sam_harris68•21d agoTop Commenter

That blind customer who schooled me on button placement at 8am

Last Tuesday I was showing off a new checkout flow to a beta tester who is blind. He stopped me 30 seconds in and said your confirm button is 12 pixels higher than the back button. I checked the code and he was dead on. He told me he memorizes button positions by feel on his phone screen and a tiny shift breaks his flow. Now I test every prototype with my eyes closed before I hand it off. Has anyone else had a user catch something you've missed a hundred times?

2 comments

2 Comments

reese55121d ago

Tbh I had a similar wake up call a few years back with a screen reader user who pointed out my skip links were 2 pixels too low on mobile. I felt like an idiot because I had checked that page maybe 50 times. Now I literally run my thumb along the edge of the screen to feel where buttons sit before I even open the code. It's wild how much small stuff we miss when we're just looking at it instead of actually using it. I also started keeping a cheap phone with basic accessibility tools turned on full time so I can test stuff the way real people do. The blind community has taught me more about precision than any design course ever did.

morgan.cameron21d ago

That bit about keeping a cheap phone with accessibility tools turned on is a game changer. I did the same thing after a dyslexic user pointed out my font spacing was inconsistent and it totally threw them off. Now I literally hand my test phone to anyone willing to try it out, even if they're not part of the target audience, because they notice things I'd never catch on my own. It's humbling how much we assume works when we're the ones who coded it.