Designing for cognitive disabilities<br />by
Ruth Ellison<br />at UX Australia 2011<br />on 25 August 2011<br />@RuthEllison<br />From @StamfordUX<br />Image credit: My Brain by My Name is Rom ™ from http://www.flickr.com/photos/romsimplicio/2615636782/ <br />Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic license<br />

Work at Stamford Interactive<br />Live
in Canberra<br />Chocolate appreciator<br />Love robots<br />Hi, I’m Ruth<br />Love gadgets<br />Caricature by the talented Hayley Welsh<br />User experience designer<br />Skeptic and critical thinker<br />

What are cognitive disabilities?<br />...any
sort of cognitive disorder that impairs understanding and functioning. <br />Australian Human Rights Commissionhttp://www.hreoc.gov.au/social_justice/publications/preventing_crime/part1.html#fn1<br />

Not binary<br />Cognitive disabilities range
greatly in severity<br />Dad: bad with numbers<br />Richard Branson: dyslexia<br />profound<br />mild impairment<br />Grandma: bad memory<br />

There is no one-size-fits-allrule<br />

Proloquo2Go™<br />

Functional groupings<br />Memory<br />Problem solving<br
/>Math comprehension<br />Attention<br />Reading, linguistic and verbal comprehension<br />Visual comprehension<br />From Bohman & Anderson’s functional cognitive disabilities model, 2005 and http://webaim.org/articles/cognitive/<br />

Tips For an inclusive user
experience<br />

Tip #1: Indicate progress<br />Memory<br
/>Provide simple reminders such as a progress bar <br />Consider labelling each step<br />Source of images: https://www.threadless.com/cart/step/shipping-info<br />

Tip #2:help recover from errors<br
/>Error messages should be as explanatory as possible<br />Tell users what they did wrong and how to fix the problem<br />Problem solving<br />

Tip #3: be predictable<br />Ensure
that navigation is consistent throughout the siteSimilar interface elements and similar interactions should produce predictably similar results<br />Memory<br />Source: http://wave.webaim.org/cognitive<br />

Tip #4: avoid distractions<br />Avoid
distracting background images, noises or moving elements<br />Attention<br />Source: http://www.dyslexia-parent.com/mag35.html<br />

Tip #5: allow user to
control movement and timing<br />Allow users to control content updates or changes.<br />Attention<br />

Tip #6: calculate it automatically<br
/>Math comprehension<br />

Tip #7: be multi-modal<br />The
more ways to convey your content, the easier it becomes to communicate to others. <br />Pair icons or graphics with text to provide contextual cues and help with content comprehension<br />Basic Tango Steps for Men<br />Step forward with your left foot<br />Step forward with your right foot passing the left foot<br />Step forward again with your left foot, this time passing the right foot<br />Step forward and to the right with your right foot<br />Left foot close to right foot<br />Visual comprehension<br />Reading, linguistic and verbal comprehension<br />Source: http://www.dancing4beginners.com/tango-steps.htm<br />Source: http://wave.webaim.org/cognitive<br />

Tip #8: plain language<br />Reading,
linguistic and verbal comprehension<br />http://wilsworldofwords.com/2010/06/english-picture-idioms-raining-cats-and-dogs.html<br />

Tip #9: left align<br />Reading,
linguistic and verbal comprehension<br />Source: (text) http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/without/without_1990.html, http://www.pws-ltd.com/sections/articles/2009/justified_text.html<br />

In many cases, the techniques
for making web content more accessible to people with cognitive disabilities are nothing more than techniques for effective communication.<br />WebAIM http://webaim.org/articles/cognitive/activity<br />

Useful resources<br />Clear Helper: Web
Accessibility for People with Intellectual / Cognitive Disabilities http://clearhelper.wordpress.com/<br />Cognitive Disabilities Part 1: We Still Know Too Little, and We Do Even Less, Bohman, Paul. 2004. from http://webaim.org/articles/cognitive/cognitive_too_little/<br />Cognitive Disabilities and the Web: Where Accessibility and Usability Meet? By Mariger, Heather. from http://ncdae.org/tools/cognitive/<br />What Problems Do People with Disabilities Have? and Why?, from http://trace.wisc.edu/docs/software_guidelines/software.pcs/disabil.htm<br />How People with Disabilities Use the Web by W3C, from http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/people-use-web/Overview.html<br />The Forgotten People: Designing for Cognitive Disability, from http://www.thepickards.co.uk/index.php/200607/the-forgotten-people-designing-for-cognitive-disability/<br />An Accessibility Frontier: Cognitive disabilities and learning difficulties, Hudson, Roger., Weakley, R. And Firminger, P. from http://www.usability.com.au/resources/cognitive.cfm<br />Evaluating Cognitive Web Accessibility, fromhttp://webaim.org/articles/evaluatingcognitive/<br />Ruth Ellison’s cognitive disabilities bookmarks: http://www.delicious.com/RuthEllison/accessibility+cognitive<br />

Ruth Ellison<br />Email: ruthe@stamfordinteractive.com.au<br />Web:
www.stamfordinteractive.com.au<br /> @RuthEllison<br /> @StamfordUX<br />Find this presentation at www.slideshare.net/ruthellison<br />