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In 2023, Brands Need To Grasp The Full Diversity Of Web Accessibility Needs

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For far too long, and certainly, for the uninitiated, the important issue of website accessibility has been viewed as something related to blind users above anybody else.

When reflecting as to why this may be the case – there is no singular reason but instead, a multiplicity of factors at play.

For a start, though sight loss is a spectrum and can be driven by a variety of medical conditions, it remains a fairly linear and consistent disability for non-disabled web designers to, for want of a better word, envisage.

Due to the necessity for a high level of specialization, blind users also tend to broadly use the same assistive screen reading software in the form of JAWS for Windows from Freedom Scientific or Apple’s VoiceOver for macOS and iOS.

Accessibility, therefore, becomes a more measurable question of compatibility with this software as opposed to analyzing the wide variety of use cases and adaptations that may be associated with other disabilities.

Finally, blind users are fortunate enough to have the support and advocacy of powerhouse charitable organizations such as the National Federation of the Blind in the U.S. and RNIB in the U.K. who have been battling at the bleeding edge of the frontier of web accessibility since the earliest days of the internet.


More than meets the eye

Though, in 2022, much more needs to be done to ensure visually impaired users enjoy equitable experiences online – it’s all too easy to forget that there are millions of people around the world with different types of physical, cognitive and learning disabilities who possess entirely different access requirements.

Indeed, amongst other impairments – the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) outlines provisions for users with hearing loss, motor issues related to upper limb dexterity, as well as individuals with intellectual disabilities who may benefit from having content presented in clear easy-to-read formats.

In line with the spirit of the festive season and the aspirations of the new year shortly to arrive – earlier this month, U.K.-based digital transformation agency Cyber-Duck launched a campaign showcasing the full diversity of digital accessibility needs.

A spin on the 1994 Mariah Carey festive hit that nobody will be complaining they haven’t heard enough times this holiday season – All I Want For Digital is a campaign showcasing the ways in which web accessibility needs and aspirations are just as broad and diverse as the users they are intended to assist.

The campaign features insights from disability campaigners, Paralympians, creators and personalities with visible and hidden disabilities.

For example, former BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones who lives with Parkinson’s Disease told the campaign, “More and more I’m trying to use voice to tech software. But it’s not very good on websites. So, what I’d like for Christmas please is for every website to have that big red microphone symbol that I could press and off it would go. Instead of typing, I would be talking and that would make me very happy.”

“All I want for Christmas is an alternative way to be able to scan QR codes because currently, I am unable to pick up my phone to scan certain codes,” declared Isaac Harvey, President at Wheels and Wheelchairs who has Limb pelvic hypoplasia causing him to have no arms and short legs.

Giles Long MBE, Paralympic Gold Medallist swimmer, TV Presenter and Founder of LEXI has a very different wish list:

“All I want for Christmas is for online tools and applications to let me choose how I lay out my dashboards, in the same way that I can arrange my apps on my phone. For instance, in financial services – I have cards with four different providers but each one has a completely different interface that I’ve had to learn.

If I could choose my own layout, I’d set them all up in the same way, making them much quicker and easier to use. As things stand, it’s much harder to track my spending – although there is something to be said for not knowing how much you’ve spent over Christmas.”

In many ways, Mik Scarlet, a TV presenter and co-CEO of Phab who is also a wheelchair user, evoked the broadest coalition when he declared, “All I want for Christmas is that those people who design or own a website or app to have a mind shift change. To stop thinking that they’re designing for disabled people or for those people over there and remember that good products work for everybody.”


Universal design

This really gets to the heart of the matter because the fact is that designing for the disability community is never one-size-fits-all.

There are always competing needs, smaller more niche use cases and people who can shout louder and fight harder than others.

What is more uniform and applicable are principles of universal design whereby disabled and non-disabled users alike all benefit from digital products that are thoughtfully constructed and easy-to-use.

On the cusp of a new year when the web will undoubtedly be more mobile than ever before and will journey ever deeper into the virtual worlds comprising the nascent metaverse – Big Tech and small vendors alike would do well to sit up and pay attention to people's overlapping wants and needs for inclusive and engaging online experiences.

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