Slides from a presentation delivered by Andrew Arch and Sarah Pulis at the DTA Summit, November 2020.
When considering disability as part of the diversity of people we need to do research with and design for, we often only consider the more visible disabilities and impairments of vision, hearing and mobility. Cognition, often considered a 'hidden disability', can easily be overlooked. Digital design and language choices can make content inaccessible to people with cognitive and learning disabilities.
1. Designing for people with
cognitive impairments
Andrew Arch
Principal Consultant
amja
Sarah Pulis
Director
sarahtp
November 2020
2. Understanding user needs
Designing for user needs, such as differences in:
• perception, memory and attention
• learning and orientation
• visual, verbal or numerical thinking
16. Let’s chat
@Intopia Intopia intopia.digital hello@intopia.digital
Andrew Arch
andrew@intopia.digital
amja
Sarah Pulis
sarah@intopia.digital
sarahtp
17. Further reading (1/2)
Making Content Usable for People with Cognitive
and Learning Disabilities (working draft)
• www.w3.org/TR/coga-usable
Designing for cognitive accessibility: Where to
begin
• thenextweb.com/growth-
quarters/2020/04/06/designing-for-cognitive-
accessibility-where-to-begin/
18. Further reading (2/2)
Cognitive Disabilities Design Considerations
• webaim.org/articles/cognitive/design
Designing for Cognitive Differences
• alistapart.com/article/designing-for-cognitive-
differences/
Designing A Dementia-Friendly Website
• www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/05/designing-a-
dementia-friendly-website/
Editor's Notes
Briefly introduce Intopia and ourselves??
Historically accessible design has concentrated on sensory and physical disabilities, with cognitive needs often being overlooked.
Most cognitive disabilities are ‘hidden disability’ vs visible disability like white cane, wheelchair, guide/service dog
This was recognised by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative who publish the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, who formed the cognitive and learning disability accessibility taskforce. They have published a draft document “Making Content Usable for People with Cognitive and Learning Disabilities”
Increased focus on designing for variation in cognition is also being more broadly recognised in society as a must have. This includes focus on mental health and well being, particularly given the impacts on COVID.
In understanding users needs we must consider differences in people’s
Perception of what they see and hear
Long term and short term memory
They attention span and ability to concentrate
Differences in learning styles and abilities
Difference in visual, spatial, verbal or numerical thinking and understanding
These could be
Permanent
Environmental
Situational
Age related
Or a result of a medical condition such as mental health, medication, physical illness
Design, structure and language choices can make content inaccessible to people with cognitive and learning disabilities.
It is important to frame our design choices in terms of meeting user needs, not ‘addressing diagnosed conditions’
As with anything relating to diversity and inclusion, it is important to recognise that individuals have different traits, and that those traits that should not be classified as either good or bad.
When we talk about cognitive differences, we need to recognise that there are different traits – some people call them their ‘super powers’
Just like in the past we moved from medical model > social model – so too with certain types of user needs – shift from cog impairment to neurodiversity.
Neurodiversity can include, but may not be limited to:
Dyslexia
Dyscalculia
Dyspraxia
ADHD
Autism spectrum
Developmental language disorder
Traits associated with neurodiversity include being persistent, imaginative, anxious, creative, a problem solver, ruminating, or having memory challenges.
Andrew
People with learning and language needs may need simple clear language and instructions
People with different readings skills will appreciate shorter text and well-structured text
People with social and/or communication difficulties may need clear literal language and may not understand metaphors or non-literal text and symbols
Provide clear headings
Each section of content should have a heading that clearly describes the content
Good use of whitespace (and proximity) and assist visual organisation
No marketing speak
Use plain language
Use clear worlds, simple tense
Avoid metaphors and idioms
Use literal text (e.g. don’t use ‘if you are experiencing cold feet’, use ‘if you are experiencing anxiety before starting’)
Provide a summary of long documents (300 words+)
Provide an easy reading summary using common terms and short blocks of text/lists
Provide alternatives for numbers
Not all people can understand numbers and numerical concepts.
Reinforce numbers with non-numerical concepts .e.g. instead of a scale from 1 to 5, use Very Cold, Cold, Mild, Hot, Very Hot
Sarah
Maps to User Stories Objective 4, Design Guide Objective 4
Avoid mistakes / Mistake recovery
Help users avoid mistakes:
People who have difficult with organisation (executive function), typing, putting letters and numbers in the right order will benefit from designs that help them avoid making mistakes, complete forms
People who make more mistakes or touch the wrong element will benefit from an easy way to undo what they just accidentally did
Helping users avoid mistakes or easily correct them is good UX practice for everyone, but has more significant impact for certain users.
Provide clear instructions
Clear instructions help prevent users from making mistakes
Provide instructions needed to enable users to complete the task
Design for tolerance, such as accepting different formats for phone or credit card numbers –
this also reduces the amount of instructions someone has to read
Let a user know how long a task might take, or preferably how many steps are involved (‘how long’ is very individual and subjective)
Provide clear, always-visible labels
Clear form labels also help prevent users from making mistakes
*Call out* Labels should be visible at all times – don’t remove the label when a user starts to enter data
Allow users to ‘go back’
Allow users to ‘save and continue’
Provide ‘completed process’ feedback (Provide clear success or failure feedback)
Make the result of each action clear for people with a variety of cog disabilities
At the end of each user action, provide feedback about success of failures, e.g.
notification at the end of a process
Notification at the end of each step in a multi-part process (such as a tick next to the step)
Andrew
People with dementia often find concentration difficult
People who have difficulty concentrating could be distracted by lots of content that is not related to their task
Excessive or unnecessary movement or animation can also lead to loss of concentration
what they’ve done in previous steps of a process
Limit distractions
Reduce motion & movement
No auto-play
Optimise content – only provide content that is important or relevant for their task.
Make sure a user can easily identify content that is relevant to their task
Make sure content that people need to know or is important stands out
Max of five or less main choices on each screen
Extra choices can also hidden under a “more” link or other clear and descriptive titles.
Streamline processes and workflows
Only ask what you need to complete a process
Provide instructions at the right time
Tell users about the task before they start it so they can prepare
Tell users what they need to do when they are doing it
Sarah
Maps to User Story Objective 6, Design Guide Objective 6
People who have difficulty with short-term memory may experience difficulty in recalling
where they are on your site and
what they’ve done in previous steps of a process
Remember instructions on voice menus
Also may have difficulty with longer-term memory such as
Recalling passwords
(2) From https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/05/designing-a-dementia-friendly-website/ - LAYOUT, NAVIGATION AND GUI
Different authentication methods
Simple login processes
login process to be simple, and not multi-step
login process that does not contain puzzles or calculations
WCAG 2.2 draft considers authentication – check
Make navigation explicit
Clear and understandable menu items for navigation
Clear link text
Breadcrumbs to show related (higher level) pages
Provide different ways of getting help
People have different preferred comm methods, *risk* of removing human channels
Human, Chat
Andrew
People with difficulties processing information may take a lot longer than needed to find features and content if they are not designed to be clear, visible and obvious.
Significant changes to your design may make it difficult for impossible for users to learn a brand new interface.
Making incremental changes can reduce the cognitive load and learnability, instead of a whole-of-site refresh for instance.
Use consistent patterns
Use common controls that do what they say (e.g. don’t use square outlines for radio buttons)
Proximity
Proximity is about using space to group related content and separate unrelated content.
Related information should be close together in visual proximity (also can help people with a narrow field of vision or using a screen mag)
Use white space to separate groups of information
Use symbols and pictures as well as text
Make it easy for people with reading difficulties to identify information through the use of symbols and picture
Don’t rely on symbols and icons to be understood on their own
use them to enhance understanding & recognition
Make sure your symbols and icons have universal meaning (cultural difference can add confusion)
Provide search
Some people will find it easier to use your site via the search function rather than navigating through your menus
Make sure the terms people use to search gives them in relevant results (eg ‘death’ vs ‘passed away’)
(3) From 3.3.2 User Story: Visual Presentation
Andrew
Relates to Digital Service Standard (AA was part of its development)
Criteria 1 – Understand User Needs
Your user research needs to cover a wide range of users and show that you understand how different user scenarios may impact service design and delivery.
Make sure you test your design and language with users
Also recognise that some users may not be able to use the online service and will need to use other channels, including walk-in or telephony – most of the same design consideration apply
WCAG 2.2 will include some additional success criteria to assist people with cognitive and learning disabilities – due early 2021
Check Confluence page for others to add – see especially bolded refs
https://intopia.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/~276711073/pages/767655941/DTA+Digital+Summit
What about Jess’ Camp talk?