The challenge of creating inclusive apps
As marketers and designers, we are all striving to reach the widest possible audience and provide them with experiences that are inclusive of their individual features or characteristics. Inclusive app design is a process that takes into account human diversity, not just interfaces and technologies. It’s an important concept to consider when creating apps for the public, as it ensures that you cover all bases when designing your product. But how difficult is it to create apps that are truly inclusive? Let’s take a look.
Creating Inclusive Apps: How to Meet the Challenge and Improve User Experience
It is estimated that 20% of the world's population has some type of disability. Social participation is beneficial for individuals’ health, but people with disabilities that may lead to mobility limitations tend to experience lower levels of social participation.
In this context, creating inclusive applications can be a challenge! It is important to ensure that everyone can use your app, regardless of individual characteristics or features. The inclusive design takes all of this into account and ensures that everyone has an equal opportunity to enjoy your app.
With the inclusive design, you can reach the widest possible audience with your app. You won't have to worry about leaving anyone out - everyone will feel included and welcome. This is an essential part of providing a great user experience for all your users.
Keep in mind:
Accessibility is the degree to which a product, service, device, or environment can be easily accessed and used by individuals with disabilities or special needs.
Digital accessibility concerns ensuring equal access to technology products, resources, and services across hardware and software platforms.
What Is Inclusive App Design?
In order for an app to be truly inclusive, its design must take into account the different ways people interact with technology.
This means considering people who may have disabilities such as visual impairments, hearing impairments, or physical impairments which affect their ability to use the app in its traditional form.
It also means taking into consideration cultural differences in language, layout preferences, and color preferences. All of these factors play a role in creating an experience that is accessible to everyone.
Jaccede.com's Case
Here at Joyjet Digital, we are proud to have developed the platform Jaccede.com, to help the public find accessible places.
Jaccede is an interactive platform (website and mobile app). Anyone can add details of places open to the public. This helps people with reduced mobility to identify establishments that can meet their accessibility needs.
Lack of information about accessibility is one of the biggest barriers people with reduced mobility face. Sharing information on Jaccede, therefore, has an immediate social impact.
Jaccede also organizes events throughout the year to allow members to meet, raise awareness and develop the guide. Hundreds of meetings have already been held in France and abroad!
Information and communication technologies such as Jaccede mobile application can help promote social participation.
The Challenges of Inclusive App Design
Creating an inclusive app can be a challenge for developers and designers alike. For starters, there’s the sheer amount of work involved in making sure every aspect of your app is accessible to everyone.
This includes testing the app on different devices and browsers, coding specific features like voice recognition and text-to-speech capabilities to make sure they work properly with various assistive technologies, and making sure all content is translated correctly into multiple languages if necessary.
Plus, you need to keep up with all the changing accessibility regulations so your app meets compliance standards.
Another challenge comes from user feedback – if users find something wrong or confusing about your app they’re likely to tell you about it right away!
This can be a double-edged sword; on one hand it helps you improve your product by offering insight from real users but on the other hand it can be overwhelming if there’s too much feedback coming in at once!
Finding ways to effectively manage user feedback while maintaining a high level of inclusion is key here.
To summarize, keep in mind:
- Inclusive design is a design approach that aims to create products, systems, and environments that can be used by as many people as possible, regardless of their abilities, disabilities, or other factors.
- Inclusive design can help increase the user base and market for an app by making it accessible to a wider range of people, including those with disabilities.
- By considering accessibility from the beginning of the design process, inclusive design can help prevent the need for costly retrofits or redesigns later on.
- Incorporating inclusive design practices can help to improve the user experience for all users, not just those with disabilities, by making the app more intuitive and user-friendly.
- Adopting inclusive design principles can help to ensure compliance with accessibility laws and regulations such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
- Inclusive design can foster innovation and creativity, as designers are challenged to come up with solutions that can accommodate a wide range of needs and abilities.
- Inclusive design can help to build trust and loyalty among customers, as they can appreciate that the company is taking steps to make their products or services accessible to everyone.
- Inclusive design can be a key aspect for the app to meet the needs of a diverse user base and achieve higher customer satisfaction, making them stay longer and coming back.
Conclusion:
Creating an inclusive experience doesn't have to be a daunting task – rather it should be embraced as an opportunity to make something better for everyone!
With careful attention paid towards accessibility needs and user feedback managed efficiently, any developer or designer can create an amazing inclusive experience for their users! So why not give it a try? You never know what kind of amazing ideas you might come up with!
