Inclusive Design Principles posts
Designing for people with reading disabilities
Design can overlook reading disabilities, but many people struggle to process written text. This post explains how to design digital content that's easier for everyone to read.
Designing for people who are D/deaf
We don't often think about design in relation to the needs and expectations of D/deaf people. However, many of the choices we make when designing products and services - from the positioning and labelling of items to the selection of form elements and the use of plain language - can have a significant impact on the experience of D/deaf people.
Designing accessible documents
Designing accessible documents means considering the needs and preferences of all people from the start. When documents are well-designed, they are easier to read and navigate for everybody.
Introduction to creating accessible documents
Digital documents and book files are a core part of our everyday communication. When documents aren’t accessible, they can exclude people with disabilities from integral learning, information, and content. Publishing accessible documents and book files ensures we can communicate the same information to people with disabilities, making this content accessible to everyone.
Designing for people who are blind
When designing products and services, we often think in terms of their visual appearance. However, some people use digital content without being able to see it. This means we need to design interfaces that remain understandable, navigable, and controllable even when people are unable to perceive layout, colour, and spatial clues.
By doing so, we ensure designs provide a comparable experience so that people who are blind can complete tasks in a way that suits their needs without undermining the quality of the content.
Guide to the Inclusive Design Principles
The Inclusive Design Principles (IDP) were first published in 2016 by myself, Ian Pouncey, Léonie Watson, and Heydon Pickering. We felt that while the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) set out what to do to meet technical compliance, many design decisions fall outside the scope of WCAG but still determine whether an interface is inclusive, usable, and welcoming.
The principles were developed to plug that gap with people-centred guidance that helps teams make better design decisions without adding unnecessary complexity. In this post, we'll look at who the principles are for, what they can be applied to, how they help people, and how you can integrate them into your own practices.
Why inclusive products are green products
More and more organisations are conscious about the environmental impact of their products - both physical or digital - and are trying to make positive changes.
Applying inclusive best practices when designing digital products results not only in more accessible products but also in more sustainable ones.
XR Accessibility: for people with hearing disabilities
Extended Reality (XR) experiences tend to focus on providing immersive sounds and directional audio to convey information. But we need to consider how we convey the information in these experiences to people who can’t hear them.
Considerations for TV user interface accessibility
TVs, set-top boxes and streaming devices are a huge part of all our lives and should be accessible so everyone can watch what they want, when they want, how they want.
We've started exploring challenges people with disabilities may face when interacting with TV apps and considerations for people designing and developing TV app interfaces.
Inclusive XR: accessible augmented reality experiences
In our second post about creating accessible experiences within Extended Reality (XR), we highlight some key considerations for designing accessible augmented reality (AR) experiences with our AR TetraLogical principles cube.
You can also explore Inclusive XR: accessible 3D experiences.