How to Use This Site

This site was built to be navigated by ear first. Every page follows the same structure, so once you’ve learned one page, you’ve learned them all.

Page structure

• Every page has a skip link as its first element (“Skip to main content”).
• The page banner holds the site name (a link back to Home), followed by the course contents navigation — the same ordered list on every page, with your current page announced as “current page.” Lessons you’ve completed are marked “completed” in this list.
• The main landmark starts with the level-one heading: the lesson title.
• Sections within a lesson use level-two headings, always in the same order: About this lesson, Listen for, the audio player, Try it yourself, and the Transcript. Navigating by heading is the fastest way to move around.
• At the end of the main content, a pager holds Previous and Next lesson links, each naming its destination in full.

The audio player

• The player is a labeled region on each lesson page — findable with your screen reader’s landmark or region navigation.
• It uses ordinary buttons: Play/Pause (one button, label changes with state), Back 15 seconds, and Forward 15 seconds.
• The seek slider works with arrow keys and announces position in minutes and seconds.
• A speed control lets you slow down or speed up the recording.
• Nothing ever autoplays, and there are no global keyboard shortcuts to collide with your screen reader’s commands.
• If you leave a long recording partway through, a Resume button appears the next time you visit, offering to pick up where you stopped.

Progress

Each lesson has a “Mark this lesson complete” toggle button below the player. Your progress is stored only on this device, in your browser — there are no accounts and nothing is sent anywhere. Clearing your browser data clears your progress.

The introduction unlocks the lessons

The seven lessons stay locked until you have listened to the introduction with Daniel Kish. This is deliberate: the introduction explains what echolocation is and where it came from, and the lessons assume you have heard it.

• While the lessons are locked, they appear in the course contents as plain text ending in “locked until the introduction is finished” — not as links, so you never land on a link that refuses to work.
• The introduction page tells you how much longer you need to listen, in minutes and seconds, and updates as you go.
• Unlocking counts actual listening time, so skipping ahead with the seek slider will not unlock the lessons. You do not have to do it in one sitting — your listening time is remembered on this device.
• When you finish, you will hear “Introduction finished. All seven lessons are now unlocked,” and the lessons become links again straight away.
• If the introduction audio ever fails to load, the lessons unlock automatically so you are never stuck. The full transcript is on the page either way.

Everything else — this page, the guide for parents and guardians, the practice sound library, and the conclusion — is always available and never locked.

Listening tips

• Use headphones. The recordings are binaural — made with microphones worn at the ears — so headphones place the echoes around you the way they happened.
• Transcripts are complete and always visible on the page — every word of every recording, with sound demonstrations described in brackets.

Feedback

If anything on this site is awkward with your screen reader or braille display, that’s a bug — please tell the family so it can be fixed.