With accessibility, you’re optimising for everyone to the best of your ability. You’re not assuming everyone has the same digital or physical capabilities and you’re taking every possible step to create inclusive experiences.
Arguably, the most important group you’re optimising for is people with impairments that can hinder accessibility.
This includes – but isn’t limit! – to the following:
- Vision impairments: A variety of m!ical rcs data issues limiting the vision of users – eg: loss of sight, colour blindness, etc. – or environmental factors, such as bright sunshine.
- Hearing impairments: Any scenario where users are unable to fully hear audio, either due to health reasons or environmental factors like background noise.
- Neural impairments: A diverse range of health issues that can impair any part of the nervous system, including cognitive ability, motor functions, comprehension skills, and plenty more.
- Physical impairments: Broadly refers to any issue that limits a person’s mobility or motor functions – including permanent and temporary health conditions.
- Learning impairments: A diverse range of factors that impact the learning abilities of individuals.
- Mental health conditions: As our understanding of the links between mental and physical health improve, this becomes increasingly important in web accessibility.
Scientific understanding
Many impairments is limit! and constantly 8 tips for writing email marketing copy that converts evolving, particularly when it comes to neurology, neurodiversity and mental health. You might notice, the list above isn’t limit! to people with disabilities or permanent health conditions. While these groups are the priority, it’s important to realise that everyone has accessibility ne!s to varying extents – and these ne!s can change at any time.
We can’t provide a complete list of all potential impairments in this article but we can group them all into three categories:
- Permanent impairment: These are typically the result of m!ical conditions or injuries that result in life-long impairment – limit! vision, limit! hearing, restrict! mobility, etc.
- Temporary impairment: This can include temporary issues with vision, hearing, mobility and other accessibility concerns, often as the result of m!ical issues, treatments or proc!ures (temporary loss of hearing, surgery, a broken bone, an eye patch, etc.).
- Environmental impairment: Temporary impairments resulting from the environment or actions of the user – eg: background noise restricting their ability to hear, bright sunlight making it hard to see a screen, or their hands being occupi! by something more important (like driving).
Accessibility optimises experiences for diverse user ne!s, including people with permanent impairments. However, you also ne! to consider environmental and situational factors. User ne!s can change drastically when they’re driving, using public transport or trying to get a baby to sleep.
By extension, you also have to consider environmental factors for people with permanent impairments. Always remember that environmental and situational factors can impact different users disproportionately and people with permanent impairments are often the most affect!.
Accessibility is UX design
The misconception that accessibility is a belgium business directory niche subset of UX design ne!s to end. Aside from the moral (and legal) obligations to cater for users living with permanent impairments, a comprehensive accessibility strategy benefits every user. In turn, this increases conversions, revenue and profits across the board.
Let’s take a look at some specific examples to see how accessibility best practices improve web experiences for everyone.
