Governments around the world mandate an accessible web experience for regulated industries, and you can be fined heavily for non-compliance. In the United States, the Department of Justice has the authority to seek civil penalties for a first violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) at $96,384 and up to $192,768 for each subsequent violation. And in the event a site is not subject to regulation, it may well be tested in court. Since 2018, more than 4,000 ADA-based digital accessibility lawsuits have been filed in federal and state courts each year from 2021 to 2023 (targeting companies both large and small). Many thousands more companies receive a demand letter that leads to a settlement to avoid a trial.

When you recognize that an inaccessible website excludes your users from making transactions, you start to see the barriers inherent to the design and coding. Is your content perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust? Failure to deliver text, graphics, videos, and essential forms to all your visitors is the basis for this whole discussion.

You know about the potential for legal consequences. Yet there are hidden risks that can affect your company if you fail to conform to website accessibility standards. These risks may even add up to greater costs than government fines or civil litigation. If you decide to ignore web accessibility requirements, you should be prepared to accept these hidden risks as well.

Inaccessible Websites Can Harm the Content Owner

1. Brand Damage Accessibility error

People with disabilities represent a growing demographic. As much as 27% of the U.S. population has a disability, and the voice of persons with disabilities is gaining momentum. Add to this number an aging customer base that means more and more of your website visitors will have physical limitations. Age is a trend that will not decline. Companies that willfully ignore the needs of these groups are sure to suffer damage to their brands and reputations.

2. Missed Market Opportunities

Similarly, if your website isn’t accessible, you risk missing out on opportunities to gain more customers and increase revenue. Competitors who have accessible websites will easily reap the increasing numbers of persons with disabilities—simply because those customers can’t use your website.

On the other hand, if you’re one of the first in your industry to become web accessible, you can win customers who couldn’t use your competitors’ inaccessible websites. Why limit your audience?

3. Avoidance Tailspin

Many companies choose to throw money at a problem, hoping for a quick fix over a real and sustainable solution. They hire lawyers to deal with legal claims and spend hundreds of hours diverting their staff to field consumer complaints. Because these patchwork solutions draw significant company resources, investing in a permanent solution seems too costly.

So these companies continue to deal with legal problems and new consumer complaints in the same manner. They risk entering a tailspin that demands more time and money, and they move farther away from the real solution that could end the constant problem management. Instead, consider the benefits of shifting left, or building accessibility into your product development, which can reduce those unhappy visitors and set you on a path that excludes no one.

4. A Weaker Organization

With the avoidance tailspin comes the risk of opportunity cost. By dumping money into costly patchwork solutions, companies risk the opportunity to invest budget into product and process improvements–improvements that could lead to better sales and a healthier business.

5. Less Qualified Employees

Companies that don’t have an accessible infrastructure take personnel risks as well. The marketplace is loaded with bright, talented individuals with disabilities. But if these job candidates can’t even apply because your system isn’t accessible, your company has lost the opportunity to become a stronger organization, and you risk settling for lesser talent.

Key Takeaways

Making your digital products accessible simply makes good business sense. Achieving accessibility benefits everyone, it’s viable, and it’s less costly than taking the risk of willful inaccessibility.

Whether it’s brand damage or missed market opportunities, avoidance tailspin, or weakening the organization, even excluding the full talent pool — or all of the above — ignoring is risky business.

Next Steps

Phil Daquila

Phil Daquila

Phil Daquila is a subject matter expert coaching web development teams in all roles and consulting on how to meet the needs of all users. After a few decades producing magazines, books, and documentary videos, Phil found a new passion in digital accessibility in 2016. At UNC-Chapel Hill, he trained site owners in practicing inclusive design and coding. At Deque since 2019, Phil is a Certified Professional in Web Accessibility with IAAP and the kiosk lead for the standards and methodology team. Phil hosts the Deque Coaching Book Club.

All Posts by Phil Daquila
Tags:  Web Accessibility ,  Website Compliance

Welcome back to a fresh, new year edition of my Design Strategy blog series. Like many articles at this time of year, we will be reflecting on the past year and gazing into the crystal ball of 2024. I will once again skip the “how-to” dry laundry lists of tactical “do this/don’t do that” mechanics and focus on the WHY of doing things differently to mature and scale your digital accessibility program quickly. 

While most organizations match their fiscal year to the calendar year, there are a large number that don’t. This information can easily apply to companies in either scenario.

The Problem

You’re trying to rapidly shut down your previous year while simultaneously generating “stretch” goals and objectives for this year that are still obtainable. Maybe you have the additional duty of being a people manager so you’re also racing to get reviews wrapped up and compensation conversations resolved. It’s a lot for any time of year! But it is extra difficult to navigate coming off the holiday season and maybe you’re a little sluggish back at your work bench. 

I often hear from clients that they also have additional problems on top of year-end stuff, making it even harder to focus on getting a strong start to the new year. Maybe you are also encountering these:

  • Missing or incomplete program metrics data: you just don’t have the data you thought you would have.
  • Goals that are no longer relevant, but it wasn’t realized until many months after they were set (and worked on).
  • A major organizational event happened midyear that changed the trajectory of your team—or even the company—and it’s taking a long time to “turn the ship” but new goals to match these changes were never established.
  • Something big is on the horizon that will profoundly change your program so you want to wait until that happens to document a plan.
  • Additional cost containment efforts.
  • Work in general just didn’t go to plan due to things outside of your control.
  • And, for those of you still using InVision, you’ll need to add ‘finding new design software’ since they announced they will be closing shop by the end of 2024.

Whatever you’re facing, know that you are not alone.

The ‘A-ha!’ Moment

For me, the moment that year-end activities got easier was when I switched my work mindset to focus on goal measurement all year long, and changed my routine to accomplish that. Just like taxes, why wait until the deadline is looming? Make it a rolling activity. This in turn will make it easy to set the next year’s goals and objectives.

  • Block time in your regular schedule to review your data and measurements, as well as check to ensure you are on track towards reaching your goals.
    • Each week, when I prepare my notes for my 1:1 with my leader, I write out ‘achievement statements’ which I repurpose later to contribute to my goal reporting.
  • Book half a day each month to review what has happened and align on where you’re trying to go next.
  • Adjust your goals as you move through the year and things change. Identify new goals as you go along. This leaves you with just having to validate that the next year’s goals are reachable.

What Can We Do with These Insights

Roll up your sleeves and dig in…while leveraging your built-in village–your team and your network!

  • Get help from people that are good with data. Maybe they can help you find the missing data, extrapolate the data, or may even help you find additional data that tells an unanticipated story that casts a golden glow over your program. Figure out a story, even if it was not in your original plan, that shows progress, momentum or velocity.
  • Be your own P.R. maven. 
    • When quantitative data is missing, incomplete, or inadequate, think about what stories you can tell with qualitative data. For example, being able to state that teams are producing less defects [without a specific number] is better than skipping over this positive development in your program. 
    • When quantitative data is plentiful, pivot the data in multiple ways to be able to tell more than one story. For example, recognizing that 3 out 50 programs in a dataset are only in maturity band 2, out of 5 bands, is an important statistic. However, being able to also report that two of these programs advanced to that band this year, and that there were no programs that slid backwards (from band 2 to band 1) this year, is also a great piece of information to communicate.
  • Leverage strategists to help you set goals. Leverage people whose strong suit is strategy; especially if you are a very tactically-focused type. They will help you determine if your objectives are a one-and-done or play into a longer story arc.  Accessibility programs take many years to mature. Ensure you have a good mix of tactical and strategic goals. Strategic-minded folks are also great at looking at program velocity to help you calculate reasonable and achievable objectives. For example, if you’re looking to reduce defect generation by 50% in 3-months, but your program to teach developers how to be proactive in their accessibility efforts runs 9-months, a strategist could help you bring those objectives together into a more cohesive plan and timeline.
  • Work as a collective to tell better stories. Ask your team for input on the bar you are setting for them to deliver. Host collaborative sessions with your team and your internal customers. Work with your external customers to hear their desires and objectives–including in B2B scenarios. Shared goals are more likely to be supported and delivered.
  • Offer input, even when you weren’t asked. Dear reader, if you are not in a leadership role, I highly encourage you to offer suggestions on goals and objectives that you are passionate about–even when they weren’t solicited. I can assure you that, as long as they align to the larger strategic mission, your leadership will embrace your ideas. Leaders know that there is a higher success rate for projects that team members are passionate about.
  • Set aside sufficient time in 2024 to regularly check progress. Good goals are flexible and resilient, but they still need regular monitoring and review. Ensure that you have ample time set aside each month to look at your metrics and goals. Adjusting and finding new goals throughout the year makes it easier to define next year’s goals, and clearly articulate what you achieved this year.
  • Find the root cause problem on missed goals. Use fish bone techniques to find the root cause; don’t just report the symptoms. Define what you learned from missing the goal and how you intend to either solve it or adjust the goal so that it’s more achievable.
  • Don’t count your chickens until they hatch. Don’t wait for that thing on the horizon. Build goals now and report on their progress. That next big thing may be delayed, never happen, or take another form entirely. Wait until things are fact before updating your plan; pivot when you have concrete definition on the new direction of your program.
  • Design multiple measurements to enable you to tell your best story. By using a broad spectrum of measurements, I have extra data to tell stories of program change and efficiency that is above and beyond my initial goals and objectives.

Why I Love This Approach for Solving Design Problems at Scale

These are a few of the many reasons why I love this approach:

  • Designing a system that has me investing time regularly and working on things incrementally has saved me significant time (and heartburn) at the end of the year while simultaneously allowing me to better tell the story of my achievements.
  • Leaders are usually very impressed when you walk into your year-end review and tell them you delivered on your predetermined objectives, but also were able to deliver a long list of extra value derived from your self-initiated additional measurements.
  • Having stories to tell that have specific data embedded in them showcase your program in a strong light, which ultimately builds trust. Having good numbers in your stories paints your program as successful.

The bottom line? You control your narrative. Tell your story with the facts and data that you have gathered.

Join me at axe-con 2024 to hear more about metrics!

I’ll be presenting more on this subject in Building Your Program Through Metrics and Storytelling at axe con 2024 on Thursday, February 22nd at 10am (Eastern). Join me online or in-person at the London, UK Watch Party. Registration is free!

Matthew Luken

Matthew Luken

Matthew Luken is a Senior Vice President and Chief Architect at Deque, consulting with companies of all sizes, markets, and industries to grow their digital accessibility programs. Matthew also provides thought leadership to advance the profession and practice of digital accessibility and mature and maximize operations, processes, and outcomes. Prior to Deque, Matthew built and ran U.S. Bank’s digital accessibility program, providing accessibility design reviews, compliance testing services, defect remediation consulting, and more. The program leveraged over 1,500 implementations of Deque’s Axe Auditor and nearly 4,000 implementations of Axe DevTools and Deque University. Matthew also served as Head of UXDesign’s Accessibility Center of Practice, where he was responsible for supporting the digital accessibility team’s mission. As a digital accessibility, user experience, and service design expert, Matthew has worked with over 500 brands, covering every vertical and market. He also actively mentors digital designers and accessibility professionals.

All Posts by Matthew Luken Website
Tags:  accessibility ux design ,  accessible design ,  agile accessibility ,  usability testing

When I audit websites, it’s evident that some of the issues I identify could have been avoided either directly in design or early in development if the developer knew what the designer intended the functionality of the element to be. This boils down to the fact that having effective collaboration between designers and developers with respect to accessibility must be the way forward for all of us to see a more inclusive world.

Effective collaboration between designers and developers is crucial for creating accessible websites and applications from the start. Accessibility is a shared responsibility, with both parties working together to ensure that the end product is usable by all, including those with disabilities. In this blog post, we will explore various strategies and best practices to bridge the gap between designers and developers focusing on accessibility.

  1. Leadership buy in: The key to leadership buy in is to frame accessibility as a business imperative and show them the ROI. When they understand that being inclusive means they can capture more of their market, they will see the business value. Also, adding the cost of legal noncompliance helps leadership buy in. Layer on top of those, being accessible is a serious market differentiator these days. More and more people without disabilities care about accessibility. Increase revenue, lower risk, and improved brand—it’s hard to argue with these.
  2. Foster communication: The key to successful collaboration is open and regular communication. Schedule joint meetings, brainstorming sessions, and discussions to gain insight into each other’s perspectives, knowledge and job requirements. This will promote understanding and a shared vision for creating accessible designs.
  3. Educate on Accessibility Principles: Conduct joint training sessions or workshops to educate everyone on accessibility principles, guidelines, and best practices. By providing a common foundation of knowledge, everyone will be better equipped to make the project successful.
  4. Establish Design Systems and Guidelines: Creating a shared design system or style guide that includes accessibility considerations is a valuable resource for everyone. The system should outline accessible design patterns, color contrast requirements, font sizes, and other accessibility information. By having a clear set of guidelines, the team can ensure consistency and accessibility across different projects.
  5. Implement Accessibility Testing: Integrate accessibility testing into the design/development process to identify and address accessibility issues. Collaborate to understand and resolve any design or development-driven accessibility challenges. Encourage feedback and suggestions from everyone to improve the overall accessibility of the product.
  6. Use Assistive Technology: Developers/testers can help designers understand how assistive technologies, such as screen readers, interact with the design. By testing designs using assistive technologies in the design phase, designers the user experience for people with disabilities can be built in before any code is written. This will ultimately result in more inclusive and accessible designs and far less rework.
  7. Continuous Learning and Improvement: Accessibility is ever evolving, with new technologies, techniques and guidelines being introduced regularly. Stay updated through webinars, conferences, and online resources, ensuring that you are aware of the latest best practices. Continuous learning will enhance your accessibility knowledge, resulting in more productive collaboration and make accessible design outcomes faster and easier.

Conclusion

Effective collaboration between designers and developers is essential for creating accessible digital products. By fostering communication, education, and continuous learning, we can bridge the gap between designers and developers, ensuring that accessibility becomes an intrinsic part of the design and development process. Ultimately, this collaboration will lead to more inclusive and usable experiences for everyone, regardless of their abilities.

Aparna Pasi

Aparna Pasi

Aparna Pasi is Vice President of Professional Services, APAC at Deque Systems, with nearly 20 years of experience in software engineering and accessibility consulting. She drives Deque’s mission by empowering organizations to build inclusive digital experiences, offering executive-level advisory and accessibility risk strategies to growth-stage companies. Aparna also contributes to the broader accessibility profession as an active WCAG Working Group Member at W3C. Throughout her career, she has led cross-cultural teams delivering accessible, compliant solutions across mobile and web technologies in industries such as banking, e-commerce, gaming, and e-learning. Aparna holds a Master of Science in Information Systems and is IAAP certified as CPWA, WAS, and CPACC.

All Posts by Aparna Pasi Website
Tags:  accessibility best practices ,  accessible design

The other day, I was filling out an online exam registration form. They asked me to enter my office address, home address, work phone, and home phone. I filled in the details without any issues. However, when I wanted to verify whether I filled in all the details in the right fields, the text “Office address” and other field text disappeared. I was stuck wondering what to do. Do I re-enter the data into each field to make sure it’s correct? Unfortunately, that was the only way to check each field, which turned out to be both time-consuming and frustrating.

The placeholder attribute provides short instructions of the expected value for an input field. For example, the format for a date as MM/DD/YYYY or the requirements for a new password.

A password text input example with instructions that read Enter at least 8 characters and no placeholder text

The text input field displays the placeholder’s short instructions at first, but will disappear once the user enters text. Your best option is to place the label and any instructions outside of the form field as text on the page rather than placeholder text in the input. This practice ensures the user can always see the form field’s label and instructions.

 

A password text input example with instructions that read Enter at least 8 characters and no placeholder text

The placeholder attribute works with the following input types:

  • Text
  • Search
  • URL
  • telephone
  • email
  • password

HTML5 introduced the placeholder attribute, and since then it has become widely used. Designers and developers want to use a placeholder in forms as they believe it is more appealing than a visible label and instructions. This is because it takes up less space, especially on smaller devices and screens.

In part one of the series on accessible forms, we will see why using a placeholder is not great from an accessibility standpoint and how to use a placeholder attribute successfully.

Avoid the Placeholder Attribute

According to research conducted by Nielsen, using placeholder text in a form field causes a poor user experience. This is because placeholders confuse many users. In particular, people with cognitive disabilities tend to have issues understanding placeholder text because they think it is pre-populated text and will try to submit the form without entering their specific information.

It is important to note that not all screen readers will announce the placeholder attribute. If it is not read by a screen reader, the user may miss the information.

Placeholders Fail Color Contrast

The default color of a placeholder in a form field is light grey, which often doesn’t pass the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Success Criteria (SC) 1.4.3 guideline. According to the WCAG SC 1.4.3, the visual presentation of text and images of text must have a color contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1, and different browsers present the color of the placeholder attribute differently. For the placeholder to pass successful color contrast requirements, proper CSS must be used:

Sample CSS Code for Placeholder

Code examples:

::-moz-placeholder {
	color: #333;
	opacity: 1;
}

::-webkit-input-placeholder {
	color: #333;
}

A Placeholder Is Not a Replacement for Visible Labels

The trend of using placeholders to provide visible labels for form fields creates a bad user experience and accessibility practice. Since placeholders disappear once users enter their data into the form controls, they don’t have any idea which form field goes with which placeholder. This disappearing act is especially negative for people with short term memory, people with traumatic brain injuries, people with Autism, people with ADHD, and people with low vision.

Furthermore, users will not be able to check that they entered the right data into the right form field if the placeholder is used as the field’s visible label. The need to recheck and re-enter data is a huge cognitive burden on all users, including people with disabilities.

Avoid Providing Instructions Using a Placeholder Attribute

Instructions help users submit a form successfully. However, if a placeholder attribute provides the instructions, the user might not be able to use the instructions effectively. As placeholders disappear when the user starts filling in the form, users might miss critical information. For example, don’t using a placeholder attribute to provide instructions for a password field. Users need to continually see the instructions to know the password requirements.

Example Syntax for Password Placeholder

<label for=”password1”>Password</label>
<input type=”text” id=”password1” placeholder=”Password should be 8 characters with one number, one special character”>

Preview


In the example above, the password needs a special character, a number, and must be 8 characters long. However, these instructions disappear as soon as the user starts typing in the field. Entering a password can become more complicated if it requires more variations.

To reduce confusion or user error, always provide instructions in the form of consistent text that users can see. It’s also a best practice to associate the instructions to the form controls using the aria-describedby method for screen reader users.

Example Syntax for Static Hint

Code example:

<label for=”password”>Password</label>
<input type=”text” id=”password” placeholder="enter password" aria-describedby=”password-hint”>
<span id=”password-hint”>Password should be 8characters long with a number & a special character</span>

Preview



Password should be 8 characters long with a number & a special character

In the example above, the password instructions remain constant even after the user enters data into the password field.

Placeholder to Floating Label

There is a growing trend to use the placeholder as a form field’s visible label, but instead of the placeholder disappearing when a user enters data, it floats above, below, or to the side of the form control. These are called floating labels. While various design and accessibility practitioners have mixed opinions on floating labels, we recommend testing them with your users. For more information on floating labels, take a look at the following articles:

In my opinion, using the placeholder as intended by the HTML specification provides the best user experience for everyone. If you choose to use a placeholder, use it for short instructions or input examples only.

Points to Remember

  • Avoid placeholders whenever possible
  • Make sure the color of placeholder text meets the WCAG SC 1.4.3 requirement of a 4.5:1 contrast ratio
  • Don’t provide instructions with a placeholder attribute
  • Provide instructions next to the form control as text
  • Associate instructions with its respective form field using aria-describedby
  • If there is no other option than to use a placeholder as a replacement for a visible label, use one of the floating label methods

(This piece was originally published 6/6/2019, but updated on 1/22/2024.)

Sarah Arnold

Sarah Arnold

Sarah Arnold is an Accessibility Coach/Consultant with over 8 years of experience. She is a Certified Professional in Web Accessibility (CPWA) accredited by the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP). As a former librarian, Sarah is well-versed in teaching and supporting others on their accessibility journey. At Deque since 2022, she acts as the desktop software lead for the Standards and Methodology team. She works to ensure that everyone has equal access to digital information.

All Posts by Sarah Arnold
Tags:  accessibility and placeholders ,  accessible forms

Welcome to the next edition of my Design Strategy blog series. Today, I’ll be sharing a story from some recent client visits that will help y’all recognize WHY you should do things differently to mature and scale your digital accessibility program quickly. I will once again skip the “how-to” dry laundry lists of tactical “do this/don’t do that” mechanics. 

I will be using the terms Design System and Component Library interchangeably. Brand and style guidelines, however, are a horse of a different color as they say, and these terms will stand on their own.

On to the story…

The Problem

I recently completed back-to-back visits with two clients. In both cases, since we were onsite (and therefore within their network) I asked if we could take a few moments to put eyes on their design systems. To clarify, I wanted to look at accessibility information related to the components–not the WCAG conformance of the design system itself. Both generously agreed.

In both scenarios the system was mature (2–3 years into development) and anecdotally industry-leading. We’re talking about 75+ components with code, documentation, examples, usage guidance, and the beginnings of reusable design documentation. I asked if we could focus on the user experience items that I noticed before we looked at accessibility-related things.

Universally, the data was digestible if you had significant time to sit and interpret the content; but it was laid out poorly for quick consumption. The designers of the design system failed to follow standard user experience design rules/techniques related to layout, hierarchy, labeling and titling, etc. Most importantly, they hadn’t involved their end users in the design process. So, the system was designed to be consumed by the design system team itself–not designers, developers, and testers/quality engineers. It was very evident it was written as a repository of data and rules, not as a tool for digital teams to actually use.

This is a critical part of the problem story as the accessibility information pertinent to the component was written to be relevant to an accessibility subject matter expert (SME), not the intended users—who were decidedly NOT accessibility SMEs. The component cited WCAG rules but didn’t put them in terms the real users needed to understand; best practices for WCAG success criteria were not even touched on. For example, Name/Role/Value information of the checkbox entry was not even mentioned, let alone clearly called out) in the documentation. There were images for checked and unchecked states, but no documentation on whether the brand standard was for the end user to opt-in or opt-out of the checkbox. There was no content showcasing a successful screen reader interaction with the component to help the developer with implementation or the tester with testing.

The ‘A-ha!’ Moment Followed by Contemplation, Insights and Some Colorful Commentary

In both cases, as I laid out my user experience observations the teams had their a-ha moments, seeing their content through another’s eyes for the first time. You know the moment I mean, right? They go quiet, maybe pale a little bit, audibly gulp, and in some cases, drop an expletive (or two). Let’s just say, the words dropped were very colorful!

Simulating a designer’s role, we took a moment to walk through a component for potential implementation. As the designer, I needed a checkbox in a newsletter sign-up form for the end user to agree to the terms of the company’s use of their email in future transactions. I encouraged everyone to “play along” and list out (in importance order) what information we would need to review if we had multiple components to choose from: usage guidance, state descriptions, visuals, do’s & don’ts, exceptions, design [tool] snippets to load into our wireframes, assurances that this component was WCAG 2.1AA conformant, and accessibility guidance. 

Given that there was only one checkbox in the design system, it didn’t take a lot of brain power to decide we were going to use it. But, looking at their interface, only half of the data needing review was available. And, the information that was available wasn’t presented in the correct order (see paragraph above). Meaning that, as users, we would have to hunt for what we needed and then guess at the rest of the information.

I clicked on another component and they quickly saw that it had different information than the checkbox component) and that it was presented in yet a different order. As a user, I would need to relearn the information layout with each new component, which would dramatically increase my cognitive load, not to mention velocity. Let’s just say there were more sighs and very colorful expletives dropped.

It is critical that you, dear reader, understand that the hard work you have already put into your accessibility program and/or design system is not wrong or worthless. Everything you’ve done is on the maturity spectrum. The desire, effort, and ambition to make what you have so far is in no way diminished here. Having someone like me come in and quickly identify things that can be improved on is the ‘forest for the trees’ phenomenon. You are very close to it, so your objectivity is obscured. Trust me, I’ve been there. It often takes fresh eyes with a fresh perspective to see the whole “forest”. Take a deep breath and focus on the horizon–the destination. Take pride in what you’ve built thus far and gather the energy to take things to the next level. Kumbaya!

What Can We Do with These Insights

Each client said that this exercise quickly showed them where they needed to go next to bring their design system to the next level of maturity. Here are some additional insights I shared with them:

General

  • Make sure you’re focusing on the real end users, e.g., designers, developers, testers, etc. Use design thinking exercises with your end users to explore what they need and how they need it to be successful in their jobs.
  • Be consistent with (per component) page layout. This will reduce cognitive load while providing user efficiency by knowing exactly where to go for the information they need.
    NOTE: If a section of data does not apply to a specific component, list the section with a ‘not applicable’ label; do not remove it! The user will be anticipating information in specific locations and order.
  • Be cognizant of multi-user tenancy. Find a homogenous presentation format that’s relevant for multiple users. This should include type of data, tone, and relevancy of data. For example: Including the Name/Role/Value information clearly called out helps the designer understand the screen reader user’s experience, helps the developer with their coding, and helps the tester know what the correct scenario is for that component. Anything other than that experience should be logged by the tester as a defect.

Testing

  • Provide test scripts for each component. This will enable testers to easily replicate the test for that component. Include the completed design system team’s test scripts to confirm the component is conformant prior to its implementation. This will also passively communicate that defects found after component placement would have to have been introduced after they were imported by development. If there are WCAG Success Criteria that cannot be tested until the component is in place, make note of this in the test script to jog the tester’s memory.
  • Test to WCAG 2.2AA conformance regardless of the level stated in your policy. Keeping all components in the design library at the highest available WCAG level will give teams a jumpstart to meet future policy changes.
  • Clearly demonstrate “success” information to aid testers. For instance, include a video of the screen reader correctly announcing the component.

Standards

  • Include all specific and applicable accessibility information (as if it is an annotation) for the component. For example, what is the Name/Role/Value of the checkbox in both the checked and unchecked states. Provide brand-preferred usage with the component. In the case of the checkbox, the usage might be for users to opt-in for terms and conditions (or similar) and opt-out for all other cases.
  • Include guidelines or standards in your design system for universal items such as how telephone numbers or currency amounts should be announced by a screen reader.
  • Consider hyper efficiency by incorporating your brand and style guidelines into the design system instead of having separate documents. If you need to maintain them as separate documents, provide easy links to them in your design system’s top-line navigation.
  • Take your accessibility documentation to the next level: specify (and label) best practices versus WCAG normative Success Criteria. For instance: X is a WCAG Best Practice (optional) but is part of your brand (required). This will allow users to know which best practices they must address. Know that it might take you some time as an accessibility program to land on definitive best practices and document them. That’s perfectly fine.
  • Passively communicate WCAG conformance data at the component level. Not only will it reiterate the need for conformance to your users, it will also allow your design system team to independently up the conformance level during times of transition.
  • Design systems with a high level of maturity will have unique entries for components that meet AA-levels and similar components that meet AAA-level. Each will have clear documentation on why and how they meet the different levels and offer usage guidance to help the user determine why they would use one over the other in their implementation.

Collaboration

  • Make sure that your design system (preferably at the component level) has an easy defect reporting process. As we have all experienced, not all scenarios can be tested during the component design and development process. Installers may be able to break the component when used in an untested scenario. 
  • Be a team that is easy to work with. Allow your colleagues to engage you easily and respond quickly to their needs. You are a service provider with a user that is blocked. It’s critical to get them operational as quickly as possible with a strong sense of customer service. We see higher design system adoption rates when the design system team is seen as easy to work with.
  • Create quality loops for your design system team. Hold retrospectives or periodic reviews of implementation issues, problems, complaints, and questions to optimize your process, your documentation, and the design system itself. Whenever possible, include digital team members that are beyond the core design system team.

Leadership

As a leader, balance ‘trust’ versus ‘blind trust.’ Evident in both scenarios: the leaders I was working with trusted their staff to execute well, however, they themselves were not users or reviewers of the design system. They were shocked to see the lack of continuity which was leading to user confusion and contributing to their adoption issues. As a leader, you should absolutely trust your team to execute their work well, but you also need to be a member of the team and use your more senior skills to provide an outside-in perspective. Help your team step back periodically to look at the forest–not just the trees. If you‘re leading a team that is outside your core skill set, make sure the  team has users provide periodic reviews and feedback on content, usability, continuity, delivering on purpose, etc. during the design/development process, not just after it’s complete and in front of the users.

Why I Love This Approach for Solving Design Problems at Scale

These are a few of the many reasons why I love this approach:

  • You can quickly scale your design system usage and rapidly extend accessible components with a strong foundation, a robust page layout, and a clear plan by delivering information in a format that will allow designers, developers, and testers to quickly accomplish their goals. (You might even be wildly popular to boot!)
  • Baking accessibility into the components will greatly reduce technical debt further down your SDLC.
  • Build confidence and trust in the design system by ensuring components meet WCAG conformance, providing evidence of its conformance, and that conformance is thoroughly labeled throughout the design system. This will reduce back and forth with developers, saving everyone significant cycles. 
  • By being a team that’s easy to work with, you will increase user loyalty, trust, and ongoing use of your design system.
Matthew Luken

Matthew Luken

Matthew Luken is a Senior Vice President and Chief Architect at Deque, consulting with companies of all sizes, markets, and industries to grow their digital accessibility programs. Matthew also provides thought leadership to advance the profession and practice of digital accessibility and mature and maximize operations, processes, and outcomes. Prior to Deque, Matthew built and ran U.S. Bank’s digital accessibility program, providing accessibility design reviews, compliance testing services, defect remediation consulting, and more. The program leveraged over 1,500 implementations of Deque’s Axe Auditor and nearly 4,000 implementations of Axe DevTools and Deque University. Matthew also served as Head of UXDesign’s Accessibility Center of Practice, where he was responsible for supporting the digital accessibility team’s mission. As a digital accessibility, user experience, and service design expert, Matthew has worked with over 500 brands, covering every vertical and market. He also actively mentors digital designers and accessibility professionals.

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Tags:  accessibility ux design ,  accessible design ,  agile accessibility ,  usability testing

India has a new rising economy that is catching everybody’s attention with its development, innovation, and growth. But we won’t be talking about what’s out there on the internet. We will be diving deep into a topic that’s making waves and deserves a prime spot on the radar of tech giants – Web Accessibility. Now, you might be thinking of terms like WCAG compliance and accessibility standards, and why is it such a big deal? Let’s break it down into simple words so everyone can join the conversation.

With a growing surge of technology and innovation, India is emerging as a hub of endless possibilities. As a growing tech-savvy population and seeing a surge in digital solutions, it is no doubt to say that India is in its digital era. But, amidst this tech-savvy chaos, there’s an often overlooked aspect that needs everyone’s attention – Accessibility.

Why Accessibility Matters: A Global Perspective

Implementing web accessibility ensures that everyone can use and get value from digital content regardless of their abilities and disabilities.

As per the insights from the World Health Organization (WHO), over 1 billion people, which is about 16% of the world’s population, have different disabilities. It’s not just about one group; it’s people of all ages and backgrounds who have trouble moving, seeing, hearing, etc.

Over 1 billion people, which is about 16% of the world's population, have different disabilities. Source: World Health Organization

Isn’t it unfair to exclude these many people from using digital content because we haven’t made our digital sites accessible?

When websites, apps, and digital content are not fulfilling their needs, we exclude these many people from using services and products meant to serve everyone. So, focusing on implementing web accessibility standards such as WCAG guidelines is like opening doors for everyone. Web accessibility makes sure that everyone, including people with disabilities, can access the full power of the digital web.

In this blog, we will explore the role of accessibility in the work of major tech companies in India. We will cover how these companies can have a meaningful impact by prioritizing accessibility and how they can lead the charge in creating technology that is not only better but user-friendly and accessible to everyone. Whether you are a tech enthusiast, someone who cares about meeting the needs of diverse groups, or curious about the future of tech, this blog is for you.

Come along with us as we delve into why accessibility is a significant focus in 2023. It’s a tale of empowering people, fostering innovation, and shaping a digital world where everyone can thrive.

Accessibility Challenges in India

As India embraces Digital India’s mission and digital tech, welcoming a whopping 692 million digital enthusiasts, prioritizing accessibility becomes more evident.

Think this way: When government websites in India are not easy to use for people with visual impairments, it is more than just an accessibility problem. It is a roadblock preventing them from participating in civic life. Likewise, the lack of sign language interpretation in video content poses a big challenge for the deaf and hard of hearing, restricting their access to essential information. These issues hit millions of our fellow Indians hard, pushing them to the sidelines in our digital revolution.

Tech companies in India face their own set of challenges when it comes to making their products accessible. They have the responsibility of creating digital stuff—be it websites, apps, or devices—that meets the varied needs of all users, including those with disabilities.

But here’s the truth we can’t ignore: Sometimes, the laws meant to promote accessibility lack proper enforcement. This, sadly, results in companies neglecting the crucial need to make their products and services accessible to people with disabilities. When tech companies overlook accessibility, they leave out a big part of our society.

The Legal Framework: Accessibility Laws in India

In India, some important rules and regulations support the idea of accessibility, aiming for an inclusive society. Two key laws stand out in making this happen:

The Indian flag an a legal document

The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016:

This law is about making sure everyone can use public spaces, transportation, and digital resources, regardless of their abilities. It puts a spotlight on following accessibility standards and guidelines.

For example, it says buildings like government offices and schools should have ramps. This simple addition helps people with mobility challenges move around without any hassle.

The Information Technology Act, 2000:

This law deals with the digital world. It’s all about making sure that websites and apps are designed to be user-friendly for people with disabilities.

For instance, it insists that websites include descriptive text for images. This way, screen readers can help visually impaired individuals understand the content.

These laws are like building blocks, shaping a more inclusive and fair society in India where everyone has equal access to resources.

2023 Law Changes:

In 2023, some important changes were introduced, and new rules in India were implemented to boost accessibility. This shows the commitment to keeping up with the latest technologies and global standards. These changes are a big deal when it comes to including people with disabilities:

2023 Amendment to the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act:

In 2023, we made a crucial update to the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act. This change is all about making things more accessible by including more public places and online stuff. It’s like a response to the ever-changing world of new technologies, setting up new rules to make sure everyone follows them.

One major part of this update is that websites must follow specific content guidelines. This means making websites so that everyone, including people with disabilities, can use and understand what’s online. It’s a big move to make digital content more user-friendly for everyone.

Digital Accessibility Guidelines:

Starting in 2023, these guidelines give clear directions on how websites and mobile apps should be made so that everyone can use them. They set specific standards to make things inclusive.

For example, one important point is to have video captions. This helps people who are deaf or hard of hearing understand what’s happening in the videos. It’s all about making the digital world more accessible for everyone.

In 2023, the amendments to these laws became of great significance. They show India is committed to staying up-to-date with new technologies and global accessibility standards. But most importantly, they make life simpler for people with disabilities by making sure they can get to public places and use digital stuff. It’s a big step toward making our society more fair and inclusive.

Tech Giant’s Responsibility

Leading tech companies have a huge responsibility to make the digital world welcoming for everyone, regardless of their abilities. It’s not just a choice for them; it’s a significant obligation, and there are plenty of good reasons why.

Design for Everyone:

Tech giants should be at the forefront of creating websites, apps, and devices that work for everyone, including those with disabilities. Making sure their digital stuff can be easily used with screen reader software is a game-changer. It lets people with visual impairments access information and services on their own terms.

Testing:

It’s super important to thoroughly test products to make sure they work for people with different abilities. This means checking if apps are easy for those relying on voice commands because of physical limitations. Tech companies need to make sure their products are inclusive and don’t leave anyone out.

Training:

When tech companies teach their employees about the needs of people with disabilities, it boosts their ability to create products that everyone can use and provides better support. This not only makes things more accessible but also creates a culture of empathy and innovation.

Listening to Feedback:

What users say, especially those with disabilities, is super important. Tech giants should really pay attention to their customers and make changes based on what they say. For example, adding subtitles to videos because of feedback from users with hearing impairments shows they’re serious about being inclusive.

Legal Compliance:

Following the rules and standards set by governments on accessibility isn’t just a checkbox—it’s a crucial step in making sure products meet the necessary criteria. This helps everyone get equal access and reminds tech giants of their responsibility to uphold societal values.

For instance, when Apple introduced VoiceOver, a screen reader, on iPhones, it opened up smartphones for people with visual impairments. This shows how tech giants can make a real difference by making their products more accessible and positively impacting people’s lives.

To sum it up, tech giants have a huge role in making technology available to everyone. Their dedication to accessibility is not just for making money; it’s about creating a digital world that includes everyone. It’s a shared responsibility to build a digital space that’s fair, easy to use, and welcoming to everyone.

The bottom line:

In conclusion, implementing accessibility is the key to creating a fair and equal environment for everyone. In 2023, India’s data and use policy, along with the Accessibility (A11Y) standards of care, highlight how important accessibility is. It’s not just about following rules; it’s a deep commitment to building a world where no one feels left out.

To fully embrace accessibility and bring about positive change, it is crucial to integrate digital accessibility practices into your organization. This is a big step toward creating a world that includes and values everyone’s needs and abilities. It’s not just a choice; it’s a crucial move toward a fair digital space that works for everyone.

Abin Choudhury

Abin Choudhury

Abin is the Vice President Sales, APAC at Deque Systems. He has completed his CFO program from IIM, Calcutta, and his MBA (Marketing) from MIT, Pune. Abin has over 18+ years of experience in Consultative Sales, Marketing, Business Development, and IT Operations, being a startup founder with solid entrepreneurial expertise to foster revenue growth, scale teams, and nurture organizational culture. Abin believes in a journey of continuous learning, intellectual curiosity, strong customer empathy, consultative selling, and ongoing professional relationships. He defines turnaround strategies to drive significant revenue growth, building a strong sales team with corporate vision and operational integrity. His expertise lies in leading sales development efforts, servant leadership, active strategies, and improvement initiatives to achieve defined goals and setting up the go-to-market plan. Through his experience, he is adept at overseeing various operational and fiscal responsibilities to ensure optimal business performance and significant revenue enhancements. In addition, he enjoys traveling (Driving by road for hours), writing blogs, exploring spiritual concepts, thinking of new ideas, learning about various entrepreneurs’ success stories, and constantly thinking about the subsequent ideas to solve more real-world problems.

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Open-source digital accessibility testing rules library axe-core achieves incredible milestone

HERNDON, VA – Dec 5, 2023 –  Today, Deque Systems, the trusted leader in digital accessibility, marked an important landmark in accessibility history with its open-source accessibility rules library, axe-core, surpassing 1 billion downloads.

“We’re incredibly proud and fortunate for so many reasons; the community support, the incredible partners, our brilliant engineers, and for having the foresight to develop our “no false-positives” mantra so many years ago,” said Preety Kumar, CEO and Founder at Deque Systems. “In an age now where AI has the power to amplify noise, our measured approach acts as a signal, continuing to earn trust while still rapidly accelerating what automated accessibility testing can do.”

Axe-core is the world’s most popular accessibility testing library embedded in accessibility-first development and testing initiatives worldwide. According to npm-stat, axe-core is downloaded nearly 15 million times a week.

“The acceleration and wide adoption of axe-core over the years is really a testament to the hard work of our contributors,” said Dylan Barrell, CTO, Deque Systems. “We added support for WCAG 2.2 this year and continue to invest significantly in the development of the project with a commit per workday and a release every month, on average, over the last 12 months.”

Deque reached out to axe-core contributors asking them what this milestone means to them. Here is what they said:

Special celebration giveaway

We’re giving away free axe-core shirts! Register for your chance to win a “3-commas” shirt, representing the growing prevalence of accessibility and each of the commas in 1,000,000,000 axe-core downloads.

Two folks wearing navy t-shirts with 3 large commas and white text reading accessibility everywhere

For a more robust, efficient and accurate path to high velocity accessibility, check out Deque’s suite of axe Tools, powered by the open-source axe-core rules library.

About Deque Systems

Deque (pronounced dee-cue) is a web accessibility software and services company, and our mission is Digital Equality. We believe everyone, regardless of their ability, should have equal access to the information, services, applications, and everything else on the web. We work with enterprise-level businesses and organizations to ensure that their sites and mobile apps are accessible. Installed in 800,000+ browsers and with 8,000+ audit projects completed, Deque is the industry standard.

Axe ® is a registered trademark of Deque Systems, Inc.

News Media Contacts

At Deque: Ryan Bateman, +1-703-225-0380, marketing@deque.com

At Deque Europe: Ron Beenen, +31 30 799 5009, ron.beenen@deque.com

At Deque APAC & MENA: Abin Roy Choudhury, +91 9000189666, abin.choudhury@deque.com

Deque Systems

Deque Systems

Deque is the global leader in digital accessibility, helping the world’s top enterprises build inclusive products, services, and experiences and achieve lasting compliance. Recognized by leading industry analysts for its AI-powered tools, comprehensive services, and developer-trusted solutions, Deque delivers the industry’s most complete accessibility offering. The Axe platform, anchored by Axe-core, has more than 4 billion downloads and 800,000 installed extensions, making it the global standard for accessibility testing. As a pioneer of people-first accessibility, Deque applies a human-in-the-loop approach that blends expert insight with AI innovation to advance its mission of digital equality for all.

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Tags:  axe-core ,  news

Color is often used to evoke emotions and emphasis. That’s one of the reasons why designers see color as an important element in their work. Colors communicate messages on both psychological and visual level. The importance of color is undeniable, but is basing the message solely on color the right thing to do? This post is a humble attempt to answer that question and explain the reasoning behind my opinion.

This may be obvious, but everyone is different. Intellectually and physically, we all have different abilities. And, if we are different from what is considered “the norm”, does that mean that we should be excluded from the experience that all others are having? Not at any level! We need to think inclusively when it comes to designing experiences. I am not saying that you cannot or should not use color, but rather that color should be used along with other ways of conveying the information.

Some Background on Color Perception and Color Blindness

Many people have difficulty identifying or seeing colors. In fact, statistics prove that men are more prone to be color blind than women and that one in twelve men are color blind. Now, for everyone’s benefit, color blindness is not the inability to see colors, but more to differentiate between colors. For instance, color blind people may see the world in browns or yellows. This is an important reason why we should not rely on colors alone to convey information.

Three Common Mistakes: Who gets affected?

When we use only color to convey important information, it affects people who are color blind, visually impaired and, to some extent, elderly users. In the image below, we assume that everyone can see that carrots are orange and beans are green. But to a person with color blindness, everything may be green—all beans. This would result in a very different recipe! Providing the information conveyed with color through other means such as text or descriptions on the page, ensures users who cannot see color can still perceive the information.

Green beans and orange carrots on the left vs green beans and green carrots with the orange removed

What are the most common mistakes that we make?

We commonly use color only in graphs and charts to differentiate between data points, but there are other examples. Let’s look at some of these examples.

Mistake 1 – Graphs and charts

It’s very common to use different colors to differentiate between segments of data. A legend would explain the colors and what they represent under the graph or chart, but the only way to correlate the data series to the values in the graph is through color. No visual text alternative is available. Even if a text alternative for the image is available programmatically, that is useful only for visually impaired users, not for sighted color blind users.

In the first image below, blue, gray and orange color bars are used to convey the three data segments, and the differences would be clear to most people. But people with color blindness might see the second image with the bars in shades of gray, making it impossible to understand the data.

3 color bar chartMonochrome bar chart

Does this mean that we cannot use colors at all? No! It means that we have to provide alternative means of conveying information. One way is by providing a textual alternative via a table or a complete description of the chart. Another way is to use patterns to convey the series. Pattern usage is shown in fig 4 where both color blind and non-color-blind users can consume the information due to the use of patterns in the chart.

3 color bar chart3 color and pattern bar chart

Mistake 2 – Errors being conveyed using color

Another common scenario is when errors are identified on a page. Any page that has form fields is enabled with a validation mechanism to see if the form field input has the information to meet the form’s requirements. When that doesn’t happen, the form fields must display the errors so that the user is given the context and information to correct the error and submit the form.

I often come across scenarios where errors are identified either via “fields in error are marked in red” or just red borders around the form fields with errors and green borders around those that are validated successfully. In the below example, you see that a sighted person without color blindness will be able to identify that the “Email” field has an error, where a color blind user will see all the form fields highlighted in the same color and so, will not be able to identify the field with the error.

A form field depicting a red outline around an invalid field with no other discernable error indicator

An easy fix to this would be to describe the error in words right below the form field as an “inline” error message. A better way to fix it is to provide the error message and an icon representing the error or success state of each form field as illustrated below.

A form field depicting a red outline, error text message and unique symbol to indicate an invalid form field entry

Mistake 3 – Links being identified using color alone

Another scenario that we often encounter is identifying links within paragraphs using color alone  with no other visual indication. Now, users without color blindness can identify the different colors and their meaning as in example one below. But for a person who cannot differentiate the colors, the link is completely invisible, as in the example two:

Text with a link using only color to indicate that some of it is a link

The color removed from the text with a link using only color to indicate that some of it is a link

A good way to address this is to increase the font size along with color and/or to underline the link so it is clear that it has a functionality associated with it. Another option would be to change the font style and size.

Conclusion

We see all of these scenarios far too often on web pages. And this is nowhere near a comprehensive list, just the most common. The good news is that all of the fixes described here are fast and easy. As content authors and designers, we must provide other ways to convey the meaning of content in addition to color to ensure that we enable our entire audience. Understanding the pain of the many people who cannot differentiate colors will give us the needed empathy to make conscious decisions around color use and implement alternatives.

Aparna Pasi

Aparna Pasi

Aparna Pasi is Vice President of Professional Services, APAC at Deque Systems, with nearly 20 years of experience in software engineering and accessibility consulting. She drives Deque’s mission by empowering organizations to build inclusive digital experiences, offering executive-level advisory and accessibility risk strategies to growth-stage companies. Aparna also contributes to the broader accessibility profession as an active WCAG Working Group Member at W3C. Throughout her career, she has led cross-cultural teams delivering accessible, compliant solutions across mobile and web technologies in industries such as banking, e-commerce, gaming, and e-learning. Aparna holds a Master of Science in Information Systems and is IAAP certified as CPWA, WAS, and CPACC.

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Tags:  color contrast ,  design

Welcome to the next edition of my Design Strategy blog series. Today, I’m sharing a client story with the hope that y’all will focus on thinking about WHY you should do things differently so that your program can rapidly mature and scale quickly. I will once again skip the “how-to” article formula and dry laundry lists of tactical “do this/don’t do that” mechanics. On to the story…

The Problem

This client came to us to do an assessment of their digital property. “Of course,” we said, “we’d be happy to help!” 

Their website had a heap of issues. It’s important to know that that’s okay. Focusing on the positive side of this, the client now clearly understands where they are and what needs to be done.

Heck. This scenario is actually better than okay–it’s fantastic! Why? Because we are working with a client that’s now eager to roll up their sleeves not just to remediate, but also to dig around to find and fix the root cause. In other words, they’ll focus on fixing what went wrong and put energy into understanding what can be done to make sure it doesn’t happen again. This focus will help their organization quickly scale and mature.

From this point, let’s look at how this played out. We’ll examine the root causes and their associated learning opportunities.

Are There Themes in These Findings?

As I started to wade through this client’s assessment results, I noticed some key themes. In this case, more than half … HALF!!! … of the issues were related to Name/Role/Value. Like a lightning bolt, it came to me— “Let’s start here!” OK, maybe not a lightning bolt…but an obvious place to get significant progress, quickly.

Name/Role/Value

Let’s align on some specifics from Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) Success Criteria 4.1.2… [Read this like one of those TV commercial spokespersons that read those dry bits at the end very, very quickly.]

States and properties are attributes used to convey essential information about an element to screen readers and other assistive technologies. Some roles require certain state and property information – such as the checked/unchecked state of a checkbox. This code needs to be valid in order for a screen reader to convey the information to a user. Every user interface control must have a role along with any applicable states and properties so that screen reader users know how to interact with the control. Developers must add the relevant role(s) and any applicable states and properties as well as expected swipe interactions.

Let’s explain this better with an example. Say we want the user to opt out of newsletter subscriptions (rather than opting in) when they complete a form. So, we design a user experience where the “Sign-up For Newsletter” checkbox is pre-selected; the choice has already been made for the user. The user has to unselect this before submission if they do not want to sign up for a newsletter. The annotation in the wireframe must detail for the developer that the checkbox should be checked “on” as part of their build so that it appears checked on page load. This annotation also informs the tester to ensure that the checkbox is checked on page load as part of their testing process. They, of course, will also test that it can be selected (off and on) and test that it can be submitted properly in the unselected state.

The ‘A-Ha!’ Moment Followed by Contemplations and Insights

Let’s look at the final sentence of that blurb a little more slowly:

Developers must add the relevant role(s) and any applicable states and properties as well as expected swipe interactions.

As I contemplate this statement, I begin to wonder how the developers would know they need to add the roles, states, and properties. More importantly, I wonder where the values have been documented and what they are defined to be.

With even a little industry experience under our belts, we know that if something is not defined and documented, developers sometimes move forward with their own definitions. And yes, sometimes they push back saying they do not have all the information they need to code efficiently. Not every developer just makes stuff up to move the code downstream.

Further contemplation makes me think about the journey analyst (some companies call this business analyst or agile story coach.) What expectations does this client have on their JA? Did they realize this information is missing as they wrote the Jira story or captured the requirements. Are they empowered to push back on the designer to define it. Does the client define a RACI to this level of detail?

This leads us to some insights:

  1. Informed teams have established roles that define who is responsible for which task. In this case, the user experience designer should be specifying these details in their wireframe annotations and design leaders should be ensuring that these details are present and appropriate prior to Design Review. For those with component libraries, this information should be clearly defined in the component’s supporting documentation.
  2. Successful organizations have checks and balances: Everyone in the work stream double checks the work from the previous step in the process. If anything is not meeting standards or is out of spec, the work is returned to the step in which the error occurred for repair. This is possible in large part because everyone in the team understands everyone’s roles and responsibilities. This knowledge allows them to immediately know the right person to correct the problem. This is not only more efficient, it helps to ensure the whole team’s success while building stronger teams.
    • NOTE: Want to see this in action? Watch your favorite big chain coffee store’s team in action the next time you’re waiting for a delicious coffee beverage. Everyone understands each position’s contribution and the importance of proactively chipping in to keep the whole thing moving along effectively.
  3. Team members must be empowered and encouraged to speak up in the moment. When they see something is missing or not quite right, they speak up. They understand the savings in time and effort if problems are rectified as soon as possible. In this case, the issue could have been prevented by the Design Leader or an Accessibility Subject Matter Expert (SME) during the design phase. It could have been caught by the journey analyst in their effort to ensure that the developer has all the information they need to successfully code. The developer could have pushed back to inform everyone earlier in the stream that this information was missing. The tester could have caught this issue when they were working on their test script and reviewed the wireframes. There were several opportunities for this issue to be prevented from moving into production.
  4. Mature accessibility testing should have been able to identify this issue prior to production where it would be less expensive to repair than an issue found in production.
  5. The level of risk (and cost, too) is compounded when process failures are considered in addition to the WCAG violation.

What Could We Do with These Insights?

There is a lot of “meat” here to generate improvements, efficiencies, and strong methodologies. Work efficiently, but also take time to employee design thinking tactics to understand your issues and possible solutions. (In the end, this actually improves efficiency.) Plan strategically to sequence process changes and adjustments so that they are both measured (for ease of adoption by your teams) and prioritized (to bring your organization the most value at the earliest opportunity.)

Some considerations:

  • Use trends in your data to tackle your issues based on quantity, ease of repair, or ability to repair.
  • Build role matrixes to ensure that all the needed bits are identified and assigned to a role. In this case, Role/Name/Value should be documented by a user experience designer. The Design leader should have the assignment to ensure its presence and accuracy.
  • Ensure that all team members understand the contributions–and the importance of those contributions–for the roles and activities that precede them. Ensure they understand the importance of their contributions to those that follow them in the process.
  • Empower your team members to understand the value of taking a moment to fix something when it’s in front of them as compared to the effort and cost if those issues come back sometime later as tickets or defects.
  • Help your teams to understand the value of cross-checking work and that pointing out flaws or issues is a good thing. Complaints are a gift if they happen early enough. (There are any number of books on the subject of complaints as a good data resource; I encourage you to look these up later..)
  • Ensure that your SDLC processes are analyzing and testing accessibility at each stage of the process and often within the various stages.
  • Use agile retrospectives to examine defect trends and actively work at finding root cause solutions that will ensure no mistakes of that type are made in the future.
  • Look for micro-education moments that will help prevent these issues . Create the materials and showcase them in lunch-n-learns, on your accessibility program portal or intranet site, in newsletters, and/or with your learning management tool. In this case, create training for all roles on what Name/Role/Value is, how it should be documented, coding standards, and how it should be tested.
  • For those just starting their accessibility program, lean into defect remediation by having your teams focus first on clearing blockers and critical errors. As your sprints or epics proceed, keep adding additional defect levels until all net-new code is free of any accessibility issues. Then have your teams prioritize clearing the accessibility-related technical debt in your product (end-to-end) until testing is showing no issues.

Why I Love This Approach for Solving Design Problems at Scale

Any team and any team member can look at a defect and quickly come up with a long list of potential improvements. But chasing all of the possible options is time-consuming and ineffective. The key is to keep asking questions to get to the root of the problem. (If you recall, we highlighted the Fish Bone technique a few blogs ago.) When a problem is well-defined, it’s easier (and faster) to find the right solution. 

Let’s return to the client problem where half their issues were related to Name/Role/Value. I hope you are seeing that I am using this issue as an allegory to help you understand that, as you hash this problem out, you begin to see that the problem goes deeper than role definition. There are team dynamics issues and there’s a cultural problem of allowing poorly-documented wire frames to be built.

Everyone is racing to get this coded and into production. I get it. Trust me, I have been there. But, if you don’t build this well from the start and build the journey so the user doesn’t have issues, you will be back fixing the screens when it doesn’t deliver value to the user or the business.
For me as a strategist and service designer, fixing operational mechanics and process efficiencies is more important to your overall operations than almost anything else. Addressing these can compound the positive benefits that root cause solutions can deliver. Don’t just fix the bug. Learn to fix things in a way that solves problems at scale.

Before we leave, let’s tell you the happy ever after…In the case of this story, the team was able to quickly resolve half of their known issues within a single sprint and they identified who is responsible to initially document Name/Role/Value. They are actively working on team building to ensure everyone feels empowered to point out issues knowing that they actually reduce work in the long run. Well done team!

Matthew Luken

Matthew Luken

Matthew Luken is a Senior Vice President and Chief Architect at Deque, consulting with companies of all sizes, markets, and industries to grow their digital accessibility programs. Matthew also provides thought leadership to advance the profession and practice of digital accessibility and mature and maximize operations, processes, and outcomes. Prior to Deque, Matthew built and ran U.S. Bank’s digital accessibility program, providing accessibility design reviews, compliance testing services, defect remediation consulting, and more. The program leveraged over 1,500 implementations of Deque’s Axe Auditor and nearly 4,000 implementations of Axe DevTools and Deque University. Matthew also served as Head of UXDesign’s Accessibility Center of Practice, where he was responsible for supporting the digital accessibility team’s mission. As a digital accessibility, user experience, and service design expert, Matthew has worked with over 500 brands, covering every vertical and market. He also actively mentors digital designers and accessibility professionals.

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Tags:  accessibility ux design ,  accessible design ,  agile accessibility ,  usability testing

A 3-Part Series on the digital accessibility of the housing process experienced by people with disabilities.

In this 3-part series, we will look at the challenges and rewards of the entire experience surrounding the process of acquiring housing for people who live with a disability. 

We will look at:

  1. Buying an existing home
  2. Leasing an apartment or home
  3. Building a new home

All three options have some similarities and many differences. We will recap the 3-part blog series with a webinar, where Matthew Luken and I (Patrick Sturdivant) will have a conversation about my firsthand experience with all three scenarios, and can answer any questions about the process. You can register for the webinar here.

Who is this blog posting for?

We hope that anyone interested in digital accessibility will find this series of value, but more specifically, the blog applies directly to the following groups.

  • Business professionals in the housing industry working with customers or providing platforms to support home ownership.
  • Technology professionals focusing on the apps, websites, and electronic document resources that drive the entire process from locating, financing, closing, and moving to making the process work efficiently for people of all abilities.
  • Digital Accessibility program leaders looking for opportunities to improve their organization’s overall experience for people interested in buying or leasing a home.
  • People living with a disability that are interested in participating in the process to own or lease a home.

Part 3: Building a Home “Tailor-Made to Suit Your Needs”

This last piece in our 3-part blog series focuses on my experience building my second custom home. If you’re interested in learning about the experience of buying a home and leasing an apartment or home, check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this blog series.

In 1993, I went down a similar path to build my first home. Here’s what was different back then:

  • The economy was still in a building-bust phase where there was insufficient work for builders.
  • Interest rates were high relative to today’s market.
  • I set out on the first build with the support of my parents.

Here’s what both builds have in common:

  • I purchased the land before the build.
  • I used AutoCAD to assist in the design process.
  • I used the same builder.
  • The home’s exterior style is very similar in design and materials.
  • Lifestyle requirements drove the size and layout of both homes.

Background:

I am writing this blog posting because of COVID. So many things in my life have developed or changed due to COVID. About five years ago, I seriously thought about building a new home but felt it would be impossible given that I would be doing it solo since my parents have passed and I don’t have a partner to share in the joy (and work) of home building. I put the idea on the back burner, and then COVID came.

COVID changed everything, giving me a new perspective on life. Working from home was a new reality that I grew to appreciate. It meant I didn’t have to live near the office and that in the future, I would want a house that met my new requirements for enjoying living and working from the same location. Working from home gave me the freedom to pick where I could live, within reason, and motivated me to see a change in my future.

Personal Challenges:

For this blog posting, keep in mind the following:

  • I am blind (no light perception). This means I can’t see plans, product brochures, handwritten information, or sketches. Reviewing completed work with no vision is challenging but achievable, given different techniques.
  • I am very comfortable with all types of technology.
  • I come from a building/construction background.
  • I am very comfortable with math and numbers.
  • I have excellent spatial relationship skills.
  • I could see for the first 14 years of my life.
My advice for potential home builders: Never say never! You can’t be certain when everything will align, and you may find yourself in a similar situation as mine.
My advice for home building contractors and construction workers: Be open to the opportunity of interacting with someone with a disability looking to build their own home.

Objective:

Build a single-story, low-maintenance home that was as accessible as possible, allowing me to live there for at least the next thirty years. The house would have everything I wanted to live in until I was ready to give up homeownership and move into a true assisted living community 30 or more years into the future. The home would be on one level (unlike my first home) to future-proof my ability to get around all spaces. The house would be constructed with a completely wood-free exterior, leveraging stone, stucco, concrete and steel for its components. The days of rotten wood and painting were to go away. While not completely wheelchair accessible the home would have wide doorways and halls, ramps where needed, and roll-in showers for the future.

Why Build?

Custom building lets you get as close to your ideal home as possible. Custom building is not perfect, as nothing in life is perfect. Custom building is about compromise. Sometimes, it’s compromising for budget reasons but also compromising because you are forced to when something happens and it is too late to make a change. Be ready to compromise to fix problems.

Custom Building Formats:

When considering building a home, as opposed to buying one already constructed, you have a choice, depending on your interest in customization.

  1. Production Built: These homes are built to the builders’ specifications, based upon a predetermined set of stock floorplans and may allow you at the end to pick floors, counters, paint colors, and plumbing/lighting fixtures from a pre-set list of products. Not all builders allow for customization through interior finish choice, but many do. This format is the most economical, especially if you can find a builder that offers ADA compliant plans if you have that as a requirement.
  2. Semi-Custom: These homes allow you to customize the product more by moving walls, adding a room over the garage, and picking interior finishes, as well as potentially picking the lot in the neighborhood it will sit on. This option is suitable for people new to building and don’t want to take on the full responsibility of starting from nothing in the process. It blends the best of full custom with off-the-rack home building and provides some level of customization. For the first-time home buyer with a disability this is the best option if you don’t have, or desire to gain, construction experience. This format is also well suited to introducing ADA requirements that are more suited to your needs, as long as the builder is receptive to small changes that can be planned in advance.
  3. Full Custom: This form of building is what I engaged in during my first and current build. It allows you to start with your own dream and see it come fully to fruition. It also allows you to experience the entire construction process, which has its good and bad points. This can also be the most labor-intensive and stressful, as you start with a clean sheet of paper and have to make all the decisions yourself. It also requires working with a cadre of building professionals to make the reality come true. From architects, designers, land developers, engineers, bankers, lawyers, landscape architects, decorators, and building professionals, you will be engaging with a wide variety of people to make your dream home come true.
My advice to potential home builders: If you are new to construction and have a limited support network, start off by building a production home that allows you some personalization but is much more manageable. 
My advice to builders of production homes: Offer accessible websites to highlight your product offerings and have some, if not all, plans that have accessible features as increasingly more people appreciate a good product that accommodates people of all abilities. Make sure your website meets the internationally recognized standard Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA compliance and ensure any PDF-based materials you offer are also accessible.

Selecting a Location:

We already covered this topic in the first and second blog postings, so I won’t repeat myself but will add that full custom home development typically is in a neighborhood where other custom homes are being constructed but it can also occur on larger tracts of land in more rural areas. Your builder can help guide you in the lot selection process. A real estate professional can also help if you are already working with one. I highly recommend that you do not purchase a lot unless a qualified builder has reviewed it and said your general concept is compatible with the property. A professional builder will warn you about the budget challenges you face when building on different types of lots as they vary depending on the topography of each individual lot. The size of the home you want to build, along with other outdoor structures, will also dictate the size of the lot you need. In my case, I wanted a one-story home, a pool, and a front courtyard garden. This dictated the size of the lot I needed and the amount of slope the lot could have. I knew what the house should look like for the most part; adding in the other outdoor elements dictated the size requirements. You can also approach this in the opposite direction by picking the lot and designing the house to fit the space. It is always best to have an idea of what you want to build before lot selection.

My advice to potential home builders: Don’t purchase land that is not developed, doesn’t have completed streets and utilities, no matter the price. Get a second opinion and ensure your friends and family members weigh in on your selection.
My advice to large developers of residential neighborhoods: Ensure your website and PDF-based brochures and contracts are accessible. Having a ramp to the office door for the sales office is nice, but don’t forget the digital accessibility of your public-facing digital assets.

Accessible Design and Computer Aided Design (CAD) Software

Working with a Designer:

There are many ways to design a home, and no one way is perfect. You can purchase pre-developed plans off the internet, or you can start from a blank piece of paper and an architect or a home designer to work with you and make a unique plan that meets your needs. Many builders offer design services, or you can work with an architect or designer independently before finding a builder. This is the route I went down. I had plans in hand before approaching builders. There is no wrong way to go about it. I do think I would use an architect over a designer due to aspects of my disability, the need to be very detail-oriented, and the need to be able to speak about terms and concepts in a way a blind person can understand.

The key is finding an architect or designer that has experience working with someone with a disability. This was not easy to find, and even harder during the peak of the pandemic, when I had to do the initial design work over Zoom calls. I’d recommend interviewing different professionals and ensure you are upfront with your disability and the challenges posed. In my case, the challenge would be seeing what they drew. Make sure you go to the designer with a requirements list for rooms, rough estimates of sizes, and specific features the home needs to have. Make a list of special features required to make the home accessible to your particular disability. If you are a wheelchair user and desire a two-story home, an elevator system will be a requirement. Ramps are often necessary for wheelchair users, but as a blind person, I really appreciate them too. I normally don’t use a cane indoors or outside when on my property. My home was designed with no steps, so I can come and go without worrying about finding and using stairs. It’s a bit of a challenge when you live on a hill, but my landscape architect and the designer were able to make it happen, and I have a lovely eight-foot-wide ramp sidewalk that leads to the front door.

I am comfortable with using AutoCAD and scripting commands. Using AutoCAD is a very technical skill, similar to programming. Developing the plans for my house was backward from the standard processes. You usually give the designer the list of requirements, and from there, they develop concepts to show you. Since I can’t see these types of concepts when they’re drawn, unless a labor intensive process is executed to build a 3D model, it’s easier to take my ideas in my head and draw them out on AutoCAD, allowing me to show my representation of the layout on paper or PDF for what I wanted the house to look like. The designer would review and we would discuss concerns and challenges. They would propose other ideas and solutions, then back to the AutoCAD drawing board I would go to rework my design. We would iterate on this until we finally got a rough design I was happy with, and the designer said was workable, and then it was turned over to them to develop the final set of plans. We did a 3D model of the final design concept that was used to make small tweaks which was a big help with solidifying the design.

My advice to potential home builders: Find an architect or design professional that’s comfortable working with you. Discuss in advance the need for additional time required to communicate the design so you get what you want and plan a strategy for how you will consume the design if you can’t see it.
My advice to computer aided design software professionals: Work to make computer aided design software as WCAG compliant as possible and provide keyboard alternatives for non-mouse users.

The Builder:

Finding a builder is a lot like finding an architect or a designer to work with. They have to be comfortable and willing to work with someone who does things differently. Pick your builder carefully because in the custom home building business it is a long-term relationship that averages a year or more. There were three months of bidding for the job and contracting, fifteen months of construction, and another one to two months of adjustment and warranty work once I moved in. Your builder should recognize and understand your needs and be willing to be flexible to accommodate your needs. For me, that meant understanding that I can’t see pictures and PDFs that are not accessible. I will have problems with reading, transportation is always a challenge, and any problem solving requires a job site visit to get my hands on the issue in order to discuss. Builders should also understand that they may need to spend more time working with you on selections and solving problems, as it was for me since being blind means these types of things are done differently. Time spent reviewing plans even after initially signing off from the designer is one area I should have been more assertive on in order to avoid some of the problems I encountered, but like anything, everyone is always under pressure for time and this did not get as much attention as needed.

Spend the time to have a conversation with your builder on who is responsible for what activities. Who is responsible for picking up products, reviewing work, and making decisions? How will changes be handled and what’s the process for payment of over-budget items? The more time you spend picking out specific items – make sure to include brand,model number or style –  and getting them written into the contract before you sign off on them, the better off you will be.

Selection Challenges:

When building a fully customized home, selection is the name of the game. You have to pick everything, all the way down to the door handle, door style and paint color for the door. While a lot of selection work can be performed online, as long as the site is accessible, there are many cases when it is just easier for a person who is blind to go out and touch the products being selected. For me, this was important when picking tile and flooring. This is normally conducted at a showroom where you are hoping they have the particular product you want to see. Sometimes materials have to be ordered when the showroom doesn’t have a particular sample. Having friends and family that know your style and are good at describing things is necessary. If you are blind, I do recommend you have a decorator or trusted friend that is good with color to help with all color selections since changing color after it has been applied can get expensive. Selecting colors online is a good first attempt at the process but I do recommend actual samples to get a good read on the color before deciding to paint the entire interior a specific color. I found reading color reviews and watching YouTube videos on color selection very helpful, even though I cannot see.

My advice for potential home builders: Talk to your builder up front about all the potential accessibility issues that can come up. Most issues will be PDF based since you will be reviewing a lot of bids and signing off on changes and contracts that usually are in some form of a PDF file. Electronic signature systems can also be another sticking point if they are not WCAG compliant.

The Construction Process:

Construction is a very slow process that takes time, no way around that. You will meet a lot of people during the process and yes, you may be of interest since most construction workers are not used to a disabled customer visiting the job site. They may have a lot of questions, but might not want to ask you directly. In many cases, they may be scared to talk to you, preferring to go through the builder or a friend/family member that may be accompanying you. I don’t like it but this is the reality, at least in my case. The most popular question was always, “how will Patrick get home?”, if I was not with a friend or family member. Not everyone is used to the resourcefulness of people who live with disabilities. Plan on a language barrier too unless you speak more than one language as many of the trades people use English as a second language or may not speak English. Google translate can be your best friend at times.

Inspecting the Work:

During the building process, you will need to be on-site as much as possible to inspect work and catch problems before they get too far in the building process that they can’t be easily corrected. If you are blind, during construction is when the plans become reality and I can almost guarantee some form of miscommunication between architect, designer, or builder will occur and something will either get built, or not get built that, you did not expect and did not catch in the agreed upon plans. I got a gable I did not ask for and really couldn’t fix, a living room ceiling that was not sloped that was fixable for a “nominal” $2000 change fee, and a wall that was six inches too far over that I ended up finding and told the builder about but was completely ignored because it was already too far along in the process. My biggest frustration is not being able to see the plans and having to rely on others to read them for me to catch any problems. Getting people’s attention is hard too and finding someone trained in reading blueprints is not easy.

At first, you may visit the job site one or two times a week, but if you are like me and want to stay on top of things as they progress, you will end up visiting upwards of five to six times a week. Trust me, if a construction worker can find a way to ignore something, they will. It is your job to find the problems, point them out, and stay on top of them until resolved. Don’t expect your builder to always do the right thing as every additional dollar they have to spend fixing something is a dollar out of their bottom line. Expect somewhere during the building process to be taken advantage of. This is normal for anybody building a home and it can be much easier to take advantage of someone with a disability. You hate to have to say that people will take advantage of someone with a disability, but it is often a reality. It is real, and I have experienced it many times, which is why I have to enlist a host of friends, family and hired professional inspectors and engineers to work with me to ensure the project is being built to the requirements outlined in the contract.

My advice for potential home builders: Hire a trusted home inspector for at least three visits to be your eyes on the project and provide professional advice on the progress. This is in addition to the on-site engineer the builder should have to monitor foundation, framing and mechanical work being performed. Let professionals that you may hire know that you will need accessible and compliant PDF documents or alternative document formats, like Word, that are usable to you to be sent for their final reports. My home inspector report was completely inaccessible and I had to OCR (Optical Character Recognition) it to get the information contained.

Patrick and Scott in the living room of Patrick's new home during construction. Floors are concrete, dry wall is up, but not painted. Patrick is wearing his axe-con 2023 shirt and is looking sharp in his jeans and boots.

Home Building Challenges:

Communication:

Like any major project, communication is the key to success. You will be working with a large group of people to make your custom home a reality. Even if you delegate most of the construction management to the builder, you have to manage the builder relationship as well as the bank, if you are financing. You have many selections to make and have to sign off on things like color, style and quantity. Selections are something the builder will provide their opinion on, but they won’t be making the decisions. If you are not good with making a lot of decisions and writing a lot of checks, you might want to look at the semi-custom route for building a home. The biggest problem in the communication arena is the prevalence of inaccessible PDF documents and payment systems. Yes, the builder will be paying most of the bills but you are most likely going to want a change or to add something to the home that is not in the original contract that you will want to purchase and therefore will have to pay for. 

My biggest problem was when I wanted to add glass tile to the bathrooms which was not on the original contract. It should have been simple. The designer at the showroom helped me pick out the glass tile and place the order. Then came time to pay for it. Online payment wasn’t the problem. The form was pretty accessible until it came to signing. The form wanted me to sign with a mouse or my finger on a touchscreen. A royal pain that requires me to find a sighted person to scribble nonsense in a box just to make an automated system happy in order to make the payment go through and get the tile ordered. This happened several times.

Owning property has its advantages and disadvantages. When you own the property, you call the shots since the land is yours. When the builder owns the property, they are in total control since ownership of the completed property and any home improvements don’t become yours until after closing.. Technically, when the builder owns the property they can ask you not to set foot on the property unless you are supervised by them during designated times. When you own the property, you do have to do more work for that advantage of control. Many governmental processes fall on your shoulders to manage. Setting up accounts for utilities and dealing with a property or homeowners association also falls on your shoulders if you own. 

Both ways have their advantages and disadvantages but I prefer owning the land despite the extra work and headaches that can occur. I bring this subject up because as the owner of the property and entire project, you will be faced with a host of additional organizations you have to deal with which opens up many opportunities to discover inaccessible systems, such as PDF and online workflows that you have to deal with.

Some examples I encountered were yes/no buttons from my water company for electronic statements set up that couldn’t be operated by keyboard, a troublesome payment form that required a mouse for a simulated signature for trash service, and numerous inaccessible PDFs from my local government regarding tree ordinances. The good news was that my local city government has an accessibility department that helped me out, but they don’t control the electric or water company.

Transportation:

If you are disabled, transportation can be a hassle. Much less so now that we have rideshare. Nevertheless, it is an important thing to take into consideration and you may want to budget for it. I couldn’t be successful at building this house or with living where I am building without the technology behind rideshare. Make sure you have a plan to visit the job site regularly and ways to go to showrooms and building centers to make selections and purchase products. Friends and family are always your best first choice and some contractors are willing to come to you depending on the product and need, but you should always have a backup method to get to where you need to go for conducting the business of building a home since meeting timelines are critical throughout the process.

My advice for potential home builders: Plan for inaccessibility. Try to educate as much as possible, but don’t expect to fix it all. If you do, you may never get your house built.

Digital Accessibility and the Smart House:

When building a fully custom home, you have the opportunity to choose all the products and systems that go into it. This is good because it allows you to tailor the environment to your specific needs, ensuring as much as possible that the products are accessible. This can also be challenging since you will be responsible for the accessibility of each system, which can make the selection process time consuming, tedious and frustrating. Many manufacturers are clueless regarding the accessibility of their own products and unfortunately, most builders are also clueless to digital accessibility and will require you to select products and systems that are usable to you. 

Below is a list of just some of the products that warranted a decision I had to make for my new home where the accessibility of the product was in question. If the line item has “connected” listed next to it in parenthesis that means you can manage the item with an app on your phone. If it doesn’t, it means you can’t. In some cases when it came to very expensive items that were run by a touch screen system or app on your phone, I chose a less expensive product where the accessibility could be judged by standard controls. 

Climate and Security:

  •   Thermostats (connected)
  •   Electronic deadbolt locks
  •   Lighting controls (connected)
  •   Security system (connected)
  •   Security camera system (connected)
  •   Doorbell (connected)

Appliances:

  •   Refrigerator (connected)
  •   Wall oven (fixed touch panel)
  •   Cook top. (fixed touch panel)
  •   Microwave oven (fixed touch panel)
  •   Dish washer (fixed touch panel)

Entertainment and Convenience:

  •   Garage door openers (connected)
  •   Audio/video distribution systems (connected)
  •   Gas fireplace (connected)
  •   Pool equipment management system (connected)
  •   Irrigation controller (connected)
  •   Water softener (physical buttons)

The oven is one specific example of this. There was an option for a color touch screen version but I was told the app didn’t have all the functionality on it, requiring you to still use the control panel for some functions. With expensive items, I erred on the side of being conservative in selecting simpler solutions, until the day comes where all manufacturers are required to make products everyone can use. While the ability to find products with non-touch screen interfaces is still fairly easy, more and more product designers are moving in the other direction especially on more high-end products. A push needs to be made to ensure these products are accessible. My cooktop ordered in 2022 is about to be discontinued and replaced by an updated version with a dynamic touch-screen model that I can’t use. I had to make sure my unit was available as it still has fixed glass panel buttons that don’t change and can be labeled in Braille. Designers and manufacturers of any product that uses an electronic interface that include touch screens should ensure all people of all abilities can see it or that there’s an alternative accessible app on their phone so that full accessibility is provided.

As I finish up writing this posting I am attempting to create my online account for the app on my phone that will manage my swimming pool equipment. It’s not a good experience when you can’t even fill out the create account screen to get into the app but that is where I am at and I will need to get assistance to set up the account to include my password, so there goes security and accessibility for this app. Just another thing for me to work on in my limited spare time.

My advice for potential home builders: Start early in the product selection journey to locate accessible products for your new home. Don’t wait until you are in the building process to find them since there won’t be time and you will be forced to make decisions that may not result in the best experience.
My advice for manufacturers of home appliances, automation and audio/video equipment: Remember that your customers have varying abilities and your products should be designed to meet the needs of as many people as possible.

Important Things to Remember:

  • Compromise is the name of the game: Your home will not be perfect, I can almost guarantee it. Knowing how to compromise is key to a successful build and your sanity.
  • Have a Plan B: Things will happen. Always be flexible and have an alternative way to solve a problem. Just plan for it. If your favorite roof color is denied by your HOA, be ready with a second color you could compromise on to get the process moving.
  • Budget Concerns: I didn’t like hearing this but at the end of my build I have to say it is true. Take your construction cost and add 10% more for final completion. For some, this may be a large number. Given the current economy, it is true. At least in my experience. Remember to always have a plan B.
  • Be prepared: Having to answer questions about your disability is common because for many in the construction trade you are the first disabled person they may meet.

Conclusion:

At the beginning of the process, especially the design process, custom home building can be a lot of fun. During the initial construction, as the foundation and walls go up, there is a lot of enjoyment seeing your ideas become reality. What is also a reality is that the farther into the building process you get, the more problems will appear. By the end of the entire process, you will be worn out and you’ll probably just want time alone without a contractor asking you questions that require decisions or more money to be paid. 

Would I do it again if I could roll time back three years? 

Most likely. 

Will I custom build again in the future if I find myself needing to move again and buy another home. 

No. 

Would I do this all over again if I had the choice? 

More than likely. I would certainly give the thought of purchasing an existing home more of a chance before going down the path of custom building, but I would do it again. 

It has been a three year long journey from looking at property and getting my past home ready for sale (first year), to designing the home, purchasing the land and locating a builder (second year), all the way to the actual building process (third year), which at the time of writing this blog, will be about fourteen months total, not including the pending landscape work. 

The home building process is definitely a life experience and I am glad I am doing it now when I am still young and able to endure physical and mental stress. I got my perfect home for the most part and I look forward to the day when it is truly complete. I still have a lot of landscape work to complete that will take time, energy and of course money. I still have the move-in process to work through and look forward to being completely moved in, pictures hung and all boxes unpacked.

Digital accessibility is everywhere in life, including all aspects of the home building process. From construction professionals, to big box stores, to home construction product manufacturers, their websites, PDF documents, apps and touch interfaces. All need to be accessible to people of all abilities because all people should have the right to have a place to call home that they feel safe in and are able to live in comfortably.

I hope you enjoyed this three-part series on “Housing, It’s a Human Right”. Make sure to tune in for the webinar by registering below. I also welcome your comments, questions or requests for more detail on how I handled a specific piece of the home building process through the comment form below. 

Patrick sitting in a comfy chair in his living room next to the fireplace. The room is fully built, furnished, and decorated.Patrick in front of his newly built home sitting on a block of solid limestone called a butter stick in the front yard. The home is mostly complete but there is still some landscaping work in the front yard to be completed.

Patrick Sturdivant

Patrick Sturdivant

Patrick Sturdivant is Vice President and Principal Strategy Consultant at Deque Systems. Patrick has worked in information technology for over 30 years. An experienced software engineer who is blind, Patrick deeply understands the technical challenges our customers and the disabled community face when it comes to accessibility. Coupled with his testing, team building, training and DE&I strengths, Patrick is a consulting force to be reckoned with. For the last eleven years, Patrick has been dedicated to promoting digital inclusion for all through awareness and the benefits digital equality brings to all users by sharing his own personal story of leading a digital lifestyle using multiple screen readers on both desktop and tablet platforms. Patrick’s accomplishments include accessibility lab and disability employee resource group establishment experience, US Patent holder for several bank products designed for the blind and his ability to influence at all levels of an organization’s business and technical teams.

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Tags:  accessibility awareness ,  accessibility best practices ,  accessibility compliance ,  accessibility user experience