Reflecting on “good” product design and accessibility
Can design really be “good” if it isn’t built on accessibility and inclusivity?
When discussing what makes a good design, the conversation generally revolves around ideas like whether or not a product is innovative, functional, useful, aesthetically pleasing, and so on. In the context of product design and UX design, we are especially concerned with making products that are “user-oriented” and will solve the user’s problems and thus add value to their lives. Accessibility and inclusivity aren’t often explicitly mentioned as part of the criteria for evaluating the quality of a design, perhaps because if we’re assuming a product is functional, useful, aesthetically pleasing, etc., it’s implied that the product will then be inherently accessible.
This, however, is often not the case. Whether or not a product is functional, useful, or even able to adequately solve a particular user’s problem at all depends on the unique needs of that user. While the common principles for good design are a valid reference point, they’re also very much open to interpretation and rarely put an emphasis on designing for people with needs that are different from the perceived majority of users. If we want to innovate and add value to people’s lives, why aren’t we focusing more of our attention on designing for those with frequently overlooked and unmet needs? If we’re concerned with designing products that are usable, we must be chiefly concerned with accessibility, because an inaccessible product becomes a useless product for a user whose needs aren’t being met.
When we consider being inclusive in our designs and prioritize meeting different needs than we typically expect, we recognize that there are many ways to participate in an experience, and ultimately we create products that are better for everyone. Making things accessible benefits all users, not just those with disabilities; the more accessible a product is, the easier it is to use for everyone.
As designers, we have the power and moral responsibility to create designs that are accessible to all users. If we aspire to be the user’s advocate and claim to shape our design process around empathy, we must commit to giving a voice to those with different needs and circumstances than what we usually cater towards. We have to be a force for change and evangelize inclusion and accessibility, because no matter what kind of product, some users will have disabilities, and they deserve to be included as much as any other user. We shouldn’t be excluding people because we didn’t value viewing our designs from different perspectives and lenses.
Also, making a website or app accessible is often dismissed as being expensive or time-consuming when it doesn’t have to be. There are many straightforward and easy to implement guidelines for improving accessibility. The most comprehensive resource is probably Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), which is a lot to take in, but each section is broken down into easily digestible principles. There are also tools like WebAIM’s Color Contrast Checker which will calculate the contrast ratio between a foreground color and a background color and identify whether or not the combination meets WCAG 2.0 AA standards. Simple steps like having enough color contrast, not using color alone as a visual cue, and writing useful alternative text for images are all fairly easy and quick methods of improving accessibility.
