$30 off During Our Annual Pro Sale. View Details »

How to Talk to Developers About Accessibility

How to Talk to Developers About Accessibility

Although generally thought of as something only important to the “disabled”, considering accessibility for digital products improves everyones experience. This is true regardless of their particular abilities. Instead of treating accessibility as a checklist or afterthought, it’s important to build it into every decision being made in a technology project. Like many requirements that are commonly thought of as something included for a niche audience, accessibility is something that not only addresses the needs of the deaf or blind, it broadens the scope of how well all users interact with your product.

Accessibility is far more than just accommodating to a small audience of users with “special needs”. At its core, accessibility is about making sure that as wide an audience as possible can use the products you have worked so hard to create.

Although by no means the only myths that have built up around the limitations of making digital products accessible, these seven crop up most regularly. In this session, Jason will examine each myth individually, expose why they are not true, and talk about how to dispel them.

Myth: Accessibility only helps the “disabled”
Myth: Accessibility is just about the visual and auditory
Myth: If we are 508 Compliant, we are accessible
Myth: Accessibility compliance is a checklist
Myth: Accessibility is the designer’s job
Myth: Accessibility takes too much time & costs more
Myth: Making a product accessible limits design possibilities

Jason CranfordTeague

June 07, 2021
Tweet

More Decks by Jason CranfordTeague

Other Decks in Design

Transcript

  1. ACCESSIBILITY HELPS EVERYONE How to Talk to Your Developers About

    Accessibility CRANFORDTEAGUE Jason Cranford Teague @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility www.cranfordteague.com
  2. JASON CRANFORD TEAGUE UX Lead, Rivet Logic 
 Board Of

    Advisors at CX at University of Richmond [email protected] 541.600.4422 @CranfordTeague/#UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility
  3. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE The power of

    WWW is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect. — Tim Burners-Lee “
  4. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE I think, in

    general, it’s clear that most bad things come from misunderstanding, and communication is generally the way to resolve misunderstandings—and the Web’s a form of communications —so it generally should be good. — Tim Burners-Lee “
  5. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE Making our sites

    accessible starts with the understanding that people access the web differently, and continues with every member of the team ensuring their output is inclusive. 
 — Laura Kalbag Accessibility for Everyone “
  6. Accessibility is just about the visual and auditory ACCESSIBILITY &

    DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE MYTH @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility
  7. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE …web accessibility is

    a subset of User Experience (UX) focused on making your websites usable by the widest range of people possible, including those who have disabilities. — Dave Rupert A11yProject.com “
  8. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE ➡ Myopia ➡

    Color blindness ➡ Glaucoma ➡ Albinism VISUAL & AUDITORY ➡ Presbycusis ➡ Acoustic trauma ➡ Auditory processing disorder ➡ Otosclerosis
  9. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE ➡ RSI ➡

    Cerebral palsy ➡ Parkinson's ➡ Muscular dystrophy MOTOR
  10. Making a product accessible limits design possibilities ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS

    CRANFORDTEAGUE MYTH @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility
  11. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE Every design endeavor,

    whether a one-off banner ad or a multichannel marketing campaign, is bound by factors that limit creative decision- making. These binding factors are called design constraints. Though they might seem to undermine originality, constraints are keys to unlocking long-term design solutions. – Micah Bowers 
 toptal.com “
  12. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE At some point

    in their lives, most people will either have a disability or know someone who has one. — Coleen Boyle, Ph.D. 
 Director of CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities “
  13. If we are 508 Compliant, we are accessible. ACCESSIBILITY &

    DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE MYTH @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility
  14. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE [508 compliance] requires

    Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology (EIT) accessible to people with disabilities. — Section508.gov “
  15. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE …if accessibility isn’t

    considered at the beginning of the software development lifecycle, it often falls by the wayside. — Inge De Bleecker CMS Wire “
  16. Accessibility takes too much time & costs more ACCESSIBILITY &

    DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE MYTH @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility
  17. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE …accessibility can unlock

    a huge, overlooked market share, reduce potential legal risk, lower operational costs, and boost brand value. If organizations only focus on one single aspect of return on investment, they’ll miss some very big positive factors that are a result of having an accessible digital presence. — Greg Williams 
 Accessibility Program Office Executive “
  18. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE Digital negligence towards

    
 disabled users loses the market a potential $175 billion spending capability according to The US Department of Labor https://www.dckap.com/blog/what-is-the-roi-on-website-accessibility/ ROI ARGUMENT:
  19. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE 96% of customers

    who report putting in high effort in their service interactions are disloyal, while only 9% of customers who expend low effort are disloyal. — Harvard Business Review ROI ARGUMENT:
  20. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE According to a

    recent Nucleus Research report more than 70% of internet sites used blind consumers they surveyed had some type of critical accessibility blocker https://accessibility.deque.com/nucleus-accessibility-research-2019 ROI ARGUMENT:
  21. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE Integrating accessibility throughout

    the design process is less expensive than fixing accessibility in development or after launch FEAR ARGUMENT:
  22. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE Once a system

    is in development, correcting a problem costs 10 times as much as fixing the same problem in design. If the system has been released, it costs 100 times as much relative to fixing in design. — T. Gilb Principles of software engineering management. “
  23. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE The true cost

    of inaccessible 
 digital products is decided by the courts FEAR ARGUMENT:
  24. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE …everyone is in

    effect in very real terms impaired on a daily basis, on an hourly basis. We all slide up and down that scale of impairment as you're juggling your phone one handed, accessing a website on a sunny day on a small shiny sheet of glass, noisy café, bumpy bus, that sort of thing. — Robin Christopherson 
 Head of Digital Inclusion at AbilityNet “
  25. @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE The accessibility problems

    of today are the mainstream breakthroughs of tomorrow. — Eve Andersson 
 Director, Accessibility Engineering, Google “
  26. JASON CRANFORD TEAGUE UX Lead, Rivet Logic 
 Board Of

    Advisors at CX at University of Richmond [email protected] 541.600.4422 @CranfordTeague/#UXCampAccessibility ACCESSIBILITY & DEVELOPERS CRANFORDTEAGUE @CranfordTeague | #UXCampAccessibility