Making Minimal Interfaces
More Accessible
Minimalist phone for mindful use with essential functions only: calls, texts, alarm, navigation.
Reduce digital overload but still provide accessibility for all users.
The challenge was to preserve Light Phone II’s mindful minimalism while conducting a WCAG accessibility audit and translating its findings into product features that ensure equitable usability, particularly for users with visual and motor barriers.
We built two lightweight, system-level accessibility pathways that preserve the device’s minimalist ethos:
Makes the interface flexible and comfortable for all vision and motor needs.
Makes core communication accessible even without relying on vision.
Together, they transform Light Phone into a device that stays simple but becomes radically more inclusive.
A flexible layer allowing users to adjust:
Text size presets for better readability.
Adaptive layout reflow so text doesn’t truncate on the tiny E-ink display.
This feature directly solves the audit’s core gap: the interface must adapt to the user, not ask the user to adapt to the device.
The design introduces a native Text-to-Speech mode, enabling users to:
Hear messages read aloud
Auto read feature, adjust text-to-speech speed
Receive spoken confirmation of feedback messages (sent, delivered, failed)
This feature directly responds to missing WCAG compliance for non-visual access and programmatic status communication.
Before finalizing these flows, we also explored..
1. User Flows
Explored Flow
The information architecture is hyper-nested.
It increases friction. Users might take longer to find settings, miss key features, and lose context as they move through too many layers.
Finalised Flow
This flow reduces depth and improves wayfinding.
Users can reach each setting faster, keep context, and avoid drilling through unnecessary layers.
2. UX Writing
We focused on clarity, low cognitive load, and consistent system language while exploring the UI copies.
We ensured every phrase aligned with the Light Phone’s simple, calm, and intentionally minimal voice so users could understand actions quickly without jargon or effort.
Alternate copy
Set the text size that feels easiest for you.
Make your phone’s text and buttons clearer for you.
Change text size to make it easy to read.
Alternate copy
- Display
- Display & Accessibility
Alternate copy
- Text-to-speech
- Live Speech
- Text Reader
3. Interface Layout Decisions
Scalable UI
The finalised option keeps the preview directly attached to the selected option.
This reduces scrolling, tightens the feedback loop, and lets users see the result at the moment they make a choice.
The first layout separates the preview from the selection, which slows evaluation and forces extra movement.
List Layout
We explored ways to highlight the selected option without extra text or clutter, keeping the hierarchy clean and the layout aligned with the Light Phone’s minimal style.
Button Stacking
Instead of placing buttons side-by-side, we stacked them vertically at full width to increase tap accuracy and create a clearer, more accessible touch target.
Before prototyping, we built a unified system to support accessible interactions that are scalable, legible, and intuitive, without compromising the device’s minimalist ethos. This style guide ensures every feature feels native to the device’s distraction-free design.
Type Hierarchy: Designed for Legibility
We created size presets that preserve layout, increase contrast and weight to strengthen hierarchy to support users with low vision, dyslexia, or reading fatigue.
Colour System: High Contrast, Intentional
We kept the original black-and-white E-ink palette, intentionally avoiding colour to preserve the device's calm, distraction-free experience, while ensuring contrast levels that support users with low vision, dyslexia, or reading fatigue.
Buttons & Components: Minimal but Inclusive
Examined the core components through an accessibility-first lens, expanding touch targets to meet 44px standards, making buttons clearer, and adding more feedback states. Paired icons with labels for better comprehension. Interactions that remain familiar and minimal, but far more forgiving and inclusive.
These product features were informed by WCAG 2.1, 2.2 Audit.
We prioritised features that affect visual, motor, and cognitive accessibility.
1. The Light Phone's minimalist interface creates unintended accessibility barriers.
Buttons are visually minimal, making it difficult to distinguish interactive elements.
Users with low vision or cognitive differences have no clarity on what is tappable.
2. The device lacks foundational assistive technology support.
No built-in screen reader; no accessibility API support.
Feedback cannot be announced by assistive tech.
3. Text on the device is not adaptable to user needs.
No ability to resize text, increase spacing, or adjust contrast.
Fixed layout makes reading difficult for low-vision users or users with dexterity constraints.
4. Touch interactions require fine motor precision.
Small touch targets (< 44px), no orientation flexibility, and no alternative input methods.
This excludes users with motor impairments, tremors, or situational limitations.
Assessed each criterion (P, O, U, R) as: Pass / Partial / Fail / Unknown
Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive i.e. it can not be invisible to all of their senses.
The company’s value is the experience of going light, which is why we believe accessibility is core to our business.
1. Widens potential market
By making it usable for people with low vision, cognitive differences, temporary impairments, and aging users as well as children.
2. Increase user adoption
By strengthening brand trust, and positions Light as a device that supports all users, not just tech-minimalists.
3. Reduces CX burden
By creating a more intuitive and self-navigable product.