How do you incorporate accessibility and inclusivity features into tablet app designs?

1 Understand your users

Understand who your users are, what they want, and what challenges they face. You can use various methods to research your target audience, such as surveys, interviews, personas, user journeys, and analytics. Consider the diversity of your users in terms of age, gender, culture, language, disability, and other factors that may affect their experience with your app. Understanding your users will help you identify their needs and expectations, and design solutions that cater to them.

2 Follow accessibility guidelines

Follow the established accessibility guidelines and standards that apply to your platform and industry. For example, you can refer to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) for web-based apps, or the Android Accessibility Guidelines and the iOS Accessibility Guidelines for native apps. These guidelines provide recommendations and best practices on how to make your app accessible for users with various disabilities, such as visual, auditory, cognitive, or motor impairments. Some of the common accessibility features include text alternatives, captions, keyboard navigation, touch target size, color contrast, and font size.

3 Use inclusive design principles

Employ inclusive design principles that surpass the minimum requirements of accessibility guidelines. Inclusive design is an approach that seeks to create products and services that work for everyone, disregarding their abilities, backgrounds, or situations. To achieve this, it's important to recognize diversity and uniqueness, involve users in the design process, offer choice and flexibility, provide clear and consistent feedback, and support user control and autonomy. This includes not making assumptions or stereotypes, co-creating with users from diverse groups, allowing users to customize their settings and preferences, using simple language and icons to communicate with users, respecting their privacy and security, and giving them control over their data and interactions.

4 Optimize for different devices

Optimize your app for different tablet devices, screen sizes, orientations, and input methods. Tablets can vary in terms of their physical dimensions, resolution, aspect ratio, and pixel density, which can affect how your app looks and functions on different devices. Utilize responsive design techniques to ensure that your app adapts to different screen sizes and orientations, and use media queries, breakpoints, and relative units to adjust your layout, images, and fonts accordingly. Consider the different input methods that users may use to interact with your app, such as touch, stylus, keyboard, mouse, or voice, and design your app accordingly. Ensure that your touch targets are large enough and spaced apart enough to avoid accidental taps, and that your app supports gestures, swipes, zooms, and scrolls.

5 Test and iterate

Test and iterate your app with real users from diverse groups and contexts. Testing your app with users can help you identify any issues or gaps in your design, and gather feedback and suggestions for improvement. You can use various methods to test your app, such as usability testing, accessibility testing, beta testing, or A/B testing. Use tools and resources to check your app's compliance with accessibility guidelines and standards, such as the Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool (WAVE), the Accessibility Scanner for Android, or the Accessibility Inspector for iOS. Based on the results of your testing, you should iterate your app design and make changes or enhancements as needed.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?