As part of our #MakeTheWebAccessible campaign, People for Research are publishing a series of blogs about digital accessibility with the help of well-known partners like UXPA. This blog has been written by Chris Bailey, from the UXPA.

Re-thinking and re-defining… This is one of the approaches suggested by UXPA, the UK chapter of the User Experience Professionals’ Association, when it comes to building fully accessible digital products.

The not-for-profit organisation, which promotes user-centred design and supports UX professionals in the UK, will celebrate this year’s Global Accessibility Awareness Day on the 19th May with a special event dedicated to digital accessibility. The list of speakers includes Gabriella Spinelli from Brunel University and Gareth Ford Williams, who founded the BBC’s Digital Accessibility Team back in 2005.

Before the event takes place – and since UXPA’s celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2016 tie in nicely with People for Research’s digital accessibility campaign #MakeTheWebAccessible –, we asked Chris Bailey, a member of UXPA’s committee, to share a bit more about this initiative and the importance of creating and designing for accessibility.

🎙 UXPA have decided to embrace the challenge of designing for accessibility. In your opinion, what could the UX/design industries be doing to win this challenge?

There is enough individual knowledge and desire out there to win the challenge and if each person in a team does their bit, be it with their part of the product, or at their stage of the design cycle, or passing on their knowledge to colleagues, it goes a long way to winning the challenge. The problem is individual people cannot fully address accessibility in isolation. It requires teamwork and most importantly, commitment and will at an organizational level.

🎙 What originally inspired UXPA to organise this event?

UXPA UK has always been keen to promote accessibility as a core component of UX practice and has held at least one event a year dedicated to the subject. I believe this is the 8th year in a row we have done so. We have held the event in May ever since the first Global Accessibility Awareness Day took place in 2012. We felt it was especially important to recognise and celebrate an international event of this stature and use it as a forum where our members can learn about the many different facets of accessibility and share their knowledge and experience.

“We want to encourage more organisations to recruit people with disabilities to test their products.”

🎙 Do you think this is the way to go or, at least, one of the possible solutions for the problem?

Absolutely, it’s probably the best solution. Just like UX testing in general, watching people use products in a live context is probably the most effective way to detect potential barriers. It’s also a great learning experience for designers and product owners. For me, one of the benefits to testing with users with disabilities is that you will find what could be considered general UX issues that you didn’t know that you had – but with a much smaller sample of users. This ‘value’ aspect should not be underestimated. The trick is to test as early and often as possible in the development lifecycle so you can resolve issues sooner rather than later.

🎙 One of the talks is about designing for the ageing population, which is a great topic. The public doesn’t always think about how inaccessible digital products can affect the older generation. What are the specific challenges in this case?

This is a very interesting one! Many design teams are comprised solely of people under 35 so they may not understand and appreciate how to design for older users. Again, testing with users is a key strategy to solve this. Also bear in mind that in the context of older users, the concept of ‘accessibility’ is not always straightforward. The accessibility barrier(s) can actually be purely psychological. For example, if an older user had a bad experience with a product 5 or 10 years ago, this will stay with them and they may assume they cannot access and use a similar piece of technology now. This is despite the fact that accessibility and usability have been dramatically enhanced.

Some older users need to be nurtured and guided to build up their confidence. Barclays do this really well with their ‘Digital Eagles’ program. Once users overcome any psychological resistance to adopting technology and understand they can use it, and become confident, accessibility barriers are automatically overcome.

🎙 One of our campaign partners, a visually impaired blogger called Selina Litt, recently wrote about how testing digital products with disabled people can actually make these products a lot more user-friendly in general. Do you agree?

Whole-heatedly. It may seem like a sweeping statement, but I’ve seen the results of a lot of testing sessions. Accessibility is ‘usability magnified’. As I alluded to in an earlier answer, accessibility testing can provide you with evidence of potential UX issues you may find with two, three or four times as many users in standard testing sessions.

I know some agencies actively encourage clients to include users with minor disabilities in their regular testing session and I fully support this approach. Users with dyslexia will find issues with illogical flow in a user journey, poor labelling, and can give a great indication of how clear and understandable written text is. The same is true of non-visual users of screen readers. Users with low-vision will detect visual design issues around contrast, text-size and appropriate use of icons and confirmation messages. These examples impact a range of users – not just those who are considered to have accessibility requirements.

🎙 “Accessibility starts with UX” – this important sentence can be found on the event’s webpage. Do you think the industry is ready to work according to this mantra?

Controversially, I’m going to say no, but only because I don’t think they are ready. We also have to bear in mind that changing a mindset can take time! Accessibility is a component of UX and, of course, elements overlap, but strictly speaking it is not the same.

Last year I heard a talk from a very senior practitioner who said that 10-15 years ago, UX was generally considered as an afterthought. A company would design something, build it, and then test it. A lot of the time, the company would have to make significant changes (which would be costly) or the product would fail as they hadn’t considered the users’ needs from the very start. People responsible for UX are now in senior positions in the corporate hierarchy. Accessibility, in many cases, is still where UX was 10 years ago.

There are isolated examples where companies do embed accessibility into their products as it does start with UX. Look at Apple. They build accessibility in to their hardware and software from the very start and it works superbly. Back in 2015, Apple made a quarterly profit of £12 billion, which was the highest ever reported by a corporation. They just might be onto something…

If you would like to find out more about our in-house participant recruitment service for user testing or market research get in touch on 0117 921 0008 or info@peopleforresearch.co.uk.

At People for Research, we recruit participants for UX and usability testing and market research. We work with award winning UX agencies across the UK and partner up with a number of end clients who are leading the way with in-house user experience and insight.