Design, Accessibility, and Ethics
A good designer knows how to make an aesthetic and intuitive platform, but the inherent responsibility of creating content for everyone is to make sure it is in fact accessible and inclusive to all. As technology becomes increasingly integrated into our daily lives, we may not realize the extent of which technology impacts communication, learning, work, and so much more. This article will offer several examples of how to design an accessible and ethical platform, and why this is a designer’s responsibility.
Accessibility
Taking into account cognitive and physical abilities should be one of the first factors in designing a platform. It is important to note that doing such does not take away from the design itself, it only provides guidelines for how to become a stronger designer.
Color plays a significant role in designing an aesthetic platform. In fact, a huge part of UI/UX design is making a platform that is fun to look at. However, we might not realize the impact that color can have on the usability of a platform. The following is an example of color being used to convey information, a reference from Jesse Hausler’s article “7 Things Every Designer Needs to Know about Accessibility”. The article is linked down below.
The red conveys an error field in the form; you didn’t fill it out correctly. But what happens when the user is colorblind? How do they know what is going on?
Color Blindness affects 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women. 1 in 30 people have low vision, and 1 in 188 people are blind. Statistically speaking, there is a very good chance that one of your viewers struggles with discerning color, nevermind using it to navigate a platform.
Jesse Hausler notes “There are many acceptable ways to make this form visually accessible. You could put the red triangle icon in all of the error fields. You could use text to indicate and explain why a given field is in error. You could use tooltips, thick borders, bold text, underlines, italics, etc. The choices are infinite, but the only rule is to use more than color alone.”
The following is a list of incredible platforms that designers have already introduced to adress color-blindness, dyslexia, and mouse-usage difficulty when navigating platforms. These are great examples of how to design for solutions.
A designer has the ability to essentially eliminate disability on their platform, so why shouldn’t they? It is a designer’s responsibility to make content accessible for everyone, which is why it is important to educate oneself on how to do so. For more information on designing with accessibility, Hausler’s article “7 Things Every Designer Needs to Know about Accessibility” is a great place to start:
Creative Tech Design hosted a workshop on Design & Ethics with Amanda Powell, where Amanda gave great information and advice on designing with accessibility and inclusivity. The link to our workshop can be found here:
Ethics
Ethics is a necessary factor to take into account when designing a platform. As pioneers in technology, it is important for designers to advance inclusivity and justice. Race, ethnicity, sexual and gender orientation, and socio-economic status are all major factors in determining who a platform is serving (and there are many, many more). Designers have a unique case of impact where one’s work can reach essentially anyone in the virtual world, rendering it all the more important to make sure that the platform does in fact include everyone.
1. Is your design excluding anyone?
Physical/Cognitive ability was addressed in the earlier section regarding accessibility, but there are other forms of exclusion. For example, if one is designing an app for tracking health, it is important to take into account different racial backgrounds and the history of race relations to health care, including negative stereotypes and mis-diagnoses. Considering different cultural medicinal practices is also a good way to ensure the information provided can include everyone. In order to be a better designer, one needs to fully understand their scope. An informative article on the history of race and medical practice can be found here:
2. Situational Challenges
Situational challenges regards how one’s environment might play a role in the accessibility to a platform. For example, the cost is an excluding factor in many online platforms. While it might be economically impossible for one to run a website without income, there are ways to offer some help, such as free trials or references to similar, free programs. Another example of a situational challenge is examined through a UX research case study. Language barriers have a big impact on the validity and quality of collected data. Comprehension ability also plays a role in the interpretation of a user’s responses during need-finding, adversely affecting the end product. This article examines an interesting solution to designing with the constraints of language and provides a case study in Uganda as an example of how to design a localized app without changing the language.
3. Personal Biases
Last but not least, it is important to address one’s own subconscious biases. While one might not think of themself as outwardly sexist or racist, there are biases that may come out in a design, which is why it is important to constantly check in throughout the stages of building a platform. An example can be subconsciously assigning a white, euro-centric group of men as the first picture one sees when opening their investment app. Furthermore, it is important to take into account hetero and gender normativity. When creating a sign-up page, an easy and meaningful way to include everyone is to offer a space to include pronouns. The best way to go about subconscious biases is to recognize that everyone has them, but that they are not a determining factor in one’s ability to be inclusive. Rather, the power is within one’s own hands to make an impactful change. This means considering all backgrounds throughout the design process, from the first stages of user research to the last component.
