Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Accessibility: An Opportunity to Innovate
Gold
Wednesday, March 9, 2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Share the love for this talk
Accessibility: An Opportunity to Innovate
Speakers: Sam Proulx
Link:

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

  • Accessibility features like dark mode, captions, and voice control began as tools for specific disabilities but now benefit nearly everyone.

  • Disability is a fluid experience that includes permanent, situational, temporary, and age-related changes impacting usability.

  • Accessibility does not mean simplifying or limiting features but providing flexible designs with customizable options.

  • Complex designs can be made accessible with thoughtful collaboration and inclusion of people with disabilities.

  • Involving users with disabilities early across research, ideation, prototyping, and development produces better products.

  • Distributed accessibility responsibilities among all teams prevent bottlenecks and embed accessibility culture across organizations.

  • Cognitive disabilities pose unique research challenges due to variability and privacy concerns but are critical to include.

  • Inclusive design anticipates future needs by considering age-related or temporary impairments users will acquire over time.

  • Accessibility checklists should guide innovation and problem-solving, not restrict design creativity or act as legal shackles.

  • Diverse teams that include people with disabilities naturally produce more inclusive and customizable products.

Notable Quotes

"Everyone already uses accessibility features."

"Disability isn’t just a small percentage; one in five people live with a disability, and it’s an identity we all take on at some point."

"Accessibility requires flexible designs, not limited designs."

"Accessibility is not a shackle; it’s a way to expand our minds and innovate."

"I have never found a product that can’t be made accessible."

"Diverse teams build diverse products."

"If you centralize accessibility knowledge in your organization, it can become a blocker."

"The best way is to distribute the accessibility work so it becomes light work for everyone."

"We move beyond checklist thinking to focus on real needs of real people."

"Thinking about accessibility is really thinking about creating technology that works for all people all the time."

Ask the Rosenbot
Lori Muszynski
Keeping Design Weird
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Kevin Bethune
Reimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Greg Petroff
Design is the Differentiator: Bringing New Design Innovations to a Very Antiquated and Very Large Industry
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Sam Proulx
Accessibility: An Opportunity to Innovate
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Rachael Dietkus, LCSW
AI: Passionate defenses and reasoned critique [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2024 • Advancing Research Community
Joe Meersman
Use AI to Drive Outcomes that Go Beyond the Design Sprint
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Séamus Byrne
Aligning Teams with Choreography
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Greg Petroff
Software as Material—A Redux
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
World Usability Day Panel Discussion
2022 • DesignOps Community
Robert Schwartz
We're Here for the Humans
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Sheryl Cababa
Integrating Systems Thinking Into Your Practice as a Designer
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Alana Washington
Theme 3 Intro
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Lin Nie
When Thought-worlds Collide: Collaborating Between Research and Practice
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Jason Mesut
Unmasking Design Leadership: Navigating leadership without neglecting ourselves
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Kavana Ramesh
Meaningful inclusion: Practicing accessibility research with confidence
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Aditi Ruiz
Pulse Check: Empathy Mapping Your Product Manager, Pt. 2
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold

More Videos

Nalini Kotamraju

"Our research practice was perceived largely as design testers, empathy vehicles, and policing functions — a narrow, reactive role."

Nalini Kotamraju

Research After UX

March 25, 2024

Dean Broadley

"Constraints can channel focus, but being stuck in them limits potential."

Dean Broadley

Not Black Enough to be White

January 8, 2024

Denise Jacobs

"If you’re not doing the work of addressing your own pain, you won’t be effective in helping others."

Denise Jacobs Nancy Douyon Renee Reid Lisa Welchman

Interactive Keynote: Social Change by Design

January 8, 2024

Kim Fellman Cohen

"Our team’s improvement wasn’t the final state—we set ambitious goals to be in the 80th to 90th percentile next year."

Kim Fellman Cohen

Measuring the Designer Experience

October 23, 2019

George Aye

"What is design’s relationship to power and privilege? Which humans do we center when we say human-centered design?"

George Aye

That Quiet Little Voice: When Design and Ethics Collide

November 16, 2022

Nathan Curtis

"A design system is done not when the style guide is launched, but when it positively impacts customer experience."

Nathan Curtis

Beyond the Toolkit: Spreading a System Across People & Products

June 9, 2016

Greg Petroff

"Platforms need researchers and designers to make them meaningful and intentional for the people they are designed to serve."

Greg Petroff

The Compass Mission

March 10, 2021

Chloe Amos-Edkins

"Culture is the sticky glue holding us together but flexible enough to allow us to move in new directions."

Chloe Amos-Edkins

A Cultural Approach: Research in the Context of Glocalisation

March 27, 2023

Mackenzie Cockram

"Some stakeholders still prefer their beliefs to data, even in academia."

Mackenzie Cockram Sara Branco Cunha Ian Franklin

Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Research from Discovery to Live

December 16, 2022