A Peek at the Future of Accessible Experiences. Creative empathy.

Those who know me, are well aware that I am a strong advocate with the vision of a world in which people with disabilities or special needs are empowered and able to participate fully on the internet, digital ecosystems built for all with connected accessible experiences "for all", and even society. Its time to increase gravity on inclusivity and E-Quality.

Digital enablement is another form of social inclusion and must be treated as such to ensure no-one is left behind; that’s just not fair or right. Digital inequality can no longer be something we should accept as a society and you can make a difference no matter which role or team you are in.

In my day to day work, I have a personal self imposed KPI of increase in time spent fixing accessibility rather than just testing accessibility.

There’s a lot of talk around accessibility these days. In fact, it’s become such an important concept in design that guidelines are already set for designers to follow in the effort to make designs more accessible to as many users as possible. In a world that depends on technology for everything from navigating traffic to buying groceries, prioritizing UX that includes people of all abilities is crucial.

I have learned over the past decade with working with people with special needs that having a disability has its challenges, but it’s not bad, and it’s certainly not sad. Like the rest of society, people with disabilities are simply carrying on with their lives. Specially ables people are capable of many things, and can solve complex challenges better.

Imagine a remote learning scenario on PowerPoint that only includes images, and none of those images have labels. A blind student trying to look over that presentation would hear their screen reader mention that there are pictures, but that would be it.

Let's think broader about inclusivity, the new Nike Air Max 90 FlyEase have a collapsible ankle that snaps back into place as you step into them.

The heel is designed with athletes that may have difficulty tying laces in mind, but it’s not just a shoe for people with disabilities. It’s an awesome design that makes everybody’s life easier. I think it looks great too.

I love as Microsoft says Inclusive Design is a methodology, born out of digital environments, that enables and draws on the full range of human diversity. Most importantly, this means including and learning from people with a range of perspectives.

Since disability rates are increasing decade by decade, we can look forward to more technological advancements geared towards accessibility. 

So what exactly will the future with accessibility be like?

Internet access must be made available for everyone.

Another perspective is accessibility will only be more significant if more people are able to gain access of the Internet. Unfortunately, only 59% of the global population has access to it, which is why ONE, an anti-poverty organization started an initiative aimed at providing Internet access for everyone by 2030. 

Digital accessibility refers to the practice of building digital content and applications that can be used by a wide range of people, including individuals who have visual, motor, auditory, speech, or cognitive disabilities.

It doesn't matter if you are a designer, marketer, or in IT, you have the power and responsibility to make sure that everyone has access to what we create regardless of ability, context, or situation, and its not hard to achieve.

The great thing about making our work accessible is that it brings a better experience to everyone.

One of the novel ideas i have experimented in my early career which still works is a live Audit which builds empathy, trains the team, and helps them fix issues on the spot, rather than a Standard Audit that often produces a long report of issues that are too scary to do anything with other than bury in a drawer, hoping a Statement will save them.

With this effort underway, designers need to make sure that different types of users will have equal access to websites and other tools on the Internet by following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). 

Disabled people will build accessibility technology.

Designers are already adapting accessibility in their designs. But in the future, people with disabilities will also start to make accessibility technology that really caters to their needs. 

According to Jutta Treviranus, Director of the Inclusive Design Research Center, “In a world focused on the average and majority abilities, people experiencing disabilities inhabit a vast unexplored knowledge domain that takes up the ignored 80% of our diverse human needs. This domain is our next frontier.” 

People with disabilities know exactly what they need to make a product or service more accessible and they can already be co-creators in building a future of accessibility experiences that will benefit everyone. 

Accessibility experiences will be translated to transportation.

The future of transportation is now leaning towards self-driving vehicles that follow the rules of accessibility in order to give disabled users the capacity to travel alone. 

Hyundai has set its sights on providing a self-car that’s capable of navigating urban environments by 2030. Other automotive giants like Honda, Toyota and Ford are also following suit. 

There is also a strong business case for accessibility: studies show that accessible websites have better search results, they reach a bigger audience, they’re SEO friendly, have faster download times, they encourage good coding practices, and they always have better usability.

When this happens, we will all be seeing a true personal mobility revolution where physical disabilities will not limit people from achieving things that are hindered by their inability to travel by themselves. 

People with disabilities can already enjoy accessibility everywhere they go.

There was a time when partially sighted or blind people had to invest in expensive assistive technology just so they can function like normal people. But in recent years, the convenience of smartphones has made it easier for disabled people to get information when doing their grocery run, paying bills or even applying for a job, and experts see this trend growing in the future. 

According to Lui Greco, Manager of Regulatory Affairs in the Canadian National Institute for the Blind: “The gap is continuing to narrow as more and more applications are available that can help someone who is blind manage their personal affairs, make informed decisions, stay in touch with family, and participate in their communities.” 

The bottomline

The future is leaning towards accessibility not only because it’s necessary but also because more people are realizing that inclusion is very important in this world. 

In the case of designers, accessibility technology teaches the most important skill: empathy. When you look back at the very core of design, it is creating something that will solve people’s problems or answer their questions. Although that has been lost in the middle of the demands of function and style, the future of accessibility will allow us to see why design matters in the first place and it is because of empathy. 

When you are given the privilege to create something that will benefit the greater population, you have to put yourself in their shoes to really feel and understand their needs before you can solve their problems. 

AI and Accessibility

I predict AI and ML will be infused in screen readers of the future Operating systems so they can use machine vision to describe what they see even if alternative text descriptions are missing.

In meantime Operating systems evolve with screen readers having machine vision, there are advancements happening and the future is here where soon machine learning and artificial intelligence will mature and help auto-fix many issues if it's missed by a human, listing some issues below. Including meaningful alt text to images, logo, icons which makes screenreaders more meaningful. In addition ML & AI will help solve the following tactical issues.

·       Font handling - users can increase and decrease font size, change its family (type), adjust spacing, alignment, line height, and more. 

·       Color handling -for color-blind users, they can select various color contrast profiles such as light, dark, inverted, and monochrome. Additionally, users can swap color schemes of titles, texts, and backgrounds, with over many different color options. 

·       Animations – users with epilepsy can stop all running animations at the click of a button. This includes videos, GIFs and CSS flashing transitions. 

·       Content highlighting – users can emphasize important elements, such as links and titles. They can also highlight particular focused or hovered elements. 

·       Audio muting – users with hearing devices may experience headaches or other issues due to automatic audio playing. This option allows users to mute the entire website instantly. 

·       Cognitive disorders – link to Wikipedia and Wiktionary, allowing people with cognitive disorders to decipher meanings of phrases, initials, slang, and more. 

·       Other options – users can change the cursor’s color and sizing, view in printing mode, enable a virtual keyboard, and much more. 

·       Fix modals - many time the pop up modals do not work well with keyboard readers.

·       Screen-reader optimization: Providing screen-readers with meaningful data,using the ARIA set of attributes. Ensuring all Alt text data

·       Keyboard navigation optimization: entire site should be able to use the TAB and SHIFT+TAB keys, operating dropdowns with the arrow keys, closing them with ESC, triggering buttons and links using Enter, navigating between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, filling them in with the Spacebar or Enter key, navigate using key shortcuts and more. 

BONUS -

I highly recommend look at https://www.microsoft.com/design/inclusive/ before you jump to next article.

References:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/Accessibility/What_is_accessibility

https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/

https://medium.com/@bashford/awesome-accessibility-60cb6502ea03

https://modus.medium.com/the-myths-of-color-contrast-accessibility-4b7fcba77317

https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/

https://modus.medium.com/why-accessibility-is-the-future-of-tech-a3f535cc4f0e

https://www.boia.org/blog/accessibility-in-2030-what-the-future-of-tech-tells-us-about-the-future-of-accessibility