Inclusive Design
Life Time is committed to following an inclusive design process that satisfies and reaches more users. As a biproduct of thinking inclusively we also enable the accessibility of our website to persons with disabilities.
Inclusive design is the means and accessibility is the end — it’s just that you get a lot more than just accessibility along the way. - Heydon Pickering
To be accessible is to ensure that users with disabilities have access to content, functionality and the ability to contribute to the Web. Accessibility isn’t a feature, it’s a necessity.
Our Role
If we aren‘t doing things like using common language in our content, designing with visual hierarchy and common patterns, considering interaction models or failing to use proper code semantics we are making a mess of the Web. Remember that in most cases, the Web is accessible by default, but we have to keep it that way.
Accessiblity for Developers
Here are a few general considerations that developers can take into account:
- Use semantic markup
- The DOM order should match the reading order
- Leverage WAI-ARIA for roles and relationships
- Users should be able to navigate via keyboard
- And many more in the checklist…
Accessibility for Designers
Here are a few general considerations that designers can take into account:
- Visual hierarchy should match reading flow
- Clearly indicate content structure and relationships
- Use sufficient contrast for text
- Avoid images of text
- And many more in the checklist…
A Checklist
We‘ve created a checklist for anyone to use to satisfy WCAG 2.0 AA(external link) standards. Based on the 4 principles of WCAG, Perceivable, Operable, Understandable and Robust, this quick checklist starts at the high-level concepts and then provides a drilldown to get as technical as you need to be in order to satisfy the criteria at hand. Links to helpful resources and tools are also included.