Making your project accessible and usable

In earlier sections, you read about taking into consideration the needs of your audience. Often you need to think about whether your project will be accessible and usable to your audience. If it’s not, you won’t be able to communicate your message.

Accessibility typically refers to someone’s physical ability to access something. For instance, a building that has only steps at its entry is not physically accessible for people using wheelchairs. In terms of multimodal projects, accessibility refers to someone’s ability to hear, see, or generally put to use a text. Multimodal texts that are not accessible have a more limited audience. For example, a person with hearing deficits might be unable to use a video lecture online because she can’t hear the speaker and no transcript is provided.

Usability typically refers to ease of use—how easy it is to navigate a Web site or learn to use a product, for example. In terms of multimodal projects, usability has to do with how easy or difficult it is for the audience find, experience, and understand the composer’s ideas. For example, if a multimodal text needs to be downloaded for viewing, the composer can improve usability by reducing the file size to accommodate slower Internet connections.

Not everyone has a fast Internet connection or access to a computer. Not all of the audience for your multimodal work can see or hear, or can see or hear well. It’s impossible to plan for every possible audience need, but it is possible to compose multimodal pieces that allow you to reach the widest possible audience. The chart gives tips for doing so.

Composing projects that are accessible and usable

Activity 25: Understanding accessibility and usability

Activity 26: Considering accessibility and usability in your own project

Related topics:

Options for presenting and publishing multimodal works

Pros and cons of presentation and publication spaces