Hi Emily. So great to see the project underway! I'm curious to know if what you've learned from the research on making the simulations accessible how this has impacted the creation of new simulations? Are you doing anything fundamentally different?  I'm also wondering about your strategy for dissemination of the simulations - do you do a lot of "marketing" and training? or is PhET sufficiently well established at this point that you are happy with your distribution and user base? Thanks!  

Hi Donna,
Thanks for your questions! We are learning so much from our accessibility initiative, and we are definitely incorporating this learning into the design and development of new simulations. The technical infrastructure that supports the addition of accessibility features is now part of our general codebase, so all HTML5 sims now have the capability of having these accessibility features added in. We are broadening the knowledge of how to design keyboard navigation to PhET's entire design team, so all sims started in 2017 will be published with keyboard navigation as part of the general design process. We're working on ways to incorporate auditory description into the design of all new simulations, also. As the PhET team has learned more about accessibility, we are becoming more precise in our language around HTML5 elements (e.g., buttons, sliders, etc.) and the typical design patterns associated with these. So, not surprisingly, increasing accessibility is also improving our general design process.

Regarding dissemination, you're right that we have (over time) developed a wonderful community of teachers. As we expand into new topics (check out our video on our efforts in mathematics!) we are always looking for ways to ensure that all STEM teachers are aware of our resources. We also want to make sure that our supporting resources are helpful to teachers getting started with PhET sims and those looking for new ways to use PhET sims in their classroom. If you have ideas for how to ensure that teachers are aware of our new accessibility features, or how to support teachers in making use of these features to support student learning, let us know!

That's fantastic Emily! I love that the program is flexible enough to make such fundamental changes to the programming process!

I don't have any great ideas on dissemination - it's something that we are always working to improve. For K-12 we try to reach out via NSTA and for college-level we're connected with the geosciences university community and share our information with them. I am planning to share your video with the American Meteorological Society Board on Women and Minorities to make sure they are aware of your project. There is a strong focus on accessibility right now and many of the simulations can be applied to atmospheric physics concepts. :-)  

Hi Janet,

Thanks for watching our video, and for your encouraging words!

Hi Vivian,

Thanks for watching our video. Our goal from the beginning of this work has been to support students with diverse abilities in working together with a simulation. We too, are also quite interested in learning how students with diverse abilities collaborate while using accessibility features. We have not yet conducted studies of students working together in groups with the sims, but we will begin those investigations this summer, so check back with us later in the year!

Hi Richard, 
Yes! We plan to have the simulations be accessible from tablet devices as well. There are technical challenges to this, as the added affordance of touch input needs to handled in a way that allows for the description content to be triggered, and we're not quite there yet. We do have the auditory descriptions provide spatial information as objects are moved onscreen, and we're working on ways to convey spatial information with sonification as well. 
Thanks for your question!

Hi Michael,

That's a great question! We haven't investigated how PhET simulations impact student interest in other aspects of STEM. If you know someone who might be interested in partnering with us on a project like this, let us know!

Let me clarify that. You might or might not be the ones creating those new types of simulations. So maybe I shouldn't have asked about your imagination with respect to those other types of simulations but rather should have asked about what advice you have for those who will create those. What features do they need to have to foster sense making?

Hi Janet,

Your comment touches on exactly what is at the core of our mission with accessible PhET sims. We ultimately want to create multimodal simulations that broaden the range of input and output modalities (beyond touch or mouse input, and beyond visual output) available for students. We started with keyboard and screen reader access (which we're addressing with the auditory description work presented in our video), and are investigating other modalities, such as haptic and gesture as well as speech and onscreen access to the descriptions we've created. We believe that by layering in these other modalities, we can create simulations that provide access and new ways of engaging with STEM content for all students. For example, the auditory descriptions we've created support students who are blind or visually impaired, but can also support students with certain learning disabilities if presented onscreen. In our sonification work (using non-speech sound to convey information), we can provide richer auditory display using auditory descriptions + sonification, while also providing more engaging experiences for all students with sonification alone. 

One thing we’ve learned from our work so far - it’s very important to have a team that is diverse and inclusive. Our team includes people with expertise in accessible technology and web standards, simulation design and user interfaces, and classroom and pedagogical knowledge - and is inclusive of people with disabilities. Accessibility really needs to be integrated into the simulations at a deep level (from design to technical implementation) to result in a seamless experience for teachers and students that supports an effective inquiry experience for all students. This requires a team with a broad range of expertise working closely together, with equal emphasis on alignment to technical standards, good usability, and good learning design. 

Hi Chris,
Great question! Part of our efforts are going into documenting our processes and identifying useful and shareable design principles.  In our accessibility work, we seek to align with principles of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0, W3C-WAI), and to leverage the semantics of HTML5 and WAI-ARIA wherever possible. However, all of the interactions and interactive elements in the PhET sims (and many other interactive learning resources) do not map directly to elements and roles provided by these standards. When this is the case, we have to design custom interactions and find creative ways of communicating how that interaction works for users when they encounter it. And we have to ensure all of this works within the specific pedagogical context.

We are working on different ways of sharing this information - our technical approach, our custom designs, and our ways of communicating use - to the broader community, through publications, information on our website, and through conversations with interested folks. We have a public a11y-interactives group of designers and software developers that meets regularly to discuss challenges - anyone can join and bring their accessibility challenges to the discussion. If you or anyone you know would like to join this group, let us know and we’ll add you to the email list so you can get updates on meeting dates/times/topics.

Hi Maureen,
Thank you for your enthusiasm and excellent question. We are excited to announce that we just published our first accessible simulation, John Travoltage. It is now available on the PhET website for everyone to use. We will be publishing our second accessible simulation this summer.

We are very interested to learn how students with and without vision impairments collaborate in the classroom using the same simulation. If you are interested in collaborating, please get in touch.