Inclusive Design & Development at Ushahidi

As designers and UX researchers, we often put ourselves and those we test with in the position of others to inform our work. Here’s one to get us started:

Imagine you’re a person with a sight impairment. How do you access our web products and apps?

And a little bit more flavour to that sight impairment: Perhaps you have around 5% vision across both eyes.

What kinds of ‘actions’ might you do to make the web products and apps:

You might use a ‘zoom’ function on a browser to better view the content on web pages, apps and digital content.

What happens when (using a zoom function) meaningful actions like buttons and form fields disappear or are rearranged poorly post-zoom?

You might also personally edit the colours with a screenshot function and editing directly in graphics software of a site to be the highest contrast ratio so that you can read it easier.

What happens if this web page has removed the ability to screen capture their site?

You might occasionally (or always), be a person who relies on a screen reader, who uses the tab key and a in-built computer voice feedback to navigate around a web page.

What happens then when you can’t tab out of a part of a webpage and you get stuck in a section of a product that has no ‘close’ function?

The current Ushahidi Platform cannot support people for whom these use cases are an everyday reality. Given our mission and purpose, we should.

At Ushahidi, we’ve been giving a lot of thought to use cases like these recently. We’ve recently committed ourselves to be web AA compliant by the beginning of 2019. It’s an ambitious goal being a small team.

Raising marginalised voices has always been at the heart of Ushahidi’s purpose. Communities use our platform to create change around the world. To call out issues, on both a local and global level to mobilise like-minded people and affect change. From fostering transparency and fairness in elections to alleviating suffering after droughts and natural disasters, we’re all about giving people the platforms they need to raise their voices and be heard.

This should include people that find it difficult or near impossible to use web-based services and apps due to physical limitations, disabilities or learning difficulties. We want our platforms, support and content to be available and usable for people that live with an impairment (or multiple impairments).

Because sighted people are widely represented in the companies that create digital experiences, we (i.e. the mostly sighted employees of technology companies) often bury the nuance of people’s needs under the umbrella term ‘Accessibility.’ The reality out in the world is much more diverse.

Using sight impairments as a starter, you have:

Varied forms of colour blindness (Protanopia, Deuteranopia, Tritanopiaetc.)

Short or long sighted people who rely on glasses to see (Yes, glasses are assistive technology!)

1%< or any percentage of sight that is reduced and rely on assistive tech.

People with peripheral vision that can only see a ‘tunnel’ view of the world.

Those that suffer sight based migraines or pain that causes blurriness as well as other problems.

0% sight (commonly referred to as blind) who can be reliant on screen reader technology to describe website content to them.

Even this is a very small list of the varied and very individual needs that span across people. It’s also common for those with sensory impairments to have multiple, which can include motor impairments.

There are also folks that use different kinds of input devices such as eye-tracking cameras, single button input devices and voice commanded devices to interact with the digital world (commonly used by those with limited or no use of limbs).

A focus on ‘umbrella’ accessibility also glazes over the fact that everyone at some point in their lives, will experience an impairment. It could be a long term impairment (low/no sight, dyspraxia, dyslexia), an impairment that is experienced as we age (hearing loss, sight loss, physical mobility), or a situational impairment (Glare on screen during bright light, temporary injury such as broken wrist).

This shift from accessibility alone, to inclusive design helps us broaden our perspective to include all the ways technology may mis-match people’s needs.

So what are we going to do?

There’s plenty of documentation and web standards to follow. There’s support out there, especially for some of the more widely known and talked about impairments, but there’s less available for the harder to reach groups. Those groups tend to use unique and sometimes custom devices to access digital products/apps. There’s also a lack of information on defining and discovering the needs of those with mental health conditions, the neurologically diverse and other vulnerable folks.

The team at Ushahidi believe that inclusive, accessible technology benefits everyone and are approaching this work with the understanding that making the effort will improve our products. Not only for those with inclusivity needs but that we’ll have a knock-on impact generally to the way that the products work and are displayed for everyone.

Making our own platform more inclusive won’t be easy, but it will be worth it. We hope not only to improve our users’ experience but contribute actively in making ‘digital spaces’ better for everyone. Using the wealth of information that exists already coupled with our dedication to human centred design research and testing, we want to be ready to develop insights that help us build standards for those groups of people using digital services with impairments with a view to share those with everyone.

We’re looking to our colleagues and community for support and for accountability.

Find something that doesn’t quite work for your needs? Tell us. Have advice, best practice and experience you want to share? We welcome it!

Want to test and feedback on our platforms as they grow? We’d love to have your input!

Our first steps are humble, we’re training and practicing a lot. We’ll be trying things out, talking and engaging with people and community groups that we have direct access to and then as wide reaching as we can. We expect a lot of testing, learning, mistakes, corrections, audits, sketches, reworking, story-telling and openness as we take this journey.

One final note: I am an able-bodied, sighted person, so the descriptions of folks who use assistive technologies don’t refer to my personal experience. I’ve been reaching out to UK and EU communities and people with impairments who speak on the topic for comments and experience.

I’d like to thank MollyWattTalks, Laura Kalbag, Bristol disability equality forum and SmartBox assistive technology for amazing conference talks and speaking with me 1–2–1 on the subject.

Also thanks to The A11y project for amazing resources.