Learning Accessibility: Our Collective Journey
Mastering accessibility begins with acknowledging how much there is to grow and learn. In this article, we share how weâre fostering an accessibility-first mindset at Connected. From scope to discovery to delivery and beyond.
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At Connected, our mission is to build better products. That means thereâs always room for improvement, always room to grow and learn. Nowhere is our pursuit of better more clear than in the field of accessibility. As product thinkers, builders, and learners, here are some of the lessons weâve learned so far. (You can also browse our Accessibility Archives here.)
The accessibility gap
According to the World Health Organization, 15% of the worldâs population (or 1 in 7 people) has challenges with basic tasks and interactions. That includes people with disabilities, age-related conditions, low literacy, and low tech literacy. Yet according to a recent Deque report, âaccessibility received the lowest level of internal attention during the pandemic compared to other key aspects of⦠digital services.â
Bridging the accessibility gap is something weâre committed to learningâand doingâmore about. Transparently, we admit weâre guilty of not doing this enough at Connected. Motivated by a recent company discussion to look inward as to where each of us can be doing more, we hope that acknowledging our own gaps publicly (right here!) will keep us accountable and help us bridge them. By continuing to foster internal discussions, we aim to ensure that Connectors can learn from each other, share their experiences and knowledge, and promote awareness of how each and every role can have an impact on our accessibility practice.
Better means better for everyone
There are many kinds of disability, from temporary to situational to permanent. To build accessible products, it has been important to us to understand the ways in which they might be used by these different groups. The bottom line for Connected is: better products means better for everyone. We hope this rings true for the Product community.Â
Thereâs also an important distinction between accessibility and usability. According to the accessibility platform Fable, we learned that âweb accessibility relates to people with disabilities being able to equally perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with web content. [Whereas] usability [relates] to a user experience being effective, efficient, and satisfying.â Our goal and commitment is to deliver both.
Accessibility from end to end
Accessibility touches every part of the product development lifecycle and every role within product development. Here are some practices weâre hoping to incorporate into our practice to foster an accessibility-first mindset:
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Scoping:Â
Discovery:Â
Delivery:
The learner mindset
Beyond specific accessibility practices, we aim to cultivate what we call a âlearner mindset.â We hope to foster a spirit of openness, curiosity, and dialogue and to collectively acknowledge that there's always room to improve, to learn, and to grow.Â
As we continue to learn how to deliver more accessible products, itâs important for us to embrace and foster within our teams:
At Connected, weâre striving to have an open and ongoing dialogue about how we can build more accessible and inclusive connected devices. We look forward to sharing our journey of learning, growing, and improving. We hope youâll join our commitment to building and advocating for better, more accessible products.
Thank you Mackenzie Dysart and Karalyn DaRosa for leading this important discussion and for inspiring our continued #accessibilityfirst journey at Connected!