Category: UD and ICT

The inventors of Zoom could not have predicted the level of use during COVID lockdowns. It is one of the easiest to use and one reason it is popular with business and families. It also has provision for live captioning for people who have difficulty hearing. However, the purpose of video platforms is to see who you are talking to. But what if they are a fuzzy block of faces? Here are some tips on Zoom for people with vision loss. 

Sheri Byrne-Haber’s has some tips to make Zoom meetings more equitable for people with vision loss. 

• • • If you send out presentation materials in advance, people using screen readers can download and magnify them. That way, they don’t have to ask the presenter “can you make that bigger?”
    • If you embed text in images they just pixelate when they are magnified. That is, all you can see are pixels – dots.
    • Use good contrast. Low contrast is still difficult to read with a screen reader. Larger does not make it clearer. Neon colours are difficult for some autistic people. Best is off white with charcoal or navy blue. Stark black and white is not best. 
    • No fancy fonts and make them a decent size. No Italics. Bold or colour change is better for emphasis.

Byrne-Haber has more detail in her blog post and it is worth a read. As she says: Don’t be the barrier. Be the solution. 

Universal design is a thinking process. Once you start incorporating these ideas into presentations it starts to become second nature. 

When a government department or access committee starts talking about access maps and map accessibility, where do you begin? Of course there are consultants to help with this, but it’s good to have some idea of what to put in the brief. It’s also a good idea to know if the right thing has been delivered. A toolkit or guide for maps would be great but there’s a little to be found in lay language.

Technology moves fast. So toolkits and guides for digital maps soon become out of date. Another problem is they can’t stop software updates from stripping accessible features. And then there is is the issue of inadvertently uploading or linking inaccessible content on websites. But not all is lost. 

Access maps and map accessibility are distinct areas of endeavour.  However, we would want a digital access map to also be accessible. City of Sydney has an example of an interactive digital access map.

 

Making access maps accessible

Many people use Google Maps and similar apps to help them navigate the built environment. They focus on road networks and points of interest but lack information for pedestrians. Google has an option to list individual “accessible places” such as a park. But this is of little use to someone with vision impairment. So how to make access maps accessible?

There are two key accessibility issues. One is collecting and integrating access information into maps. The other is designing digital maps so they are accessible to users with diverse physical, sensory and cognitive abilities. There is a third issue. Some local governments have an access or mobility map, but these are often buried on a website somewhere. Many people don’t know they exist. 

A conference paper has more detail about the challenges faced in designing and creating digital accessible access maps. The title is Grand Challenges in Accessible Maps published on the ACM website.

Resource list

Here is a list of links that cover basic and technical issues of map accessibility including non-digital maps. Thanks to Jo Szczepanska for sharing the list. 

An article by The Paciello Group explains the issues clearly and has other useful links for non technical people. 

A plan for accessible maps is an easy to read webpage that sets out the basics. A good starting point.

The W3C website has a section on different types of accessible maps including tactile maps. Static maps and interactive maps are covered in Map Accessibility.

Accessible Maps on the Web is a magazine article from the US. It’s a bit more technical but illustrates some of the issues. 

A research paper specifically for visually impaired users has recommendations and example solutions. This one is technical.  A more digestible article is Design Accessible Maps – UX guide. 

A UK Government blog page discusses accessible flood maps. There’s also Mapping Standards for interactive maps. Maps for emergency situations also need to be accessible. 

Another resource for digital applications is Gregg Vanderheiden’s Accessibility Masterlist. It covers everything you can think of. Each feature is coded for either blindness and low vision, language and learning disabilities, physical disabilities, and Deaf and hard of hearing. Some links take you to products, others to related research papers. Prepare to spend some time going over the lists and links. 

Digital designers are great at creating icon puzzles for users. They make a good guessing game until you learn what they represent. We see icons everywhere – on microwaves, washing machines, and of course, apps. Like abstract paintings, icons have different meanings for different people. We might like ambiguity in art, but not on our smart phones. That’s why icons need labels. 

Icons are used as a way to save space, or where space for instruction is limited. But designers make a lot of assumptions about previous experience with instructions. Hampus Sethfors explains that saving space at the expense of usability is not the way to go.

In his Axesslab article, Sethfors uses the example of trying to download a TED Talk on a smart phone for viewing later. He explains why icons are ruining interfaces and that icons need labels otherwise users give up and become unsatisfied with the app. Sethfors also uses Instagram, Gmail, and Apple apps as examples of what not to do. He goes on to look at icons on a washing machine dial, and then to icons that really work. You can really see the difference in the examples shown below. 

A related article from Axesslab is how to improve web page content. It shows practical examples of how to improve accessibility and how to avoid simple pitfalls. 

The Australian Network on Disability has a blog page on writing accessible social media posts.  

A light-hearted tone is no cover for the serious nature of accessibility. Hampus Sethfors explains “the dad-thing comes with a ton of accessibility needs”. Carrying a baby means the loss of one or both arms and hands. He also found he had less brain processing capacity. As Hampus says, accessible design is parent friendly design, and he explains why.

Holding a baby is a classic example of situational disability as described in the Microsoft Inclusive Design Toolkit. However, smart phone voice control and access to a headset means he can listen to a podcast. Other parent disabilities are mostly related to having less brain processing capacity. Sleep deprivation and constantly thinking about keeping a baby alive are just two factors. Captions on Netflix means he can keep the sound down or off completely.

This blog post is written in a lighthearted way, but there are important messages that all designers should heed. The access lab blog has easy to read content and is a great example of how to write more inclusively. Most of the articles are related to digital technology, but the principles are valid in other fields of design.

The Web Accessibility Guidelines aren’t just for web designers and tech people. We all need to have an overall grasp of what they are about. As we do more online it is important we don’t make things inaccessible by mistake. Claire Benidig introduces the concepts of accessibility in UX design using the guide from Microsoft.

Cognition, Vision, Hearing, Mobility and Mental Health are all covered in an easy to read way. So, non-tech people can understand.

If we know about the basics of web accessibility, we can give a decent brief to a web designer. Then we will we can check if the Web Accessibility Guidelines were built in. Many designers still think of accessibility as an add-on feature.

Claire’s article is titled, Accessibility in UX Design.  She says that accessibility is not confined to a group of users “with some different abilities”. Anyone can experience a permanent, temporary or situational disability. An example of situational disability is having just one arm free because you are holding a baby or the shopping. 

Microsoft inclusive design principles state:

“Exclusion happens when we solve problems using our own biases. As Microsoft designers, we seek out those exclusions, and use them as opportunities to create new ideas and inclusive designs.”

UX and Mental Health 

It’s safe to say that everyone has experienced a website or app that is difficult to use. But little is known on how difficult interactions with apps and websites affect people with mental health conditions. UX design, or user-centric design, is associated with digital and website design. However, UX is not quite the same as co-design with actual users.

Danae Botha says that “a confusing UX could trigger anxiety” and repetitive tasks can make depression worse. Repetitive alerts are not great for someone with an attention disorder either.

Design for mental health reduces or eliminates features that can aggravate symptoms of a disorder. For example, automating menial tasks may decrease the risk of boredom-induced depressive symptoms.

In her article, Botha offers some tips for organisations and companies to minimise communication barriers. She covers many of the different apps available such as Teams, Jira Slack, and Miro and explains their pros and cons.

The title of the article is, Kinder Tools: How to Improve Enterprise UX Design for Mental Health.

Talking to users: an introvert’s guide

What if you are a designer and you’re not sure how to engage with your user base? According to a UXDesign blog post, many designers are introverted and don’t know where to start with user interviews. A fear of talking to strangers brings up many thoughts: 

I’m no researcher, what if I don’t ask the right questions?
What if I say something to offend the person?
How do I not contaminate the responses with my own views?

So some tips for stepping outside the comfort zone are helpful. The article has some practical advice such as, don’t jump straight into the questions without some light introductory chat. And fix the things you didn’t like about the interview process for the next time. The title of the article is An introvert’s guide to starting user interviews.

However, it might be the case that the personalities that go into ICT are not the people who are good at user interaction. This might be why higher education programs are not producing graduates who are skilled at this side of the design process. Indeed, according to an article from Norway, the institutions are not training people to even meet basic legal design requirements for accessibility.