Bridging the Gap between Graphic Design and Digital Accessibility in Design Education

Graphic design courses are usually a familiar topic in design curricula. However, knowledge of digital accessibility, including visual accessibility is not always emphasised when teaching students. When the World Wide Web Consortium launched an accessibility initiative in 1997, it included a set of guidelines for achieving web functionality for people with disabilities. Today, accessibility is recognised as important for all and plays a crucial role in the development of sustainable digital product and service design. The rules for compliance with the principles of accessibility in the digital environment have already been incorporated into the legislation of the European Union and the Republic of Latvia. In view of all this, teaching the principles of visual accessibility in design education has become topical. However, it can be a pedagogical challenge to integrate these specific practises into graphic design education, as it requires looking at familiar design concepts from a different perspective. This article aims to demonstrate that the principles of visual accessibility can be integrated into the content of graphic design assignments to enable students to consider design problems more broadly. Using qualitative research methods, a case study of the implementation of the topic of visual accessibility in the course “Introduction to Web Design” offered as part of the Bachelor of Computer Science programme at the University of Latvia is examined. As a result, the author suggests how both visual accessibility and graphic design can support each other in the learning process. In conclusion, the author points out that the systematic inclusion of accessibility design concepts in teaching is an important part of sustainable design education and recommends how the topic of visual accessibility can be better integrated into other relevant design curricula in the future.