The Vital Role of Persons With Disabilities In the SDLC

Technology constantly shapes and reshapes our lives. Innovations in the digital realm can range from minor improvements that make experiences more pleasant to sea change experiences, where apps enable something completely new. Think, for example, about any app that allows you to do something remotely that previously would have required you to physically go somewhere to do it: a bank app that enables remote check deposits or a mobile video app. For some, particularly those with disabilities, remote options are the only viable options, not just conveniences or nice-to-haves.

Many apps don’t provide the same experiences for persons with disabilities (PWD) as they do for those without disabilities. Why is this so common? The primary reason is lack of exposure to – and by association – empathy for persons with disabilities by app designers and engineers. In addition, many software development teams traditionally lack PWD on their teams. This is a major weakness that leading teams have attempted to address in recent years, but there’s still a long way to go.

In this blog, I touch on this lack of collaboration that many development teams have with PWD and how enlisting them to assist within your software development lifecycle (SLDC) is not only a game-changer, but a requisite for any digital organization that truly wants to succeed in the long term. It leads to empathy and a better experience for all. I also cover a real use case of what can be learned by a development team in an empathy session using an Applause tester with low vision.

Moving beyond legal considerations

As I mentioned in a previous blog, Anatomy of a Streaming Media Company Pilot, there’s a lot more at stake around accessibility in digital product development than legal issues; that is, moving beyond simply addressing WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). For some organizations who lag in accessibility efforts, targeting WCAG AA or even A is critical. However, WCAG compliance does not necessarily mean that the experiences you provide on your digital properties work as well as they should for PWD. Even falling short of the endless potential to provide stellar experiences for all, the user experience on WCAG-compliant apps can still provide challenges for PWD.

For example, one of our Applause low-vision testers, shared how he uses screen magnification and a consistent issue he encounters. When working within various applications with forms, it’s standard to save progress or go to the next screen by clicking on a button, typically located at the bottom right of the screen in English language applications. For low-vision users that leverage screen magnification, this means moving to the right of the screen, then scrolling to the bottom of the page to find the button. Depending on the magnification used, this can require substantial additional effort, particularly when working on an iterative task over a period of hours. In this case, the tester wonders, why couldn’t the button be located over to the left? Or, perhaps the innovative engineer in this scenario, as an equalizing force to the movement of screen elements under various degrees of magnification, designs an interface that gracefully reflows when magnified.

Of course, these innovations not only help the permanent low-vision user, but anyone who is temporarily in need of working within a magnified screen environment, or for any other reason prefers to magnify the screen. Here it’s clear: design and develop with people with disabilities instead of for people with disabilities. The concept of “nothing about us without us” rings true.

Customizing the experience with persons with disabilities

By working closely with those who navigate digital challenges daily, developers gain a deeper, more personal understanding of the diverse needs and experiences of users. This empathy translates into more thoughtful, inclusive design choices.

When Applause works with companies around accessibility efforts and involves PWD, we try to find where the project is going to have the most impact and drive the most value. That looks different depending on who we are working with. Meaning, our customers have different maturity levels, varying strategic priorities, staff limitations and many more individual factors, and all of that plays into how we set up the engagement.

I’ve found that this customization is really key for our customers. We’re providing relationships, interactions and experiences that companies typically don’t have access to. For example, we may do an accessibility evaluation and find bugs. We might take the bug information and enhance it by gaining the perspective of an actual PWD going through the flow, giving the client additional information to digest.

An empathy session with a large global enterprise

Applause has seen great results with our clients through running empathy sessions. In these sessions, we typically have one of our testers with a disability share personal digital experiences. Designers and engineers see firsthand how well their applications work, and where they create difficulty for the user. Here’s an example of an empathy session, again, using a tester with low vision. And, to clarify, these sessions are not about solving a particular problem, but rather to impart new knowledge and, as the name indicates, build empathy among a team.

In a case of a large global online marketplace, I collaborated with one of our low-vision testers; we’ll call her Susan. The objective was to expose the design and engineering teams to a day in Susan’s life and to dissolve any rigid focus on compliance or bugs, and make her experiences real for the attendees.

How do we do this? We discuss Susan’s:

• Disability – We talk about low vision and its cause, in this case, macular degeneration, and what it means to Susan. We also cover medical models of visual impairment. For example, we show an image that depicts the visual spectrum of 20/20 vision to 20/200 vision. Or, color blindness, covering normal color vision and the three types of color blindness: deutan, protan and achromatopsia color blindness.

• Primary assistive technology – But beyond a user’s technical medical diagnosis, which we never know and would rarely ever benefit from knowing, we convey what works for Susan. Sometimes what works best for someone doesn’t fit our expectations – large fonts actually slow Susan down, and she relies purely on built-in magnification for speed and ergonomics.

• Occupation – It’s not uncommon that persons with disabilities are thought to be limited in ways that extend beyond the specific disability, for example, career and personal pursuits. We share that Susan is a research ops test engineer with Applause. She’s smart, qualified, adept and much more.

• Hobbies – Again, illustrating that Susan is no different from the participants in the session, and like them, is complex, with varying interests such as yoga, running, scuba diving and adventuring.

We also discuss the medical vs. social model of disability. This can be quite a complex topic if we choose to make it so, but for purposes of most empathy sessions, we simplify it to a discussion around the main difference in the models:

• Medical model – where disability is a specific diagnosis based on a specific trait, and is a limitation inherent to an individual.

• Social model – where disabilities occur when individual requirements and abilities don’t align. Disabilities are impermanent and fluctuate based on a person’s environment. We also discuss the ubiquity of a social assumption that individuals must have particular traits or abilities to participate in certain environments. As product builders, the social model puts the onus on us to not put barriers in people’s way.

Feedback on the shopping experience with a low-vision shopper

After we’ve established some of the foundational topics around Susan’s disability and given a glimpse into her life, we move into her experience of shopping. To begin with, we explain that Susan works all day using magnification on a large desktop screen. Doing this is tiring, as this accommodation strategy means she is physically moving her upper body/head/neck around the screen to see the different screen elements. So, when it comes time for her to do recreational activities like online shopping, she uses her mobile phone. In this case, bigger definitely doesn’t mean better when it comes to the user experience.

We capture what Susan sees and her mobile experiences shopping on their site. For example, we call out Follow Focus and Smart Typing phone features in a video, and show how Smart Typing works well for Susan. We show the many points of interest and the related complexity spread across a desktop UI, where, on the other hand, mobile apps have a single column format. The single format means more scrolling of course, but wayfinding is much easier. We stress the importance of being able to change the view layout, and when doing so, how certain text is cut off. The experience is a blend of showing things that work well and areas for improvement.

Another example of work we did for a client concerned the UX of a CAPTCHA solution. Part of this involved exploring text alternatives. We set out to discover:

• how easy is was to solve the visual challenge for a low vision user,

• if it was clear what alternatives were available to the visual challenge,

• the overall user’s experience with the text challenge,

• if the user has encountered these types of interactions elsewhere on the web, and if so, how these compare.

When it comes to understanding the PWD experience, one size does not fit all

There certainly is a place for usability studies with larger groups of users. We regularly do them and they serve a very important purpose. But those studies are not the same as the experience of having a design or engineering team follow along first hand what a person with a disability experiences when she uses their app. In my work, I’ve witnessed significant transformation in the way people think about their work and execute it after having direct experience working with persons with disabilities. With the goal of creating awareness, empathy and broader, more comprehensive thinking, I’ve seen significant creativity and innovation on teams after empathy sessions.

You must leverage the insights of PWD within your UI and customer journey because most designers and developers haven’t benefited from personal opportunities to learn with these specific differences. A developer may have lived experience around what it’s like to use a mobile phone, but they have no idea what it’s like to navigate the experience with low vision, limited dexterity or perhaps other disabilities. These experiences are poignant and enable real changes due to interaction with real people.

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