Accessible design: a positive impact for everyone

“Accessibility allows us to tap into everyone’s potential.”

Debra Ruh, CEO and Founder of Ruh Global IMPACT

Our increasingly interconnected world offers the chance to proactively create ethical and relevant products that we can use to embrace societies, cultures and individuals with diverse disabilities on a global scale.

Accessibility sits at the nexus of inclusivity and innovation. And accessibility means creating the conditions for everyone to be able to meet their objectives without encountering any obstacles or challenges.

The four principles of accessibility provide a comprehensive framework for enhancing the overall usability of a product, resulting in more user-friendly experiences for everyone by ensuring equal access and opportunities. The content presented should be:

• Perceivable – users must be able to comprehend the information. 
• Operable – user interface components, navigation and interactions have to be easy to use. 
• Understandable – user interfaces should be clear and intuitive. 
• Robust – content should remain accessible as technologies and user agents evolve, including assistive technologies. 

Providing accessible products and services is the key to ensuring equal access and opportunities. Moreover, accessibility features benefit everyone, including people without disabilities.

Planning, developing and updating products and services with accessibility in mind provides many benefits to organisations. The list is very long, topped by broadening the potential customer base; proving your ESG commitment, particularly in the Social sphere; and improving the experience for everyone: accessible products and services are better for everyone.

In turn, this encourages brand trust and loyalty, leading to increased positive reputation and engagement, as well as increasing compliance with the Social aspects of ESG regulations. Ultimately, it can increase your bottom line. What’s not to like?

How can organisations ensure that their products and services are accessible?

Developing content and products with accessibility in mind is about making sure people with all types of disabilities can access a product or service, no matter how they encounter it, in an equitable way.

The goal is to meet the objectives of the product or service while being useful to, and understood by, as many users as possible.

Let’s take website copy. Good writing is about clarity and readability. Complicated information should be concise, using plain language that is easy to understand. The content should be in relevant paragraphs, using bullet points where necessary. And footnotes to elaborate on more complex points.

We should always use clear, descriptive language, providing visible labels and easy-to-use navigation bars. And we need to use colour and design carefully by using some contrast, and presenting simple and consistent layouts.

As creatives, we are aware that the design process is very rarely a linear journey. However, that doesn’t mean that we cannot bring a compass along the way to help us find the right direction. When it comes to accessibility our course is determined by two elements: organisation and empathy.

We need to organise the workflow by addressing accessibility at every stage of the project. Although it might seem limiting at first, adhering to guidelines and standards could pave the way for new creative prospects while keeping the designs open to a wide audience.

It is very important we keep these principles in mind as we go through a project. The editing process often brings in lots of voices and we must not allow accessibility to get lost.

Who is my audience? What are their needs?

The short answer is that you can never know the specific details of everyone in your audience. That means we have to be empathetic and put people at the heart of the process. This is all about openness and flexibility. The more we focus on those factors, the more accessible and human will become.

Allocating resources to research and careful planning at the outset always produces better results, more informed decisions, removing the need for time-consuming and expensive adjustments further down the road.

Achieving a positive impact is about taking action. Let’s discuss how we can help you create communication materials that are accessible and inclusive.