Panel Session: Inclusive new media design
Experts reveal eight keys to accessible Web design
Eight keys to designing inclusive Web sites usable by people with learning difficulties were revealed at the Rix Centre this week. A panel of experts pooled their advice for Web designers and came up with the top eight to improve accessibility:
- User testing;
- Design for assistance;
- Use symbols to enhance accessibility;
- Big is beautiful;
- Use multimedia;
- Personalise;
- Go beyond inclusion and create something special; and
- Integrate accessibility into the budget.
User testing
There is no substitute for real user testing, advises Ann McMeekin, freelance Web accessibility consultant. Users with learning difficulties have to be involved with the testing early on.
Design for assistance
Design Web pages so as to enable assistants to sit with those with learning disabilities and work together. This includes keyboard control of what happens on the screen, says Nick Weldin, Multimedia Profiling Worker at Paddington Arts and a freelance.
Use symbols
Symbols, especially when combined with speech, can enhance accessibility. Designers can use symbols for navigation or go as far as having fully “symbolised” pages. “Anywhere you can use text you should be able to use symbols,” says Simon Detheridge of Widgit Software.
Big is beautiful
Make all the visual items on the page larger, advises Antonia Hyde of United Response, the learning disabilities and mental health charity. Make icons, graphics and pictures large. Make any control to change colours etc very large. Make access points and signposts large. And make help options large, says Hyde.
Use multimedia
Use a range of media reinforcing each other to improve inclusion, says Jonathan Hassell. Hassell looks after audience experience and usability at the BBC.
Personalise and go beyond inclusion
Create something special for groups of different users with different abilities, says Hassell. What may work for one, does not work for another. For example, what works for the blind may not work for those with learning disabilities.
Integrate accessibility into the budget
Do not put accessibility features as a separate line item in a budget, warns McMeekin. It is then far too easy for managers who control budgets to cut it in order to lower the costs of the project.
The panel of experts was convened and chaired by Andy Minnion, director of the Rix Centre. It completed the Centre’s Inclusive New Media Design (INMD) courses. Designers spend two or seven days debating accessibility issues and developing designs alongside the learning disability community.
