Accessibility Guidelines For A UX Designer Part 3- Keypad Only Use

Sshekhar Jha
September 18, 2022

In part 3 of our Accessibility Guidelines Series, we’ll look at how a Keypad-Only design aids accessibility efforts and ensures that users can interact with your page with a keyboard alone, making your design more inclusive.

Focussed Visibility

It’s important to clearly define the focus of your input elements and design elements like text to ensure that it does not place itself too much on focus. It benefits people with attention and short-term memory limitations by helping them easily discover where the focus elements are located. It also aids people with visual impairments, cognitive disabilities, and motor impairments by lowering the chance of an unexpected change in context.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Clearly define the shortcuts that users can access using one hand. Curate a list of common keyboard shortcuts that don’t conflict with your existing browser and screen reader shortcuts. However, single-key shortcuts can affect people with speech input problems, so do include a provision to disable it. This goes a long way to improve the usability for keyboard-only users and aids people with certain dexterity challenges who may press certain keys on accident.

Ordered Tab Display

When navigating a window using the Tab key, make sure to include a logical navigation order for keyboards. Ensure that the focus revolves between controls in a predictable order. A logically ordered focus greatly helps people with mobility impairments, visual impairments, and people who have difficulty reading. It also helps when users rely on speech to interact with content on a webpage.

Skip Section Functionality

Try to include a section where users can skip certain sections as a link before a header for users who use keyboard shortcuts that is only visible on focus. It reduces the number of keystrokes, and users can skip sections that they don’t find relevant.

Creating a design that can be accessed using only a keypad carries certain benefits that users can identify and use to improve how they interact with your website/app/webpage. It creates an option for those users to reduce reliance on elements that are detrimental to their experience.

#uxdesign #accessibility #accessibledesign

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