welcome to Moodle. Retrieved July 21, 2008 from http://moodle.org/

Nielsen, J. (1994). Usability engineering. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann

Oxford dictionary and thesaurus (American edition). (1996). New York: Oxford University Press

Richardson, L. (Author). (2007, November). Designing a website template using Dreamweaver. Video podcast retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gojFk0y4v8

Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive Science, 12, 257-285.

http://www.usm.edu/ids/idsproducts/idscaption/index.html

http://secondlife.com/whatis/

http://moodle.org/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gojFk0y4v8

References, 3Trace Research and Development Center. (2008). Listing of available software. Retrieved July 21, 2008 from http://trace.wisc.edu/world/computer_access/multi/sharewar.htm

U. S. Census Bureau. (2006). American Community Survey. Retrieved July 21, 2008 from http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DTTable?_bm=y&- geo_id=01000US&-ds_name=ACS_2006_EST_G00_&- _lang=en&-_caller=geoselect&-state=dt&-format=&- mt_name=ACS_2006_EST_G2000_B18010

Waits, T. & Lewis, L. (2003). Distance education at degree- granting postsecondary institutions: 2000-2001. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics.

World Wide Web Consortium. (2008). Web content accessibility guidelines overview. Retrieved July 21, 2008 from http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php






http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php

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Universal Design in Web-Based Instruction