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Putting Accessibility First 

3 people sat at a table with their laptops smiling and laughing, having fun.

Lamplight takes an accessibility first approach in our charity CRM system. By that, I mean that we’ve tried to build it so that it works for people using assistive technologies from the moment you login for the first time. If you don’t have any accessibility requirements it also works great – but you may want to make some changes. 

This has been a bit controversial. The first time you log in, for lots of people it seems really big, especially compared to the previous version of Lamplight. For those without any visual impairment, we got feedback that “there’s too much space”; “it’s too big”; “there’s too much scrolling”; “I can’t see everything on one screen any more…” 
 
That was all valid feedback. Putting accessibility first meant that we prioritised people with visual impairments, and those without needed to make an adjustment.  
 
Fortunately, supporting zoom is in the WCAG guidelines, and Lamplight supports zoom in to 400% and out to 50%. So lots of our support responses have been to introduce people to browser zoom. We also made some other opt-in changes in response to the feedback to reduce whitespace and fit more on screen. 

A couple of reflections just on this example:

1. This is one good example of how designing for accessibility benefits everyone. We have some customers who need to use Lamplight at 400% zoom; but zooming out also helps those without visual impairments. 
 
2. The law, and the standard approach, is to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ for people with disabilities. That shapes our expectations – we are to making adjustments for disability, rather than designing for accessibility and making adjustments from there. I’m happy we’ve taken an approach that tries to turn the tables a little.

If you want to learn more about accessibility in Lamplight check out this blog. If you’d like to try it out please contact Susan. 
 
PS.. to zoom your browser hold Ctrl key and scroll your mouse (or hold Ctrl and press + or – on a PC and Cmnd and + or – on a Mac) 

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

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