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Design Principles for Cognitive Disabilities

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From: Paul R. Bohman
Date: Nov 2, 2006 4:20PM

Related to my previous posts, I've drafted a set of *design
principles* for cognitive disabilities. This list is different from
the list of functional cognitive disabilities in that the design
principles are more rule-like or guideline-like, and their intended
audience is web developers. I'm sure this list will also undergo
changes over time. You'll notice that I've addressed the issue of
motivation, which was brought up in a couple of the posts previously,
with the "engagement" principle (see below). I felt that a
principle-based list was an appropriate place to address that issue,
whereas a list of the disability types themselves was probably not.

As I read through my own list, I'm becoming more convinced of two
(somewhat contradictory) things:
1. There is a large overlap between the principles of general
usability and cognitive accessibility.
2. Designing for cognitive disabilities is a specialized area that
general usability experts or web accessibility experts probably are
not qualified to design for, and may never be.

The first point above is encouraging. The second point is
discouraging, in that it means that making content accessible to the
blind or deaf or to those with motor disabilities really is vastly
different than making content accessible to people with cognitive
disabilities. Content designed for people with cognitive disabilities
simply won't be the same or look the same as content designed for the
rest of the population -- especially when you take into account the
principle of developmental appropriateness. Still, for minor cognitive
disabilities, there is still enough overlap with general usability
principles to make the concept of universal design a worthy, if
unachievable, goal. We just have to put an asterisk after the word
"universal" and admit that we really mean "mostly universal".

Here's my list:


1. SIMPLICITY
Create a sparse, clean design; Eliminate distracters; Limit the number
of options or choices; Limit or eliminate complex ideas

2. CLARITY
Use direct, unambiguous language; Make the purpose of the content
obvious; Make the interface intuitive

3. BREVITY
Limited the amount of content; Limit the number of procedural steps
the user must go through; Break longer pieces of content into smaller
chunks

4. CONSISTENCY
Keep the interface, design, and interactive controls as predictable as possible

5. FAMILIARITY
Ground the design in the user's frame of reference, such as that
person's past experiences, knowledge set, etc.

6. ENGAGEMENT
Attract and focus the interest and attention of the user; Perhaps
introduce game-like elements

7. GUIDANCE
Include cues, help, and prompts that assist the user to understand the
content or perform the task at hand

8. AUTOMATION
Reduce or eliminate the need to initiate or manually perform any
procedures; Reduce or eliminate the need for reasoning or calculation
logic

9. AUDIOVISUAL REPRESENTATION
Keep text to a minimum; supplement or replace text with graphics,
illustrations, icons, audio, and/or video formats

10. DEVELOPMENTAL APPROPRIATENESS
Regardless of the age of the user, make references to ideas and items
that matches the user's developmental abilities and maturities, which
may mean incorporating child-like elements

11. DIGITAL TRANSFORMABILITY
Build in the ability to alter such things as font, background color,
etc (this may include the construction of custom widgets, but may also
include compatibility with user agents which already have such
capabilities); Allow for text to speech conversion (e.g. screen
readers)

--
Paul R. Bohman
Administrative Faculty, College of Education & Human Development
Lead Architect of Web Services, Office of Technology Support
Technology Coordinator, Kellar Institute for Human disAbilities
George Mason University