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Siân Cook is a senior lecturer in graphic and media design
at London College of Communication
arts.ac.uk/lccT
wenty-one per cent of the UK
population reported a disability in
2017/18. That’s more than 13 million
people. To cater for disabled people, shops on
the high-street provide entrances with level
access to ensure wheelchair users can enter their
buildings. Train stations give announcements
both through visual and audio updates on
screens and through tannoy systems. Television
programmes are broadcast with the option of
subtitles and audio descriptions. And yet,
whether consciously or not, many websites,
print publications, illustrations, blog posts,
posters, email campaigns, adverts – even entire
typefaces – have been designed in a way that
makes them inaccessible to potentially millions
of disabled users.
I don’t believe that those of us who work in
the design industry simply don’t care about
disabled people. We all know that placingbarriers for disabled people reduces the potential
audience size and impact we can make through
design. Companies are beginning to understand
that making it harder for disabled people to buy
products or use websites has a negative impact
on engagement, sales and potentially reputation.
And we all believe that ensuring disabled people
can access our designs is simply the right thing
to do for a more fair and equal society.
It’s true that some designers have a tendency
to focus on aesthetic value and the impact that
their work will have within the design industry
before considering factors like legibility or
usability – particularly for disabled users.
However, the issue ultimately lies with a lack of
understanding, a lack of training, and a lack of
diverse perspectives in our industry.WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP?
It’s important to understand that, as the social
model of disability states, disability is caused by
the way society is constructed, rather than by a
person’s ‘impairment’ or ‘difference’. Therefore,
it’s not just that inaccessible design doesn’t
cater well to disabled people, but that people
are actively disabled by inaccessible design. It’s
not a person with a visual impairment’s fault
that they’re unable to read very small text, it’s
the fault of the designer for making the text
too small. The question designers should ask
themselves is: how can I create work that’s not
disabling for others? Usefully, there are plenty
of quick wins:
When using coloured text or layering text on
a coloured background, designers should be
aware of the need for sufficient contrast between
the colours used. Certain serif fonts, or
italicising or underlining text, can be difficult
for some people to read, as can using all
upper-case text for body copy, or long
paragraphs of text with few line-breaks. Text
that’s justified, rather than aligned left, can
cause certain dyslexic users to be drawn to the
‘river effect’ caused by the inconsistent spacing
between words.CULTURE
SIÂN COOK ARGUES THAT THE DESIGN INDUSTRY MUST BETTER
UNDERSTAND A BROADER SPECTRUM OF AUDIENCESopinion