It all began 13 months ago when I attended a webinar on an accessibility-related topic held in Elluminate.  Some guy by the name of Hadi Rangin ripped apart the accessibility of the Elluminate Live platform.  I was upset because we had worked hard to design with accessibility in mind but also determined to get to the bottom of why we were still coming up short.

Fast forward to yesterday and I just finished attending another Elluminate session led by none other than Hadi Rangin from the University of Illinois where Elluminate’s President Maurice Heiblum thanked the Elluminate Accessibility Taskforce for their tireless work over the last nine months helping us improve our Accessibility and confirmed a continued commitment to these Accessibility initiatives as we move forward as Blackboard Collaborate.

The Taskforce is comprised of Disabilities Services Coordinators, users with disabilities and others with a passion for Accessibility who all volunteered to help Elluminate understood where we fell short and identify how we could improve.  The group’s user moderator, Hadi Rangin from the University of Illinois, is none other than the webinar speaker who had initially given us the less than stellar review. The group has been helping us work toward the goal of making all of our products, documentation, training, and web properties universally accessible.  What a great group of tireless and dedicated educators!  Some are our customers, some are users and some are simply interested in making sure than any technology used in education is genuinely accessible to and usable by all.  So, Thank You – Hadi Rangin, Jon Gunderson, Tony Suttle and Marc Thompson of the University of Illinois, Debbie Faires of San Jose State University, Alice Anderson and Kitch Barnicle of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Michael Brooks of the Pennsylvania State University World Campus Learning Design, Derrick Cogburn of the American University School of International Service/COTELCO Center, Chetz Colwell of the Open University, Nolan Crabb and Ken Petri of Ohio State University, Christopher Dobson of Harper College, Lisa Fiedor, Beth Shepherd and Greg Kraus of North Carolina State University, ElizaBeth Pifer of Northern Arizona University, Carin Headrick an independent consultant, Blaine Morrow of CCC Confer, Cryssel Vera of CSU-Sacramento, Tom Babinszki of Even Grounds, Inc., and Jane Vincent of the Center for Accessible Technology.

This group started meeting every other week and eventually weekly to assess our current state and plan for improvements.  It turns out that while we had previously done a nice job for users who are deaf or hard of hearing, our product was not fully accessible to users using a keyboard for navigation and especially for those using a screenreader.  Elluminate Live! Version 10 was specifically designed to address the needs of these users and was launched to market in June only 7 months after the taskforce started.  Our goal was usability and inclusion, not just compliance and we’re getting good feedback about what we were able to accomplish.  However, we certainly understand that we have not arrived.  It’s corny, but I have come to realize that Accessibility is definitely not a destination to arrive at but rather a journey we’ll be on as long as we’re designing and delivering products, websites and content.

That’s only one of the many lessons I, and we as an organization, have learned through this process.  Along with the technical lessons about universal design and assistive technology, we’ve learned the tremendous value of engaging users with disabilities in the collaborative design, review and test processes.  No amount of employee education, product testing or outside consulting provides an adequate substitute for real users trying to use the product in real ways.  In short, investments in all of the education, testing and consulting are important (and expensive) but the interaction with users is paramount (priceless!)

My sincere thanks to each of the members of the Elluminate taskforce for the tremendous effort you have put forth to help us do better.  You have been extremely committed to us and we remain committed to you and the goal of this team—educational tools that are Accessible to and Usable by all.