Accessibility-According-to-those-with-Disabilities

Accessibility According to those with Disabilities

This all started with a tweet asking those on the internet who have disabilities what can be a struggle on the web.

Lack of captions

• Videos without captions(subtitles) was said the most.
  • Videos without captions can exclude users who are deaf or hard of hearing and could also affect users who forgot headphones on the train, or a place where sound can’t be played aloud. Sometimes even autistic people rely on captions if their senses become overloaded. It can be confusing if a person is talking off screen for them.
  • Do not rely on Youtube’s auto subtitling, it isn’t completely accurate yet.

Example

Motion, animations, cluttered pages

• Can annoy users without disabilities, but can be really frustrating for those with cognitive impairments.
• Can be very distracting to users with ADHD.
• Mouse Over effects/animations, sudden autoplay, etc. can frustrate the user.

Motion example

Animation Example

Cluttered example

Wall of text

• Large chunks of text can be a challenge for those with dyslexia or cognitive impairments.
• Neverending sentences and complicated language can be a challenge.
• Large paragraphs, too many moving images, too much content as videos (especially help files), no subtitles, pages with too much going on.
• Best solution would be to create more paragraphs with sub-headings, and utilize bulleted lists when you can.

Wall of text example

Small font size

• There’s no minimum font size requirement in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, even though it affects so many low-vision users.
• Small font with low contrast to the background image or color can be terribly hard to read for low-vision users.
• Make sure that if a user increases the font size it doesn’t break the site.

Small font size example

Zooming Problems

• Users with low vision point to layout and navigation problems when zooming or increasing font-size.
• Zooming can break the layout.

Low contrasts and image of text

• Color contrast is still a major problem in a lot of interfaces.
• Lack of contrast between font color and background color.
• Photo backgrounds that overpower the text on top of them.
• Vital for web designers and art directors to understand how to measure and create accessible color schemes.

Low contrast example

Low contrast video example

Bright color schemes

• Looking at white screens all day can cause eyestrain and headaches.
• The ability to switch to a night mode can help users with eye strain.

Bright color schemes

Relying only on color

• Color-coded toggles, heatmaps, etc, can be hard.
• Text links without underline can hard for users to understand they’re links.

Mouse-focused sites

• Many sites rely on mouse interaction. Especially for navigation on large screens.
• Sites that insist on using mouse over as the only means of menu triggering is an issue.
• For users with motor impairments that navigate using only their keyboard, a clear focus outline is vital to being able to navigate the web.

No Mouse Challenge

Too small touch-targets

• Areas being too small or too big, users accidentally hit them.
• Multi-touch gestures can be challenging for some users as well.

Captchas

• Non-accessible captchas can a extremely difficult for users with vision impairment.

Take aways

• Web accessibility is about so much more than just blind people with screen readers.
• Basically everything that people with disabilities comment on are things that annoy everyone, so fixing these issues makes your interface better for all users!
• A lot of what people comment on is not covered by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. So you need to test with users with disabilities!