// Awesome Accessibility
The best accessibility features don’t look like accessibility features. They just look like good design.
A short one, brought in from Medium. About a Nike shoe with a collapsible heel, and the case for building access in from the start instead of bolting it on at the end.
Also: the curb-cut effect, and why “well done, more of this” is basically the whole argument.
Nike’s Air Max 90 FlyEase has a collapsible heel. Step in, it snaps back into place. No laces to fight with.
It was designed for athletes who struggle to tie laces. It isn’t only for them. It makes putting a shoe on easier for absolutely everyone, and it looks great doing it.
This is the curb-cut effect in a shoebox. Kerb cuts got built for wheelchair users. Everyone else, parents with prams, delivery workers with trolleys, kids on bikes, ended up using them too. Design properly for the edge case and the middle of the bell curve benefits without ever having to ask for it.
I’ve been saying this for years. Decades, maybe. I am old. Accessibility isn’t a checklist you run at the end of a product cycle. Build it into the process early enough and it stops being compliance. It starts being where the good ideas come from.
Well done, Nike. More of this, everyone.
I'd love to tell you more.
// Break It Till You Make It
I used to break gear on purpose.
A short one, from 2015, brought in from Medium. About pushing music equipment past what it’s meant to do, and a habit I’ve let go slack since.
Also: an Amiga loading image files as audio, and the accidents that turned out brilliant.