- Provide comparable experience
- Ensure the interface provides a comparable experience for all so people can accomplish tasks in a way that suits their needs without undermining the quality of the content.
- Whether out of circumstance, choice, or context, people are diverse. People use different approaches and tools to read and operate interfaces. Make the interface comparable in value, quality, and efficiency, regardless of how people reach it.
- Consider situation
- People use interfaces in different situations. Make sure your interface delivers a valuable experience to people regardless of their circumstances.
- People are first time visitors, established visitors, at work, at home, on the move, and under pressure. All of these situations have an impact. For those who already find interaction challenging, such as those with disabilities, this impact may make usage particularly difficult.
- Be consistent
- Use familiar conventions and apply them consistently.
- Familiar interfaces borrow from well-established patterns. Use patterns consistently within the interface to reinforce their meaning and purpose. Apply this to functionality, behavior, editorial, and presentation. Say the same things in the same way so that people can do the same things in the same way.
- Give control
- Make sure people are in control. Let people access and interact with content in their preferred way.
- Do not suppress or disable the ability to change standard browser and platform settings such as orientation, font size, zoom, and contrast. Avoid content changes that are not initiated by the person unless there is a way to control it.
- Offer choice
- Consider providing different ways for people to complete tasks, especially those that are complex or non standard.
- Often more than one way is possible to complete a task. Don't assume someone's preferred way. Offer people choices that suit them and their circumstances by giving alternatives for layout and task completion.
- Prioritize content
- Help people focus on core tasks, features, and information by prioritizing them within the content and layout.
- Interfaces can be difficult to understand when core features are not exposed and prioritized. A site or application may provide lots of information and functionality, but people should be able to focus on one thing at a time. Identify the core purpose of the interface, and then the content and features needed to fulfill that purpose.
- Add value
- Consider the value of features and how they improve the experience for different people.
- Features should add value to the experience by providing efficient and diverse ways to find and interact with content. Consider device features such as voice, geolocation, camera and vibration API's, and how integration with connected devices or a second screen could provide choice.
Inclusive
Lead with person-first design, designing with people, not for them. Be aware of our own biases and assumptions, and recognize we are not the user.
Embrace people as complex beings, where average doesn’t exist.
Be aware of stereotypes and single story narratives. Embed diversity throughout the entire design, development, and implementation process so content and services are made for everyone (regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, ability, cultural background, and emotional state).
Inclusive design principles
Adapted from inclusive design principles. Also consider the ten principles of inclusive web design.
Inclusive design principles are about putting people first. It’s about designing for the needs of people with permanent, temporary, situational, or changing disabilities — all of us, really.
Further reading
The user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within ten seconds.
We’re all imperfectly human, and our readers are no exception. They have touchy subjects and insecurities and things they’d rather not talk about — and they bring them all to the table when they interact with our content.