how to design 508 compliant elearning courses

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Page 1: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses
Page 2: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

With eLearning, most learners can overcome

the barriers of time and space and access

learning electronically. But what about learners

who do not have access?

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 3: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Statistically, over 285 million people worldwide

are visually impaired, and between one to nine

percent of the population have movement-

related disorders. The traditional use of a

website or eLearning course is often difficult

or impossible for these specially-abled groups.

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 4: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

As learning experience designers, it is essential

that our eLearning courses are easily

accessible for all learner groups. If you are

going to make eLearning courses for all, it is

important that you understand the big picture

of 508 compliance.

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 5: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

If you are planning to design a Section 508

compliant course, here are a few questions

that need to be answered:

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 6: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

1. Are all visual parts of your

course accessible?

Page 7: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

While designing and creating a 508-compliant course, it is

important to provide text under images.

Alt text ensures that the images are accessible to ocular

learners. The screen reader will read the alt text aloud

for the given images, which will help learners to know

what images are included in your eLearning course.

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 8: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

The rule of thumb is to provide an equivalent alt

text or long description for every image, graphic,

hyperlink, and button used in the course.

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 9: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

2. Is the audio accessible?

Page 10: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

When designing a course, provide a text transcript for

audio files. Using a text transcript makes information

easily accessible to learners with hearing impairments.

Always provide captioning and transcripts of the course

audio and the course descriptions of any video.

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 11: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Closed captioning aids learners to read the audio

portion of your video if they can’t hear it. This

ensures the learner doesn’t miss any information

that’s presented in the audio form in your

eLearning course.

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 12: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

All explanations of links added to your course

must make sense when read out. Also, keep in

mind to add instructional text both in the audio

and the screen.

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 13: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

3. Are there ways to make the

course navigation easier?

Page 14: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Course navigation determines the fate of an eLearning

module and mobility issues can make handling the mouse

difficult for some learners. Alternatively, make use of the

keyboard. Use the keyboard for text entry and navigation.

Build short-cuts to make it easier for the learner to

remember how to perform a function.

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 15: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Using shortcut keys for navigation such as “Pause”

and “Play” can reduce learner fatigue (Usually the

“tab” key is used for navigation by specially-abled

learners).

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 16: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

4. What elements can be used?

Page 17: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

When picking elements for your eLearning course,

choose wisely. Sparingly make use of tables as they are

difficult to interpret. Screen reader’s make it difficult for

the users to locate a cell that is referred by the screen

reader and mapping it with corresponding column

headings and row names.

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 18: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Always summarize charts and graphs to help the

learners know the content discussed. While

building interactives, keep in mind that specially-

abled learners require more time to complete the

assigned tasks. Give the learners adequate time to

complete these activities.

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 19: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

4. Which tools can be used?

Page 20: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Choosing the right tool that promotes accessibility can

be a great challenge. Articulate Storyline, Adobe

Captivate, and Lectora are all excellent choices for

creating Section 508 courses as these tools use assistive

technology.

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 21: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Storyline works best for creating alt tags for

images and text. While Lectora provides better

options for synchronized captioning for multimedia

elements. It also works well to remove redundant

navigation items in the screen reader.

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 22: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Avoid the use of Flash when designing accessible

learning solutions, as screen readers have difficulty

navigating Flash objects.

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 23: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

How can the right Learning

Management System help?

Page 24: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Picking up the right LMS is important as specially-abled

learners take extra time to complete online assessments.

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 25: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Therefore, always pick up an LMS such as GnosisConnect

LMS which allows you to extend the time to complete an

assessment. This will ensure that you save both time and

money by conducting a single assessment for different

types of learners.

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 26: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Once you have figured out the answers to all these

questions,you will be able to build a universally

accessible and 508 compliant module.

How to Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

Page 28: How To Design 508 Compliant eLearning Courses

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Learning for Performance.

A global, award-winning learning and training solutions company for almost 20 years, InfoPro provides performance improvement strategies,

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One of the world’s leading providers of learning and training solutions.

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For more information, visit www.infoprolearning.com