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Prototype Reviews, People With Disabilities, and You
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Wednesday, December 8, 2021 • Civic Design 2021
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Prototype Reviews, People With Disabilities, and You
Speakers: Sam Proulx
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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, within the public sector, 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

  • Starting prototype reviews with screen magnification users is easiest because they can interpret visual designs without extensive adaptations.

  • Users with physical challenges may use voice control, switch systems, eye tracking, or head tracking, requiring prototypes to clearly mark hover states and control labels.

  • Screen reader users require prototypes that include semantic markup like headings, landmarks, alt text, and keyboard focus management, often necessitating entirely new non-visual prototypes.

  • Accessibility must be integrated early in prototype reviews to avoid costly and ineffective retrofits later in development.

  • White space can cause difficulties while magnified, leading to excessive scrolling and disorientation for low vision users.

  • Minimizing clicks and increasing click target sizes improves accessibility for users with physical challenges and older users with reduced coordination.

  • Prototypes often lack critical accessibility information like semantic structure and proper labeling, requiring deliberate planning to include them.

  • Involving diverse users across multiple platforms (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android) ensures broader accessibility coverage due to varying assistive technologies.

  • Technology like Webflow allows building coded prototypes accessible to assistive technologies, but requires technical expertise beyond common prototyping tools.

  • An iterative, layered process of involving accessibility users—from low vision to full screen reader users—helps uncover and fix issues progressively and effectively.

Notable Quotes

"Accessibility is really close to my heart and something that I am extremely passionate about."

"If your online services are not accessible, users often don't have the choice to just go somewhere else."

"Start your prototype reviews with screen magnification users because their interaction is closest to non-disabled users."

"Voice control software can't hover, so hover states need to be clearly indicated in your prototypes."

"Screen reader users can’t interpret visual prototypes because prototypes lack the semantic information screen readers rely on."

"When you find a problem for a screen magnification user, fixing it often solves similar problems for users with physical challenges."

"You may need to operate the prototype on behalf of users with physical challenges if assistive tech doesn’t work with clickable prototypes."

"Webflow is an ideal solution for prototypes because it uses real code and works in users’ actual browsers."

"Always aim to work with at least one user per platform where your product will be used to cover differences in assistive technology."

"You want to create prototypes that are identical from the screen reader’s perspective, not visually identical."

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