Meet the AM team broadening access to primary sources

Accessibility sits at the heart of AM’s mission to broaden access to primary sources. In this blog, Elena Panarese, User Experience Designer, explains how the UX team contributes to this mission through thoughtful, inclusive design and cross-team collaboration.

As UX designers, our goal is to provide the best possible user experience for everyone. Whether it’s a student using an AM collection for a research project or a member of the public viewing the archival content of one of our AM Quartex customers, we care about them being able to access and use the assets. This way, they can benefit from the historical significance of primary sources. Achieving this means designing for all users, including, but not limited to, those with disabilities or those who browse the web in diverse ways. Accessibility is fundamental for this and we need to consider it at every step of the process and in several aspects of our role.

Embedding accessibility into every design decision

We create designs at various levels of detail, from the overall user journey to a specific page or feature, to the smallest detail of a layout or user interface component. No matter what we are looking at, we strive to ensure that the functionalities and visual aspects are inclusive.

Generally speaking, we’re guided by the principles of universal design, introduced by architect Ronald Mace: “the design and composition of an environment [or product] so that it can be accessed, understood and used to the greatest extent possible by all people regardless of their age, size, ability or disability.”

For example, we make sure that the content and graphic elements have enough colour contrast with their background, which makes them more visible and readable. We also check that everything can be navigated with both mouse and keyboard, that the order of elements is logical, and that labels are clear. These are common examples, but there is so much more! To ensure that we have considered everything, we often refer to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) or other reliable accessibility resources. For us, this is not just a checklist-ticking exercise, we also consider best practices and the user feedback we receive to guide our decisions.

A topic that is often debated is whether designing an accessible site means sacrificing its aesthetic. Maybe there was some truth to that in the early days of the internet, but nowadays that argument is not justifiable. The advancements in technologies, coding languages and browsers mean it is possible to make a visually pleasing site that is also accessible. Yes, there are some limitations, and it is not something that just happens automatically. It requires thinking, time, and effort, but so do all other aspects of creating a site. It is our job as UX designers to consider the implications of what we design for all users, in the same way as we think about other aspects like layout, interactions or responsiveness, to create something that is both usable and appealing.

Strengthening accessibility through collaboration

We don’t do this work alone. Accessibility involves close collaboration across teams. We regularly investigate different potential solutions, provide engineers with specifications, and support their implementation of inclusive products. To help raise awareness across the organisation, we create internal guidelines and run workshops and presentations on specific accessibility topics that we know are relevant, useful, or interesting. Webinars or articles (like this one) also contribute to sharing our accessibility knowledge and processes externally, to give insights into our goals and methods.

How we measure and improve accessibility across AM products

Accessibility is a key focus area for AM, so there are frequent conversations about strategy and plans across disciplines. Our UX team regularly contributes to these conversations by highlighting the benefits to users and proposing improvements to existing products and processes. As part of our operations, we have been reviewing the compliance of our products and created different Accessibility Conformance Reports (ACR) based on the commonly used Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT). These documents are essential to show our level of compliance, but we also use them internally to highlight potential areas of improvement and prioritise working on the items that will have the highest positive impact. Based on this, for example, we have improved buttons, labels, and alt text in exhibition pages.

Continuously expanding our accessibility expertise

Accessibility can be complex, and there is always more to learn, so we regularly make sure to spend time increasing our knowledge of best practices, patterns, and guidelines. Something else that we keep ourselves up to date with is whether new legislation is coming into play. Following the latest WCAG AA principles, which is what we do, is generally a good starting point to have future-proof products, but it is always good to be aware of any upcoming laws so we can be prepared in advance.

Accessibility is a journey, one that can be challenging, but it’s also rewarding. There’s always more to learn, but by keeping users and inclusivity at the centre of what we do, we continue to make meaningful progress, so that access to primary sources and the benefits that come with them can spread even more widely.

Read more about accessibility at AM