Design for everyone
Posted 9th December 2021 in Accessibility and Design
The closing comments of a recent CSS-Tricks article are great:
Just remember: apply carefully, and always be mindful of accessibility/UX. Magically evolving designs are great, but only if they are great for everyone.
Design is a hugely responsible role, and one of those responsibilities is ensuring everyone can use our websites, products, services, and applications.
We have to think about the content; for example, should we:
- Use video if we can’t afford the time to add subtitles or a transcription?
- Use abbreviations and symbols without explaining them first?
- Link to other places when it isn’t clear where the user will land?
Then there’s how users interact with our site:
- Are we using colour alone to convey meaning?
- Have we thought about visible keyboard focus states for interactive elements like links, buttons, and form fields?
- Does content change unexpectedly when a form field is filled in a certain way?
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg…
I’m reminded of a line from, of all places, Jurassic Park:
Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.