Introduction
Here’s my latest roundup of things I’ve saved recently that you might find useful. This collection includes accessibility resources for instructional designers including vibe coding accessibility research, conference recordings, and a different kind of color-contrast checker—plus handy tools for planning facilitator-led sessions and testing SCORM packages.
Compare AI Vibe Coding Tools for Accessibility
The GAAD Foundation tested web pages built with the leading AI tools for accessibility. I have to admit, the tool that came out on top surprised me. This is an interesting bit of research to reference if you’re choosing an AI tool for vibe coding or want to see how your tool ranks.
6 Years of Accessible & Inclusive Design
The Training, Learning, and Development Community recently hosted its sixth annual Accessible & Inclusive Design Conference (AIDC) and released the recordings from that conference.
Here are links to all six years’ worth of AIDCs—a treasure trove of FREE accessibility resources and guidance.
Speaking of TLDC, the topic of their next event, at the end of September, will be instructional design models. Here’s a link to the speaker proposal form.
A Tool for Designing Facilitator-Led Sessions
As someone with dyscalculia, creating course schedules is a task I dread. Translating how much time each topic and activity takes into clock hours, with breaks and lunch times accounted for, just fries my brain.
SessionLab simplifies that task with an agenda planner that calculates session timing automatically. Just tell it what time your day begins and your time estimate for each agenda item, and it does the tedious part for you.
A Newer Way to Check Color Contrast
Traditional color contrast checkers rely on a luminance ratio that doesn’t fully account for the way human vision works. But the Advanced Perceptual Contrast Algorithm (APCA) uses lightness contrast values that more closely represent human perception. I won’t pretend to fully understand how it works, but you can read more about it here.
APCA is not a replacement for a WCAG 2.1 color contrast checker—yet. But it’s a useful additional check. (Stay tuned for a future post about this.)
Another Free Way to Test SCORM Packages
Like many freelancers, I usually use Rustici’s SCORM Cloud tool to test that my courses mark completion correctly, but recently, I ran into some technical difficulties with their site. Those issues were temporary, but the testing couldn’t wait.
Fortunately, I found an alternative SCORM Viewer tool that let me test the SCORM files in my browser, from Nathan Stoker. He has many other tools available that I haven’t tried yet. If you’ve tried them, I’d love to hear from you.
