7. High-Contrast Design for Better Visibility

Who It Helps:

✅ People with vision impairments
✅ Any person using a phone in bright sunlight

Designers of websites and computers have increasingly been making website backgrounds and text on them are high-contrast for easier visibility. This is a game changer for people with color blindness and low vision. But they also help anyone using a screen in bright sunlight. This audience isn’t small – 6 percent of Americans aged 12+ (14 million) are visually impaired.

👉 Try it: Use tools like Adobe’s Color Contrast Checker to make sure your site is easy to read.

🔗 Source: 10 Secrets to Design for the Visually Impaired, Medium

6. Image Descriptions on Websites

Who It Helps:

✅ Blind and visually-impaired users
✅ Website owners that want to improve their SEO ranking

Alt text started as an accessibility tool. It is a short description added to images on a website – but you can’t see this text. However, screen readers read this text to tell the listener what images are on your website. And now, it has another use! Search engines look at alt text to tell what’s on your website too – so putting in this special text can also boost your website’s search engine performance.

🔗 Source: Alt Text – What to Write, NN Group

5. Closed Captions and Auto-Subtitles

Who It Helps:

✅ Deaf and hard-of-hearing people
✅ A commuter watching videos on noisy train
✅ A student watching a movie in a different language for research (or fun)

Captions were made for the hearing impaired (who account for 15.5%, 44.1 million, of American adults age 20+), but now they help everyone—from commuters to language learners. I, personally, especially loved them when I was entertaining myself while holding a sleeping baby. They’ve become so popular that even platforms like Facebook and TikTok auto-caption videos now – though self-captioning can be more accurate.

🔗 Source: How Deaf Advocates Won the Battle for Closed Captioning and Changed the Way Americans Watch TV – TIME Magazine

4. Wider Doorways and Automatic Doors

Who It Helps:

✅ Wheelchair users
✅ A parent using a strollers
✅ A traveler pulling and carrying luggage
✅ A child (or adult) who wants to pretend they have magic powers

Ever struggled with a suitcase or a cart? Automatic doors and wider spaces make movement easier for all. Wider doorways nelp wheelchairs fit through them – but also help your favorite solid wood desk or suitcase fit through them too! The first automatic door was patented in 1931 – it was created to help waiters carry heavy plates without spilling. This is an example of a temporary disability – the worker is only experiencing a challenge while carrying heavy plates. Now, automatic doors benefit anyone using wheels or who need to open doors without using their hands.

🔗 Source: Almanac: The First Automatic Door, CBS

3. Text-to-Speech Apps

Who It Helps:

✅ People with dyslexia or visual impairments
✅ A person with ADHD (listening can be 3x faster than reading for them)
✅ A parent who wants to “read” a school newsletter while cleaning
✅ A commuter driving to work who wants to “read” a blog post

Now, many devices have text-to-speech options in their Accessibility Settings, letting users listen to content instead of reading. It’s great for listening to an article on the go or for anyone who listens faster than they read. A few apps are out there that automatically change website text to speech – and some do it better than devices. My kids have dyslexic friends – it feels good to know we can help make the written word more easy for them on our websites!

👉 Try it: Test out your website to see how it sounds to your users on Speechify (Android) or Voice Dream Reader (Apple).

🔗 Source: The Best Assistive Technology for Dyslexics, Wired

2. Large Touch Targets on Websites & Apps

Who It Helps:

✅ People who have difficulty with precise hand movement
✅ A shopper at Target who is holding bags while trying to scan a product with the Target app

Tiny buttons are frustrating! UX designers now create larger tap-friendly areas, making navigation smoother for all. It’s also important to check that buttons are far enough apart to easily accurately tap. This feature started out to help older users and those with diseases like Multiple Sclerosis – however it was soon realized that this is useful for busy phone users of all types.

👉 Try it: Check out your website on a phone to see if the buttons are at least 1cm × 1cm (0.4in × 0.4in) in physical, rendered size. Though, remember, phone screen sizes vary so it can be different on different phones!

🔗 Source: Touch Targets on Touch Screens, NN Group

1. Ramps & Curb Cuts

Who It Helps:

✅ Wheelchair users
✅ Bikers, parents with strollers, travelers

The original curb-cut effect! Sidewalk ramps were designed for wheelchairs, but now we all benefit from them daily. I know my family uses them regularly to cart my kid’s heavy robot into his robotics club each week.

🔗 Source: The Curb Cut Effect, Stanford