Why Accessibility is important in UX Design?

Accessibility means access. It refers to the ability for everyone, regardless of disability or special needs, to access, use and benefit from everything within their environment. It is the “degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is available to as many people as possible.”

We want to ensure that when we're designing, building, and creating content for our sites and applications that we're taking into account the needs of people with disabilities. That means we're going to make really smart choices in our work that ensure that people with different abilities can use what we create. We're talking about people with one of a handful of a handful of different disabilities: visual, auditory or hearing, mobility and dexterity, or even cognitive difficulties.

Each of these different type of issues can have a profound effect on how people use their computer and the web. Accessibility is the practice of ensuring that we create websites that can be used by anyone, regardless of their capabilities.

Usability is a closely related concept. In the physical world we often think of usability as how easy it is to learn and use something.

Many people also say that ease of use for someone with a disability isn't truly an accessibility issue because it's a usability issue that affects everyone. This is often used as a justification to not address the accessibility issue. That's a pretty narrow view. The truth is when a usability issue exists in a site it affects everyone, but it tends to affect people with disabilities much more dramatically. What slows a person with full vision down by three seconds on a 30 second interaction might slow down a person that is blind for two or three minutes and make the interaction last five minutes.

These types of problems are accessibility issues because they mean they're preventing people with disabilities from completing the tasks that they're trying to complete.

In order for there to be a meaningful and valuable user experience, information must be:

• Useful: Your content should be original and fulfill a need
• Usable: Site must be easy to use
• Desirable: Image, identity, brand, and other design elements are used to evoke emotion and appreciation
• Findable: Content needs to be navigable and locatable onsite and offsite
• Accessible: Content needs to be accessible to people with disabilities
• Credible: Users must trust and believe what you tell them

"Should accessibility be a UX team’s responsibility?"

Should user experience and accessibility be the responsibility of the same team? Should accessibility be part of a UX team’s purview? When should designers think about the accessibility of a design? What types of disabilities may impact people’s ability to use your products?

Focus on designing for those main functional issues like memory, literacy and attention. And, as we've said before, this focus will help you create sites that are better for everyone.

Visit https://webaim.org/ for more details on Web Accessibility.

Some more links for Web Accessibility

1. Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools List - W3C
2. WAVE Web Accessibility Tool
3. Web Site Accessibility Testing Tool by PowerMapper
4. Web Browser Tools for Testing Accessibility

• Internet Explorer (PC Only)
• Web Accessibility Toolbar - Accessibility toolbar for Internet Explorer
• Mozilla Firefox (PC and Mac)
• Accessibility Evaluation Toolbar - Web Accessibility Evaluation Toolbar for Mozilla Firefox
• Color Contrast Analyzer for Firefox - Color contrast analyser for Firefox (PC and Mac)
• Fangs - Text-reader emulator for Firefox (PC and Mac)