The Basics of Accessibility: How You Can Reach More Customers
What does accessibility mean?
Why is it important for my business to consider accessibility?
How can I start to think about making my products and services more accessible?
LISTEN UP
Disclaimer: These materials are for your information only, and do not constitute legal advice. You should consult your attorney for advice on any particular issue.
Say you have a business making paper and digital greeting cards. Each has a hilarious and touching message that other companies just don’t deliver.
One day, you’re dropping off some paper cards at a bookstore and see people reading braille books. Suddenly, it hits you: people with visual impairments might have a harder time benefitting from your products.
You’re left wondering whether a lot of people, including people with impairments, might not be able to enjoy the creativity and craft of your cards.
But how many people in the world have disabilities?
LISTEN UP
While this lesson has a lot of tips to help you learn about accessibility, there are great resources available to help you learn even more.
Check out the lesson recap for links to other online sources that can help you explore making your business more accessible.
Whether you make greeting cards, sushi, or an app that rates appetizers, lots of factors can impact how people access your business.
For example, you might have customers who have to use a keyboard or an external device to navigate your app on their smartphones or who rely on a program to read the content of your website aloud to them.
How you design your products and services for people with a wide range of abilities, including those with an impairment, is known as accessibility. And developing more accessible products can help all your customers in the long run.
For example, say you’ve designed your business’ app to be controllable by voice. This accommodates people with limited mobility in their arms – but it also helps a non-disabled dog walker who only has one hand free.
To better understand accessibility, it helps to know about different kinds of disabilities and impairments.
Some impairments are situational, like not being able to look at your phone when you’re driving. Others are temporary, like briefly losing your vision with a particularly bad migraine. Still others are permanent disabilities, like being blind.
Designing for people with permanent disabilities can also benefit individuals with temporary or situational impairments. So think about those with permanent disabilities when making adjustments to increase accessibility.
Many impairments fall into 4 categories:
Visual
Anything that impacts a person’s ability to see, including perceiving color and light
Motor/Dexterity
Anything that impacts a person’s ability to use their body’s full range of motion
Hearing
Anything that impacts a person’s ability to hear
Cognitive
Anything that impacts a person’s memory, ability to use language, etc.
Visual impairments cover a wide range. People can have low vision, no vision, color blindness – even the inability to see a laptop on a sunny day counts.
Lots of tools can help people with visual impairments use computers and phones. Web browsers’ zoom functions, screen magnifiers, and programs that improve the contrast between text and background colors can all improve accessibility.
There are also programs that give the work of the eyes to the ears. Screen readers, for example, read words on the screen aloud.
Remember that greeting card company of yours? If you’ve set up your website to work with screen reader technology, someone who’s blind can open an online card, hear it read to them, and have a chance to enjoy a chuckle.
Visual impairments also include how people see color. So consider relying on more than just color to convey information. If a user enters the wrong password, for example, try an alert that also includes on-screen text.
As with visual impairments, motor and dexterity impairments may alter how people interact with their devices.
For example, some people with a repetitive stress injury (or RSI) like carpal tunnel syndrome may find it painful to click a mouse. Others might have a motor impairment that makes it difficult for them to use a touchscreen.
To access digital content, people with motor impairments might pair a keyboard or other hardware with manual switches to a smart device. They may also use programs that let them control their devices with their voice or their eyes.
Hearing impairments might range from being deaf to trying to hear someone on the other end of the phone when it’s windy.
When building an experience which heavily relies on the use of audio or video, consider how a user who is hard-of-hearing might access that content.
Let’s say your imaginary greeting card site has an intro video for new users. You can consider including captions or a transcript to help those who might not be able to hear the voice-over or dialogue.
Using captions may benefit people who can hear, too. People might see your video when their volume’s off at work or when they’re commuting. Captions could help them learn just how hilarious and creative your cards are.
Lastly, some people have cognitive impairments. These kinds of impairments may affect how people take in and understand content.
DO THIS NOW
A website can be a great place to start improving accessibility. Let’s take a look at your current site or a site you really like and see if there are opportunities for improvement.
If you’re participating in the course, go to the next section to access your self assessment.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Designing for people with disabilities can often help every customer get more out of a website, app, or product, too.
There is a wide spectrum of disabilities and impairments, but many fall into 1 of 4 categories: visual, motor/dexterity, hearing, and cognitive.
Disclaimer: These materials are for your information only, and do not constitute legal advice. You should consult your attorney for advice on any particular issue.