The Curb Cut Effect

Textile 2024 week 19 note

Accessibility seems to be trending. This is new in a way that is almost disturbing for a number of reasons, the first of which is why has it taken so long, and the second being what caused this. I think it might have to do with just wanting things to work.

We as as species have lived with the breakneck speed of technological advancement for two to three decades now. At no other point in our collective history has anything resembling this happened like this and it’s all largely happened in how we learn to use and adapt to patterns of using software. Yet a lot of the basics have been somehow skipped. Whilst there is endless patterns and documentation for spatial design which for all intensive purposes happened yesterday, there is terribly little on how to navigate with a keyboard with something as notionally simple as a web page form autocomplete.

There is this idea of The Curb Cut Effect, which is that by making things better for people with access needs, you make it better for all users. For instance, most people use the curb cut whether in a wheelchair or not, because it’s just easier. The same goes for websites and tools. If they are simple in navigation and content structure, easy to read, and things like the tab focus works, it won’t be better just for some people, but for everyone.