Designing digital products for accessibility as a User Experience Designer, Part 1
This is part one of a two-part series on designing for digital accessibility.
As a digital product or user experience designer, how do you ensure you are designing an experience that is truly inclusive and accessible to all users?
This was the problem I faced when tasked with making the product I work on at VMware to be more accessible to those with disabilities. The product was well established with thousands of customers and many features had been added over the years. So, the challenge wasn’t just about designing a new feature to be accessible, but rather identifying existing features that weren’t accessible according to the WCAG or Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 standards and establishing prescriptive design guidelines that would help the development team fix them. WCAG are a set of guidelines set by W3C to help make web content more accessible to people with disabilities.
Adding to this challenge were the many features that were built on various technologies at different points in time. And before we could redesign all the older features using the newer UI library, there were more acquisitions along the way that brought in their own patterns and interactions that had to be seamlessly integrated into the rest of the product. Clearly, there was much work to be done.
When I first started thinking about how to tackle this large and somewhat daunting task, it was difficult to find information about what it truly means to make digital products accessible. Many sources I found talked about basic color contrast issues and how to fix them, which was definitely helpful. But when it came to certain cases such as when users are unable to see or had other challenges that made it difficult for them to experience the product as designed, it was very difficult to determine how we would be able to handle from a design perspective.
As you’ll see in this post, I learned quickly that accessibility is about so much more than just color contrast issues. Whether you’re ready to undergo your own accessibility transformation or you’re just looking to learn more, I hope I can shed some light, and hopefully help you build an actionable plan for success.
Never forget: You are not your user
When it comes to digital products, most designers usually account for interactions using a mouse. Fully abled people tend to assume that the majority of people are also fully abled just like themselves and interact with products using a similar set of devices. When I think about how I use and consume digital products myself, I generally interact with them using either a trackpad, mouse, touchscreen interface and/or a keyboard. It’s only natural to assume that the users I design products for would also be equipped with a similar set of devices and abilities.
So, when it comes designing with accessibility in mind, it’s the perfect time to remind yourself about the old adage, “You are not your user.” It’s a principle that not only applies to what users want, but also how they interact.
But, if you’re like most designers, you’re already juggling between multiple design projects and managing numerous stakeholders, which can make developing a usable design challenging enough for just one input type such as a mouse.
I know this because this was the situation that I was in. And, to complicate matters, accessibility is an undertaking that tends to be considered an “edge case,” making it an easy target for de-prioritizing by stakeholders. However, in reality, there is plenty of data that illustrates the contrary, as there are far more people with disabilities than most people generally realize.
If you conduct any research on the topic, you’ll find countless sources of information that discuss why products need to be accessible. There’s no doubt that building your digital products to be more inclusive would be extremely beneficial to those with disabilities, but it’s also good for business. The question is, how can you go about making your digital products more accessible?
You cannot solve a problem that you do not understand
First, understand the different types of disabilities and the devices people use to interact with digital products.
Disabilities come in many forms, and may even be temporary, so it’s important to become familiar with the various kinds of disabilities in order to change our mindset.
Vision, hearing or speech disabilities
These are the most common disabilities that most people are aware of, but in many cases the extent of design consideration tends to stop at mitigating color contrast issues. However, there are many other assistive technologies this group relies upon, including: magnification software, screen readers, braille note takers, closed captioning, voice assistants, and more.
Other Physical disabilities
These are disabilities like chronic pain or issues with fine motor skills like carpal tunnel syndrome. Some of these could even be temporary in cases like recovering from a surgery.
Depending on the type, there’s some overlap in terms of the assistive technologies, including voice assistants, speech to text convertors, ergonomic input devices, and others.
Neurological disabilities
These can range from anxiety, ADHD to dyslexia, epilepsy or cerebral palsy. People suffering from these disabilities can rely upon assistive technologies, while others with anxiety or ADHD might rely upon medications and other methods like to-do lists that help them stay on track while using a product.
For example, people with neurological disabilities may have difficulties interacting with an interface that has too many visually alarming status indicators or countdown timers to complete a task/stay logged, which may increase anxiety levels.
In part two of this article series, we’ll go into more detail about how you can design for people with disabilities and share some tactical steps and resources we found really useful along our digital accessibility journey. Stay tuned!
