Summary
Many organizations struggle with justifying and prioritizing accessibility. One of the primary reasons is because they’re thinking about accessibility all wrong. Instead of a checklist, a list of legal requirements, or a set of shackles holding designers and developers back, it’s time to start thinking of accessibility as what it is: an opportunity to innovate! In this presentation, Fable will draw from our expertise helping organizations like yours start the accessibility journey, to change the way you think about disability, assistive technology, and accessibility. We will demonstrate that accessible products are more flexible, customizable, and useful for all users. We’ll also show you how accessibility is directly tied to the creation of many of the most exciting and innovative technologies of the last 50 years, and how it’s changed the entire world for everyone. This presentation will inspire you with the information and ideas you need to accelerate your accessibility journey.
Key Insights
-
•
Features like dark mode and voice assistants started as accessibility tools but are now mainstream innovations.
-
•
Disability includes permanent, temporary, and situational states, all requiring accessible design.
-
•
Accessible design benefits everyone, including future selves as we age and face new challenges.
-
•
Diverse teams build products that better address a wide range of user needs.
-
•
Accessibility should be integrated early in design to avoid costly retrofitting.
-
•
Compliance checklists alone lead to bare minimum solutions, while inclusive design focuses on great experiences.
-
•
Myths about inaccessible new design paradigms have historically been proven wrong through flexibility.
-
•
Innovation often arises from solving edge cases, exemplified by accessible features becoming broadly useful.
-
•
Involving people with disabilities in product testing and design unlocks unique insights and usability.
-
•
Cultural and linguistic diversity in teams and design research is key to truly inclusive products.
Notable Quotes
"Nothing about us without us."
"When you design for the edges you get the middle for free."
"Accessibility is a process, not a project."
"Disability is a normal part of the human experience."
"If we create inaccessible products, we are locking out our future selves."
"Accessibility requires flexible designs, not limited or simplified designs."
"The electric toothbrush started as an accessibility solution but became better for everyone."
"Diverse teams create diverse products because we each only understand our own needs."
"Compliance is a framework, not just a checklist to tick off."
"Including people with disabilities from day one builds a strong accessible foundation."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Half of the service design professionals do not feel connected to their peers, which is significant."
Marc Fonteijn Ru ButlerIncrease your confidence, influence, and impact (through a Professional Community)
December 3, 2024
"Becoming a UX researcher is a process that will never end, not a fixed state you reach."
Victor M. GonzalezPracticing Learners and Learning Practitioners
March 10, 2021
"Assistive technology is a tool; we need to make sure we enable that tool to do its job."
Elana Chapman Li Wen Huang Divyen Sanganee Annabel WeinerGetting started with accessibility research
February 20, 2025
"Consumers are clamoring for payment to be embedded in their devices because payment can be a pain point in digital commerce."
Karen PascoeDeveloping Experience Teams and Talent in the Enterprise
June 8, 2016
"It takes roughly one and a half times more investment to build reusable widgets, so we aim for a minimum of three adoptions to ensure ROI."
Dawn ResselFull-Stack User Experiences: A Marriage of Design and Technology
June 9, 2016
"Human-centered design is not just about your end users, it’s about the humans in your team."
Gretchen AndersonScaling the Human Center
June 8, 2017
"If a group session with middle schoolers goes off the rails, one-on-one sessions can save the research."
Mila Kuznetsova Lucy DentonHow Lessons Learned from Our Youngest Users Can Help Us Evolve our Practices
March 9, 2022
"Compliance is a framework, not just a checklist to tick off."
Sam ProulxAccessibility: An Opportunity to Innovate
November 16, 2022
"Building a design system is really about breaking big problems into smaller parts that have real value."
Nathan CurtisDesign Systems for Us: How Many One-Source(s)-of-Truth Are Enough?
January 17, 2019