I’ve been thinking more about accessibility and inclusive design. I’ve put together a little list of three types of disabilities, with three things that we designers and developers can do to make our sites better for them.
As a quick reminder, it might be helpful to (re)define disability. What we define as a disability has changed a bit. This definition from the excellent A Web For Everyone is really great:
Ability (functional capability) + Barrier (created by product) = Disability (conflict between Ability and Barrier)
Physical
Someone’s functional capacity could be affected by:
- having a condition like arthritis, cerebral palsy, fibromyalgia, or lupus;
- being elderly and having decreased and less precise motor control;
- having an injury.
To avoid putting up barriers, we can:
- having large clicks areas;
- making sure everything is keyboard-compatible (have focusable elements like links and buttons);
- providing skip-to-content links as the first thing in the page.
Visual
Someone’s functional capacity could be affected by:
- being blind, having low vision or poor eyesight, or being color blind;
- being elderly and having poorer vision;
- using an old or low-quality screens with low contrast and dodgy colors or being outside on a sunny day trying to use the shiny screen of a phone.
To avoid putting up barriers, we can:
- having structured content using semantic HTML, having form inputs with associated labels, and having descriptive links and headings;
- having information that isn’t only in images, that doesn’t rely on colour, or doesn’t have low contrast.
- having content that zooms well.
Cognitive
Someone’s functional capacity could be affected by:
- having autism, dyslexia, or a learning disability;
- the content being not in the user’s first language;
- being distracted or in a rush and not paying full attention.
To avoid putting up barriers, we can:
- using direct language and have clear and consistent layout and navigation;
- using images, audio, and video as additional methods of conveying information;
- having descriptive link and button text.
What next?
I’m going to pick one of the things from the “we can” lists and review something I’m working on, to see how I can avoid putting up barriers that would prevent someone from using the site.