dai11y 18/05/2022

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Accessibility: The Biggest Scam in UX

Dot Tomczak draws us in with a clickbaity headline, and rants about designers that claim their work is accessible without being able to back it up.

Dot says that following a WCAG checklist isn’t enough – how many designers have actually included at least one person with a disability in their initial user research?

A nice looking, minimalist, high-contrast design isn’t necessarily an accessible one. As Dot points out, there is such a thing as too much contrast. Designs may break horribly when zoomed in, or may make no sense with assistive technologies. Fonts may be at least 16 pixels in size (good) but the font itself may not be very readable (bad).

Dot implores designers to start including people with impairments, in their user testing. To start using your favourite apps and websites with accessibility settings turned on, to get a feel of how things should work. To test their products with accessibility tools. And above all, to “stop bullshitting that you mastered it – no one did”.

The comments on the article are largely in full support and agreement – including a number of famous faces from the world of accessibility (whose own articles I’ve covered in previous issues of frequent11y!).


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