Last part of the four part accessibility in design series! Written specifically for CS 352 Intro to Usability Engineering. Hopefully this has been informative and helpful for you!
The future is accessible. By that, I mean more and more people are placing an emphasis on accessible design over designs that meet the needs of only the majority. For example let’s take a look at some headlines during the release of a AAA video game, Cyberpunk 2077.
- “Cyberpunk 2077 Epileptic PSA” (Game Informer)
- “Cyberpunk 2077 sequences may cause seizures, developer patches in new warning” (Polygon)
- “Report: Cyberpunk 2077 Causes Seizure, Doesn’t Contain Prominent Warning” (Kotaku).
Video: A Journalist playing ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ suffered a seizure, then helped change the game (Washington Post)
This issue (referring only to epilepsy) only applies to roughly 1.2% of the United States population and 0.5% of the global population. But these oversights are no longer acceptable. And to their credit CD Projekt Red (the developers of Cyberpunk 2077) made a rapid patch to not only warn the player of the scene, but also make the scene more accessible for those with epilepsy by altering the flashing animation. This is, however, a prime example of reactive versus proactive development. And as developers, we should try and prevent harm to end users rather than react to situations where end users were harmed.
Now granted, accessible designs or universal designs cover a very large domain. EVERYTHING. So it’s not reasonable for one person to know how to create a perfectly accessible product. But it should be the social/financial responsibility of the developer to create a safe product that can be used by as large of an audience as possible. Otherwise, you’ll be in CD Projekt Red’s position where you’re apologizing to your fan base.
So keep in mind a few general principles when designing with accessibility in mind:
- Hearing
- Reading/Understanding
- Memory/Focus
- Touch/Interaction
- Speaking
- Visual
For example, can your users read your content, as well as hear it? Is touch screen functionality thoughtfully designed so users aren’t having to press tiny buttons? Or on the contrary, is your design so touch screen focused that users can’t interact in other ways? (keyboards, voice commands). While understandably frustrating to redesign a product in ways you hadn’t initially intended. Oftentimes the end-product is a much more well designed system for ALL users, and not just those users who you may have designed the new system for. Just like the screen reader system you may be using to read this post. Or Nike’s self-lacing shoes.
Finally, I’ll leave you with this TedxMIT talk by Judy Brewer, Director of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). A great foray into understanding ways to design with accessibility in mind.
Video: Creating an Accessible Future | Judy Brewer | TedxMIT
