Lesson 3Web accessibility for visually impaired users
- Notion 15 - What are visual impairments and who do they impact on the web?
- Notion 16 - Accessibility issues visually impaired users can experience
- Notion 17 - Design principles for ensuring content is accessible for visually impaired users
- Notion 18 - Some important considerations about using and designing for assistive tools for visually impaired users
- Notion 19 - Example of design that is inaccessible for visually impaired users
- Notion 20 - What makes these website accessible for visually impaired users?
- Notion 21 - Review of the main concepts
Notion 16
Accessibility issues visually impaired users can experience
Target skills
As studied and presented by the Swedish company Funka, common difficulties that users with visual impairments usually expierence concern:
- finding the most important information immediately;
- understanding the information given;
- filling out online forms;
- managing passwords
In addition, what's even more stressful are instances of their online sessions timing out, the advertisements and pop-ups that continuously appear, and too much clutter in the design.
Let's take a look at some scenarios where accessibility for people with visual impairments has not been included in web design:
A user with a visual impairment visits a website because they need to register for a class. They use speech synthesis, which allows them to access the pages. However, halfway through the registration, a pop-up appears and interrupts their online activity. The speech synthesis then starts to read the new window. The user struggles to close the pop-up window. When they do, the speech synthesis starts to read the registration form from the beginning. This leads to confusion and time loss.