Project Overview
What is Google Access?
Google Access is a new accessibility system developed and designed by myself and 4 group members in a 24 Hackathon for Google. It gives Google users an expanded accessibility profile that they can personalize with any needs they may have, and saves these settings across all of Google’s products. Google Access includes the G-Access Toolbar, which allows users to fine tune accessibility elements of Google products right on the page, such as text size and colour contrast, without having to navigate through their profile settings.
Tools
Figma, Canva, Illustrator
Duration
24 hours
My Role
UX/UI Designer
Introduction
On Thursday, December 1 2022, as part of a UX Design Bootcamp with BrainStation, we met with engineers and recruiters from Google for a 24 hour Hackathon, a competition between 9 interdisciplinary groups comprised of Web Developers, UX Designers and Data Scientists. The Google team gave us the below Problem Space to work within for the 24 hours.
Given Problem Space
How might we leverage digital solutions to provide equal access to people with disabilities to resources and information?
Google's Considerations
- We want to empower communities through access to information, education, and digital tools in order to increase accessibility to current services.
- In collaboration between Brainstation and Google, we will create meaningful solutions to improve our communities’ access to resources and information.
- Access/Accessibility refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people who
experience disabilities. - It is related to Universal Design for which is the process of creating products that are usable by people with the widest possible range of abilities, operating within the widest possible range of situations.
- Users may experience varying degrees of auditory, cognitive, physical, speech and visual disabilities.
- Examples:
- What about the access to the information itself?
- Maps is probably quite difficult to use, in its current iteration, by someone who struggles with literacy (or
local language?). - What can we do to make it easier to use without reading or writing?
Initial Research
- We started the 24 hours by doing an evaluation of Googles Products.
- While looking within individual products like Gmail that do offer some accessibility options like Text Size, we instead quickly focused on the overall accessibility options given within a Google Profile
- This accessibility panel is hard to find, hidden within a users Google Profile (right)
- Zeroing in on this issue, we found that even within Accessibility Settings (left), the only option given to change is High-Contrast Colors, which is great but nowhere near the scope of all Accessibility issues that Google needs to offer solutions for
- This got us thinking, why doesn’t Google offer cross platform accessibility settings you can change in your profile?
Darren, 32
"I find it annoying that Google doesn’t give me the option to increase text size for my visual impairment. I have to use third party applications, and I would love if I could just save my text settings in my Google account across all of their products.”
About
Darren currently lives in Toronto, Canada. He has a Bachelors in Business and works as a sales manager. He has had a visual impairment since he was young, and requires larger text sizes when using digital products. He also has ADHD, which limits his ability to focus on certain sites.
Needs
- As a sales manager, Darren needs to use digital products and needs accessible text sizes to be able to comfortably see
- As a Google customer, he needs his settings saved across all Google services and an easy way to access accessibility settings
- Increased options for accessibility for his ADHD
Frustrations
- Google only currently internally provides color contrast settings that can be saved across all of its products
- Darren has to use third party text increasing extensions, but would rather just have his settings saved across all Google’s products
- Overall Google does not provide great accessibility options, and to change them you have to go hunting in the profile page, only to find none.
Devices
User Task Flow
Problem Solution
With our Problem Space, User and Task Flow, we moved into the ideation phase of the Hackathon. Unfortunately with only 24 hours, we quickly moved through the ideation phase to the solution to our problem:
Google Access adds this accessibility button to a Google Users Profile
Within it, Google users will find an entirely new accessibility page, where they are able to customize their accessibility profile. The changes made here will allow users to save these accessibility settings so they can be implemented on every product across the Google suite.
New, fun, colorful designs have been given to each accessibility need users may have to give Google Access it’s own styling within the Google umbrella. These images were generated by OpenAI’s DALLE image generator.
Hearing Assist
Color Blindness
ADHD & Sensory Assist
Screen Reader Assist
Additionally, a new page image was created along the same design lines as the above, but representing accessibility assistance throughout Google’s suite.
Users would be able to add accessibility requirements at any time, and the features offered by this customization would be available immediately.
Included in Google Access is the G-Access Toolbar, where users are able to fine tune elements of their screen right on the page. This dramatically helps accessibility at Google by giving the tools directly to the users who need them.
Users are able to toggle the toolbar on/off in their accessibility page, so this feature is only there for those who need it.
All prototypes of the G-Access toolbar were created in Figma, where the UX designers created working models that were handed off to developers.
Mobile versions of the toolbar were created in various Google Suite applications, as well as on Desktop versions.
Final Thoughts
After developing and designing Google Acess and the toolbar, the team had to present to the panel of Google employees, we put together the slide deck below.
After presenting Google Access to the panel of Google employees, we ended up winning the Hackathon!
Thank you so much for reading!
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