The Americans with Disabilities Act turned 20 years old yesterday, and that fact (thanks NPR!) got me thinking about accessibility in designs.
An Accessible After Thought
My experience as a designer has taught me that accessibility issues don't factor into a lot of UI design decisions (primarily because either the designer doesn't think about them, or someone controlling the money says it's too expensive), or if they do it's after the design is finished and someone talked to a company lawyer. Accessibility is part of a truly user friendly design, and these considerations are just as important as any considerations about wayfinding, visual flow, hot spots, etc that you work though in your initial wire frames, even if what you're designing doesn't have to comply with the ADA.
Design for the Universe, then they can be your user too
I was just recently turned on to the idea of "Universal Design." It's not so much a new idea to me as the fact that it had a name was new to me. I love it as a theory. So often we think of things as well designed because they're beautiful, and that's definitely part of it. But beauty is worthless if you can't use the thing. And think about the commercial impacts of creating accessible products that are functional AND beautiful. How many more could you sell?
Twenty years after the passage of the ADA, we need to make sure that we as designers (whatever your particular flavor of design happens to be) aren't taking the strides we've made in the last 20 years for granted. Accessibility needs to be at the top of the design considerations list for everything for a design to be truly successful, and for us to keep pushing the limits of good design.
