Accessibility on the web has been a concern for a long time. Internet users who cannot use a mouse or keyboard, or visually see the screen have great difficulty in everyday life as most companies have moved access to their services onto websites or mobile apps. Imagine trying to get any task done nowadays without the use of the internet via desktop, tablet or mobile phone.

Despite this being a huge issue for millions of users, companies still do not understand the importance of this issue. When I ask students in any of my Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Captivate or web classes about accessibility, they look at me blankly. Making your content accessible to users with screen readers is absolutely crucial to a company’s marketing strategy, yet it is overlooked by a majority of organizations including state, county, province and city websites.

eLearning Accessibility has this same issue. I get the same blank stare when I ask students in my eLearning classes about accessibility. I have yet to work with a company that has a concern about making eLearning content accessible.

Learning Solutions magazine is trying to address this issue in their article titled Nuts & Bolts: It’s not just about compliance accessibility in eLearning. It is important to include education about accessibility in any eLearning class, and this article addresses the issue head on. This article can act as a great resource for learning more about how to make content available to everyone. Make this process a part of your eLearning strategy, and get ahead of this issue within your organization. It is much more costly to have to redo content than to initially incorporate accessibility features into your courses.

For further assistance on accessibility in eLearning or more information on eLearning courses, contact Candyce Mairs.