Criticizing design articles because I can

1033 words | ~ 5 min read | Jun 19, 2020 | last modified Jun 19, 2020 | design disability

This article on form design seems perfectly innocuous. It’s a helpful guide that lays out best practices and briefly describes why they’re better than the obvious alternative. But then I got to this part:

Why ask?

Omit optional fields and think of other ways to collect data. Always ask yourself if the question can be inferred, postponed, or completely excluded.

Okay, we’re doing great so far. The more unnecessary data you ask for, the more likely you are to violate your users' privacy, and incidentally the more likely you are to exclude “edge-case” users. For example, Basler makes you fill out a brief biographical form in order to download software for their cameras – name, address, and salutation (select exactly one of Mr. or Ms.) are all required fields. No joy for nonbinary people or people with doctorates. As a nonbinary person I am never going to let this one go, because I was essentially forced to misgender myself to do my job correctly when I worked at an otherwise fantastic internship that used Basler cameras.

Data entry is increasingly automated. For example, mobile and wearable devices collect large amounts of data without the user’s conscious awareness. Think of ways you can leverage social, conversational UI, SMS, email, voice, OCR, location, fingerprint, biometric, etc.

I DON’T LIKE THE SOUND OF THAT AT ALL.

So… what you’re saying, essentially, is that instead of actually asking users for data you don’t strictly need (so that they could leave it off the form if they don’t want you to have it), you want designers to collect it by other means, “without the user’s conscious awareness” if necessary?? Let me be clear: this is unethical. Bad designer! No cookie! Consent is important for all things in life, including sex and collection of user data.

Next up is How Apple Is Giving Design A Bad Name was written by Don Norman and Bruce Tognazzini. I don’t have anything bad to say about the actual design recommendations in this article, but I do have a beef with its casual ableism.

Here’s what it says in the context of a discussion about how the Apple system font, which uses thin lines and low contrast, is hard to read, taking as an example a middle-aged woman who used the iOS accessibility settings to embiggen the system font.

It’s important to note that she did not have defective vision. She just didn’t have the eyesight of a 17-year-old.

[…]

What kind of design philosophy requires millions of its users to have to pretend they are disabled in order to be able to use the product? Apple could have designed its phone so that the majority of people could read and use the phone without having to label themselves as needy, disabled, and requiring assistance.

First of all, I don’t particularly care for the implication that being disabled is somehow bad or shameful. The (not-particularly-well-)hidden message here is:

Obviously, it’s insulting to the user to force them to identify themselves as disabled, or use accessibility tools meant for disabled people.

The user here didn’t have defective vision, oh no! She wasn’t really disabled. Because being disabled is bad. Now, the problem here seems to be that Apple has designed for the ability of exactly one type of user (our hypothetical 17-year-old), and therefore excludes… other users… because they don’t have the same level of ability… But this isn’t a disability issue! Because being disabled is bad. The article goes on to say that this woman then enabled the accessibility tool for enlarging text, which makes some text run off the screen in other apps.

Now, to me, both of these things are failures of accessibility! Both the insufficient contrast in the system font, and the fact that the accessibility tool makes some text unreadable, are accessibility problems. Design for accessibility helps everyone, even people who don’t think of themselves as disabled. And stigmatizing disability and the use of accessibility tools is harmful*; there’s no good reason for this, and it may deter someone from using tools that can help them.

But I’m not done. Let’s look at this quote again:

Apple could have designed its phone so that the majority of people could read and use the phone without having to label themselves as needy, disabled, and requiring assistance.

Using accessibility tools, says the article, means you are labeling yourself as “needy”, “disabled”, and “requiring assistance”, which it conflates by listing them like this. The concept that any disabled person must be in need of assistance from any abled person in the vicinity is – well, first of all, it’s false, but it’s also actively dangerous to disabled people. For example, many wheelchair users report that abled people tend to try to “help” them by suddenly pushing their chairs, which can, and regularly does, injure the wheelchair user. In addition, if the disabled person refuses “help”, the abled person often gets angry about it. Please understand: a disabled person is not “needy” or “requiring assistance” just because they are existing, somewhere. Do not, do not, do not assume that a disabled person requires assistance unless they are actually asking you for help.

Besides, someone who enables accessibility options on their phone is not “needy”; they have used the tools at their disposal to help themselves.

If you’re interested in learning more about accessibility and disability, the disability rights and neurodiversity movements are great places to start. I’d also recommend reading about the social model of disability.

* We can also see a pretty clear pattern where people undergoing the normal course of aging hate thinking of themselves as “disabled”, due to this stigma. Because of this, they injure themselves by refusing to use mobility aids, or suffer through refusing other accessibility tools because they’re not going to “give in”. Many older adults also judge younger invisibly disabled people, because a 20-year-old couldn’t possibly need a cane for any legitimate reason, and this can result in verbal or even physical abuse.

It would make this post rhetorically prettier to have a third example here, but unfortunately I don’t have one at the moment. That’s all for today!

Further reading: Move Slowly and Fix Things