Guided Tour

Part 3: The UDL Guidelines

How the UDL Guidelines are organised, starting with access.

By Beth Stark, M.S.Ed., CPACC

A Scaffold, Not a Checklist

The CAST UDL Guidelines have three layers:

3 principles: Design Multiple Means of Engagement, Design Multiple Means of Representation, and Design Multiple Means of Action & Expression.
9 guidelines, three under each principle.
36 considerations spread across the guidelines.

The guidelines are also arranged in three rows: Access, Support and Executive Function.

Source: CAST (2024). CAST Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0. Retrieved from https://udlguidelines.cast.org. The principle, guideline and consideration names on this page are CAST's own words. The UDL Guidelines are © CAST.

No learning experience needs all 36 considerations. Use them to identify barriers and to design options that reduce them, not to tick boxes.

Topic 2 on UDL Resources has three slides, one for each layer. Under them, Explore the UDL Guidelines lets you open any guideline or find a UDL consideration by a word, in the UDL Guidelines Explorer (opens in a new tab). Topic 2 also links to CAST’s full graphic organizer.

One of Four Gears

Dr. Loui Lord Nelson’s UDL Gears show that the UDL Guidelines are one of four gears that turn together: Mindset, Skills, Practices and the UDL Guidelines. If part of one gear is missing, the others cannot turn as smoothly, and UDL is not as successful (Nelson, 2025).

You can find the UDL Gears in Topic 2 on UDL Resources.

Start with Access

When a school is new to the UDL Guidelines, I suggest starting with the top row, Access. My poster Prioritizing Access shows that row on its own:

Design Options for Welcoming Interests & Identities (Guideline 7)
Design Options for Perception (Guideline 1)
Design Options for Interaction (Guideline 4)

Access creates the conditions for learner agency.

Bias and Identity

The UDL Guidelines 3.0 name bias as a barrier and bring identity into learner variability. Two webinar summaries explain what that means for your design: Addressing Bias and Designing for Identity.

Explore About 3 minutes

Choose one:

In the UDL Guidelines Explorer (opens in a new tab), type a word from your learning experience, such as goals or feedback, and read the considerations that come up.
Open Prioritizing Access and read the considerations under one guideline. Then look at the learning experience you brought with you. Which considerations have you intentionally designed for, to identify and reduce barriers?
Open LUDIA, my AI thought partner for UDL. Describe the learning experience you are designing and ask LUDIA to help you identify barriers in the design and the Access considerations that could reduce them.

Beth’s Tip

Start with what you are already doing well. Most educators find at least one consideration they already design for, even if they never called it UDL.

Reflect

Which Access consideration will you design for next, to reduce a barrier for your learners?

References and credits

CAST (2024). CAST Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0. Retrieved from https://udlguidelines.cast.org

Nelson, L. L. (2025, August 27). The UDL Gears. The UDL Approach. https://theudlapproach.com/theudlgears

Stark, B., & Rostan, J. (2026). LUDIA [Web app]. https://askludia.com/en

This guided tour was created by Beth Stark, Educator and Consultant · Inclusive Learning Systems · UDL · Accessibility. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.