Bridging the Gap: How Designers Can Create Accessible Websites Without Overwhelming Memory
The Paradox of Good Designers and Exclusionary Websites
Every designer I’ve ever met genuinely cares about the people using their products. They want everyone to have a smooth, enjoyable experience. Yet, time and again, we encounter websites that leave certain users behind—text too small to read, navigation that confuses, or interactive elements that don’t respond to keyboard or touch. How can such well-intentioned professionals create experiences that exclude? The answer isn’t malice; it’s a cognitive overload of guidelines and best practices.
Why Accessibility Matters: Life and Death Consequences
Some argue that accessibility is a “nice-to-have” rather than a necessity. But as Aral Balkan so powerfully states in his essay This Is All There Is, nearly everything we design can affect life events and death events. Consider a bus timetable app: a confusing interface might cause a parent to miss their daughter’s fifth birthday party, or prevent a person from reaching a dying grandmother’s bedside in time. These are not hypotheticals—they are real-world outcomes of design choices. Accessibility isn’t merely about compliance; it’s about respecting human lives.
The Real Challenge: Too Much to Remember
Designers are already expected to absorb an enormous amount of knowledge: color theory, typography, interaction design, user research, and more. When you add the full WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) checklist—success criteria, techniques, and testing methods—it becomes overwhelming. The problem is recall: we can’t hold every detail in our heads while designing. But what if we flipped the script and made accessibility issues easier to recognize in the moment?
A Solution: Recognition Over Recall for Designers
In his classic 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design, Jakob Nielsen introduced the principle “Recognition rather than Recall”. Originally aimed at users—the idea that needed information should be visible or easily retrievable—we can apply this same principle to designers. Instead of expecting designers to memorize every accessibility guideline, we should create tools and methods that prompt recognition during the design process.
Applying Jakob Nielsen’s Heuristic to Design Practice
Let’s take heuristic №6 literally: “The information required to produce the design should be visible or easily retrievable when needed.” This means integrating accessibility cues directly into design workflows. For example:
- Checklists and overlays in design tools (like Figma or Sketch) that highlight contrast ratios, focus indicators, and text legibility.
- Persona prompts that remind you of different user abilities—visual, hearing, motor, cognitive—as you make decisions.
- Automated audits that run while you prototype, flagging common issues like missing alt text or insufficient color contrast.
Tools and Techniques for Recognizing Accessibility Issues
The book A Web for Everyone—Designing Accessible User Experiences by Sarah Horton and Whitney Quesenbery is an excellent resource. It presents accessibility not as a list of rules but as a set of design patterns and empathetic practices. To support recognition, I recommend:
- Use accessibility overlays in design tools. Plugins like Stark for Figma automatically check contrast ratios and offer suggestions.
- Create a quick-reference card with standard accessibility benchmarks (minimum text size, touch targets, caption requirements) and keep it beside your screen.
- Involve real users with disabilities early in the process—their feedback makes issues immediately recognizable.
- Run an automated accessibility checker (like WAVE or Axe) on your live prototypes weekly.
Conclusion: Making Accessibility Second Nature
No designer wakes up intending to exclude people. The gap between intention and execution is bridged not by trying harder but by designing smarter. By shifting from recall to recognition, we embed accessibility into the fabric of our everyday workflow. The goal is not perfection; it’s continuous improvement—making sure that every bus timetable, every e‑commerce site, every app is a little more welcoming. And when we do that, we honor the trust that users place in our designs.