For many users with cognitive disabilities, trying to navigate a website can be confusing and overwhelming, but this is their daily experience online. Websites that aren’t designed with cognitive accessibility in mind can feel like a maze: frustrating, unclear, and ultimately, not usable.
As more organizations strive to create inclusive digital spaces, it’s essential to recognize that accessibility is more than just visual or physical considerations. Cognitive disabilities affect how users think, process information, and interact with the digital world.
Let’s explore what cognitive disabilities are, why they matter in digital accessibility, and how to make the web more usable for everyone.
What Is a Cognitive Disability?
A cognitive disability, also known as an intellectual or developmental disability, affects a person’s ability to think, understand, learn, and remember. Cognitive disabilities can range widely in severity and may result from genetic conditions, brain injuries, neurological disorders, and more.
People with cognitive disabilities might face challenges with:
- Memory: Difficulty remembering information, tasks, or instructions.
- Attention: Trouble maintaining focus on tasks or activities.
- Problem-Solving: Challenges in understanding problems and developing solutions.
- Reading and Writing: Difficulty comprehending written text or expressing thoughts in writing.
- Linguistic Ability: Challenges in understanding spoken language or expressing thoughts verbally.
- Mathematical Comprehension: Difficulty with numbers, calculations, and understanding of mathematical concepts.
What’s the Difference Between Cognitive Disability and Intellectual Disability?
Although “cognitive disability” and “intellectual disability” are sometimes used interchangeably, they have distinct meanings. It’s important to focus on recognizing the accessibility needs that stem from each and designing solutions that effectively address those needs.
Cognitive Disability
- Broader Scope: Encompasses various conditions affecting cognitive functions, including memory, problem-solving, attention, and processing speed.
- Variety of Causes: Can result from brain injuries, neurological disorders, mental health challenges, learning disabilities (e.g., dyslexia), and developmental disorders (e.g., ADHD, autism).
- Functional Impact: May affect specific cognitive tasks without impacting overall intellectual capacity.
- Temporary or Permanent: Some cognitive disabilities may be temporary (e.g., cognitive impairments from a concussion) or fluctuate in severity over time.
Intellectual Disability
- Specific Definition: Significant limitations in both intellectual functioning (e.g., reasoning, learning, problem-solving) and adaptive behavior, which includes everyday social and practical skills.
- Developmental Origin: Typically originates before age 18 and is often identified through standardized testing and assessments.
- Consistent Impact: Involves consistent challenges in intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior, affecting multiple aspects of daily life and learning.
- Permanent Condition: Lifelong condition, though individuals can develop skills and coping mechanisms to improve their quality of life.
Cognitive disabilities are diverse and can affect individuals uniquely. Accessibility measures should accommodate a wide range of needs, such as providing clear instructions, using simple language, offering visual aids, and ensuring that digital content is accessible and navigable.
Both cognitive and intellectual disabilities benefit from similar best practices in web design, which we will explore further in the following sections.
The Importance of Cognitive Accessibility for Digital Accessibility
Challenges with cognitive functions can make accessing online information more difficult. A more cognitively accessible website not only broadens your audience but also ensures your organization’s message reaches everyone effectively.
Even individuals without specific cognitive disabilities often find themselves below peak cognitive ability due to factors like illness, fatigue, stress, or distraction. Web design practices that reduce cognitive load benefit everyone, making your site easier to understand and navigate.
How can you enhance web accessibility for those with cognitive disabilities? It can be difficult to know where to begin with your focus due to the sheer number of accessibility barriers related to cognitive functions. Even though there is no universal solution, there are some proven best practices that can serve as a great place to begin improving.
How to Improve the User Experience for Users with Cognitive Disabilities
In general, a thoughtful approach to design can help limit complexity and unnecessary cognitive burdens for users with one or more cognitive disability. This approach should center on some core priorities including:
- Plain language and simple design. Minimizing visual clutter is the more straightforward way to help users focus on the most important information on a given web page. For written content, avoid unnecessary jargon, eliminate unnecessary language, and keep a tight focus on the essence of your message to help ease comprehension.
- Keep consistent design practices. Employing consistent design elements and navigation conventions throughout your website will minimize the need for users to learn new steps for each page and help cut down on confusion.
- Employ visual and auditory formats. Written text will never be an ideal format for some individuals with cognitive disabilities, and alternative formats such as pictures, videos, and audio can help users who struggle with even well-designed text.
- Highlight important design elements. If a user becomes disoriented and isn’t sure what to do next on a page, elements like color, size, and brightness can be used to highlight helpful steps that provide clear direction (like a button to advance the next page in a sequence, request help, or return higher in a web page hierarchy).
- Provide clear instructions. Avoiding the assumption that a user already knows what to do on a page is always a helpful design practice, and clear instructions are the best way to convey all necessary information (including helpful reminders about relevant information that has already been presented to a user) and pave a well-marked digital path for all.
These practices are not technically difficult to execute; they simply require a consistent process for prioritizing clarity and clean design.
Cognitive Web Accessibility Requirements
Cognitive disabilities, despite being one of the most common types of disabilities, have historically been overlooked in disability laws and regulations. However, they are gaining increased attention in digital accessibility. The latest version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which underpins many global accessibility laws, places a stronger emphasis on accommodating cognitive disabilities. Additionally, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has provided a valuable resource specifically aimed at making content more usable for individuals with cognitive and learning disabilities.
Learn More About Digital Accessibility for All
If you are ready to take the next steps in your journey toward a more cognitively accessible website, TPGi is here to help. Our services are designed to help you create more inclusive user experiences and ensure your digital products are accessible to all users.
We design and conduct usability studies with disabled participants to identify barriers and provide valuable insights for improving usability and accessibility. TPGi’s design review services offer actionable recommendations to enhance user experience, ensuring your digital products meet the needs of all users.
Whether your product is in development or live, we can help you understand and address accessibility barriers effectively. Contact us to learn how to make your web products accessible to all!
Additional Resources
- Introduction to Cognitive Disability and Accessibility Testing
- A web of anxiety: accessibility for people with anxiety and panic disorders [Part 1] and Part 2
- The impact of motion animation on cognitive disability
- How to test 3.3.8 Accessible Authentication (Minimum)
- How to test 3.2.6 Consistent Help
