Accessibility

Accessibility has been a key focus in our redevelopment of the Learning Lab.

Improved accessibility features for all users include:

• Dark mode – to reduce eye strain (change settings in the hamburger menu)
• Consistent navigation including breadcrumb navigation at the top of the page, a hamburger global navigation system in the top right corner that can be accessed at any time, and a right-hand sidebar which keeps users oriented and allows them to easily find content within each section
• An accessible colour palette for text highlighting and other visual content elements
• Functionality that may not be visible to many users, but is essential for assistive technologies such as alt text for images, ‘skip to text’, Aria labels and more to allow for a smoother experience
• Improved responsive layout elements that work for desktop and mobile screens - our testing revealed that some sight imparied users prefer to use mobile devices so it's essential that all content works just as well for these small screens
• Consistent transcripts across all videos as well as interactive activities and visual elements that require text-based explanation
• Reinterpreting selected activities, examples, and visual elements from legacy content that was not previously accessible, to create accessible content elements that don't require separate transcripts

Of course, accessibility is not just about technical elements that allow access to this website. It is also about how the content is structured and presented for comprehension by students with different needs and at different levels. We have placed an emphasis on improving these aspects of the content to create a more equitable experience for everyone.

These improvements have been informed by the IDEA Framework, RMIT’s Open Scholarship policy, and our user testing with students and accessibility user testers including neurodiverse, sight-impaired, blind, and deaf users.