Creating accessible learning experiences in LearnWorlds

Accessibility means designing learning experiences so that more people can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with them.

For some learners, this may mean using a keyboard instead of a mouse. For others, it may mean using a screen reader, captions, transcripts, magnification, voice input, or other assistive technologies.

LearnWorlds is progressively improving the accessibility of the platform while providing tools and guidance that school owners and course creators can use to create more accessible learning experiences.

This article explains what accessibility means in online learning, how LearnWorlds approaches it, what LearnWorlds can improve directly, and what depends on each school's content and configuration.

What accessibility means for online learning

An accessible learning experience reduces barriers that may prevent someone from accessing information, understanding content, navigating a course, or completing an activity.

For example, an accessible online learning experience may enable learners to:

• Navigate a course using only a keyboard instead of relying on a mouse
• Use a screen reader to understand the structure and content of a page
• Follow video or audio content through accurate captions, subtitles, or transcripts
• Access a text alternative for an informative image, chart, or other visual
• Increase text size or zoom without losing important information or functionality
• Understand form labels, instructions, errors, and feedback without relying only on visual cues
• Identify links, buttons, and other controls from their accessible names and surrounding context

A learning experience can look clear on screen and still be difficult to use if its underlying structure is not understandable to assistive technologies. For example, a control may look like a button but be implemented in a way that a screen reader cannot identify correctly.

Accessibility is particularly important for people with disabilities and people who use assistive technologies. Accessible design can also support learners experiencing temporary or situational barriers, people learning in different environments, and people interacting with digital content in different ways.

For organizations, accessibility may also be an important consideration in procurement, education, internal training, public-sector work, and other environments where accessibility requirements form part of the evaluation of a learning platform or learning program.

These resources provide practical guidance for creating and reviewing learning experiences in LearnWorlds. They are not legal advice and do not determine whether a school meets the accessibility laws or standards that apply to a specific organization or jurisdiction.

How LearnWorlds approaches accessibility

LearnWorlds continues to improve accessibility across the platform, starting with learner-facing experiences where changes can have the greatest impact.

Our current native accessibility work begins with the Course Player, the main interface learners use to navigate and consume course content. This work covers areas such as semantic page structure, keyboard navigation, visible focus indicators, accessible names and labels for controls, interface roles and states, and support for screen readers and other assistive technologies.

Our accessibility work uses WCAG 2.2 Level AA as a reference for evaluating and improving supported learner-facing experiences.

Accessibility is an ongoing part of how LearnWorlds designs, builds, tests, and improves learner experiences. Updates are introduced over time across supported product areas.

Accessibility improvements apply to the LearnWorlds product areas covered by each release. They do not mean that the LearnWorlds platform as a whole, or every school created with LearnWorlds, conforms to WCAG 2.2 Level AA.

LearnWorlds features that can support accessibility

LearnWorlds includes capabilities that can help course creators make their learning experiences more accessible. These include:

• Video subtitles and transcripts: Creators can upload subtitles, generate subtitles with AI, translate subtitles into additional languages, and make video transcripts available to learners (Availability varies by plan and video setup.) Automatically generated subtitles should be reviewed before publishing for accuracy, timing, terminology, names, and other important information.
• Alternative text (alt text) for images: Where supported, creators can add alternative text to images. Good alternative text communicates the purpose or meaning of an image in its context rather than listing everything visible in it.
• Course organization and content structure: Clear section names, meaningful activity titles, logical headings, descriptive links, and understandable instructions can make course content easier to navigate and understand.
• Assessments and learner flexibility: Assessment settings and content can also affect accessibility. Depending on the learning objective, creators may need to consider sufficient completion time, clear instructions, understandable feedback, and interaction requirements that do not create unnecessary barriers.
• Additional tooling: LearnWorlds also offers an optional integration with accessiBe, which provides additional learner-facing accessibility and personalization controls. The integration is supplementary and does not replace accessible content and configuration or LearnWorlds' work to improve the native accessibility of the platform.

Want to learn more about LearnWorlds' accessibility work? Explore how we're improving native accessibility and the capabilities available today here.

What LearnWorlds and school creators control

The accessibility of a learning experience depends on both the LearnWorlds product experience and the choices made when a school is configured and content is created.

LearnWorlds can directly improve the accessibility of the product experiences and components that we build and maintain. Depending on the product area, this can include the semantic structure of LearnWorlds interfaces, Course Player navigation, keyboard behavior, focus order and visibility, accessible names for controls, interface roles and states, and the behavior of LearnWorlds-built components with assistive technologies.

For example, LearnWorlds can control whether Course Player controls are reachable by keyboard, whether focus is visible, and whether the interface communicates its structure correctly to assistive technologies.

School owners, admins, and course creators influence the accessibility of the final experience through the content, configuration, and customizations they add to their school. Areas to review include:

• Captions, subtitles, transcripts, and text alternatives provided with video or audio content
• Alternative text for meaningful images and other visual information used in course content
• Accessibility of uploaded PDFs, downloadable documents, and other files provided to learners
• Course and activity structure, including headings, written content, links, and learner instructions
• Brand colors, visual customization, assessments, and other interactive content added to the school
• SCORM and HTML5 packages, third-party tools, embedded content, and external services
• Custom HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other code added to the learner experience

LearnWorlds can provide a field for adding alternative text to an image. The course creator determines what the alt text says and whether it communicates the purpose of the image

Similarly, LearnWorlds can deliver an uploaded PDF to a learner, while the accessibility of the document depends on how the PDF was created.

Third-party content and customizations

Some learning experiences include content created or delivered outside LearnWorlds, such as SCORM or HTML5 packages, embedded applications, external video providers, third-party widgets, or custom code.

The accessibility of this content depends on the external provider or the way the custom content has been implemented. Before using it in an important learner experience, review whether:

• It can be operated using a keyboard
• Labels and instructions are meaningful
• It works with screen readers
• Focus is visible and predictable
• Text and interface elements use sufficient color contrast
• Multimedia content provides appropriate alternatives
• The provider publishes accessibility information, a VPAT or ACR, or other conformance documentation

If an external experience cannot be made sufficiently accessible, consider providing another way for learners to access the same information or complete the same learning objective.

Where to start

You do not need to review everything at once. Start with the learning experiences that are most important to your learners and the content you can change directly.

Start by checking that:

1. Your videos include accurate captions and, where appropriate, transcripts.
2. Meaningful images include useful alternative text (alt text).
3. Your PDFs and downloadable resources have been prepared with accessibility in mind.
4. Course sections, activities, headings, links, and instructions are clear and descriptive.
5. Important learner journeys can be completed using a keyboard.
6. Third-party content, SCORM packages, embeds, and custom code have been reviewed separately.
7. Key learning experiences have been spot-checked with a screen reader where possible.

For a more complete review, use the Accessibility checklist for your course and school.

Explore the accessibility guides

The LearnWorlds accessibility guides provide practical guidance for the areas school owners, admins and course creators can review and improve:

• Accessibility checklist for your course and school
• Making video, audio, images, and other media accessible
• Preparing accessible course content and downloadable resources
• Accessibility considerations for assessments, embeds, SCORM, and custom content
• Testing your LearnWorlds learning experience for accessibility

Use these guides when creating new learning experiences or reviewing existing ones for accessibility.