Summary
In this interactive session, Sam Proulx, accessibility evangelist at Fable, will draw from experience as a person with a disability, and from Fable’s thousands of hours of research experience, to answer all of your questions about conducting prototype reviews with people with disabilities. What design systems work best? What disabilities can participate in prototype reviews out of the box, and what types of disabilities might need special adaptations? What information should a prototype contain, to get the best feedback and engagement from people with disabilities? How can you and your organization learn to better shift left, and involve people with disabilities as early as possible in the design process, and why should you? We’ll also have plenty of time for your own questions! If you’ve been wanting to conduct prototype reviews that involve people with disabilities, but weren’t quite sure where to begin, don’t miss this session!
Key Insights
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Starting prototype reviews with screen magnification users offers the biggest impact with the least adaptation needed.
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Screen magnification users benefit from simply enlarging visuals, color contrast changes, and panning, making graphical prototypes easily accessible.
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Users with physical challenges often struggle with hover states and unlabeled controls, requiring adaptations or researcher assistance during prototype reviews.
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Screen reader users are the hardest group to include in prototype reviews because graphical prototypes lack semantic structure needed for screen readers to interpret.
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Prototypes for screen reader users often must be recreated in text-based formats like Microsoft Word or Google Docs to represent semantic layout accurately.
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Design systems like Figma and Adobe XD generally do not natively support screen reader-compatible prototypes, though progress is underway.
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Accessibility reviews should include checking control labeling consistency to match voice commands for users relying on voice dictation or alternative navigation.
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Large white space becomes a major concern for screen magnification users as it can consume excessive screen real estate when magnified.
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Mobile app accessibility concerns largely mirror desktop issues, differing mainly in screen size and gesture input.
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Companies like Adobe are leading active research efforts into improving prototyping tools for better accessibility support, especially for screen reader users.
Notable Quotes
"Including people with disabilities in prototype reviews can be a little different based on the assistive technology someone uses and their needs."
"Screen magnification users see everything bigger but have less available screen real estate, so they pan around a lot more."
"The best bang for your buck with least effort is to start with screen magnification users in your prototype reviews."
"Users with physical challenges often cannot hover easily, so prototypes need to indicate where hover is required and how sensitive it is."
"Significant adaptation is required to involve screen reader users in prototype reviews because prototypes are graphical and lack semantic markup."
"Microsoft Excel, Google Docs, and Word are surprisingly good places to build screen reader accessible prototypes using semantic labels and structures."
"When working with screen reader users in prototype reviews, you have to simulate the screen reader experience with them interactively."
"There is a lot of research going on to make screen reader accessible prototypes easier to build, but right now it’s early to mid-stage."
"Control labels need to be consistent because people using voice dictation rely on those labels to interact with controls."
"Mobile accessibility testing isn’t fundamentally different from desktop; it mainly comes down to screen size and gesture differences."
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