By: Kiersten Sparks, Course Product Manager (Lumen Learning)

In honor of Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), I wanted to share a behind-the-scenes look at how the Course Product Managers here at Lumen Learning approach accessibility and inclusion during the course design process. One of the things I appreciate most about working on Lumen’s courseware is that accessibility isn’t something we tack on at the end—it’s something we build into the course from the very beginning, before it ever launches. 

One of the most important frameworks that guides this proactive accessibility work is Universal Design for Learning (UDL). UDL is a research-based approach to teaching that promotes flexible, inclusive design to support the many different ways students learn (CAST, 2018). It focuses on reducing barriers and improving access for all learners—not just those with formal accommodations.

One simple but powerful way we incorporate the principles of UDL involves improving the structure and clarity of content. Specifically, we:

  • Break up long blocks of text into shorter, more concise sections,
  • Use clear and descriptive headers to organize the content, and 
  • Format important information into bulleted or numbered lists whenever possible.

Why this matters for screen reader users

For students who are blind or have low vision and use screen readers, these design choices make a significant difference. Screen readers navigate content linearly, reading from top to bottom. Without structure, it can be difficult for users to skim, find specific information, or understand how ideas relate to one another.

By incorporating descriptive headers, we enable screen reader users to navigate quickly by jumping between sections using keyboard shortcuts. Lists are announced as “list of three items,” for example, which helps students understand the quantity and type of information they’re about to hear. Shorter paragraphs make it easier to stay oriented and reduce the cognitive load of parsing large chunks of uninterrupted text.

But the benefits don’t stop there

These same improvements help many other learners, too. Neurodivergent students—such as those with ADHD—benefit from the reduced overwhelm and clearer flow throughout the content. Busy students managing jobs, family, and coursework appreciate how quickly they can locate key information when they only have a few minutes between responsibilities.

Here’s a quick example of what this looks like in action:

Here’s a short segment from a section on time management. Before, this information was presented in one continuous paragraph, which is hard to parse through when skimming the content. It’s also not as easily navigable for screen reader users, who would need to listen to the whole paragraph again to review it. 

In contrast, here it is broken into a box whose title functions as a header, and uses lists to present the examples. Here, the screen reader user would be able to jump between the header and the bulleted list, opting to stop on either just the first-level bullet points to skim, or read through all of them, navigating backward and forward through the bullet points as they wish. This format is also generally easier to skim than the original, even for those who do not use screen readers, making it more readable and accessible for all students.

When we design with accessibility in mind—early and intentionally—we don’t just meet minimum standards. We create better, more inclusive learning environments for everyone.

References: 

CAST (2018). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.2. Retrieved from https://www.cast.org/impact/universal-design-for-learning-udl