A range of tools like Canva, Adobe Creative Cloud, Figma, and Stark support accessible, inclusive design with features such as color contrast checking, alt text, and accessibility checkers. Others like Color Oracle and WebAIM help ensure visuals meet WCAG standards for users with visual impairments.
Which Tools Best Support the Creation of Inclusive Visual Content in Tech?
AdminA range of tools like Canva, Adobe Creative Cloud, Figma, and Stark support accessible, inclusive design with features such as color contrast checking, alt text, and accessibility checkers. Others like Color Oracle and WebAIM help ensure visuals meet WCAG standards for users with visual impairments.
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Canva User-Friendly Design with Accessibility Features
Canva is a versatile graphic design tool that supports the creation of inclusive visual content through its accessibility features. It offers templates designed with color contrast in mind and allows users to add alt text to images for screen readers, making content more accessible to people with visual impairments. Its intuitive drag-and-drop interface makes designing inclusive visuals easier for users with varying levels of design expertise.
Adobe Creative Cloud Advanced Tools for Accessible Design
Adobe’s suite, including Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, provides powerful tools for creating inclusive visuals. Adobe’s accessibility checker helps evaluate documents for compliance with accessibility standards, and designers can customize elements like color contrast and font size to support readability for all users. Integration with Adobe XD also facilitates designing accessible user interfaces.
Stark Accessibility Toolkit for Designers
Stark is a plugin available for popular design software such as Figma, Sketch, and Adobe XD. It specializes in helping designers check color contrast ratios, simulate various types of color blindness, and apply inclusive design best practices. Stark ensures visual content meets WCAG guidelines, making it an essential tool for inclusive tech design workflows.
Figma Collaborative Inclusive Design Platform
Figma is a cloud-based design tool that supports team collaboration with real-time feedback, helping teams create inclusive visual content together. It supports plugins like Stark and Accessibility Checker, enabling designers to ensure proper contrast and usability across diverse audiences. Its web-based nature also allows easy sharing and review to enhance inclusivity standards.
Microsoft PowerPoint with Accessibility Checker
For professionals creating presentations, Microsoft PowerPoint includes an Accessibility Checker that identifies potential issues in visual content, such as missing alt text, low contrast, or lack of readable fonts. This makes it easier to produce inclusive slide decks and visuals commonly used in tech communication and training materials.
Color Oracle Color Blindness Simulator
Color Oracle is a free desktop application that simulates how images and designs appear to individuals with different types of color blindness. By using this tool, designers can adjust their visuals to ensure important information is distinguishable for users with color vision deficiencies, improving the accessibility of tech-related graphics and data visualizations.
Paciello Group Colour Contrast Analyser
This tool helps designers verify that text and visual elements meet recommended color contrast ratios as per WCAG standards. By ensuring adequate contrast, content creators can make sure their visual materials are readable by users with low vision or color blindness, supporting inclusivity in tech documentation and interfaces.
Inclusive Icons Accessible Icon Libraries
Inclusive Icons provides a collection of icons designed with clarity and simplicity to be inclusive to people with cognitive disabilities and screen readers. Using such libraries allows tech creators to incorporate universally understandable symbols in their visual content, helping reduce ambiguity and improve accessibility.
WebAIM Contrast Checker
WebAIM’s Color Contrast Checker is a straightforward web tool used to test color combinations against accessibility standards. It aids in selecting inclusive color palettes for tech products’ UI, data dashboards, and infographics, ensuring that essential content is perceivable by users with various visual impairments.
Desygner Inclusive Design with Easy Templates
Desygner is an online graphic design tool offering templates and elements optimized for inclusivity, including those with proper contrast and legibility. Its simple interface supports quick creation of web and social media visuals optimized for accessibility, making it a good choice for tech teams needing inclusive marketing and instructional content.
What else to take into account
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