Episode Details

Most of us, if we think about course accessibility at all, think captions and alt text. Pop them in, tick the box, move on. Except most of the course platforms Catrina reviewed don't even give you somewhere to put the alt text. And a PDF exported from Canva can get read out by a screen reader in whatever order you happened to drop things onto the page. 

In this episode, I'm talking to Dr Catrina Mitchum, a recovering academic and learning designer who helps businesses create courses like they give a shit about client outcomes. Her soapbox is accessibility. It goes back to her undergrad days, when she read textbooks onto cassette tape for a blind professor so he could decide which ones to use with his class. 

We get into how many US adults have a disability, and what that means for who can actually use your course. Catrina shares the small first steps that make a real difference when you're short on time or capacity, and where AI genuinely helps (and where it's still a junior designer at best). We also talk about why gamification can't rescue a course with shaky foundations, and how to invite feedback without drowning in it. 

Guest resources: 

• Catrina's fortnightly newsletter, with research-based steps for building the course you actually want: https://www.cmlearningdesign.com/cut-the-crap
• Catrina's 16-platform course accessibility review on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@coursecreatorplaybook 
• Catrina on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@cmlearningdesign
• Catrina on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catrina-mitchum-learning-design/

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