- Alicia Elliott
Intro to Accessibility
How visual communicators can become more inclusive
6.2 million Canadians and 61 million Americans have a disability, and the resulting economic, social, and quality of life costs are substantial. According to the 2017 Survey on Disability, only 59% of Canadians with disabilities aged 25–64 are employed and earn less than 80% of Canadians without disabilities. Based on the W3C Web Accessibility guidelines (WGAG), Canada and the United States have enacted laws to optimize online content to be easily perceived, understood, and navigated. The goal is for people with disabilities to be not excluded from using products, services and educational material.
Why is this important? Besides being mandated by law, well thought out accessible and inclusive design practices in educational visual content ensure that ALL end users are considered. A diverse group of people have equitable access to educational visual content online.
Conditions that affect online accessibility
It is virtually impossible to design for 100% accessibility. Still, we must take all conditions into account and make our art as accessible as possible.
EYESIGHT
Hypersensitive to light
Colour blindness, ranging from those who cannot see colour at all to those who cannot discern between certain hues
People who rely on their sight to read or see images but have severely diminished vision
People who are legally blind or who have eyesight reduced to the point that they can't read images or text visually
AUDITORY
Hypersensitive to sound
People with severely diminished hearing but still rely on it for communicating
People who cannot hear at all
People who cannot see or hear at all
MOTOR SKILLS
People who are unable to use a mouse to navigate
People who have limited fine motor control and response time
COGNITIVE SKILLS
Distractibility and difficulty focusing on a task
Learning disabilities such as dyslexia
People with problems understanding complex logic, abstract concepts
People with issues memorizing or recalling information
Assistive technologies
Based on their individual needs, people use various ways to navigate the web. Speech, sounds and music that they can hear, vibrations that they can feel, and text, video and images they can see are different ways to perceive web content. Assistive technologies are software and hardware, such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, and voice recognition, making navigating the web more accessible. Adaptive strategies such as captions on, reducing mouse speed and increasing text size can be used in conjunction with assistive technologies by the user.
Learning how these assistive technologies work for different disabilities is the key to helping you create more accessible content.
How does inclusive design affect image content for digital education?
Life science and educational visuals are not decorative but informative images. The purpose of educational images is to simplify and help the user visualize complex concepts to understand the content more clearly. Accessible and inclusive design affects how we need to think differently about traditional conventions for relaying information visually. Here are just some of the new techniques we need to utilize. Proper use of colour contrast, avoiding coloured text, increased font style and size, and colour blind friendly palettes. For example, we consistently use colour to help visualize data and traditional pedagogical colours to organize and categorize information; this may be problematic for viewers with colour blindness.
It's essential to have well-trained individuals to create application-flexible images that meet print prepress requirements and digital accessibility standards. Still, some things affect the digital accessibility of images that may be out of the artist's jurisdiction. Complex images need to have appropriate alternative text to describe the content for a screen reader as concisely as possible. Images should be responsive and should consider layout options for different screen sizes and orientations. Making your educational art accessible takes some pre-planning and analysis of any visual assets and design before production starts. Clear and documented standards for vendors and end user testing are a must.
Life science visual content creation is challenging, and adding inclusive design creates a whole new layer of thinking that can make your mind spin. Accessibility is nuanced for educational visuals, and it's critical to have people who understand the content create the visual image and use the appropriate accessibility tools to ensure that it communicates the correct information. We need to implement the traditional practices for visual communication and inclusive design and accessibility to enhance and reach more people for more equitable access to education.
Where to learn more about how you can be more accessible and inclusive with your visual content
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) - the guidelines that have helped form best practices for online content across North America
WebAIM - this site has endless resources and information for helping you create accessible content
Funkify Simulators- Web extension that simulates a variety of disabilities and details how those afflicted navigate the web
Research: https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/accessible-canada.html