GRASSROOTS ACCESSIBILITY Driving change from the middle out
April 28, 2014
Photo by Matt Niemi available under CC
HOW CAN WE INCREMENTALLY IMPROVE ACCESSIBILITY?
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Grassroots Accessibility
Facets of User Experience © Semantic Studios used with permission
DEFINING USER EXPERIENCE
In 2004, Peter Morville published his seven facets of user experience. They cover seven attributes of design that contribute to a good, positive, satisfying user experience.
These facets have been an invaluable asset for helping UX professionals like myself shift the perception of user experience from a field with a narrow scope such as “user interface design” or “usability” to something more nuanced and complex.
While the facets help illustrate the complexity of user experience, the honeycomb visualization implies they’re of equal value.
Usable
Useful
Valuable
Delightful
Findable
Credible
Accessible
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Grassroots Accessibility
DELIGHTFUL
DESIRABLE
USEFUL
USABLE
ACCESSIBLE
A HIERARCHY OF USER EXPERIENCE
In fact, user experience follows a hierarchy. Starting from Morville’s facets, I’ve revisited some of the definitions to suit this purpose:
ACCESSIBLE At its core, the web must be accessible so users of all abilities can access digital products and services.
USABLE Technology must be usable. If digital products aren’t easy to use, they won’t succeed.
USEFUL Technology should fulfill an actual user need.
DESIRABLE We need to build products that connect with people on an emotional level, so that people actually want to use them.
DELIGHTFUL Delight is an emotional state. Many products are desirable, but few achieve a true connection in this way.
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Grassroots Accessibility
Product Management
Customer Experience
Development
Quality Assurance
Systems Architecture
Business Analysis Legal
Compliance
Marketing
Customer Service
HOW DO PRODUCTS GET BUILT?
Someone out there lies at the intersection between all the elements you need to make a product or service.
Whether a product manager, product designer, or CEO, that person sets the vision, moves the project forward, and is accountable for ensuring the entire team works in concert to create something that delivers against a shared goal.
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Grassroots Accessibility
Product Management
Customer Experience
Development
Quality Assurance
Systems Architecture
Business Analysis Legal
Compliance
Marketing
Customer Service
HOW ACCESSIBILITY IS TYPICALLY MANAGED
Typically, accessibility becomes the domain of a few groups across the product development lifecycle.
I’ve often observed a single champion in only one of these groups as the person responsible for advocating for accessible product design and development. That person works tirelessly to raise awareness, find tools to use, and train others—with limited resources and in addition to official job responsibilities.
This is neither sustainable nor scalable.
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Grassroots Accessibility
Product Management
Customer Experience
Development
Quality Assurance
Systems Architecture
Business Analysis Legal
Compliance
Marketing
Customer Service
HOW ACCESSIBILITY SHOULD BE MANAGED
Accessibility must become a core part of how each discipline does business.
Since accessibility impacts every group differently, they must find ways to elevate awareness and improve outcomes specific to their discipline.
These efforts should also be coordinated across your organization so that everybody is working from the same set of standards and sets similar goals.
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Grassroots Accessibility
SO, HOW DO WE GET THERE?
Photo by Henry M. Diaz available under CC
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Grassroots Accessibility
FIND YOUR CHAMPIONS
Don’t be a hero. Find others who are passionate and can help advance the cause within their practice.
Referring back to our discussion on how products get built, we should start with those who can exert the greatest influence across the product design lifecycle. Most often, this means your product managers.
Starting in the center and working your way outward, seek allies to help you execute.
Photo by Matt Niemi available under CC
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Grassroots Accessibility
CREATE NEW CHAMPIONS
Work within functional groups to increase awareness, set goals and create a culture of accessibility champions.
Empower others to make the changes they deem necessary to move the bar within their discipline.
The creation of standards, guidelines, and document templates is a great place to start.
Photo by 1UpLego available under CC
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Grassroots Accessibility
BUILD A BUSINESS CASE
Remember: the business benefits are clear. By improving your accessibility you:
o Reduce the cost of development and maintenance
o Reduce your exposure to legal risk
o Increase your conversion/sales rates
o Drive consistency and standardization of design patterns
o Improve your SEO
o Demonstrate corporate social responsibility and inclusiveness
Beyond all this, it’s just the right thing to do.
The W3C provides valuable metrics to help you build your business case.
Photo by Matt loves kicks available under CC
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Grassroots Accessibility
DON’T BE PARALYZED BY SCALE OR SCOPE
The path ahead may seem insurmountable, but even small steps make a huge difference.
Start with the basics—arm your team with the knowledge and tools they need to improve right now.
Identify and prioritize the work that needs to be done.
Photo by daverugby83 available under CC
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Grassroots Accessibility
TAKE STOCK OF WHERE YOU ARE
By conducting an accessibility audit of your site or product, you can get a great sense of where you currently stand.
Use the WCAG Success Criteria levels (A, AA, AAA) to rate your compliance.
The tools use for your audit can be reused by designers, developers, and QA to test in real-time.
This spreadsheet provides a great head start as an auditing tool.
Photo by a.drian available under CC
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Grassroots Accessibility
CREATE A PLAN
Acknowledge up front what can be reasonably accomplished with your given resources, and work within those constraints.
A great place to start is to ensure all new products and features meet or exceed your standards where possible.
Severe roadblocks may need their own projects to fix. This is where your business case comes in handy.
If significant updates to a page are made, make accessibility upgrades part of those projects.
Photo by Todd Ehlers available under CC
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Grassroots Accessibility
COMMUNICATE TO AND TRAIN OTHERS
Make accessibility a consistent and continuous part of the conversation by communicating up, out and down.
Ensure that your message is consistent and clear starting with the business case and requirements through QA test plans.
Establish forums, training, events, and briefings. Webcasts and “lunch & learn” events can be effective ways to spread the word and find other advocates.
Photo by alphadesigner available under CC
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Grassroots Accessibility
PRINCIPLES YOU CAN USE RIGHT NOW
PEOPLE FIRST Designing for differences
CLEAR PURPOSE Well designed goals
SOLID STRUCTURE Built to standards
EASY INTERACTION Everything works
HELPFUL WAYFINDING Guides users
CLEAN PRESENTATION Supports meaning
PLAIN LANGUAGE Creates conversation
ACCESSIBLE MEDIA Supports all senses
UNIVERSAL USABILITY Creates delight
Principles by Whitney Quesenbery & Sarah Horton used with permission
Photo by Auntie P under CC
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PERSONAS YOU CAN USE RIGHT NOW
TREVOR High school student with autism. Poor reading skills and poor social skills; difficulty with visual comprehension.
EMILY Has cerebral palsy and uses a computer for communication. Uses a scooter for mobility and has minimal use of her hands.
LEA Uses a split keyboard and dictation software. Copes with fatigue and weakness from fibromyalgia.
MARIA Uses computer translations, needs clearly written information. Immigrant family is Spanish/English bilingual.
Download the full set here
Personas by Whitney Quesenbery & Sarah Horton used with permission
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Grassroots Accessibility
TOOLS YOU CAN USE RIGHT NOW
Many tools are available for your team to use:
Chrome’s Accessibility Developer tools
Snook Color Contrast Checker
WCAG 2.0 Standards
WAVE Tool
Resources list by WebAIM
Complete list of tools from the W3C
Photo by noinkstains available under CC
THANK YOU
Chief Creative Officer
510.277.3400 x712
www.comradeagency.com
MARK OPLAND
Find me on Twitter: @mopland