Inclusive Growth Show
I love driving diversity and inclusion at the leadership level. Each week, I host insightful conversations where we explore the journey of inclusive growth, discuss strategies for engaging senior leaders in equity, diversity, and inclusion, and share practical tips to inspire and empower meaningful change.
Inclusive Growth Show
How Accessible E-learning Drives Inclusion and Organisational Success
Why is accessible E-learning crucial for inclusive organisations?
In this episode of the Inclusive Growth Show, Toby Mildon is joined by Susi Miller, E-learning accessibility expert and author of Designing Accessible Learning Content. Together, they dive into the essential steps for creating accessible E-learning materials and the transformational impact it has on individuals and organisations alike.
Key takeaways include:
- Why accessible E-learning improves learning outcomes for everyone.
- The most common accessibility issues in digital learning content.
- How to align accessible E-learning with your diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategy.
- The business benefits of inclusive training content.
- Real-life examples of accessibility challenges and solutions.
Whether you’re a Chief People Officer or a learning professional, this episode highlights why prioritising accessibility in E-learning isn’t just a compliance box to tick—it’s an opportunity to foster growth and innovation.
Find out more about Susi Miller’s work at elahub.net and connect with her on LinkedIn.
If you're enjoying this episode and looking to boost equity, inclusion, and diversity in your organisation, my team and I are here to help. Our team specialises in crafting data-driven strategies, developing inclusive leaders, designing fair recruitment processes, and enhancing disability confidence. With a blend of professional expertise and lived experience, we're ready to support you on your journey. Reach out to us through our website.
If you want to build a more inclusive workplace that you can be proud of please visit our website to learn more.
Welcome to the Inclusive Growth Show with Toby Mildon Future-proofing your business by creating a diverse workplace.
Speaker 2:Hey there, thank you ever so much for tuning into this episode of the Inclusive Growth Podcast. I'm Toby Mildon, and today I'm joined by an amazing guest. Her name is Susie Miller, and Susie is an e-learning accessibility industry leader, so this is really important in terms of being able to make all of your learning materials within your organization accessible to everybody in the business, and she's also the author of a book called Designing Accessible Learning Content, which is actually on its second edition, which has been released very soon. So, susie, thanks ever so much for joining me today. It's lovely to catch up with you and talk about accessibility learning.
Speaker 3:You're very welcome. Thank you ever so much for giving me the opportunity to talk about something that I'm very passionate about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, me too. I used to work in accessibility at the BBC before I set up my own diversity and inclusion consultancy. So I'm probably I mean, I wouldn't call myself an expert, but I do have some experience of working in accessibility, but actually not a lot in e-learning. It was more about accessibility for websites and apps. So I'm really keen to learn from you today about specifically how we make e-learning accessible for people. So I mean, can you begin by just telling us a bit more about your role as an e-learning accessibility consultant?
Speaker 3:Yes, okay, yeah, so my background has been in learning and development. That is what I've always done. I started off as a classroom teacher. I did a lot of facilitation and face-to-face training and then, about 15 years ago probably, I moved into online learning. So, like a lot of people, I moved into that transition to digital learning and I suppose I worked a lot in the local government and then I moved into the university sector lot in the local government and then I moved into the university sector.
Speaker 3:But it was really a change in the law.
Speaker 3:So we had the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations, which came in in 2018 in the UK and they, for the first time, really clearly stated that basically, as you said, toby focuses very often on websites and apps, but actually that also includes learning content and digital learning content.
Speaker 3:So that was the kind of impetus that made me think, actually there's there's a huge gap in the market here for well, a huge gap for people, for practitioners like myself, who are really trying to make learning content, to apply the web content accessibility guidelines to learning content and make it really accessible for everybody.
Speaker 3:So that was really what motivated me to again to start my own organisation. So my organisation is Ella Hub, so I'm the kind of director and founder of that and I did that probably as I say, probably in about 2019 as a result of those public sector bodies accessibility regulations. But the real drive was just being a learning practitioner myself, an instructional designer and finding it so incredibly difficult to kind of understand, make sense of the web content accessibility guidelines. So I think a lot of people know it's the right thing to do and they should be doing it and applying these standards to learning content, but it's just because they were designed for websites and mobile apps, it can be very difficult to kind of apply them to learning content. So that was my real driver for kind of both publishing the book and starting Ella Hub as well.
Speaker 2:So why is there a real need for making accessible e-learning and why is it important?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think it is an area that is so often overlooked by organisations. So I think a lot of organisations, kind of under the diversity, equity and inclusion strategy, will kind of have maybe be thinking about, yes, accessibility is important, maybe be thinking about, yes, accessibility is important, maybe considering it in their recruitment. Maybe you know all of their kind of processes for you know, and making sure that people have got reasonable adjustments, maybe sometimes so that they can actually, you know, work and thrive within the organisation. But very, very often, learning content and so much of it now is digital learning content, sometimes blended, so you have face to face and digital as well but it's so important to make sure that digital content, that learning content, that learning experience, is accessible and inclusive for everyone. So I think, for me, one of the you know, there's always coming back to the human story of accessibility.
Speaker 3:Coming back to the human story of accessibility, I had an experience where I was at a conference, a virtual conference, and I was very lucky to be in a breakout room with someone and I just happened to ask about anyone's experience with learning content. They were talking about their experience of actually someone who was a screen reader user and he was saying that actually his experience of the recruitment, of starting at the organization, was fantastic. Everyone had a really inclusive experience. And then it came to his learning. He had to have his onboarding learning and it was just not accessible with his screen reader and he literally had his manager having to sit next to him and read out his onboarding training. And that was literally a few years ago and you know, I kind of thought when he was explaining that but it was something that maybe happened, you know, like 15, 20 years ago, literally kind of a couple of years, you know, at the beginning of his experience, and sometimes it's those kind of human stories that really really prompt you to think.
Speaker 3:Actually this is absolutely essential for everybody, and I think it's so easy for organisations to overlook learning content. When it comes to accessibility, they're very often focused on which is understandable the systems that people are using, making sure that they can put their leave on, for example, making sure that they can use the systems that they need to for their everyday job but what's often forgotten is actually you have to be able to, you know, to train people and to say that they are able to use those systems as well. And if that's not inclusive and accessible, then it's a missing piece of the puzzle that, as I say, often gets overlooked that, as I say, often gets overlooked.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and some of that training could be really critical training, like health and safety, for example, where people need to know how to keep themselves safe.
Speaker 3:Most definitely, yeah, and also from a kind of business point of view.
Speaker 3:For me it's that productivity, you know, if you want to get the most out of your staff, then it's a huge you know.
Speaker 3:That's the amount of people that you're excluding from your learning and development initiatives is potentially, you know, is potentially huge.
Speaker 3:I think one of the statistics that, again, you know, made a real kind of light bulb moment impact on me was by the Boston Consulting Group last year and they did some really extensive research on the number of people, or the percentage of people in organisations who felt that they had a disability or an access need, and I think most organisations report it's about 4% to 7% of their workforce.
Speaker 3:But when this research was carried out and it was very extensive, so it was about 28,000 people across 16 countries and the percentage was actually about 25% of people who actually came back and said, yes, I have a disability or health condition or an access need that impacts a major life activity and when you're thinking of that, you know, for me, 25% potentially of your audience is not able to access your learning content. It's just a phenomenal impact, not only from a you know, from a business, from a productivity point of view, but also from a you know, and again coming back to that personal point of view, someone who is excluded from you know being able to reach their potential and thrive because your learning content isn't accessible and you've kind of overlooked that. For me, it's something that is absolutely essential to learning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. And one thing I learned having worked at the BBC in user experience and design is that if you think about accessibility right at the beginning of the design process, rather than having it as a kind of bolt-on or retrofitting it or trying to fix it at the end, is that A? That's just a more effective bolt-on, or retrofitting it or trying to fix it at the end is that A? That's just a more effective, cost-effective way of doing it. But you end up actually making a much better product overall by considering the needs of disabled users as you're designing it from the beginning. Definitely.
Speaker 3:And I think it comes back to that sort of the inclusive design principles. But I think for me and I have to say this is from my own experience is, as an instructional designer, you know someone hands on involved in creating learning content, about designing accessibly and inclusively. It absolutely fundamentally changes the way that you're designing content because it puts learners at the centre of the learning experience. So you know, it's very easy as a practitioner to do things that you've always done in the same way. You've always done them because you know it's worked once. So you think, oh, I'll do that again when you design accessibly. You just can't think like that anymore.
Speaker 3:Everything you're doing, you're thinking, okay, but what about the access needs of these individuals or this group of people? And it absolutely makes you think about is this a good piece of learning? Is this a good learning experience for everybody, not just a tick box? Oh, I'm going to kind of put this multiple choice question here at the end of this, because that's what I've always done. It's like well, actually, what am I trying to learn? What am I trying to get across in this learning?
Speaker 2:So can you give me some examples of inaccessible e-learning or inaccessible content?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think what I tend to do is anyone who's been involved in trying to make content accessible will probably if you're aware of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. They're kind of divided up into these four different principles principles. Now, as an instructional designer, I didn't find those very helpful. So what I tend to do, you know, in my own work and when I'm, you know, talking to clients about accessibility, is break it down into different access needs. So, generally, from a digital point of view, the four different access needs that we usually focus on are vision, hearing, motor and cognitive. Those tend to be the main four because that's from the digital point of view and because those are the ones that are covered by the web content accessibility guidelines. But also really important not to forget when you're thinking about learning content is to remember also you've got sort of hybrid and you've got face-to-face and virtual is also to remember speech access needs as well. So basically, what I'll do is I'll just give some examples of some of the inaccessible contents.
Speaker 3:We do a lot of auditing work at Elehub and some of the most common kind of examples of inaccessible content. So I think, from a vision, the one that I think that a lot of people are aware of accessibility is often when the first thing that people think of is vision, and maybe people who are blind and or have very low have low vision and using screen readers. So, for example, not putting alternative text on images which are adding a lot to the meaning is is a very common one, but also you know people that have low vision. Um, you know people, older learners a lot of people struggle with color contrast. So color contrast is a huge, both for text against background and also for any interactive items that you need people to be, you know, clicking on or selecting.
Speaker 3:And then I think another one that is often overlooked is another aspect of vision, which is colour blindness, which is actually very, very common. So it's about one in 12 men have various forms of colour blindness. So if you are using in learning content, colour alone, we call it. So, for example, if you ask someone to answer a quiz question and the only way that you're communicating with that whether that question, whether they've got it right or wrong is to have like, for example, a red overlay, or the text turns red if it's wrong, or a green overlay, or the text turns green if it's wrong, or a green overlay or the text turns green if it's right. Someone who's colourblind is not going to be able to know whether they've passed or if they've answered that question correctly. So those are the ones that I tend to think of for vision, for hearing, very often associated with audio and video content inside learning content, which is really really common.
Speaker 3:And then it's very often we see that there are maybe videos that don't have captions on them or the captions are not descriptive. They don't describe, for example, any important sound effects or anything that someone who is deaf or hard of hearing might not have the same experience. And sometimes, very, very often in our audits, there may be captions on them, but they're often auto-generated, so those captions aren't accurate, which means it's very difficult to process that content. They don't have any full stops or proper sentences or grammar in them, or lots of mistakes in them. And then I think the other thing for hearing is making sure that you don't convey something that is just reliant on one sense, so just reliant on hearing. So, for example, if you had a quiz question and you indicated that someone had answered it incorrectly by having a sound, you know, just a buzzer for example, that probably wouldn't be a great learning experience anyway if you buzzed every time you got something wrong. But that would be inaccessible for someone who was deaf or hard of hearing.
Speaker 3:From a motor point of view, very, very common issue from a motor point of view.
Speaker 3:So we're basically thinking from motor about people with manual dexterity issues.
Speaker 3:So we're thinking about people who generally won't be able to, or will find it difficult to, use hardware such as a mouse on a desktop or, if it's on a mobile device, it would be kind of tapping with their fingers. So they very often use different types of assistive technology, often based on keyboard technology. So there's a whole ream of standards that people need to meet to make sure that their content is keyboard accessible, which very often is actually controlled by the tool rather than the person who's creating the content. But one thing to be really mindful of is that there are still a lot of interactivities within authoring tools that might not be accessible for someone who's using a keyboard instead of a mouse. So a really common one are drag and drop activities. So obviously you need to have that manual and it's vision as well. You need to have manual dexterity and vision to be able to operate a drag and drop. So you need to know your authoring tool and know which of the interactivities are accessible and which are ones to avoid or to provide an alternative.
Speaker 2:If that's, you know if that's an option that you do within your organization yeah, that's the category that I struggle with the most, because I, yeah, so I can't use my hands and arms, so I use dragon, naturally speaking okay and I also use an on-screen keyboard.
Speaker 2:So the on-screen keyboard is just built, built into the native uh, windows, um. And then, yeah, dragon, naturally speaking, is software that I've installed on my computer. Um, and yeah, when I've done e-learning in the past, it's software that I've installed on my computer. And yeah, when I've done e-learning in the past, it's frustrating when I think probably the buttons are not labelled correctly. So basically I'll say the command, click next, and nothing happens because I don't think that next button has been labelled correctly. So obviously the command doesn't work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that is one of the most common things that we see. If instructional designers or developers have got control over labeling those buttons, sometimes it's kind of natively done within the authoring tool, but if they have got the, you know, in some authoring tools, they have got the ability to label those buttons. That is a huge, such a common one in the audits that we do is that there's a mismatch and you know the button will be called something completely different. But that is such a great example when and that's one that I always bring into the audits that I say is imagine someone trying to use assistive technology and is speaking the name of your button, but you've called it something completely different. So imagine the frustration, because that actually is something that can stop someone moving on in the learning. That's an absolute blocker for them being able to actually progress in the learning, because how are you going to find out what they've randomly labeled the buttons? Yeah, yeah, a great example.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a great example. So I like how you very clearly set out some of the accessibility problems that are quite common across those kind of four different categories. What are the benefits to an organisation and its employees of creating accessible e-learning? What are the benefits if they get it right?
Speaker 3:Okay, so yeah, I'll just very quickly because I didn't quite finish the cognitive one.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, sorry, there was an extra one, sorry.
Speaker 3:I got distracted, no problem. But yeah, from the cognitive one. I think this one is really important because I think, from a cognitive point of view because there's so much of a focus now on people being aware of people with neurodivergent conditions there are lots of WCAG standards around cognitive access needs. So, for example, avoiding flashing content, making sure that moving content is controllable by learners so it's not distracting. But I think there's so many things around making sure that your instructions are clear, that you're consistent, that you, for example, don't use a lot of capital letters which are difficult maybe for people who are dyslexic to read. So there's a lot of standards around that. And then, just a very quick one on speech access needs is making sure, for example, that in any virtual face-to-face learning interventions that you actually make sure that, for example, you use that people can use the chat facility instead of um having to, you know, not forcing people to use their microphone to interact. So it's just being aware of speech access needs as well, because sometimes they they get overlooked. So sorry to to shoehorn those in, but otherwise I don't think okay, you should have said that. So, from the point of view of the benefits, I think the benefits of making accessible learning content are just, I mean, absolutely phenomenal, because you make sure that you're including everybody. So all of the effort and you know cost and time that you're putting into creating learning content is actually you know it's actually delivering value for your organisation and it also so not only, as I say, does it like we were talking about earlier, it improves the learning for everybody In.
Speaker 3:For me the examples I've seen of inaccessible learning content versus accessible learning content it's unquestionable that it is better learning content for everybody. So you're improving the learning experience for everyone. You're putting learners at the centre of the learning experience. From a business point of view, you're making sure that you're getting your return on investment. You're not excluding anybody from your learning content and also, for me, it has an immeasurable impact on the kind of how included people feel within that organisation. So the culture of the organisation because you're really walking the walk and talking the talk If you're saying, yes, this is important for us, then making sure that you know that learning is a really important part of that is absolutely essential in making people feel included in their organisation and genuinely given the opportunity to contribute and to thrive in the role that you've put them in. It's absolutely essential that you make sure that their learning content is accessible.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I think you definitely have to connect it up for organisations, because they'll say, on one hand, we're inclusive, it's yeah, it's in our, in our values. You know we want a diverse workforce, but then, like you say, if they're not then actively making digital content accessible, then they're not exactly walking the talk completely.
Speaker 2:no, no, I completely agree, yeah and I do see with a lot of organizations. Actually, actually they do focus on digital accessibility, but it tends to be the kind of outwardly facing tech, so their website or their customer apps or the systems that people use like an intranet or something like that. But actually e-learning content often gets overlooked. What I see a lot as actually is companies purchasing e-learning that's not accessible and they're not challenging the e-learning providers about the accessibility of that product either. They're kind of buying these products off the shelf and they're already faulty out of the box.
Speaker 3:I agree. Yeah, so I think that's certainly the case for people who will buy ready-made content. Also, it's a similar thing for authoring tools, so people who are creating their own learning content. There is a bit of a perception that if you have an authoring tool that says it's accessible, you've ticked the box. You don't need to know anything, you know that's it. It will just create accessible learning content.
Speaker 3:Anyone who's had anything to do with accessibility knows that that's not the case. You still have to have a good understanding of accessibility to be able to use that tool in an accessible way. It's so easy to use an accessible any kind of tool can be accessible but if you don't know anything, if you don't know what you're doing from an accessibility point of view, then it's so easy to create barriers without knowing about it. And that's one of the reasons we focus so much at Ella Hub on both auditing and training, because it's being involved in access but actually making people confident that they can understand accessibility and apply it themselves. And also coming back to you when it comes to kind of working with vendors and you know their procurement, you know all of their procedures is being confident enough about accessibility to challenge people.
Speaker 3:You know, I've very often had, you know, my clients saying, well, you know, we've talked to the vendor and they've said it's WCAG 2.1, aa compliant. And you know, just a simple check. You know that's what we do is just say, well, we'll do these. You know, like five to five, 10 checks yourself. That enables you then to go back and say, actually, you know, we're challenging you on this, it isn't as it isn't fully accessible. You know, there's always, you know, sometimes a gray area around some of the standards, but some of them are very clear and you can see, you know immediately whether someone is actually knows what they're talking about when they say that something is accessible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. Have you got any examples of how approaching some e-learning with this accessibility mindset can improve the experience for disabled end users and non-disabled end users?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I suppose that the two sort of aspects of it are both from the business side, really, and the personal side. So I think, from the business side, we've had a lot of clients who are kind, of you know, even people who are working within the learning and development industry, maybe authoring tool providers, who have realised that actually this is a great thing to be able to, from a business point of view, to be able to, you know, expand their market. You know, so you know examples of an authoring tool that we've worked with who have started off with, you know, with a good understanding of accessibility, but then really really focused on we want to provide information for instructional designers to make sure that they can use our authoring tool. And just seeing the change in perspective, you know, they really placed themselves as kind of market leaders from an accessibility point of view, and it really had an impact from a sales point of view on the fact that you know they really placed themselves as kind of market leaders from an accessibility point of view, and it really had an impact from a sales point of view on the fact that you know those questions that people were asking them about how accessible is your tool they then felt confident enough to be able to say, yeah, we're very clear on this and these are the. This is the information that we can provide to you and I think, from a kind of personal point of view, we see it over and over again. You know people who do our own training, which is inclusive and accessible, and kind of say, you know, this is a revelation. You know such a joy to be able to do learning. That makes us feel it, you know, makes me feel included and you know I can achieve the. I don't feel like I'm doing the kind of accessible version which isn't interesting. It's just the you know, the PDF document that people were familiar with getting maybe a few years ago, so that we've had a lot of experience with people, as I say, doing our own program and own training which is accessible and inclusive. Saying, you know, having fantastic feedback on their own experience.
Speaker 3:I think, from my own point of view, my is um, having discovered a couple of years ago that I was um dyslexic and suddenly the penny dropping as to why for such a long time I had you know, I really had had challenges with you know, doing online learning and with my own learning experience at, you know, both in education and in workplace learning, and then just realizing you know that that if we make our learning content accessible that's the kind of our mantra at Elohub we make it accessible and inclusive as the default. Just what a change, you know, for anybody. So many people you know haven't have maybe not had a diagnosis of having, you know, neurodivergent or they may develop a disability or an access need. If we make it accessible as the default, then it's future-proof and we're just including everybody. And for me, the kind of transformational impact of suddenly knowing in my 50s that I was dyslexic I know that a lot of people say that it really is transformational.
Speaker 3:When I wrote the first edition of Designing Accessible Learning Content, I didn't know I was dyslexic and I found it really challenging, had huge imposter syndrome, had huge kind of you know, felt really inadequate, like who am I to be doing this, and really struggled with it. When I found out I was dyslexic and wrote the second one, it was just a completely transformed experience. I realised that actually my dyslexic thinking skills yes, I still have challenges, but they were the things that actually made me able to write this book. These were the skills I needed to break down these complex standards and explain them to other people. If I hadn't been dyslexic and my brain didn't think in this way, then actually I wouldn't have been able to write that book in the first place. So it was a very personal experience for me of the kind of positivity of, you know, making content accessible for everybody, but also my own experience of you know completely different change in mindset and you know the positivity of accessibility and inclusion.
Speaker 2:Brilliant. So, as an e-learning accessibility industry leader, what does inclusive growth mean to you?
Speaker 3:That's a really good question. So I think the key thing about the inclusive side of things for me is really being inclusive does include people that have got disabilities and access needs, so, and it includes absolutely every aspect of the content in your organisation and also your the mindset. You know the culture within your organisation as well. So I think that inclusivity is so important that we don't you know, we try and be inclusive, but we need to think of every different aspect of kind of inclusion, and accessibility is such an important part of that and so often overlooked.
Speaker 3:The growth part, I think, for me is, I think, coming back to this idea of yeah, as a business owner myself, there is always that you know and that's an important aspect of accessibility is making sure that you know that there is that business growth side of things. It really does improve your you know what you're doing as a business and you know lead to kind of growth in that area. Giving people the opportunity to thrive and to really feel like they're contributing and really able to. You know to do what they have got the potential to do is such an important you know, and that comes back so much to what we're trying to achieve with learning for everybody. But you know why? Exclude up to 25% of your learning audience just because you haven't made it accessible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and finally, if the person listening to us right now wants to follow your work, perhaps they need some help to make e-learning accessible in their own organisation. What should they do?
Speaker 3:I think probably the best thing to do is to get in contact, so happy for anyone to message me or to become a contact on LinkedIn. That's probably the place where I'm most active at the moment. So yeah, obviously we also have a website, so that's elahubnet, wwwelahubnet.
Speaker 2:That's a good place to start, but LinkedIn is where you know, if anyone wants some kind of you know some interaction, then I'm really, really happy to speak to anyone on LinkedIn. Yeah, and also by the second edition of your book, which is Designing Accessible e-learning Content. I'll drop that in there for you because I think you forgot to plug your own book there.
Speaker 3:Thanks very much, you're welcome. I often do that.
Speaker 2:Susie, thanks ever so much for joining us today. It's been lovely to catch up with you.
Speaker 3:And thanks for everything that you do to make e-learning accessible so that everybody can thrive Perfect.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it. You're welcome and thank you for tuning into this episode of the Inclusive Growth Podcast with Susie and myself. Today, we've been talking about why it's really important to make e-learning accessible so that we can get the best out of everybody in your organization. And also, if you just go in with an accessibility mindset at the beginning of designing e-learning, you're just going to create a better end product for everybody anyway. So if you do need any help in making your digital learning or your e-learning accessible, please do reach out to Susie and her team, because Susie and her team will be able to support you in that. And if there's anything that I can do to help create a more inclusive culture, develop inclusive leaders in your organization, then feel free to contact me through my website as well. So thanks ever so much for tuning in and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode, which will be coming out very soon. Take care Bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Inclusive Growth Show. For further information and resources from Toby and his team, head on over to our website at mildencouk.