Top 10 steps towards making your mobile apps more accessible
Source: Stuart Dredge
First-hand experience can also be hugely useful for an app developer looking to make their products more accessible. Photograph: Alamy
The mobile apps boom may be a relatively recent phenomenon, but when it comes to making those apps more accessible, there is a rich history of research and advice to draw on from the web design world.
Of course, accessibility is not just about apps for people with disabilities: it's as much about an ageing population, and wider principles of good usability for anyone who might use your apps. Here are 10 starting points.
1 Read up on the subject
You're not starting with a blank page: there is some good material online offering advice �C some general and some more technical �C on making accessible apps. Apple and Research in Motion both have accessibility guides for iOS and BlackBerry developers respectively, while two sites called Designing for Accessibility and Android Accessibility offer specific advice for Android developers.
A blog post by developer Matt Gemmell, called Accessibility for iPhone and iPad Apps, is also an excellent read as a primer on the subject �C with general principles that hold true beyond Apple devices.
2 Talk to people with accessibility needs
Reading about accessibility is one thing, but talking to people who have access needs is also an invaluable way to open your eyes to some of the common mistakes made by apps currently. This doesn't need to be a succession of focus groups if you're a small company: sitting down with friends or friends-of-friends with access needs and asking them about the frustrations they encounter using their phones is a good start.
Talk to some of the charities and campaigning groups in these areas too: they are likely to have materials and examples of best practices, and perhaps relevant events.
3 Use some of the key accessibility technologies yourself
First-hand experience can also be hugely useful for an app developer looking to make their products more accessible. For example, if you're working on iOS apps, spend a bit of time using Apple's accessibility features, particularly the VoiceOver screen reader that's built in to iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS.
Use it with your own apps and those of other developers, and understand how features like its "Rotor" virtual control work. When testing your apps during their development, make sure you test with this too. And the same goes for other screen readers and similar features on Android, BlackBerry and other platforms.
4 Don't just focus on screen readers
Yes, getting hands-on with VoiceOver and other screen reading technologies is important, but don't make the mistake of thinking accessibility is just about making apps usable for people who are blind or partially sighted. The range of impairments, such as deafness and colour blindness, require a range of solutions; if you start thinking of accessibility in terms of people with cognitive disabilities, people whose literacy skills are lacking and older mobile users �C to name but three groups �C you'll realise that making an app that interacts well with screen readers is just one step towards accessibility rather than the whole journey.
5 Talk human, not programmer
This is a great example of how addressing accessibility can actually benefit all users, not just those with specific disabilities. So many apps continue to use unnatural language when communicating with their users: menu options, feedback and/or error messages that make perfect sense to a developer, but may baffle less technical users and people with cognitive disabilities.
Sorting this problem out should be something that happens during the testing process for an app, whether that's full-scale user tests or simply letting your friends and family have a go and asking what they think. Natural, human language feedback is the goal.
6 Think about user expectations
It's understandable when developers and designers want to create brand-new, whizzy user interfaces for their apps rather than copy what's gone before. Sometimes, that can be an accessibility barrier. Users will come to apps with expectations based on factors including the platform they're on (how other iPhone/Android/BlackBerry apps work) and the app category (how other news/social/games apps work).
Which isn't to say developers should be slavishly copying their rivals or not trying to innovate. It's more about considering whether people will intuitively swipe and tap in the way you want them to �C and if not, what you need to do to help them learn your interface and not be frustrated.
7 Simplify wherever possible
Another accessibility principle with benefits beyond any particular group of users is simplicity. Cramming features, menus and on-screen prompts into an application is an easy road to go down, especially when you're the developer, and so know your way around them.
Less options, clearer prompts and a well-defined pathway around the application are improvements that will pay off across the board, but they'll be particularly appreciated by people using screen-reading technology, or just people who are fairly new to smartphones and apps.
8 Consider your colours
Two facts. One: the most common form of colour blindness is the red/green variant, where people have trouble distinguishing between those two colours. Two: a lot of mobile games still rely on players being able to differentiate between red and green enemies or objects in order to succeed. The issue here is obvious.
Puzzle games are a particular bugbear for people with colour-blindness, as they so often rely on colours to differentiate same-shaped objects, whether jewels, bricks or balls. But it's not just games that can pose problems for this group of users: other apps' use of colour for buttons, menus and text can also cause needless frustration.
9 Testing, testing
Talked to people with accessibility needs for point two? Test with them before (and after) your app is released. On iOS, developers are using services like TestFlight to put beta versions of their apps into the hands of testers before submitting them to Apple for approval �C a golden opportunity to find out early if your app is falling short.
Meanwhile, once an app is released, it's important to keep testing it, especially when there's an update for the operating systems that it's available for. Accessibility technology, and features in iOS, Android and the rest, are evolving steadily, so even if your app was accessible when it was released, don't assume it can't be improved after that point.
10 Remember your lessons
Assuming you're planning to build more than one app in the coming months and years, it makes sense to set down some internal accessibility guidelines for future use. There's a very good blog post by freelance user access consultant Henny Swan with some advice on this score.
She says she prefers to break down general mobile accessibility guidelines into five roles: design, develop, content, interaction and devices. "There is of course a crossover between roles, but the ultimate responsibility has to stop somewhere. Go on, be brave," she writes. Swan also suggests that guidelines can apply across mobile and web development, where a company is working on both.
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