Let’s face it. Differently-abled people working in the Tech industry is a tiny minority. Not just tech-industry, but businesses in general, have always been averse to hiring differently abled people. In India, people with disabilities working in the Tech industry constitute just one percent.
Businesses thrive on data. Analytics plays a huge role in understanding users and their behaviors. But, when it comes to differently abled, even Google Analytics won't tell you if a person is using Assistive Technology (Screen Readers, Voiceovers etc.) to use the website.
With little to no participation from differently abled, it is just impossible to convince businesses to even consider that tiny minority when building websites and apps.
Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another being (a human or non-human animal) is experiencing from within the other being's frame of reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself in another's position.
Creating accessible web design, by cultivating a culture of empathy in a team or a business, requires making tweaks to the design and development processes. It needs to start from the ideation stage and has to follow through till the end of the project and beyond to the support stage.
User Research is the most important process of the development cycle of any project. When building an accessible web design, it is also important to keep the end users who are differently abled in mind before designing the User Experience.
Most UI Designers love subtlety. While using subtle UI Elements with less color contrast and smaller fonts makes for a visual treat, it hampers the accessibility. But, that doesn't mean that a designer has to compromise on the quality of design to conform to accessibility guidelines. Great designs -- or any work that requires creativity -- have always been created when working with limitations and restrictions.
The best way to validate User Experience of a digital property is to create prototypes and test it with real users. When testing an accessible web design, a well-built prototype will help emulate the features of a website or app for all types of users including differently abled users. When testing with real users is not possible, use the User Personas identified during the UX Discovery and have developers and QAs use the apps by emulating their user behavior.
Note : A lot of Tech Companies build prototypes using tools like Axure or by converting mockups directly into Clickable Prototypes. While this saves time, it certainly won't help you in understanding the User Behavior. Build prototypes using Front-end Technologies (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript). Prototypes should be able to replicate all the features of a digital property and should be as close to the final design as possible.
Accessible web design also requires the support of a technology framework that can build the desired featured. Here's a look at how Drupal 8 accessibility fares in this regard, and what's still to be achieved.
This is the first part of a series of articles on accessibility. I am writing the next part - Innovation in Accessibility - and will be updating this Article with links.