Making Your Designs Accessible Simply + That Figma x Adobe Deal 🤑
Let's discuss accessibility and that $20 billion Figma, Adobe deal. Should you be concerned as a designer?
By Furquan Ahmad · September 22, 2022Originally sent in my Ready Set Grow newsletter
Hi Reader,
Having everyone in your organisation on the same hymn sheet using a central design system that follows accessibility guidelines can be such an easy way to boost accessibility in your organisation.
Easy Wins
If everyone is following the same central brand colours that are accessible, that’s an easy win, the same for spacing and typography.
When it comes to components like input fields, there’s a central accessible way of doing this. Get your entire organisation to follow this by following and using the same components.
If your design system isn’t accessible and failing?
An easy way to find out problems with your existing design system is to run a free-to-use tool like Google Lighthouse or Wave on your webpage. These tools will flag components that are not accessible; you can then take this away and have an “accessibility jam” with your cross-functional teammates on quick wins you can solve today. Flagging components that need to change and creating an actionable backlog to work on.
Responsiveness And Zoom
Conforming to different responsive breakpoints is a must. Having mobile and desktop components can help make this a lot easier. When people zoom into your webpage, your page shouldn't break. Your app shouldn't break if people increase font sizes.
Tabbing
Another quick thing to check is making sure you can clearly navigate around your webpage using a keyboard, tabbing through the correct order on your site. It's a simple thing to check, but makes the world of difference. Work with your engineers to make sure you've got this sorted!
How To Make Your Designs More Accessible?
In this video we talk about how to make your designs more accessible whilst using a design system as an anchor point to help with this.
We're joined by a special guest Jadene, who provides some amazing insights!
Quick Thoughts On Adobe Purchasing Figma. Tools Do Die.
Reading the news and seeing the reactions on Twitter has been pretty overkill. People love Figma as a product because it’s not Adobe. And they feel let down by this.
As a product designer, knowing how to use a tool well is a small part of the wider design skills you build over your career that stick with you such as product thinking skills.
Design tools come and go, 5 years ago people used InVision, Sketch, prior to this Photoshop. If Adobe push Figma in the wrong direction, there’s bound to be another tool that spins up, don’t be so attached to tools.
iOS 16 Is Now Live, But What Has Changed?
In this video we dive into the biggest iOS 16 design updates. We look at changes to the lock screen with brand-new lock screen widgets.
How will they change the behaviour model of how someone uses an app?
