The Future of Accessibility is Choice

Every day we have a series of choices to make. Get up early to work-out or hit snooze and sleep a bit longer? Make a nutritious meal at home or order something maybe just a bit less healthy to go? Finally, stop rocking sweatpants at work or switch to wearing PJs instead? All the choices we make - even the little ones - shape our identities and empower us in our own lives. In today’s world, we all expect to have multiple choices regardless of the product or service we are researching. And yet, in the digital sphere, we often don’t give our users many options.

By allowing a user to make choices, we could help them accomplish the tasks they set out to do, connect more easily with others, and ultimately help empower them. When we don’t offer choices, we are sending the message that we think we know what is the best for the user. While we might get it right sometime…how can we possibly know what the 7 billion people inhabiting the earth really prefer? Don’t users know best when it comes to their own needs?

This talk will cover some of the pain points users face while using digital products such as: font size/family, color contrast, reduced motion, and navigation/layout. This talk will also will cover the level of effort it would take for designers, developers, and users to create choices in these spaces. Allowing your users to choose their experience is always better than assuming you know what they want.