From Awareness to Action: Prioritising Accessibility in your Product

Focusing on accessibility is just as important as any of the other value drivers for your product, and arguably one of the more impactful ones

“Maximising value” has always been a number one mantra for product managers. This ultimate goal, though, could be so vague sometimes, that one might get lost in the attempt to please all. Value will often have a different meaning to different stakeholders, and so finding the optimal is a true balancing act. One - often underrated - way to determine value is by how accessible your product is, and in this article I want to convince you that accessibility is just as important as the other ways to maximise value.

What is digital accessibility, and why should you care about it? 

To consumers, products can be valuable for a few different reasons. They could be functionally solving a problem for the user. They could be preferred because of their monetary value and their perceived worth. They could bring people together and boost their social life, or they could allow consumers to express themselves and feel better.

However, experiencing any of these is only possible if your product is available and accessible to everyone who needs to use it. 

According to the World Health Organization about 16% of the global population currently experiences some form of disability. Digital accessibility is a term that encapsulates principles and practices that enable people with impairments to independently consume and interact with digital content.

The prioritisation challenge

So let’s say you are now convinced that you should prioritise accessibility when developing your product - where do you fit it on your roadmap though? Here is the secret - you don’t have to focus 100% of your resources on this and scrap all the other features you want to ship. Start small, make a plan and allocate a small but consistent percentage of your team’s efforts each sprint or iteration. Here are 5 easy steps to get started.

1. Understand the requirements

Learning about digital inclusion and people with different disabilities is key prior to any hands-on work. 

Familiarise yourself with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Depending on your location, there could be different standards in place to manage diversity. In the UK, the ISO 30071: 2019 Digital Accessibility Standard will give you a structured approach to embed accessibility into your digital products and services.

Understand the relevant laws and regulatory bodies as well. Going through The Equality Act 2010 will help you understand what is referred to as discrimination under this act and evaluate what is your exposure. 

2. Assess current accessibility

Carry out an audit of the digital accessibility of your product. Depending on your budget, the options range from online tools to specialised agencies that will guide you through the process. Some companies will even employ an Accessibility Manager to continuously assess and improve how accessible their product is, while also educating their teams on diversity and inclusion.

While automated scans serve as a useful method for identifying issues, quite often they fail to replicate the intricacies of human interactions with digital interfaces. Elevate your usability testing by including a wider audience. Allow people with different impairments to experience your product and learn from their feedback. Depending on their disability - visual, hearing, cognitive, speech, sensory, combination or other, people will perceive your product differently. Consider use case testing conducted by people proficient in assistive technologies, such as screen readers, as this will offer a far more comprehensive insight into the user experience of your website or application.

3. Make a plan 

Based on the outcome of your research, you can now define the key areas for improvement. Prioritise these based on your product, sector and your target audience first, before tackling issues that appeal to a wider set of users. Define clear goals and the steps that you will take to achieve these goals without needing to compromise on your other delivery commitments. 

4. Launch some training

Educate your team and create some interest around the topic to boost engagement and motivation within the team. Invite guest speakers, run testing workshops to demonstrate your product and other examples through assistive technology. Host an accessibility hackathon to inspire ideation and collaboration. 

5. Design with accessibility in mind

In addition to the improvements that you release, you can also start integrating accessibility best practices into all your future feature designs and builds. You can bring your product design up to standards by ensuring that your UI has sufficient contrast and clear but concise labels; your app/website is logically structured; images have alt text and multimedia is captioned.

In fact most of the accessibility lawsuits are based on the interface of an app/website not being compliant with regulations. So make sure you get the technicalities right.

To give you an example, back in 2019 Beyonce Knowles’ company Parkwood Entertainment was hit by a web accessibility lawsuit following a complaint by a New York woman with a visual impairment who claimed she couldn’t navigate their website to purchase a concert ticket without the help of a sighted companion. It turns out that the interface of the website was mostly visual content without a text equivalent to be recognised by the screen reader.

Commit for the long-term

However, you shouldn’t only be interested in accessibility because you want to avoid a potential lawsuit. Prioritising this is another way to differentiate your brand and encourage true innovation. Take Microsoft for example, they have consistently demonstrated their commitment to inclusive design. They set-up a dedicated team and space called Inclusive Lab, with the one goal to learn, experiment and develop products with accessible design. They have, what they call Inclusive Design Sprints, that are run to identify some challenges that consumers experience by interacting with their devices. By resolving them, they have paved the way to continuous improvement and amplified their brand value.

In summary, focusing on accessibility is just as important as any of the other value drivers for your product, and arguably one of the more impactful ones. The landscape is ever-evolving and while you may never fix all the issues at once and achieve perfection, this shouldn’t stop you from striving for the best. Caring for society could be just what makes a difference for your product and your brand, and allow you to be a true differentiator in the marketplace.

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