Super quick post as this is a work in progress, but here are a couple of fiddles for a disability simulator I am building.

Loads of redundant code to refactor (as is the case with a lot of my posts at the moment! I am very much in a "prototyping" phase at the moment!) but some of the techniques used my be useful such as replacing a mouse cursor and simulating click events in the Parkinson's disease simulator, or applying colour filters in the colour blindness / vision impairment simulator.

Loads left to do but with two 4 day work weeks here in the UK (as we close for Good Friday and have a bank holiday on Monday) I realised I probably wasn't going to get any posts out if I didn't release what I have been working on, as I have several posts "in progress" and none finished! (yeah, still not got my writing schedule quite right yet 🤣🤣)

Anyway enough rambling - have a play with the following, see what you think (only tested in chrome so results may vary in other browsers!)

Simulating Parkinson's Disease / tremors

For some reason this doesn't perform well in a fiddle, so if it is a bit laggy for you my apologies!

See how frustrating small tap targets can be? This is why WCAG recommends a minimum 48 x 48 size tap target.

Oh at the moment this one is easy to cheat too so if you do try it and want to share your Attempts / Successes ratio in the comments then we will do the honour system!

P.s. this only works with a mouse in case you are on mobile 😜😂

(top tip - if you move the cursor out of the fiddle to the left it won't be visible and distracting!)

Simulating Vision Impairments

Simple stuff at this stage, tunnel vision, blurry vision, sunlight as the main 3 and then all the variations of colour blindness.

The sunlight one is particularly interesting as it really hits home why minimum contrast ratios are required in WCAG!

Conclusion

As you can see, a looooooong way to go but some of the more interesting challenges already tackled.

I am hoping to include a lot more in the final product including:

• multiple vision impairments such as Glaucoma , macular degeneration etc.
• Cortical/cerebral visual impairment - makes things appear all swirly and abstract - leading child blindness cause
• light sensitivity (one I have never seen before) to highlight bright spots on a screen that may be unsettling for people with light sensitivity
• small vocabulary - jumbling words that people with learning disabilities may not understand to leave only simple words readable.
• dyslexia - jumbling letters etc.
• variations on the "tremors" simulator for people with muscle spasm impairments etc.
• movement sensitivity such as ADHD, vestibular disorders, paranoia etc.

I will do a full write up when it is more complete and cleaned up as to how I achieved each effect and the "gotchyas" I came across!