The Death of E-learning
E-learning, but not how you’re used to it! Less noise, more candour. Interviews, panel discussions, retrospectives - every episode has something different! We talk to interesting people and ask some big questions - 'Is this the end of learning design?' - 'Can creativity and productivity coexist in harmony?' - but mainly, we challenge people to decide 'What aspect of e-learning would you like to see the death of?'
The Death of E-learning
Access Denied! - Untangling accessibility
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This time sees us pandering to the liberals and going mad with political correctness - OR it has us making important content accessible to everyone wherever possible. Hear from our resident expert about what accessibility means and how to achieve it.
Episode 5, episode 5, yes, this is episode 5 of the Death of eLearning.
SPEAKER_03How are you, Luke? How are you today?
SPEAKER_02I'm fine, thank you. Yeah, I'm a bit warm, especially as we close all the windows when recording, because we're responsible like that. But it has made this little room, this little yellow room that I'm in, into a bit of a greenhouse sort of vibe. I'm feeling humid. How about you? It's always hotter in London, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03I usually have the windows open first thing in the morning, and then there's a moment in the day where it becomes hotter outside than it is inside, and then I close the windows and pull down some blinds, and then the cat trots off into the bathroom where there's a tiled floor because it keeps it nice and cool. So we all do what we can in this heat wave at the moment. Oh, that's a smart idea.
SPEAKER_02Clever cat. And they also say your cat goes down well on my Instagram. People love him.
SPEAKER_03Yes, he is. He is well loved on Instagram. And he also featured in our previous episode. He br briefly got his five seconds of silence.
SPEAKER_02Some mouth noises, if you really turn it up. But um mouth noises not guaranteed in this episode, if we can help it. Uh what are we talking about this week?
SPEAKER_03This week we're talking about accessibility. Yes. We are talking about why accessibility. We've got a colleague who's an absolute expert in it, and I believe you, her, and a recurring guest will be talking about that shortly.
SPEAKER_02That's true. The rumors are true. I can finally break my silence. Gosh. I'm relieved. Um, yes, we speak to Alex Peterson, and she I'm gonna let her introduce herself when we get to it, but she knows all about accessibility, and she was just such good value, and I used to sit next to her in the office full disclosure. So she's a good friend, and just it's a great one this week. You're gonna love it, and hopefully learn because the word accessibility is mentioned a lot, isn't it? And often clients will say stuff like, Oh, we need to make sure this is accessible, and I nod and I agree, because that's good, right? But what that means exactly, I I'm not sure I could pin it down.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly. There's often a lot of blanket requests for accessibility, but dear listeners, you're about to find out all about the different levels of accessibility and what they all mean and how they all really impact those who need it. Because Alex is an absolute scholar when it comes to all things accessibility. So I think you're in for an absolute treat. As do I.
SPEAKER_02She says all the good stuff. I'm literally just there to dance about and inject nonsense and try and trip her up. Um so expect a good deal of that too.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but you've got Ryan to keep you on the straight and narrow. So he's back with a vengeance, and uh the two of you are basically sc uh basically quizzing Alex. Is that right? That sounds about right.
SPEAKER_02Shall we um we'll let you make your own judgment? Let's get to it. This is me chatting to Alex with Ryan. Welcome team. Do we feel uh ready for a fun chat? Oh, Ryan's just pulled the most unimpressed face I've ever seen. He does he disapproves of my kicking off methods.
SPEAKER_00It's as if you've asked him to drink three raw eggs.
SPEAKER_04I mean, if fun should occur, I'm here for it. But I'm not, you know, I'm not gonna proactively it's not contingent upon your participation. Yes, I'm not I'm not here to do your job for you. Look so if you make it fun.
SPEAKER_02So be it. It's like when I asked you earlier if you were happy, you just said I'm not unhappy. And I took that as a win.
SPEAKER_04My wife doesn't like it when I respond with not unhappy. You can't think why. She she takes it as a just a general sort of um uh lacking appraisal on my situation in life.
SPEAKER_00But honestly, yes. I think it depends what your baseline is, because if your baseline is unhappy, then not unhappy is an improvement, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_00Perspective.
SPEAKER_02But it's like when my mum says that something was very pleasant, I'm like, what does that mean? Do you did you like it or not?
SPEAKER_00That's such a mum thing, and like a specifically UK mum thing? Not too dreadful.
SPEAKER_02It was pleasant. Very pleasant. So, welcome, team. Welcome to this discussion. Uh you already know who I am, and with me we've got Ryan O'Hara, who you may remember from a former episode, you were on that one e-learning sucks, Ryan. Do you remember it?
SPEAKER_04Yes, back by popular demand.
SPEAKER_02Well, so they say, yeah. Did you have a nice time?
SPEAKER_04Um in in the interim between episode three and nine.
SPEAKER_02Um right, okay.
SPEAKER_04Yes, it was a it was a lovely time. Um yes, Stefan and I sort of and and Graham was there as well, and we discussed kind of the um the big sort of foibles of of e-learning and and people's um things they don't like.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, common issues. Well, thanks for joining me today, Ryan, because you're a good person to be in this discussion on accessibility. You are a thoroughly experienced learning designer or learning design manager as you are now. And you were saying to me earlier that you've noticed accessibility come more to the forefront of things. Is that fair to say?
SPEAKER_04Yes, I think that's um a pretty obvious sort of observation. So even as as recently as sort of four or five years ago, accessibility wasn't something um that we paid a lot of attention to as learning designers. So there's that there's definitely been a shift in the paradigm with regards to you know what our obligations are and how we've changed how we look at that. But I'm sure you know we'll we'll get to that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm sure we will with our special guest. A very warm death of e-learning. Welcome to Alex Peterson.
unknownYay!
SPEAKER_00Hi. It's me.
SPEAKER_02Alex, please can you introduce yourself in as thorough a way as you can?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Alexander.
SPEAKER_02Within 30 seconds.
SPEAKER_00Okay, right. Start the clocks. Um, I'm Alex Peterson. I am the content QA manager here at Learning Pool. Basically, that means we do a lot of end user testing. So, you guys, as learning designers, you write the content, you translate it from whatever content you've been given into something that's actually applicable to a learner. Uh, and then you give it, you build it, and you give it to the graphic designers who make it look incredible so that people actually want to do the learning, and then you hand it over to me, and I point out everything that you have done wrong, and then you have to fix it. So that's that's basically my.
SPEAKER_02I mean, we all need to get our kicks, don't we? Right.
SPEAKER_00Do you know what? I've made a career out of being pedantic and it's working for me.
SPEAKER_02So and what's your background? What did you do before this?
SPEAKER_00Um, a lot of things. Um I went to university and did a marine science degree, and then carried on with that to do a master's, um, and then moved to Nottingham, where my parents lived, but where there is no ocean, there is no marine. So trying to find a job in the marine science sector was a bit tough. Um, and I had a very good friend uh who now actually does freelance for us, shout out Alex, um, and he said his company was looking for zero hours testers, and I got into e-learning that way. Uh, kind of worked my way up to scriptwriter, messaged uh the CEO of a different company and said, Hey, give me a job. And he was like, Yeah, great. And then uh yeah, ended up in Learning Pool. I've been here for about no, I've just hit been here for just over six years. I think it was my sixth year anniversary in May or something. Um so yeah, I've been doing e-learning for seven at Learning Pool for six years.
SPEAKER_04Is it still just a stop gap, Alex, until the until a sea a seafront becomes available?
SPEAKER_00Well, I have since moved to the centre of Scotland, which is if anything just as far from the ocean.
SPEAKER_02So Alex, I can point out where you're going wrong.
SPEAKER_00I think though I found my niche, as I say, like I've made a career pointing out where your apostrophes are in the wrong place, and um seems to be working for me.
SPEAKER_04So So you think you've found your poor poise in life and you've left the left the marine biology behind?
SPEAKER_00That's that's very pleasing. Yes, that's wonderful. I'm just accepting it. No notes.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say it's a curious route to e-learning, but we all have our our own distinct path that we've trod.
SPEAKER_04You were initially a shoplifter, Luke, if I recall correctly.
SPEAKER_02And you took me off the streets and you shined my shoes and you did. Yeah, got me on the straight and narrow. Um, but we are here today to discuss accessibility. Um, Alex, how do you make something accessible? What do we mean when we talk about accessibility?
SPEAKER_00It's a very good question, Luke. Um so when I say accessibility, I mean making sure that the content we put out into the world is accessible for somebody who has extra needs. So somebody with a disability, whether that's physical or um neurodiverse kind of issue. Um there are a number of ways that we can ensure that. Um, and the easiest way is by having a look at the web content accessibility guidelines. Now I am about to introduce a lot of acronyms into your life, so if you want to take notes, that's fine. Um, but if you Google this, you might get a little bit overwhelmed. So I'm going to break it down as easily as possible. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the WCAG, is a set of 14 guidelines that the World Wide Web Consortium, W3C, came up with. I think it was like in 2001 when kind of the internet was becoming a thing. They kind of sat down and went, we should probably make sure that people can actually access this amazing new thing we call the World Wide Web. So they came up with these 14 guidelines, um, which fall into four categories. Content that we put out on the web needs to be perceivable, so people need to be able to under you know perceive what's happening in front of them. Operable, they need to be able to operate what's happening in front of them, understandable and robust. A robustness just refers to it needs to work. So things like assistive technology need to work on most web pages. They did write these guidelines for web pages, but we've taken them uh and applied them to e-learning. So not all of the guidelines will apply, but a lot of them do. So it's really good kind of starting point for us to start trying to make our learning accessible.
SPEAKER_02Great, thank you. That's a good um, that's a good summary. I'd argue that acronyms aren't very accessible, but uh you may disagree. And I need to ask, I mean, I've got I could ask you loads of things about that, but first of all, why do you care about this?
SPEAKER_00I personally care uh and have done through my extensive career. Uh, sarcasm. Because I feel like it is it's just the right thing to be doing. Like we're creating this learning, we're trying to put knowledge and skills into the world. Why wouldn't we make that accessible to as many people as possible? Why wouldn't we put in provisos for people who maybe struggle to use a computer but but use it as a lifeline to get you know information and communicate with the world?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And when you talk about sort of if you talk about the first of those rules that you touched upon, Alex, in terms of um the or the first of those tests in terms of it being perceivable, what do you mean what do we mean there? Do we mean uh screen readers for people who are are perhaps partially cited? Um is that the main kind of thing that we're looking at?
SPEAKER_00The um the perceivable section of WCAG is actually the the largest section, so a lot of accessibility goes into that perception and perceivable uh content. So it's things like making sure your colour contrast is high enough between text and the background, so you've not got any clashing colours, you've not got any colours that are maybe too close to one another, so people can't see that. Um, you mentioned screen screen readers there, which is absolutely correct. It needs to work with things like screen readers and magnifiers and colour filters, so other things that we call assistive technology. Um, so when a screen reader goes along, it literally reads what's on the screen. So that's kind of like a text alternative, and that text alternative carries through to things like videos where you might have some captions or a transcript on a video, maybe some audio descriptions. So there's all kinds of guidelines that fit within that perceivable bracket.
SPEAKER_04So, in terms of screen readers, for instance, we we want to make sure that everything that we put on this page of say we'll refer to it as a page of eLearning. Everything that we put put on there is readable for the screen reader. So that's yeah, that's why we do things like alternative text behind the images and so on, so that that's then sort of narrated, then that comes out as audio for a partially sighted user.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so yeah, imagine if you are, as you say, a partially sighted or a completely legally blind user, they use a screen reader to navigate around their whole computer, so the screen doesn't even have to be on, but they can kind of put things in the right place audio uh auditorily, or that's not a word, uh, using that audio medium. So it'll read things like um, for example, on a web page, it'll be like um title, this is the title of this webpage, read out the text that's on the page, image, image of uh baby, I don't know. So it'll be reading kind of all that background information uh in things that are called ARIA labels, I think is is what controls that. And as you say, alternative text. So images, buttons, every interactable kind of component on the page needs to have a text alternative to tell uh somebody with visual impairment what it does.
SPEAKER_04And then I mean yeah, I've seen I've seen I've worked kind of closely with clients um in a couple of different organizations where they've had someone. I know we do uh we do extensive testing on our side, as you say, with the WCAD. We we have a tool that sweeps through all our content during the QA process and then flags issues, just as you've said, on color contrast and things like this. But occasionally um we'll be doing work for um an organization and it they might get someone that actually is a screen reader user in to test it. And I'll I've sat alongside them, sort of virtually speaking, a couple of times, and it's an it's a sight to behold. It's a it's not quite it's its own thing, if you know what I mean, using it, it's its own sort of very speedy, you know, they they run through the content really quickly, um, and having it narrated, and they seem to be able to just you know navigate this this um landscape uh really well. And I guess that's what you're talking about is when we take the time to go back, because it is a lot of work, and enter in sort of descriptions behind every graphic and so on, like this, um then that's I mean that's kind of filling in the landscape for them, I suppose is what I'm trying to say. So it makes it all navigable.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And and what you're referring to there, I've seen a couple of you know bits of footage of screen reader users who are legally blind trying to navigate one of our courses, and for lack of a better word, it was eye-opening for me because I'm a tester and I have gone through and used a screen reader myself, but I have to turn my screen physically away from me to stop me trying to navigate using sites, so trying to navigate purely through audio is really difficult. And if anybody wants to give it a go, uh on most computers, I think on Windows it's called Narrator, on Mac it's called Voiceover, and you can just launch that, it's a free application, and try and get through a website. Just try and navigate through a website using your keyboard, so the tab key, the entity, enter key, arrow keys. Just try and get through just using a screen reader, and it kind of gives you a bit of an idea how difficult that is if everything's not in the right place.
SPEAKER_02So I wonder like, are these rules that all websites have to adhere to, or is this just something that some websites and I know that we adhere to it thanks to your efforts at Learning Pool? Um but WCAG, do people have to adhere to it?
SPEAKER_00Kind of, yeah. Um so one thing I didn't mention earlier is that there are three levels of accessibility. So most websites you come across will be A accessible, so level A, just single A. Um, and that means you know you can get around it fairly easily as an able-bodied person. Um what we aim at at Learning Pool, uh certainly in all of our library content and in most of our bespoke content is double A or AA accessibility, which includes things like, as we've spoken about, alternative text, uh colour contrast, um, keyboard navigation is a big one, um yeah, things like that, making sure that as many people as possible can access the learning. There is also triple A accessibility, the gold standard, which is actually not possible at the moment. So that's things like verbal commands to your commute computer. So, you know, Alexa is technically accessible. No, she's not, she's accessible in that one way, but um, yeah, even the guys who wrote the guidelines say actually triple A accessible is a pipe dream. That's something we can aim for in the future, but at the moment it's just not possible. So to answer your question, Luke, uh back in 2018, the UK government brought into law they uh wrote, I think, an addendum to the Disability Act saying that all public-facing websites, all public-facing uh materials need to be AA accessible. And for uh governmental bodies like local authorities, the NHS, uh the police force, fire and rescue, that kind of thing, they all need to provide AA accessible materials for their internal learners as well. So, as I say, all of our library content is AA accessible in line with that disability act. So you don't have to worry about it. We have done the hard work, it's ready to go.
SPEAKER_04You reference the hard work that we have put in and we did, you know, in the last couple of years we've gone back. Um, Learnpull has has um over the years um created quite an quite a large sort of back catalogue of library content. Um so we've gone back to review that and ensure that it's meeting you know double A standards in the ways that you say in terms of its functionality, but also then I would add also some of the stuff that we can't use. So some of the components that aren't friendly, um, so types of interaction might be um drag and drop, or that you know, that you can only do with the mouse, or timed activities, you know, that's something that organizations have to bear in mind as well whenever they're you know creating e-learning that certain types of interactions are maybe going to limit the accessibility.
SPEAKER_00Then there's um there's one that we like to use, uh it's called a hidden hotspot, and it's almost like a hazard perception. So to describe on an audio medium a visual uh kind of might give you an idea of how difficult this is to translate. But um, the learner is presented with a main image, and you might say to them, please identify all of the fire hazards in this image, which is a classic use, and we've done that. Um, and it's a really good use of the tool. But obviously, if you can't see, you can't identify the fire hazards. And if you're using a screen reader, it's really difficult for us to give you kind of a little prompt as to what that shows without giving away the answer, and then if you're Using a keyboard, how do you get onto the right part of the image without again giving the way the answer? So that one just by its nature is not going to be accessible. Um, but there is a nice line in WCAG that says, unless it's essential to the material. So we've we've come up with a way around it to say this won't be accessible to everyone. If it's not, here's what you need to do, and still getting the message across and still getting the information to our learners. And it's kind of that designing with accessibility in mind, which we're really trying to move towards a lot more, um, because it just makes it easier in the long run.
SPEAKER_04If I'm playing devil's advocate here for a second, then a screen reader might find it very hard to navigate through a page of eLearning with all its multiple choice questions and you know, sliding interactions and things. Whereas I assume that it can read a PDF or a Word document pretty easily. Um would that not be perhaps a more efficient sort of approach to you know to have a PDF attached that to the e learning and that's your that's your accessible sort of um addendum for those that need it?
SPEAKER_02Just give them a PDF, he'll be happy. Is that what you're saying?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. Pd PDFs were good were good enough for me when I was young.
SPEAKER_02I was born and raised on PDFs. Yeah. Um I'll allow you to answer now, Alex.
SPEAKER_00It's okay. Well, I mean it is, it's something that people have said to us before. Um, but to that I'd say, well, why are you bothering to create e-learning anyway? If we can just communicate it with a PDF, why have we bothered with a flip card and a show and tell? And why would you give all of that lovely interaction, all of that, you know, chunking and all of that structure? Why would you give that to one group of people and withhold it from another? It just doesn't make sense to me. Why would you bother doing it at all? Um, so yeah, we need to be designing with accessibility in mind, not only because it's the right thing to do, but also because it's actually really good user design, so uh UX design. Quite a lot of the principles of that overlap with the principles of accessibility. So having consistent navigation, consistent button nomenclature, uh consistent structuring, consistent titling, all of that lovely UX kind of design is already kind of covered by accessibility. So why wouldn't we? Is my question.
SPEAKER_02Slammed. Absolutely slammed, Ryan. You you do have a lie down. Um excellent answer, Alex. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04Luke's nickname at school was button nomenclature. I just like that. But no, I was playing devil's advocate, Luke. Yeah, I was doing it. It's for the you know, for the purpose of the discussion.
SPEAKER_02We need to make sure that Alex Alex's uh principles can stand up to scrutiny. Um so continuing that theme, this is a lot to worry about, isn't it? And a lot of potential effort. So can we just leave this to people like you who know about these things? Why do us learning designers or writers or anyone else really need to be thinking about accessibility?
SPEAKER_00It's a fair point. Again, very devil's advocate, but it's a fair point. Why can't you just let people like me go through and tell you where you've got it wrong? For for one thing, you then have to go and fix it. Um for another thing, even if somebody like me could go in and fix it for you, it takes so much longer than it needs to. We were just talking about, you know, our back catalogue of library courses. That took us weeks, and every learning designer in Learning Pool was touched by the hell that was accessibility. And I think honestly, it kind of instilled in us all that, yeah, can we not just do this to begin with? It would make life easier. So I don't know, I don't know if this works the same way everywhere. But for us, I kind of look at it in the same way as if you've got a client and they come to you at the final stages of a project and they say, Ah, we want to introduce this whole nother section of content, and you go, Oh goody, that's great, that's gonna be really easy to do now at the end of the project. Couldn't you just have told me that at the beginning? Couldn't you just have thought of accessibility at the beginning? So when we build a course, we've got what we call an asset list, we've written uh graphic descriptions and hand that over to a graphic designer. And I'll be honest with you, that's a really good starting place for your alternative text for all your images. Because if you've written a description good enough for a graphic designer to create an image to go in your course, that description's also good enough for a blind user to create an image in their head of what you're trying to get across. Start early on, it'll make your life so much easier in every single way, I promise you.
SPEAKER_02That would be a very good point if my descriptions weren't things like something resembling teamwork. I don't know, you figure it out.
SPEAKER_00I can't take any responsibility for that.
SPEAKER_02No, I'm I'm very good. I give thorough instructions. Very good point, Alex. I think we ought to just not only think about it at the beginning, but throughout, if not just to save ourselves bother further down the line.
SPEAKER_04And it should it should be it should be said that the accessibility kind of review, which which was variously described as hellish and so on, there by Alex, was was was a sort of yeah, it was a very um uh a lot of methodical work was required um picking through sort of each line in each course to make sure that you know the the colour contrast was up to scratch, the alt text was in the graphics, um removing any of those offending um interactions as well that we've talked about, things like hidden hotspots or or putting in alternatives to that. But we're all very proud at the end. It's an accomplishment.
SPEAKER_00I don't want anyone to come away from this and think, oh my god, she was moaning about it so much. Um but to put it into context, over 15 years of creating e-learning, we've created 700 off-the-shelf catalogue courses, so you can kind of understand it was a slog, I think I'm right in saying, Ryan, more than more than anything that we're like, oh my god, we've got to do it again. It was just intensive and hard work, but now we've now we've done it, and actually going forwards, our lives are a lot easier because we're already doing it.
SPEAKER_04And we as as you say, we put it in place now for all all projects, both library and customer projects as well. This book stuff is is QA'd at at that level also.
SPEAKER_02So looking ahead to the future, Alex, imagine it. You've got the power to change anything to do with the world of e-learning. That's that's limiting, isn't it? Anything within e-learning. Um what do you think the future of accessibility should be? What if there was no uh technical boundaries that are currently holding you back?
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna kind of give you a story anecdote for what accessibility could be and what accessibility currently can be. You talk about the future and you know what we can get along with in the future, but a lot of the technology is emerging as we speak. It's it's kind of available now, and it has been since the example I'm going to use is the mid-80s. Professor Stephen Hawking, you may be familiar with his work, uh, had ALS, motor neuron disease, however you want to call it, and his functions were shutting down one by one. And in the mid-80s, they had to basically freeze his throat so that he could have a feeding tube because he could no longer chew or swallow. His uh function was that impaired, but that also meant that he couldn't speak, so his vocal cords were also frozen, paralyzed at the same time. And to start with, he could only communicate by somebody holding up, because he couldn't hold a pen or you know, write on a piece of paper or anything. Somebody would hold up a sheet of common phrases, you know, I'm hungry, I need to go to the bathroom, I'm thirsty, please, thank you, hello, goodbye. And they'd point at each one and he would blink when they got to the one he wanted to say. Which is fine, it gets you your basic needs, but it doesn't help you to communicate black hole gravitational theory. So they kind of graduated to an alphabet and they point at each letter, and he would blink when they got to the right one, and again, it's fine, but it takes forever. So there was a bit of a collaboration. There were a couple of scientists in the US who contacted uh Professor Stephen Hawking and said, Hey, we've got this technology we think can help you. One part of that was a keyboard that was operated using eye movements and blinks. So there's a keyboard in front of your face and a camera pointing at you. You look at the keyboard, you look at the letters you want to use, blink when you're looking at the right one, and then you can spell out words, which then display on the screen. The second half of this was giving Stephen Hawking a voice, and I'm sure we can all bring it to mind, his characteristic voice that he spoke with during the latter part of his life. That voice is actually the voice of Dr. Dennis Clatt, who was an MIT researcher. And Dr. Clatt, uh during the late 80s was dying of thyroid cancer, which during the latter part of his life robbed him of his speech. So he transferred his voice to Stephen Hawking, arguably one of the greatest brains of our age, and allowed him to change the world through his assistive technology. Now, through the years, Stephen Hawking was uh offered upgrades to the voice, and people said, Oh, we can make it sound less robotic, we can make it sound more human. Because I mean we've all had a chat with Alexa, and she is relatively spookily human. But he always said, No, thank you. This is my friend Dennis's voice. And if they could do that in the 80s, can you imagine what they can do now? It's here, it's ready for us, we just have to make use of it.
SPEAKER_04Ah Jesus Alex, I'm well enough.
SPEAKER_00Bit of a speech there, I'm sorry, but it's such a gripping story.
SPEAKER_02It really is, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04That was lovely, yeah. Would you like heaven forbid anything happened to Stefan look, but would you like to inherit his voice then?
SPEAKER_00Um He's got a very soothing voice, his Stefan.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, he's really paranoid that it's really high-pitched.
SPEAKER_00No, it's lovely.
SPEAKER_02It's not. He's like, I wish my voice was deep like yours, but it's like he has got depth to his voice.
SPEAKER_00He's got a lovely voice. The timbre is beautiful.
SPEAKER_04Beautiful timbre.
SPEAKER_02What are the top three accessibility uh concerns that you would urge people to bear in mind? Lay it out. Bam, bam, bam.
SPEAKER_00Ooh, okay. Uh talking about guidelines, I would say if you can do nothing else, make sure you've got text alternatives in there. Make sure your colour contrast is um high enough. And please, for the love of all that is holy, use plain, understandable English. Because you're not just doing your uh learners with accessibility needs, you're not just doing them a favour. You're helping anybody who has English as a second language, you're helping all of your neurodiverse learners, you're even helping yourself because it is easier to understand learning if you haven't got to translate it into plain English first.
SPEAKER_02As thoroughly, indutably. Is that a word? Inducitably.
SPEAKER_00Not quite.
SPEAKER_02I was trying to think of posh words. I can't do it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, Alex has a scathing admonishment of my my style of writing. That's that's fine.
SPEAKER_00Too sisquipedalian for me by half.
SPEAKER_02That's your power, Alex. You have the power to use non-plain English, but you don't. You choose not.
SPEAKER_00It comes with great responsibility.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Give us a long word, go on. I failed. You you succeed.
SPEAKER_00I think you were trying to say indubitably.
SPEAKER_02Indubitably.
SPEAKER_00That's it does not mean what you think it means.
SPEAKER_02What does it mean?
SPEAKER_00Undoubtedly. So why wouldn't you just say undoubtedly?
SPEAKER_02Graham, put this in for when Alex finished saying her point. Induta what was it?
SPEAKER_00Indubitably.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Indubitably.
SPEAKER_00Very good.
SPEAKER_02Cool. I did I did the joke. Alex, the whole conceit of the programme. Um what aspect of e-learning would you like to see the death of?
SPEAKER_00Well, funnily enough, it's not complicated language. I know I got really passionate about it just then, but it's not that. I have one in mind. And it is kind of also to do with accessibility. I want us to put more trust in our learners so that they can navigate through a course of learning without us railroading them into one pathway. You must complete all components on every page before we will unlock the next button, and you can't go backwards. Because if you read a thing and you think, oh, we were talking about that just a minute ago, and you go to go backwards and you can't, and at that point, you've switched off, you've lost them. They cannot complete the learning, so they're just going to try and get through as quickly as possible. There are hundreds of reasons. Do not lock down your learning, please. I am begging you, because your learners want to be there, they want to learn what you're trying to tell them. So let them.
SPEAKER_02I guess it'd be like clamping down a book, wouldn't it? Gluing all the other pages into the page.
SPEAKER_00Yes, as soon as you've finished, just some like copydex glue on the other page and you've locked it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but you don't just randomly read pages from a book. That would help you that would help you tackle it in a linear fashion.
SPEAKER_02I mean an I mean a non-fiction book. Yeah, like a reference book.
SPEAKER_04Oh, like a cookery book, for instance.
SPEAKER_02The bumper book of reptiles. You might skip the bit about uh Boa Constrictor or something.
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're a big boa constrictor fan.
SPEAKER_02I found out about an even bigger snake that used to exist yesterday called uh I can't remember what it was called, but it was massive.
SPEAKER_00I'm disappointed now. I want to hear about the massive snake. Sorry.
SPEAKER_02I've broken right. Ah, Titanoboa. Look it up, kids. Sleep well. Alex, thank you so much. You've been you've just illustrated accessibility, why we need to care about it and what we mean when we talk about it so well. So thank you.
SPEAKER_00Pleasure.
SPEAKER_02So there we are. That was my chat with Alex, accompanied by Ryan, ploughing it forward like a like a shire horse. Are shire horses the ones that do work? They are, aren't they?
SPEAKER_03Yes, the one that pulled the yoke on the cart. Yes, exactly. Yoke? That's yes, the the the big leather thing that goes round their necks to help them pull it along. It's a yoke.
SPEAKER_02Is it? I'm imagining a little leg yoke on the back of a horse.
SPEAKER_03No, no L. No L. I was gonna say that's easy. I could carry a yoke. Um but back to the episode because wow! So I wasn't in it, but ah god, I just I thought it was really, really interesting. I love how Alex breaks everything down into these manageable pieces of in information, just makes it really simple to digest for people who don't know the industry terms. So yeah, I thought it was really brilliant, and I loved how the three of you just sounded when you were talking. You seemed so at ease with each other, and uh I really enjoyed it. So awesome job there.
SPEAKER_02Oh, well, thank you very much. Um, what you wouldn't know listening to it is that we did chat nonsense for about ten minutes before starting anything of note. I think that helps us relax. Just talking about I can't even remember, chocolate biscuits or something.
SPEAKER_03But my voice was one point of order, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_02Or we did talk about your voice, yeah. Because you think you sound like a little squeaky choir boy on the mic. I do, yes. You don't. You've got a you've got a depth to your voice. That's most pleasing. Um yeah, so I went into this chat with Alex, really wanting to resist her powers. Um I wanted to be cynical and be like, yeah, but why though? But why accessibility? Unfortunately, she just sold it. I was just I was just like, yeah, I am on board, this is important. We need to be aware of these things, and WCAG does matter.
SPEAKER_03There was no doubt, was there? Absolutely none. She was not shy of convincing everybody. Um, you know, it I she's made made it seem so clear why these different levels exist and why what ex accessibility is there for, and why also when pressed by I think it was Ryan who said, so why don't we just give them a PDF? You know, she had a she had an answer right there for for that that was absolutely irrefutable. So yeah, I I just thought it was brilliant. Um also um talking about Alex's our recurring feature, the death of e-learning question.
SPEAKER_02Ah yes, don't lock down courses, she's anti-lockdown, she's very, very much anti-lockdown. She marches in the streets against lockdowns of courses. Important to say that bit. Um what do you think, Stefan? Should that go in the death of box? What what do we put it in? The death hole? No. Oh, they all sound bad. Um do you agree?
SPEAKER_03Uh yes, I agree on the whole with a small caveat. There may be some topics of content that will need a very regimented and linear approach.
SPEAKER_02Like what? Genuinely though, what courses do benefit are where is it necessary to lock them down? Where's Alex wrong? Because I need to find somewhere where she's wrong just to know that she's human.
SPEAKER_03So I've got an example where it might be necessary. We years ago, I co-led a project with our wonderful colleague Rosie, who and and it was an induction, it was a very complex induction training that had uh skills training as well as systems training, as well as uh cultural values of the organization. And the skills training was so complex that it was right to, in my view, it was right to lock it down because if you did access the third part without having done the first part, it might have been that you thought you understood it, but you didn't really. Okay. So I think there was an argument here to be made for that to be locked down. Okay.
SPEAKER_02So to really simplify this, let's say there's some jargon in this company called Egg Cup, and you think you know what an egg cup is, but really it's explained what they're talking about by egg cup in topic one, and it actually means um a stock market system. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
SPEAKER_02That is, I'm with you, that does make sense. Where you need to build on that foundation of knowledge, but again, have you ever gone into a course, say, on cybersecurity, and then gone, no, I'm gonna start at topic four. Like, do learners actually do that given the option, given the freedom?
SPEAKER_03I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Is freedom worth it?
SPEAKER_03I've never done it. Yes, freedom is worth it. I can't think of an example where I've done it, and I don't know why anybody would, but people might be tempted to skip bits because they perhaps overestimate their own competency.
SPEAKER_02If you overestimate your own competency, you can get in touch with us by email, because that's a thing now. We have an email address. Yeah. Death of eLearning at learningpool.com. Uh we welcome correspondence, thoughts, comments, criticisms.
SPEAKER_03Yes. If you want to send us your choice for the death of eLearning, please do. That would be really nice to hear from you at death of eLearning at Learningpool.com. That was good.
SPEAKER_02You said that with more conviction than me. I feel confident to email now.
SPEAKER_03I think you should have another go though, so the people can hear our email address twice.
SPEAKER_02Death of eLearning at learningpool.com. Oh, I went a bit self-service checkout there. Don't forget your receipt. Is it is it um Sainsbury's where she says it in a really concerned way? Would you like your receipt? That's adorable. I don't know. Listen out for that. Um yes, please do get in touch. And I tell you what, if you drop us a really good death of answer, we will send you a t-shirt. Or we'll talk about it on an episode. We've got wonderful death of e-learning t-shirts. We banged on about them in episode four. You could have one of them plastered on your bod. It's a very desirable thing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03It is absolutely, and they are a very good fit and they are very nice quality. So please send us your Death of ELearning answers so that we send you a t-shirt, and then you can advertise us, and we'll be very, very happy.
SPEAKER_02I was wearing one in a a restaurant, and I just thought, gosh, if anyone sees me wearing this, they're just gonna think I live and breathe the podcast because it's all I talk about at work, other than my actual work. And uh and then I'm out at the at the weekend dining, still with podcasts. With your uniform on.
SPEAKER_03Are you actually trying to say that you don't live and breathe the podcast? Because that would be outrageous. Of course I do. Of course I do.
SPEAKER_02It's all why why do I get up in the morning? Thank you again, Alex, uh, for joining us. Fantastic guest. It was really nice to have Ryan back, I'm sure you'll agree, Stefan, as well.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Shame we've still not been able to really broadcast his classical handsomeness as yet.
SPEAKER_02If only there was a medium for sharing images. You would break the internet. He would, wouldn't he? Yes. Uh that's always been his goal. Bring the internet to its knees. Um I had a jolly nice time, and I'm looking forward to hearing what we do next because we're always doing different things. Every episode has a different flavour. What should people do, Stefan, if they want to hear the next one?
SPEAKER_03They should go to their preferred podcast provider, podcast platform, and they should follow us, subscribe to our podcast, like us, download the episodes, and tell everyone they know about it, because we'd really, really appreciate if you did.
SPEAKER_02Tell your friends, tell your friends' mums, um, and rate us on your platform of choice because the robots love that. It gets us noticed, you know, people find us easier. And um we love nice things being said.
SPEAKER_03Thank you everyone for listening, and hopefully, tune into the episode six if and when it comes out. Well, it will definitely come out. We just didn't.
SPEAKER_02It will come out. What are you talking about? Hopefully.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, if and when, God. Doubting myself. I'm not doubting myself. Hopefully, we'll see you again. I don't like this doubt nonsense. Hopefully we'll see you again. Yes, if I make it that far.
SPEAKER_01Hey, hopefully I'll see you next Tuesday.
SPEAKER_02Gosh. So thank you once again for listening. I had a jolly nice time this week, and I I never even said who we were, Stefan. So I'm Luke Smith.
SPEAKER_03And I'm Stefan Egan.
SPEAKER_02And it's been a pleasure. See you on the next one.
SPEAKER_03Yes, see you soon. Bye. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun
