Category Archives: Information Accessibility

Branding schmanding! What about the users?

The other day I was handed some new branding material from a company I know a bit about. It was lovely. The colours were beautiful. It looked great, very aesthetic … except… for one thing.  The really important details, like how to get in touch with them and buy the product were unreadable.

I will never understand why branding exercises seem never to include readability. And before anyone points out that I am partially sighted which might have some bearing on the matter, let me say that the “normally sighted” colleague who handed me the material was equally outraged because he couldn’t read it either!

When will the branding experts understand that pale grey on white is nigh impossible to read. I handed the business card to another, admittedly not young but otherwise within the range of normal vision, reader who didn’t even see the writing was there! The white on a dark background was marginally better on the brochure, but a business card is much more important in everyday interaction.

All the lovely expensive stuff in the world is useless if no one can get in touch to buy what you are selling.

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So you have made some of your critical public information available accessibly on your web site and in alternative formats. What next? How can you let people know that it is there? The disability community is notoriously hard to reach but it is possible and the good news is that it is not particularly expensive.

All you need to do to begin with is to state on all your published material containing the same information that this information is available in x y and z formats, and how to get it. It should be included on web sites and printed material. The information can be quite prominently placed. (Make sure you can deliver though.)

Here is an example from the UK.

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge.

It is true that blind people won’t read print. But friends and family will, and word gets out. One of the advantages of living in a small country is that everyone knows everyone else. Good practice like this walks the talk of accessibility, and is a very tangible way to support the everyday rights of disabled people to access everyday information. It also shows that the organisation has really thought about all its customers, and you can’t go wrong with customer focus.

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Business cards are important links when you are in business of any kind. Yet many business cards are almost useless. Why? Because they ignore some readability basics. This came to my attention recently when trying to read someone’s email address off a business card. Lovely big logo and fancy printed name but the email address was so tiny it gave me a headache trying to read it.

The errors are simple and obvious yet they are very common.

1. Business cards are often very crowded, with too much visual and print information crammed into a limited space with the important details lost in the muddle
2. They are often designed to within an inch of their lives, very pretty but unreadable because of the font style or poor colour contrast.
3. The third and often the worst fault is that while the logo and company name loom large, the essential information like phone number and email and web addresses are so tiny that only the youngest and strongest eyes can read them.

If people can’t read your card they can’t contact you and you will lose their business. We are an ageing population. According to NZ Business in four year’s time over half the New Zealand workforce will be over the age of 42. And we know that once you are past 40 you are more likely to need specs for reading. And that isn’t counting the retired people.

Don’t lose out because people can’t read your card.

Now where did I put my specs?

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