Inclusive design
Adopt an inclusive design mentality.
- Celebrate accessibility requirements as a set of design constraints that help you create a better product for all users.
- Gain a basic understanding of the main categories of disabilities, limitations, or constraints that affect how people use digital services –
- Vision disabilities – such as blindness and low vision, color blindness,
- Hearing disabilities – such as deafness and low hearing, tinnitus
- Motor problems – such as hand tremors, physical deformities or amputations
- Cognitive disorders – such as dyslexia, dementia, or being sleep deprived
- Understand that almost everyone experiences some type of disability either permanently, temporarily, or situationally. For example: having only one arm is a permanent condition, having an arm in a cast is temporary, and holding a baby in one arm is situational – but in each case you’re restricted to completing tasks with one arm.
- Look for ways that making your product easier to use for folks with disabilities also improves the experience for everyone.
- Design for progressive enhancement by making sure every person is able to use your product using the most basic technologies, while layering on better experiences for those who can use them.
- When conducting user research, make sure the diversity of your participants reflects the diverse abilities, circumstances, and backgrounds of your actual users.