Challenges and Opportunities in Creating an Accessible Web Application for Learning Organic Chemistry

While students with disabilities demonstrate high interest in STEM during the transition from high school to college, their representation in STEM decreases throughout postsecondary education and into the workforce [13]. Organic chemistry, in particular, is a uniquely useful case study for exploring technological accessibility in STEM education due to its heavy reliance on highly visual components such as two- and three-dimensional representations of molecular structures. In addition, many university STEM programs recognize organic chemistry’s rigorous perception as a “weed-out” course [4]. After a thorough search, no organic chemistry educational website has addressed level AA accessibility, and therefore, none have met the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). In this study, we investigated student’s preferences on accessibility features while learning organic chemistry. We then explored “webORA,” a web-based application that allows the user to interact with a 3D molecular animation with subtitles that describe the reaction progression. We also evaluated the beta version of webORA by conducting user testing with users of multiple skill-levels. Lastly, we performed a manual accessibility audit of webORA.