Accessibility

Every year I challenge myself to learn something new and push my limits.

This year it's [Learning about Accessibility] and making sure my team at Octagon produces experiences online/offline that everyone can participate in. I am happy they are onboard with working with me on this. I am VERY grateful for my team.

So what is accessibility and why is it important? First I think we need to understand there are differences with online vs. offline as it relates to accessibility.

But let's break it down to a very simple discussion around designing for accessibility.

As perfectly stated on https://uxdesign.cc/ ... Designing for people with disabilities, we’re mostly considering the following impairments:

• 👁 Vision — Blind, low vision, colour blind
• 👂 Hearing— Deaf, hard of hearing
• 👌 Physical or Motor — Fine control, slow motion
• 🧠 Cognitive or Neurological — Learning impairment, distracted, decision-making

"All of which come in varying degrees; Permanent, Temporary and Situational." But if you design for permanent you 100% make a better outcome for all of your users. Here are the three types of degrees:

• Permanent vision impairment — someone with complete/nearly complete loss of sight
• Temporary vision impairment — could be someone that’s undergone eye-surgery and can therefore experience limited vision for a set period of time
• Situational vision impairment — could be as simple as not being able to see your screen while sat on a sunny beach

I am going to be challenging myself and my team to always be looking at permanent.

I wanted to share another article I have been reading that might be helpful to you as well:

[What is web accessibility?] by https://uxdesign.cc/

A few sentences from this from this article that caught my attention are as follows:

"Technology has turned into an integral part of humans’ lives, and it is offering new possibilities that make everyone’s life much better. Some of the solutions are used in today’s industries, but also in universal design.

According to Google, there are around 7.53 billion people in the entire world, and 4.48 billion use the internet. That means, 58% of the population can use the internet if needed. It is a fantastic number in many ways.

From the world’s population, there are 1 billion people with disabilities. Some disabilities make consuming specific content harder and may require these people to use assistive technologies in their everyday life.

However, people with disabilities can’t access web content if it is not meeting the accessibility principles. These users are missing the possibilities that come with technology. All users should have access to them."

To be honest... I am posting this so I can network with experts in this field and learn more.

The more collaborating, the more diversity in thinking.

For those of you who are deep in this, let's chat. For those of you exploring, let's chat.. there is so much to learn and improve on... but it's important we accelerate our work in this field because in this digital / contactless world we are entering in - we need to make sure we are treating all humans the same.

Ok.. let's use this post as a resource hub for anyone looking to learn more... post your comments, articles, vendors, or challenges below...

Thanks for reading and listening

With love x gratitude - Sebastian