🛟 How To Explain Accessibility To Stakeholders. Some practical pointers that I found useful to make a stronger case for accessibility ↓ 🚫 Stakeholders often misread the value/purpose of accessibility. 🤔 Accessibility is seen as a strictly technical or legal concern. 🤔 It’s perceived as an expensive, limiting, disruptive obligation. 🤔 Accessibility efforts are a way to reduce risk, damages and fines. 🤔 Most people don’t think that accessibility applies to them at all. ✅ Help them relate by explaining mundane challenges in daily life. ✅ Glasses are assistive technology that isn’t perceived as such. ✅ So are subtitles, noise cancelling and vibrating alarm clocks. ✅ Accessibility helps with stress, anxiety, migraine, motion sickness. ✅ It helps with poor light, eyesight, loud noise, foreign language. 🚫 You can’t build empathy with reports, facts, charts, concerns. ✅ Show that disabilities can be permanent, temporary, situational. ✅ Always include users with disabilities as personas in user journeys. ✅ Show how real customers use product in 45–60s video clips. ✅ Accessibility supports people when they are most vulnerable. In all the years of speaking to companies about accessibility, I’ve learned over and over again just how difficult it is to make an undeniably strong case for it. I’ve never managed to build empathy with reports, facts, charts or legal concerns. More often than not, stakeholders dismiss concerns they can’t really relate to. But: everybody can relate to being vulnerable. To failing despite your best efforts. To feeling helpless in the moment when you need to get through. Because we’ve all lived through the moments of stress, frustration, anxiety or uncertainty. We relate even if we might be reluctant to admit it at first. So when I walk in a big room, I always try to explain disabilities through the lens of people’s personal experiences with the product. Nothing is more impactful than seeing real customers struggling with a real product in real life. Here are some personal stories that I often rely on to visualize accessibility: ADHD: https://lnkd.in/ek-TNTbK Colorblindness: https://lnkd.in/e4K3UQHR Deafness: https://lnkd.in/dBj6e4nJ Dyscalculia: https://lnkd.in/eK32KAvB Left-handed: https://lnkd.in/eGQavMM4 Low vision: https://lnkd.in/emv9AT-u Motion Sickness: https://lnkd.in/e3UbEn7M Stress: https://lnkd.in/e3CwNuV9 And: be patient. Once you start moving needle in that direction, you will start seeing small changes, but it will take some time, from one accessibility effort to another, until you start noticing larger impact. #ux #accessibility
Thanks for sharing. Advocating for accessibility can be incredibly frustrating: the way we see it, it is a no-brainer and it is hard to accept it when people say it is "not a priority". (How can this not be a priority?!). While explaining legal requirements and ROI, I also always make it about the people: WCAG is just a means to an end. While at times frustrating, working with accessibility is also incredibly rewarding: I have built a course and trained, by now, 250 designers, developers and testers in my org. When I hear them discuss an accessibility principle I feel so happy and proud: I feel I have actually made an impact. And that is one wonderful feeling 😊
FYI, excessive or repetitive use of emoji can make your content less accessible. Screen readers announce emoji by their name, some of which are very long or different to what you might expect. A lot of emoji can also be distracting or overwhelming for neurodiverse people or cognitive disabilities, making it harder to focus on the information. Also it’s best to avoid using emoji as bullet points - screen readers don’t recognize them as bullets so won’t read it out as a list, which can change the meaning of your content. For example, VoiceOver reads the first item in your list as “Restricted symbol. Stakeholders often misread the value purpose of accessibility thinking face. Accessibility is seen…” Using proper bullets will ensure clearer boundaries for each point you’re making. An emoji or two is fine but be mindful of how it will impact the readability of your posts. So while the content of your post is good, the use of emoji unfortunately takes away from its overall impact - especially since you’re talking about accessibility! Nothing a slight edit can’t fix, and something simple to keep in mind for future.
Thanks for sharing this post! It’s so true that accessibility is often reduced to a checkbox for avoiding legal action like AAA compliance or Section 504. But, as you pointed out, the real value is in showing stakeholders how it helps real people in vulnerable situations. I’ve found that connecting accessibility to everyday experiences makes it easier to relate, shifting the focus from obligation to inclusion. It’s about building products that work for everyone, not just meeting standards :)
❤️ the personal stories! In my experience, that’s the secret sauce to touch people. Whether it’s temporary, situational, or permanent. Everyone has stood in the bright sunshine and tried to read a text on their phone (hopefully).
Useful tips, especially around personas. I’ve also found that accessibility challenges naturally show themselves when running empathy mapping workshops with stakeholders. It’s a great place to start.
Driving business growth with UX/UI design and branding | Founder & Art Director of Obriy Design Büro
1yIt's eye-opening to consider how accessibility is often misinterpreted as a mere obligation. Your emphasis on connecting personal experiences to accessibility challenges is spot on! By illustrating how accessibility impacts real lives, we can shift the conversation from compliance to genuine inclusion. It's about creating environments that truly support everyone, regardless of their circumstances. Thanks for highlighting this important perspective!