accessibility.ai
Throughout my thesis research, I identified an area in which technology could provide a potential solution to those with visual impairments.
Artificial intelligence offers a unique opportunity to understand facts about the user and simultaneously understand their range of abilities. This familiarity delivers a solution that could hold the user's capacity and a web experience in tension, creating a productive experience for each user.
The designed prototype is just that, a prototype. While I designed and created the structure considering AI's capabilities, this was not built with artificial intelligence but to simulate this solution. To test and iterate on the idea, I created a prototype in UXPin, an application that allows interaction and conditional design guidelines.
Within the proposed extension, an end-user can select five different identifying statements. These are not all-encompassing, yet, illustrate the diversity of options for an end-user and show multiple personas.
While there are hundreds of use cases that could fall underneath these identifying statements, here are three personas to help understand the possibilities. For the nature of this illustration and prototype, I named it accessibility.ai.
Caroline
Caroline has epilepsy. Vibrant colors or stark color contrast on web pages can easily trigger her symptoms. A week into using this technology, Caroline consistently dims her laptop's brightness every day in the late afternoon. The strain on her eyes after long periods on the computer signal that her eyes are typically more sensitive later in the day or after a certain number of hours on the computer. Noticing this pattern, accessibility.ai dulls colors further to accommodate Caroline's eyes after 3 pm. This subtle change allows Caroline to efficiently work a full day at her computer without fear of arising symptoms.
Stuart
Stuart is legally blind and has been since birth. He is proficient in technology and has always relied on a screen reader for his daily life. Stuart loves sports and heads to the ESPN homepage to read about last night's baseball game. However, ESPN has no alt text on their images, and while he can listen to the story, he feels that he is missing out on the context of images. Accessibility.ai scans the site, recognizes missing alt text, analyzes pictures, and auto-generate descriptions for Stuart.
Simultaneously, if Stuart is on a similar site with rich alt text, for example, CBS Sports, accessibility.ai could fade into the background, allowing it to act as designed. As Stuart knows, some websites are more accessible for him than others. Instead of relying solely on an additive extension, Stuart wants a product that knows when he needs assistance and knows when the website's inherent accessibility is efficient.
Patrick
Patrick has severe astigmatism in his left eye, and the discrepancy between his two eyes causes his vision to get tired and disoriented quickly. As a result, Patrick typically reads his browser at 150% zoom and avoids websites that have unnecessary motion. Patrick is a journalist, and his current story is on a new up-and-coming marketing agency in his town. When he goes to their website, accessibility.ai enlarges information 200% to accommodate for their small font size and remove any animation, allowing him to locate needed information without exhausting his eyes.
All three of these scenarios are unique, yet they center on knowing the user's characteristics and abilities, taking the needed accessibility steps to fit the user to the website, eliminating mismatched experiences.
Let's stand by the research findings that accessibility is for everyone, that disability inspires design practices, and that humans and machines' collaboration creates healthier products. The technology that is made to aid in those moments should reflect that. The future of this product concept is unknown. Yet, it illustrates the potential for a true partnership between technology and individuals with disabilities, allowing for a widespread inclusion culture.