Subtle accessibility

I remember one occasion in playschool (back in the days when I could still get away with watching Postman Pat and Sesame Street without people giving me worried looks) when we were tasked with designing a bookmark for our parents.

For a start, mine was by far the biggest – and if you've ever seen a braille book you'll understand why. The braille version of the ironically entitled Little Oxford Dictionary, for example, spans 16 hardback volumes, each book roughly the size and weight of two laptops!

The second important difference was that my design wasn't flat. I didn't just use pencil, paint or felt tip pens. String, straw, bits of pasta; anything that I could use to make a design that could be appreciated with touch as well as sight.

I'm not sure how my Mum and Dad were both supposed to take advantage of a single bookmark, but they were impressed nonetheless. I used to come home with pockets full of sand, which they were less impressed with.

The same thinking comes into play today whenever I send a greetings card. Have you ever sent a birthday card to a visually impaired person? Did you feel it? If you were to close your eyes, would it seem identical to every other card on the shelf? There are cards made specifically for blind people but, frankly, they're not designed to look pretty. There are much nicer handmade cards with tactile designs on the high street, if you're willing to spend a little more time and money. You could even get a braille message embossed inside.

The frankenstein microwave

My Mum's got a talking microwave. It means she can do whatever she wants without help - but it's ugly as sin and has a voice like Davros, king of the Daleks. It began life as a standard microwave before being butchered by an access technology company who basically replaced the manufacturer's control panel with their own 'accessible' version.

Unfortunately they also removed the visual display, so there's no way to see what you’ve programmed or tell how long there is left to cook; you have to ask Davros. Annoying for me (sneaky pizza at 3:00am was always impossible) and completely inaccessible to someone who is deaf.

They've done their best to add accessibility, but there's only so much they could do and only so many people they could support when the product had already been designed.

The humble light switch

Close your eyes and put your hand on a typical flick switch. It's either down or up and you can instantly tell whether your lights are on or off. It works for nearly everyone, regardless of how good their sight is. Replace those mechanical flick switches with dimmers, snazzy touch-sensitive pads or a futuristic clap-activated system, and you're up the creek.

Of course blind people aren't the only people who need to operate light switches. Move that same flick switch a little higher up the wall and you introduce a barrier for wheelchair users.

Look at your computer keyboard, specifically the F and J keys. Notice the tactile markings on those keys? Look at your phone – you should see something very similar on the 5. Next time you use a vending machine or a lift, notice the tactile markings on the buttons. When you're walking down the street, pay attention to the texture of the pavement near pedestrian crossings. You've probably noticed the beep when it's safe to cross, but have you spotted the rotating signal under the button? Got a potato peeler with a chunky rubber handle?

All these things are about including people in a shared experience – inconspicuously and unobtrusively. People who need these things can take advantage of them without being treated differently; those that don't probably don't even notice they're there.

Web accessibility

On the Web, accessibility is often far from inconspicuous and unobtrusive. We try to bolt-on features and provide alternative habitats for disabled users. We even decorate our sites with badges and 'Accessibility Statements', not to help our users but to defend ourselves from legislation or to brag about our nifty text resize widgets.

Web accessibility is frequently sold as a product in its own right when, in fact, accessibility is an intrinsic quality in any website. It's not about widgets, gadgets or ugly adaptations; it’s not about finding clunky, convoluted solutions to problems.

A well designed website includes all its users in the same experience, in the same place, at the same time. And it doesn't make a big deal about it. The simplest, most humble solutions (the light switch) are often the best. Just make sure you're thinking about accessibility right from the start of every design project.

This blog post was written by Matt

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