decent design
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Building A More Accessible and Usable Decentralized Web
Published: Thu, 29 Aug 2024
DWeb Camp is a five-day conference set amidst the redwoods at Camp Navarro, CA, from August 7 to August 11. This event brings together over 450 participants, including tech builders, funders, policymakers, advocates, design practitioners, everyday citizens, and project teams from the open-source, internet freedom, decentralized, and distributed web ecosystems.
The event, particularly the Design Track and Internet Freedom Track, offers a valuable space for digital rights defenders, Internet freedom tech builders, and their allies to cultivate relationships, exchange resources and knowledge, and collaborate on projects and initiatives aimed at addressing real-world challenges impacting the most vulnerable and marginalized communities.
I had the privilege of attending this event as a partner of the Open Technology Fund’s User Experience and Discovery Lab. In collaboration with the Accessibility Lab (A11y Lab), we delivered post-release usability and design services and facilitated community needs-finding sessions. Additionally, we provided on-site design support to project teams within the DWeb and Internet Freedom spaces.
Below are some of our key learnings and takeaways from the event:
Storytelling as an effective strategy for increasing awareness
Designing with empathy is at the heart of human-centered design practices. It's essential to create digital spaces that are not only technically accessible but also truly usable and inclusive for everyone. Conventional tools like Empathy Maps and User Experience Journey Mapping, while valuable, can sometimes feel forced or disconnected. In our session, we discussed using storytelling and sharing testimonials, along with personal experiences from people with disabilities (PWDs), as more authentic ways to raise awareness and foster empathy.
Despite a growing technical knowledge around accessibility, there is still a gap in understanding the lived experiences of PWDs. Our discussion underscored that effective strategies for promoting usability and accessibility must be tailored to specific cultural contexts, industries, and sectors—whether in security, culture, arts, entertainment, or other fields— as what works in one setting may not be effective in another.
It's also vital that PWDs are not just consulted but actively engaged in the design, development, and testing of products. However, this level of inclusion is still not a standard practice across all organizations, regardless of their operational or business models. There's much work to be done to ensure that this level of accessibility and inclusivity becomes the norm.
Usability and Accessibility for the Global Majority
It goes without saying that the web should be usable and accessible to everyone, especially those who are often marginalized or forgotten such as LGBTQ+, BIPOC, PWDs, low-income individuals, and senior citizens. Yet, how often is this truly the case?
At DWeb Camp, we hosted a session titled “Usability and Accessibility for the Global Majority" which brought together a diverse group of participants from various regions, including Asia, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. Together, we discussed the challenges of designing for usability and accessibility in our respective regions:
- In countries like Japan and Indonesia, websites often face accessibility issues due to cluttered designs that overuse color and interactive elements to implement deceptive patterns, such as disguised ads, forced actions, and hidden subscriptions. Despite these issues, such design patterns are sometimes seen as fitting users' cultural behaviors.
- In countries like England and the USA, enforcement of accessibility legislation is complex and often inadequate. In Southeast Asia, relevant legislation is insufficient and often unheard of, while in Latin America, existing laws are frequently ignored.
- In these regions, a major challenge in the private sector is justifying the financial benefits of usability and accessibility to decision-makers who may not see it as a priority. Accessibility and usability are often treated as afterthoughts rather than priorities in the design and development process.
There was a significant concern about the lack of awareness on both sides of the digital divide—among builders who are unaware of the need for usable and accessible design, and among users who may not fully understand their digital rights.
The group recognized the importance of localization, or ensuring that content is accessible in various languages, which is crucial for reaching a global audience. We acknowledge that while not all organizations have the resources to implement accessibility and usability in their designs, there are still significant benefits to doing so by simply following basic interaction design heuristics including clearer instructions and documentation, more human-friendly language, and straightforward wayfinding and visibility.
Building a more usable and accessible DWeb
As we delve into the potential of DWeb technologies, we acknowledge that while these emerging techs offer enhanced anonymity, security and privacy, they also place greater responsibility on users. The lack of usability and accessibility in security tools built on decentralized and distributed protocols—especially those used by journalists and activists in highly censored regions like Iran and Russia—can significantly heighten users’ risks and expose them to greater danger. As such, tool teams must be well-equipped with the knowledge and capacity to engage and onboard users effectively, especially in smaller organizations with limited resources.
The DWeb Tech Demo Night at DWeb Camp provided a glimpse into what the future of decentralized web might look like—showcasing projects and tools that are ready to use and test. Imagine a world where reliance on the cloud is no longer necessary, where people can connect without the Internet, where individuals have full ownership of their data and sovereignty over their identity. While we valued exploring these advancements, we also recognize that significant work remains to make this digital future accessible to everyone.
It begins with the ‘curb cut effect’— if it is accessible to those that are systematically marginalized and vulnerable, it is accessible to all.
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This work is supported by the Open Technology Fund