As the Baby Boom generation ages, more and more people will face the challenges of reduced dexterity, vision, and hearing. So enabling accessible technology is a growth opportunity...[3] | ||
| --, 2001 | ||
Designing for a variety of situations and abilities can not only change your perspective, but it can also increase your audience. Consider how the world is changing and what that means for people. In 2000, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 7–10% of the world’s population (500 million people) live with a disability.[4] In the U.S., 1 in 5 people lives with a disability.[5]
This number is expected to grow as people live longer—for example, predictions indicate that by 2011, people over 65 will make up 25% of Japan’s population. According to the WHO, the fastest growing population group in industrial nations is the 80-and-over segment.[6]
There are two factors that tell us to pay attention to the number of older users on the Web. First, users in the 49–64 age group are coming online in increasing numbers, and with good reason: their stock portfolios, pay stubs, tax filing, and health-care information are now on the Web. These late-career workers are very attractive to marketers, particularly because “older” and “richer” are strongly correlated.
The second reason is that sooner or later, they are going to be us. We may be able to read 8-point text on our laptops today, but as we age, it’s likely that that will become more difficult and we’ll experience things such as headaches from squinting at that text. We may recognize that we’re getting older, but what we will say is that the page we’re using was poorly designed—and we’ll be right. In fact, this is one of the problems with consigning features like magnification and high contrast to an accessibility link or control panel: people who are simply getting older don’t think of themselves as disabled. You may know that your vision isn’t 20/20 anymore, but why on earth would you look for solutions behind a picture of a wheelchair?
The beauty of universal design is in its capacity to enable everyone to use the same content according to their needs and wishes. Universal design will help you reach more people and continue to reach them throughout their lives.
Many devices “experience” limitations similar to those experienced by people with disabilities. In 2002, programmer Karsten Self declared that Google is a “blind user” in the sense that Google can only glean from a website that which can be programmatically determined—much the same way that a screen reader is limited . For both Google and screen readers, “text is king.” Matt spun Karsten’s statement for the current state of issues in accessibility:
Google is, for all intents, a deaf user. A billionaire deaf user with tens of millions of friends, all of whom hang on his every word.[7] | ||
| --Bestkungfu Weblog, “Google is a deaf user” | ||
Universal design will increase the discoverability of your design.
Some situations create limitations that are similar to those experienced by people with disabilities. As we mentioned earlier, we call these situational disabilities. A small screen on a mobile device simulates the experience of someone using a screen magnifier on an average-size monitor—which is often said to be like looking at the page through a straw. A person using a kiosk in a shopping mall is surrounded by noise and unable to hear the audio of a presentation, simulating the experience of someone who is hard of hearing. A mechanic working on the underside of an airplane needs to access information without removing her hands or eyes from the task. And even the brightest, clearest mobile device displays are difficult to read in sunlight. Designing for everyone will help you create content that more people can use in more situations.