Digital Accessibility: Make the difference in your digital products.

Gustavo Sansone, Product Designer and Research https://www.linkedin.com/in/gusans/
Carlos González, IT Project Manager https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlosdga/
Sofía Acher, IT Copywriter https://www.linkedin.com/in/sofia-acher/

The following text is a summary of the whole article, to read it completely visit https://www.onetree.com/blog/digital-accessibility-make-the-difference-in-your-digital-products/

In digital products there are barriers for some people as in the physical space, for example a digital device in which interaction is mediated by an input device with a touch screen or an output device such as something visual, imposes barriers for those who have visual impairments, cognitive or motor disabilities (and that cannot operate something tactile).

We must focus our efforts on providing alternatives for accessibility, which implies that messages in certain forms should be accompanied by messages in other forms, for example: if there is a visual message, it may be accompanied by an audio, or other type of message. There are assistive technologies, such as screen readers for people with visual impairments that translate the content being displayed into a voice.

Accessibility must be considered as part of the project from the beginning. Although in many developments it is something that is incorporated at the end if the budget is available, or just “to be compliant”, if the development teams incorporate accessibility guides and existing tools in their workflow, at the end of the road they will obtain more accessible products with minimal investment. In this sense, it will be important to look for specific skills within the team or consider specialized external support. Accessibility may be applied in different levels, the guide for digital products is the WCAG that establishes accessibility in various dimensions. According to it, there are three levels of accessibility: A, AA, and AAA.

Accessibility is becoming more and more important. Firstly, it is a business opportunity, as just explained in our experience with our recent client, there is a big amount of users who need accessibility and are potential clients for all businesses. “Additionally, governments’ behavior towards this matter indicates that there will be more and more pressure for businesses to comply with accessibility standards”, explains Gustavo Sansone, UX Researcher at Onetree. Moreover, the coronavirus disease helped impulse Accessibility on the online sphere. “Many companies transformed their physical businesses into digital businesses. In the food area for example, and in many others, the digital part gained an important place” says Sansone.

This is a summary of the original article, to read it completely visit https://www.onetree.com/blog/digital-accessibility-make-the-difference-in-your-digital-products/