Design at Scale 2021- Accessibility at Scale (Sheri Byrne-Haber)

—> I gave a talk last year at DesignOps 2020 on Accessible Design Systems, and these Design Systems a factor in accessibility program that works at scale

 

 

—> But who am I and why should we listen to me?
  • I have a multidisciplinary background in law, business, tech
  • I spent 17 years in disability/accessibility space
  • I founded the McDonald’s and VMware accessibility programs
  • I cofounded the Disability@VMware employee resource group
  • I have a daughter who is disabled
—> I’ll assume no one knows anything about accessibility so we will go through the  basics
—> I’ll discuss how accessibility becomes complicated at enterprise-level, and defeating the enemies of accessibility at scale

 

—> Accessibility is about visible disabilities. Examples of this include:
  • Stephen Hawking
  • Marley Matlin (ASL)
  • Stevie Wonnder

 

—> It’s also about invisible disabilities. Examples include:
  • Selena Gomez, who has lupus
  • Millie Bobbie Brown, who is deaf in one ear
  • Little Wayne, Elton John, and Prince , who all have epilepsy
  • Mark Zuckerberg, who has color-blindness
—> Accessibility involves making things  work for all the people discussed

 

—> But who needs accessibility? Well you do, or you will

 

—> Disability can be permanent, temporary, or situational, and is present in up to 30% of audiences

 

—> Example of different variations of the same disability of being unable to use an arm
  • Permanent, i.e. limb difference, or not having an arm
  • Temporary, your arm being in a sling
  • Situational, Holding something and your arm is disabled
—> People with disabilities can do anything, as long the assistive tech works

 

—> So how does the tech work? Well, you got the end user and assistive tech ( which can be hardware, software, devices worn, internet of things) to connect them to an online destination

 

—> User interacts with technology to destination, and vice versa
  • So long as there is support for assistive technology, you will be golden with WCAG standards

 

—> But what is WCAG?

 

—> WCAG is a set of standards from the World Wide Web consortium that have come out in past fifteen years
  • Version 2.2. out in September 2021
  • Version 3.0 coming out in 2023
—> AAA is strictest, but not mandated,
  • Regulatory agencies have settled on AA, and a person can’t sell software to the public sector unless  it is 2.0 AA compliant
—> Newer standard with 2.1 AA
—> Every country with accessibility standard uses WCAG as source to define what counts as accessibility
  • If you are doing work that involves accessibility, know what standard you are testing to

 

—>  Example guidelines include
  • Captions (Deaf)
  • Color (Red/Green or pale contrast)
  • Magnification (Responsiveness as people zoom into product)
  • Language Settings and Dyslexia Needs
  • Alternative to visuals
  • Links
—> These are all common categories that are in WCAG guidelines

 

—> The first thing is automated code inspection, which is fast and can be done without humans on repetitive basis
  • 30% of requirements can be inspected via automated code
—> Machine Learning review (data and patterns) to look at accessibility data and patterns

 

—> Humans who interact and test the assistive technology, who can give thumbs up/down on technology
  • 50%-66% still needs to be reviewed by humans
  • This is where scale gets complicated

 

—> Get something accessible is straightforward (it just involves sufficient application of money and people)
  • Keeping it requires process change across large swathes of the org. If you don’t make the process changes, you will revert back to inaccessibility in 9-12 months
  • This is actually the most complicated thing to do, and talking about hundreds of software releases per day in integration pipeline

 

—> Where are the trouble points?
  • Accessibility at scale puts you into VUCA, an environment that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous
  • These are not good things in the world of product development
—> When complexity and uncertainty get higher outcome predictability goes down
  • Less knowledge visibility occurs as well

 

—> To stay out of VUCA, use the DevOps infinite loop to reduce volatility
  • The loop involves the step of Plan, Build, Code, Test
  • Get accessibility that can be automated, as quickly as possible
  • Minimize and prevent defects through automated testing. This is the next best option to preventing defects from occurring in the first place

 

—> Next, reduce uncertainty by using established software development principles

  • Design, implement, test, maintain, analyze
—> Look at issues customers report, and target high priority issues that are reported, to allow disabled users to use product

 

—> Sign of success is getting customer reported bugs
  • Shows that people with disability are using the product,  if people can get far enough to report a bug, (80% of internet world is typically unusable for people who are disabled)

 

—> This is useful especially with large organizations, which want to be compliant across multiple company products
  • That can be fixed through style guides
—> These efforts all reduces ambiguity

 

—> Accessibility is historically small
  • Typically 1-2 people in an acesssability role
  • But there is only so much that can be done on smaller end and need people talking about accessibility in the company at large
  • Employees with disabilities can help catalyze that conversation
—> Employees with disabilities will keep talking about accessibility even when the team is not in the room
  • W need to make sure you are recruiting people with disabilities, have accessible application process, and get disabled people through background checks and onboarding paper work
  • Everything must be independently usable and accessible
  • Also need to maker sure retention programs consider accessibility
—> Accessibility takes the entire organization to produce accessible products that doesn’t be come inaccessible when things start to scale up

 

—> Accessibility needs to be part of every product conversation
  • If not integrated, trying to jam in accessibility. Results noticeable to customers

 

So what makes accessibility happen in an enterprise?

 

—> Executive Support: Their support trickles down to the company
—> Centralized Resources: Experts who can be drawn upon
—> Champions Program: Building local expertise when centralized resources are not available
—> Accessibility Goals/OKRs: Are people rewarded for building accessible products?

 

—> What adds accessibility into the enterprise conversation?
  • Hire more employees
  • Listen to their lived experience
  • Include disability in all equity and inclusion discussions
—> Events need to be accessible, and need to work in an accessible manner
  • Everything you buy, use, build, need to be accessible from the very beginning
  • Sets-up situation where disability must constantly ask for accommodations to get basic access to company resources and events

 

—> Treat defects as bugs that need to be treated as any other products

 

—> But what to do with people who resist accessibility at scale? There are a few key archetypes to watch out for

 

—> For people hate change, since accessibility guarantees change:

  • You need to find what appeals to them

 

—> For people demand a business case, say:
  • Accessibility is a cvil rights issues, as 18% of users have some sort of disability

 

—> People only want to work on features, versus tech debt, which accessibility falls under
  • Create incentives and OKRs to minimize this

 

—>  For people who trivialize accessibility
  • Make sure surveys are accessible
  • Do user research with people with disabilities

 

—> For excluders who feel they don’t need to accommodate people with disabilities
  • It’s a logical fallacy in that most people with disabilities don’t bother complaining or raising issues
  • If you build accessibility, people will come

 

—> For those who view accessibility as checking a box
  • Build accessibility organically into the org
  • Don’t rely on overlays, as they are superficial

 

—> This is what accessibility at scale requires

 

—> Thank you for listening!

 

—> For more info, see resources I have from my Medium blog, connect with me on LInkedIn, and my free e-book on accessibility