When Accessibility Leads

Accessibility is the horse. Don’t put the cart before it.

I recently finished reading The eLearning & Instructional Design Roadmap by Aubrey Cook (not an affiliate link). It’s a quick, informative read for anyone who’s a beginner in the Instructional Design industry. If you have less than two years of experience but are interested in learning and development as a career, it’s a good fit.

Although it didn’t offer a lot that was new to me personally, I enjoyed the whimsical and sometimes nerdy examples and references. Overall, like I said, it’s a good book.

So now I’m going to pick on it a little.

The author gives a brief overview of accessibility for learning design, but admits that’s not a focus of the book. That’s fine. But there are two things she mentioned about accessibility that I wanted to call out.

First, she uses the term “accessibility compliance.” There’s nothing inherently wrong about using that term. Many people talk about accessibility in the context of complying with local laws.

Second, she gives a piece of advice to instructional designers that suggests they talk about accessibility with their clients when initially meeting with them about the scope of the content. Specifically, she suggests that designers ask about what level of accessibility compliance they need for the course.

🛑 Stop right there.

Cook hasn’t done anything wrong. I’m not calling her out on doing anything problematic here.

But I am going to say that this is bad advice, in my opinion, and the fact that this sort of advice is so prevalent is the problem.

Why is this a problem?

First, accessibility compliance

Accessibility should not be an afterthought. That’s what compliance language subtly reinforces.

When we talk about accessibility compliance, we give permission to developers to look for ways to do the bare minimum to avoid lawsuits. As long as the public can access the content the way it’s meant to be presented, they don’t have standing to sue us.

But that kind of thinking gives us products like the industry-standard Articulate suite of content authoring tools. Articulate has done some great work to ensure that its e-learning course creation software complies with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) so that all learners can benefit from the content that users create with it. Courses made with Articulate are much accessible than most e-learning courses of yester-year.

Compliance. Done. Check.

But Articulate, as a content authoring tool, isn’t fully accessible to content creators. They complied with laws to ensure that end users can access content, but didn’t bother to create an accessible tool for learning designers.

As a blind learning designer, I can’t tell you how infuriating that is. Articulate is industry-leading software. Experience with their suite of tools is required for a huge percentage of available learning design jobs. It’s like the Microsoft Word of Instructional Design.

But since it’s inaccessible, I can’t really get experience with it. Since I can’t get experience with it, I’m shut out of a great many job opportunities.

But it’s not just about me. The same is true for anyone who has tried to use their tools and encountered similar barriers.

I can only wonder: When the product developers were meeting about how much resources to put toward WCAG compliance for their courses, and when they were running user focus groups to learn how best to support learners, did it ever occur to anyone that disabled people are content creators as well?

It’s like they put all their compliance concerns into a cart. Then they put that cart in front of a horse and expected the horse to push the cart along.

Weird metaphor? I’ll come back to it in a bit. Hopefully it’ll be clear then.

Second, what level of accessibility are you targeting?

I absolutely believe that the topic of accessibility is one that we should discuss with every client, whether that’s in the e-learning industry or outside of it. Every developer who makes anything, from physical goods to AI-powered B2B SAAS acronym soup, should consider accessibility as a key part of the design process.

Key? Foundational, even. Accessibility is fundamental.

But I think this question is simply asking the wrong thing. It’s giving permission to a client to say, “What’s compliant?” It’s letting them say “Well, we don’t have any blind people on the team, so we don’t need to worry about things like audio descriptions or color contrast.”

This discussion shouldn’t start with a question. It should start with a statement.

“We’re committed to making our content / product / tool / widget accessible and inclusive for all users.”

Then you just do it. You just focus on creating content and products that are accessible. You just deliver the best possible experience for everyone. Because there is no reason to leave anyone behind.

The Reality of Accessibility

For too long, we’ve been putting the horse behind the cart and making it push.

❌ Disabled people have to push for the right to be included.

❌ Governments have to push to make sure businesses comply with the law.

❌ Businesses have to push for budget to support disabled team members.

❌ Non-profits and charities have to push to acquire resources to support people who are eager and interested in working hard.

But what if, instead, we led with access?

✅ When accessibility leads, compliance naturally follows. But so do inclusion, understanding, and belonging.

✅ When accessibility leads, we don’t have to worry about lawsuits because we’re proactive about supporting everybody. Leaving nobody behind is naturally part of the process.

✅ When accessibility leads, we don’t have to be concerned about the cost because it simply is part of universal design. It’s far less costly to build accessibility from the ground up than it is to remediate an inaccessible product.

✅ When accessibility leads, all learners have a chance to learn. All users have a chance to use. All practitioners have a chance to practice.

✅ When accessibility leads, we don’t even have to call it accessibility anymore. We can just call it great design. Right now, it’s only called accessibility because people don’t yet see it as the default.

Accessibility is a powerful draft horse, capable of pulling far more than its own weight. That’s why it shouldn’t be an afterthought. It shouldn’t be a question.

It should just be the default.

What are your thoughts?

Have I, once again, gone overboard with my metaphors? Do you agree or disagree with my stance on the importance of accessibility as the default way to approach any and every design?

If you don’t agree, what part of my argument doesn’t make sense? I’m happy to chat about our differences so I’m not stuck in an echo chamber.

Let me know what you think in the comments. If you know of someone who might like this content, share it with them, too.

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