Summary
The Cigna Digital Design Operations stood up a new Digital Accessibility and AccessbilityOps team. Digital accessibility as a general term is the inclusive practice of ensuring that digital products (websites, apps, PDFs, etc.) can be used by everyone — including those with a disability or physical impairment — while retaining functionality and usability. Our team ran into many roadblocks including establishing processes, team structure, organizational support, and human resource issues, including onboarding a new team member who was blind. This case study showcases the steps, challenges, and lessons learned standing up a Digital Accessibility Ops team at a Fortune 100 Health Insurance company.
Key Insights
-
•
A visually impaired developer, Mike, exposed fundamental gaps in Signe’s accessibility onboarding processes.
-
•
Digital accessibility lawsuits increased 177% between 2017 and 2018, averaging one filed per hour in 2018.
-
•
One in four US adults and one billion people worldwide live with disabilities, representing a $1.2 trillion spending market.
-
•
Successful accessibility requires an internal champion to educate, advocate, and embed accessibility operationally across teams.
-
•
Accessibility ops is integrated under design ops but focuses on accessible tools, vendor contracts, onboarding, and cross-team education.
-
•
Screen reader testing can reveal severe usability issues, as demonstrated during a one-day training where their website was unintelligible.
-
•
Accessibility should be integrated early in the design process, not only addressed during QA or after product release.
-
•
Simplifying complex guidelines like WCAG into plain language enables designers to understand and apply accessibility efficiently.
-
•
Starting accessibility work is iterative; their autocomplete feature improved from 50% to 80% accessibility through collaboration.
-
•
Four foundational steps to building accessibility ops include leadership mandates, embracing WCAG standards, HR engagement, and defining team scope.
Notable Quotes
"Mike was really excited to join but quickly realized he couldn't be onboarded as easily as his sighted peers."
"One digital accessibility lawsuit was filed every single hour in 2018."
"We don't assume companies intentionally fail certain audiences; it’s often about awareness and lacking champions."
"Can you testify right now that all your digital properties are accessible to disabled users?"
"We had to find someone in service ops and supply team management to get Mike's laptop set up with assistive tech before he started."
"Accessibility ops is like design ops but focused on accessibility, including accessible tools and vendor requirements."
"The screen reader sounded unintelligible—our website was a garbled mess to visually impaired users during training."
"It’s important to distill accessibility guidelines into simple terms so designers understand why changes matter."
"Accept that the first iteration won’t be 100% accessible; moving the needle bit by bit still creates huge impact."
"Using a screen reader demo helps leadership hear firsthand why accessibility matters and gain buy-in."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Any customer contact is touching on strategic foundations — the tactical versus strategic mindset is a false dichotomy."
Mac SmithMeasuring Up: Using Product Research for Organizational Impact
March 12, 2021
"Leadership is about making other people better as a result of your presence in a way that lasts into our absence."
Etienne FangThe Power of Care: From Human-Centered Research to Humanity-Centered Leadership
March 10, 2021
"The golden trapezoid of user research combines quantitative behavioral and attitudinal data with field studies for best insights."
Christian RohrerInsight Types That Influence Enterprise Decision Makers
May 13, 2015
"Inviting people outside your silo to join projects can lead to better outcomes and personal growth."
Nick CochranGrowing in Enterprise Design through Making Connections
June 3, 2019
"Exploratory user research can help teams think outside of commonplace organizational silos and facilitate collaboration across teams."
Sharon BautistaTime to Make the Donuts: How User Research Helped Bridge Disparate Teams
January 8, 2024
"If we truly want diverse teams, we have to create safe spaces for people to do their best work."
Jackie Velasquez-RossTalent Acquisition and Our Responsibility
June 16, 2020
"Private educators were surprisingly open to collaborating because they were hungry for change."
Sarah AuslanderIncremental Steps to Drive Radical Innovation in Policy Design
November 18, 2022
"People often forget what they wrote and then want to check their prompt again before refining it."
Savannah CarlinDon't botch the bot: Designing interactions for AI
June 4, 2024
"No tracking is perfect because numbers tell you what likely happened, but not why it happened."
Erin WeigelUX Lessons from running more than 1,200 A/B Tests
July 10, 2024
