Inclusive Learning Design Reflection
When I started this course, I was keenly aware of how little I knew about creating accessible and inclusive digital content, and I felt overwhelmed by everything I didn't understand. Now I know and can accomplish many techniques to increase accessibility and inclusivity in digital learning content. With these practical experiences and an audit template to apply to future courses, I not only feel much more confident in my abilities to create accessible content, but I also feel less anxious about continuing to learn more in the future.
How Frameworks Shaped My Design
The empathy challenges revealed to me just how much I didn't understand about the real-world impacts of inaccessible design and helped me understand the importance of applying the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines POUR principles (World Wide Web Consortium, 2023), the UDL framework (CAST, 2024), and culturally responsive practices to my instructional website.
From the dyslexia empathy challenge, I learned how stressful it can be to navigate written content and came to understand the importance of presenting information through multiple media, as recommended by UDL Guideline 2.5. From the color blindness empathy challenge, I saw how time-consuming it can be to navigate visuals when important information is only shown through color, which taught me about the importance of using additional means to communicate visually, which aligns with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Success Criterion 1.4.1. From the hearing loss empathy challenge, I experienced how confusing it is when the audio content can’t be understood, which showed me the importance of providing captions and transcripts, which aligns with WCAG Success Criterion 1.2.1 and 1.2.2. And from the limited mobility empathy challenge, I learned how challenging and tiring it is to use a mouth stick to navigate learning content and how important it is to have content that can be easily navigated with keyboard controls, which aligns with WCAG Success Criterion 2.1.1 and 2.4.3 and UDL Guideline 4.1.
I'm very grateful for the opportunity to have had these empathy challenges and principles shape my instructional website, making it far more accessible than it would have been and creating something that I'm very proud of. But I know there are always more ways to enhance accessibility and inclusivity; I plan to continue working on the instructional website as well as this blog and my portfolio to make them even more accessible and inclusive.
Note. Image generated by Microsoft. (2025). Bing Image Creator with DALL-E [Large-text-to-image model]. https://copilot.microsoft.com/images/create
Visual Content: My Greatest Challenge
Creating accessible and inclusive visual content challenged me the most during this process because I am aware that there is a fine line between providing too much and too little text within the text alternatives. I want to be mindful to give sufficient information to accurately represent the visual's purpose without providing so much text that the wording becomes overwhelming and the meaning obscured. I also want to design visuals with authentic representation that is genuinely inclusive. During the creation of the visual portion of the instructional website, I learned that AI can provide great feedback on inclusivity within images as well as offer meaningful suggestions for text alternatives for images and infographics. I'm excited to have these new tools to help me refine my work.
AI Tools: A Pleasant Surprise
I honestly had no idea how much AI tools could assist with creating accessible learning content. In this course, not only did I learn about many ways AI tools could assist in creating accessible content, but I actually used them myself. There were two main areas where I found AI tools especially helpful. The first was in creating detailed descriptions for infographics. I was impressed with how accurately AI was able to create these descriptions. The second area in which AI tools were very helpful was in ensuring that content used plain and inclusive language. I was grateful to have that additional perspective and feedback. I am excited to have these, along with other new tools, in my toolkit to assist me in creating accessible content.
Learning from Peer Review
I was appreciative of how much I learned from evaluating my peer’s website and receiving feedback on my own. I had been so entrenched in designing my own website that I had forgotten how valuable it is to receive outside feedback and to study others' work for new ideas. From reviewing my peer’s website, I learned about ways to encourage social learning and shared knowledge construction (UDL Guideline 8.3) and to promote reflection (UDL Guideline 9.3) by adding a “Share and Reflect” section to each lesson activity in which learners can share their work and discuss their progress. Receiving feedback on my own website was equally helpful. It showed me areas that appeared to work well to me but revealed they could be confusing and improved for better navigation. This emphasized the importance of having multiple types of review: not only using AI tools and automatic accessibility checkers but also obtaining peer or other third-party reviews.
Immediate Application Plans
I plan to immediately apply what I've learned about inclusive and accessible design in my current professional practice. I plan to conduct a comprehensive accessibility audit. I will immediately review learning modules for keyboard accessibility and images to ensure alt text is provided. Although videos within learning modules currently contain captions, transcripts are not provided, so I will begin work on creating video transcripts. I plan to review content for inclusivity as well. Having an audit template containing WCAG success criteria and UDL guidelines with which to check content will ensure thoroughness.
Advice for Others and Moving Forward
At the beginning of this course, I spoke with Dr. Saykili about feeling overwhelmed, and he gave great advice: start where you are and tackle each new skill one at a time. This would be the same advice I'd give to anyone who's just starting their journey to design accessible and inclusive digital learning environments.
In addition to this amazing course that gave me so much practical advice and hands-on practice, there are online communities that truly care about creating accessible and inclusive content. I plan to, and would encourage others to, get involved with these communities to learn about accessible and inclusive digital learning environments, stay up-to-date with new developments in the field, and discover new ways to use AI tools for accessible content development.
I am greatly looking forward to continuing to expand my knowledge and practice of designing accessible and inclusive digital learning environments.
References
CAST. (2024). The UDL Guidelines. Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0. https://udlguidelines.cast.org/
World Wide Web Consortium. (2023, October 5). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2. W3C. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/
