Tips on designing inclusively for physical disabilities
Problems, behaviors, needs & tools, plus design guidelines for building accessible products
In my article “The three levels of accessibility”, I mention the importance of designing for clarity and inclusivity. Not only to ensure everybody regardless of ability is able to access your site but so that developers can implement accessible code.
I will be discussing the various problems people face, their unique behaviors and needs, the tools they use, and how we can better accommodate them in our digital products. I’ve broken it into 5 sections across 5 articles:
Physical
This category is broad and can affect any of us. Physical conditions can be both permanent and temporary. We often forget the temporary injuries and the deterioration that comes with age. Meaning any of your users regardless of persona may experience a physical impairment at some point in their lives. There are of course more severe permanent issues people face that they may have had since birth, or triggered by an accident, or once they reach a certain age.
Here are a variety of physical limitations:
- Amputation — missing fingers, limbs, or other parts of the human body
- Arthritis — inflammation, degeneration, or damage to the joints
- Fibromyalgia — the chronic pain of muscle and connective tissues
- Fractured bone — a thin crack to a complete break (broken arm, wrist)
- Muscular dystrophy — progressive weakness and degeneration of muscles
- Parkinsons — it causes problems like shaking and stiffness
- Quadriplegia — partial or total paralysis to all four body limbs and the torso
- Repetitive stress injury (RSI) — injury to bones, joints, tendons, and the nervous system from repetitive tasks and damage
- Tremor and spasms — involuntary movement or muscle contraction, including short twitches, and continual or rhythmic muscle contractions
- And more…
Behaviors & needs
Anyone with a physical impairment needs to be able to complete all tasks with a keyboard which is most likely modified in some way. They like to use personalized shortcut keys to functions they frequently use and need more time typing and clicking. Especially if typing single keystrokes using a chorded keyboard/keyer which uses a sequence to enter a single key rather than typing simultaneous keystrokes like a normal keyboard. They are more likely to make mistakes so it’s important for them to have error correction options, especially on forms. Physically impaired users may need to use their feet or nose if missing other parts of their body to interact with devices and tools.
Problems
They have difficulties using touch devices when the website/app is crowded often tapping the wrong link. They struggle with poorly structured pages or menus, are unable to hold down multiple keys, and often miss small targets. Websites and apps cause frustration when insufficient time limits are provided to complete tasks, overly complicated navigation, and page functions, and finally the inability to access key pieces of content usually due to Javascript, for example, a javascript function that automatically moves input focus when it thinks the input is valid (don’t forget these users are more likely to make mistakes).
If you have 6 minutes (x2 play speed) this interview with Christopher Hills is great, if you haven’t already I recommend watching his other videos too.
Tools
Tools to help click, select text, move the cursor, and scroll with minimal movement are required and include:
- Voice recognition, eye tracking, and other approaches for hands-free interaction
- Ergonomic or specially designed keyboard or mouse (custom layout, larger keys, on-screen/touch, chorded keyboard)
- Switches operated by foot, shoulder, sip-and-puff, and single-key switches (checkout Christopher Hills on youtube using a switch)
- Trackballs, joysticks, and touch-pads
- Mouth stick and head pointer (both physical and digital)
- Accelerator software (reduces the effort needed to type or click, for example, create shortcuts and sequences for commands, listing actions like menu items, links, or options, and help with steering the mouse)
Inclusive design tips & tricks
To be inclusive with the physically impaired we need to think about:
Forms
- Indicate errors inline on form inputs (follow good practice)
- Include spellchecker or auto-complete on applicable fields, for example, this isn’t necessary on email inputs but extremely useful on chat features or text fields
- Avoid time limits or allow them to be configurable to provide enough time to complete forms or tasks
Shortcut keys and skip links
- Provide alternatives to shortcut keys for those who can’t press two keys at once
- Provide skip links to navigate past repetitive content (show skip link on tab, for example, skip past heading and navigation)
Tabbing & keyboards
- Semantic markup, make sure actions and important content are reachable through a keyboard (divs and other elements can’t be tabbed to)
- With the above point in mind, we don’t need to tab to every item on the page like paragraphs
- Links, buttons, and form fields should all be keyboard accessible
- Avoid keyboard traps, can’t move off-field, or go back (auto-tabbing prevents going back)
- Document the tab order on wireframes/mockups and handover to dev, use a logical order (top to bottom, left to right)
- Embedded media players and other programmatic objects must provide full keyboard support on the pages they are embedded on
- Ensure there is a visible focus state on each tabbed element on the page so users remain oriented
Target sizes
- Spread out targets and make them bigger across all screen sizes to help avoid the wrong target being hit
This list scratches the surface on designing inclusively for physical disabilities. This course on LinkedIn learning is well worth watching:
As are these articles:
- https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-intro/
- https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/
- https://accessibility.digital.gov/ux/tab-order/
Up next
I’ll be discussing how to design inclusively for speech impediments. The problems they face, their behaviors and needs, the tools they use, and how we can design to include them. If you found this article helpful and are interested in the final article on the various disabilities, press Follow and stay tuned.
What design tips do you have when designing for physical disabilities? Let’s all share our knowledge and help each other out in the comments!
