In the last years of my professional life, I have become more involved with accessibility than I was at the beginning of my career. Sometimes I wonder why. And I’ve talked to colleagues about what it’s like for them.

In my research, I have also repeatedly tried to collect best practice examples of accessibility. I was struck by how few good examples there are. Even the solutions from organizations that deal with accessibility are often not really convincing. Why is that?

One reason for this is certainly that most «Digital Designers» have not received adequate training in this area and have only rarely been made aware of this topic. In professional life, it is concrete client requests that lead designers to engage with this subject – very rarely do designers choose to dedicate themselves intensively to this topic on their own initiative. If they do, it is usually because they themselves have a disability or because there are people with disabilities in their environment, such as in their family or social circle. This results in 90 percent of my designer colleagues around me having only insufficient knowledge of accessibility. Most clients or digital agencies therefore have to turn to particularly specialized accessibility experts.

But isn’t this a shame for our profession? Shouldn’t every UX designer have a solid understanding of accessibility?

 

We follow formal guidelines rather than asking people with disabilities

Yes, the majority of design-relevant WCAG guidelines are indeed known to my colleagues and are also applied. But is that enough? They believe that by using a contrast checker, employing sufficiently large fonts, and designing functional labels in such a way that they are recognizable regardless of their color, they have done enough from a design perspective to adequately consider accessibility.

For me, the WCAG guidelines represent the minimum level of required measures. They were primarily developed with the aim of providing measurable and assessable quality criteria, not to offer «best practice recommendations» – which is a significant difference. I argue that a website that meets the WCAG AA conformance level is by no means a good website from the perspective of people with disabilities. Conversations with affected individuals have shown me this and explain why I find it so difficult to create a collection of best practices.

 

When the accessibility guidelines themselves become a barrier

It also explains why the WCAG guidelines are so difficult to understand, because they are written from a legal perspective, which makes them extremely difficult to apply. I can think of hardly any set of regulations that has as many help and explanation websites as the WCAG guidelines.

Instead of just asking each other what the minimum legal requirements are, we should ask ourselves what will help our users the most. As an accessibility-illiterate designer, I need more information than what is required by law. The «Denque Web Accessibility Checklist», for example, is helpful because it contains valuable best practice recommendations in addition to the WCAG guidelines – great!



Let’s imagine that when we design a website, we focus only on the legal requirements we have to comply with. Who would believe that this would result in good user-centred design?

Beyond accessibility, every designer knows that conducting user interviews, focus group workshops and user testing is necessary to develop a truly effective solution.

So I ask, how many of the sites that have achieved WCAG AA compliance have actually been tested with people with disabilities? How often have people with disabilities been consulted or invited to be part of the evaluation of the solutions during the conception phase? From my personal experience here in Switzerland, I would say that not even 5% of web solutions at WCAG AA compliance level have been approached in this way. Typically, they only rely on professional literature or experts who speak on behalf of people with disabilities. Is this really a user-centred approach in terms of equality?

 

Screenshot of WCAG guidelines
Even the WCAG guidelines are not a good example of inclusive accessible design. At best, they fulfill their own formal but insufficient conditions.

 

Taking a holistic user perspective


It would not only be fair, but also much more beneficial to consider all users in the design and not just the most frequent or average users, as is often done in UX research and testing.

Imagining how someone is blind, or even better, how someone who is blind uses a smartphone, can be an insurmountable challenge for people who can see. People without disabilities often cannot imagine the challenges that people with disabilities face on a daily basis and which aids are really useful and which are superfluous.

I often find that our clients want a ReadSpeaker or text-to-speech function on their website. This is because most accessible web solutions are planned or designed by people WITHOUT disabilities, WITHOUT consulting those concerned, otherwise they would know that visually impaired people no longer need this function (https://www.netz-barrierefrei.de)

It is therefore important that the designers and stakeholders involved in an accessibility project really «understand» what it means to be motor impaired, blind or deaf, and which aids are really useful and which are not. Otherwise, they cannot develop user-centered solutions that offer real added value for people with disabilities.

In order to gain this empathetic understanding, contact and discussions with those affected, i.e. the actual core target groups of accessibility measures, are essential. Only in this way can the needs of users with disabilities be fully taken into account.

This is the official signet of the Swiss Confederation for accessibility (Link to source). Is it user-centred? Have people with disabilities been included? Certainly not – because all the people I interviewed do not feel adequately represented by a wheelchair user. The sign is no longer up to date and does not do justice to the diversity of disabilities. In addition, the red colour was associated by many with danger or prohibition. It is not suitable for a comprehensive representation of disabilities, it appears passive, negative and not inviting or inclusive.

 

More Show Than Substance

I frequently encounter clients who come to us wanting to make an existing website «accessible» ???

This alone indicates that something went wrong in the preceding conception phase. It also shows that formal compliance with accessibility guidelines (for example, through certification) is valued more highly than actually aligning with the needs of people with disabilities. Those who have spoken with the affected individuals know how far this type of accessibility misses the mark.

Ask yourselves: What percentage of your personas in the last UX project were people with disabilities? Or what percentage of your test participants in the last usability test? According to the Federal Statistical Office, in Switzerland, 22 percent of the population is disabled in the sense of the Equality Act, meaning they have a disability that significantly impairs their participation in social life. Have you proportionally considered this percentage in your surveys and tests?

 

Inclusion in the conception process instead of subsequent accessibility checks

Why not prioritize accessibility in the next project planning, starting with the first meeting with the client? Often, accessibility considerations are only addressed towards the end of the conception phase, when many design parameters have already been set. Do you believe this adequately accounts for the interests of people with disabilities?

I would also appreciate it if particularly well-designed accessible websites were recognized with an award – and preferably by people with disabilities. This would definitely help me in my search for best practice examples and make it easier for many others to follow good examples.

And let me ask the group? Why is there no «Accessibility» category in the «Best of Swiss Web Award»? Huh?