Accessibility and inclusion resources

Overview: The people we design for represent a multitude of abilities, cultures, genders, sexualities and faiths. We live and work across the globe, span the socioeconomic spectrum and educational backgrounds, have different family compositions, and speak dozens of different languages. Designing for our diversity is at once a tremendous privilege and one of the biggest responsibilities.

These are some key resources that I’ve developed with the teams I’ve been a part of based on experiences in healthcare, media, marketing, and retail, and building off the work of other industry experts.

I treat all guidelines as fluid documents, with the understanding that the team implementing them can evolve them according to people’s needs. They’re meant to be used in conjunction with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, as well as style guides that cater to the needs of your audience and the people you’re designing for.

Checklists for more inclusive UX design

Accessibility

Do
- Plan navigation and heading structure. Instead of text formatting with font
  size or bold, use H1, H2, etc. Consider top-to-bottom, left-to-right as the logical
  reading order for pages.
- Ensure any image, link or interactive control has alternative text (ALT text).
- Ensure link text is specific and descriptive. Example: “Subscribe to the newsletter,” not “Click here.” Provide additional emphasis with a change in color to offset link text from surrounding text, and underline.
- Make sure form controls have descriptive labels, instructions, confirmation, and
  error messages. Make sure required fields are clearly indicated and labeled.
- Avoid all caps, which screen readers sometimes read incorrectly.
- Use a contrast checker to ensure contrast ratios and font sizes are sufficient.
Design according to “POUR” principles. Ensure that designs are:
- Perceivable: Ensure people can interact with information and interface
  components by sight, hearing, and touch.
- Operable: Ensure people can interact with interact components using assistive
  technology.
- Understandable: Ensure that the content is easy-to-read and the interface
  communicates clearly and consistently.
- Robust: Ensure that content can be reliably read across different browsers and
  devices with assistive technologies.

Interaction

Make sure your design empowers someone to provide accurate information.
Use check boxes to let someone select more than one answer.
Provide “Other,” “I don’t know” and “decline to answer” options.
Better yet, create space for nuance! Provide input fields. Make them optional – sometimes people don’t feel comfortable identifying themselves in a specific way at all.

Representation

Make sure your images show different types of people.
Feature a diverse cast of characters. Include people of all different colors, sizes, ages, genders, ability, etc.
Show well-rounded stories.
Depict authentic backgrounds and traditions.

Language

Ensure language and information are accurate and up-to-date.
Allow for people to self-identify when possible.
If you must use identifying labels for people, take great care.
Use gender-neutral and other inclusive language.
Use plain language. Keep translation and localization needs in mind.
Design voice interfaces to support different ways of speaking.

Conversation guidelines for advancing accessibility and inclusion initiatives

Adapt these guidelines according to your team’s culture and communication needs. Consider getting together with people from different departments, and regularly bring together design, product, engineering, business and other stakeholders.

Learn from every interaction

People come to the conversation from their unique experiences. No one has all the answers on their own, but when we come together, we can unearth new insights that lead to better solutions.

As an example, my team and I kicked off cross-functional stakeholder presentations with a conversation starter: “Consider a time when you felt excluded by a product or service.” We used the same prompt every time, and always found new answers. People said they felt excluded when:

Traveling to another country because they couldn’t read the local signs
Signing a receipt because the device wasn’t made for someone who was left-handed
Using a voice interface that didn’t understand their accent
Ordering from a food menu that only had meat options – they were vegan

Surfacing issues presents an opportunity to address them, and surfacing seemingly unrelated issues can help us draw connections to generate more creative solutions around them.

Recognize where you’re coming from

We seek to serve people who directly use our products and services, as well as our broader communities. To effectively serve others, we need to be aware of our own points of view: What are the experiences and values that guide the decisions and judgments we make as individuals? That requires a close look at the biases we all have — and that’s hard.

It’s uncomfortable because it is, at its core, personal, and it’s a form of confrontation with oneself. It gets to the heart of who each and every one of us is, cuts across the multi-faceted identities that shape the way we see and experience the world and each other. But this tension needn’t be a bad thing.

Having the courage to see our unconscious bias and prejudices, then talk about it and challenge our assumptions, actually brings us closer together. It helps bridge the gaps between us, and reach mutual understanding.

Identify what’s working well

It’s crucial to call out new opportunities for improvement. It’s also important to identify what’s working well. There’s a lot of existing knowledge and expertise to implement and build on. To tap that potential, create the space to share those ideas and practices across teams and individuals.

Be intentional about breaking down silos. Build in time to talk. Make a point to share things you might take for granted. What comes naturally to you in your day-to-day work could be revelatory for someone else and benefit their practice.

In cross-functional team meetings, consider sharing about:

Accessibility initiatives
Content guidelines that lead to more inclusive language and design
Research recruiting best practices that broaden datasets
Engineering testing efforts that help ensure tech products are accessible according to WCAG standards

Starting conversations can get teams on the same page about what efforts are in the works, and enable better collaboration. There’s such a long way to go in creating a safer world that fosters true belonging, but we can get there faster when we learn from each other and work together.