THE PREMISE: IS IT POSSIBLE TO CREATE A PROFESSIONAL QUALITY DESIGN PRODUCT THAT CAN BE USED BY VISUALLY IMPAIRED DESIGNERS AND WHICH WILL DELIVER RESULTS ON A PAR WITH SKETCH AND FIGMA?
After reaching out to a group of designers and asking what they considered to be the cornerstones of a mvp product design tool (see post below), I then began reflecting on their responses, and also on the additional feedback they gave related to the product concept in general.
The main question that began occupying me was: should we look at the viability of designing a full design tool product that is fully accessible for those with visual impairment? Or should we look at the viability of building a plug-in that would work with existing design tools such as Sketch and Figma.
As far as I can see, there are pros and cons to both approaches.
Building a fully accessible product design tool from scratch to MVP:
Pros:
Designing from the ground up would allow us to put focus on accessibility to the fore.
Full control over how product features work.
Cons:
Time and resource consuming to build.
Would not have the developed reputation of existing design tools.
Mvp would be basic and would not initially have any third party plug ins.
Building a plugin that would work with existing design tools:
Pros:
Potentially much quicker to build.
Would leverage the framework of existing design tools.
Would be lighter on finances and resources.
Would have access to other third party plug in features.
Would be already known and trusted by users.
Cons:
Would need to be designed within third-party plug in guidelines.
Compatibility with the primary design tool would always be a consideration as their product grows and evolves.
On the whole I think the pros for the plug in approach outweigh the cons, but that will require further research.