Giving Compass' Take:

• The author explains the challenges for edtech designer to make education technology products accessible for every type of learner. 

• How can edtech designers address the issue of accessibility in design? Who are stakeholders that would be essential to include in the design process? 

• Read more about the importance of creating equitable design in edtech. 

The people designing educational technologies are far removed from the students who end up using them. Perhaps most obviously, they’re adults, often many years away from their own time in a classroom.

But the differences don’t end there. These designers almost always work in cities, and about 70 percent of U.S. students go to school outside cities.

Designers also don’t have the range of language abilities represented in U.S. classrooms or all of the disabilities represented among students. This matters when it comes to designing educational technologies because it’s hard to assume what very different people need from a piece of technology or understand the ramifications of ignoring certain things.

Sean Oakes, the founder of Backpack Interactive, a design company that focuses on educational technology, said if developers test their products at all, they generally do so remotely, gaining insights into the user experience by watching screen captures of students using their products or by simply soliciting survey responses.

But real insight, Oakes said, comes from observing in the classroom.

For example, the Boys and Girls Club spent months testing a learning platform for science, technology, engineering and math that Oakes’ firm had designed. They sent people all over the country to visit clubs and see how actual students used the program. And it gave them important insights about internet connectivity, the logistics of getting a group of rowdy students to sit down and log into their respective computers and the realities of hardware limitations. Also, Oakes said, the in-person visits gleaned a lot of insights about what kids are interested in, design-wise.

Read the full article about edtech design by Tara Garcia Mathewson at The Hechinger Report