alongside the content creation, i’m also researching the user interface. this is currently happening as two lines of research
- the main interface
- how might the work be made more accessible.
the accessibility considerations involve me adding additional code to hack the live code produced from the authoring software. i’m not sure if this has been done before.
at the moment the accessibility research is very separate from the main interface development. i anticipate at some point the two needing to merge and how might they inform each other.
so for now the user interface research is without accessibility considerations.
in going forward i am going to need to open up the accessibility considerations to the co production process. i really hope our on going arts and heritage meetings can provide an opportunity to connect with volunteers with knowledge and experience of visual combinations of colour to provide the best possible experience as well as ways and means of testing the work.
i reflect that the recent research has been about the technical. soon it will need to move into aesthetic considerations.
another aspect of the interface design i’m considering is might it work to include sections of drawings for the area of the mill being featured. this is an idea in progress.
so something to do soon is to bring all the pieces together and see what mess i can make – with a view to edit and clean it up.
to be honest with you, at the end of may when accessibility appeared in conversation it lined up with some passing thoughts i had had and it took me out of my comfort zone. i had no idea at the time how to achieve what i believed was being proposed.
now some weeks on and i can see it will be possible in some form. what it will undoubtably do is influence the overall design of the interface. this is new to me and need to have more conversations about it.
in considering how to make the work accessible as possible, as well as contrast considerations there’s also colour blindness. most of the thinking i’ve been doing has up to now been centric to using colour.
just how far do i need to go to make it fully accessible?
at what point do i need to work with a practical compromise?
my research continues.
