W5D1: Accessibility and Inclusivity

People have different abilities and styles of interacting with the world—and with digital technology. Today we’ll discuss some challenges and opportunities in designing technology that works for everyone.

Accessibility

VoiceOver

We’ll try to navigate a website using VoiceOver, a screen reader built into Apple devices. I’ll use my phone to demonstrate. We’ll together try to complete a task on a website.

Task 1: Find bus directions to a grocery store.

Task 2: Find materials at the Hekman Library about accessibility in technology.

Resources:

Discussion: Accessibility

  • What worked well?
    • What technical aspects of the apps and websites enabled VoiceOver to work well?
    • What did the designers have to do to make it work well?
  • What accessibility bugs did we encounter?
  • What sort of user is VoiceOver designed for? What sort of user might have trouble using it?

Inclusivity and Cognitive Styles

The GenderMag authors argue that different people have different cognitive styles of interacting with technology, for example:

  • Information processing style: Do you select promising leads and backtrack if needed, or do you gather information more comprehensively before proceeding?
  • Learning style for new technology: Do you “tinker”? Do you do so mindfully or playfully?
  • Computer self-efficacy: Do you feel confident that you’ll succeed at a specific task using technology?
  • Attitude to risk: How likely are you to try out a new feature or way of doing things, if it might mess up your current work?
  • Motivation: Do you use technology because it’s fun or because you have a job to do?

To make a design more inclusive of different cognitive styles, the GenderMag authors suggest conducting a cognitive walkthrough of the design. In a cognitive walkthrough, designers first pick a persona representing a user with a specific cognitive style. Then they go step by step through the the process of that user completing a task, asking at each step:

  • Will that user have thought of that step?
  • Will that user perform the correct action at that step?
  • Will that user know that they did the right thing and are making progress?

Watch: Information Processing and Learning Styles

Discussion

  • Think about an app, tool, or skill you learned recently. What cognitive styles did you use?
  • Now consider the same task from the perspective of someone with a different cognitive style. What would they find easy or hard about the task?

Your Turn