The Lewis Structure Explorer: Accessible by Design

Abstract

Successfully learning principles from drawing Lewis Structures sets the foundation for understanding more complex representations of structural concepts in chemistry. As these visual-based concepts are core competencies in chemical pedagogies, it is incumbent and required for educational institutions and faculty to provide usable accommodations for all students, including those with blindness and low-vision (BLV). The shift to visually based interactive digital media increases the technical challenge for addressing accessibility for BLV students and makes creating these accommodations by faculty even more difficult. This technology report presents research and development for providing a digital learning system for Lewis Structures designed to be independently accessible by BLV students and other screen reader users. This Lewis Structure explorer can be used by all students and includes a form-driven keyboard accessible control panel. The alternative (alt) text for the structural representations is generated dynamically with user input. Presented in this report are the findings from a survey of chemistry faculty and two usability studies, one with over 300 sighted college students and the other with four BLV adults who depend on alt text for nontext information.