During Writing
Cognitive Accessibility: Cognitive Load
Kalani Pattison
Cognitive Accessibility includes techniques that are just good instructional principles in general — again, there is a connection between Universal Design for Learning and making sure the materials are accessible to wide audiences.
Adaptability
Provide materials in a variety of modes — physical copies as well as links to digital copies. Provide digital copies through platforms that allow user-modification — that is, which allow readers to change fonts or font sizes, colors, or other features that help with individual reading.
Glossaries and footnotes
Another way to help with cognitive accessibility is to have easy ways for students to reference information without leaving the original source. Glossaries that allow hovering, footnote or end note links that take students to the note and then back, rather than requiring students to remember to look things up or to scroll down and back, help to keep students focused on reading and absorbing information rather than having to set apart some of their focus to remember or navigate.
Decision-Making Fatigue
One of the difficulties of focusing on a text is that students when reading textbooks have to make continuous judgments/decisions about what information is most important to remember or what information is needed to build towards other information. Multiple studies have shown that as people make more and more decisions, their ability to make decisions can become worn out and lead to making worse decisions.
Certain page design features, such as call-out boxes, clearly indented and marked lists, clear headings, and focused paragraphs can take some of the burden from students who are trying to decide what is important to retain after reading. Offering these design breaks and focusing assistance will help most students to prioritize information.
Consistent Navigation
As part of helping students avoid having to figure things out and make decisions, set up consistent navigation and consistent expectations for different webpages, Canvas pages, etc. Being consistent in navigation and design helps readers establish a routine for interacting with material, and helps to foreground the content.
