"There are two million people with sight problems in the UK. Good design can make websites, information, products, services and buildings accessible to them."RNIB Website (accessed 13th July 2007)
I have recently been doing some design-based work with my local council and have come across some real-life issues surrounding design and accessibility of information. Any document designed for the council needs to adhere to certain constraints in order to provent neglecting certain memebers of the public. For example, members of the public with visual impairements may have difficulty reading certain typefaces etc.
I found a list of a few design considerations that need to be thought about when designing for the the general public. These aren't strict rules but instead suggestions made by RNIB to maximize readability in design for print.
This is a real issue in design as nearly all of design is primarily about visual stimulus and it seems unusual to consider even thinking about design without this but making your work more accessible can be as simple as using a minimum pt size of 12.
Some of the guidelines I find difficult because they almost stifle creativity. The Marc Quinn Exhibition Catalogue by North Design uses a unique layout on some of its spreads where the breaks in text are spaces instead of paragraph returns. Although this is visually interesting the mere fact that it has broken the convention of the left-alignment and paragraphing means that members of the public with sight problems become alienated - as finding the start of a new line or paragraph will become difficult due to the fact there is no set format to follow.
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