I recently attended at talk by Big Motives’s David Fairbrother on accessibility in Design as part of Belfast Tech Week. While I think most of us have a good understanding of basics of accessibility, it can be difficult to understand the intricacies of finer detail when we ourselves don’t have accessibility needs. This can often make accessibility feel like an after thought; a final check list at the end of the design process to make sure our product is usable. David approached this idea from a different angle, comparing design factors to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (MHN). MHN is basically the essentialness of the things we need to survive, with the most essential being physiological needs such as food and water, and least essential being self-actualisation. David talked about the idea that we should be treating design factors like this, with accessibility, the thing that ensures usability by all, at the highest priority, and frivolous decoration aspects as least priority. This was a really interesting concept to me – as designers I think we can be obsessed with fancy visuals that look amazing; which is natural as we all want to make beautiful things; but this concept shows us that those visuals are pointless if a percentage of users struggle to use the product. By considering accessibility as the base essential quality of design, we can ensure we are designing products that are useable by everyone from the start.
Another interesting point David raised was around the EU Accessibility Act of 2025, which has recently come in to effect. Under this act all digital services, apps, and websites have to be have least a WCAG AA level of accessibility and failure to comply with this can now result in fines and penalties. While I’ve used WCAG guidelines to inform my work before, it adds a new dynamic now that it is a legal requirement. While this may not effect my design process massively, I think this could be a useful tool in other ways. On placement, I had to deal with a client who was particularly difficult about accessibly. As they were primarily and commerce platform, they wanted to include certain features that would not be possible under WCAG guidelines. There was a long back and forth process of redesigns to meet a middle group, even at which point they weren’t fully satisfied as they didn’t understand the need for accessibility. I think this act enables us as designers to better advocates for accessibilities at times like this, as we’re now able back up our desire for accessibility with law, which should hopefully help clients understand why it so essential.
I found this talk really interesting and has given me a lot to think out both for final year and professionally. I think hearing this talk at this time will be really beneficial and will help me to consider accessibility to it’s fullest extent as a base for my major project.