Total Results: 53
Results per page:
source UIL

Software developers and designers should gradually explore and learn how to master mobile accessibility, increasing their own job opportunities and related satisfaction, both as employees and as free-lance professionals. Get in contact with online UX (User Experience) designers communities and IT (Information Technology) experts on platforms such as GitHub, open discussion platforms and open source software developers to find collaborative solutions.

 

Recommendation code: 57
source UDM
  • All users will appreciate to customise interface settings and save them. Such personalised options could control several applications so that they have the possibility to activate it at their convenience.
  • Users with any kind and level of impairment may need slower or more precise options for giving input to the application (e.g. zooming the camera, clicking on buttons).
  • Users with any kind and level of physical disabilities may need to rearrange, hide, magnify or rearrange spacing and positioning of some components of the user interface to ensure they can operate with them more easily.
  • After a certain period, depending on different factors, users may have issues recalling how to use the application and may need to review the initial training tips, their control options and their action history.
  • Users may need assistance to progress through the app’s environment. Offer tips and suggestions depending on time or number of input errors, a FAQ section link provided when a known error is triggered and human-assistance when the user find barriers in finalising a process for a long time or for several times.
  • Users may need training sessions and to practice before using the app with full competence.
  • Users may need to reduce the speed of the information they are receiving (e.g. scrolling text, audio or video contents, pop-up contents).
  • Users may prefer to use particular communication options when contacting support (e.g. chat only, voice only).
  • The graphic interface should look that is made for everyone, not only appealing for young people. Consider designing several themes appropriate for different users’ ages and different levels of digital skills.

 

Recommendation code: 58
source UIL
  • Build trust and set a long-term strategy to become a trustworthy and inclusive service provider, by joining prominent communities who can witness, assess and/or certify your level of accessibility.
  • Create links with informal communities of experts. The internet is an extremely abundant Pandora’s pot, where you can meet all kinds of people with impairments who are also technology geeks. There are communities keen to contribute to research and development of new solutions in all fields. Invest time to make desk research out of academic papers and regulations, into the informal networks of gamers, bloggers and accessible internet trend-setters.
  • Build connections with or find existing networks of international or local organisations who commit to inclusion that could offer support and bridge vulnerable users needs to the developers’ team. Include their names and contacts in the users’ support area.
  • Plan periodic improvement of accessibility and let users know you do, taking advantage of the information collected through dedicated forms, contact-point and organisations’ network, plan to periodically improve your service accessibility and let users know about your commitment

 

Recommendation code: 59
source UIL

Policy makers shall consider digital mobility and goods delivery applications the same way they consider public transport services and the purchase of basic goods: essential. The cost-benefit analysis of private companies will always self-assess that investing in accessibility and inclusivity is a “disproportionate burden”, thus marginalising persons with any degree of limitation, which represents as much as 24% of the total population.

To increase the relevance of Universal Design (UD) approach:

  • A comprehensive regulatory frameworks – as suggested in (D1.4, 2021) may set minimum requirements for accessibility and inclusion and also reward operators that go the extra mile to improve their services for vulnerable people.
  • Introduce an incentive scheme and possibly subsidies to support the development and demonstration of universally designed services and applications. Make the benefits of UD visible, test local feasibility of the approach, and regularly update UD recommendations.
  • Include UD principles as minimum requirements for public procurement and approval of new mobility services.
  • Foster UD Principles in local sustainable urban mobility plans (SUMP) and regional and national transport plans as overarching planning principles and define key performance indicators that are monitored.
  • Appoint a Universal Design Officer at local, regional or national level who can oversee the application of UD principles in the planning, design and authorization of digital mobility services.
  • Create an ‘inclusive and accessible service’ quality label that can be issued if a service complies with the UD principles in digital mobility.
  • Introduce UD in the curriculum of the training of transport and urban administration professionals.
Recommendation code: 43
source UIL

Service providers and business-developers should think in a long-term perspective and invest a proper amount of time, money and effort to test their ideas and prototypes, taking advantage of the experience and knowledge of the real experts, namely those vulnerable-to-exclusion users who can provide real feedback about accessibility and usability of their products. Read the full INDIMO UDM manual to know more about the advantages of involving potential users in the development of applications and services.

Recommendation code: 42
source UDM

As for all other digital contents of any user interface, internal consistency in the use of icons is important to support comprehension and avoid users get confused while trying to interpret how to operate with it:

  • Every function, object, action or interaction, if provided with an icon, should be represented univocally (e.g. clock icon used both for opening hours and expected time of arrival/deliverable).
  • All icons should come with a text label, always. Literature confirms that comprehension rates of icons increased consistently if combined with labels. If you think they are too invasive, an option could be offering users’ the possibility to activate or deactivate them.
  • Care for uniformed icons and spatial organization of relevant information (e.g., working hours, direct contact channels, etc.).
  • Every payment method should have a specific icon, i.e. for credit card, PayPal-type electronic payment, cash payment, vouchers, etc.).

 

Recommendation code: 35
source UIL

Most of the times digital mobility services and applications are developed by small groups of people, in some cases by a single person. It is important that all people involved in this process are fully aware of the W3G provisions. To ensure all users can correctly perceive the service features, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) layout and style sheets shall be defined with an attentive care since it stores most of the information about user interface elements’. Ensure the application’s CSS sheet is compliant with the W3G provisions, especially concerning contrast, colour, size of textual and visual contents.

Digital mobility applications, similarly to webpages, are equipped with information about internal style rules. Such rules are generally (but not exclusively) coded into CSS, a language for describing the rendering of HTML and XML documents on screen, on paper, in speech, etc. It defines colour-related properties and values of texts, backgrounds, borders, and all other visible elements of each screen template or of a group of similar screens.

Recommendation code: 2
source UIL

Colour is a very important feature of icons and user interfaces. It is used to convey important information, about the availability and/or status of an action or object. Colour can be also used to identify intuitively interface components with similar functionality and to make content hierarchy comprehensible. Since not all people perceive the colours in the same way, digital applications’ colour palettes should support all forms of colour perception, including colour related impairments.

  • Avoid using only a colour code to convey information about an action or content, for example by adding specific shapes and fillings to elements with the same meaning.
  • Use a discreet number of colours: follow the principle of minimalistic design reducing it to the minimum.
  • When choosing the colour palette or icons’ colours, avoid using logotype colours.
  • Colours have strong cultural implications and taking them into consideration, both as potential strengths and weaknesses, may result in a better market positioning. A possible reference can be found on the “Information is Beautiful” website, a must-know reference for web designers and visual artists.
Recommendation code: 3
source UIL

User Interface
Colour coding brings a lot of information to users, in part related with users’ cultural background. The use, misuse and non-use of colour can be misleading in different ways, depending on the context of use and socio-cultural environment. Always call colours into doubt, also when their meaning seems obvious (e.g., standard coupling of red and green for go/no go actions) and test them with diverse people with different backgrounds.

Visual Icons
Differently from drawings and digital art, icons’ meaning in digital mobility applications must be easily recognised, understood and recalled. Instead, oftentimes icons colours simply adhere to those chosen for companies’ visual identity. If on one hand this may apparently improve the unity and thus reduce the complexity of the interface, there is a risk of causing miscomprehension and ambiguity. Both at a global level and locally, there are specific colours linked to specific concepts or meanings. Ask local people in advance to provide feedback about your icons’ colours and overall application colour palettes to prevent related errors.

Recommendation code: 4