Weave accessibility design into your design process (part 1)
#Accessibility #UX #Designprocess
Breaking the invisible wall
My grandma is an 85-year-old who refused to use any technology in the past 30 years. During the pandemic, she wanted to connect with me so much that she decided to give it a try.
I shipped her a specialized senior phone with huge buttons. She was so excited when making her first video call, and could not stop smiling while repeating, “This is magic”.
But this is not magic. Technology should be made for anyone, regardless of their ages, health conditions, and locations. This is something that can be achieved with dedicated effort. To light up more smiles like this, I took on a journey to learn more about accessibility design.
Closing the hidden gap
Step 1: Learn about accessibility design
If usability is about how easy it is for each interaction to be finish. Then Accessibility is about how easy it is for people with disabilities to finish those interactions. Accessibility design bridges the gap of one’s intention and the technology being used.
With this definition, everyone has accessibility needs. By addressing these needs, it not only brings benefits to disabled and senior people but also provides a better experience for all of us.
For example:
Videos with captions are easier for all viewer to follow
Disabled button with explanations reduces cognitive load for every user
Better page structure boosts all users’ navigation experience
Source: Microsoft Inclusive Design Toolkit
Step 2: Understand users and their different accessibility needs
When something unexpected happens, it confuses everyone. However, disability is a usability amplifier. For example, if a button takes you 5 seconds to find, then it might take a screen reader user 5 minutes. To find empathy for people who have the most needs, I watched lots of videos to hear what they have to say.
Source: How the blind see the world, Assuming accessibility, and How blind people use iPhone
With all the user information gathered, I summarized people’s accessibility needs in the following chart. Each of these disability types actually represents a range of very different disabilities. For example, "Vision" includes low vision, total blindness, color vision deficiency, cataracts, glaucoma, and more. The actual assistive technology and user needs vary depending on each individual's particular impairment.
Step 3: Refine your design process
Instead of having accessibility design be an afterthought, consider accessibility, in the beginning, can give us more time doing a complete design. Below are the checkpoints that I find effective:
Checkpoint 1: When starting the design, make sure to set up your accessibility design foundation correctly. Check the comprehensive guide from W3C Web Accessibility Initiative on Designing for accessibility. If you need a checklist, check out the A11y project.
Checkpoint 2: When delivering visual specification, also deliver accessibility design specification. Check the Adobe blog for what is design specification and how it helps speed Up the Design to Development Workflow and Improve Productivity.
Checkpoint 3: Before deploying the design, conduct an accessibility test.
Listen to the product: turn off the screen and see if you can finish the user task using the screen reader only.
Keyboard-only test: do not use any mouse or touchpad and see if you can finish all user tasks with a keyboard
Zoom test: Use “+” and “-” to zoom 400% on a web page, change font sizes on your devices (IOS, Android), then check if you can still read and operate.
Step 4 and Step 5: to be continued in Weave accessibility design into your process -part 2