Module 4
WAVE Accessibility Check on Module 1 Post
Canva Infographic: Electronic Health Records
Reflection
Working on the explore portion of this module allowed me to explore and integrate different principles and materials that were presented throughout the content. I enjoyed creating the infographic to demonstrate my knowledge of Electronic Health Records as well as conducting the Wave Assessment from my module 1 post. Additionally, using the text to speech tool to have it read aloud one of my blog posts was interesting to decipher and determine if I deemed the tool to be useful.
When conducting my Wave Assessment, there were not many aspects that were surprising to me. One aspect that stood out to me that is demonstrated in the screenshots above is that it gave me seven alerts that I had some problems with my headings, or having space for a heading but no text. Many of my headings included were not properly formatted as headings, which I can see now and will work to ensure that my headings are correct for my future blog posts. I also noticed that one of the errors it gave me was that I was missing alternative text for the AI generated image that I created, which was untrue as I included text associated with the image below, the assessment may have not picked up on that as it was not directly attached to the image. The Wave Assessment was a great tool to see how my blog posts are formatted in terms of structural elements as well as errors that may be present so that I can work to mitigate those errors for upcoming work.
Before this module, I had yet to use a text to speech tool. For the text to speech portion of this module I used the Read Aloud Chrome Extension. I had it read aloud my Module 2 blog post. Immediately upon listening it was very difficult to understand. The voice was automated and sounded very robotic. The words were said with either pauses in between, or all jumbled together. I was able to make out what the automated voice was saying but only by concentrating intensely on what was actually being said. I closed my eyes and gave it a listen, and was unable to piece together the content that was actually being presented as I was too focused on ensuring that I actually understood the words it was saying. The idea of this tool is to promote accessibility and equity for those with disabilities, specifically for the visually impaired. This tool however, did not prove to be effective for having content read aloud when and I did not find it inherently useful. However, I do not have a lot to base the effectiveness of all text to speech tools as I do not use them regularly and have not explored their capabilities as well as other tools that perform similar tasks. I can only imagine that a visually impaired individual may also see this tool as a challenge to use when trying to learn content.
Another piece of the explore module was to create an infographic on either content that we have touched on in this course or something that we are interested in. I chose to create an infographic about Electronic Health Records (EHRs). I chose this topic as it resonates with my degree in Health Information Science and I am very passionate about the topic and am pursuing a career surrounding the adoption of EHRs in Healthcare. When creating this infographic, I ensured that I was following the design principles that were outlined in this module, as well as making it coherent, well designed, and easy to read. I also ensured to use a basic font and tried to keep the language as simple as possible for ease of access. All the elements that I included whether that be text or images I made sure they were in alignment with each other and that they were cohesive. As well as alignment, I utilized proximity when aligning the text and images, ensuring not to leave awkward gaps or spacing between the elements, all while leaving a fair amount of negative space. Additionally, I organized the information on a hierarchical level so that it flows and the intended reader can read the information in a way that makes the most sense. Finally, I chose a colour theme and graphics that compliment each other support the design choices I made with the design.
I think that when creating and designing content, it is important to be aware of who your audience may be and what sort of modifications should be made for the content to be accessible for those with disabilities. Svetlana Kouznetsova explains the importance of captions in the Ted Talk “How captions increase ROI and audience for media creators,” as not only makes content more accessible, but it also allows for the content to reach a much larger audience, therefore benefiting the content creator in return. One may think that captions only help those who are audibly impaired, however, captions also allow for those who do not speak the language to understand and interpret the content that is being presented. I believe that inclusive design means being aware of the accessibility of the content presented and those that may want to utilize your content. As well, created content that is accustomed and tailored for a wide array of people it so that it mutually benefits both the individual who accesses the content and the one creating the content to expand their audience. Overall, there were many concepts that I will take from this module to apply to future work in this course along with other courses and work in general.
References