Project Premise
While I knew about web accessibility before working in user experience design, I had thought of the web accessibility guidelines as a burden to my freedom as a designer. I saw that peers and leaders around me seemed to share that attitude. However, later I learned more about user experience and accessibility through my work experiences. While working as an UX Design Intern at Edward Jones I volunteered to work with the accessibility team and learned a great deal of what good accessibility is and is not. I also worked in the Achieve Program at Southern Illinois University, which helps those with learning disabilities in college. Through both of these experiences I learned to gain empathy for people with disabilities and learned how much they are so often misunderstood. I decided to create the accessibility simulator to help educate others and increase empathy for the people who suffer from lack of web accessibility. I also got the chance to not only design the software but also utilize what I had learned in IT classes to code the website through HTML, CSS, and Javascript. I hope that the Accessibility Simulator gives designers a taste of how it is like to navigate the web with such disabilities so that we can slowly pay more attention to the usability and accessibility of all that we design.
the problem
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 12 million Americans suffer from visual disabilities. Approximately 6.5 million Americans suffer from cognitive/intellectual disabilities. Even though visual and cognitive disabilities are so prevalent in society, a 2019 study by the WebAIM (Web Accessibility In Mind) Organization found that of the top 1 million website homepages on the internet, 97.8% had notable Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) errors. This means that the web accessibility needs of more than 300 million internet users who suffer from visual and cognitive disabilities are being largely ignored. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are often viewed as legal barriers to web design and sometimes almost entirely ignored as unimportant.
Although there are laws such as WCAG to help those with cognitive and visual disabilities, I argue that we can only enforce these laws to create a long-term impact by creating empathy towards their day to day experiences. According to the Oxford American College Dictionary, empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Although we might have learned a little about what these disabilities are and may have even heard stories from the people who experience it on a daily basis, in order to create a long-lasting impact we must feel what they feel and experience it ourselves.
I will explore ways that empathy is built and how to utilize design to build empathy towards those dealing with visual and cognitive disabilities in order to create a long-lasting impact for them.
design solution
In order to build empathy for those with disabilities who suffer from lack of web accessibility, I decided to design and code a website that simulates their experience for those who do not know what it is like to navigate the web like they do. The website would simulate the experience of those with dyslexia, blindness, and autism. The Accessibility Simulator that I created asks the common person to go through the tasks of navigating or reading in the web while having the hurdles of someone with a disability. At the end of the task they must answer the questions of a quiz to test how much they were able to understand form the web with such conditions.
research and design process
deliverables
The Accessibility Simulator would be presented at a UX Design Conference Booth (IXDA, UXPA). This is because the main personna, or target of this project are designers who can empathize with those with these disabilities and then aim to improve the web accessibility of any website or app that they design and code.In the conference the Accessibility Simulator website, a poster series, abrochure, and a conference banner would be presented.
poster series
Brochure
conclusion
My thesis proposal aimed at trying to improve web accessibility through creating empathy for those with visual and cognitive disabilities affected by the web. I solved this problem through creating the Accessibility Simulator, a website that allows one to go through how it would be like to navigate the web with a disability like dyslexia, blindness, and autism (most prevalent disabilities affected by the web in the US). To create the quickest change in web accessibility I targeted UX and Web Designers who could directly apply what they gain from the simulator to their designs, leading to a surge in web content accessibility guideline compliance.