Accessible Figma Redesign
How might we re-design Figma to better fit the needs of blind and low vision designers?
This is an extension of my work as a Research Assistant for Accessibility Standards Canada which I have treated as my Thesis
We all hope to live in a more inclusive world. There are hundreds of resources for designers to create for disabled individuals, but there are few resources assuming disabled individuals are designers themselves. Why is that? Well, in part, many of the tools designers use are inaccessible to begin with. This project looks specifically at Figma, and re-designs it to fit the needs of Blind and low-vision designers.
Within the scope of this project, we will aim to make all of the functionality of Figma accessible for screen reader and screen magnifier users, and explore prototyping options for websites through the use of spreadsheets, tactile components, cross-sensory feedback as well as other smaller scale feature proposals. These include a controller to access shortcuts, template options and AI for language-based website design. These changes have come about through digital-ethnography, literature reviews, co-design sessions and usability sessions with blind and low-vision individuals.
Imagine trying to make a UI, but even for something as simple as a text box, when you put it down, it does not tell you where it is, how big it is, or how to fill it in! Well this is what Figma is like for Blind and Low Vision designers.
This is really an issue of understanding spacial relations. Where things are, how big/small they are, where things are in relation to one another, etc.
To solve the issue of understanding spacial relations, we added the ability to have tactile representations using a Cricut cutout, the ability to break up frames and canvases into spreadsheets so things can be layed out in a similar way sighted designers use grids to layout content and an AI assistant that can describe frames back to designers and act on their behalf.
We also found that blind and low vision individuals use shortcuts often, however these are difficult to remember, so we came up with a controller that has buttons representing the shortcuts. In doing so, we hope design as a whole can move towards a more inclusive future.
Digital Ethnography
Co-Design Sessions
Affinity Mapping- Data Analysis
Empathy/Persona mapping
User Journey mapping
Ideation
Task Flow Analysis
High Fidelity Prototyping
For more information /documentation feel free to contact me.