Accessibility must be a default feature of product designs. As the world evolves to be more inclusive of all people, regardless of race, gender, and disabilities, so too does the digital world. Many web developers and product designers are now giving importance to how accessible their products are to all kinds of users, including people with disabilities.
So how can you make sure that people with unique needs can easily access your website? Hiring product designers is a foolproof way to ensure universal accessibility. Limeup is a qualified web developer who can help your business website have a better ranking. Product designers at Limeup can tailor-fit a product design that is most suited to your brand, requirements, and preferences.
What is Accessible Product Design?
To have an accessible product design means allowing all users to navigate through the software comfortably and without any hassle. Anyone must easily access your website, regardless of their disabilities, generation, and condition. It must be user-friendly, especially for people with temporary or permanent impairments like visual, auditory, cognitive, physical, and speech disabilities.
The accessibility of a website means disadvantaged individuals can scroll and move through your website without any difficulty. For instance, to be accessible to a visually impaired individual requires your website to incorporate good color contrast and readable text. You may also include a text-to-speech function for people who can hardly see and read.
Another example in the case of a temporary disability is when a parent visits your website while holding a baby in one arm. The user must easily read the content, view graphics, and move through web pages using only the user’s workable arm.
Importance of Accessibility?
Accessibility is not only an issue in the tech or digital world. More importantly, it is a human rights issue that must be addressed in all aspects of life, offline or online. We’ve enumerated reasons why accessibility is important for your product design.
Better User Experience (UX)
Website accessibility is consequential to users’ experience. Because an accessible product design means ease of access, use, and navigation, users are likely to enjoy their time and experience on your website. Accessibility will also benefit not just users with disabilities; Those who don’t will also enjoy a seamless user experience.
Compliance with Website Accessibility Laws
Countries like the United States have rules and regulations on the inclusivity of websites and applications. According to website accessibility laws, software and digital technology must be inclusive for all people with impairments, regardless of their disabilities. Thus, you could face legal charges if you fail to ensure universal accessibility of your product designs.
Higher Lead Generation and Conversion
Since a highly accessible website provides users with a better experience, more people are likely to visit your website. Improved traffic also means a better probability of lead generation and conversion. Users, including those with disabilities, are potential customers that you can persuade into buying your product or engaging with your brand through improved accessibility and user experience.
Inclusive and Non-discriminate Branding
Brand image and reputation say a lot about a business or company. What do you think people will say about your brand if you treat people with disabilities differently? To avoid being labeled as discriminatory, you must develop an all-accessible product design, prioritizing the needs of disadvantaged users.
How to Ensure Product Design Accessibility?
A basic understanding of product design accessibility is not enough to guarantee accessibility. Even product designers can overlook the accessibility features of their digital content, thus failing to achieve a universally accessible product design. You need a team of highly experienced product designers with technical expertise to ensure ease of access for people with unique needs.
Use Proper Colors and Themes
The themes and color combination of your website are vital accessibility elements. They are key to the readability and clarity of your web content. Thus, you must use appropriate color contrast for the text and background of your website. This way, users, especially visually challenged individuals, will not have a hard time reading and understanding your website.
Think about your Texts
A large part of your website consists of texts and paragraphs which are integral for the accessibility of people with dyslexia and visual impairments. You must conduct research to ensure that your texts are easy to read for people with visual problems. For instance, you must know the correct font style, size, effect, and character spacing to use to aid people in reading and decoding the information on your website.
Consider Touch Targets for Mobile Users
Essentially, touch targets or touch zones in mobile phones are parts of the screen that are easily reachable by the human thumb. The touch target is normally at the bottom of the screen because single-handed users can easily reach this part using their thumb. You can consider this information when designing your product to ensure that mobile users can easily navigate through your website or app.
Perform User Testing
One best practice of professional web developers and product designers is conducting user testing. If you want to ensure universal accessibility of your application or website, you must perform these tests with a wide variety of users, including those with special needs and impairments. This will allow developers and designers to identify design elements and features that must be edited to suit the needs of different users.
Why Do You Need Accessibility Testing?
Accessibility testing is an imperative step in ensuring that you have an all-inclusive digital product. Sometimes, no matter how meticulous you are in designing a product, you will still fail to see gaps and accessibility issues in your web design. Thus, performing accessibility testing will help determine these shortcomings, so you can revise your website to be a more inclusive product.
Product design accessibility is key to inclusivity. Web developers and designers now realize the importance of universal access in generating traffic and better lead conversion. Through an accessible product design, you’ll be able to penetrate your market effectively such that more users, with or without disabilities, are able to access your website.
Featured image by Stefan Schweihofer from Pixabay
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