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Megumi Hiramoto is a creative visual designer and a champion of empathetic, accessible design in educational technology.
“Many don’t value the importance of accessibility, especially in design, and don’t understand the fact that lack of accessibility consideration can create a poor user experience for the end users and exclude certain audiences,” Hiramoto says.
Her goal is to create designs that can be experienced equally by anyone, regardless of their abilities.
Inspired by Japan’s rich cultural designs
Hiramoto was born and raised in Yokohama, Japan, but spent most of her school life in Tokyo. There, she was inspired by the designs she saw every day from fashion, architecture, ads, streets, and more. The designs covered a wide spectrum from simple, sleek, practical designs to rich cultural ones to unique designs that were over-the-top and fantastic.
During her college years, she was an intern at Elle Japan and later an editorial assistant at Harper’s Bazaar Japan in Tokyo. She also had the opportunity to study in the United States. She spent a year in Oregon on an exchange program, and her time in the States inspired her to return to attend art school in San Francisco after she graduated from college.
Niche area of design
Currently, Hiramoto works for three digital curriculum brands, where she designs a wide range of visual materials, such as manipulatives for products, brochures, marketing and event collaterals, and long-format PDFs. She is adept at elevating the designs she makes through understanding the branding and giving it a fresher approach.
Hiramoto’s niche area is design accessibility. She crafts visual designs and documents that communicate with everyone. When working on visual designs for websites, she makes certain that they meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). This enables visitors to have access to all the information on the site, regardless of their abilities.
When working on layouts and documents in digital PDF format, Hiramoto designs them so that assistive technologies, especially screen readers, can read them logically and accurately. As PDF/UA is an international standard for accessible PDFs, Hiramoto is sure to follow both PDF/UA and WCAG standards, which are complementary. However, digital PDFs are more difficult to work on due to the fact that they need to be designed well and with the style of the brands in mind, which requires highly technical and specific skills when accessibility is considered.
Because Hiramoto works in the EdTech field, she has learned the techniques to properly make accessible documents and websites.
“I execute designs that are accessible, user-friendly, and well-designed,” Hiramoto says.
The impact and challenges of her work
Hiramoto has worked on the 2020 EdTech Digest Awards-winning English Language Arts program as well as other core curriculum products and an educational app. Based on Section 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), more and more state laws require such products to be accessible, especially their digital content. Hiramoto’s accessible design work helps ensure the fundamental accessible requirements for state or school adoptions and implementation.
Her work is not without challenges. Making digital content accessible to everyone can sometimes receive pushback.
“In accessibility, everything is creative problem-solving. There could be specific design or layout ideas a marketing team wants me to implement, but accessibility limitations could get in the way, so finding the best alternative solution without compromising the quality of the design can be a type of problem-solving. Or in order to make a visual design, I want to work inclusively; there can be many technical problem-solving in the design software to ensure accessibility,” Hiramoto says.
Hiramoto will continue to create and advocate for empathetic and accessible designs and hopes to expand into other industries in the future. Accessibility is not only for people who need it, but also for everyone. For Megumi Hiramoto, the process of accessible design enriches the user’s experience.
