By Jonathan Avila — It is essential for people who design, create, and validate technology to understand the needs of people with disabilities, get feedback from users with disabilities, and understand the technology and settings people with disabilities use to access various types of experiences. You should engage diverse users, including disabled people, in user research, testing, and feedback sessions to gain a better understanding of their needs, preferences, and challenges. This involvement helps to create digital products that are truly accessible and meet the unique requirements of these users.
Understanding the unique user needs of people with disabilities allows for the development of more inclusive and user‑friendly interfaces that cater to a diverse range of users. Knowing what works well and what is a problem for different people is necessary to avoid creating experiences that can exclude. For example, one might assume the needs of users with low vision are limited to things like contrast and magnification, but what is the impact of a limited field of view caused by a person looking closely at the screen, for example, from a distance of 4 inches or less, or when magnification is used, allowing view of 1/16th of the screen at a time, or when the person has visual field loss, limiting what is seen at any given time? In this case, the impact of the proximity of controls and their labels, changes in focus, and new content that appears on the screen suddenly becomes apparent when you understand the way a person with low vision experiences your interface.
From Horton, S., & Sloan, D. (2024). What Every Engineer Should Know About Digital Accessibility. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida.
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