Designing Only for Some Users “SUX”

Designing Only for Some Users “SUX”

“When UX doesn’t consider ALL users, shouldn’t it be known as “SOME User Experience” or… SUX?” — Billy Gregory

A design that considers all users to define its usability measures is referred to as accessible design. By “all users” means, it also focuses on the needs of people with disabilities.

Accessible design enables people with disabilities to understand, navigate and interact with the product with ease, and achieve their desired goals without any difficulty.

If the design is not accessible and does not consider the needs of all users, we cannot call it an All User Experience or Design for All. Instead, we refer to it as SUX – Some User Experience. That means it is covering the needs of some users and hence providing a user experience that benefits those users only.

As a UX designer, it is your responsibility to design a product that meets the needs of all users without any difference of their abilities and context. The question comes here that why accessible design is important and how to ensure the accessible design of your product?

Accessible design is important because:

• There are more than 2 billion disabled people in the world, which is 37.5% of the world’s population. This is a large user group that cannot be left out while designing the products.
• It helps you to cater to the needs of a large audience over the world and hence increases the scope of your business.

To design an accessible product:

• Perform user research and testing with real users
• Design simple and consistent experience
• Design responsive layouts
• Make things easily distinguishable on the interface
• Don’t use colors only to focus on UI elements
• Use help text with input controls
• Use text alternatives for images and media
• Provide keyboard navigation

Let’s put an effort to avoid designing SUX – Some User Experience, and go towards an approach where we design an All User Experience that is universal design for all users. Let’s be kind. Let’s not skip a large group of audience who are facing discrimination in the world due to their disabilities. Let’s design experiences that help all users to meet their needs.

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