Accessibility Skills Every Instructional Designer Needs

Accessibility is becoming a core instructional design skill, and Teamed’s hiring data shows just how quickly expectations are changing.

In the last three months, 41.3% of L&D roles posted to Teamed’s job board mentioned accessibility, compared with 26.7% of roles posted before 2026.

That’s a significant shift.

But there’s an interesting gap between what employers ask for and how specifically they describe it.

Only 6.8% of recent postings explicitly mention WCAG or Section 508, even though accessibility appears in more than four in ten roles.

On the candidate side, 36.3% of 2026 resumes mention accessibility, while just 12.9% specifically reference WCAG or Section 508.

These figures reflect keyword matches in Teamed’s job postings and candidate resumes, not independently verified proficiency. But they point to something important for instructional designers.

Accessibility knowledge is becoming more widely expected, while the ability to demonstrate how you apply accessibility standards remains a valuable way to stand out.

Whether you’re developing onboarding, compliance training, job aids, or interactive eLearning, your design decisions can determine whether someone can actually use what you create.

And accessibility isn’t simply about meeting a compliance requirement. It’s about designing learning experiences that work for people with different visual, auditory, motor, cognitive, and neurological needs.

Here are nine accessibility skills every instructional designer should be developing—and how to demonstrate them to employers.

1. Understand the Basics of WCAG

You don’t need to become an accessibility lawyer or memorize every success criterion in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

You do need to understand the principles behind them.

WCAG organizes accessibility around four principles. Content should be:

• Perceivable: Learners can access the information being presented.
• Operable: Learners can navigate and interact with the experience.
• Understandable: Information and navigation are clear and predictable.
• Robust: Content works reliably with compatible assistive technologies.

For instructional designers, these principles translate into practical questions.

Can someone access the information without seeing the screen?

Can a learner navigate the course without a mouse?

Is the language clear enough to understand?

Will the experience work with assistive technologies?

Understanding these principles helps you make better design decisions before accessibility problems become expensive fixes.

What employers should look for: Candidates who can explain how WCAG principles influenced their design decisions, not simply list WCAG as a skill on their resume.

2. Write Useful Alt Text

Adding alt text to an image isn’t enough.

The description needs to communicate why the image matters in the context of the learning experience.

An image that’s purely decorative may not need a spoken description at all. A diagram explaining a process, however, may require enough information for someone using a screen reader to understand the same concept.

For example, imagine an eLearning course explaining a five-step onboarding process.

Alt text that simply says “onboarding process diagram” doesn’t communicate much.

A useful alternative would describe the five steps and their sequence, or provide an equivalent text explanation alongside the visual.

Instructional designers should understand the difference between decorative and meaningful images and know how to write descriptions based on instructional purpose.

The goal isn’t to describe every pixel.

It’s to give learners equivalent access to the information.

3. Design for Keyboard Navigation

Many learners navigate digital content without a mouse.

That means interactive learning experiences should be usable through a keyboard alone.

Buttons, links, menus, quizzes, and other interactive elements need a logical navigation order and visible keyboard focus.

This is especially important when building courses with eLearning authoring tools.

A course can look polished and still become frustrating—or unusable—when someone tries to navigate it using the Tab, Enter, or arrow keys.

Instructional designers should know how to:

• Check keyboard navigation order
• Identify keyboard traps
• Ensure interactive elements can be accessed without a mouse
• Verify that keyboard focus remains visible
• Test whether interactions can be completed using keyboard controls

Keyboard testing should be a standard part of eLearning quality assurance, not an optional final check.

4. Create Accessible Video and Audio

Video and audio are common components of digital learning, but multimedia can create barriers when appropriate alternatives aren’t provided.

Instructional designers should understand three important accessibility practices.

Captions

Accurate captions provide access to spoken dialogue and meaningful sounds for learners who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Transcripts

Transcripts provide a text alternative to audio information and can help learners review content at their own pace.

Audio descriptions

When important information is communicated visually but not explained through the existing audio, audio descriptions can help make that information accessible.

These practices can also improve usability for learners in noisy environments, people working in a second language, and anyone who wants to revisit specific information.

Accessible multimedia isn’t about adding features after production.

It’s about planning for different learner needs from the beginning.

5. Use Color and Contrast Carefully

Color can support visual hierarchy, reinforce meaning, and make learning materials easier to navigate.

But color should never be the only way information is communicated.

Imagine a training dashboard where green means “complete” and red means “incomplete.”

A learner who has difficulty distinguishing those colors may miss the difference entirely.

Instead, combine color with another indicator, such as text, icons, patterns, or labels.

Instructional designers should also understand color contrast requirements.

Under WCAG AA, normal text generally requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1, while large text generally requires at least 3:1. Important non-text interface elements also have applicable contrast requirements.

Accessibility doesn’t mean removing visual design.

It means ensuring visual design doesn’t create unnecessary barriers.

6. Build Clear Structure and Hierarchy

Headings aren’t just formatting.

They communicate how information is organized.

Using heading levels logically makes content easier to scan visually and helps assistive technologies interpret the structure of a page.

The same principle applies throughout learning design.

Clear titles, descriptive links, consistent navigation, manageable chunks of information, and predictable layouts all make learning experiences easier to understand.

For example, a link labeled “Download the onboarding checklist” communicates its purpose more clearly than a link labeled “Click here.”

Similarly, consistent navigation allows learners to focus on the content rather than repeatedly figuring out how the interface works.

This is where accessibility and instructional design naturally overlap.

Reducing unnecessary cognitive load benefits a wide range of learners.

7. Understand Screen Reader Basics

Instructional designers don’t necessarily need expert-level knowledge of every assistive technology.

But experiencing your content through a screen reader can reveal problems that aren’t obvious visually.

Consider what happens when a screen reader encounters your course.

Does the reading order follow the intended sequence?

Are buttons and links labeled clearly?

Does a link make sense outside its surrounding paragraph?

Are form fields and interactive elements properly identified?

Can learners understand the information without relying on visual positioning?

Even basic familiarity with screen readers can improve how you approach course structure, navigation, links, images, and interactions.

Why this matters for your instructional design portfolio

Teamed’s 2026 candidate data shows that only 12.9% of resumes explicitly mention WCAG or Section 508.

Naming a recognized accessibility standard can help communicate your knowledge.

But the stronger differentiator is evidence.

Instead of simply listing “WCAG compliance” on your resume, describe a project where you tested screen reader compatibility, identified reading-order problems, and corrected them.

That gives hiring managers something meaningful to evaluate.

8. Design Accessible Interactions

Drag-and-drop activities, complex simulations, timed interactions, and highly visual games can create significant accessibility barriers if they are the only way to complete a learning task.

That doesn’t mean instructional designers need to abandon interaction.

It means choosing interactions that support the learning objective without unnecessarily excluding learners.

For example:

• A drag-and-drop exercise might offer keyboard controls or an equivalent selection activity.
• A timed assessment may need adjustable time limits or another appropriate accommodation.
• A visual simulation may require an equivalent text-based explanation or alternative activity.
• An interactive diagram may need a structured text alternative.

The central question should always be:

Is there another way for a learner to accomplish the same objective?

The purpose of an interaction is to support learning—not to create an unnecessary obstacle to demonstrating mastery.

9. Test Accessibility Instead of Assuming It

Accessible design requires testing.

Automated accessibility checkers are useful for identifying certain problems, but they cannot determine whether an entire learning experience makes sense to someone using assistive technology.

A stronger quality assurance process combines automated checks with manual testing.

That includes:

• Navigating the course without a mouse
• Reviewing captions and transcripts
• Checking reading order and screen reader output
• Testing color contrast
• Zooming and resizing the interface
• Checking form labels and interactive elements
• Confirming that learners can complete assessments and activities

Whenever possible, organizations should also involve people with disabilities in usability testing and feedback.

Accessibility cannot be fully evaluated from one perspective.

For instructional designers, testing is also an opportunity to demonstrate professional judgment.

A strong designer doesn’t simply say a course is accessible.

They can explain what they tested, what barriers they discovered, and what they changed.

How to Demonstrate Accessibility Skills When Applying for Instructional Design Roles

Knowing accessibility principles is one thing.

Showing employers that you can apply them is another.

This distinction matters because Teamed’s hiring data suggests employers are increasingly asking for accessibility without always naming specific technical standards.

In recent postings, accessibility appeared in 41.3% of roles, while WCAG or Section 508 appeared explicitly in only 6.8%.

For job seekers, that means understanding the terminology is useful—but demonstrating the work is even more important.

Make accessibility visible in your portfolio

Rather than simply stating that you create accessible learning experiences, include a short accessibility case study.

Explain:

The challenge: What accessibility barriers did the original learning experience present?

Your decisions: What did you change, and why?

Your testing: Which tools, methods, or assistive technologies did you use?

The outcome: What improved, and what limitations remained?

For example, a portfolio case study might explain how you redesigned a Storyline interaction to support keyboard navigation, improved focus order, and tested the revised experience using a screen reader.

This gives hiring managers evidence of both technical knowledge and design reasoning.

For more guidance on presenting your work, explore Teamed’s Career Board for instructional design career-development resources.

Make your resume more specific

Instead of writing:

“Knowledge of accessibility and WCAG.”

Consider something more concrete, if it accurately reflects your experience:

“Designed and tested accessible eLearning interactions, including keyboard navigation, screen reader reading order, and alternative text aligned with relevant WCAG criteria.”

The second version communicates what you actually did.

And that matters more than simply adding another keyword.

Accessibility Is Becoming Part of the Instructional Designer Skill Set

The instructional designer role continues to expand.

Designers are increasingly expected to understand not only learning theory and authoring tools, but also user experience, technology, data, AI, and accessibility.

The data reflects that shift.

Accessibility mentions in Teamed job postings increased from 26.7% before 2026 to 41.3% in the most recent three-month period.

That’s a meaningful change in what employers are explicitly asking for.

But the lesson for instructional designers isn’t that everyone needs to become a dedicated accessibility specialist.

It’s that accessibility should become part of how you approach learning design.

Being able to say “I know Storyline” tells an employer which tool you can use.

Being able to explain how you designed and tested a Storyline course for accessibility demonstrates something deeper.

It shows that you understand how your design decisions affect real learners.

Accessible Design Is Good Learning Design

Accessibility shouldn’t be the final QA step before a course launches.

It should influence the experience from the beginning: how content is structured, how interactions work, how media is presented, and how learners demonstrate understanding.

For instructional designers, developing accessibility skills isn’t about becoming an accessibility specialist overnight.

It’s about building the habit of asking a better question throughout the design process:

Who might be excluded by this design decision, and what can I do differently?

The instructional designers who can answer that question thoughtfully—and demonstrate how they’ve acted on it—are better equipped to create learning experiences that work for more people.

And ultimately, that’s what effective instructional design is supposed to do.

Explore Instructional Design Opportunities

Looking for your next role in instructional design, eLearning, or Learning & Development?

Explore opportunities on the Teamed Job Board and discover career-development resources through the Teamed Career Board.

As you prepare your resume and portfolio, make your accessibility experience visible. Show employers not just which standards you know, but how you’ve applied them to create better learning experiences.