Make Some Noise: Design and Build Your Own Educational App with Sonification

Session Summary:

Macmillan Learning strives to create interactive content that is accessible to all students. Learn about our strategy and then work in a cross-functional team to create your own educational app with sonification. During the design phase, teams will create a prototype and do usability testing with another team. During the development phase, teams will create working code that can be reviewed by another team and tested on screen readers. Leave with a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities in creating accessible content.

Description:

We will start the session with an overview of our accessibility strategy and demo examples of our interactive content, including apps that use sonification as an additional way to convey a concept. We will then break into cross-functional teams that include at least one designer and one developer. We will present a topic with learning goals and ask each team to brainstorm and sketch ideas for an educational app on that topic. Each team will create a prototype that can be tested for usability with a different team. After a group discussion of accessibility considerations in the designs, each team will then break up their work into user stories and begin coding, using audio files provided on github prior to the session. Each team will create front-end code that can be reviewed by a different team. Any accessibility issues found during QA testing will be addressed. We will wrap up the session with team demos and a discussion of challenges faced and lessons learned.

Prerequisites:

For designers, familiarity with inclusive design practices. For developers, familiarity with front-end development.

Presentation Materials:

• Link to slide deck as provided by the speaker (external site) (external site) for