Accessibility — a better life for all
My friend was about to shut down his laptop when he triggered a text-to-speech application. I thought he was working on an accessibility project, as he had been working on his codes. Then it struck me. What if we can build our world to be more accessible to the physically impaired among us?
Accessibility refers to the ease with which those impaired can use a service or product — be it a website, mobile application, desktop applications or do basic activities like crossing the roads (with respect to a non-impaired person).
There are various types of impairment:
- Visual impairment refers to people that are partial or fully blind.
- Hearing impairment refers to people that are deaf or find it hard to hear.
- Motor impairment refers to people who suffer a partial or total loss of functionality of a body part, usually a limb or limbs.
Accessibility can be applied to design in all forms — architectural, application, customer services, and virtually anything that is used by humans. Accessibility is often shortened to “ a11y”.
A-11-y because there are eleven (11) letters between A and y.
Thus, I had a vision of using the Internet of Things (IoT) to improve accessibility. We can add solar-powered rechargeable IoT devices to traffic and street lights. With these, we can create communication with mobile devices tell the visually impaired when to cross, tell the person with motor impairment how close their destination, and so much more.
These are not necessarily outrageous ideas. In recent years, the internet has helped make it possible for designs and applications to be more accessible to people with impairment. Text-to-speech functionality on devices is a norm these days. This makes it easier for the impaired to adapt and get equally information in this digital age.
Going further, organizations and platforms like Webaim (web accessibility in mind), W3C and many more have provided resources to educate and enlighten people on how and the need to design and create products or services for all. Intuitive gestures designs of mobile applications, toilet space, street lights, road, stairs, etc. are characteristics of great designs and these can aid accessibility for the impaired. Applications like Chromevox makes it easier for people with an impairment to use the web. They can read this article and many more just like everyone else.
The Grow with Google initiative with Udacity first introduced me to accessibility and this broadened my design (thinking) process. Writing this is my way of letting more people know about accessibility and why we should make it part of our thinking process. As you creatively design products or services to be used by people, apply accessibility thinking to this process.
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