This week's screencast allowed me to tackle a vital topic: sharing my design approach for creating Dhivehi phonemic charts for young learners. My goal is to empower other educators by demonstrating a method for building accessible language learning visuals, particularly for endangered languages, like Dhivehi.

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My video workflow, using Screencastify.com for recording and Adobe After Effects for visual editing (like placing my talking head in a small bubble). For language support I utilized VEED.io's automatic transcription, given Youtube's native transcription has a region lock, and then edited the 'Closed Captions' there before exporting the SRT file. Despite the workarounds, the captions synced well, and YouTube's Transcription Button, displayed under the video description, proved to be a lifesaver feature.

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My screencast visually demonstrates applying CRAP principles: Contrast (blue letters, red diacritics, varied font sizes); Repetition (consistent colors, mouth diagram styles); Alignment (right-aligned text, vertically aligned operators); and Proximity (grouping related elements tightly).

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It also serves as a self-critique, highlighting the current right-heavy layout and the need for future iteration towards a more center-aligned design to better accommodate Dhivehi words, where consonants and vowels often expand the visual space needed.

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In essence, while UDL and accessibility are crucial for fostering young Maldivian critical thinkers, navigating language-specific tools and regional limitations poses arduous implementation hurdles. This process, however, underscores the importance of designing with diverse linguistic needs at the forefront.