Accessibility is an absolute must in this day and age – including in the digital learning sector, in order to guarantee participation for everyone. It enables all people, regardless of their physical, sensory, and cognitive abilities, to use e-learning offerings. However, it is not only people with disabilities who can benefit from accessible measures. Older people and people who are temporarily restricted may also have special needs that can only be addressed with an accessible learning offering. Thus, accessible e-learning also addresses learners who have often been neglected in the past.
Not only are certain measures now mandatory in order to comply with legal requirements such as the BGG and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (e.g. in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland), but considering accessibility also has advantages for companies, as it promotes compliance with legal requirements and improves their image. Furthermore, accessible courses are often more accessible to all users and offer an improved learning experience, including through multimedia approaches in which information is conveyed on several levels. This makes the e-learning courses better suited for different learning types. In addition, companies that use accessible approaches create a more inclusive working environment with more equal opportunities, which makes them more attractive employers.
Although accessibility is such an important topic, it often does not receive the consideration it deserves. Why?
Many companies understand the benefits of accessibility, and yet there are always problems with the actual implementation. Often, the necessary know-how to design accessible approaches is lacking. For example, anyone can look up the WCAG standards (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), but implementing them all in their entirety, especially if previous processes do not already take this into account, is difficult. In addition, someone on the development team must be willing to take responsibility, which can be difficult due to a lack of knowledge about the legal framework for accessibility for people with disabilities. After all, it’s about the inclusion of other employees.
Meanwhile, the question often arises as to whether accessible measures are not more expensive and time-consuming, and whether such an additional investment is worthwhile. Even if a course is designed to be accessible, problems can arise. For example, if later updates no longer take guidelines into account, if additions create inconsistencies in interaction design and layout, or if no one continues to supervise the topic and is responsible for questions or feedback.
Overall, the challenges can be summarized as follows:
But accessibility doesn’t have to be a complicated topic.
Modern authoring tools can be used to overcome these challenges. They not only simplify the creation process of e-learning courses per se, but also offer tools with which measures for accessibility for people with disabilities become visible and integrable. Examples of this are the display of missing alt texts for screen readers (software for the visually impaired to read out graphic and textual screen content), warnings about weak color contrasts, and further references to other deficiencies that would not be corrected without external help. This support lowers the entry hurdle and allows developers without pronounced technical know-how to minimize barriers in their courses.
Many authoring tools offer finished page layouts and interactions in which content only needs to be inserted and designs selected. The tool itself ensures that the layouts and options support the common WCAG guidelines. For example, screen readers can be used without any problems, modules can be fully controlled via the keyboard, or content can be displayed in a mobile and responsive manner.
Behind these authoring tools are motivated teams of developers for whom accessibility is not only important, but a matter of course. They are constantly learning in order to give their tools even more tools with updates. This means that the authoring tools are becoming increasingly smart and are always up to date.
One of these authoring tools is isEazy Author. It includes a large toolbox of functions that aim at the accessible design of e-learning courses. The isEasy Author development team has worked intensively in recent years on functions that make e-learning courses more accessible to everyone and are more WCAG-compliant. The result is a user-friendly system with which high-quality e-learning courses can be easily created that are also tailored to people with disabilities or other restrictions.
Even when creating a new course for the first time, isEazy Author offers context-related hints that are intended to ensure accessibility in your e-learning courses. For example, the tool indicates when an image has been inserted without alt text and offers a special view as an accessible mode for learners to promote participation. With isEazy Author, 100% of the WCAG-AA and 80% of the WCAG-AAA criteria can be met. And that’s without authors having to have special expertise in the topic of accessibility.
isEazy Author offers the following advantages for the implementation of accessible e-learning courses:
E-learning courses created with authoring tools such as isEazy Author not only create legal certainty and compliance with regulations. They contribute to an inclusive working environment in which everyone has the same opportunities for further training. This promotes employee satisfaction, creates an inviting and attractive workplace, and shows that a company is willing to take responsibility for the inclusion of its workforce.
Not to be forgotten is that the dissemination of knowledge is also promoted in general. The more users who can use a learning offer, the further the knowledge and skills within a company grow. This means that learning goals are more likely to be achieved and the intended effect of the e-learning courses is achieved more quickly.
In summary, the following added values result:
On June 28, 2025, the Accessibility Strengthening Act (BFSG) will come into force. This law transposes EU Directive 2019/882 (the European Accessibility Act, or EEA for short) into German law. This gives the topic of accessibility even more importance in the development of certain products and services. The aim is to make offers for end consumers, such as websites, apps and online shops, more accessible. But e-learning courses can also be affected if they are aimed at private individuals. In these cases, it is particularly important to pay attention to the WCAG criteria.
Even with the right tool, it can be difficult to take the first step. First of all, it is important to familiarize yourself with the topic and better understand what digital accessibility entails. Helpful for this are, for example, the WCAG, which cover various areas. Someone needs to investigate the topic and take responsibility for it. Authoring tools that recognize barriers can be added to make it easier to get started and to build accessible e-learning courses from now on, which corresponds to the Accessibility Strengthening Act.
Don’t forget that accessibility won’t happen overnight. To begin with, it is important to address it and perceive and define it as a requirement. This requires not only a change in existing processes, but also the sustainable anchoring of the topic in the minds of employees and a sense of responsibility among the developers within your team.
As soon as the first e-learning courses have been created, attention must be paid to resonance. Feedback will be elementary for the development of further e-learning courses. Especially feedback from people with disabilities. Make sure that it is taken into account and considered in the next development process. A consultation with experts and a tool from the Federal Agency for Accessible Information Technology can also help to identify potential for optimization in practice.
Accessibility in e-learning ensures that all people have access to further training opportunities. Digital accessibility means inclusion, equal opportunities and openness, which have a real impact on the lives of disabled employees. The path to accessibility can involve challenges that can be overcome with a modern authoring tool such as isEazy Author. Accessibility is not a trend topic. Anyone who deals with it now is laying the foundation for future-proof and sustainable learning offerings that can reach everyone.
We would appreciate your support in collecting valuable answers on the topic of accessibility in e-learning courses and converting them into even more accessible online courses for our customers. Your answers to the survey will go directly to our Instructional Designers and the creative team. Thank you very much for your participation.
