Enabling Accessibility of an E-learning Language Platform

Description

A provider of language training services turned to Altoros to extend and improve the functionality of its e-learning platform, as well as optimize accessibility for students with disabilities.

Brief results of the collaboration:

• Compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the platform is available for students with disabilities, contributing to equal rights to education for all society members.
• Thanks to the delivered functionality, the company successfully presented its platform at the governmental level in Norway. As a result, the project won a tender, connecting a chain of new 50 schools to the system. Currently, 3,000 students across the country use the service.
• The customer has raised $1.2 million of investment for further development and is now collaborating with Altoros to build mobility solutions to complement the platform.

The customer

The customer is a leading provider of language training services to individuals and businesses in Norway. Accredited by the Ministry of Education, the company also delivers language courses and social studies to immigrants. The organization has educational centers in major Norwegian cities, including Oslo, Bergen, and Stavanger.

The need

The company had a proprietary web app enabling users to test their language skills. The customer was working toward building a fully fledged e-learning platform based on the existing app. The platform would provide access to a variety of language courses and testing materials for students across Norway. Collaborating with Altoros, the organization wanted to deliver functionality critical to interactive online learning, improve the existing features, and integrate billing. As the customer aimed to get certification from Skill Norway, a governmental Agency for Lifelong Learning that belongs to the Ministry of Education and Research. In this regard, necessary functionality had to be enabled under the tight deadlines.

The challenges

Under the project, the team at Altoros had to address the following issues:It was important to ensure stable performance of the system while enabling smooth display of heavyweight interactive educational games and lessons. A possibility to record audio was one of the essential features for both teachers and students. To accelerate streaming and the processing of media during learning sessions, it was crucial to unify audio formats across a variety of browsers and operating systems. As the platform would also be utilized by people with disabilities, compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) had to be achieved.

The solution

Engineers at Altoros actively contributed to building an e-learning platform through front- and back-end development of the functionality key to system accessibility for the students. With the Framer Motion library, the team ensured smooth display and instant response to user actions of heavyweight interactive games. This had a favorable effect on the overall performance and stability of the platform. By implementing Audio Recorder Polyfill, our developers converted different audio formats—.webm in Chrome and Opera, .ogg in Firefox—to .wav. Being the default format for Polyfill, .wav features fast and simple encoding. However, compression leaves room for improvement. To address this, the team at Altoros utilized MPEG Encoder to further convert .wav to the .mp3 format that can be played on any browser or audio player. To make the platform accessible for the students with disabilities, our engineers implemented a range of improvements complying with WCAG. For instance, to ease the learning curve for people with low vision, the team at Altoros enabled users to navigate with the keyboard or screen reader and adjust font sizes. Additionally, our developers utilized a color palette with the required contrast ratio to increase text visibility, as well as provided labels indicating the type of task to do or how to complete it. For individuals with impaired movement, input assistance was delivered. On top of that, engineers at Altoros integrated the platform with the Stripe billing system, enabling secure payments.

The outcome

Partnering with Altoros, the customer delivered functionality vital to interactive language learning online, while maintaining the system’s availability and performance. Compliant with the WCAG standards, the platform is accessible to students with disabilities, safeguarding equality across education for all society members. Thanks to the enabled functionality, the company showcased the solution at the governmental level, winning a tender to connect a chain of 50 language schools to the platform and raising nearly $1.2 million of investment. Now, the product serves 3,000 students across the country.

At the moment, the customer continues collaborating with Altoros to build mobile apps for iOS and Android.