Improving Accessibility and Usability in Written Materials
Improving Accessibility and Usability in Written Materials
The hope is that, when faculty create materials, they take some time to think about how diverse students, including students with disabilities, would interact with them. The following video from the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology at the University of British Columbia discusses how accessibility and open content intersect (3:30)
“Open Dialogues: Open education and accessibility” by CTLT, University of British Columbia [Youtube] is licensed CC BY 4.0.
Since the bulk of your OER will likely be written, we’ll look at some simple practices to improve accessibility and usability when creating written materials.
Writing Style
When you write your own instructional materials you want to always keep your audience in mind. You’re writing for an audience of students at a particular level of understanding, not a journal review board. If most of your writing is scholarly journal articles, writing for a different audience can be challenging. For your writing to be more approachable, it helps to write
- in 2nd person, using you and your,
- in a conversational tone, and
- at an appropriate reading level for your students
If you aren’t sure about your reading level, run part of your text through a readability checker. You’re looking for a score around 50-60 with higher numbers meaning easier to read. The text on this page scored a 61. The main problem is that the average sentence has around 20 words!
One way to start writing in a less academic, more conversational way is to try writing like you talk. If actually writing like that is difficult for you, an easy way to get started is using a speech-to-text tool. That’s an accessibility function available on your computer but you can also just start a new email on a smartphone and dictate using Google or Siri. This will give you a good draft of your thoughts which you can edit and refine.
When writing, also be aware of the amount of jargon, acronyms, and technical terms you use. Are these terms your students will understand when they encounter them or are the terms things they are just learning? While some technical terms are necessary, take the time to spell out acronyms that your students may find unfamiliar and replace jargon with lay terms to both improve readability and set a more welcoming tone. If you are using Pressbooks, the glossary feature can be helpful when introducing new language.
Fonts
If you are creating your OER in Pressbooks, the font is generally set by your theme choice. If you are using the Malala theme, you have some font options for both text and headings. If you are creating a document in Word or Google Docs, you have a wide variety of font options.
Generally speaking, the clearer font is the more learning-friendly font. If students can’t decipher the words easily you can lose them whether or not the text is written at an appropriate reading level. Letters have to be quickly and clearly distinguishable from one another in