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The Hechinger Report
Designing accessible
ed tech can be costly, but demand is on the rise
Schools are putting more pressure on developers to think about access
By Tara Garcia Mathewson
November 15, 2018
The people designing educational technologies are far removed from the
students who end up using them. Perhaps most obviously, they’re adults,
often many years away from their own time in a classroom. But the
differences don’t end there. These designers almost always work in
cities, and about 70 percent of U.S. students go to school outside
cities. Designers also don’t have the range of language abilities
represented in U.S. classrooms or all of the disabilities represented
among students.
This matters when it comes to designing educational technologies
because it’s hard to assume what very different people need from a
piece of technology or understand the ramifications of ignoring certain
things. If someone designs a program full of pictures and the pictures
aren’t labeled, blind users effectively have no idea they’re there. If
a learning platform uses videos to explain concepts, and a designer
doesn’t think about the effect of slow internet, students with spotty
access are shortchanged.
Sean Oakes, the founder of Backpack Interactive, a design company that
focuses on educational technology, said if developers test their
products at all, they generally do so remotely, gaining insights into
the user experience by watching screen captures of students using their
products or by simply soliciting survey responses.
But real insight, Oakes said, comes from observing in the classroom.
“Being in a real environment and not just running a virtual test, it’s
a big deal,” Oakes said. “The physical environment is often something
that gets left out.”
For example, the Boys and Girls Club spent months testing a learning
platform for science, technology, engineering and math that Oakes’ firm
had designed. They sent people all over the country to visit clubs and
see how actual students used the program. And it gave them important
insights about internet connectivity, the logistics of getting a group
of rowdy students to sit down and log into their respective computers
and the realities of hardware limitations. Also, Oakes said, the
in-person visits gleaned a lot of insights about what kids are
interested in, design-wise.
But those types of visits are much more expensive than doing user
testing remotely. And they are often sacrificed in the design process.
The ed-tech industry is facing pressure to change that, though. Perkins
Solutions, a consulting firm for digital accessibility run out of the
Perkins School for the Blind in Massachusetts, has a front-row seat to
the impact. More ed-tech organizations now use what is called universal
or human-centered design to make sure their products are accessible to
the range of people who might try them, according to Luiza Aguiar,
executive director. And more of them do this work from the beginning of
the design process. That’s what Perkins Solutions recommends.
“Our philosophy is, if you design products and services for people with
a range of ability, it’s going to be better for everybody,” Aguiar said.
Perkins Solutions helps ed-tech companies and others think about users
with vision impairment, mobility issues and even temporary
accessibility challenges, such as when a person has a cast and can’t
use a mouse. User testing helps identify what challenges people have
using a product and then Perkins Solutions’ accessibility experts offer
potential fixes.
Public schools must make their websites accessible or they open
themselves up to legal action. And many colleges and universities are
trying to make accessibility part of their brand – in an attempt to
attract more students and build a reputation around such efforts. It’s
not just a liability issue, but an ethical one.
Aguiar said Perkins Solutions has also been conducting a number of
trainings with K-12 schools about how to make their online documents
and content more accessible, as schools move even more of their
academic operations online.
At both ends of the education spectrum, educators and administrators
are making new demands.
“They’re putting pressure on ed-tech companies to be more accessible,”
Aguiar said.
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