How have you addressed accessibility and usability within your own work over the past year?

In the past year I have completed two projects which addressed the issues of usability and accessibility, these were a website and a touch screen interactive.Accessibility in this sense is referring to people with or without disabilities having the same access, and in these two media there are many accessibility features to consider. In the website project we were advised of new laws that relate the Disability Act to website design. The majority of these are aimed at those who are fully or partially blind, or have other sight disabilities. One design feature included was expandable text boxes. This means that text size can be increased on the browser options, and the text will still be visible on the page without affecting the design, meaning if you have trouble reading smaller text you can receive information in the same way. Another feature is alt tags; these are text boxes, which appear if the cursor is held over an image. There is special software available for blind computer users, which reads text aloud when it is visible on the page. These alt tags mean that even images have text, and so by entering a description the user can have the image explained to them even if they cannot see it. Another usability feature was making the buttons use editable text, so again the text can be resized and read aloud by the computer.Usability relates to all media, as the creator or designer is always thinking of how the audience receives their work, however in web design there are probably more usability guidelines than in any other media. In my website project I considered many visual factors. The colours in the page have to be generally easy on the eye to not scare people off, perhaps older users. Also, the colour of the text has to be readable on the background, however research has shown that people have difficulty reading anything that isn’t black text on a white or extremely pale background. Also in terms of text, fonts should be limited to a set list of the five easiest fonts to read, in my site I stuck to Helvetica. There are other usability features that have become web standards. These include the underlining of links to make them stand out. I also checked the size of my buttons was easy to click on, and the button’s text was large and clear. Other obvious features are having consistent graphics and navigation, and having constant access to a ‘Home’ link.In the interactive kiosk, the same usability guidelines were applied, but with much more of the emphasis on button size and shape, as people have had difficulty in the past with small active areas. I also made the pages inactive for the first second after being loaded as people often double click as they are used to using computers, and as a result skip through the pages too fast on touch screens.Overall, accessibility is becoming increasingly necessary and easier to employ, as technology advances and laws change. Usability is something all designers should think about in everything they do.