5 Simple Ways to Make Your User Interface More Accessible
After the coronavirus began spreading across the globe, the need for accessibility became even more apparent. During lockdown, we were forced to turn to technology to work, study, and maintain some semblance of normal life, and many people struggled to navigate this new digital reality. In addition to the difficulties related to the illness itself, many had to face new digital tools and environments without preparation or knowledge.
As the complex adoption of these technologies in various fields shows, many of the technologies that many of us take for granted proved challenging for other people. Of course, these problems are multifaceted and are not solely caused by the inaccessibility of technology. But we are convinced that if we all followed accessibility principles more carefully, new users would not have encountered so many issues.
Some of these tips may seem basic, but they are the foundation of accessibility in UI design, so it's important to always keep them in mind. But before we dive into these five simple ways to make your user interface more accessible, let's recall what accessibility means in the context of user interfaces.
What Is User Interface Accessibility?
Simply put, working on the accessibility of any product (digital or not) means improving its usability so that anyone can use it comfortably and without significant difficulty. In other words, it is focused on ALL users and aims to provide the same user experience for everyone.
This means a lot, because when making something accessible, you must think about how to make the UI clearer, more intuitive, and uncluttered. In this process, you need to consider users with low vision, blindness, hearing impairments, cognitive or motor disabilities, those experiencing situational difficulties, as well as those who are not tech-savvy or not at all.
User interface accessibility is a complex task that requires out-of-the-box thinking and consideration of all types of users. To make this journey successful, it's essential to keep in mind three main principles of UI accessibility:
- Clarity: interfaces should have a clear layout with well-defined buttons, menus, and calls to action.
- Reliability: an accessible product should serve the widest possible range of users, regardless of their abilities.
- Specificity: the interface should make the most of available accessibility features (e.g., in the mobile OS).
With all that in mind, it's time to look at the suggestions for improving your UI's accessibility.
Use Color and Contrast
Color and contrast lie at the heart of software design, so this is the best place to start thinking about UI accessibility. By combining both components, you can make the interface easily noticeable even for people with color blindness or vision impairments. In fact, proper use of color and contrast tells users how they should approach the product, highlighting certain elements and even indicating the intended navigation direction.
To achieve this effect, you need to use well-contrasting colors and leave plenty of whitespace to emphasize the contrasts that emerge. The most striking color contrasts can be used to highlight the most important elements (buttons with the primary CTA or menu items that provide access to support).
Also remember that contrast is not just about color. You can use contrasting shapes, sizes, and even fonts to achieve the same effect.
Pay Attention to Visual Hierarchy
It's quite likely that if you pay enough attention to contrast and color, you'll end up with a balanced UI with a clear visual hierarchy. This means there is an organic relationship between elements where the most important ones stand out at a glance, and secondary elements complete a coherent narrative map.
This narrative map is key, because through the arrangement of various elements you can convey a specific meaning of the UI (i.e., how you want users to perceive and use the interface). To achieve better visual hierarchy, you can do several things: avoid cluttering different screens. Identify the absolutely essential elements for each screen and build around them, but always strive to be as economical as possible.
Also remember that even with the best layout you can design, there will be people with low vision who need help to interact better with your product. Make the content scalable and use an easily readable font so that they can also use your app, website, or whatever else.
Use Interactive Elements Wisely
Remember the early days of the internet when web developers piled on as many interactive elements as possible just because it was fun? Yes, but that is the complete opposite of an accessible UI. Using a lot of interactive elements just for effect can give your product a nice look, but it can break its accessibility and make it harder for people to interact with.
Naturally, interactive elements are needed to create a richer user experience, but their use should be restrained. How do you decide whether to include an interactive element? Think about how useful it is for the end user. A small popup pointing to a chatbot can be helpful for less tech-savvy people so they know where to look for help, but overdoing this element can also confuse them.
Thus, interactive elements should be relevant and timely, since they should aim to improve the user experience and provide greater accessibility. Of course, the best way to know how well you are doing with interactive elements is to test your product and get specific feedback, especially from potential users who may have accessibility issues.
Allow Users to Resize Screens
I touched on this topic a bit in the section on visual hierarchy, but it's very important, so we are explaining it in a bit more detail. People may use your product (app or website) on screens of different sizes (and even different orientations). That's why you should make your product responsive.
Responsive design is the most prominent example of adaptability, so you should aim for it when developing a product. However, that doesn't mean you should stop there. You can give users the ability to rearrange the UI to better suit their needs. That is the core goal of some modern user agents (e.g., Mozilla Firefox), which allow rearranging buttons and commands.
Of course, users need to be aware of the adaptation options. This means two things. First, don't forget to introduce users to these options as soon as they start using your product. Don't hide accessibility options deep in submenus — you are aiming for an accessible UI, so everything that can make it more user-friendly should be at hand.
Test, Adjust, and Test Again
Even the most comprehensive list of UI accessibility tips cannot cover all the possibilities found in any audience. The only way to ensure your product is accessible to users is to test it with real people and adjust based on their feedback.
This will help you better understand how people see your UI and how they interact with it. Collecting data from such tests will help study different audience perspectives and better justify the UI design, making it even more accessible.
Testing is an integral part of the design process, and it must be done. Even if you think your UI is perfectly polished, you should still run some real-world usage tests. You never know what insights will emerge when the product reaches the consumer, so it's better to resolve any potential issue with a controlled test group than to fix it after market release.
It's Time to Start Caring About UI Accessibility
As you've probably noticed, these are fairly simple tips to help you get started with UI accessibility. However, remember that this is far from the only thing to keep in mind when developing an accessible interface. There are other avenues to explore, especially those related to specific platforms, devices, and (most importantly) target audiences.
And if you still doubt the importance of accessibility, we recommend you go back to that March blog post and read the reasons why you should care. Hopefully, you'll ultimately understand how beneficial it can be for everyone: you, your company, your target audience, and society as a whole.