Why Accessibility Design Guidelines (WCAG) and Inclusive Design are very important for Honest Designers ?

Designing for an accessibility and inclusiveness is very important for a designer. Let me tell you why. The reason we are all living in a very differential world, different culture and lot of people have a special talents and abilities and we need to take care of the disabled people, we need to take care of the people who are colorblind. And there are a lot of differentiations which we have, right? So how a designer can really cater to their needs because they also deserve an equal right to really enjoy the products and service and resources, whatever we have, right? So how do you really justify and become honest to serve the entire society of this world to learn accessibility and inclusiveness? If you are in that track, this podcast is going to exactly tell you the six aspects. What are the accessibility and what are all the guidelines and what does mean by inclusive design and how you can tune your mindset to it. Take definitely a lot of notes and I'll be sharing you good resources at the end of this podcast. So let's dive into this topic. Accessibility design is very, very important. Let's first start with why it is important. As I already mentioned, this is really going to impact a lot of users with disabilities, a lot of people who have a color blindness and a lot of people who have what you call some kind of a speech incapability. A lot of people don't have even fingers to interact or there are different, different issues with different type of users which in the world we are living in, right? So we need to think about and cater these needs as well. If you go and look up the very established applications and websites and other things, these things will be already taken care. Like when you go for developed countries, the railway stations, the bus stands, the airports is being taken care for blind people, dumb, deaf, all the reason being they don't need anybody to guide or navigate in the airport. Let's say a blind person, okay, let's say a person is not able to hear, so how do they really find the path in navigating an airport? So when you think about these factors, then you set the design guidelines for becoming a perfect designer for catering this accessibility needs. Okay? The second important thing which you need to learn is color contrast guidelines. See, this is very significant when you use lot of visual impairments because lot of people have this problem of color blindness, right? So you need to get this clarity as well. And one more thing, what people really miss out in this aspects is lot of people have a partial blindness, lot of people have what you call complete blindness. A lot of people have with respect to a particular Color blindness. So you need to really understand and research it out before you start designing something. If you are able to understand that and following the WCAG guidelines, which you'll be seeing in the later part of the podcast, Web Content Accessibility and Guidelines, you can very well play a color contrast in your designs. Let me tell you, there are very good websites like coolers, cooelbors.in which is already pretty much proven with a lot of color contrast, which is proven for WCAG guidelines. So you can drag and drop those contents, you can copy paste those content directly so you don't have to do a color experiment for years. Right? So this is a very good example because we, when I personally worked in a project which is a visually blind people toilet and bathroom, where we had to choose paint and colors for the, what you call them. So we'll have to cater for the needs of partially blind people as well. So that's where I've learned this color contrast guidelines. Okay? The third is type and typeface. See, when it comes to typeface, readability, legibility, kerning, lettering, spacing should be there. In my earlier podcast I have talked about these things. So kerning is a space between characters and lettering is the overall size of the letters and spacing is between one and other line. So when it comes to readability from a distant, like let's say if it's a bus stand or if it's a, if it's a railway station, a lot of people need to read the board from a distance, right? So the choosing of typeface should be very clear and legible and should have certain sufficient space in between them. Then and only, even people who are little old age, even if people are wearing specs, everybody can able to clearly read that. So you need to understand there are some people with dyslexia and reading difficulties taking care of them. And designing is very important in choosing typeface. Fourth is designing for different uses. See, again we talked about, there are people with motor disabilities, cognitive impairments, people who have some disability with respect to losing their hands or the other aspects of interacting with the products and service. How do they really interact with it? So in that case, how do you really design for them? This is very interesting, guys. Lot of people are nervous problem, they have some disabilities and we need to think about what is their real function. They need this product and how we can cater with some other sense what they have. So being a designer, being a design thinker, we need to definitely put it in perspective. Now let's come to the very important part which Is global accessibility guidelines. See, when it comes to WCAG as web content accessibility and guidelines, there are four aspects to it. One is perceivable, operable, understandable and robustness. Because accessibility is normally creating products that are useful and inclusive for all the people with disabilities. But let me tell you, this is to ensure equal digital access among all the users. Okay, because perceivable, operable, understandable, robustness of four guidelines which is called P. P is for perceivable, O is for operable, understandable is for U and R is for robust. So when it comes to perceivable, the content must be available to users via sight, hearing or touch. You need to get that clarity. So information and user interface components must be presented in a way that can be perceived. That is why it is called perceivable. This includes text alternatives, sometimes non text content, putting pictures, providing captions or even alternate multimedias to create that different options to communicate your message. Okay, There are different ways which you can create a content without losing the real meaning of it. People should perceive it. That is the whole point of doing it. Okay, so the second important part is operable. So whatever users are there, you need to make sure how they are able to operate it. If they lose their hands, how do you make an alternate steps to operate? Or do they really have to touch the screen? Can we have a voice comment? So you need to think about that. There are platforms like Apple, iOS and other devices. They have really thought well about it. And that's why you can see all the applications in Apple Phone which is inbuilt applications can be 100% accessible by dumb deaf blind people. You can go and check it out. They can do and operate any operations using that phone. Because Steve Jobs was very visionary in really insisting this kind of a feature. And along with that, Don Norman really started this UI UX what do you call arena during 90s in behavioral design lab at Apple. They were very particular towards catering the needs of them. Thanks to them really. So user interface components and navigation must be definitely operable. It should be involved in keyboard accessibility, providing some sufficient time for the users to read complete their task. Voiding that content that could cause seizure or physical discomfort. Because already they have the problem. Why do we have to augment that? We need to give that particular space or feedback for them to operate and go ahead further. That's why you need to design that navigation for them. This is all about O which is operable. Next is understandable. The content must be really readable and predictable. Guys, it should Be very clear. Of course, if it is not understood, even if you apply perceivable and operable methods, if it's not understood, there is no point. That's why you need to create a readable and predictable text. There is something called predictable test which text you can provide your users. You can put input assistance to help users correct errors. Designing some consistent navigation and functionality. I really stress this point. When you do a consistent navigation, people will not get lost. They will understand clearly. The fourth important aspect is robustness. Content must be robust enough so that it can be reliably interpreted by varied variety of users agents with assistive technology. Okay, so this involves speech assistive, like voice assistive, something like that. Okay, like hearing assistance. So this involves a valid code like providing fallbacks and content that may be supported for all agents and users compatible with the current devices as well as future devices. Let me tell you guys, it is very important for web developers, designers and content creators to follow this. Because the digital equivalency should be there for all the devices, even for the disability people. All these things. Okay? So making those content not only benefits people visibilities, but also it improves the overall user experience for every single person who is operating that. Let me tell you, what is this wcag? I already expanded this word. But each of this principle has been broken down into specific success criteria. These are all some testable statements that can help determine if a web page is really meeting the guidelines. There are three levels to it. Level A means basic. Level AA means it's a mid range. Level AAA means it's the most advanced level of website accessibility content. Whatever you are giving. So let me give you a short description if you want to really cater those need. Being a designer, you have to first create a Persona design for all platforms and devices. Organize your content logically. Ensure consistency in your design and use accessible fonts and accessible colors. Choose appropriate colors. Developers can run this combination in automated manual testing and try it out to test this. And then you can incorporate an accessibility tools to improve that process. See guys, this seven steps what I told you is important. Let me repeat to that. Creating Persona is first. Second is design for all platforms. Third is organizing the content logically. Fourth is ensuring consistency in design. Fifth is using accessible fonts. Sixth is choose appropriate color. And seventh is designers can use a combination for automated and manual testing to test it out. And when you are able to do this guys, let me tell you, you seamlessly ensure that your users are provided with all the possibilities. Let it be text alternatives or keyboard Accessibility, anything. If you use this, definitely you will have lot more things doing in this thing. I have given you a practical tips also like how you can use this particular things in a design process of your project. Now let's come to the second part of this podcast which is inclusive design. See inclusive in the name itself suggested it should be included and catering the different audience. Right? So this is very much in line with the accessibility. That's why I combined this in a podcast. Okay, so the benefit is you're not leaving anybody, you're not leaving any culture. Like let's say if you're designing for a different culture, a different group or a different ethnographic audience, this is very, very vital to really design this. Okay, so why it is very important. Let me tell you the second point. Because lot of times cultural diversity is there. A lot of people have a different language preference, they have an age related consideration, they have a different abilities, they have a socio economic factors. Definitely guys, if you are not considering these five elements, Cultural diversity, language preference, age related consideration, different abilities, socio economic factors. Let me tell you, even when you make a superb design, people will not really like it. Hey Jagdish, what is this? Let me tell you why people really associate certain products and service with their culture, with their language, with their socio economic factors. That is why it is very vital for a designer to really take care of this inclusive factor. When you do this guys, let me tell you, your design will definitely get impacted if you do this only. You will be moving into a stage called user centric approach. Because you are taking care of your user, right? You are understanding their perspective, you're really driven empathetically. That's the third step, user centric approach. And when you are able to do this automatically, you will make an inclusive design. And then fourth is inclusive design principles like let's say you can have flexibility, you can have simplicity, you can have a familiarity. I'll stress upon this familiarity because people should see or use this product in line with something else which they already have seen. If it's a totally a different product which looks like an alien for them, 100% sure they will not use this product or they won't even touch this. Who cares if it's having a high end technology like 3D, this that AI, Automa, augmented reality, extended reality, people don't even come near it. That's why the familiarity is very important. That's why the simplicity and flexibility is important. This is a principle of an inclusive design, guys. See this may be slightly different for what you have learned so far as a designer, you might be thinking, hey, design this, that, let me tell you, whatever you apply design principles, but if it's not inclusive in nature for the audience, for that respective culture, or the language, or the familiarity, what they've already seen, people will definitely not use your product. There are a lot of products which got really failed because of this inclusive design which is not followed like let's say Google Glass, you've seen that, right? It is not really catering to that particular technology, even Meta, which was started by Facebook. So these are some of the classical case studies which you can really find which is not going to help users. And it will even slightly differentiate that brand in a different perception. People will really think different way. So it's sometimes a negative fall also. Okay, so you need to understand that definitely it's a challenging situation and you need to achieve that inclusive design. Catering these products, catering this list of thinking in your design, then and only you can overcome the concept of leaving out. Right? A lot of concepts are left out because these things are not followed. Okay, I hope this particular podcast would have given you clarity why understanding this perspective in inclusive design is important and why it is really good to understand the accessibility principles for different uses, which is a WCAG guidelines which we have seen. Okay, along with this podcast I'm going to be giving you three good materials guys, which is WCAG guidelines, color contrast tool, inclusive design resource and cooler website which you can try using different, different color combinations. Okay. Because if you try to take action with this materials and if you do a small project and if you can submit to me in this email dfc design for changemail.com I'll be more than happy to give a small feedback or a one on one session for you for your design improvement. Okay. Again, it's for only selected users, not for everybody. But if you are a consistent user, if you're a consistent audience and listening to this podcast for a long time, definitely I'll be able to give you a one page clarity session where you can improve your inclusive and accessibility design so that you are well recognized in your design community. Okay, thank you so much guys. Thank you for listening to this podcast. I hope definitely this would have given you a very crystal clear understanding why this kind of principles are important. Okay, we'll meet in another podcast. If you need my mentorship support, you can send an email to dfcdesignforchangemail.com and if you find this as useful, give me best rating in in Spotify and Apple. Thank you. So much, guys. Take care. All the best. Bye.