Episode 222
Improving Accessibility in Digital Learning
Did you know that making your educational content more accessible can enhance the learning experience for everyone? In this episode of The Visual Lounge, Matt Pierce sits down with accessibility advocate and CEO of Build Capable, Sarah Mercier, to explore the world of accessible learning design.
We hear about Sarah’s journey and insights on making educational content more accessible to all learners, when she realized just how important it is, and her tips for getting started with your own content.
She discusses how accessibility isn't just about accommodating specific disabilities, but about removing barriers for everyone. Sarah provides practical tips for content creators, such as incorporating closed captions, transcripts, and audio descriptions into video production. She encourages a "progress over perfection" approach and suggests starting with small steps and continuously improving accessibility practices.
Learning points from the episode include:
- 00:00 - 01:28 Introduction
- 01:28 - 07:20 Why is it important to get better at accessibility?
- 07:20 - 12:50 How to make accessibility a part of your practice
- 12:50 - 16:10 Getting started with accessibility and dealing with feedback
- 16:10 - 17:08 How to find out more about Sarah and her resources
- 17:08 - 17:32 Outro
Important links and mentions:
- Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahcmercier/
- Build Capable: https://buildcapable.com/
Transcript
But we keep getting further and further away from remembering that we're teaching
Speaker:people, and it's become more and more about the technology and less
Speaker:about that opportunity to connect with people
Speaker:and help them do a thing, help them learn a thing. And the
Speaker:reason why I do this work is that I love seeing
Speaker:the light bulb moment when you learn something new. You
Speaker:know, it's like, oh, my gosh, I didn't know how to do this, and now
Speaker:I know how to do it. And so I think that what has
Speaker:happened is when you talk so much about the technology and you
Speaker:forget that there's a person on the other end of it. Yeah.
Speaker:Then you're missing a huge opportunity, and sometimes you're
Speaker:actually working against yourself to do exactly the thing that you set out to
Speaker:do. Good morning, good evening, good afternoon,
Speaker:wherever you are and wherever you're watching from. My name is Matt Pearce, host of
Speaker:visual Lounge. And today we're going to be talking about a very important subject,
Speaker:accessibility. I've got Sarah Mercier with me. So, Sarah, welcome to the
Speaker:visual arts. Thank you very much, Matt. It's so good to be here. So tell
Speaker:us just briefly a little bit about yourself. My name is Sarah
Speaker:Mercier. We did get that. And I run a
Speaker:consulting company called build capable. We're based out of Austin, Texas,
Speaker:but I live in Washington state and I love it there.
Speaker:It's beautiful. And you collect? I do collect rocks now
Speaker:since really since August of last year, and I tumble them
Speaker:and then I give them to my friends, as you well know. I do, and
Speaker:it's become in handy. Thank you so much. Yes, it has powers. So,
Speaker:Sarah, you have been a speaker in a lot of different events, and you've
Speaker:been talking a lot, especially lately, about accessibility. Yes,
Speaker:I have. And so why is that something that you're keen on and
Speaker:making sure people are learning more about it, getting better at it? Yes, that
Speaker:is such a great question. I love answering this question. The main reason I love
Speaker:answering this question is that the one thread that has always
Speaker:been consistent in everything that I do, because I'm a tech nerd and I
Speaker:love technology and I love to teach people about technology and how to use
Speaker:it, to design training, to learning
Speaker:experiences, whatever you want to call it, whatever jargon we want to use. But
Speaker:the thing that I've always loved the most is that thread of
Speaker:being able to design something that helps people learn something. Right?
Speaker:I don't care what you use. You can use a mobile app, you can use
Speaker:VR, you can use an email. It doesn't really matter to me. So much like
Speaker:the mode, right? You know, camtasia
Speaker:videos. Great. But what has happened,
Speaker:I feel like, in more recent years,
Speaker:AI, is that we keep getting further and further away
Speaker:from remembering that we're teaching people, and it's become more and more about the
Speaker:technology and less about that opportunity
Speaker:to connect with people and help them do a thing, help them learn a thing.
Speaker:And the reason why I do this work is that I
Speaker:love seeing the light bulb moment when you
Speaker:learn something new. You know, it's like, oh, my gosh, I didn't know how to
Speaker:do this. Now I know how to do it. And so I think that what
Speaker:has happened is when you talk so much about the technology and
Speaker:you forget that there's a person on the other end of it,
Speaker:then you're missing a huge opportunity, and sometimes you're
Speaker:actually working against yourself to do exactly the thing that you set out to
Speaker:do. And forever. I mean, I
Speaker:started my first kind of experience
Speaker:with accessibility, as most people think of accessibility, like helping
Speaker:people learn that have access to training who might
Speaker:have different disabilities, was back when I was working at
Speaker:Carmax, and I trained folks in a classroom
Speaker:environment that were either completely blind or had low
Speaker:vision, and they were jaws users,
Speaker:these jaws screen readers. And this is a long time
Speaker:ago, right? And technology years, for sure. And
Speaker:so I had all this experience over the years
Speaker:using different types of technology to teach people
Speaker:and in learning about how we can make things more accessible. But it was just
Speaker:always kind of part of my work. It wasn't the thing that I talked
Speaker:about, right. It was always just. It was just how I worked. And I was
Speaker:very fortunate to go work for an organization
Speaker:called learning ninjas, which is now build capable. And
Speaker:in doing that work and working with other people who cared
Speaker:so much about creating accessible learning
Speaker:experiences, I found that I learned a lot about digital
Speaker:accessibility, but I didn't really talk about it by itself. Right. I
Speaker:just talked about it. Like, if I'm making a video, I just assumed people
Speaker:knew. Make closed captions, right, and then give people
Speaker:a transcript. It was kind of a. It was an assumption.
Speaker:And what I found is that the more that we talk about
Speaker:tools like AI, and it's like, oh, now AI can do this, and, you know,
Speaker:this tool can do this. And I'm like, hold on a second. This is
Speaker:really pretty garbage, right? Like, this is not.
Speaker:You're not actually meeting your goals anymore. I felt like we keep getting further away
Speaker:from that. And in a time where we're talking so much about robots
Speaker:doing things for us, which also, as a nerd, I get very excited about.
Speaker:I also want us to remember that there are people on the other end of
Speaker:this, and those folks. It's not just folks who
Speaker:have disabilities. You know, if I were to ask you
Speaker:to imagine in your mind's eye what
Speaker:you think about when you think about accessibility, people typically will tell
Speaker:me, I think about someone who uses a screen reader, someone who's blind,
Speaker:someone who is deaf or hard of hearing, someone who
Speaker:uses a wheelchair or a cane, and you have these
Speaker:mental pictures of what you think about with
Speaker:accessibility. And people don't typically think about, oh, I'm in an
Speaker:area with low bandwidth, or I don't have access to Internet, or they don't
Speaker:necessarily think about, oh, I might have someone
Speaker:that is dyslexic, who is colorblind, who has,
Speaker:you know, uses a hearing aid, but isn't deaf
Speaker:or hard, like, necessarily hard of hearing, but may have some other
Speaker:reason why they're using that. They may be using a screen reader because
Speaker:of, you know, some folks who have
Speaker:autism, you know, or who are autistic. And this is all a
Speaker:preference. So when you start to talk about different disabilities, folks prefer
Speaker:different ways to refer to different disabilities. And so I got into all of
Speaker:this, and I was like, there are so many opportunities to learn how
Speaker:to be better designers. If you remember, you're designing for people,
Speaker:how can we be a better designer?
Speaker:And if you start to go down the rabbit hole of,
Speaker:okay, is there someone in my target audience that
Speaker:is, fill in the blank. You're going to wear yourself
Speaker:out. You can't. And also, people are not going to disclose this
Speaker:stuff to you. They're not necessarily going to tell you. I mean, Diane Elkin
Speaker:says, okay, of course. Why would they? Right. I can't imagine a reason why I
Speaker:wouldn't disclose a disability to my employer. But, you
Speaker:know, you think about these things, and it is, it
Speaker:is, it is an exercise in futility to try to
Speaker:identify who has what disabilities and accommodate them.
Speaker:A better practice is something that we can take from the field
Speaker:of, let's say, ux, of user experience,
Speaker:universal design. And what can I do to remove
Speaker:barriers? So can I ask a question here? Because I do get the sense,
Speaker:like, the one thing you said earlier was that it's just kind of become what
Speaker:part of what you do? And I don't think that's true for most. Right. It
Speaker:hasn't. Hasn't gotten injected like, oh, I always just do closed captions.
Speaker:Right. That may be like, oh, well, hey, guess what? You gotta do closed captions,
Speaker:because otherwise, as a business, you might get sued or you
Speaker:might be in trouble. But what I'm wondering about with these
Speaker:practices is what
Speaker:can someone do to start getting to that point where it. Because
Speaker:no one's going to disclose to me all the things that I need to do
Speaker:for them. But what can I do to start making that just part of practice
Speaker:that I get better at this? Because even if I'm not doing 100%, at least
Speaker:if I'm doing zero now and I get to 10%
Speaker:or 30%, I'm doing a lot. It's a lot better. It's not perfect.
Speaker:We still need to keep working on it. But so what would you suggest? I
Speaker:love this question. And you have also asked the
Speaker:Pandora's box question, which is, I like whatever
Speaker:answer I give you, there are a gazillion more things. Right? Of
Speaker:course. So what I would tell folks, if you were to pick one
Speaker:thing to get started, and let's focus on video, right? Yeah. That's a good place
Speaker:to start. That's visual audio. Makes sense. Okay, so I suggest
Speaker:that in your video storyboard,
Speaker:you add the fields for your transcript. You're
Speaker:already writing what your spoken
Speaker:words will be, what visual cues you're going to use. Right.
Speaker:So in your storyboard, can you go ahead in your scripting
Speaker:and think about it, not just from the script for the video, but from
Speaker:a transcript perspective, could you also describe
Speaker:sounds? So like descriptive text, right? Yes.
Speaker:Sounds that aren't spoken word, if there are any.
Speaker:Let's say there aren't. Can you also describe the visuals that are happening on
Speaker:the screen? Like, let's say it's an instructional video, and I'm describing
Speaker:how to do something. Let's say I'm working with a machine
Speaker:or a product, and I'm describing this product. Can I
Speaker:think about that in my scripting as describing also what I'm
Speaker:showing? And there are multiple ways to do that.
Speaker:But thinking about it from how would I be consuming this video
Speaker:if I couldn't see it? How could I also
Speaker:be experiencing this video if I can't hear
Speaker:it? Right? If I can only see? So I'm looking at closed captions,
Speaker:vice, other side of that, do I need to create a video that
Speaker:is giving me the descriptive,
Speaker:basically an audio description of what is also happening on the
Speaker:screen? There's music playing. Well, you wouldn't describe
Speaker:that for you would in closed captioning. You would
Speaker:do that in a transcript. Right. And you would. For
Speaker:your audio, you would want to have a
Speaker:spoken description of anything that's being demonstrated that somebody couldn't
Speaker:see because, right. If you can't see the video, you can still hear
Speaker:it. But what if I'm doing something, I'm showing something on the
Speaker:video that's not being described aloud. Right. So there
Speaker:are different ways you can do that. So you have to start to get into
Speaker:this mindset or establish this mindset of how
Speaker:might a person experience this video in different ways. So can
Speaker:I do it without looking at it? Can I experience this without hearing
Speaker:it? And the thing is, is that it's not just folks
Speaker:that are deaf or hard of hearing or that are blind or visually low
Speaker:vision. It is. I use closed captions all the time. I
Speaker:have them always turned on, made by default. And it is
Speaker:folks that are neurodiverse and
Speaker:that can fall under dyslexia, autism spectrum. They
Speaker:are all of these different things that you're never gonna know about some
Speaker:people, ever. And sometimes they don't know that about themselves.
Speaker:And so they just know, I can't, I can't with this
Speaker:video. That's basically, I just can't, I can't with it. And so giving
Speaker:people, Meryl Evans is an accessibility advocate,
Speaker:and she talks about, and this is a universal design concept,
Speaker:specifically universal design for learning. UDL is always
Speaker:give two options. Give people two options, right? Give them two ways to
Speaker:consume this information, if you will. And so just starting to get into that
Speaker:mindset and working it into your design process, because if you start
Speaker:doing this stuff later, then it's hard. Gotcha. Then it's time
Speaker:consuming, then it's like, oh, I didn't think about it. Now I have to retrofit
Speaker:this stuff to do it. And now it is a process.
Speaker:You have to practice this constantly. And folks who've
Speaker:been doing this for years, I've been doing this for a long time. I mess
Speaker:up all the time. I learn something new all the time. I'll do a thing
Speaker:and I'm like, oh, I never thought about it that way. Or somebody might give
Speaker:some feedback and I'm like, oh, I never actually thought about that. And so I
Speaker:take that and I do it the next time. Right? And so it's like you
Speaker:could continue to evolve. So what I suggest to people is
Speaker:like, just start to do a thing. Now, if you're not doing closed captions,
Speaker:start making them. If you're not adding any kind of audio description to your
Speaker:closed captions, start doing that. Right? If you're not
Speaker:creating a transcript. Start doing that. Like, just start doing a thing.
Speaker:And then you get that into your practice. Then you do the next thing. That's
Speaker:the thing that's exciting. And everything that you do, it's like you're becoming a
Speaker:better designer because you change your design process
Speaker:based on what you learn from doing these things. It's super cool.
Speaker:No, I love that. And you actually answered my
Speaker:next question. Because even though I knew it was a Pandora's box, right? Yes.
Speaker:Because the next question is like, well, gosh, how do you get started? And you
Speaker:just. I love that. That this is iterative and you just gotta keep
Speaker:improving, getting better here by a little bit, there a little bit of.
Speaker:But it makes a big difference overall. Yes, it's a progress
Speaker:over perfection approach. Again, I'm quoting Meryl Evans. But it
Speaker:is, you know, I'm gonna do this thing now, acknowledging
Speaker:that I'm not gonna do all the things. Yeah. And then I'm gonna
Speaker:get really good at this thing, and then I'm gonna introduce the next thing. Because
Speaker:what I can promise you is when you start doing one thing, people will start
Speaker:to give you feedback and they'll be like, oh, that's cool. You have captions on
Speaker:your videos. What about this? You know, the other thing I like
Speaker:to prepare people for is when you do a
Speaker:good thing for accessibility, inevitably someone will come
Speaker:to you and be like, you did that thing completely wrong. You should have been
Speaker:doing this and this and this. And what I would tell people is like, ignore
Speaker:the haters, because those people,
Speaker:they have good intentions. Right? And so I try to
Speaker:encourage people that when folks give you that feedback, it's because
Speaker:for folks who need this stuff, it is so incredibly frustrating
Speaker:that we're in 2024 and they don't have access to
Speaker:certain information today. Right. It gets so
Speaker:frustrating. And so these folks were like, come on, you
Speaker:know, tell me you already had the script. You couldn't give me a transcript that
Speaker:I could download? Like, you couldn't run this through Otter AI and give
Speaker:me a closed caption? Like, why? I don't understand why you
Speaker:can't, why we're not thinking about this yet. And. But for somebody
Speaker:who's never made that part of their practice or didn't even know and wasn't aware,
Speaker:like, it's not a blame placing thing. It's just like, okay, you know
Speaker:the thing. Be prepared because somebody inevitably may complain, but
Speaker:you're doing the good thing. Like, you're doing the cool thing. So don't let that
Speaker:get you discouraged, because there's so many people that we're all rooting for you, right?
Speaker:Like those of us who are like, yes, yes, you did a good thing. And
Speaker:it's like, now, now there's another thing that you can try.
Speaker:But, you know, as training folks, we're
Speaker:overwhelmed with stuff that we need to
Speaker:learn. You need to learn ux, you need to learn visual design, you need to
Speaker:be a programmer, you need to learn xapi, you need to learn how to use
Speaker:this tool and that tool and videos and closed captions and alt text. And it's
Speaker:just like, please, I just. We have a
Speaker:little bit. And you also need to learn the thing that you need to teach
Speaker:people. And it's just, it can be so overwhelming to
Speaker:do this job. But the thing is, the reason we all do it is because
Speaker:we love helping people learn something, right? Absolutely. And so I look at
Speaker:it as just like, this opportunity, like, I want. So this is
Speaker:a Sarah thing, but I want to be, like, the best possible designer I could
Speaker:possibly be. I want to know. I want to know as much as I can.
Speaker:And sometimes it gets discouraging when you don't know the thing or you don't know
Speaker:how to do it well, but when you start to do it and practice it,
Speaker:and then you start to get good at it, and then somebody's like, hey, how
Speaker:did you do that thing? And you're like, oh, let me show you how I
Speaker:did that thing. Then that's the thing that gets exciting, right? And so I just
Speaker:hope that people will try, try something new. Try adding some
Speaker:alt text to your images that you're gonna put in your next elearning or whatever.
Speaker:Like, just start doing a thing, and then you've opened the box and you're
Speaker:like, oh, and I could also try this thing and that thing, so love it.
Speaker:Well, Sarah, I think that's a really good place for us to kind of wrap
Speaker:up to try. If people want to learn more from
Speaker:you, how can they connect with you? I have a great opportunity
Speaker:for folks to actually jump into this.
Speaker:So if you go to buildcapable.com. Okay. We'll list
Speaker:that in the stuff below. Forward slash accessibility.
Speaker:It takes you to the page that we have where we have an accessibility
Speaker:primer, which is like ten things you can be doing and steps,
Speaker:directions that you can download. We don't even, like, take your information. You can
Speaker:sign up for our mailing list, and that's great. But you can access that and
Speaker:just start. Go for it and then let us know how it works out for
Speaker:you. And say that URL one more time. It is
Speaker:buildcapable.com forward slash accessibility
Speaker:perfect. And I'm sure if they wanted to connect more with you, they can find
Speaker:you on LinkedIn and all that. I'm on, well, I'm not in all the places,
Speaker:but I'm on LinkedIn for sure and on the website is a good place to
Speaker:connect with me. Perfect. Well, thank you so much. Yes, thanks, Matt. You bet. All
Speaker:right, everybody, we are so grateful for Sarah and sharing this because I think this
Speaker:is a thing that effort of trying, doing the iterative approach.
Speaker:It's so aligned with what we talk about, particularly when we talk about images and
Speaker:video. There's so much that we can do just to make it a little bit
Speaker:better for everybody to help them out, take some time,
Speaker:figure out what's the next thing you can do and iterate and then
Speaker:level up every single day. Thanks, everybody.
