Rosenverse
AccessibilityOps: Moving beyond “nice to have”

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

AccessibilityOps: Moving beyond “nice to have”

Thursday, September 19, 2024 • DesignOps Community
Share the love for this talk
AccessibilityOps: Moving beyond “nice to have”
Speakers: Nicole Bergstrom , Anna Cook , Kate Kalcevich and Saara Kamppari-Miller
Link:

Summary

Accessibility Operations is real, and it’s enabling organizations to make their products and services more inclusive at scale. Join our panel discussion, featuring AccessibilityOps insights from the session’s sponsor, Fable, as well as experts in accessibility and inclusive design from Microsoft and Hilton. We’ll explore how companies are integrating accessibility into their core processes, as well as practical strategies to move beyond compliance and create inclusive experiences for both employees and customers. Bring your questions and discover how to make accessibility a fundamental part of your business strategy!

Key Insights

  • Accessibility has evolved from awareness-raising to integrating people with disabilities actively in design and development processes.

  • Many organizations move beyond WCAG checklists, focusing instead on usable accessibility rather than just compliant accessibility.

  • Co-design with users with disabilities, including non-apparent and neurodivergent conditions, is becoming a critical practice.

  • AI presents both opportunities and risks for accessibility; inclusive data sets and bias mitigation are essential.

  • Centralizing accessibility tools, vendors, and budgets helps achieve consistent practices and reporting across organizations.

  • Embedding accessibility experts in product teams scales accessibility accountability and strengthens ownership.

  • Aligning accessibility programs with business KPIs and strategic priorities ensures executive support and resource allocation.

  • Training is more effective when accessibility is taught through real product problems and interaction with users with disabilities.

  • Gamification, immersive events like CSUN, and Global Accessibility Awareness Day foster ongoing accessibility culture.

  • Patience, resilience, and focusing on progress over perfection are key to sustainable accessibility improvements.

Notable Quotes

"You can’t have an accessible experience if it’s not usable, and you can’t have a usable experience if it’s not accessible."

"The wrong place is to not start with accessibility; where you start doesn’t matter as long as you do."

"We don’t use WCAG checklists in our Agile teams; instead, we focus on accessibility as usable for real people."

"Nothing about us without us—people with disabilities must be involved in design and AI development."

"Centralizing budget and tools for accessibility helps build maturity and consistency across large organizations."

"Bringing real users into design sprints transforms designers’ understanding beyond what checklists can provide."

"If you want to work with Hilton, you have to bring accessibility to the table like security and privacy."

"Accessibility should be embedded in product roadmaps owned by product managers, not just in a separate accessibility roadmap."

"Training accessibility through gamification and immersive experiences makes learning stick and creates champions."

"Progress over perfection—that’s how accessibility wins get made and sustained."

Ask the Rosenbot
Doug Powell
Closing Keynote: Design at Scale
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Peter Levin
Solve a Problem Here, Transform a Strategy There: Research as an Occasion for Expanding Organizational Possibility
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
Day 1 Welcome
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Sam Yen
Driving Organizational Change Through Design? Do more of this and less of that
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Sam Proulx
To Boldly Go: The New Frontiers of Accessibility
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Marina Martin
Lives on the Line: The Stakes of UX at the Scale of Government
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Sharon Banh
Reimagining research: What does the field need to grow? [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2024 • Advancing Research Community
Stephen Pollard
Closing Keynote: Getting giants to dance - what can we learn from designing large and complex public infrastructure?
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
About the Rosenverse
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Alla Weinberg
Design Teams Need Psychological Safety: Here’s How to Create It
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Sarah Rink
Remote User Research: Dos and Don'ts from the Virtual Field
2020 • Advancing Research Community
Christian Rohrer
Research Operations at Scale
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Maria Taylor
Knowledge is Power: Managing the Lifeblood of the Design Org
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Megan Kierstead
You Are a Badass at UX: Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Stephen Anderson
Puzzled? How to Coordinate Humans for Complex Challenges
2021 • Enterprise Community
Daniel J. Rosenberg
Designing with and for Artificial Intelligence
2022 • Enterprise Community

More Videos

Jon Fukuda

"Make your audience the hero in your story to ensure they identify deeply and emotionally."

Jon Fukuda

Storytelling for DesignOps

August 17, 2023

Chris Geison

"We use a structured rubric that evaluates expected impact and how research will be used to inform decisions."

Chris Geison Cristen Torrey Eric Mahlstedt

What is Research Strategy?: A Panel of Research Leaders Discuss this Emergent Question

March 4, 2021

Himanshu Bharadwaj

"AI should be your friend, not your sycophant."

Himanshu Bharadwaj

If design had a heart

April 16, 2026

Stephen Anderson

"Teams often reset every 18 months and regress to infancy in trust and decision-making."

Stephen Anderson

Puzzled? How to Coordinate Humans for Complex Challenges

May 27, 2021

John Paul de Guzman

"Being design-driven is a means to an end. We aim to be 1% better every day with data-driven obsession."

John Paul de Guzman

10k Screens Later: How We Became a Data-Driven Design Organization

September 24, 2024

Nalini Kotamraju

"Our shift is structural, not because of personalities — it was needed to influence earlier, more business-centric decisions."

Nalini Kotamraju

Research After UX

March 25, 2024

Jennifer Bolduc

"Covid proved people can work from anywhere, the real challenge is trust and managing that well."

Jennifer Bolduc Diane Gregorio Emily Day

What's involved with getting people back to work?: A panel discussion

July 1, 2021

Sarah Brooks

"This day continues threads heard in previous days, now focused on physical public spaces."

Sarah Brooks

Theme Three Intro

November 18, 2022

Sam Proulx

"I myself am a full-time screen reader user. I have been a screen reader user all my life, as I am completely blind."

Sam Proulx

To Boldly Go: The New Frontiers of Accessibility

March 11, 2022