Accessibility for an inclusive society

Blog | Publish date: 17 Aug 2021

Accessibility is a crucial factor in creating an inclusive society. But making digital services and websites accessible does not require the time-consuming special adaptations that you might think. This is because if a product works for users with disabilities, it will work well for everyone. Linnéa Wahlfridsson, a UX designer at Softronic, gives her tips on the five top principles that you need to consider.

Accessibility for an inclusive society
Accessibility for an inclusive society

At Softronic we have many customers in the public sector, an area where many accessibility guidelines have to be followed. So I decided to work with my UX colleagues to compile a list of our top 5 accessibility principles to consider when designing or developing a digital service or website:

  1. Contrast – Make sure text and buttons have the right colour contrast so that they are easy to distinguish against the background. 3:1 is the minimum ratio, but it can vary. Also, remember to have a suitable contrast difference between active and inactive elements to make sure that the status is clear.
  2. Responsiveness – Make the page responsive so that you can easily zoom in or change the screen size. Of course this is an accepted cornerstone in the work on adapting services for mobile devices, but it also helps users with visual impairments.
  3. Structure – Design and develop pages so that elements follow a logical order. This makes it easier, for example, for people who use screen readers or tab their way through forms, but it also offers a generally better user experience for everyone using the page.
  4. Standard & Microcopy – Buttons and other interactive elements should have a standardised design and formulation to enable the function to be clearly conveyed in the design.
  5. Gestures – There should always be an alternative to interaction with physical movements. For example: if a function is activated by shaking the mobile, there should also be a button that produces the same result.

You might think that it is only a UX designer’s job to ensure good accessibility in the project; but this is not true. It is important for all roles to contribute their expertise and adopt an accessibility mindset in their work.

Do not let accessibility be downgraded to just an additional implementation stage during a later phase; immediately adopt an accessibility approach and incorporate these principles as an intrinsic part of the overall design!

For more accessibility principles and guidelines, visit WCAG: https://webbriktlinjer.se/wcag/

Contact

If you would like to know more, contact us at ux@softronic.se.