Why we should care about a11y?

If you design with a disabled person in mind, you’ll create a better product for everybody to use. Here’s a few products designed for disabilities that you may not be aware of.

Jun 29, 2023

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Why Designing for Accessibility Helps Everyone What is a11y?a11y as a Movement, Not Just an Abbreviation a11y Goes Beyond Websites a11y is a Global Movement reference

Why Designing for Accessibility Helps Everyone

How do we help disabled people get in and out of buildings safely? Automatic doors. Automatic doors can also save businesses money – they open only when needed, they cut down on energy waste which directly implies a reduction in heating costs plus no fingerprints on the doors either so no need for extra cleaning.

Accessibility via elevators is not just used by people in wheelchairs - parents or carers with children in pushchairs and toddlers, older people perhaps with health issues or mobility aids, shoppers using supermarket trolleys to take their shopping to their cars, even young people needing to check their mobile phones etc. all happy users. How helpful will this be for all of us as well as those in wheelchairs as we able bodied people with suitcases/pushchairs/bad knees battle the stairs?

Almost every mall you visit now has ramps. Trust me, it isn’t to beautify the building or help toddlers enjoy running up and down them. The ADA(Americans with Disabilities Act) guidelines compel public places to provide ramps so people in wheelchairs can access into and within the building. These ramps are part of the normal fabric of the malls now being used by everyone not just those in wheelchairs.

Much of our daily communication has been influenced by ideas originally designed for people with disabilities. Vinton Cerf빈턴 셜프, the computer scientist at Google, was hard of hearing. In the 1970s he was part of an initial research team trying to find ways to share documents with colleagues without talking on the phone. Their 1981 network led to our sophisticated internet.

SMS texting was invented by Finnish inventor Matti Makkonen마티 마코넨 with two other Finns, Seppo Tiainen세포 티아이닌 and Juhani Tapiol 유하니 타피올. They figured out a way for deaf people to communicate with one another without speaking. But global communication was transformed when it was revealed that text messaging presented a more effective solution for saving Telecom bandwidth.

Now text messages are universal. Stuck in traffic? Running late for a meeting? Need to make dinner reservations? Just text. It’s in writing. It can be accessed when you have time. It is able to be read and understood easily. It can even be ignored. “Oh I didn’t get your text!” Even popular instant messaging services like WhatsApp and Telegram were inspired by text messaging.

Predictive text was designed for users with motor problems to easily type their message. It’s difficult to imagine using your smartphone now without having access to the predictive suggestions. In fact, SMS messaging was designed for deaf users to begin with!

Have you ever been on your commute and watched a video on Instagram or Youtube? More and more organizations are adding captions to their videos, great for the commute and great for the hard of hearing.

Ever tried to learn a new language? It’s not easy. Well, it just got better. Try bilingual captions for movies. Since the passage of the ADA, captions are used to assist people who are deaf or hard of hearing but can be used for those trying to learn a second or third language too.

Captions have been widely adopted in movie theaters and cinemas to aid non-hearing moviegoers to have an enjoyable movie experience. But that’s not all it has done. Many non-deaf moviegoers would rather watch captioned movies. Captions helped if the dialogue had accents, mumbling or background noise. Captions also help those with learning disabilities, attention deficits or autism maintain their concentration.

I think everybody has some issue. Some people, when you get older, you can see contrast less. You really can’t see a gray text on a gray background. It looks very posh, but for many people just can’t read it. If you have an iPad and you hold it in the sun and the contrast isn’t good enough, you can’t read it.

Using high-contrast colors for foregrounds and backgrounds will benefit users with visual impairments and it will also assist others without them needing to squint or experience eye fatigue. If animations are used with flashing frequencies between 3 and 50 hertz (about 3 flashes per second) it can trigger seizures in susceptible individuals, and it has also been shown to be rather distracting and annoying to others. Everybody has benefit from accessibilty.

Just not only color contrast, but people who can’t use mouse. Imagine you’re surfing the web with a beer in one hand, or what if you’ve broken your wrist? Filling in a form without being able to tab between fields would be incredibly frustrating. If you want to use a website with keyboard only, if the website’s built accessible you can access everything with only a keyboard.

There are also people who can see and who can speak, but can’t use their arms. They navigate a website through speech. They can say “press that button” or they can give commands to their computer to navigate a website. There’s all kinds of different ways people can navigate.

Then there’s, of course, the people who are blind. They get the website read out so it has to be decently built to actually work that. There’s also people with limited sight who can see only, for example, through a straw. They see so much like you were seeing through a straw. If you have everything on the website wide apart, they have to search on the website for “where is it? Where is the submit button?” If the controls you are using for a form, for example, are close together, it’s much more easier for them.

There are a few examples. It’s not only for blind people, but it’s for a different kind of people. Just all kinds of aspects. These are “temporary or situational disabilities”, Microsoft’s inclusive toolkit illustrates this well.

Accessibility allows any user to access content using the widest range of devices and multiple abilities - including but not limited to, mobile phones, smart watches, smart TVs and other devices with small screens. Baby Boomers continue to challenge Web designers with changing abilities due to ageing. Some people have temporary disabilities i.e. broken arm or lost glasses, others may have situational limitations i.e. bright sunlight or in an environment where they cannot listen to audio. People using slow Internet connection or who have limited or expensive bandwidth also need to be catered for. People with dyslexia may wish to use the text to speech functions rather than just the text, as well as those who like to listen while multitasking. People with lower computer skills or reduced dexterity benefit from any site where the communication can be customized for them.

If you concerned about how to approach accessibility discussions with your clients, especially when they’re concerned about cost and thinking accessibility might add to the cost of their project. I want to say it’s the same as responsive. You don’t add to your quotation. “Oh, I will make it responsive, that will cost you so much extra.” You just make it responsive, it just comes natural now. Same for accessibility, you build it accessible. You don’t even have to tell them. You can explain somethings to them when they add content, like adding structure and add alternative text to an image, and then you can say, “It’s very good for Google.”

When accessible features are incorporated into your website, like alt text for images and captions for video, it optimizes your Search Engine. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) increases the amount of visitors to your website by obtaining a high ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine like Google. Users trust search engines and having a presence in the top positions for the keywords the user is searching, increases trust in your website - a good PR and marketing tool.

What is a11y?

You may have seen the term "a11y" floating around the Internet as a hashtag or popping up in tech discussions. Also referred to as upper case "A11y" and "A11Y," a11y is an abbreviation for "accessibility" that is more compact for the character limits on social media. The “11” in the middle stems from conventions in software engineering and Information and Communication Technology that shortens long words by substituting middle letters with the number of middle letters instead. There are 11 letters between the "a" and the "y," so accessibility becomes a11y. For another example, “l10n” refers to "localization," because 10 letters come between the “l” and the “n.”

Coincidentally, a11y looks like it would read phonetically as ally, which has been the topic of controversy in some circles on social media. No less, many technologists see a11y as a movement, and not just the simple act of making websites more accessible.

a11y as a Movement, Not Just an Abbreviation

a11y does not refer to a specific standard, measurement, or law that has to do with technology and accessibility. However, a11y is frequently used outside of social media and in tech circles to refer to the movement for more accessible Internet and technological infrastructure altogether.

Many people use the term a11y to refer to the audit process for ensuring that a website is accessible. Some web developers and UX designers, for example, refer to a11y as a scoring matrix to assess the entire user experience of a website, from first page load through completing the site's various functions.

The Web is fundamentally designed to work for all people, whatever their hardware, software, language, location or ability. Thus the impact of disability is radically changed because the Web removes barriers to communication and interaction that many people face in the physical world. History shows us that inclusion spurs innovation.

In the physical world, businesses and organizations include wheelchair ramps, Braille signage or audio signals, standardized door widths, grab bars and more. Yet websites, applications and other digital platforms often exclude potential users and visitors who have disabilities. None of us tend to hang around a website that is difficult to use, doesn’t work well, or is confusing to operate whether we have a disability or not. The Web removes barriers to communication and interaction that many people face in the physical world.

a11y Goes Beyond Websites

Websites rely on computers and other devices to provide access, so making websites themselves accessible doesn’t solve the whole problem. For technology evangelists, a11y goes deeper than website accessibility, focusing instead on how accessible an entire computer system is to people with disabilities, both hardware and software components. Keyboards, mice, alternative input devices, and other peripherals that are designed for the visually impaired and people with motor control issues are a major aspect of computer system accessibility.

However, a11y isn't just about connecting disabled users to assistive technologies, but also implementing hardware redesigns that benefit all users, such as laptops that are easy to open if a user is missing fingers. Making assistive technologies more readily available is central to the a11y movement. Most of the standard screen reader programs are available for free because they are open-source, but other programs are only available commercially. a11y advocates strive to make these programs free for all users.

a11y is a Global Movement

a11y is also not entirely restricted to specific countries such as WCAG and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. It refers to a global movement to make web content and computer systems more accessible. In a global economy that is largely digitally-driven, developers who participate in the a11y movement might use WCAG like as guidelines while striving to make websites and computer systems accessible worldwide and compliant with all nations' accessibility regulations.

An estimated 1.3 billion people – or 16% of the global population – experience a significant disability today. This number is growing because of an increase in noncommunicable diseases and people living longer. A disability is any physical, sensory, or cognitive impairment that makes daily activities more difficult. Many people are born with a disability. Others acquire a disability later in life, from an accident, an illness, or the aging process. Many older individuals are diagnosed with chronic conditions that lead to functional or cognitive disabilities. In the United States, for example, about 15 percent of people over the age of 65 require some form of assistance with their basic daily activities. Last year, 2.65 million people were registered with disabilities in Korea, of which 52.8% were registered with disabilities aged 65 or older.

Tim Berners-Lee an English engineer and computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web wrote in 2006 “The power of WWW is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.” He also said “I think, in general, it’s clear that most bad things come from misunderstanding, and communication is generally the way to resolve misunderstandings - and the Web’s a form of communications - so it generally should be good”.

The way to make that communication good is by including everyone regardless of their ability or disability. As I grow older and my eyes don’t focus as well as before just give me a bigger font - my disability will then disappear. A small change in accessibility reaps enormous benefits for me. Just think what a larger change in accessibility would do for others.