Accessibility writing makes you more creative
Accessible design and learning to be an expert in accessibility is something I’m really passionate about. There’s a great Meetup here called Portland Accessibility and UX, and this month they co-hosted with the UX Writers for a Super Meetup. I was more excited to go to this Meetup than I was for Christmas.
Kate Knappett, a UX writer for Cvent, presented a deck she made for her team about writing accessible microcopy. She talked about the 3 types of accessible text:
On Screen Text: all the text you see. On your screen.
Screen Reader Only Text: words that describe visual attributes on a screen for screen readers.
Alt Text: words or phrases that supplement your visuals.
1. Good UX writing should ensure that any on-screen text be clear, jargon-free, concise, useful and contextual, and be a meaningful use of space. Knappett asks, “Could someone who doesn’t work for your company understand and scan your content?” She suggests using a descriptive verb + noun pattern to keep it simple, such as “view map” or “check it out” when writing buttons and other CTAs.
2. Screen reader text is what you write to compliment your on-screen text. Ideally, your on-screen text is so good that you don’t need to write much screen reader text. It’s really important to think about hierarchy here, because sometimes what makes sense visually i.e. where a button or headline is placed, isn’t comprehensible when read by a screen reader. Also, think about whether or not your microcopy is clear if you remove it from the context of the page. That clever, plucky button you love probably makes zero sense.
3. We shouldn’t rely on images and other visuals for context. Knappett suggests we write for scenarios where there are no visuals, and showed an example of an error message with the word “sorry” inside of the graphic, which wouldn’t be read by a screen reader. I guess we could write alt text for that, but isn’t it better to just create content that’s accessible to as many users as possible? Also, everyone needs to be more judicious about writing alt text for images that are decorative. Pretty images without content don’t need descriptions, they only slow users down.
After the presentation, we were invited to use the screen readers on our phones to get a better understanding of the experience. I turned Voice Over on, and opened Bike Town, Nike’s site for it’s bike sharing program. Now, I’m not skilled at using a screen reader and it took me minutes to even open the web page. But once there, it was only seconds before I understood how inaccessible the site was. The headline hierarchy made no sense, I struggled to move around, and kept getting stuck in a navigation loop. It was terrible. I invite you to try it!
Of course one could argue not many visually impaired people are bike sharing. But I think that’s a pretty offensive and lazy position to take. My favorite quote of the night was from Josh Hetrick, a UX Designer for Zapproved who leads the accessibility Meetup. He said that he found accessibility constraints make him a better designer, and more creative. I loved this because far too often I hear about designers bemoaning the constrictions that crush their ability to be creative and free. As an actor, I was never more creative than trying to make an emotionally relevant and entertaining show with three black cubes on a stage in my own clothes. Stripped back, we can’t hide our work behind flashy and fancy stuff that’s often just superfluous anyway. I don’t think a million dollars would have made those performances better or more meaningful. I believe it’s the constraints that make us problem solve in new ways, and implement design thinking in a much richer way.
Write for accessibility first and we all benefit. :)
P.S. Here’s a good article for accessible UX writing
Photo by Mark Thompson on Unsplash
