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Accessibility: The Biggest Scam in UX
I can’t even possibly count how many times I have seen designers describing their work as accessible, throw around words like “inclusivity” and “universal design”, just to present a minimalistic — totally up to trends — white and *choose any color* prototype, thinking that’s it. Stop right now, I hate you.
Accessibility is more than a term
I know it’s tempting to add it to your skills. We live in a world where it is very much expected. And that’s great. But why do we keep bullshiting it? An accessible design is so much more than following a checklist from WCAG. It’s so much more than thinking about “making it easy”. I can’t stress it enough — quit with the terminology and try to actually understand what it means. How many of you included a person with impairments or challenges in your initial user research? Even more importantly, how many of you included at least one (!) person who needs it in your usability tests? If your answer to those questions is “hey, I do” then congratulations, you are one of the good ones and I respect that. But if you got surprised by it… please, never say you’re “big on accessibility”, “love to create inclusive things” or just simply do better from now on.
What accessibility really is
Since we are talking about the terminology already, all of us heard and know the measurements of usability
- Learnability — how easy is it to learn how to use the product?
- Efficiency — how quickly can the task be performed?
- Memorability — how easy is it to remember the patterns and navigation?
- Errors — are there errors? How many, how often?
- Satisfaction — was the experience pleasant?
But what does it mean in terms of the accessible approach? Let’s deconstruct it. The most common things to take into account are: cognitive impairments, auditory and visual impairments, mobility impairments, seizures, temporary and environmental challenges.
So, here we go. Let’s think about what a high score in usability testing would possibly look like for two different sets of people.
