Six steps towards accessible design for all
At its core, design is about empathy. Designers create products and services for other people, so we should become experts at putting ourselves in others’ shoes. But in a competitive ecosystem that demands more and more product considerations, value and quality are increasingly traded for cost, marketable features and speed to market. Too often, accessibility in design is an afterthought and some users are left behind. .
Accessible design returns product designers to the basics. It’s about ensuring that the primary problem to solve is fulfilling a very specific need – that of creating products or services that are usable by people with a variety of physical and cognitive disabilities.
It’s something that designers will increasingly need to prioritise, not least because of the European Accessibility Act, which comes into force in 2025. The legislation intends to ensure equal access to digital products and services throughout Europe and while it will initially only apply to sectors such as technology, banking and transportation services, it is expected to be extended to other areas in the future.
Beyond such legislative pressures, what’s interesting about designing for accessibility is that it often results in novel solutions that improve usability for everyone.
Challenges with ensuring accessibility for all
This shouldn’t be a polarising debate. Accessibility has always been at the heart of great design. When the Italian inventor Pellegrino Turri, for example, created one of the first typewriters for his blind lover at the start of the 19th Century, his idea inspired the development of the computer keyboards, laptops and smartphones that were designed hundreds of years later. Similarly, text messages were originally developed for the deaf so they could use mobile phones to communicate. Now, 23 billion texts are sent every day.
Exclusion can happen to anyone. An estimated 16 million people in the UK (or 24% of the population) currently have a disability according to the Department for Work and Pensions. More will develop accessibility needs later in life, or experience a temporary or situational disability (such as not being able to use one hand because they have a broken arm or because they’re holding a young child). Well-designed accessible features can bring benefits to all users in a number of different contexts.
Over the past 10 years we have seen two new dominant interaction methods mature: the capacitive touch screen and voice. But there are limitations to both. Touch screens require constant hand-eye coordination, as there are no other clues as to where or how to interact with it. The content or context also changes, so visual confirmation is needed to understand the controls.
Voice controls are improving but language is nuanced and very context driven. Regional accents can be an issue, as are privacy concerns because of the need for instructions to be given loudly. Most systems also struggle to process when a command has started, what parts of the command are relevant and if there is any additional context that should be applied.
Six steps to accessible product design
As designers, we need to recognise that a user’s needs can change over time. We need to do our best to enable equal opportunities and enhance the user experience for all abilities. It’s not only the right thing to do, morally and ethically, but it’s also good for business. Designers should create solutions that can be used by the widest possible audience, without the need for special adaptations or modifications.
Here’s how we prioritise accessibility at TG0:
1. Embed accessibility into the design process from day one
Championing an inclusive mindset can create even more innovation and creativity.
The user problem to be solved has to be at the top of the agenda from the very start of a project. We also commit to testing with a diverse range of users throughout the development process.
2. Consider how people adapt to existing products
if a product already exists, we consider the in-use problems or barriers that users experience. These might be ergonomic, mechanical issues around learned behaviours, for example, or issues with how users approach the product at all. By studying the ways different groups work around existing products, designers can create better solutions that fit their needs. Considering accessibility in the process of product development opens many other possibilities.
3. Think about context
Keeping context in mind helps give users reassurance and a feeling of familiarity. When designing something new, for example, it helps to consider historical references. The location of the gear stick in a car, for example, is generally understood in terms of positioning and how it operates. Electric vehicles use a similar position and movement pattern to give driver’s cues on how to drive, even though they don’t technically need that functionality.
4. Move in iterations
When making changes to an existing product, it helps to move in iterations to boost acceptance and useability. Product designers should test a theory with end users as quickly as possible, using the ideate, prototype, test, observe, and consider model. Move in small increments and use passive observation techniques by talking through the testing process to understand how someone is interpreting the object and interaction in a particular way. Questions such as: “what did you do then, why did you do it, would it make sense if…” will help designers uncover some of the more subconscious decisions that users are making.
5. The power of touch and texture
Texture is an under-used lever when it comes to accessible product design. Each fingertip has more than 3,000 touch receptors, more than almost any other part of the body. TG0 uses this premise to create controls users can feel with their fingers, bringing tactility and findability into how someone engages with products. It’s a more intuitive and flexible way to control a device, and opens up experiences to people who might find other products limiting. Haptic feedback and cues have largely been lost in the shift to touch screens which don’t incorporate mechanical movement. Feeling a response, such as a vibration, is really important when confirming that something has happened. However different people have varying preferences when it comes to that positive confirmation. Light switch controls, for example, can also be cultural as well as situational – different countries have different “click feels”, which cannot be interchanged.
6. Simplify
If in doubt, return to your design priority – the problem you’re trying to solve – and remove elements and features that may divert attention from this. At TG0, our ethos is for simplification through integration and to use as few parts as possible, which also has environmental benefits.
Throwing out the playbook
Good design requires products to be usable by everyone with as little deciphering as possible. At TG0, our technology elevates accessible design concepts and enables designers to throw out the playbook and reimagine user interactions for greater accessibility. It’s often by looking through the lens of those who may have accessibility needs, that we can identify solutions that improve usability for everyone. And putting the user first always leads to better design.
++ Interested in learning more about our work on accessible design? Explore our use cases.
