User experience designers guide, Accessibility design review
Accessibility design reviews are one of the practices that help us meet the BBC Mobile Accessibility Guidelines. This helps embed accessibility in components from the start.
Carry out an accessibility design review, allowing enough time to address any issues after the review for:
- All design work before sign-off
- New components as well as iterations
Organising a review
First, you'll need to organise a review:
- Ask an accessibility champion (from any discipline) to review the component with you
- Allow 1 to 2 hours for the review, depending on the complexity of the component
- Review at component level rather than page level
Working on a large project? If so, organise regular reviews throughout the design phase. You can then take feedback onboard in stages.
Step by step
We’ll take you step by step through how to carry out an accessibility design review for a component.
Remember to:
- Work through the checklist together
- Use each item as a conversation point
- Make a note of any issues or concerns that arise
Step 1 - Initial look and see
Have an initial look at the visual user experience. This should include the designer of the component, we are all busy and sometimes we miss things. Does anything stand out as an accessibility concern?
- Take it in turn to try and spot an issue
- If you are having to explain part of the user experience, that could be an area to explore making clearer
Step 2 - Most users, most the time
Work through the key considerations for users, this will cover a high percentage of users most of the time.
Step 3 - Best practice
Use one of the following best practice accessibility guides as a conversation point:
- Dos and don’ts of designing for accessibility posters by Home Office Digital
- Inclusive Design Principles posters by Barclays (a more detailed version of the inclusive design principles is also available)
Step 4 - User research
Has any user research taken place, or is any planned? If so, have you included participants with accessibility needs?
Not sure who to include and when, see the researching access needs: who to include when poster by Home Office Digital.
Step 5 - Screen reader UX
Defining the screen reader UX is part of the design process. This communicates the user experience for screen reader users to the development team, and also helps in achieving a good user experience for other types of assistive technology users.
- Validate the screen reader UX by describing this to the reviewer
- If you are having to explain a part of the user experience, that could be an area to explore making clearer
- Is the screen reader UX comparable to the visual UX?
Don’t worry if you haven’t documented the screen reader UX yet. You can define this as part of the review process. To help you, use the user experience designers guide, how to document the screen reader user experience.
Note, this guide takes one approach, there are other ways you could do this. Back to top