Accessible Design

 

 Accessibility

By Mat Baird

When designing pay special attention to accessibility for:​

• Older people
• People with visual or auditory impairments​
• People with processing disorders​
• Everyone

 Text

Font

Do not use script, crowded, or fancy fonts​

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Easy to read:

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• Designing for accessibility will make your project easier to read. (Times New Roman)
• Designing for accessibility will make your project easier to read. (Calibri)
• Designing for accessibility will make your project easier to read. (Arial)​

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Hard to read:

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• Designing for accessibility will make your project easier to read. (Bentham)
• Designing for accessibility will make your project easier to read. (EB Garamond)
• Designing for accessibility will make your project easier to read. (Courier)

Face

• Face is used to create emphasis
• Bold is usually easier to read than underlining or italics.

Spacing

Easy to read: 1.5-spaced

The Labrador Retriever is currently listed as the most popular dog breed in the United States. The American Kennel Club recognizes three distinct fur colors on Labrador Retrievers, which are black, brown or chocolate, and yellow. Coat color in Labrador Retrievers is a classic example of recessive epistasis. In recessive epistasis, a homozygous recessive phenotype at one locus masks whichever phenotype is present at another locus. This results in a three to one phenotypic ratio for expressing the trait at the locus that is epistatic to the other locus if both parents are heterozygous for both traits.

Hard to read: single-spaced

The Labrador Retriever is currently listed as the most popular dog breed in the United States. The American Kennel Club recognizes three distinct fur colors on labrador retrievers, which are black, brown or chocolate, and yellow. Coat color in labrador retrievers is a classic example of recessive epistasis. In recessive epistasis, a homozygous recessive phenotype at one locus masks whichever phenotype is present at another locus. This results in a three to one phenotypic ratio for expressing the trait at the locus that is epistatic to the other locus if both parents are heterozygous for both traits.

Hard to read: double-spaced

The Labrador Retriever is currently listed as the most popular dog breed in the United States. The American Kennel Club recognizes three distinct fur colors on Labrador Retrievers, which are black, brown or chocolate, and yellow. Coat color in Labrador Retrievers is a classic example of recessive epistasis. In recessive epistasis, a homozygous recessive phenotype at one locus masks whichever phenotype is present at another locus. This results in a three to one phenotypic ratio for expressing the trait at the locus that is epistatic to the other locus if both parents are heterozygous for both traits.

Contrast

• Dark text is easier to read on light backgrounds
• Light text is easier to read on dark backgrounds 

Colors

• Some color combinations are problematic, and those should be avoided
• Red on green and yellow on blue are examples that can be problematic for some people
• Red on green  (Red on green)
• Yellow on blue(Yellow on blue)

Organization

Paragraphs

Text is easier to read if it is aligned on one side

Easy to read: left-aligned:

    The Labrador Retriever is currently listed as the most popular dog breed in the United States. The American Kennel Club recognizes three distinct fur colors on Labrador Retrievers, which are black, brown or chocolate, and yellow. Coat color in Labrador Retrievers is a classic example of recessive epistasis. In recessive epistasis, a homozygous recessive phenotype at one locus masks whichever phenotype is present at another locus. This results in a three to one phenotypic ratio for expressing the trait at the locus that is epistatic to the other locus if both parents are heterozygous for both traits.

Harder to read: centered:

The Labrador Retriever is currently listed as the most popular dog breed in the United States. The American Kennel Club recognizes three distinct fur colors on Labrador Retrievers, which are black, brown or chocolate, and yellow. Coat color in Labrador Retrievers is a classic example of recessive epistasis. In recessive epistasis, a homozygous recessive phenotype at one locus masks whichever phenotype is present at another locus. This results in a three to one phenotypic ratio for expressing the trait at the locus that is epistatic to the other locus if both parents are heterozygous for both traits.

  

Columns

Having text in two columns can make it easier to read

Easy to read: Two columns

Harder to read: One column

The Labrador Retriever is currently listed as the most popular dog breed in the United States. The American Kennel Club recognizes three distinct fur colors on Labrador Retrievers, which are black, brown or chocolate, and yellow. Coat color in Labrador Retrievers is a classic example of recessive epistasis. In recessive epistasis, a homozygous recessive phenotype at one locus masks whichever phenotype is present at another locus. This results in a three to one phenotypic ratio for expressing the trait at the locus that is epistatic to the other locus if both parents are heterozygous for both traits.

White Space

White space can make information easier to read, so avoid presenting large blocks of text

Hard to read: Block of text

The Labrador Retriever is currently listed as the most popular dog breed in the United States. The American Kennel Club recognizes three distinct fur colors on Labrador Retrievers, which are black, brown or chocolate, and yellow. Coat color in Labrador Retrievers is a classic example of recessive epistasis. In recessive epistasis, a homozygous recessive phenotype at one locus masks whichever phenotype is present at another locus. This results in a three to one phenotypic ratio for expressing the trait at the locus that is epistatic to the other locus if both parents are heterozygous for both traits.

Easy to read: With white space

The Labrador Retriever is currently listed as the most popular dog breed in the United States. The American Kennel Club recognizes three distinct fur colors on Labrador Retrievers, which are black, brown or chocolate, and yellow. 

Coat color in Labrador Retrievers is a classic example of recessive epistasis. In recessive epistasis, a homozygous recessive phenotype at one locus masks whichever phenotype is present at another locus. 

This results in a three to one phenotypic ratio for expressing the trait at the locus that is epistatic to the other locus if both parents are heterozygous for both traits.

Images

• Images should always be relevant to the topic
• Layering text and image makes text hard to read

Example: Image with text layered on top labelling a Labrador Retriever and a Golden Retriever

Web

Paragraph Styles

Using paragraph styles lets the browser adjust text according to the device the user has.

Examples: 

Heading

Subheading

Normal Text

Links/Urls

URLs can be long and hard to read.

Ex: https://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/labrador-retriever/

Instead use a shorter phrase as a label

The same link: Labrador Retriever Dog Breed Information - American Kennel Club

Alt-text

Many programs that read text to visually impaired people cannot translate images​, so add alt 

text(descriptive captions) to every image.

Example: 

The Labrador is on the left, and the Golden is visible on the right

Video Captions

All videos need captions to help people with hearing impairments.

To do this, upload to YouTube and turn on captions.