What’s the sight of your site?

By Lis Shorten

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to browse a website with a visual impairment? Or wondered how your website is perceived by a person with a vision disorder?

There are many different types of vision disorders that can affect a user’s ability to view web pages and way too many to cover off here. However, to give you an idea, I have simulated how the Foviance website homepage might look to someone with cataracts, macular degeneration, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy. These are four of the most common types of vision disorders. Cataracts is the leading cause of blindness worldwide and in the UK, 2 million people are visually impaired with macular degeneration (40%), glaucoma (13%) and diabetic retinopathy (8%) being the three most common causes.

If the text size on your website is not big, flexible or clear enough, your visitors may encounter difficulties using it. You will hopefully understand from the following images and descriptions why it’s so important that web pages contain text of a decent size and is strongly contrasted against the background colour.

Cataracts can form at any age, but it mostly develops as people get older. It is one of the most common types of vision disorders and according to recent studies, more than half of Americans will have developed cataracts by the time they reach 80. A cataract is a clouding of the eye lens, resulting in blurred and faded vision. Its affect can be a bit like looking at everything through frosted glass and it makes it difficult to read small or poorly contrasted text.

Macular degeneration is the most common cause of vision loss for people over the age of 60. This condition causes a gradual blurring and loss of the central vision. This affects the person’s central area of sight, making it difficult to see objects that are looked at directly. Text on websites can appear fuzzy and small text is particularly difficult to read.

Glaucoma can affect people of any age, although it mostly affects people over the age of 40. Glaucoma is caused by an increase in pressure inside the eye, which damages the optic nerve. The end result is often the opposite of macular degeneration with the loss of peripheral vision and a blurring of the central vision. Having glaucoma can be a bit like looking at everything through a straw and makes reading difficult because text seems faded as well as blurry.

Diabetic retinopathy affects the network of blood vessels lying within the retina causing them to bleed and form scar tissue. The scarring pulls and distorts the retina, causing dark patches in the field of vision. Text appears blurred or distorted in these regions, making web content difficult to read.

So, how do you think your website would look to someone with vision impairment? Do you think your content can be read without significant difficulty? To be sure, you should always include users with vision impairments in the design and development process of your websites, and seek to gather their opinions and feedback on the quality of the designs.