Some key lessons from the 2023 accessibility conference

Agenda

Lessons from Google: Embedding Accessibility

Lessons from Google: Embedding Accessibility

Education

• No quick fix, needs to be grassroots & systematic

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• First area should be education (teaching others)

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• Integrate accessibility into orientation/onboarding

• Per field e.g. what do devs need to know, what do IDs need to know?

Involvement

• Hands-on, see how a small change makes an impact

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• Product teams to do assessment themselves (checklist?)

Lessons from Google: Embedding Accessibility

The need to ‘Shift Left’ in UX research

Current state

• 67% of accessibility issues happen in the design phase�
• These issues become more expensive and time-consuming to fix the longer they’re left.

The need to ‘Shift Left’ in UX research

Solution

• Accessibility considerations should ‘shift left’ to be earlier in the product development timeline�
• This will help catch issues before they occur or early enough that it isn’t as costly to fix them

Microsoft: Cognitive Inclusive Design

Approach

• Start with motivation
• Identify cognitive demands
• Co-create with diversity in mind

Microsoft: Cognitive Inclusive Design

Cognitive Demands

• Start with motivation
• Identify cognitive demands
• Co-create with diversity in mind

Ageism in Interfaces

Ageism

• Ageism – Prejudice/discrimination against an age group, particularly the elderly�
• Surveys of 50-70 year olds found that less than 25% identify as disabled, but 65% use captions�
• ‘Everyone knows what a hamburger icon is!’ … ‘What’s a gear icon?’

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Summary

Inclusive design

• Inclusive design should be a team effort, not the responsibility of one or two people�
• It’s important to check for inclusive design as early in the process as possible

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• Inclusive design benefits everyone, sometimes in ways you wouldn’t expect

Thank you

Resources:

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• Google: Building inclusive products�
• Microsoft inclusive toolkit