Design for everyone

Posted 9th December 2021 in Accessibility and Design

The closing comments of a recent CSS-Tricks article are great:

Just remember: apply carefully, and always be mindful of accessibility/UX. Magically evolving designs are great, but only if they are great for everyone.

Design is a hugely responsible role, and one of those responsibilities is ensuring everyone can use our websites, products, services, and applications.

We have to think about the content; for example, should we:

  • Use video if we can’t afford the time to add subtitles or a transcription?
  • Use abbreviations and symbols without explaining them first?
  • Link to other places when it isn’t clear where the user will land?

Then there’s how users interact with our site:

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg…

I’m reminded of a line from, of all places, Jurassic Park:

Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.

Accessibility in your inbox

I send an accessibility-centric newsletter on the last day of every month, containing:

  • A roundup of the articles I’ve posted
  • A hot pick from my archives
  • Some interesting posts from around the web

I don’t collect any data on when, where or if people open the emails I send them. Your email will only be used to send you newsletters and will never be passed on. You can unsubscribe at any time.

More posts

Here are a couple more posts for you to enjoy. If that’s not enough, have a look at the full list.

  1. Images as the first thing in a button or link

    If the text of an interactive element like a button or link is preceded with an accessible image, we’ve probably got an accessibility problem.

  2. Alt text for CSS generated content

    There’s an interesting feature in Safari 17.4 that allows content added with CSS to have ‘alt’ text. I’m not sure how I feel about this.