Design & Product
UX Design Thought Leader
1 in 6 people globally experience some form of disability.
The WHO’s World Report highlights a critical point: If your website or mobile apps are inaccessible, numerous audiences in today’s digital world may be excluded.
Accessibility is both inclusive and necessary!
Accessibility involves creating products and services that are usable by all, regardless of disabilities such as visual, hearing, motor, cognitive, vestibular disorders and seizures.
Creating a visually appealing website is insufficient, both legally and practically. Rigorous accessibility testing is vital to discover and resolve obstacles.
This article covers accessibility testing. We’ll discuss why it’s crucial, provide helpful guides and tips, and show you how to include it in your work as a designer or researcher.
Accessibility testing ensures web and mobile applications are usable for people with disabilities, including visual, hearing, motor, cognitive, vestibular disorders and seizures.
The objective of the accessibility testing is to create an inclusive digital environment by removing accessibility barriers.
To achieve this, designers, developers, and testers evaluate the product against accessibility standards, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), to resolve issues.
WCAG 2.2 outlines four key principles and practical guidelines for incorporating Accessibility into your digital experience. These can be referred to by the acronym POUR.
Explore the differences between Accessibility and Usability Testing.
let’s make trust the foundation of every project you work on.
Making your product accessible is best practice and a strategic investment in your brand’s reputation and future success.
Therefore, accessibility testing isn’t an afterthought and should be integrated early in development; addressing it later becomes costly. Let me explain why:
Websites and apps must be globally accessible to people with disabilities.
Many countries have established mandatory accessibility standards, such as the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), Section 508 and similar international standards.
In 2023, organizations with under $25 million in revenue faced 77% of accessibility lawsuits. This report highlights the critical importance and need for accessibility trends.
Avoid costly lawsuits and reputational damage by ensuring digital accessibility products.
Around 16% of the global population experiences some form of disability, be it partial, temporary, or permanent.
By prioritizing inclusive design, you can connect with a broader audience.
Designing with disabilities in mind benefits everyone, as illustrated by the curb-cut effect discussed in this article.
Embracing inclusivity is a social effort that genuinely enhances the organization’s reputation.
Adopting accessibility expands a company’s customer base, increasing revenue and customer loyalty. Companies that overlook this can lose trust and receive bad reviews or even litigation.
Accessibility frequently aligns with strong usability practices, enhancing the experience for all users. This approach can represent a long-term investment.
Accessibility features such as intuitive navigation, image alt text, and keyboard controls benefit all users, including those with temporary disabilities such as a fractured arm, or those with situational challenges like using a smartphone in bright sunlight.
It is challenging to cover all disabilities. Instead of distinguishing between those with and without disabilities, we should emphasize universal design in digital products to meet diverse user needs with empathy.
Let’s focus on key disability areas for accessible design.
Visual impairment includes more than blurry vision; it may involve colour blindness and low eyesight from age or accidents, impacting image processing in the brain. We can enhance accessibility by:
Auditory impairment involves any degree of hearing loss, with or without the use of hearing aids. We can enhance accessibility by:
Motor impairment means difficulty with movement. This can include muscle weakening, which makes it difficult for people with motor impairments to walk or lift things. We can enhance accessibility by:
Cognitive impairment means difficulty with thinking, learning, remembering, using judgment, and making decisions. We can enhance accessibility by:
Vestibular disorder disrupts the inner ear’s balance, causing dizziness and instability. We can enhance accessibility by:
Everyone interacts with technology differently. Thus, we must perform thorough accessibility testing for all our usable digital solutions.
This crucial step helps us understand how people with disabilities interact with our products and identify areas for improvement.
Next, let’s explore who should be involved in the testing, and how to perform it.
As designers, we play a critical role in ensuring an inclusive user experience, guiding a product from its initial concept to its final delivery.
However, accessibility isn’t just a designer’s job, but also a team effort. By leveraging the team’s collective expertise, we can create and enhance an accessible product.
How can you find the perfect participants for your research project? Explore some great ways on UXArmy.
Accessibility can be pretty complex. Let’s start with a simple guide:
Accessibility standards are continuously evolving, so it’s beneficial to revisit the accessibility principles and guidelines like the WCAG and the A11Y project.
Alternatively, I recommend reading books that discuss more details on accessibility:
Incorporate accessibility into your workflow by adopting inclusive design principles for all users.
Develop a checklist for thorough reviews within the design team, using this basic checklist from the UK government as an example. Use it as a starting point to discuss more details with your developers.
Conduct manual checks for common accessibility issues:
Encourage developers to use automated testing tools like WAVE, Axe Dec Tool, and Lighthouse to identify issues quickly. But be aware that these tools may not catch everything.
After your design is built, involve users with diverse disabilities in usability testing to gather real-life feedback and identify barriers and usability issues.
After gathering user feedback from tests, it is essential to prioritize fixing the issues and iterating your designs. Remember to test again if necessary.
It is helpful to record all accessibility issues, solutions, and lessons so that you can share the insights with your team.
Designers and researchers must stay updated on accessibility advancements, including guidelines and initiatives, such as the WCAG and the A11Y project, to ensure compliance and user-friendliness.
Accessibility can go wrong at various stages of the product development lifecycle.
Let’s explore some common mistakes and solutions:
Problem: Text and background colors have insufficient contrast, making it difficult for low-vision users to read.
To fix this issue:
Problem: Users can easily get lost because of inconsistent navigation menus and a lack of sitemap or search functionality.
To fix this issue:
Problem: Users, especially those with cognitive disabilities, rely on clear page titles and breadcrumbs to understand their location within a website and navigate effectively.
To fix this issue:
Join countless professionals in simplifying your user research process and delivering results that matter
Problem: Links are not visually or programmatically distinguishable from surrounding text, making them difficult for users to identify and interact with.
To fix this issue:
Problem: Images lack descriptive alt text, preventing screen readers from conveying visual information to users with visual impairments.
To fix this issue:
Include an alt text description (e.g., alt=”photo of a house with a neatgarden”) for the image or video. This is helpful when the image or video fails to display correctly.
Problem: Users often struggle with forms because they lack labels and insufficient guidance. When faced with lengthy forms, it is common for users to abandon them.
To fix this issue:
Problem: Focus states are not visible, making it difficult to navigate and interact with the website solely through the keyboard.
To fix this issue:
Three types of testing techniques:
Start some manual tests alone or with other designers:
Work with your developers to conduct automated testing that uncovers accessibility issues. Utilize tools like WAVE, Axe Dec Tool, and Lighthouse.
This approach will conserve time and effort time.
Usability testing with users with disabilities provides invaluable insights by reflecting real-world user experiences. This ensures your designs are inclusive and accessible to diverse users.
This method is most effective once your design has been developed using a code base.
Accessibility testing is an ongoing commitment requiring continuous support in your design process. Here are some key best practices for effective accessibility testing:
Accessibility testing is crucial for an inclusive digital world. Prioritizing it and conducting thorough tests will ensure products and services are usable for all, regardless of ability and disability.
WCAG guidelines and testing tools are essential for product accessibility and addressing usability issues.
Along with the user testing feature, UXArmy’s user panel can help you find participants with diverse disabilities. Contact us for suitable participants, or start testing with UXArmy today!
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