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WHY ACCESSIBILITY IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS FOR PRODUCT DESIGNERS TO CONSIDER.

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?


As the population of digital users age it's estimated that at some point in our lives 1 in 5 of us will need to use accessibility tools to complete our online tasks. And because of this it's been forecast that in the next 20 years accessibility will become the single most important consideration in building digital products.


Researching the viability of creating a product design tool for visually impaired designers has made me understand that I not only need to think of visually impaired design users but also design users with disabilities that impair their use of a mouse or touchscreen. It's a complex problem to solve, but one who's importance I'm increasingly aware of.


Some statistics on digital users with disabilities below that certainly gave me pause for reflection:


3.5% of the world's population live with vision impairment.

That's 253 million people (36 million are blind and 217 million have moderate to severe vision impairment)


Over 5% of the world's population has disabling hearing loss. 

That's 360 million people (328 million adults and 32 million children).


30% of working professionals have a disability. 62% of employees with a disability have an invisible disability or a disability that one cannot immediately identify upon meeting a person.


The ageing population is predicted to triple to 1.5 billion by 2050.


The common belief that accessibility is a minority problem or box ticking exercise is a dangerous myth. And designing for users with disabilities is something we should all be putting front and centre of our product roadmaps.

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