Making the Most of Custom Lab Builder: A Guide to Writing Inclusively for All
Language shapes how people perceive and engage with content, so it’s crucial to consider the kind of words you use. Using outdated terminology can offend and disengage learners, as well as hurt a company’s reputation. This blog is the second in a series on making the most of the Lab Builder, looking at what we call the Four Cs. Ensuring your writing is… Conscious Consistent Conversational Concise The previous post in this series looked at accessibility. In this post, we’ll explore what it means to write consciously and inclusively, share practical tips, and show how our platform supports this critical effort. Why is inclusive language important? Inclusive language avoids bias, respects diversity, and ensures accessibility for all. In cybersecurity, it means using terms that foster collaboration and trust, avoiding outdated or harmful phrases, and creating welcoming and empowering content The Quality Team at Immersive Labs is committed to staying up to date with how language changes in the cyber industry. We regularly undertake research and speak to other industry professionals to ensure that our language is appropriate. Words to avoid We recommend avoiding specific terms that some people may find offensive, and some socially charged language that may have negative connotations. Non-inclusive language to avoid Preferred inclusive versions Whitelist/Blacklist Allowlist/Denylist White hat/Black hat hackers Ethical/Unethical hackers Master/Slave Leader/Follower, Primary/Replica, Primary/Standby Grandfathered Legacy status Gendered pronouns (e.g. assuming “he/him/his”) They, them, their Gendered pronouns (e.g. “guys”) Folks, people, you all, y’all Man hours, man power Hours, engineer hours, workforce, staffing Man-in-the-middle attack Machine-in-the-middle attack Sanity check Quick check, confidence check, coherence check Dummy value Placeholder value, sample value Crazy, insane Amazing, incredible, or any other appropriate adjective Socially charged words Preferred inclusive versions Native Built-in, default, pre-installed, integrated, core Abort Stop, cancel, end, force quit Cripple Disable, impair, damage, destroy, ruin Kill Stop, force quit, close, shut down Trigger Activate, initiate, cause, launch Unsure if a phrase you’ve used could be seen as offensive? Ask yourself: is this the most accurate and appropriate choice? Often, you can find a more descriptive word and avoid using these examples. Top tips for inclusive language Use writing tools Tools like Grammarly can help identify problematic words or phrases. You can create customized lists in Grammarly, which will then flag when a word has been used in your writing. Additionally, there are many inclusive language guides available online. Keep it short and sweet Use short sentences and paragraphs. Shorter sentences are easier to read, scan, and understand – especially for those with cognitive disabilities. Aim for sentences around 10–15 words, with variation for a natural flow. Avoid sentences longer than 20 words, as they can be harder to follow. Read aloud Proofread your work aloud to catch awkward phrasing, overly complex sentences, or insensitive terms. Hearing the words can help identify spots where clarity or tone might need improvement. Get a second opinion Ask a colleague to review your final version. A fresh set of eyes can spot language that might be unclear, inappropriate, or overly complicated. Share your thoughts Now that Lab Builder is here and you’ve had a chance to create your own content, how have you made your content more inclusive? We’re always looking to stay up to date, so if you have any further suggestions to add to our list of words to avoid or any other tips, let us know! We’d love to learn from you and grow the collective community knowledge.Making the Most of the Custom Lab Builder: Writing With Accessibility in Mind
What if someone tried to access your content who was visually impaired? Or who had cognitive difficulties? Or who was hard of hearing? Would they be able to understand the information you’ve provided and improve their cyber resilience? Our in-house copyediting team has created a series of articles to help you craft high-quality labs, aligned to the rigorous processes we follow. We embrace what we call the Four Cs to ensure all labs are: Consistent Conscious Conversational Concise These articles delve into each of these principles, showing how to implement them in your labs to create content that resonates with readers, enhances learning, and boosts cyber resilience. This post highlights how being conscious of your formatting can enhance accessibility for assistive technology users and how consistent formatting improves navigation for everyone. Rich text formatting Rich text formatting tools like subheadings, bullet points, lists, and tables in the Custom Lab Builder help organise information for easier scanning, better retention, and improved comprehension. Using these will ensure your content is consistent, accessible, and reader-friendly for everyone! Rich text formatting elements carry specific meaning, which assistive technologies rely on to convey information to specific users. Headings Visually, headings represent hierarchy through different font styling and allow users to quickly scan content. Programmatically, they allow users who can’t see or perceive the visual styling to access the same structural ability to scan. Heading elements should reflect the structure of the content. So your title should go in ‘Heading 1’ formatting, your next subheading will go in ‘Heading 2’ formatting, and so on. To ensure your content reads correctly to screen reader users, don’t use HTML heading styling to represent emphasis, and don’t use bold to make text appear like a heading. Lists (bullets/numbering) Always use bullets or numbered lists using the provided formatting to convey a list. A screen reader will announce that the following information is a list. Links How a link is formed significantly impacts usability. Consider the following sentence: “To find out more about this topic, complete our Intro to Code Injection lab here.” Links are interactive elements, which means you can navigate to them using the tab key. A user who relies on screen magnification to consume content may choose to tab through content to see what's available. The example above would be communicated as just “here”, which provides no context. They’d need to manually scroll back to understand the link’s purpose. Always use descriptive link text that clearly indicates its destination. Avoid ambiguous phrases like “here”. If that’s not possible, ensure the surrounding text provides clear context. “To find out more about this topic, complete our Intro to Code Injection lab.” Bold Only use bold for emphasis! Avoid italics, capital letters, or underlining (reserved for hyperlinks) to prevent confusion. Consistency in formatting reduces cognitive load, making your text more accessible. Bold stands out, provides better contrast, and helps readers quickly identify key information. Avoid italics With 15–20% of the population having dyslexia, italics are worth avoiding because research shows it’s harder for this user group to read italic text. Italics can sometimes bunch up into the next non-italic word, which can be difficult to comprehend or distracting to read. Media If you’re adding media to your labs, such as videos and images, it’s especially important to consider those who use assistive technologies. These users need to have the same chance of understanding the content as everyone else. They shouldn’t miss out on crucial learning. What is alternative text? Alt text describes the appearance and function of an image. It’s the written copy that appears if the image fails to load, but also helps screen reading tools describe images to visually impaired people. Imagine you’re reading aloud over the phone to someone who needs to understand the content. Think about the purpose of the image. Does it inform users about something specific, or is it just decoration? This should help you decide what (if any) information or function the images have, and what to write as your alternative text. Videos Any videos you add to your lab should have a transcript or subtitles for those who can’t hear it. Being consistent Consistency is a major thinking point for accessibility. We recommend adhering to a style guide so all of your labs look and feel consistent. We recommend thinking about the structure of your labs and keeping them consistent for easy navigation. In our labs, users expect an introduction, main content, and a concluding “In This Lab” section outlining the task. This helps users recognize certain elements of the product. It reduces distraction and allows easier navigation on the page. For example, some users prefer diving into practical tasks and referring back to the content if they need it. By using the same structure across your lab collections, your users will know exactly where to find the instructions as soon as they start. TL;DR It’s crucial to focus on accessibility when writing your custom labs. Utilise the built-in rich text formatting options in the Custom Lab Builder (and stay consistent with how you use them!) to ensure your labs are easy to navigate for every single user. By being conscious and consistent with your formatting, every user will engage with your content better, remember the topic, and be able to put it into practice more easily, improving their cybersecurity knowledge and driving their cyber resilience. No matter how they consume content. Keep your eyes peeled for the next blog post in this series, which will look at inclusive language. Share your thoughts! There’s so much information out there on creating accessible content. This blog post just focused on the language, structure, and current formatting options available in the Custom Lab Builder. Have you tried to make your labs or upskilling more accessible, and how did this go down with your users? Do you have any other suggestions for the community on how to write content with accessibility in mind? Share them in the comments below!Realizing the Full Potential of Drill Mode in Crisis Simulator
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last decade or so, you already know cyber crises have become increasingly prevalent – posing significant threats to organizations worldwide. Organizations must continuously assess and improve their technical and non-technical teams’ knowledge, skills, and judgment to combat these challenges. This is where Immersive Labs’ Crisis Simulator comes into play. With single-player, drill, and presentation modes available, organizations can conduct team exercises that simulate real-world cyber crises in a number of different formats to prevent exercise fatigue. This allows organizations to create an exercising-first culture – as one tabletop exercise a year just isn’t enough. Let’s dig more into drill mode and learn how it helps users realize the true potential of cyber crisis planning. Crisis Simulator Drill Mode: What is it? Drill mode is a multiplayer crisis exercising format which allows participants to assume specific roles and tackle role-specific challenges. The goal is to strengthen their domain knowledge and develop muscle memory to more effectively deal with an actual crisis. A Crisis Sim administrator can assign clearly defined roles by aligning participants’ tasks with their actual job duties, ensuring the drills reflect real-life scenarios. Upon assignment, players receive notifications about their upcoming exercise, followed by a message signaling the start of their role-specific decision point or “inject.” Drill mode follows a sequential “pass the baton” style relay, allowing only one role to have an active task at any given time, with the completion of an active task triggering the next task. Some exercises may require players to complete multiple injects in succession, creating a cohesive and dynamic experience. Individual players’ decisions (good or bad) will significantly impact how the scenario unfolds for others, mimicking the interdependence and complexity of real crises. Benefits for Customers Drill mode was developed using direct customer feedback. Immersive Labs users were looking to exercise teams with role-relevant content to increase exercising engagement. With drill mode, and unlike competing solutions, participants aren’t expected to answer injects outside their area of expertise – ensuring a more focused and realistic experience. Drill mode’s emphasis on role-specific tasks promotes a more authentic depiction of how crisis responses really unfold. Recognizing no individual holds all decision-making power during a crisis, Drill mode reinforces collaboration and coordination among team members. Data gathered during a drill scenario allows teams to identify points of weakness and develop targeted training interventions. Drill mode also enables organizations to track the time needed for participants to complete each inject. This valuable metric provides insights into individual and team performance, giving organizations more data to refine their crisis response strategies and optimize resource allocation. Embracing Remote-First Work Environments With the proliferation of remote work, Crisis Simulator’s drill mode adapts nicely to evolving organizational needs. Players receive notifications and contribute when required. This remote-first approach enables seamless participation and ensures teams are well-prepared, regardless of geographical dispersion. Our micro-drills allow key contributors to allocate less than 10 minutes per decision point, significantly reducing their time commitment compared to traditional full-day drills. This efficient utilization of resources maximizes productivity and minimizes disruption to daily operations. Immersive Yourself Drill mode is a powerful feature within the Crisis Simulator that unleashes the true potential of cyber crisis planning. By assigning clearly defined roles to participants, organizations can conduct team exercises where each player assumes their actual job role in completing an assigned task. With a strategic and measurable approach to cyber crisis preparedness, Crisis Simulation with drill mode identifies weaknesses and promotes collaboration among team members. With the ability to track inject completion time, adapt to remote work environments, and offer versatile scenario options, drill mode empowers organizations to build greater resilience in the face of cyber threats.Mastering Crisis Sim: How We Got 25 Execs on the Edge of Their Seats
Let's start with the requirements. In this case, they were clear: 1) To have a fully customised exercise focusing on payment risks and cyber threats like fraud, ransomware, and cash-outs. This is the domain expertise of Mastercard, who had no issues creating this in the Immersive platform with our review and guidance. 2) To deliver this on-site in front of 25 senior execs (including the CEO, CTO, CISO, CFO, and numerous heads of departments). It’s definitely not easy getting this many board members together in one room, so we had to make the first best impression! What did we do, and why was it a success? The stakeholders told us that they’d run tabletop exercises before, so this wasn’t new to them. So, how did we turn what they expected to be a routine drill into an edge-of-the-seat experience? What made our approach unique? Realistic AI-generated videos The amazing Crisis Sim content creation team at Immersive Labs used generative AI to create highly realistic videos that felt as though they were straight from a Pakistani news channel. Mastercard provided us with a few scripts and ideas that helped bring the AI videos to life. AI video of a news reporter tailored to resemble the Pakistani news channel. AI video of a news reporter tailored to resemble the Pakistani news channel. Why did the execs jump out of their seats? That’s because we included the following in the videos: Footage of their building on the news and customer dissatisfaction over cyberattack repercussions. News reporters with local accents and dress styles mentioning the bank and stakeholders, and unhappy Tweets flooding social media. A video of their CEO, not his real face of course, but we used his name when it came to an inject where the stakeholders voted for ‘releasing a press statement to the public’. They even specifically asked us to ensure none of these videos leaked! But each video included the message “Exercise use only – not based on real events”. AI video of the CEO giving a press conference. Collaboration This success was a team effort. Getting any presentation done right, especially in person, requires planning and knowing your audience. This is where Mastercard brought their expertise to create and tailor the Crisis Sim exercise while we supported with our guidance and previous customer experience knowledge. Our roles, tasks, and responsibilities were clear. Top tip: If you’re planning an exercise, collaborate with others for ideas and support. Double act presentation Presenting as a team made all the difference. Mastercard’s expertise in engaging senior execs helped animate the session and avoid awkward silences, while I focused on facilitating the exercise. Doing this alone can be tricky – I’ve personally struggled with awkward silences during solo Crisis Sim sessions while juggling scenario questions, multiple responses, feedback, and facilitation all at once. Sharing the load was crucial, especially in a U-shaped room where I couldn’t easily move around. In this case, I didn’t need to worry about moving away from my laptop, leaving the close-up engagement completely for Mastercard to lead on. Image example of the U-shaped conference room this took place in. The feedback The feedback was overwhelmingly positive – they said it was their first experience with such a tabletop exercise, a stark contrast to their initial expectations. The AI videos sparked significant interest and curiosity. The collaboration between Mastercard and Immersive Labs successfully delivered an educational, engaging, and tailored exercise. The bank expressed interest in running a wider crisis drill in 2025 with multiple banks. So look forward to hearing about that in the future! Finding AI video scenarios in our Crisis Sim Catalogue If you clicked on any of the AI images above thinking it was a video, I’d like to apologise. They were just screenshots as the actual videos included sensitive, bank-specific details like names and locations that we can’t share externally. If you’d like to explore AI video scenarios in our Crisis Sim platform, check out titles like: Boardroom Betrayal: When Deepfakes Strike the Top Puppetmaster’s Revenge The Walls Have Ears – Part One The Walls Have Ears – Part TwoCyber Countdown: Day 4
Throughout December we are unwrapping, fresh content, celebrating this year’s successes, and gifting you with the tools and insight you need to be ready for 2025. Today's Lab is Return to Haunted Hollow: Haunted Helpdesk and today's Sim is The Flashpoint Podcast – Orchid Investments.Feature Focus: Introducing the AI Scenario Generator
In this blog, we’ll cover what this feature is and how you can use it. For this release, we’ve made creation as easy as possible. Just click Create with AI, add a title, and select options for organisational sector, attack vector, threat actor, and scenario size. This will generate a full scenario, from the briefing to the epilogue. You can even make a cuppa while it works!🪄✨ Once created, these scenarios can be published or edited and published in your organisation's catalogue. But how exactly does it work? Organisation admins can turn the AI Scenario Generator on and off in the platform settings area, so you’ll need this to be turned on if you want to try it out! Our AI Scenario Generator is currently only available to our Cyber Crisis Simulator customers. It’s based on technology provided by OpenAI, with generations based on publicly available data related to crisis management as well as our own Immersive Labs Crisis Sim catalogue. Organisation admins can choose to use the feature in a layered approach: No AI access at all: This means that your organisation has chosen not to enable the AI Scenario Generator. Without scenario sharing enabled: You can generate AI scenarios based only on the inputs shown in the generation box. With scenario sharing enabled: The AI will access specific parts of your previously published scenarios when generating new ones, ensuring the new scenario is highly relevant to your context. These settings can be updated on the organisation's settings page. If you’re keen to use the AI Scenario Generator but it’s not enabled in your organisation, you’ll need to discuss this with your internal Organization Administrator. If you’re an Organization Administrator and want to know more about the feature, contact your CSM. Tell me more about scenario sharing! If your organisation chooses to also enable scenario sharing, Immersive Labs will include specific information from any previous custom scenarios that you’ve published in the temporary “context window” for requests to our third-party AI vendor. A "context window" is an extension of the query sent to an AI model. It exists only during the processing of the query and isn’t saved by any third parties. The third-party AI vendor won’t use any of the information you share to train its models. Shared data will only ever be included in this temporary "context window" of generation and won’t be stored by the third-party AI vendor. The shared information includes scenario titles, descriptions, inject titles, and response options. It excludes feedback to response options, exercise information, reporting, account or organisation information fields, or metadata. Scenario sharing is designed to make the generated scenario more relevant to your particular context. You can still create scenarios using AI without scenario sharing, but your scenario will likely be more generic and less relevant to your particular organisational context. However, you can still edit the final version to make it more relevant to you – just like with our catalogue scenarios. Let’s not forget the human in the loop As with all things AI, we recommend that you review the AI output before publishing your scenario, to ensure it meets your needs. The AI Scenario Generator currently only generates text content, so you’ll probably want to add additional rich media, such as images or videos, to your scenario. To get the most out of your crisis simulation, we also recommend enabling, adding, changing, and checking certain elements. These include: Checking that you’re happy with the text formatting and narrative content Checking that you’re satisfied with the role listed Enabling and adding response feedback or performance indicators If you want to capture ranked response data, select the ranked options setting and add a rank (great, good, weak, okay) to each response option to suit your organisation's preferred situational response Turning on response confidence or justifications Get involved and share your thoughts! We know that AI is a hot topic and we’re keen to hear and capture your feedback and suggestions on this first release of our AI Scenario Generator as part of our user research taking place this November and December. If you want to participate in this research, you’ll be able to share your thoughts and experiences of using our AI tool and scenario creation more generally directly with our team. Comment below if you’d like to find out more, and we’ll contact you with further details! If you’re an Immersive Labs customer, you can find out more about the AI Scenario Generator in our FAQ guide.
