Reaching the limit of words, I have to summarize the previous exploration. Universal design for online, especially involving students with disabilities that make sure as flexible as can the learning and teaching process throughout internet should be supported by accessible and usable course design. Accessible course design can be achieved by implementing web accessibility guidelines, then web usability principles adaptation is needed for making sure the learning objective is achievable by various students with disability,.

There are still many web accessibility and web usability aspects which have not been explored, such as table, forms, interactivity. They will be continued to explore along with universal design curriculum as the backbone of the universal design for learning

Multimedia contents such as video, images, and sounds give flexibility presentation of learning material. For making sure multimedia contents accessible, they should be occupied with caption, audio description or alternative text (W3C,2008). Video captioning is creating text version of the spoken word in the video.

There are two type of video captioning which are open caption that is permanently embedded to the video, and closed caption that is can be set on/off by teachers or students. Audio description is information that allow student with visual impairment hear the visual content (Web Accessibility in Mind, n.d). Sometimes the video caption and audio description are made in two tiers for different cognitive ability like in the eLearner system (Sapp, 2009). Accessible images can be made by adding alternative text or alt-text for describing the content and function, instead of image appearance Web Accessibility in Mind (2009).

Sapp, W. (2009). Universal Design: Online Educational Media for Students with Disabilities. Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 103(8), 495-500.Retrieved from http://ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1862973271&Fmt=7&clientId=16397&RQT=309&VName=PQD

W3C. (2008). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. Retrieved 16 March, 2010, from http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/.

Web Accessibility in Mind (n.d). Web Captioning Overview. Retrieved 12 April, 2010, from http://www.webaim.org/techniques/captions/.

Web Accessibility in Mind (2009). Quick Reference: Web Accessibility Principles. Retrieved 8 April, 2010, from http://www.webaim.org/resources/quickref/quickref.pdf

According to Web Accessibility in Mind (2009) the HTML document format is the most accessible document format, but sometimes we need to add another document format such as PDF and office document. Thus we have to ensure that non-HTML document should be accessible. Since PDF is commonly used and secure, thus we often use this format for transferring information with original format intact. Unfortunately, standard PDF format is not recognized by World Wide Web Consortium (Hudson, 2004). PDF file can be accessible, especially by screen reader, by adding xml-like tag that gives content structure (Clark, 2005).

Converting PDF files become accessible is not an easy thing to do because it takes long time since the steps are complicated for the beginner (Adobe Systems Incorporated, 2004). That is enough for document format.

The next exploration will be the multimedia accessibility.

Adobe Systems Incorporated .(2004). Advanced Techniques for Creating Accessible Adobe PDF Files: A Guide for Document Creator. Retrieved 9 April, 2010, from http://www.adobe.com/enterprise/accessibility/pdfs/acro6_pg_ue.pdf.

Clark J. (2005). Fact and Oppinion about PDF Accessibility. Retrieved 9 April, 2010, from http://www.alistapart.com/articles/pdf_accessibility.

Hudson R. (2004). PDF and Accessibility. Retrieved 9 April, 2010, from http://www.usability.com.au/resources/pdf.cfm.

Web Accessibility in Mind (2009). Quick Reference: Web Accessibility Principles. Retrieved 8 April, 2010, from http://www.webaim.org/resources/quickref/quickref.pdf.

Firstly, I think text formatting, especially fonts matter, is quite simple to write. Then when I have read an article about fonts in the notion of web accessibility by Web Accessibility in Mind (n.d.), I found that fonts matter is not as simple as choosing the size and the type of the fonts. It will take along writing for exploring the fonts in its details, thus these are some important point:

• Real text is better than graphical text because it can be enlarged with out pixel lost and compatible with screen reader.
• Basic, simple, easily-readable font families commonly used by web developer are the good choice to make a website content readable in any computer platform and browser.
• Limited number of fonts will make a web content looks tidy and easy to read.
• Contrast between the text and the background should be sufficiently set.
• Standard font sizes for reading.
• Units for font size should be relative (% or ems) to make sure it resizable by browser control. For some CMS it is embedded to the paragraph style.
• Font variation such as bold, italics, and ALL CAPITAL LETTERS should be limited to make the content looks tidy.
• Font appearance (color, shape, font variation, placement, etc.) should not convey any meaning.
• Blinking or moving text is not accessible.

Before continue to the text formatting, I just remember PARC principles that Michael Henderson mention in his paper titled Content Design for Online Learning (Henderson & Henderson, 2006). Indeed, the heading usage is one of the methods of for creating proximity and repetition of the content. Moreover, combination of font setting, contrast adjustment and appropriate alignment setting increase web content usability.

The next exploration will not continue about text formatting, but accessible document format.

Henderson, M. & Henderson, L. (2006). Content Design for Online Learning. QUICK: Journal of the Queensland Society for Information Technology in Education, 99(Winter). pp.3-8. Retrieved from http://cemmx.educ.monash.edu.au/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=81

Web Accessibility in Mind (n.d.) Fonts. Retrieved 5 April, 2010, from http://www.webaim.org/techniques/fonts/

I will continue my exploration in the web usability. According to Nielsen (1997) in his research on how people read website, there are only 16% read a website word by word and 79 % of people just scan the web page. Thus the web site contents should be well structured and clearly written, inevitably sighted students with cognitive disabilities or with low literacy. Here are some principles that can be applied for structuring web contents (National Center on Disabilities and Access to Education, 2007):

• Headings for organizing content that will make a content easy to read and navigate
• Simple language and Active voice usage for making sure students with cognitive disabilities understand
• Slang and Jargon avoidance for making sure students with cognitive disabilities are not confused.
• Empty (white) space for improving readability
• Illustration as text supplementary
• Spelling and grammar checking

I thing that is enough for web site layout exploration, I will continue my text-formatting exploration in the next time.

National Center on Disabilities and Access to Education. (2007). NCDAE Tips and Tools: Principles of Accessible Design. Retrieved 5 April, 2010, from http://www.ncdae.org/tools/factsheets/principles.cfm

Nielsen, J. (1997). How Users Read on the Web. Retrieved 3 April, 2010, from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html

After reviewing web accessibility and web usability guidelines, there are so many web-accessibility guidelines involving the complicated programming language for shifting from web accessibility to the web usability. Indeed if a web is universally usable then, of course, it is universally accessible. I will focus on web layout, text formatting, document format, and multimedia presentation in this short exploration.

I will start with the layout of a website because the biggest challenge of students with visual impairment, especially blind, is to navigate a website. If they use screen reader, sometimes they will not get the information in inaccessible website because of unreadable content or overloaded information (Mahmud, Borodin, Das, Ramakhrisman, 2007). According to Guidelines 1.3 and 3.23 of WCAG 2.0, we have to make simple and consistent navigation that make sure the website layout is understandable and it compatible with screen reader that linearly read throughout all the content in the layout. In addition to make user with screen reader can access direct to the content or main menu with out reading any unimportant link, a good web page navigation provide “skip-navigation link” which can be visible or not (Takagi, Asakawa, Fukuda, & Maeda, 2004).

I will put this exploration of website layout for students with visual impairment here because it will take a long exploration if I continue this one. In the next exploration I will investigate about web usability for sighted students with disabilities.

Mahmud, J., Borodin, Y., Das, D., & Ramakrishnan, I. V. (2007). Combating information overload in non-visual web access using context. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 12th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces. Retrieved from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1216295.1216362.

Takagi, H., Asakawa, C., Fukuda, K., & Maeda, J. (2004). Accessibility designer: visualizing usability for the blind. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 6th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility.Retrieved from: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1028630.1028662

W3C. (2008). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. Retrieved 16 March, 2010, from http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211.

After reviewing the last exploration, I just realized that universal design learning creates flexible learning because it allows the learners to choose different aspects of learning experiences is the key idea (Collis & Moonen, 2002).

Now is the time to answer last question. When online learning environment is chosen for conducting flexible learning and students with disabilities have opportunity involve in it, there are several issues regarding accessibility and usability of the course design. I believe that it will be a long answer and more than one exploration session.

Web Accessibility Initiatives (WAI) has been developing Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which the latest version is 2.0 (W3C, 2008) that more usability oriented (Termen et al, 2009) than the WCAG 1.0. The older version has been revised because low vision and with reduced mobility are practically ignored (Ribera et al., 2009). In addition Nielsen (2005) state “accessibility is not enough” because accessibility is focus primarily to make all users with various diversity can access the content and functionality of a website, and it does not guarantee make them understand. So that Horton (2006, para. 2) stated that universal usability is one step ahead which makes “the content and functionality accessible and usable by all”. May be its too long for an exploration entry. I will continue about website accessibility and usability in the next exploration.

Nielsen, J. (2005). Accessibility Is Not Enough. Retrieved 3 April, 2010, from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/accessibility.html.

Ribera, M., Porras, M., Boldu, M., Termens, M., Sule, A., & Paris, P. (2009). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0: A Further Step towards Accessible Digital Information. Program: Electronic Library & Information Systems, 43(4), 392-406. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00330330910998048

Termens, M., Ribera, M., Porras, M., Boldu, M., Sule, A., & Paris, P. (2009). Web content accessibility guidelines: from 1.0 to 2.0. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 18th international conference on World wide web. Retrieved from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1526709.1526912

W3C. (1999). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. Retrieved 16 March, 2010, from http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/

W3C. (2008). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. Retrieved 16 March, 2010, from http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/

CAST. (2008). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 1.0. Retrieved 25 March, 2010, from http://www.udlcenter.org/sites/udlcenter.org/files/UDL_Guidelines_v2%200-Organizer_0.pdf

David, R. (2000). Universal design for learning. Journal of Special Education Technology, 15(1), 67.Retrieved from http://ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=68920190&Fmt=7&clientId=16397&RQT=309&VName=PQD

David, R. (2001). Universal design for learning. Journal of Special Education Technology, 16(2), 66. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.lib.monash. edu.au/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=106940284&Fmt=7&clientId=16397&RQT=309&VName=PQD

Orkwis, R., & McLane, K. (1998). A Curriculum Every Student Can Use: Design Principles for Student Access. ERIC/OSEP Topical Brief (055 Guides: Non-Classroom; 071 ERIC Publications): Special Education Programs (ED/OSERS), Washington, DC.; Office of Educational Research and Improvement (ED), Washington, DC.

Continuing my last exploration about principles of universal design, I found that there are seven principles of universal design which are: equitable use; flexibility in use; simple and intuitive; perceptible information; tolerance for error; low physical effort; and size and space for approach and use (Story, Mueller & Mace, 1998). Each of principle comes with several guidelines as the key elements that should be present in a design which adheres to it. I believe that those principles can be adapted to the education field or learning. In the next exploration I will investigate about universal design for learning including its definition, principles, and implementation.

Story, M. F., Mueller, J. L., & Mace, R. L. (1998). The Universal Design File: Designing for People of All Ages and Abilities. Revised Edition (055 Guides: Non-Classroom; 141 Reports: Descriptive): National Inst. on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (ED/OSERS), Washington, DC.

In the cloud of information and communication technology in education, I am interested in special education needs. Thus my exploration in learning, instructional design, and technology will be in the shadows of this education field. Universal design principles have been adopting in the education field, which is called universal design for learning (UDL).

Talking about universal design, I am wondering about its history, principles and how it can be implemented in the education field. Having research for universal design, I found that the term universal design (UD) was coined by Ronald L. Mace in 1987 (Moore, 2007). The concept of universal design is “usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design” (The Center for Universal Design, n.d, para.1). In the next exploration I will continue to research about UD principles.

Moore, S.(2007, 20 March 2010). Very Brief History of Universal Design. Retrieved from http://www.unco.edu/cetl/UDL/WhatIs/index.html.

The Center for Universal Design (n.d). About UD, Retrieved 20 March, 2010, from http://www.design.ncsu.edu/cud/about_ud/about_ud.htm.