All users benefit from cognitive accessibility, whether they have a disability or not. Improving accessibility ensures an easier digital experience that doesn't drain their mental energy. They’re more likely to complete tasks as a result—and with a higher degree of accuracy and satisfaction.
Ethically, it's crucial to accommodate people with disabilities as they're often underrepresented and marginalized. What's more, you could be missing a large market of consumers! An estimated 27% of Canadians aged 15+ (probably more due to missed diagnosis and misdiagnosis) have disabilities that affect their daily activities. Almost 40% of these disabilities are related to mental health, 21% to learning, and 18% to memory.
We had the pleasure of hosting a session on cognitive accessibility at the EvolveDrupal Montreal summit on June 14. ‘Exploiter le potentiel grâce à la neurodiversité et à l'accessibilité’ was presented by Sophie Lemieux, Head of People at Fable, an online platform that connects digital teams with usability testers with disabilities. This article shares key insights from the talk, as well as tips and case studies from our own experts.
What is cognitive disability?
Cognitive disabilities may affect how a person thinks, learns, and remembers. They can generally be categorized as:
- Intellectual disabilities like Down Syndrome, traumatic brain injury, and concussion
- Mental disabilities like depression, anxiety, PTSD, and schizophrenia
- Memory disabilities like Alzheimer's and dementia
- Neurodevelopmental disabilities like autism, ADHD, and dyslexia
Disability can be permanent, temporary, or situational. A situational disability is when temporary circumstances restrict someone’s usual abilities — for example you may find it more difficult to use a website if you’re tired, experiencing hormonal changes, or distracted by loud noise.
Whether you have a disability or not, the way your brain works varies throughout the day and over your lifetime. Cognitive function is often impaired by stressful events like moving house or getting divorced. Aging is also a factor—an estimated 733,040 people in Canada live with dementia and most are over the age of 65.
How does cognitive disability affect digital experiences?
Your product may not be used as intended if you overlook users’ cognitive needs. For example they may struggle to:
- Understand complex language, jargon, acronyms, and euphemisms
- Complete actions within a time limit (like placing an order or filling in a form)
- Remember their login details and personal information
- Navigate cluttered pages and long menus
- Focus on a task if there are distractions like animation or auto-play videos
Users may end their session, fail to complete a task, or switch to a competitor as a result. Others may persist, but potentially miss crucial information and services. Whether users complete a task largely depends on the balance between motivation and cognitive load:
- Motivation is the desire or willingness to engage in an activity. It includes personal interest, enthusiasm, and the perceived importance of the task.
- Cognitive load is the mental effort needed to perform the activity. The higher the cognitive load, the more motivation is required.
There are many factors that influence motivation and cognitive load, including a person’s disability/ability, environment, values, and circumstances. For example:
- Most people file their taxes even if it’s hard because they want to avoid penalties
- People may leave an online survey to do something more fun or urgent
- Users may stop reading an interesting article if pop-up ads are overwhelming them
On a biological level, motivation is driven in part by the neurotransmitter dopamine. Research indicates that ADHD is linked to issues with dopamine regulation (to say it simply.) People with ADHD often struggle to start tasks, stay focused, or know when to stop. It’s therefore essential to create user-friendly interfaces and tools that help users with ADHD manage their tasks.
Designing for different cognitive needs
Now that we’ve seen how users with cognitive disabilities interact with digital products, let’s explore ways to enhance usability for them and provide an inclusive experience.
Apply universal design principles
Universal design is an approach that aims to create environments, products, and services that can be used by as many people as possible, whatever their situation or abilities. It challenges the idea that individual differences are problems to be solved, seeing them instead as opportunities to create inclusive solutions.
Accessibility
Every aspect of the product should be designed so it can be perceived, understood, navigated, and used to the greatest extent possible by anyone who wishes to use it. The experience should be comfortable and appealing for all.
Flexibility
The design should accommodate a wide range of individual abilities and preferences. People with disabilities may need customization and to use assistive technologies such as a screen reader, keyboard, head wand, or magnifier.
Simplicity
User interfaces should be simple and intuitive to lower the cognitive load. Reduce complexity wherever possible, including creating clear content to help users avoid misunderstandings and mistakes.
Tolerance for error
The design should minimize the risk and impact of accidental or involuntary errors. For example, having a warning message to check if users really want to delete their account or make a purchase. This creates a reassuring experience that reinforces the user’s trust.
See more design considerations for accessibility here.
Boost users’ motivation
Design can affect users emotionally, so we need to think about how to create positive experiences that elicit enthusiasm. Here are some points to consider:
- Gamification of tasks. Add elements of fun, challenge, and reward to the user experience. Try checklists, progress bars, and messages with positive reinforcement.
- Digital personalization. This is when an organization fine-tunes an online experience for individual users based on information it has learned about them. More than 70% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions.
- Importance of balance. Remember that motivation needs to exceed the cognitive load, so think about how to make the experience easy as well as fun.
Follow accessibility standards
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is internationally recognized for offering principles, success criteria, and techniques for creating accessible experiences on the web. Some quick compliance wins could include:
- Ensuring sufficient colour contrast
- Using accessible typeface and font size
- Adding alt text to images
- Properly labelling fields
Test with users with disabilities
WCAG compliance is a good starting point, but testing your product with real users can help you catch issues and discover opportunities that are more unique to your context and product. Doing usability testing with people with disabilities empowers you to:
- Gain early feedback to ensure successful roll-out
- Identify unmet user needs you wouldn’t think of yourself
- Catch accessibility issues early and reduce tech debt
- Prioritize critical fixes that affect usability
Evolving Web recently conducted accessibility testing with participants with visual and motor impairments and who used assistive technologies. Our Front-End Developer Iskandar Mamadnazarov and Project Manager Nour Bou Khalil created scenarios and tasks for the testers to carry out. They gained incredibly valuable insights that wouldn’t have come to light without this testing. For example, we saw that the person using a screen magnifier missed content and struggled to navigate pages due to visual elements being too far apart.
Iskandar has a few tips:
- Accessibility testing with real users is especially valuable for assessing complex functionality and interactive content.
- Ask the testers to describe everything including what they see, hear, think, and feel.
- Allow the testers to go off script sometimes, as this allows them to find issues that aren’t on your radar.
- Change your perspective from “we’re making this website accessible” to “we’re removing obstacles for people with disabilities.”
Wondering where to find testers? Fable connects digital teams with people with disabilities in research and on-demand accessibility testing. Fable also delivers custom training to ensure your product teams have the knowledge and skills to build truly inclusive products.
Need support with your platform? Evolving Web has been creating user-centric digital experiences for 17+ years. We believe in making a better web for all through accessibility practices and open source values. Explore our accessibility audits and inclusive design services today.