Most of us use tens or even hundreds of products every day, and the time we give to thinking about accessibility is minimal or entirely absent. That’s how it should be. Allow me to explain why…
Simply, the goal of product design is to create something that solves a real-world problem. Take the simple alarm clock, without them we’d all be late for work, we’d leave dinner on stove, we’d forget to take the rubbish out, the list goes on. Anything that gets in the way of solving that problem, anything that makes it difficult for whatever reason, is a design compromise. The vast majority of us have been using alarm clocks successfully for many years without giving their use a second thought. The same applies to products the world over. But we should know that there exists a comparatively silent minority, that simply aren’t serviced by, or even considered when it comes to product design. This is where the no user left behind ethos stems from. Product development and design should be doing the heavy lifting – none of us as users should be thinking or caring about accessibility. It should be at most, an afterthought. Using products should be seamless. Meaning that you shouldn’t have to expend mental energy to solve your problem. The best products are the ones that simply get out of the way of what you are trying to do.
Why are we not listening?
A product manager’s role in an organisation is to listen to the product’s customers, their stakeholders, business strategy, data etc, and define products that can answer the questions raised. But are we really listening? Did the inventor of the alarm clock (New Hampshirite Levi Hutchins) consider how a deaf person might use his product? Highly unlikely. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, particularly in 1787, but nowadays, especially when being ‘connected’ is so critical to functioning within a society and so many of our products are digitised, how must our thinking change in order to give those with accessibility needs a voice?
Consider that many people with disabilities or impairments may be limited in their ability to use the products that even give them a voice in the first place. They may be restricted in the types of work they can do. They may feel embarrassed or be looking to avoid special treatment and choose to keep their needs personal. They may simply be unable to work, or struggle with mobility to a degree that means they remain to many, invisible. We can’t expect to hear these voices if we don’t seek them out.
for every good product there exists and intersection of need and human experience
For product managers, especially those that work on consumer facing products, accessibility needs to become part of the discovery process. That process is the exploration and confluence of ideas between product, design and engineering, and it’s at this stage that the needs of those with accessibility concerns can be tackled. Not just because it allows us to identify areas of weakness in UX or customer profiling, but because it makes accessibility part of the collective thinking within a product team. Let’s face it, we won’t be able to make our product experiences seamless for 100% of all users, there are simply too many variables to consider. But for every good product there exists an intersection of need and human experience and it our jobs to hone in on those intersections.
The truth is, that accessibility really is an afterthought for many in product and design roles, but there’s no reason why that should be. There is an empathic quality to good products as they recognise users’ limits and respond to those limits. We don’t design interfaces that require users to click on two items at once, there is no six-finger gesture on the iPad, and for the most part separate hot and cold taps are now few and far between. These types of interactions exceed the limits of most people and for the most part we avoid building these features into our products (don’t get me started on separate taps). We only need to go a little further to turn the unconscious product decisions we make into a conscious process. By doing this we stand a chance at making things easier for people the world over.
Social networks at the forefront of accessibility?
Those with accessibility needs find themselves at the risk of being alienated from society as the vast majority of our daily interactions have shifted towards being digital in nature. However, there are companies out there looking to improve how their platforms cater to this group of users. Facebook is one such company. Regardless of your own feelings on the Zuckerberg machine, it’s makes sense that a company set on making every single person on the planet a user of their platform would be tackling some of these issues.
“By simply being aware and conscious of inclusion, you’ll start to recognize opportunities to make a difference.”
Mike Shebanek – Head of Accessibility at Facebook
Mike Shebanek, their Head of Accessibility spoke to BBC Radio 4 recently to discuss what Facebook are doing to meet the challenges of inclusion within the Facebook ecosystem. They are making some great progress, but actual users of social media platforms say the work isn’t done.
The experiences of those with accessibility needs are mixed, even when dealing with companies that go beyond most. Experiences like those highlighted by Martin Ralfe in the the same programme show us the limits of current thinking.
Facebook and Instagram are accessible within reason, but after an app update something will just go wrong and then you can’t interact with pictures or you’re not getting voice over labels. What concerns me is yes these platforms and tools claim to be accessible and inclusive for everyone, but it just worries me whereabouts on the agenda is accessibility, yes it’s at the top, that’s brilliant to hear, but in practice when you see these app updates roll out and actually voice over then stops working for somebody and they can’t interact with their community what does that really say about the testing algorithms and what does that say about quality assurance testing.
Martin Ralfe
Many companies are starting to talk about accessibility and that’s great; doing the work and adding features with accessibility in mind is even better; however, until the thinking changes such that product and development processes reflect the needs of these users, integrating more deeply end to end, many users will continue to be nothing more than an afterthought.