Whilst there are a wide range of medical classifications of neurodivergences, learning disabilities and impairments, and an incredibly broad range of abilities and preferences that need to be considered, WebAIM claims that functional classification is more useful as it ‘focuses on the user’s abilities and challenges, irrespective of their medical or behavioural causes’. (WebAIM 2020)

WebAIM groups these abilities and challenges into:

1. Memory
2. Problem-solving
3. Attention
4. Reading, linguistic, and verbal comprehension
5. Math comprehension
6. Visual comprehension

The first four of these are particularly relevant to information management in my context. From a different angle, but looking at the same things, the Neurodiversity Design System, Will Soward has tried to create a ‘coherent set of standards and principles that combine neurodiversity and user experience design for Learning Management Systems.’ (Soward, no date). These principles include:

• Font
• Typography
• Colour
• Buttons, links, inputs
• Interface
• Communications
• Animations

The key items for me here are typography – use of headings, use of colour, buttons and links, clarity of the interface and communications.

Now I need to work out how to take this information and make it into something that works in the focus group. Essentially the barriers that I’m thinking of are of course all intertwined but can broadly fall into these categories:

Cognitive load:

Minimising the cognitive load needed to access the information on Moodle will benefit everyone, not only those who are neurodivergent or disabled. In the Neurodiversity Design System, Soward points out that ‘an LMS already presents learning content that has a high cognitive cost, having learners begin using a complicated system before the real learning begins creates cognitive fatigue and puts learners on the back foot…’ (Soward, no date).

Actions to minimise the cognitive load include:

• Using a sans serif font which can be enlarged and colour combinations changed
• Incorporation of white space and use of indents to indicate hierarchy
• Using true headings (headings with background metadata, not simply large and bold), to indicate clearly the layout of content and reduce cognitive effort
• Contextual information/instructions in plain English ‘concise, empathetic instruction that sounds human and addresses the person’ (Soward, no date). This should be sufficient to negate the need for substantial onboarding. The LMS should be intuitive.
• Offering clear, simple instruction with the place of action e.g. next to a tutorial booking activity or assignment submission. People with dyspraxia often find it difficult to remember instructions or retain information from looking at one place to another. Offering instructions in the appropriate place can help with this.
• Pairing graphics and text where possible to support dyspraxic or dyslexic learners who may benefit from a more visual representation of information.
• ‘identify and integrate information in to meaningful chunks’ webAIM
• Use of colour to create a uniformity across the site and help with predictability and consistency as well as aesthetics. (Always with the proviso that contrast must be maintained and colour not used as the only source of meaning.)

Appearance:

• Interface – how clear is the interface? It should be visually appealing without distraction or clutter. This is particularly for learners with ADHD and dyspraxia who may find it challenging to follow processes and patterns.
• Navigation – having a clear system of navigation so that forwards and backwards arrows are labelled and ‘breadcrumbs’ are obvious. According to WedAIM, ‘maintaining consistency in design and presentation minimises memory requirements’ which can be an issue particularly for neurodiverse learners but also for anyone suffering from fatigue, illness, stress.

Functional accessibility:

One of the key issues for many people can be a frustration or relatively low resilience for issues with technology. This can me more prevalent if the cognitive effort is already high and then links don’t work or they don’t take you to where you expected to go, leading to frustration.

• Regularly check links are active and up to date and that the page(s) work properly.
• Provide a mechanism to get help quickly, for example who can help, an email or phone number or Chat service.
• Buttons and links should be visually distinctive and large enough to click particularly for those who have low vision, dyslexia, ADHD or dyspraxia. For students navigating via a keyboard, it’s important that he ‘pseudo’ or temporary states of interactive elements are present e.g. changing colour when selected.
• Ensure captions and transcripts are provided for visual elements to support users who are deaf, hearing impaired, or have English as an additional language. This will also support users who need to work/listen in a quiet environment (e.g. a library), or who have less private study space.
• Ensure the page is set up with the appropriate structure and metadata to make it readable by a screen reader.

Conclusion

This reading has given me reassurance that the types of considerations we think about and try to put in place are appropriate, and that there aren’t huge new areas that are missing. The information about dyspraxia and the need for large enough spaces to click, plus the temporary states being present were new elements for me. It was interesting to see the explicit mention of instructions, partly to support dyspraxic learners, and also the contextual information to negate the need for substantial onboarding. This isn’t generally my experience, but I’m looking forward to seeing how the participants respond to these prompts and to what extent these elements are useful to them.

Bibliography:

Soward, W. Neurodiversity Design System Available at: https://neurodiversity.design/ (Accessed 16 November 2023) 

Cognitive Disabilities WebAIM (Web accessibility in mind) Last updated Aug 21 2020 https://webaim.org/articles/cognitive/ (Accessed 16 November 2023)

Understanding dyspraxia, New Zealand Government, Available at: https://inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/dyspraxia-and-learning/understanding-dyspraxia/ (Accessed 22 November 2023)