Youβre already the 1 in 4
Everyone at this table is dealing with something right now: a loud room, one busy hand, glare, or no sleep. Pick what applies to you, try a 90βsecond course that ignores it, then turn on Accessible by Design and try it again.
Meet Nick Tillem
Nick designs training that helps people do their jobs and builds practical tools they can actually use.
- Learning Experience Manager at Procter & Gamble. Nick has been at P&G since 2021, working across learning, digital tools, and user experience.
- Adjunct Professor at the University of North Florida. He teaches learning design, educational technology, and training needs assessment.
- Uses Universal Design for Learning to build accessibility in from the start. That is what this demo is about.
- Earlier at P&G, he was a Curriculum Designer and Learning Technologies Manager. His digital programs reached 5,000+ employees, and he built the systems used to measure their impact.
- Speaks on communication, empathy, team dynamics, and accessibility.
Tap the lemon π
Nick designed and 3Dβprinted the lemon keychains on the table. Each one has an NFC tag inside. Tap it with your phone to open this page, then take it home and share the demo.
Which of these is true for you right now?
No roleβplay. Just pick what is true for you right now. Choose everything that applies. Barriers stack.
Pick at least one, or borrow a barrier instead.
Every barrier lives on a spectrum
The same barrier can be permanent, temporary, or situational. See where your current situation fits.
The cause and duration change, but the barrier is the same. A fix one person needs every day may also help you today.
Heads up: this sandbox intentionally uses bad, inaccessible design. If a step blocks you, use the βIβm stuckβ button. Getting stuck is part of the demo.
Your barriers arenβt going anywhere.
Now flip one switch.
The room is still loud. Your hand is still busy. The glare is still there. We are only changing the course: captions by default, better contrast, bigger targets, plain language, and directions that do not depend on color.
Fix the design, not the person. Thatβs the whole point.
Same you. Same barriers. Different design.
π₯ Accessible by Design
Time to finish the same 3βstep course
π Now look around your table
Other people at your table picked different barriers. The same fix will not work for everyone. Start by asking people what they need, then use the recipe card to keep that conversation going.
You didnβt become disabled in the last 90 seconds.
The design just stopped assuming you were perfect.
You just lived the research. Map it.
An empathy map captures what a learner says, thinks, feels, and does. Put each note in the right section. They all came from what you just experienced.
π£οΈ Says
out loud, to anyone nearby
π Thinks
quietly, often about themselves
β€οΈ Feels
the part surveys never catch
ποΈ Does
the workarounds you can observe
That is an empathy map. You built this one from a 90βsecond demo. A real conversation with a learner gives you better input. Look at the Thinks section: when the design fails, people often blame themselves.
Recipe: start the conversation
No checklist covers every person. These five steps help you start the conversation and keep it going.
Open the conversation: write an accessibility mission statement
Start by writing down who you design for. Keep it to one or two sentences, share it publicly, and review it each year. Get leadership to support it. Barclays and OXO offer useful examples. Use your statement in design reviews, vendor conversations, and project kickoffs. If you need a first draft, use this prompt:
Remember: everyone encounters barriers
Disability is not a personβs βproblemβ to fix. It happens when an environment creates a mismatch. Change the environment. The same barrier can be permanent, temporary, or situational, and the same fix can help in all three cases:
| Permanent | Temporary | Situational |
|---|---|---|
| Blindness | Eye surgery | Glare on a phone outside |
| One arm | Broken wrist | Holding a baby (or a coffee) |
| Deafness | Ear infection | A loud expo hall, like this one |
Find your peopleβs barriers. Donβt guess
Ask learners what gets in their way. Survey them. Form a small advisory group of learners with disabilities. Before storyboarding, build an empathy map with one real learner. What do they say, think, see, hear, feel, and do while taking your course? Ten minutes now can catch problems before they become expensive to fix.
Design multiple ways in: the UDL 3βquestion check
Use Universal Design for Learning as a quick check. Ask these three questions about every module:
- Engagement (the WHY): do learners have more than one reason and way to care?
- Representation (the WHAT): is every key idea available in more than one format, such as text, audio, or visuals?
- Expression (the HOW): can learners show understanding in more than one way?
If a step requires perfect eyes, ears, hands, and focus, redesign it.
Bring vendors into the conversation
Your LMS and authoring tools are ingredients too. Before you buy (or renew), ask three questions and expect real answers:
- βHow do you test for accessibility? Do you include real assistiveβtech users or only an automated checker?β
- βWhat is your accessibility mission statement?β
- βWhatβs on your accessibility roadmap for the next 12 months?β
Silence is an answer.
Steal this page, too. This demo is one HTML file with no framework. It uses semantic landmarks, a skip link, visible focus, liveβregion announcements, reducedβmotion support, and AA contrast. View the source if you want to see how it works.