It was encouraging to see plenty of enthusiastic professionals together at the Scripting Enabled conference last Friday. The aim of this two days event was breaking down barriers between disabled users and the social web. It was based on talks on the first day, and a geeky hacking code day on the second.

I was slightly afraid the speakers were going to mainly focus on script bits and accessibility "basics", but luckily, there was a much stronger focus on the usable approach.
Nowadays accessibility and usability go hand by hand as part of the same field, and they both need to be taken into account as a whole from the firsts steps in a project.

Each talk was focusing on a different disability. Some included inspiring videos of user testings to indicate how different people have to navigate the web...it was enlightening to see how screen readers and magnifiers go through content, how frustrating it can be trying to find the right bit of information you are looking for.

Denise Stephens, "Enabled by Design meets Scripting Enabled"

Kath Moonan, "Why I hate the Interweb!"

Antonia Hyde, "Online Content for People with Learning Disabilities"

Jonathan Hassell, "Dyslexia Barriers"

Artur Ortega and Leonie Watson, gave an interesting demonstration of screen readers and how you can help screen reader users by building your JavaScript applications the right way. So often people assume that JavaScript is the work of the devil when it comes to accessibility when really it's not when implemented correctly.

Overall there were overarching conclusions worth noting. For instance, about the impact of a good IA plan, layout and navigation design, as these were the main failure points on the projects tested with people from a different range of disabilities.

In terms of visual design, it always surprises me how important is to be able to translate  common sense assumptions into clarity of communication. It becomes essential in avoiding cluttered interfaces, increasing the type size, avoiding too much scrolling...in brief, applying the basis of inclusive design and constantly thinking about the final user when facing the interface.

Since it can be overwhelming trying to cover the diverse needs, it is especially relevant providing the user with a tool to be able to customize the settings according to their disability. That was one of the main ideas people tried to develop on the second day, a solid solution for everyone to use on the different sites they visit, through Greasemonkey script.

It is evident that there is a need to educate the users to maximise their computer practice, not everyone is web literate, so solutions need to be simple and easy to use. Projects like "My Web My Way" by the BBC are a good example on this matter.

Easy You Tube is also an effective illustration of a product as a result of people's feedback. Antonia Hyde, showed videos on how blind people and with learning disabilities found it more intuitive, easier to use.

Another interesting idea developed on the hack day was trying to make Google maps more usable. They were highlighted as being difficult to navigate through and zoom in, it's been tested that a clearer separation between the controls and the map would help.
Too see more about the projects on the second day: http://scriptingenabed.pbwiki.com/

In conclusion, listening to people like Denise and her determination to build Enabled by Design, is always a good reminder of the effort and rigorousness we should put on our work, on what we think is important.