Have you ever thought about people who have color blindness when designing your interfaces?

Now you know what we are going to discuss about, Right?

Our world includes people with different abilities and limiting conditions.

People who have Visual impairments, Hearing impairments, Speech impairments, Mobility impairments, Cognitive impairments, and and more.

Imagine that your design doesn't serve any purpose for them?

So we as designers should be responsible to do something about it.

How can you create products/experiences inclusively for everyone ?

That’s the importance of accessibility in digital design.

Something that can undoubtedly improve user's experience and significantly impact business profitability.

Often abbreviated as a11y, Accessibility in digital design is all about designing and building digital products so that anyone, regardless of their disability, can interact with your product in a meaningful way.

It requires

1. Knowledge in various accessibility standards
2. Fundamentals of accessible design/code
3. Understanding the importance of using multiple testing techniques and tools

The international set of accessibility standards by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is considered as the "gold standard" for it - called as

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines ( WCAG )

The goal is to provide a single shared standard for digital accessibility that meets the needs of individuals, organizations, and governments worldwide. Intended for web-based and native mobile app designers and developers.

However, many of you, including content creators/editors, marketers, software developers, and all levels of management can benefit from understanding and applying WCAG-based techniques to your processes or creations.

The first draft of WCAG was released in 1999.

The current version is WCAG 2.1, released in June 2018.

A completely revamped version of the guidelines, WCAG 3.0, is being drafted for a future release.

Now lets dive deeper,

into the very technical but critical principles and guidelines of WCAG.

There are 4 basic principles

Further classified into 13 guidelines

Which in turn is divided into more success criteria's.

And each criteria is assigned by 3 progressive levels A, AA, and AAA.

Means - A - is the bare minimum level of accessibility

And you must pass the success criteria for A and AA to achieve AAA.

The 4 basic principles of WCAG is abbreviated as POUR.

Which is,

1) Perceivable

2) Operable

3) Understandable

4) Robust

Read this quick reference to get a gist about it.

A customizable quick reference of How to meet WCAG

In short,

By adopting a human-centered approach that prioritizes inclusivity, usability, and accessibility in your design, you can effectively address all potential user needs.

Block some time and go through these resources to learn more.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1

Google Developers - Learn Accessibility

Apple - Accessibility

The A to Z of UX — A is for Accessibility : 12 tips for designing an inclusive user experience

Web Accessibility Initiative WAI - Resource for Designers

Accessibility is excluding the neurodivergent

An argument for neurodivergent product teams

Autism Designs: How to Build Inclusive Products for People With Autism

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Thoughts ?

Better resources ?

Different Perspectives ?

Tools and methods you use to check accessibility of your designs ?

Feel free to drop them in the comments : )

P.S. Save and share! it might help you and others.

Keep learning, Keep designing, and Stay Curious!