Slides based on content from Profs. Richard Ladner, Jake Wobbrock, and Amy Ko.
Everyone has different abilities
Nearly 1 in 5 People Have a Disability in the U.S. (from the U.S. Census)
Disabilties can be temporary
Disabilties can be situational
Disabilty affects all of us
Designs that account for all abilities are called accessible designs
Enable your phone's screen reader
Input works differently now. For example, tap now reads the screen and double-tap selects. Use two or three fingers to scroll by page. Play with it for a minute.
Try closing your eyes and reading a webpage or a social networking site. Try writing an email.
Medical view
Legal view
Sociocultural view
Design for as many users as possible, not just the average user
Example: Airplane cockpits:
Universal Design is often used in archetecture
Instead of focusing on the abilities that someone lacks (dis-ability), and trying to compensate
Focus on making systems work with what abilities people have
Don't make people adapt to the system
Make the system adapt to the abilities of the user
First two are required, other five are recommended
Document structure: e.g., <article>
, <strong>
Provide metadata: e.g., <html lang="en">
Provide alternatives: e.g., img alt tag, video captions, transcripts, allow both keyboard and mouse input
Avoid directional text: eg. "the diagram on the right shows..."
Note: These design prinicples help in other ways as well
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines: https://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag
Web Accessability Evaluation Tool: http://wave.webaim.org/
Color Schemes: http://colorbrewer2.org/
Color blindness checker: http://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/
Text readability: http://juicystudio.com/services/readability.php