Susie Gardner-Brown wrote:
Very interesting discussion. But it really makes me wonder – what’s the point of having a ‘designer’ if we leave everything up to the user. Isn’t a designer – graphic and/or web – supposed to be using their knowledge and experience to create something that is visually attractive and successfully promotes the client’s product/service/whatever?
The way I'd articulate it, a designer provides one or more "suggested" visual presentations/layouts, but the power ultimately lies in the hands of the user to consume the actual information any way he/she wishes.
Faced with the choice between the same content presented as (1) an attractive colourful graphic magazine and (2) a typewritten (courier font!) stapled bunch of pages, what would the user choose I wonder?! (not!)
Depends on the goal the user is trying to achieve, coupled with any potential disability they might have, strong personal preference, technical limitations of their current viewing device, etc.
But if they don’t see the first option, then they’d pick up the other, and not know what they were missing.
And, depending on any of the above, they may not care.
Sure they’d get the same content, but their user experience would not be as enjoyable
That's up to the user to decide, again based on the above.
or possibly useful.
If your content relies on its visual presentation to be of use, then it may not be accessible.
Blind people wouldn’t care which font was used. I guess graphic design is something for the seeing. But that doesn’t mean that they (we) shouldn’t be catered for!
It's not just a case of "blind people versus every seeing user". There is a certain arrogance to designers who maintain that they know better than the user what's best for them. Again, see the first part of my answer...it's a case of suggesting a presentation, but being prepared to accept that users should be able to consume your content any way they please.
Sometimes I wonder if we throw away too much with the bathwater when we go all out for accessibility.
In its essence, design itself is the art of finding solutions to problems. The often contradictory requirements of strong visual branding and accessibility of the content to the largest possible audience are certainly challenging at times, but with knowledge and a touch of pragmatism it's perfectly possible to create design solutions that satisfy both.
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