Hi everyone,
The existing online resource which I used is Hinterland Who’s Who – Moose.
Since the WCAG guidelines for accessibility directly refer to the POUR set of accessibility it was important for me to identify whether the Hinterland Who’s Who site was perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.
POUR stands for:
Perceivable: Can materials be observed, heard or seen by learners?
Operable: Can learners interact with the site as intended?
Understandable: Is the site and associated media comprehendible by learners?
Robust: Does the site work across platforms (Windows and Mac, tablets or phones) and is it usable by assistive technologies like screen readers (Hyatt, 2012)?
Assessment of Hinterland Who’s Who Website
On first appearance, it is clear that the Hinterland Who’s Who site concerning the North American moose can be effectively read, heard, and seen since the site contains not only written materials but audio/visual materials which satisfies the perceivability component for accessibility.
Secondly, I was able to easily navigate the Hinterland webpage through the use of both my text-to-speech Chrome extension and through the use of my mouse and keyboard. In my eyes, the Hinterland webpage is very operable and satisfies the operability component for accessibility.
Thirdly, I was able to understand the Hinterland content concerning the North American moose as bullet points, headers, subheadings, photographs and audio/visual resources organized the basic description, habitat, feeding, breeding, and conservation of moose in a clear and concise way. I believe that the Hinterland webpage is thoroughly understandable and satisfies the accessibility requirement for understandability.
Finally, I was able to access the Hinterland Who’s Who webpage on both my PC and my cellphone which allows me to feel that the Hinterland webpage is robust across various platforms.
Conclusion
I believe that the Hinterland website would be an effective resource for my teaching practice since it effectively outlines an excellent model of not only a universal design for education but one which is accessible and interesting. While Hinterland is primarily a biology oriented website, I can nonetheless work at adapting the layout onto my own psychological interests if I were to create an online source for psychological or writing interests.
References
Hyatt, G. W. (2012, September 14). Surf a GB with Glenda’s thumb. Blog Accessibility. http://blogaccessibility.com/surf-a-gb-with-glendas-thumb/
Moose. Hinterland Who’s Who – Moose. (n.d.). Retrieved February 4, 2022, from https://www.hww.ca/en/wildlife/mammals/moose.html
National Center on Accessible Educational Materials. (2015, March 3). Simply said: Understanding accessibility in digital learning materials. YouTube. https://youtu.be/HzE5dj1WTSo
Hi Carson,
Hyatt’s (2012) inclusion of touch for assessing if content is perceivable was notable to me in Week 3. I have yet to serve a student from the deaf-blind community and had not considered if the online materials in my workplace are compatible to use with braille displays for tactile reading on electronic braille displays. I have not used a braille display before but found a blog post called Understanding Assistive Technology: How Do Deaf-Blind People Use Technology? by Level Access (2022). It appears that if an online resource is designed to be accessible for visual and auditory disabilities, it will likely be compatible with braille displays. From your review of Hinterland Who’s Who – Moose (Canadian Wildlife Federation, 2005), it sounds like this resource is designed to be compatible with braille displays. Do you agree?
Best,
Gena
References
Canadian Wildlife Federation. (2005). Hinterland who’s who – moose. https://www.hww.ca/en/wildlife/mammals/moose.html
Hyatt, G. W. (2012, January 3). The POUR principles: The starting point for creating accessible blogs. Blog Accessibility. http://blogaccessibility.com/the-pour-principles-the-starting-point-for-creating-accessible-blogs/
Level Access. (2022). Understanding assistive technology: How do deaf-blind people use technology? https://www.levelaccess.com/understanding-assistive-technology-how-do-deaf-blind-people-use-technology/
Thanks for your comments ghamilton! As I have never used a Braille display I cannot say for certain whether the Hinterland website would translate effectively or not! At least I am able to test the text-to-speech functionality because those are free Chrome extensions. From what I could find in basic research, compatibility with websites needs to be tested for each braille display but it appears that they generally are well-appreciated in their capacity to help blind communities successfully navigate different websites and applications.
Carson 🙂