This series of posts are thoughts and responses to the Designing for Usability course at Parsons School of Design.
In Web Design, Accessibility Shouldn’t Be an Afterthought
On co-design
When reading about these articles about co-design and getting people who are experts in their domain to lead the design process (experts in adaptability: “disabled people are the original lifehackers. Our lives are spent cultivating an intuitive creativity, because we navigate a world that isn’t built for our bodies.”), I wonder why it doesn’t happen more often.
At a research opportunity not long ago, my team researched on providing youth with equitable access to education during the pandemic. As student researchers who lacked intimate familiarity with the region, I recall that it was particularly difficult to relate to the region’s culture, try as we did. Our interviews with educational providers only provided a glimpse into the challenges that the youths themselves were facing. Upon reflection, I could have sought out and engaged the target youth from the start.
Similar to what Haagaard mentioned in the article: “And then I thought about how if they won, this team would be receiving several thousand dollars in seed money, and the people they’d learned from would never receive any of the money or credit or publicity. Many activists have Paypal or Kofi links, or Patreon, and most of them are living in poverty.” One of the issues we were concerned about was how volunteers and contributors to this research were going to be compensated for their time and input. For us it was less about monetary compensation (though it is still very relevant and important), and more about recognizing their efforts and giving them roles of influence in its continued development. Important decisions impacting communities need to be made by the communities in question themselves.
On aesthetics and trends
A recent article I read, The dribbblisation of design, also addressed how trends shape how some designers present their work. Some graphic design trends sacrifice accessibility in order to look beautiful in portfolio pages (as mentioned in the main article reviewed), and also without explaining the thought processes and key problems that underpin the solution in the first place. This isn’t necessarily a criticism of beautiful visual design itself as it still serves a vital role in the user experience, but a reminder to self to critically evaluate trends for accessibility issues.
