User-Centered Brand Design: Bridging Design and Accessibility
The concept of accessibility in brand design is often surprising. Contrary to widespread assumption, accessibility in brand design is possible and necessary. Brand designers are responsible for building inclusive branding and creating accessible designs that reach everyone. Every good designer’s goal is a good customer experience.
By the end of this article, brand designers and enthusiasts will understand the concept of accessibility in brand design and how to implement accessibility in brand identity and strategy to transform brand perception and reach.
A brand appeals to human emotions; your brand is your reputation. The brand reflects its personality and evokes emotions in the target market and users. A brand designer is responsible for creating an identity for a product that meets the client’s needs and resonates with their market. This process involves developing strategies and visual designs that align with the brand’s identity.
A good brand designer must create brands that are inclusive and appealing to everyone. As experts in crafting a strong visual identity for their clients, brand designers develop products that are easily accessible and usable.
What makes a good brand designer
1. Understanding the fundamentals of design:
In many cases, people readily skip the principles to follow an easy route. The neglect of the basics is a wrong move for a designer who aspires to be good at their craft. A knowledge of the fundamentals of design involves having a solid grasp of elements and principles such as balance, contrast, alignment, and hierarchy.
2. Conducting thorough research:
Proper research is essential in every developmental methodology. A good brand designer gathers and analyzes feedback from the target audience, market trends, and competitors, then allows the information to influence their design decisions.
3. Storytelling:
Everyone loves a good story. A designer who tells a compelling story through design is an asset. Good storytelling is essential for creating memorable and impactful brand experiences. A good design sticks to the target market, and the target market relates to the experiences the designers create through their stories.
4. Effective use of words: Incorporating written content effectively into the design conveys the brand’s message, emotion, and personality. Words always pair well with images.
5. Empathy:
Empathy implies figuratively putting ourselves in users’ shoes, feeling what they feel, and learning how those emotions influence their actions. Understanding and empathizing with the end users improves the designs.
6. Testing: Utilizing testing to experiment and optimize design solutions provides better results.
7. Create accessible solutions: Designers should build with inclusivity to ensure that the brand’s message and products are accessible to all.
Brand design covers diverse genres.
- Brand Strategy
- Visual design
- Motion Design
- Type Design
- Communication Design
- Icon Design
- Brand Illustration, etc
Evolution of Accessibility in Brand Designs
Accessibility is simply the ease of access. It makes the web, information, and the environment usable for diverse groups. Accessibility cuts across various areas, including language, gender, socio-economic status, and abilities.
Accessibility in design is the accommodation of underrepresented or ignored users, especially users with disabilities while creating designs or design materials. Brand design is one of the design areas that needs accessibility.
Implementing Accessibility in Brand Strategy
Brand strategy merges design and business. A brand strategist is knowledgeable in market research. They use the brand’s stories and knowledge of customer behavior to develop a company’s brand framework. It is expected to assume that the brand strategist’s work is to satisfy only their client. For an accessible brand, however, brand strategy goes beyond client satisfaction. The satisfaction extends to the clientele’s target market.
The customers are an essential part of brand strategy. Accessibility encourages the accommodation of diverse customers. Some of the steps taken to ensure inclusion include the following;
- Encourage brands to invest in thorough research.
- Thorough research and market surveys. This research must include customers of different abilities, languages, and socio-economic status.
- During research, a comprehensive customer analysis should be done. This research includes their demographic, pain points, needs, and motivation.
Implementing Accessibility in Brand Identity
A brand’s voice, personality, and originality make up a brand’s identity. A good brand identity builds a connection with visual design. A brand identity designer creates the brand guide, logo identity, voice, color, and other design material that communicates the brand’s identity.
Color and its usage speak volumes in design accessibility. Accessibility in color is integrated by creating a variety of color palettes with different tones and tints. The color palette accommodates users who are color-blind and have difficulty identifying information by color.
Incorporating a good background contrast for design is another way to make color accessible. Color alone is not be used as a means to convey information -WCAG Perceivable principle 1.4.1
According to the WCAG Perceivable principle 1.4.6 guideline, a background-to-text ratio of 4.5:1 ratio for heading and 7:1 for body ratio to pass accessibility compliance in color contrast. A color system is a designer’s toolkit. This kit contains principles on how color works and why the pattern of shades, tints, and tones is used.
Make the brand’s voice clear and direct. Avoid ambiguity as much as possible, as this can confuse users. Understandable brand concepts are inclusive to all customers, including people with cognitive disabilities and language barriers.
Many users are not open to change, especially when it is immediate. Jakob’s law can be integrated into the design process. Designers need to use familiar concepts, and if there is a need for change, designers must make it easy for the customers to master.
Implementing Accessibility in Typography Design
In the anatomy of typography, the sole art is in creating legible, reader-friendly, and visually appealing characters. Applying proper typography principles actualizes this goal.
The anatomy of Type covers its parts, including the line height, the stroke(serif, San serif, display), the cap height, the stem, the weight( light, medium, large, bold), etc. These make up the font and form the base of diverse font creation. Accessibility in typography encompasses font creation and usage.
Accessibility is displayed in typography via the varying styles, weights, and sizes. This Flexibility in adjustment accommodates people with visual disabilities, language barriers, and cultural disparities.
The difference in style, weight, and size indicate hierarchy and show contrast. This pattern assists users with cognitive impairments like dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD to learn and understand words without difficulty.
The arrangement of type when forming words should foster accessibility. Typography concepts like kerning, tracking, and leading need to be incorporated appropriately. -WCAG Perceivable principle 1.4.12
Tight kerning and small text spaces cause reading difficulties for users with visual and cognitive disabilities. Poor kerning is frequently encountered with serif fonts. Poor character spacing is a trigger for users with dyslexia. An example is seen in the words ‘furnace’ and ‘kernel.’ Some types misread ‘furnace’ can be for fumace, and ‘kernel’ as Kemel, etc.
Emotional bias needs to be considered in
accessibility. Different types exist for different purposes. When Types are improperly employed, They communicate wrong emotions and confuse customers. The more users are exposed to a typeface, the easier it is to read them. This concept is called unconscious bias. Proper research of fonts is recommended before using them for branding.
Implementing Accessibility in Icon Design
Linda Ojo, an iconographer, defines brand design as a language that identifies a group of people or a business. A company communicates and bonds with customers through its brand identity.
The use of icons is an excellent step toward accessibility. Icons seem excusable, but their effect on design is remarkable. Icons offer assistance and options to all users, expand the brand language, and evoke accessibility.
The first step to integrating accessibility in icon designs is to use accessible images in icon creation. An image’s familiarity makes it accessible. Icons not only improve accessibility for users with disabilities, but they also foster diversity and inclusion for foreigners and users with language barriers. They also promote inclusion for users who are not literate and the next billion users.
An image representation aids foreigners in understanding the instructions and directions in a new country. Most importantly, icons aid users with low vision who cannot see words clearly and users with learning disabilities who need images to understand words.
Icons can be digital or physical. Texture can be added to these icons to emphasize extent, motion, or their usage in general. Textures on physical signs are helpful to blind users. Examples of physical icons/images are traffic/road signs, convenience signs, welcome signs on doors, etc.
Some ways accessibility can be integrated into iconography
- Icons that represent people with disabilities should be made available. It fosters inclusion and represents the importance of people with disability in society
- Add texture to the physical signs. The added texture benefits visually impaired users. It is recommended to add texturized braille characters on the signs for blind users
- Use colored icons on a good contrast background
- Use size 16 as the least size for digital icons
- Pair icons with text in labels
- Use simple and familiar words for text labels
- Provide clear and understandable descriptions for icons.
- User tests are also required when creating icons. Ensure that users understand the images they are supposed to represent. Do not assume they know it all.
Implementing Accessibility in Brand Illustration
Imagery is one of the best ways to communicate an emotion. Images relate to people. This knowledge can be implemented while creating brand illustrations. Brand illustrations range from stand-alone brand art to illustrations embedded in brand design systems.
Crafting a brand’s illustration employs aesthetics, visuals, and the right tools. The brand’s imagery stimulates the audience’s fear, curiosity, and excitement. Some brands use the power of imagery, aesthetics, and motion to embody status and give relevance to their customers.
Proper image descriptions are necessary for users with visual impairment or cognitive disability. Designers can incorporate concepts like music and natural sounds to portray the image’s ideas. It appeals to the minds of visually impaired users, enabling them to create an imaginative picture of the art’s form and usage.
Image descriptions improve the usage of text alternatives (ALT) for users with visual limitations.
Challenges a Brand Designer Encounters when designing for accessibility.
- Ignorance of Brands and absence of awareness: Many stakeholders do not understand the importance of accessibility. They need qualified brand strategists who can advise on proper branding. Statements like, “We don’t have disabled people using our products,” are often made.
Designers are coerced to do what the client wants, even when it is not inclusive and limits the brand. The ignorance of brands has led to many design mistakes, including creating inaccessible brand identities and designing materials. Brands need to be open to advice from strategists and designers.
- Lack of resources and Support is common in many branding projects. Many Stakeholders do not fund accessibility in branding. This limits the efficiency of a designer’s work. Costs are cut, and essential research works are excluded. Research is the first step to resolving accessibility issues in a project.
- Limited time provided: Brands are in a hurry to launch their projects, often without preparation. Good design requires enough time. Work requiring ample time is done to build an accessible brand, from the research phase to the launch phase.
- Blinding Aesthetic: Recently, Design has been primarily recognized by aesthetics alone. This mindset has erased the ability to balance aesthetics and usability. Design elements like color, image, shapes, fonts, etc., used to enhance aesthetics should meet accessibility standards. A balance of aesthetics and Accessibility is a necessity.
- Education and Awareness: Many designers have a limited understanding of accessibility in design. Accessibility is not always a part of the curriculum. In other cases, only the surface is scratched. A lack of professionals in the field and scale of importance are part of the challenge. Many people assume that accessibility benefits only a minority and is justifiable to be ignored.
Importance of Accessibility in Brand Design
- Enhances Brand Engagement: Every brand desires to reach a large audience. Accessibility in brand design makes this possible. It makes your product more user-friendly and appealing, inviting more users.
- Attracts Investors: Investors work with businesses with potential ROI. They are interested in an investment that stands the test of time. When a brand is inclusive, it builds the trust of investors.
- Expands Target Market: When a brand is accessible and caters to a diverse audience with varying abilities, more people patronize the brand, increasing the target market and consumer rate.
- Boosts Financial Growth: The Increase in potential customer base indeed increases the revenue generated for the business. More customers equals more financial growth.
- Encourages Diversity: Diversity is a business requirement, and it is encouraged. An accessible brand supports inclusivity and representation.
- Prevents Legal Issues: Many countries have disability laws that protect people with disability, which businesses are obligated to adhere to. The default of these laws is fines and penalties as consequences. Implementing accessibility complies with accessibility laws and regulations.
It is imperative that all designers design for accessibility, and brand designers are not exempt. They have a great responsibility to ensure that design components, whether it is the typography, the color, the brand voice, the brand’s imagery(icons and illustrations), etc., ignite a clear feeling and emotion that relates to all users, especially people with disabilities.
Sources;
A thorough research was carried out with these great brand designers to produce this piece. Check out their works!
Boluwatife Awakan’s Music Lagos project
Linda Ojo’s Accessible Icon project
