Building accessible products for all means fostering a culture of inclusivity.
This kind of culture is healthiest when everyone has a role to play in ensuring that accessibility needs are considered and met every step of the way. It requires that accessibility is embedded not just at the project level, but within the DNA of the organization.
Every organization is different, so the steps may vary, as will the time it takes for improvements to become more tangible. What is often the biggest barrier is not the lack of support—most would love to enhance their accessibility practice—but where to begin. It starts with asking, “What can we do?”
Each member of the team will make an imprint on what users ultimately experience, directly or indirectly, through decisions made intentionally or through decisions not made at all. In other words, these are all user-facing roles. When the entire team is engaged in keeping accessibility as a key facet of decision-making, you will be creating a durable foundation to support the needs of all your users.
- Company leadership: An organization’s leadership team sets the tone for culture and performance, and can choose to make accessibility one of its pillars along with user experience or engineering excellence, and hold departments accountable.
- Hiring teams: The hiring team can write accessibility into job requirements so that it does not face a capability gap—where essential knowledge or abilities are lacking to meet accessibility standards.
- Business development: Business development teams can educate clients about accessibility: why it matters, the risks of building inaccessible products, and how project teams incorporate accessibility into their practice.
- Managers and functional leads: Managers and functional leads can be aware of their team’s accessibility capabilities, and develop plans to improve skills—for both individuals and teams—where there are gaps.
- Project managers: Project managers should maintain that accessibility needs are addressed up front in all user-facing tickets and that interaction designs support all the ways users can interact with digital content, not just with a mouse or trackpad.
- Research: The research team can work with users with disabilities so their insights can be included.
- Design and engineering: Designers and engineers can be collaborative in their efforts to ensure all work is accessible and usable.
How We Know We’re Doing This
- We have multiple people from different parts of the organization who can talk about accessibility, and actively find ways to enhance the company’s capabilities
- Our departments and functions on project teams collaborate early and frequently
- Nobody needs to make a case for accessibility because it’s part of the company culture
- Our accessibility resources are easily available for anyone who wants to learn more
How We Know We’re Coming up Short
- We place responsibility for accessibility on one person
- We place accessibility advocacy to the client on one person
- We view accessibility as an afterthought, or separately-scoped segment of work
- Our accessibility requirements are vague or ill-defined
- Our departments and functions are siloed
