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Accessibility will soon be a legal requirement, but good user experience design already takes it into account

David Roland, client director, Stratticus: ‘If you don’t build accessibility into your sites, you’re excluding people. It’s as simple as that, really’

Looking good and having the right functionality are at the top of most people’s checklists when it comes to developing the websites and apps that deliver their services, but there is a vital third leg to this particular stool, and it is one that is only growing in importance: ensuring your services are accessible to users, including those who can find usability hampered by issues such as visual impairments. In other words, accessibility.

“It’s a legal requirement for public sites, government-backed services essentially, but private businesses have until around 2025 to get their house in order. Nonetheless, it’s important to get it right,” said David Roland, client director at design agency Stratticus.

Indeed, under the European Accessibility Act, a 2019 European Union directive, accessibility will soon be mandatory for private businesses. The act states that services – including websites, mobile services, electronic tickets and all sources of information for air, bus, rail and waterborne transport services, as well as e-commerce and banking – must be accessible for persons with disabilities.

However, Roland said businesses and other organisations needed to think beyond simply complying with the law. Instead, he said, they should realise there is a business case for accessibility: failing to be accessible is refusing service.

“If you don’t build it into your sites, you’re excluding people. It’s as simple as that, really,” he said.

Stratticus – whose clients include the National Council for the Blind of Ireland, Vision Sports Ireland and Ireland’s main authority on digital inclusion, IA Labs – is proud to offer one of Ireland’s first dedicated accessible digital design services, he said.

While most organisations do consider accessibility, it has tended to be seen as a matter of box-ticking. This approach is not good enough, he said, and instead accessibility should be a core of the user experience (UX) design process.

“It needs to be built in as a process,” Roland said. “People think about UI [user-interface] and UX, and it’s part of that, so it should be built-in, not just be a box-ticking operation. You should be trying not just to satisfy your clients – that’s expected – you should also seek to wow them, to delight them.”

Done right, accessibility does not hinder design, and has no negative impact on the development side either.

“There’s no reason to not do it. It certainly doesn’t have to be a monotone website. There are some restrictions, of course, so, for instance, you need good colour contrast so that people with visual impairments can read it. Remember, you’ve got to consider sight loss of all kinds. It’s a massive spectrum,” said Roland.

From a process point of view, this means starting with understanding who will be using your website. Doing this will give a clearer indication of how to meet users’ needs.

“You need to look at your personas, all of the different people who will use your service,” he said.

Stratticus has recently undertaken training in order to bolster its understanding of accessibility.

“IA Labs is leading the charge on digital accessibility. They offer courses on accessibility, and we had our designers, developers and account managers be part of it, trying to help them understand it, including in relation to PDFs and video, which often feature on websites. We’ve tried to make it a priority within the organisation,” said Roland.

As for clients, Stratticus has had a range of responses, with forward-looking organisations welcoming it while others have been slow to adapt.

“We’ve had clients say things like, ‘We’re covered for accessibility because we have a plug-in,’ and that means they’re not covered because simply adding a plug-in won’t work,” Roland said.

Both large and small organisations can adapt to accessible UX, though they tend to face different challenges.

“It’s open to everyone. A larger organisation will have a larger site, but they should have the budget. A smaller organisation will have to consider the budget, of course, but it should be easier as, typically, their site will be smaller,” he said.

“Quite often it’s about education. Web sites are organic, they grow daily, so a lot of it is about making sure people add content in an accessible way: if you’re adding a video, ensure it’s got subtitles; if it’s a PDF, ensure it’s structured so that a screen reader can read it.”

When you think about it, Roland said, good user experience is a key part of our daily lives, so both user-interface design and digital UX more broadly have an impact well beyond pixels and bits.

“UI is part of UX. UX is the broader user experience. You have UX in the lived, physical world as well as in the digital world. These days, for every touchpoint a client has with you, there should be a consideration of their experience. Whether it’s going to the dentist, where you might make the appointment via digital, then physically go and finally also have aftercare, or whatever it is, it has an effect on everything,” he said.

In such a context, failing to consider accessibility means turning customers away. So taking accessibility into account is a must.

“You’re effectively opening your doors to people who couldn’t get in before,” he said.