This week’s lecture was a dive into accessible design, and how to bake accessible design into the design process. With just over one-fifth of the population of Northern Ireland having some form of disability, the importance of accessibility is clear. However, with only limited experience of disabilities it can be a challenge to think of all the possible issues people may face. We looked at visual, auditory, motor, cognitive and learning impairments all of which need to be considered when designing a product. We also looked at the principle of universal design were by designing for all possible impairments from the start we can improve design for everyone. This can also be thought of as the curb-cut effect where a curb was lowered to help people in wheelchairs bot inadvertently also helped people pushing prams or shopping trollies as well.
I recently saw an article on the BBC website citing concerns about the accessibility of touchscreen card payment machines for those with visual impairments so I wanted to look at this further.
This article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/disability-67239870 popped up on one of my news feeds recently and immediately caught my attention. I was interested in what was going on and what solutions may be available to the issue of using touchscreen devices in general as well as touchscreen card devices in particular, for people with a visual impairment.
The issue highlighted in the article surrounds the popularity of touchscreen card payment machines in shops and other businesses who take card payments. These machines have no physical buttons and require you to type in your pin or make other interactions via a touchscreen which lack any way of knowing where buttons are located via touch. While this is not an issue for sighted people for those with a visual impairment this has left them in a position of having to tell someone their PIN code for them to tap it in for them or simply having to leave their unpaid for items in a store.
These machines are popular with businesses due to their relative low cost and the ability to advertise products and services on the screen while not in direct use. However, with numerous people having complained about the inaccessibility of these card payment devices and the fact that the business could be breaching the Equality Act and therefore face prosecution, surely something needs to be done.
The article goes on to say that this issue was flagged a few years ago and manufacturers of these devices have come up with accessibility solutions to solve the problem. I wanted to investigate what these accessibility solutions were and consider why they were not being used.
I was able to find the guidelines on accessibility created by UK Finance here: https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/system/files/2023-10/UKTAS touchscreen accessibility 220519.pdf
This document goes into the detail of what is required in a touchscreen chip and pin device to make it accessible to people with all visual impairments. It starts by talking about font size, using sentence case and font choice for text as well as covering required colour contrast ratios. These are in line with the WCAG AA and AAA guidelines so these can be checked by any standard online contrast checker. An interesting piece I found was ensuring the use of sentence case (i.e. The mixture of upper- and lower-case letters) rather than all upper-case letters this is because people will use the shape of a complete word rather than the individual letters to read it especially if the word is expected such as the label on an enter button. I was intrigued by the example regarding font size where ENTER in Arial 14pt upper case was similar in size to Enter in 18 pt Arial in sentence case.
*Source: /https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/system/files/2023-10/UKTAS touchscreen accessibility 220519.pdf*
This is something I will keep in mind across my own designs as the temptation to use all upper-case letters for easier readability is strong but also incorrect.
The document then goes on to list the best way to add an accessibility mode to these machines for people who cannot use sight at all. The essential requirement is to have audio that gives instructions and lets the user know where the PIN pad is and its layout. The accessibility mode should be able to be enabled by the user with a double-tap or be enabled by a member of staff if required.
The document goes into a lot of detail on what the machine needs to say and even offers example scripts for the audio voice instructions. It also states the interactions required to enter digits. This is complicated by the fact that for security reasons the machine cannot read out the numbers entered or offer an audio read back of the PIN before confirmation. It also cannot read out the location of PIN pad numbers as others could hear and recognise that the last number read out was entered and work out the PIN. For this reason, beeps are used that must be the same for all PIN pad numbers when a user taps on the location of a number. Users can then double tap anywhere on the screen to enter this number.
There is no doubt that this system is quite complicated and requires a level of knowledge from the user. This is why the guidelines are strong in suggesting a standardised approach, where all machines regardless of manufacturer use the same system, so that users don’t have to remember different systems and risk being confused.
The guidelines also offer advice on adding tactile markings to the screen either around the edge to indicate the start and end of the touchscreen or PIN pad, a tactile marking where the five button will be or an overlay that can be placed over the touchscreen like a classic keypad.
Source: https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/system/files/2023-10/UKTAS touchscreen accessibility 220519.pdf
I can’t help but feel the tactile approach is preferable as it seems to be quicker and would be easier to use (assuming a standardised system) but the document does point out the risks of the overlay being lost and I’m sure over time the tactile markings could be worn down or damaged so that they are no longer able to be used. This is why the audio must be included (built-in to the device) so there is always at least one way of entering a PIN for a blind person.