More than 1 billion people around the world have a disability and are underserved by today’s digital products. Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), observed every year on May 16, aims to remind us of this fact and get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital access and inclusion.
By implementing inclusive design, companies can increase revenue, reduce costs, improve resiliency, and build trust with customers and employees. To successfully implement inclusive design, research practice must also be inclusive.
This is particularly important for disability inclusion. Many companies are tempted to use stopgap solutions to comply with digital accessibility requirements and skip surveys aimed at people with disabilities. According to a recent Forrester study, only 29% of companies in North America collect feedback from people with disabilities about their products.
including people with disabilities
Conducting research with diverse participants is essential to inclusive research practices, which requires inclusive recruitment.
By using comprehensive screening questions, you can reach a diverse range of participants, including people with disabilities. If you ask participants whether they have a disability, explain why you are asking this question (e.g. “To better understand our customers”) and whether you use assistive technology to facilitate your design. Don’t forget to ask. Please conduct your research study accordingly.
For example, ensure that the tools you use to conduct your research are accessible, such as the Experience Research Platform. Some of our customers partner with organizations like Fable and Knowbility to access panels of people with disabilities for research.
Successful companies that focus on inclusive design also monitor participant demographics to ensure they are reaching a diverse group of participants. To do this, start by auditing past studies to see who has participated in research and who is missing.
practicing empathy
To build empathy with your customers, don’t just imagine what their experience is like, engage them throughout the design process. Empathy tools like personas and empathy maps can help you understand your customers, but without proper research, these tools are built on assumptions.
This is why empathy workshops, where employees pretend to have a disability (such as wearing blindfolds) and use the company’s product as a way to understand the experiences of customers with disabilities, don’t work. Participants often leave the workshop feeling negative about the difficulty, without realizing that it is simply due to their own lack of experience using assistive technology.
To understand the experience of customers with disabilities from their perspective, engage with them, observe their interactions with your products, and focus on solutions that improve their experience.
employee feedback
Employees know your company’s values, products, and customers, and their feedback is important to improving the customer experience. Incorporating employee feedback to create an accessible experience not only improves your product, but also shows that you recognize the value of their ideas.
It also raises awareness by demonstrating that inclusion is a core value of the company. Seeking feedback from employees, especially those with disabilities, can help identify accessibility issues early in the product development process. Employee resource groups are a great place to start.
The original post was Forester
