Smoke and mirrors vs. design

There are few aspects of web design that are considered very important for inclusivity. I would say there are a few that are quite obvious, like good contrast for the text or the size of the font. But also, there are some that a lot of web users aren’t aware of, like captions in the images for blind people and other assistive technologies. Unfortunately, these aspects aren’t automated and in most cases should be dealt with along with the development. Here are my top 5 of them:

1. Text alternatives for non-text content (captions for images and other multimedia)
2. Content can be presented in different ways (like expanding input field etc.)
3. Functionality is available from a keyboard as well as different input modalities beyond the keyboard (touch activation or voice recognition)
4. Text is understandable (using simple language) and readable I.e. using good contrast, the balanced ratio between font and content width (e.g., 80 characters per line), avoid justified text or keep it ADHD friendly in general
5. Users are helped to avoid and correct mistakes (undo or cancel button, step backwards in the multi-step process)

Thankfully we have a few standards (WCAG) we can use to check if the design is inclusive. It’s very easy to forget about these aspects when your goal is to showing off and blowing smoke. What is also dangerous is to assume that everyone is like you and everyone has the same accessibility as you. The world is not made for only certain people to operate… Oh, wait what this photo of the Tesla bot and Musk is doing here?