Diverse users
Have you considered how everyone will use your product?
Why it’s important:
- Kaia has a newborn and her attention is often divided. Kaia needs to be able to understand a website’s contents at a glance.
- Angus has a learning disability. He needs to be able to understand information about their student finance. People with learning disabilities need access to all types of information. Not just disability-specific information.
Digital users can be incredibly diverse - a blend of cultures, interests and more.
It is only natural that digital accessibility supports a diverse range of web users too.
By acknowledging the broad scope of users who benefit from digital accessibility, you will gain a better understanding of its importance to all products and services.
Next steps
- Never assume that your users don’t have accessibility needs. Any person may experience a situational disability, e.g. working in a loud environment. Or they may have a temporary disability such as having an arm in a cast, or develop a more permanent one.
- Include people with disabilities and older people in your research and usability testing.
- Test your product with people in their own context. Consider people who use alternative reading devices, have colour blindness or motor impairments.
- Set a regular cadence for testing accessibility scenarios.
References
Resources
- How to develop personas (Usability.gov)(this link opens an external website)
- Making the Web Accessible for Everyone With Inclusive Design and Diverse Personas(this link opens an external website)
- Profiles of users with disabilities (GOV.UK)(this link opens an external website)