Annabelle Snow

The Disability Pride Flag: five diagonal stripes in red, gold, white, blue, and green on a charcoal background.

Disability Pride Month

5 min read

Disability Pride Month is celebrated every July, tracing back to the Americans with Disabilities Act signed in 1990. In this… Read More »Disability Pride Month

Gavin Henrick, CEO and co-founder of Brickfield Education Labs, presenting to a group of participants, with a slide titled 'How this format works' displayed on the screen behind him.

Do You See Me? Turning Accessibility Awareness into Action

5 min read

Most accessibility barriers aren’t disabilities. They’re decisions. For Learning Disability Week, a look at what “do you see me” actually… Read More »Do You See Me? Turning Accessibility Awareness into Action

Gavin Henrick presents at MoodleMoot Canada, gesturing toward a projection screen showing a slide titled "The Paradigm Shift" from Brickfield Education Labs. The slide features a snow-covered building entrance with a ramp and stairs, captioned "If you clear the ramp first, everyone can use it.

The Hierarchy of Effective Learning Content: From Available to Universal

11 min read

Most institutions jump straight to Universal Design for Learning — and wonder why it doesn’t stick. The truth is that… Read More »The Hierarchy of Effective Learning Content: From Available to Universal

An example board with four columns and numerous different posts, covering different stages of project management: Scoping, Design, Development, and UAT and Helpdocs. Post content includes text with some markdown formatting, links, images, and videos.

Board release: comment notifications keep students in the conversation

3 min read

Board now sends students a Moodle notification whenever someone comments on their post — keeping the conversation going without anyone… Read More »Board release: comment notifications keep students in the conversation

Who needs transcripts? Online Training & Accessibility.

Transcripts Are Not a Nice-to-Have. They Are the Session.

11 min read

Online training without a transcript is not fully accessible — it never was. When a session ends with no written… Read More »Transcripts Are Not a Nice-to-Have. They Are the Session.

Attendees seated at Trinity Business School, Dublin, watching the expert panel discussion. The panel members are visible in the foreground seated facing the attendees: Gavin Henrick, CEO and Co-Founder of Brickfield Education Labs; Madeline Murray, National Coordinator at Oide Technology in Education; Rosa Doran, President and Founder of NUCLIO; and Alan Culbert, Deputy Principal of Edmund Rice College.

Brickfield at TD3C: Reflections from the Panel

4 min read

Earlier this week, Brickfield Education Labs co-founder and CEO Gavin Henrick joined the expert panel at Empowering Teachers to Create… Read More »Brickfield at TD3C: Reflections from the Panel

a laptop with a Moodle course ("Digital Accessibility Fundamentals") with the NVDA Speech Viewer open showing screen reader output, a blue focus ring on the current activity, and a Windows taskbar.

Why Accessibility Overlays Fail

9 min read

Accessibility overlays promise a fast, low-cost path to compliance — but growing evidence from regulators, accessibility experts, and disability organisations… Read More »Why Accessibility Overlays Fail

ALL CAPS” are crossed out in red above “Mixed Case ✓” in green, with the caption “Typography & Accessibility” below.

Why ALL CAPS Text Creates Reading Barriers

4 min read

Why ALL CAPS Text Creates Reading Barriers The research is clear: capitalising text doesn’t help readers — it hinders them… Read More »Why ALL CAPS Text Creates Reading Barriers

Side-by-side comparison of two approaches to video captions. On the left, labelled "Proper Caption File (.srt / .vtt)", a video player shows steady white caption text on a dark background reading "Welcome to today's session on content quality", with a CC ON button visible. Below it, five green ticks confirm: user can resize, recolour, and reposition; screen readers can access the text; steady pace that is readable and predictable; generates transcripts, translations, and search; works with LMS and video platforms. A summary reads "Captions as data — functional, flexible, accessible." On the right, labelled "Burned-In Animated Text", the same video shows words scattered across the frame in different sizes, colours, angles, and opacities, with no CC control available. Below it, five red crosses confirm: no user control over size, colour, or position; invisible to screen readers and assistive tech; rapid animation that is hard to read and may cause nausea; no transcripts, translations, or search; trapped as pixels with no platform able to use it. A summary reads "Captions as decoration — rigid, inaccessible, exclusionary."

When Captions Become Decoration: Why Animated Text Overlays Are an Accessibility Problem

8 min read

Animated text overlays are everywhere — words bouncing, flashing, and flying across our screens in sync with speech. They look… Read More »When Captions Become Decoration: Why Animated Text Overlays Are an Accessibility Problem

Opening Links in a New Window. It compares poor and good link text: the left example shows “click here” and “read more” crossed out as bad link text, while the right example shows the descriptive link “Download the guide (PDF, opens in new tab)” with a check mark indicating it is the recommended practice.

Opening Links in a New Window: Accessibility Guidance

18 min read

Opening links in a new window or tab is rarely necessary and can create accessibility barriers for many users. For… Read More »Opening Links in a New Window: Accessibility Guidance