Inclusion & Accessibility: Designing Course Sites & Websites for Maximum Student Engagement

• 10 Data-Driven Design Tips & Tricks
• Course Sites & Digital Learning
• Additional Presentation Information

A typical student is likely...

• Used to efficient, on-demand information: livin’ la vida information age
• Expecting to use intuitive and fast technology to achieve daily tasks
• Believing that communication is key
• Wanting to reduce stress & effort - as they are often juggling multiple obligations and schedules

10 Data-Driven Design Tips & Tricks

Efficiency: Add captions & transcripts to media

• Add captions to media for easy scanning (you can do this on ZenU Stream, here is an article)
• Include transcripts alongside videos

Efficiency: Use icons wisely

• Use icons to communicate (take a look at The Noun Project and Flaticon)
• Icons should be simple and clear (don't make them too large either, they should accent your content, not be the center of it).

Intuitive: Consistency is key

• Location, fonts, and functionalities of items should be the same
• Internal and external consistency!
  

Intuitive: Use familiar terminology

• Avoid technical terms (for example: Rename the tool "Zoom" on your course site to something like "Online Class Session")
• Ensure your labels sound familiar and simple

Communication: Allow students to track their progress

• How long will this take me?
• Where am I in the site?
• How much of this content have I completed?
• Where do I pick up next time?

Communication: Communicate process & status

• Communicate when actions have been taken
• Give appropriate feedback

Reduce Stress & Effort: Chunk Content & Concepts

• Present information in bite-sized pieces. Try to limit these chunks to one concept only!
• The bullet is your friend! It might also be helpful to bold important phrases or keywords.

Reduce Stress & Effort: Practice minimalist design

• Do not include rarely used information - be ruthless
• 15 points of information or fewer

Reduce Stress & Effort: Call users to complete important actions

• Visually differentiate important items
• Ensure key tasks are available upfront

Reduce Stress & Effort: Prioritize dates and deadlines

• Dates should be upfront and center
• Syllabi should be easy to find (it is the nucleus of the course)

Course Sites & Digital Learning

Communicate via various formats

• Announcement functions
• Weekly recap emails (this week we learned...)
• Weekly recap podcasts or webcam videos
• Forum discussions
• Social tools, like Slack, to answer questions and promote peer-to-peer collaboration
• Zoom/Google Hangouts office hours

Provide active learning opportunities

• Ethnographies/Field Observations
• Interview Assignments: Video, written, or podcast
• Roleplaying/Scenario
• Concept Maps
• Mood Boards: Using Google Slides student’s use of imagery to form concepts
• Challenges
• Gallery Walks: Students bring in artifacts to describe a concept, artifacts are presented around the room for students to walk and discuss. Artifacts can also be put online in a forum on the course site.

Make learning social & collaborative

• Turn the Tables! Ask students to take over the teaching role and develop online instructional videos or content!
• Use Google docs for live, real-time collaboration work (study groups or presentation feedback)
• Host a Subject Matter Expert event online!
• Checkout group messaging apps like Slack for non-task, non-graded interaction

Provide timely and useful feedback

• Video record your feedback to students (Zoom or ZenU Stream)
• Have students moderate online discussions via the Forums tool
• Host online office hours or make yourself available for web convo’s
• Peer-to-Peer feedback via video dialogue

Differentiate your instruction & the product

• Text materials (using Library OER)
• Short instructional videos explaining a concept (no more than 7 minutes)
• Demonstration or training of concept
• Short podcasts (interview a leader in the field or bring in an alumnus)
• Use “study-buddies” to reinforce concepts
• Roleplay or simulations
• Gaming

Additional Presentation Information

Here is the link to the presentation from the workshop. We've also written an additional article which describes the persona activity preceding this information.