Designing digital products for stroke survivors

Usability and accessibility principles that benefit everyone

Our multidisciplinary team recently conducted a piece of research where we tested the usability and accessibility of an online tool with stroke survivors, and a close family member. This got us thinking about the importance of designing for people with different needs, by following simple usability and accessibility principles that are beneficial to everyone.

Background: categories of stroke effects

Strokes occur when a part of the brain dies due to a blood vessel becoming blocked or bursting. As this can happen anywhere within the brain, the effects on every stroke survivor are unique, but can be broken down into the following broad categories:

Stroke survivors are likely to have impairments in one or more of these categories. This presents a unique challenge for design teams, to make their products accessible to them. With one in six people in England experiencing a stroke in their lifetime (Public Health England, 2018), the importance of designing specifically for this group is significant.

Design considerations

The infographic below summarises some of the impairments experienced by stroke survivors, providing best practice ways to improve digital products such as websites and apps. Take a look and think about how well the digital products you use or work on meet our guidelines.

Best practice design for stroke survivors will aid other users

So, you might be thinking that the above guidelines just summarise examples of good usability and accessibility? Correct! Designers should be doing all these things anyway.

Although stroke survivors can have a unique set of needs, equivalent impairments can exist in a range of other users. For example, how many of you fail to remember your password on the first try?

Our consultancy team believes that accessibility should lie at the heart of all products. We even have our own database of accessibility participants to recruit from.

If you feel that your digital or offline product is not as usable or accessible as it could be, we can help.