[Njtechdiv] Pinterest Just Redesigned Its App For Blind People...

[Eileen Scrivani]

A friend just sent the below article about Pinterest to me. I thought some of you might have an interest in it as well ...

Eileen

Pinterest Just Redesigned Its App For Blind People Article link:
https://www.fastcodesign.com/90169317/pinterest-just-redesigned-its-app-for-
blind-people
Here's how the company confronted its own shortcomings on inclusive
design-and systemically redesigned its app for everyone.
Last year, Long Cheng sat down with a group of engineers as they studied
people using Pinterest. For Cheng, lead designer at the company, this sort
of user testing was commonplace. But that day, something was different. The
testers weren't thirtysomething moms, or whatever stereotypical demographic
pops in your head when you picture one of Pinterest's 200 million users.
They were people with a range of visual impairments, from macular
degeneration to complete blindness. And Cheng wanted to see how well they
could use the app.
To his dismay, many couldn't even get past the sign-up screen. People
literally couldn't even create an account. While iOS and Android each have
an accessibility feature-called Voice Over and Talk Back, respectively-which
read aloud the buttons and options on the screen for visually impaired users
to navigate, Pinterest had failed to properly label its own user interface
for this feature to even work properly. Similarly, when people did
eventually get into the app, recipes read aloud would be missing steps or
ingredients. People found themselves trapped inside pins, unsure how to
escape. Even for partially sighted people, Pinterest design, with its
minuscule type, was a challenge to discern.
"It was definitely personal for me, and me specifically. Because I've been a
designer here for five years, and it's a product I really love to work on,
and I want everyone to be able to use it," says Cheng. "For the group of
engineers and designers sitting there, we felt like we weren't doing enough.
We wanted to do more."
Blind people using Pinterest-the app for visual inspiration-may sound like
an oxymoron. But in fact, Pinterest, like all mainstream apps, has a
contingent of blind users (though the company admits to not tracking them).
Many use Pinterest simply to bookmark stories on the web they'd like to read
later. And those who don't use the service might like to, if they were
better welcomed.
"We asked one user, would you use Pinterest? You can't see what's on the
screen!" Long recounts. "She said, 'of course I would.'" Visually impaired
or not, we all want tasty recipes, better haircuts, and fashion advice. And
Pinterest is loaded with billions of pins full of this stuff.
Over the past year, Pinterest has committed to practicing inclusive design,
and making its product more accessible to everyone. With a team of a dozen
designers and engineers, Cheng developed a multi-part approach to
redesigning Pinterest as a product that could be more accessible to
everyone, leading to a fully redesigned app and desktop experience that's
been slowly rolling out for months.
The first and most obvious step was adding all of the proper code and
labeling to make sure that features like Voice Over could actually read
every component on the screen. Along the same lines, the company added focus
indicators-relatively standard outlines around buttons and menus that are
active-that make Pinterest easier to use for people who can't use a mouse or
trackpad.
This was table stakes, of course. Other aspects of the redesign would have
to be more core to the user experience. In particular, the company wanted to
heighten the contrast of the UI across the entire app so that it was more
legible. To do so, Cheng's team developed a whole new color palette, full of
bright jewel tones that could frame text and help it pop. This multicolor
spectrum couldn't be further from the robin's egg blues so beloved by
startups.
"So often as designers, we have to buy into the idea that maybe an
accessible design isn't as pretty or beautiful," says Cheng. But he believes
that with commitment, good designers can find a way to champion aesthetics
and accessibility at the same time, even when it comes to high-contrast user
interfaces. "For us to overhaul our color palette to accessible colors,
there were definitely challenges! But in the end, we figured out the right
way, and it was okay."
With respect to the colorblind , Pinterest has eliminated any instance where
color was once used to convey action or meaning; in the new Pinterest, it's
only there for increased legibility and visual flair. Meanwhile, the company
introduced the option to increase the size of text across the app within the
settings-focusing on size and boldness to denote information hierarchy,
rather than tweaking words in various shades of gray, which can be low
contrast and difficult to see.
Internally, Pinterest culminated its work by launching an inclusivity pop-up
lab for its own employees to try to navigate the app with nothing but a
keyboard, or wear items like visual-impairment goggles while trying to read
the screen. "We tried to help [ourselves] understand all the different
disabilities people might have when they use Pinterest," says Cheng. "How do
we start any product development with that in mind from phase zero?"
What Cheng wants to instill is a mind-set. Two years ago, Pinterest realized
it needed to consider the international market when it came to design. And
now, its designers always think about decisions on a global scale. Likewise,
he wants to see designers thinking inclusively from the get-go. The company
has also built automated testing for accessibility into all of its app
updates moving forward.
Inclusive design is a process, not a destination. And with that in mind,
we're likely to see more and more companies go through a similar reckoning
as Pinterest has in the last year. Maybe they won't get everything right on
the first pass, but so long as they actively involve their edge users in the
design process going forward, Pinterest will only become a more usable
product for more people.
If that's not enough to sell you on inclusive design, it's worth recognizing
that one day, we'll all be an edge case. And so inclusive design practices
are often an investment in our own lives as much as they are a way of
helping others. Think of it as health insurance, or a social security for
user experience. "Something I always think about with this work we do is,
we're designing for our future self," says Cheng. "Whatever we're doing will
actually benefit all of us in the future-even if you don't have low vision
now."

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