Designing for Accessibility:
My multimedia degree was very broad and so I learned a bit of everything. In the way of print, one would use braille or large font to help those with a vision disability. In the way of film, they have come up with lots of wonderful ways that the deaf might enjoy a movie. Subtitles or headsets are often offered at cinemas if someone hearing impaired would like to enjoy a film without there being a problem. Also, if someone is blind, they can always listen to the movie or listen to a book being read to them if they don’t know how to read braille or simply don’t wish to read in braille. In the way of web, there are devices and programs that will read websites for you if you are vision impaired and if you are hearing impaired, there are special headsets that you can plug into computers that go loud enough that if you are only partially deaf, you can hear what is being said. Some websites will have videos of people using sign language if the site is designed for the hearing impaired, but its not very common.
As a designer, I feel like these techniques are all very beneficial to the designated audiences. If I were given a project to design a brochure for a disability support service, I would make sure the font were large enough that any visually impaired person could read it and not have trouble. I know from personal experience with wearing glasses how difficult seeing small letters can be. If I were asked to design a website for disability support service, I would make sure it had a read-out-loud feature so that a visually impaired person would be able to access the information, and not just a robotic voice reading to them, an actual person. I would make sure that there were an option to enhance the font on the web page so that a visually impaired person could make the font larger if they were only partially blind. Currently you can do that with either control + on a PC or command + on a MAC, but many people don’t know about that feature. For the hearing impaired, I would make sure that any videos also came in sign-language, that way they would understand what was being said if they didn’t pick it up in the reading.
Here are a few features that I found on websites pertaining to accessibility that I thought I should mention:
Should offer a few different language options for people from other countries who want access to the information/content of the site/in the printed format.
Font size should always be 16+pt font (12pt minimum and only for certain documents) and a nice serif, but some sites do use sans-serif fonts. As long as the font is easily legible, there should be no problem in using it.
Clear and labeled signs.
Alignment to either the left or the right depending on the site or information. (More often than not, the left…)
Appropriate color schemes used.
http://www.w3.org/WAI/
http://www.ada.gov/stdspdf.htm
http://www.access-board.gov/
http://www.miusa.org/ncde/tools/ud
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