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Intercultural Practice and Equity · Public-service practice
For most Minnesotans, this division is a web page, a letter, a form or a slide at a public meeting. Four lessons on designing those well, ending with a usability review you run on one real resource.
40–45 minutes · 4 lessons · Voluntary learning
Six things the division publishes, the one job each of them has, and why plain language, accessibility and cultural responsiveness have to be design decisions rather than a final check.
Every public communication carries assumptions about who is reading it. Naming those assumptions is what makes a resource culturally responsive rather than merely translated.
A standards check, a staff opinion and a task-based review with the people who use a resource answer three different questions. Only one of them tells you whether the resource works.
The practical tool: a usability review record you can copy, complete for one real public-facing resource, and turn into fixes, routed handoffs and a report back to the people who took part.
Choose one public-facing resource you own or maintain. Run the usability review on it with people who actually use it, make the fixes inside your control, route the rest with suggested wording, and tell the reviewers what changed.
For most Minnesotans, this division is a web page found through a search, a letter in the mail, a form with a deadline on it, a slide at a public meeting, or a training someone told them to take. This module is about designing those things so they work, and about the one method that tells you whether they do. It covers the decisions made before anyone writes a sentence, the assumptions a resource carries about who is reading it, the difference between a standards check and a review with the people who actually use a resource, and how to run one review on one real thing and act on what you find.
Publishing is a claim that it works. A review is how you find out whether the claim is true.
Keep the design questions and the review method in view while you plan a page, a letter, a notice, a form, a presentation or a training.
Run one usability review this month on a resource you maintain, fix what you own, and route the rest with suggested wording.
Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.
The department's own editorial guidance on first-read understanding, descriptive headings, familiar terms and writing suited to the reader.
Minnesota's accessibility standard for state digital content, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines it follows, and practical guidance for documents and web pages.
Federal plain-language guidance on testing a document with the people who will use it, including task-based testing and paraphrase testing.
How federal programs test digital content for accessibility, including what automated checking can and cannot find.
Guidance on involving people with disabilities throughout a project, and why informal task-based evaluation finds problems that standards checking alone does not.
U.S. Department of Justice guidance on Title II effective communication, auxiliary aids and services, and primary consideration of the person's expressed preference.
National standards for culturally and linguistically appropriate services, including language assistance, communication practices and community engagement.
The design reference for this curriculum: multiple ways to engage, culturally responsive materials and accessible instruction.