Examine the importance of designing mobile apps with accessibility in mind
Accessibility best practice in the mobile app development process ensures that all users get an equal user experience. The fundamental part of inclusive design is to let your app perform well even for users with certain disabilities.
Developers need to follow the best practices for developing mobile apps that are performant and robust. Whether you design a web app, a native app, or a hybrid, the key principle of digital accessibility helps you to make these products better.
In this piece of content, we will see why accessibility is a necessary best practice while developing an app. Let’s dive in and explore more about accessibility and its importance.
What is Mobile App Accessibility?
Expert application developers aim to create mobile apps that everyone can use easily.
Accessibility in Mobile apps is the relevancy of building user-friendly mobile apps for use on wearables, smartphones, and tablets. Regardless of physical or mental disability, the app should serve all functionalities equally to all users.
As per the World Health Organization, there are around 2 billion people in the world who have certain disabilities. 20% of them have functional difficulty in managing their daily activities. So, building digital systems accessible to them is immensely necessary.
Importance of using Accessibility in Mobile App Design
The benefits of accessibility in mobile app development lie in the fact that it ensures all users, regardless of their capabilities, can use the mobile app comfortably. Here are certain key importance of using accessibility:
- Incorporates Inclusivity
Including accessibility features in application design serves a huge group of users, even elders and those with disabilities. Businesses can reach to various users and provide them with better UX by integrating accessibility features.
- Enhances User Satisfaction
By making it easier for the users to work with the app, accessibility in mobile apps improves the overall user experience and engagement.
- Better accessibility for better SEO
Search engines effectively index and crawl through accessible mobile apps. Hence, it improves the SEO and enhances the chances of the app’s visibility.
- Makes your app user-friendly
The importance of a user-friendly mobile app experience is that all customers receive a positive UI/UX to use. All users should receive a similar user experience to the mobile app they are using.
Moreover, user-friendliness is one of the key principles to make a mobile app accessible and more successful.
How to build Accessible Mobile Applications?
Guidelines for mobile accessibility are covered here to apply to both iOS, Google, and Android.
Let’s discuss the six essential best practices that application developers should employ while building apps:
Operational Keyboards
Both the on-screen keyboard and the hardware keyboard need to work well. On-screen and hardware keyboards are supported by iOS and Android, which allows users with assistive techniques like screen readers and magnifiers to use the program.
Color Contrast
4.5:1 is the minimum color contrast that developers should have in the application to make it more accessible. It’s also the minimum value of text-to-background contrast as per the guidelines of WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). It implies the text and different elements must be readable against their background. This is helpful for users with certain visual impairments.
Right Label on UI components
UI elements such as buttons, images, and other controls require the right labels so that assistive technology like Android TalkBack and iOS Voiceover can recognize them.
Touch Target
Touch targets allow users to engage with the mobile app by screen touch physically, it must be a minimum of 44 dp. Some users still find it difficult because they have vision problems or shaky fingertips. Touch targets for keeping the app accessible should be a minimum of 44 dp x 44 dp.
Straightforward App Motions
On touchscreen devices, users utilize gestures to navigate from mobile apps. By requiring only a single finger tap to complete an operation, app developers should keep these gestures straightforward.
Users with disabilities like dexterity or motor can find it difficult to control complex navigation or multiple fingers or taps.
Audio Description
Users having visual impairments find it difficult to understand visual information if there’s no audio format. Hence, make sure that the video has audio descriptions. It helps those users who are visually impaired or completely blind.
Test Accessibility
Testing the accessibility of mobile apps is like evaluating their functions or content to verify how disabled person can access them. Looking for the simple and complex features of a mobile app generally has design factors like font sizes, color contrasts, etc. Accessibility testing also enables you to improve user experience.
Testing can be done by two methods:
Manual Testing- It finds accessibility issues in the mobile app, and you can personally navigate and interact with the app during the testing procedure. By using the app just like a user will use it, you can easily search for the spots in your mobile app that must include accessibility features to make the app easy to use.
Automated Testing- Manually testing mobile app accessibility proves to be labor-intensive and time-consuming, presenting a significant challenge for developers. Automated testing emerges as a solution, offering efficiency and speed in uncovering accessibility issues during the development process.
However, it's necessary to recognize that automated testing alone may not guarantee comprehensive accessibility. The optimal strategy involves a combination of automated and manual testing methodologies.
To streamline this process, consider integrating automated accessibility tests into your Continuous Integration (CI) pipeline, enabling seamless and proactive identification of accessibility concerns throughout the development lifecycle.
Mobile Accessibility Principles to Keep in Mind
After understanding the features that can help developers make an accessible mobile app, let’s explore accessibility principles.
These principles are constructed with the help of WCAG. Let’s understand each of them in detail:
Operability
The mobile app should be operable in multiple ways. For instance, anyone having mobility impairments who cannot use a touchpad or mouse can still navigate through the app using voice commands or a keyboard.
Perceivable
The user has to perceive the data provided by the app. So, it has to be clear and understandable to every user. For instance, if a user has a visual disability, they will have to read it using a screen reader tool, or users who can’t hear should get to readable captions to understand the content.
Understandable
Everything that an app provides should be understandable. The interactive buttons and navigation menu should perform the same tasks that they have to do. Any occurring bugs should be followed by an alert message on how to fix that bug.
Strong
Cutting-edge hardware & assistive techniques are leveraged to maintain the functionality of the content without interruptions, catering to users with disabilities.
WCAG establishes guidelines for ensuring web content accessibility, offering a standard framework for creating user-friendly content. Meanwhile, the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) serves as a reference point for content providers striving to meet accessibility standards.
Furthermore, compliance with ADA standards is essential for mobile applications. Despite being drafted before the advent of mobile technology, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to mobile apps, necessitating adherence to its provisions for accessibility.
Testing Mobile App Accessibility
Once developers have made an accessible mobile application testing it is necessary before deploying it. Accessibility testing contributes to improving the general user experience whenever required.
Performing accessibility testing helps the app achieve full compliance with accessibility principles. But the question is, how to perform it? Here are the two different tools that can help testers to perform mobile accessibility testing:
Google Scanner A11y
The name of this tool is abbreviated as GSCX. It is a developer’s assistant that is used for testing accessibility in different apps and scans them for any errors.
The scanning is done even before the developer gets a chance to write a test case. It’s an in-built software that is compatible even with other plugins for adding customized testing criteria.
UBKAccessibilityKit
UBKAK is a rich tool that helps in auditing apps on a device. It can be seamlessly integrated into any existing projects to search a wealth of issues and fixes that need to make the mobile app more user-friendly. Those issues search for missing accessibility labels to swap colors for more accessible-friendly UIs.
Why is Accessibility important in Mobile Apps- Final Words
Mobile apps should be made accessible for all users to have similar accessibility to the app’s usage. An app that is accessible makes different gadgets navigable, understandable, and usable for customers of different abilities. At times, many people embrace features that intend to improve the experience for people with certain impairments.
It means that while developing a smartphone or mobile application, it is necessary to take into consideration all the listed disabilities. Accessibility is a way to enhance the user experience for different users as possible.
By the end, if everything depends on the end goal, accessibility will expand the user base of your app. As it will help users with disabilities to use your app easily. For more updates, stay tuned, and happy reading!