18 months ago, I joined the Android team at Google as its first Android Accessibility Design Lead.

18个月前，我加入Google的Android团队，担任第一位Android Accessibility Design Lead 。

Now, you might think I must have some ironclad qualifications in accessibility in order to be handed the responsibility of designing accessible experiences for the nearly 3 billion Android devices out there.

现在，您可能会认为我必须具备一些可访问性的严格资格，才能承担为近30亿部Android设备设计可访问体验的责任。

The honest truth was, I barely had any knowledge of accessibility beyond color contrast ratios and tap target sizes. I had a drive for designing for social good (something I’ve been passionate about throughout my career), and sadly, the team simply was not able to find anyone more qualified than that — an empty enthusiasm. That speaks to how scarce accessibility resources are, even at one of the largest tech companies in the world.

诚实的事实是，除了色彩对比度和拍打目标尺寸之外， 我几乎没有任何可及性的知识 。 我有一个为社会公益而设计的动力(我在整个职业生涯中一直对此充满热情)，可悲的是，团队根本找不到比这更能胜任的人了-空虚的热情。 这说明即使在世界上最大的科技公司之一中，可访问性资源也十分稀缺。

Ask anyone in tech, and they’ll say “oh yeah, of course accessibility is important; it’s the right thing to do.” Come deadline time, the same people will be pulling their hair out saying “look, I’d love to make it work, but given the constraints, we simply can’t accommodate edge cases like accessibility.”

询问技术人员，他们会说：“ 哦，当然，可访问性很重要； 这是正确的事情。 ”来吧截止时间，同样的人会拉着他们的头发说：‘看，我很乐意，使其工作，但给定的约束，我们根本无法容纳边缘情况下，像无障碍’。

Before I became an accessibility designer, I was OK letting go of this type of mentality. Not anymore.

在我成为可访问性设计师之前，我可以放开这种想法。 不再。

Here’s what I learned after 18 months on this job.

这是我工作18个月后学到的。

1.每个人都以一种或另一种方式，某一点或另一种被禁用 (1. Everyone is disabled in one way or another, at one point or another)

When I say “disability”, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? For most people, it’s probably a permanent disability — blindness (visual impairment), deafness (hearing impairment), person in a wheelchair (motor impairment), or cognitive impairments such as Alzheimer’s or Down syndrome.

当我说“残疾”时，您想到的第一件事是什么？ 对于大多数人来说，这可能是永久性的残疾 -失明(视力障碍)，耳聋(听力障碍)，坐轮椅的人(运动障碍)或认知障碍，例如阿尔茨海默氏症或唐氏综合症。

Even when you limit your definitions of disability to permanent disabilities only, 1 out of 7 people are disabled, according to the WHO. That is more than one billion people in the world.

根据世界卫生组织的数据 ，即使您仅将残疾的定义限制为永久性残疾，也有7人中有1人是残疾人。 全世界有超过十亿人 。

However, disability is much wider than that. Have you ever been in a loud restaurant trying to have a conversation with someone, and simply can’t hear them above the background noise? That is situational deafness. Have you had a paper cut in your finger and avoided using that finger for a few days? That is a temporary motor impairment.

但是，残疾远远不止于此。 您是否曾经在一家喧闹的餐厅中尝试与某人交谈，而根本听不到背景噪音呢？ 那就是情境性的耳聋 。 您的手指上是否剪过纸并且几天都避免使用该手指？ 那是暂时的运动障碍 。

Everyone experiences situational and temporary disabilities on a daily basis.

每个人每天都会遇到情况和暂时的残疾。

A few more examples:

还有更多示例：

• Driving: situationally impaired vision, mobility, and attention

  驾驶 ：视力受损的视力，行动力和注意力

• Riding on a bumpy bus / train: situationally impaired dexterity

  骑在颠簸的公共汽车/火车上 ：肢体受损

• Traveling and doesn’t speak the local language: situationally impaired verbal communication

  出差且不说当地语言 ：言语交流受阻

• Carrying bags while shopping: situationally impaired mobility

  购物时bags着行李 ：行动不便的情况

• Pupils dilated after eye exam: temporarily impaired vision

  视力检查后瞳Kong散大 ：视力暂时受损

• Wearing a cast due to bone injury: temporarily impaired mobility

  由于骨骼受伤而穿上石膏 ：暂时性的行动不便

• Not enough coffee in the morning: temporarily impaired cognition

  早晨咖啡不足 ：认知暂时性受损

In these situations, a normally able-bodied person experiences the same limitations as someone with a permanent disability when using your product (physical or digital).

在这些情况下，通常健康的人在使用您的产品(物理或数字产品)时会遇到与永久残障人士相同的局限性。

In addition, everyone is steadily growing older with each passing day. With old age comes natural deterioration in physical and cognitive capabilities. About 65% of people with vision impairments are aged 65 or older (WHO, 2012). Just because you have perfect 20/20 vision today, doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way forever.

此外， 每个人每天都在稳步成长 。 随着年龄的增长，身体和认知能力自然下降。 视力障碍者中约有65％年龄在65岁或以上( 世卫组织 ，2012年)。 仅仅因为您今天拥有理想的20/20视力，并不意味着它将永远保持这种状态。

Tech products tend to focus heavily on the young, tech-savvy population. However, if we as user-centric product designers don’t consider older adults in our design, who will care for us when we inevitably grow old?

科技产品往往侧重于精通技术的年轻人群。 但是，如果我们以用户为中心的产品设计师在设计中不考虑老年人，那么当我们不可避免地变老时，谁会照顾我们呢？

2.无障碍产品=为每个用户提供更好的产品 (2. Accessible products = better products for every single user)

Designing with accessibility in mind means being inclusive of everyone, whether they have a permanent disability, or experience situational and temporary disabilities from time to time. Accessibility is in no way, shape, or form an edge case — it impacts 100% of your users.

考虑可访问性的设计意味着要包容所有人，无论他们是永久性残疾，还是不时遇到情境和暂时性残疾。 辅助功能绝不以任何形式，形式或形式 边缘情况 -它会影响100％的用户。

A classic phenomenon is the curb cut effect — it refers to the fact that stuff designed for people with disabilities often end up helping everyone.

一个典型的现象是遏制效应 –它指的是为残疾人设计的东西常常最终会帮助所有人。

Curb cuts are ramps cut into sidewalks where they meet the street. You’ve probably seen these before without really noticing them. These are mandated by law so that people on wheelchairs can get around easily. However, they’re also useful to people carrying luggages, pushing a stroller or bicycle, riding a skateboard, etc.

路缘石削减是指切入人行道的坡道，与人行道相遇。 您可能在没有真正注意到它们的情况下就已经看过它们。 这些是法律规定的，因此坐在轮椅上的人可以轻松地四处走动。 但是，它们对于携带行李，推婴儿车或自行车，骑滑板等的人也很有用。

Other examples of curb cut effect include:

遏制效果的其他示例包括：

• Typewriter: originally designed by Italian inventor Pellegrino Turri to help his blind girlfriend write more legible love letters (Bodine, Cathy. Assistive Technology and Science. 2013.)

  打字机 ：最初由意大利发明家佩莱格里诺·图里(Pellegrino Turri)设计，目的是帮助盲人女友写更多清晰的情书(Bodine，Cathy。AssistiveTechnology andScience 。2013年。)

• Captions: originally designed to help people who are deaf or hard of hearing watch TV

  字幕 ：最初旨在帮助聋哑或听力不佳的人看电视

• Email: invented by Vint Cerf when architecting the internet, largely influenced by his own hearing impairment and reliance on written communication (CNET)

  电子邮件 ：由Vint Cerf在设计互联网时发明，很大程度上受他自己的听力障碍和对书面通讯( CNET )的依赖的影响

In addition, accessibility is a magnifying lens that amplifies underlying problems for you to see. If someone with hand tremor has trouble tapping a particular button in your UI, more likely than not, non-disabled users will often mis-tap when trying to use that button as well. If someone with a learning disability has trouble understanding the language or layout in your product, more likely than not, non-disabled users will also find it complex and hard to understand.

此外，可访问性是一个放大透镜，可放大您所看到的潜在问题 。 如果手部震颤的人在点击用户界面中的特定按钮时遇到麻烦，那么很有可能非残障用户在尝试使用该按钮时也会经常轻按。 如果有学习障碍的人在理解产品中的语言或布局时遇到困难，非残疾用户也很可能会发现它很复杂且难以理解。

When you dedicate time and resources toward solving issues for people with disabilities, everyone ends up benefiting from it, because honestly, we could all use a little bit of help sometimes.

当您将时间和资源用于解决残疾人问题时，每个人最终都会从中受益，因为说实话， 有时我们都可以使用一点点帮助 。

3.无障碍驱动创新 (3. Accessibility drives innovation)

When we face situational or temporary disabilities, minor annoyances may not be annoying enough for us to design solutions for. However, for people with permanent disabilities such as blindness or deafness, their difficulties won’t simply go away if you ignore them long enough.

当我们面对情境或暂时的残疾时，小小的烦恼可能不足以让我们为之设计解决方案。 但是，对于失明或耳聋等永久性残疾的人来说，如果您足够长的时间忽略他们，他们的困难不会简单地消失。

Designing with an accessibility-first mindset means treating problems faced by people with disabilities as top-priority problems. When we design accessibility-first, we can identify unsolved problems faced by everyone, unlock new use-cases and potentials that people haven’t explored before, and push technology forward for everyone. That is the beauty of the curb cut effect.

以无障碍获取第一的心态进行设计意味着将残疾人所面临的问题视为重中之重。 当我们首先设计可访问性时，我们可以确定每个人都面临的未解决问题 ， 释放人们以前从未探索过的新用例和潜力 ，并为每个人推动技术的发展。 这就是路边切割效果的美。

Designers are often daunted by the extreme constraints that accessibility puts on design — how does someone use my product if they can’t see it? However, when you solve for the hardest problems, the solution naturally extends to solving a strings of related and easier problems.

设计师常常因可访问性对设计施加的极端约束而畏缩-如果有人看不见我该如何使用我的产品？ 但是，当您解决最棘手的问题时，解决方案自然会扩展到解决一系列相关且更容易解决的问题。

If a blind user can use your product with ease, think of just how effortless it will be for people who aren’t blind.

如果盲人用户可以轻松使用您的产品，请考虑一下，对于非盲人来说，这将是多么轻松。

A reverse phenomenon to the curb cut effect is true as well — stuff that were intended to offer a bit of convenience to able-bodied people often end up becoming life-changers for people with disabilities.

与遏制效果相反的现象也是正确的-原本旨在为身体健全的人提供一些便利的东西通常最终会改变残疾人的生活 。

• Phone camera is frequently used by people with low vision as a magnifier to better read product packaging or see things further away. This is much cheaper than having to buy a separate magnifying device, and it doesn’t call attention to their disability when they use it in public.

  视力不佳的人经常将手机摄像头用作放大镜，以更好地阅读产品包装或看得更远。 这比必须购买单独的放大镜便宜得多，并且当他们在公共场所使用放大镜时，也不会引起人们的注意。

• Voice assistants or smart speakers are a nice-to-have for most people. I use my Google Home when I’m cooking and can’t use my phone normally. However, blind users really adore them, because they can get stuff done much faster without having to fumble around on a touchscreen — something that inherently isn’t designed for blind usage.

  对于大多数人来说， 语音助手或智能扬声器是不错的选择。 我在做饭时使用Google Home，但无法正常使用手机。 但是，盲人用户确实很喜欢它们，因为盲人用户可以更快地完成工作，而不必在触摸屏上摸索-这并不是为盲人使用而设计的。

• Ride sharing apps like Lyft or Uber are a convenience for most people. However, it’s led to a lot more freedom for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, so that they can get a taxi without having to rely on verbal communication. I’ve also met a deaf Lyft driver. Ride sharing allowed him to work as a taxi driver despite his disability, something that would’ve been impossible before.

  Lyft或Uber之类的乘车共享应用程序对于大多数人来说是一种便利。 但是，这为聋哑或听力障碍的人们带来了更多的自由，从而使他们不必依靠口头交流就能打车。 我还遇到了一个聋哑的Lyft司机。 乘车共享使他尽管有残障也可以当出租车司机，这在以前是不可能的。

• Self-driving cars are exciting for most people because we look forward to playing Candy Crush while driving to work one day. However, it will open up a whole world of possibilities for people with vision or motor impairments who can’t drive today. One of the first Google self-driving cars (now Waymo) demos were done with a blind person.

  自动驾驶汽车对大多数人来说都很令人兴奋，因为我们期待在一天的工作中玩“ Candy Crush”。 但是，它将为当今无法驾驶的视力或运动障碍人士打开一个广阔的世界。 Google的首批自动驾驶汽车演示(现为Waymo)演示之一是由一个盲人完成的。

Whenever I talk to people with disabilities about technology, the feedback is overwhelmingly positive. Technology empowers them to do things they can’t do otherwise, to accomplish everyday tasks quickly and easily, to narrow the ability gap between them and people without disabilities, and to help them be more employable so they can lead meaningful and fulfilling lives.

每当我与残疾人谈论技术时，反馈都是非常积极的。 技术使他们能够做其他事情无法做的事情，可以快速轻松地完成日常任务，缩小他们与无残障人士之间的能力差距，并帮助他们提高就业能力，从而使他们能够过上有意义而充实的生活。

I believe we’re at a critical time in history where the rise of cutting-edge technology like AI, image recognition, and natural language processing can drastically improve the lives of people with disabilities. Technology can become the eyes for a blind person, the ears for a deaf person, and the voice for someone who cannot otherwise speak.

我相信我们正处在历史的关键时刻，在这一时刻，诸如AI，图像识别和自然语言处理等尖端技术的兴起可以极大地改善残疾人的生活。 技术可以成为盲人的眼睛，聋人的耳朵和其他无法讲话的人的声音。

Does the technology you’re working on today have the potential to change someone’s life?

您正在使用的技术是否有可能改变某人的生活？

4.您对残疾人的假设可能是错误的 (4. You assumptions about people with disabilities are probably wrong)

A question I often get asked is — I don’t know anything about people with disabilities. How am I supposed to design for them?

我经常被问到的一个问题是-我对残疾人一无所知。 我应该如何为他们设计？

For starters, they are not that different. When I first started in accessibility, I asked the closest blind engineer, “So what apps do blind people use?” That question was met with an apathetic not-this-again eye-roll: “We use the same apps that you do — Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, whatever.”

对于初学者来说， 它们并没有什么不同 。 当我刚开始使用辅助功能时，我问了最近的盲人工程师，“那么盲人会使用哪些应用程序？” 这个问题令人沮丧，但又不是这个问题：“我们使用与您相同的应用程序-Facebook，YouTube，Twitter，等等。”

People tend to face this understanding gap because they assume people with disabilities are some distant other, not living, breathing human beings like the rest of us.

人们倾向于面对这种理解上的鸿沟，因为他们认为残疾人与我们其他人一样，与其他人相距遥远 ，而不是生活，呼吸。

People with disabilities are normal, regular human beings too, just with a few constraints peppered in.

残疾人也是正常人，也是普通人 ，只有一些限制。

It may be easy to assume that blind users don’t take photos, or that deaf users don’t listen to music, so these products don’t need to be as accessible, but that cannot be further from the truth.

可以很容易地假设盲人用户不拍照，或者聋人用户不听音乐，因此这些产品并不需要那么容易获得，但事实并非如此 。

Excluding users based on unvalidated assumptions is just plain rude. Don’t be rude.

基于未经验证的假设排除用户只是粗鲁的行为。 不要粗鲁 。

Here’s what I learned from research: many blind users enjoy capturing and sharing life moments with their camera just as much as sighted users, and many deaf users enjoy feeling the beat and rhythm of music with their body, just like hearing users.

这是我从研究中所学到的 ：许多盲人用户喜欢用相机捕捉和分享生活瞬间，这与视力用户一样多，许多聋哑用户喜欢用身体感觉音乐的节拍和节奏，就像听觉用户一样。

When in doubt, don’t assume, ask!

如有疑问，不要假设，问问！

As you probably know from being a designer, the best way to learn about users is to talk to them directly. Your local community might have non-profit organizations for people with disabilities, and they may be happy to answer your questions.

正如您可能从一名设计师那里了解到的那样，了解用户的最佳方法是直接与他们交谈。 您当地的社区可能有面向残疾人的非营利组织，他们可能很乐意回答您的问题。

Failing in-person contact, YouTube also has a vast pool of videos if you just search for “How do people with [insert disability here] do [insert task here]?”, and folks may be able to answer your questions online as well. Some of my favorite channels include the Tommy Edison Experience, The Essential Sign, and Whhels2Walking.

如果无法进行面对面的交流，如果您仅搜索“ [在这里有插入障碍的人]如何[在这里插入任务]？”，YouTube也会有大量的视频，人们也可以在线上回答您的问题。 我最喜欢的一些频道包括Tommy Edison体验 ， The Essential Sign和Whhels2Walking 。

The only difference between able-bodied people and those with disabilities, is that we perceive or interact with the world slightly differently.

身体健壮的人和残疾人之间的唯一区别是， 我们对世界的感知或互动略有不同 。

You and I can’t fly, but you wouldn’t say we’re “aerially-disabled”, because no other human can fly. But birds can fly, dogs can smell something a mile away, and bees can see ultraviolet colors. Does that make all humans disabled compared to animals? No, we just perceive the world differently.

您和我不会飞，但您不会说我们“有空中障碍”，因为没有其他人可以飞。 但是鸟类可以飞翔，狗可以闻到一英里外的气味，蜜蜂可以看到紫外线。 与动物相比，这会使所有人类都失去能力吗？ 不，我们只是对世界有不同的看法。

This is true for people with differing abilities, and it’s true for people from different cultural backgrounds, income levels, age, gender, belief, etc.

对于具有不同能力的人来说，这是正确的，对于具有不同文化背景，收入水平，年龄，性别，信仰等的人也是如此。

We only consider blindness a disability because most people are not blind. Let’s pretend that instead of 4%, 94% of people have a vision impairment. Imagine how different our physical world and our digital products would be.

我们仅将失明视为一种残疾，因为大多数人都不是失明的。 让我们假设94％的人有视力障碍，而不是4％。 想象一下，我们的物理世界和数字产品将有多么不同。

5.尽早考虑包容性可以为您省去很多麻烦 (5. Considering inclusion early saves you a ton of trouble down the road)

At many organizations, the model for accessibility I’ve observed is compliance-centric accessibility. That means accessibility is one of the last things on a checklist that the team has to tick off in order to meet compliance standards and launch a product.

在许多组织中，我观察到的可访问性模型是以合规性为中心的可访问性 。 这意味着可访问性是团队为了符合合规标准和发布产品而必须勾选的清单上的最后一件事。

The problem with compliance-centric accessibility is that, accessibility issues are often found at the last stage of product development, when people are running up against deadlines, and heavy amounts of design and engineering work has already been poured into the product.

以合规性为中心的可访问性的问题在于， 可访问性问题通常出现在产品开发的最后阶段 ，这是由于人们赶不按时完成任务，并且已经在产品中投入了大量的设计和工程工作。

When accessibility issues arise at the very end, what ends up happening is that instead of going back to the drawing board and redesigning everything from scratch (which teams definitely don’t have time for), they slap together a last-minute band-aid quick fix in order to meet compliance, often still resulting in unanticipated stress and extra work for the whole team.

当可访问性问题最终出现时，最终发生的是，他们花了最后一分钟的创可贴 ，而不是从头开始设计并重新设计一切(团队肯定没有时间)。 快速修复以达到合规性，通常仍会导致意料之外的压力，并给整个团队带来额外的工作。

This is not healthy for the team, nor is it good for end users.

这对于团队来说并不健康，对最终用户也不是一件好事。

On my team, I’m advocating to adopt what I call accessibility-first design. Even in the earliest stages of brainstorming and visioning exercises, make sure to consider inclusive use-cases and inclusive personas so that your final product is inclusive of everyone.

在我的团队中，我提倡采用所谓的可访问性优先设计 。 即使在集思广益和构想练习的最早阶段，也要确保考虑包容性用例 和包容性角色，以使您的最终产品包容每个人。

An easy way to do it is to include common situational impairments, such as driving or holding groceries with one hand, as your primary user journeys.

一种简单的方法是包括常见的情况障碍，例如在主要用户旅行时用一只手驾驶或握着食品杂货。

When you consider accessibility from the get-go, you avoid unanticipated compliance issues down the road, your designers and engineers don’t have to scramble to put together last minute fixes, your QA team doesn’t have to worry about filing hundreds of accessibility bugs, and your users will enjoy a much more effortless and helpful product experience. It’s a win-win-win-win situation.

当您从一开始就考虑可访问性时，可以避免日后出现意料之外的合规性问题，您的设计师和工程师不必费心整理最新的修复程序，您的质量保证团队就不必担心提交数百个可访问性错误，您的用户将享受更加轻松和有用的产品体验。 这是双赢的局面。

How might you help bring inclusive design to your organization?

您将如何帮助将包容性设计引入您的组织？

In the past 18 months, I’ve also gained many surprising personal benefits from working on accessibility.

在过去的18个月中，我通过可访问性获得了许多令人惊讶的个人利益 。

1.我可以更快地吸收知识三倍 (1. I can consume knowledge 3 times faster)

One of the products I’m responsible for is TalkBack, which is Android’s screen reader for blind users. Screen readers are software that read the content of the screen out loud, so a blind person can know what’s on-screen without looking at it. This is how blind users interact with their phones and computers.

我负责的产品之一是TalkBack，这是面向盲人的Android屏幕阅读器 。 屏幕阅读器是一种可以大声读取屏幕内容的软件，因此盲人无需看屏幕就能知道屏幕上的内容。 这是盲人用户与手机和计算机进行交互的方式。

Listening to audio is a one-dimensional, linear way of consuming information, so it’s often much slower than visual reading in a two-dimensional space. To make up for this inefficiency, blind users generally set their screen readers at a very fast speech rate — probably 3–5 times faster than normal human conversation.

听音频是一种一维，线性的信息消费方式，因此它通常比二维空间中的视觉阅读要慢得多。 为了弥补这种效率低下的问题，盲人用户通常将其屏幕阅读器设置为非常快的语音速率-可能是普通人类对话速度的3-5倍。

In the process of designing for TalkBack, I’ve also developed a habit of listening to audio at ~3x speed in order to make my workflow efficient. Mind you, I’m not even a native English speaker.

在设计“话语提示”的过程中，我还养成了以大约3倍的速度收听音频的习惯， 以提高工作流程的效率。 请注意，我什至不是英语母语者。

Now, even when I listen to the most information-dense content, be it an instructional YouTube video, a presentation, or an online course, I always listen to it at the fastest speed available — generally 2x (I wish they offered 3x though). This means it only takes me 30 minutes to finish an hour-long talk, and it’s been a huge time saver.

现在，即使当我收听信息最密集的内容时，无论是YouTube指导性视频，演示文稿还是在线课程，我始终会以最快的速度收听—通常是2倍(不过我希望他们能提供3倍) 。 这意味着我只需要30分钟就可以完成一个小时的谈话，并且节省了很多时间 。

Relevant: How Blind People Use YouTube & Twitter on the iPhone, by The Tommy Edison Experience

相关： 盲人如何在iPhone上使用YouTube和Twitter ，作者：汤米·爱迪生(The Tommy Edison)

2.我发现了对自己以及家人和朋友都有帮助的有用工具 (2. I discovered useful tools that help myself as well as family and friends)

As stated earlier, everyone is disabled in one way or another, and by working on accessibility, I got to know a ton of accessibility tools that are helpful for everyone.

如前所述，每个人都以一种或另一种方式被禁用，并且通过研究可访问性，我了解了很多对每个人都有用的可访问性工具。

Examples include:

示例包括：

• I use Live Transcribe (shameless plug for my own product) to help me record meeting notes and communicate better with people who are less fluent in English.

  我使用Live Transcribe (我自己产品的无耻插件)来帮助我记录会议笔记并与英语流利的人更好地交流。

• I use Sound Amplifier (another shameless plug) paired with bluetooth headphones to hear what’s on TV from another room.

  我将声音放大器 (另一个无耻的插头)与蓝牙耳机配对使用，以便从另一个房间收听电视上的内容。

• I’ve helped people with deteriorating eyesight (e.g. my parents) to find helpful settings like large font size, large display size, and magnifying tools.我已经帮助视力恶化的人(例如我的父母)找到有用的设置，例如大字体，大显示器尺寸和放大工具。

• I’ve helped people who love dark theme but wish more apps supported it to find advanced accessibility settings for forcing dark theme on all apps.

  我已经帮助喜欢深色主题但希望更多应用程序支持的人们找到高级强制设置， 以在所有应用程序上强制使用深色主题 。

3.我不再害怕变老或残疾 (3. I’m no longer afraid of growing old or becoming disabled)

As a designer, one of my hidden fears has been: “What if one day I lose my eyesight or lose dexterity of my hands? How will I live and work?” Maybe we all have this intrinsic fear.

作为设计师，我隐藏的恐惧之一是：“如果有一天我失去视力或手灵巧怎么办？ 我将如何生活和工作？” 也许我们所有人都有这种内在的恐惧。

I’m happy to report that I no longer have these stupid fears. Through the process of understanding accessibility users and how they cope with their disabilities, I now know every type of assistive technology and coping mechanism like the back of my hand.

我很高兴地报告， 我不再有这些愚蠢的恐惧 。 通过了解可访问性用户以及他们如何处理残障的过程，我现在知道了每种辅助技术和应对机制，例如我的手背。

If I get into an accident and become blind tomorrow — no problem, I know how to stay productive and positive as a blind person. Well, maybe I won’t be a designer any more, but I know I’ll still have a happy and fulfilling life. If I gradually lose the ability to use my eyes, ears, hands and feet over time with old age, I know exactly how to not let that bother me as well. This feeling of security and freedom is really reassuring.

如果我发生事故并明天成为盲人-没问题，我会以盲人的身份保持生产力和积极性 。 好吧， 也许我不会再当设计师了，但我知道我仍然会过着幸福而充实的生活。 如果我随着年龄的增长逐渐失去使用眼睛，耳朵，手和脚的能力，那么我确切地知道如何也不要让它困扰我。 这种安全感和自由感确实令人放心。

I won’t say that I understand everything that people with disabilities have to deal with, because I can’t possibly be that arrogant, but after talking to people with disabilities and learning about them on a daily basis for the past 18 months, I’ve developed a much healthier understanding of disabilities.

我不会说我了解残疾人必须处理的所有事情，因为我不可能那么自大，但是在与残疾人交谈并在过去18个月中每天了解他们之后，我对残疾问题有了更健康的认识。

It’s just a different way of life, that’s all. There’s nothing to fear and nothing to feel sorry for.

只是一种不同的生活方式而已。 不必担心，也不必为之感到遗憾。

4.我成为了一个更好的公众演讲者和知识共享者 (4. I became a much better public speaker and knowledge sharer)

A large part of my job is to convince other designers and people in tech to consider accessibility, so I often find myself being thrown into an activist and evangelist role — a situation I’m positively surprised by.

我的工作很大一部分是说服其他设计师和技术人员考虑可访问性，因此我经常发现自己陷入了积极主义者和传教士的角色 ，这种情况令我感到非常惊讶。

This was a forcing function for me to develop stronger skills in storytelling, negotiation, and public speaking. In turn, it’s helped me become a better designer and generally a better communicator.

这对我来说是一项强制性的功能，使他能够增强讲故事，谈判和公开演讲的技能。 反过来，它帮助我成为了更好的设计师和总体上更好的沟通者。

I’ve also taken a much more proactive stance in knowledge sharing in order to advocate for accessibility, doing talks and running workshops both within Google and at external conferences, appearing on a design podcast, and writing articles such as this one.

在知识共享方面 ，我也采取了更加积极的态度，以倡导可访问性，在Google内部和外部会议上进行演讲和举办研讨会，出现在设计播客上并撰写诸如此类的文章。

It’s helped grow my career as well as my personal impact. I can only do so much as a single person with accessibility knowledge, but if I help others to start caring and taking action, my impact grows exponentially.

它有助于我的职业发展以及个人影响 。 我只能像一个无障碍知识的人那样做，但是如果我帮助他人开始关心和采取行动，我的影响力将成倍增长。

I hope that one day, I can look back and see I’ve made a small footprint in helping build a better, more inclusive world.

我希望有一天，我可以回头看看，在帮助建立一个更好，更具包容性的世界方面，我的足迹很小。

Interested in learning more about designing for accessibility?

有兴趣了解更多有关无障碍设计的信息吗？

Here are some further reading:

这里是一些进一步的阅读：

• Designing for accessibility is not that hard, by Pablo Stanley

  Pablo Stanley 设计的可访问性并不难

• Curb Cuts, a 99% Invisible podcast episode

  遏制切工 (99％Invisible Podcast)

• Accessibility design guidelines from Google Material Design

  Google Material Design的辅助功能设计指南

• Inclusive design toolkit from Microsoft

  Microsoft的包容性设计工具包

• Accessibility design from Apple Human Interface Guidelines

  Apple人机界面指南中的辅助功能设计

This was an Inclusive Design 101 level introduction to designing for accessibility. I hope to continue this series and delve deeper in the near future.

这是对无障碍设计的包容性设计101级介绍。 我希望继续这个系列，并在不久的将来更深入地研究。