Accessibility in Design: A key to being a better designer

According to dictionaries accessibility breaks down to “easy approach or an easy way to do something”. To large extents this definition could probably be interpreted as usability and so in context to design, accessibility describes the number of people that can use the interface or design not matter is what state they encounter them.

However, the concept of accessibility in design often largely mistakes as usability. Where on one hand usability means whether the design is effective, satisfying, and easy to use, accessibility concerns with the fact that all the people are able to use the design equally (that on large scale concerns the people with disabilities).

Why should accessibility be taken into consideration?

A lot of designers around take accessibility as a burden. They try their best to make a product easy to use, effective but sadly couldn’t do justice to the accessibility criteria. Accessibility could be a tough challenge to meet. It could require much more resources, however, a fine balance should be made between profits and doing justice to the user experience. As a UX designer, it should be taken into consideration that you don’t spoil the user experience in the profit chase. Once you get a fine balance, accessibility can be used as a tool to tackle the milestones you have set up for yourself.

Things every designer needs to know about accessibility

1. Colors shouldn’t be used as the only medium to convey information:

Colors could definitely be the enhancing factor to what has already being conveyed but it should not be the only medium to convey a very important piece of information.

2. Take into consideration each kind of user from the very start:

It is really important to take into consideration every user from the very start, starting from the wireframes. Think about everyone and consider the flow and experience that every user will see in any situation ranging from disabilities or someone not having a keyboard.

3. Form an accessible layout:

An accessible layout includes the different points. The usage of staggered layouts of images and texts should be avoided which means the order should be clean and straight and understandable for all the users.

The most important texts or pieces of information should be the priority to display. The screen size of the design should be adaptive to every monitor size.

4. Design for keyboard accessibility:

Ensure that a vital part of your design can be accessed through the space bar and tab keys of the keyboard or maybe add some cues for navigation by highlighting them.

5. Learn and observe from others

As designers, observation plays a major part in whatever and however, you do things. This trait could be helpful for making accessible products by taking a keen look at different designs around and judge their accessibility factor.

Key Takeaways

A lot of designers might feel accessibility to be a barrier that blocks their creativity but that is absolutely not the case. It will definitely provide you some constraints to incorporate your design within which in return will be a more interesting user experience.

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