Accessibility, and Why You Should Care

OK, first off, let’s acknowledge that “Accessibility” is a bit of an overloaded term, but we’ll get to that in a bit. First off, let’s look at a tangible example — How usable is your product for somebody who has one arm ? So fine, fine, you look at the demographics, and convince yourself that the total number of one-armed people who use your system is … small. Great, so — What about people who have lost the use of one arm ? Oh, right, thats quite a few more people. And it can happen due to age, accidents, disease, etc. And, yet again, you convince yourself that this doesn’t really apply to you. So, next one — What about people who have temporarily lost the use of one arm? Who might I be talking about? Oh, so many examples • You’re carrying a cup of coffee • You’re using the mobile UI with one hand, and are holding on to a bus-strap with another • You’re carrying a baby • You broke your arm etc. You get the point, right? It turns out that this pesky ...