I want to discuss accessibility because it is a very important thing in making websites. Other A List Apart The articles give you new wisdom and insight. This article will give you homework. These are my personal opinions, but they are pretty good.
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I want to start with a few statements, and you will agree:
- Designers are good people. I’ve never heard a designer say, “I don’t care if someone can’t read this text”, “It’s not my fault if someone can’t use this device”, or “Who cares if this is confusing?”
- Some designs do not involve people. You’ve seen people unable to read text on a website or app designed by someone. You’ve seen people can’t use a portable device designed by someone. You’ve seen people go completely bonkers while trying to use a service designed by someone.
The first question is, “Is this life or death?” The answer is, “Yes.” In my favorite essay, This Only Is, Aral Balkan makes the point that almost everything we design can affect the events of life and the events of death. Aral gives an example of how a direct bus timetable app can affect life and death events, if we design it badly:
- another may miss a life event, such as his daughter’s fifth birthday party; or
- someone may miss the occasion of death, such as the opportunity to say goodbye to a terminally ill grandmother.
The next—and frustrating—question is, “Why are some designs still excluding people?” After all, we know that:
- not everyone can see perfectly;
- not everyone is completely deaf;
- not all think alike; again
- not everyone moves the same way.
I think the answer is that there is too much to remember. Consider, if you like, many different topics A List Apart cover articles. Designers are expected to keep all these guidelines in mind, as well as all accessibility guidelines, and more. There are too many.
Identifies accessibility issues while designing#section3
I would like to point out one possible solution, from Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. These are from the mid-1990s, and—although there’s a good chance you, gentle reader, are much younger than that—please bear with me.
Seeing the problem is that there is too much to remember, I want to look at heuristic №6, “Recognition instead of Remembering.” Jakob Nielsen said that for users, the information needed to use the design should be visible or easily available when needed. I suggest we fix that to make life easier for designers. Let’s say the information needed to produce the design should be visible or easily accessible when needed. In other words, let’s make it easier to spot accessibility issues while we design.
How are we going to do that? I really like the book The Web for Everyone—Designing Accessible User Experiences by Sarah Horton and Whitney Quesenbery. I really like this book not only because it includes a quote from me—actually two quotes, but I don’t like to brag—but because it brings together the right people to help us see accessibility issues. That’s good news. Even better news is that these people are now available for free on the companion website to the book What Every Engineer Should Know About Digital Accessibility, again by Sarah Horton, and David Sloan.
I will introduce you to these people now:
- Vishnu, an engineer and citizen of the world with low vision says, “I want to be at the same level as everyone else”, “If I can adjust my screen, I can read freely”, and, “Translation in my head is easy with simple sentences.”
- Trevor, a high school student with autism, says, “I like consistent, familiar places on the web”, “When I learn a pattern, I can find my way”, and, “Learning is hard for me”.
- Steven, an illustrator who is deaf and speaks American Sign Language, says, “My only disability is that not everyone signs”, and, “Without captions, it means nothing to me”.
- Maria, a bilingual community health worker, says, “I love this. It’s all there … when I get it”, “When it gets confusing, I just walk away”—if so, Maria!—and, “When I hear and see, health information makes more sense”.
- Lea, an editor who lives with fatigue and pain, says, “No one gets that this is really a disability”, “Don’t make me work so hard”—please don’t dress this lady down with a drop-down list—and, “The links at the top of the page make it easier for me to navigate”.
- Jacob, a blind legal assistant and professional, says, “The right technology allows me to do anything”, and “This makes me do my job”.
- Emily, who has cerebral palsy and lives independently, says, “I want to do everything myself”, “Easy screens are easy screens”—hell yes, Emily!—and, “Tell me what I need in advance”.
- Carol, a grandmother with macular degeneration that affects her vision, says, “My grandchildren draw me into the world of technology”, “I don’t understand what the screen is saying”, and, “Why can’t the text be a little bigger?”
I want to throw one person at you now, because, well, A List Apart students are very successful. One of my favorite writers, Cennydd Bowles—who wrote a book Ethics for the Future-It says to create Personas Non Grata. In other words, every time we design something, we have to think about what a bad person might do with that thing, and who that might affect.
To use these people when designing, I like what Eric Meyer and Sara Wachter-Boettcher have Real Life Design call Designated Composer: for each project you work on, one of your team should be responsible for asking, “Will this work for Vishnu?”, “How will Trevor proceed with this?”, and so on.
Then, once you’ve used people to identify accessibility issues, you can refer to the guidelines for any platforms you design:
Your purpose, if you choose to accept it#section5
I told you in the introduction to this article that I would give you homework. You thought I was kidding. So, here’s your homework: I want you to take people from the Know About Accessibility website, and use them throughout the design project to help you spot accessibility issues while you’re working—and reinvent the design for everyone.
NOTE: This article is based on “Recognise,” my five-minute presentation from the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) Dublin’s Defuse (Design for Use) 2025 event.
