Summary
The outcome of designing at scale won't be accessible products unless accessibility practices scale in parallel with design. There are six primary challenges to scaling accessibility: 1) Reliance on human testing which is especially complicated for large/dynamic products. 2) SaaS/Native app "release whenever you want" timelines. 3) Third party code/content managers. 4) Achieving "substantive WCAG conformance" 5) Closing the feedback loop by getting defects/feature requests from people with disabilities into the backlog. 6) Shifting the focus to an accessible experience, not just an accessible product.
Key Insights
-
•
Accessibility encompasses both visible and invisible disabilities, affecting roughly 30% of users via permanent, temporary, or situational impairments.
-
•
Assistive technologies communicate bidirectionally with software, requiring products to support this interaction cleanly to be accessible.
-
•
WCAG standards are the international source of truth for accessibility, with version 2.1 AA widely mandated and 3.0 on the horizon.
-
•
Automated tools catch about 30% of accessibility issues, machine learning tools currently only about 4%, leaving over half to human validation.
-
•
Making a product accessible initially is straightforward with resources and people; maintaining accessibility over time is far more complex and process-driven.
-
•
Scaling accessibility in cloud and continuous integration environments is challenging due to rapid, frequent software releases.
-
•
Integrating accessibility from the beginning into design, development, and definition of done prevents costly retrofitting later.
-
•
Organizational culture changes including executive buy-in, centralized resources, and accessibility champions are essential for scaling.
-
•
Hiring and retaining employees with disabilities and ensuring all workplace tools and events are accessible fosters inclusion and eases product accessibility efforts.
-
•
Accessibility defects should be treated like any other critical bugs and prioritized accordingly to ensure timely remediation.
Notable Quotes
"Accessibility isn’t just about visible disabilities; it’s about invisible disabilities and situational impairments too."
"Either you need accessibility now or you will need accessibility in the future."
"Assistive technology has to communicate with the destination, that’s your website or product."
"You’re not supposed to sell to the US public sector unless you’re WCAG 2.0 AA compliant."
"Getting something accessible is a straight line; keeping something accessible requires process change."
"Keeping something cloud-based accessible is the most complicated because of hundreds of releases per day in continuous integration."
"Accessibility at scale can put you into the VUCA world – volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous."
"You want to catch accessibility defects early through automated testing in your CI/CD pipeline, what we call shifting left."
"If you’re rewarding designers for delivering on time, great, but if you reward them for delivering accessible products on time, you’ll get better results."
"Accessibility defects are bugs. If it’s a P1 blocking bug for an accessibility issue, treat it like any other P1 bug."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Therapists create space for clients to reflect and discover insights in a safe environment."
Gina MendoliaTherapists, Coaches, and Grandmas: Techniques for Service Design in Complex Systems
December 3, 2024
"A typical enterprise customer has like five analysts who need a login, not millions of users."
Dan WillisEnterprise Storytelling Sessions
May 13, 2015
"Every job is a climate job. Every job has to be a climate job."
Aiyana Bodi James Christie Marc O'Brien Louis RosenfeldThree Key Climate Initiatives and How You Can Help
September 11, 2024
"How we are at the small scale reflects the systemic patterns at the large scale. - Adrian Marie Brown"
Josina VinkNavigating the pitfalls of systems thinking in service design
December 4, 2024
"Dave Nicholson is a true hero—he captures incredible detail and speed in his notes."
Louis RosenfeldWelcome / Housekeeping
June 7, 2023
"Let me just take you along this journey, where it began."
Renee ReidBecoming a ResearchH.E.R (Highly Enterprise Ready)
June 3, 2019
"If you don’t know the questions to ask, you should do more ethnographic fieldwork rather than just surveys."
Kelly GotoEmotion Economy: Ethnography as Corporate Strategy
May 13, 2015
"There is no such thing as a self-organized community; they just don’t work and fall apart without leadership."
Kara KaneCommunities of Practice for Civic Design
April 7, 2022
"Doubt and fear come up if you haven’t established the right communication and trust."
Sarah Kinkade Mariana Ortiz-ReyesDesign Management Models in the Face of Transformation
June 8, 2022
