Question of dealing with conflicts between aesthetics and accessibility comes up a lot and sometimes it’s easy to just let one side win and be done with it. I think that we need a cultural shift to have both of them.
Tag: Design
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I feel that design is too focused on the visual parts and therefore the burden on non-visual design falls on developers. What can we do to improve this? To fill the gaps?
Just a quick brainstorm when checking a design wireframe for potential accessibility issues, finding low level problems that may be solved way earlier than we may think. Maybe even before designer became a designer and before developer became a developer?
Is it okay to give a heading level 2 the style of level 3 but keep the semantics of level 2. Well yes – but as often with accessibility – it depends. It’s not up to developers to set it in stone and it is for designers and content providers to decide when appropriate. Content is once again crucial.
External agency made an accessibility audit. It provided a lot of possible solutions. In this post I try to make it easier to act on this audit. Breaking results into responsibilities, then prioritizing the issues and finally estimating and fixing them can be one way of doing so.
Inspired by others – I reflected on the origins of accessibility problems in design. It’s not so strange when we think that design is the implementation plan and if plan is not accessible then the final product will most certainly also not be accessible. Code, low-code or no-code alike.
I wanted to describe the importance of ARIA for mobile devices. Especially when we have to be careful with ARIA and maybe just accept the fact that native HTML element can be much better choice. Sometimes graphical design should embrace the limitations that styling native HTML elements bring.
Accessibility for web and mobile seems to be very code-oriented, but it really starts much earlier – in the design phase.We should really shift accessibility left, on the whole picture – from A to Z. That also goes for design and initial product setup, not just developing!
Design is art, I agree, but not every new page should be a independent piece of art, consistency is king. Easier to make accessible, easier for the user to use.
Starting soon lowers the costs on the end. And minimizes potentially unneeded dialogs that should already be a part of the design process from before.
My reflections on the process. And yes – testing early is a requirement. Developers should also use screen-readers to test their components, templates etc.