The UX of Accessible Technology Benefits Everybody
By Erica Ellis, Senior UX Designer and Researcher
Everything you love has roots in accessible technology. Well, maybe not quite everything, but it has completely changed how you interact with the world. I wasn’t aware of the history of the UX of accessible technology, or UX (user experience) at all for that matter, when it changed my life, but I can tell you the exact moment it did.
My great grandmother was deaf. She lost her hearing when she was in her 50s and had to relearn how to interact with the world around her without sound. She never let this disability get in her way. Though she never learned sign language, she was able to understand others by reading lips. Her doorbell was hooked up to a lamp that would flash when someone rang it. Another light was triggered when there was an especially loud noise, and another for when her phone rang.
I remember my excitement when we finally got a TDD (telecommunications device for the deaf) and I could call my great grandma at any time. Not only did this technology give the deaf more independence, it also gave the hearing people in their lives more independence. Previously, we had to rely on a relay service with an operator translating the TDD conversation.
This TDD machine required putting the telephone handset into a receiver that would display the conversation on a one-line screen. We had to read fast — she was quite the typist! To communicate quickly while typing, she used shorthand responses. Since there were no visuals differentiating who was talking, the initials GA would be tacked on at the end of your burst of communication. This let the receiver know they could Go Ahead and respond. A few other commonly used abbreviations may be more familiar: BRB (be right back), PLS (please), and THX (thanks).
Familiar Things from Accessibility
Abbreviations aren’t the only thing we commonly use today that have roots in accessibility and its technology. While it may not always be easy to determine which bit of advancement came first — the push for accessibility, or the general product enhancement — the gains made are beneficial to everyone.
The Football Huddle
Paul Hubbard, a football quarterback at Gallaudet University, a university for the deaf and hard of hearing, created the first huddle in 1892. His team formed a circle to keep their opponents, often other schools for the deaf, from seeing what plays they were calling. The huddle has been widely adopted by American Football and many other sports.
Audiobooks & Vinyl Records
In 1932, the American Foundation for the Blind licensed the technology for long-playing (LP) records. At the time, the audio quality for LPs wasn’t satisfactory for the music industry, but worked just fine for audiobooks, giving those with vision impairments much wider access to media. As technology improved, LPs became ubiquitous in the music industry and still fuel many vinyl record collections.
Instant Messenger
The TDD that I used with my great grandmother was developed in the 1960s, the same decade the first type of instant messaging was created on multi-user operating systems. Not only did this technology drastically improve the deaf community’s ability to communicate, but it has also transformed the way the entire world communicates. Just look how text messaging has overtaken phone calls.
Virtual Assistants
Language, through audible communication, is our oldest form of interface. For those who can’t easily interact with a graphical user interface (GUI), controlling technology through voice user interface (VUI) is revolutionary. Far from originating with virtual assistants like Siri or Google Assistant, the history of speech synthesis goes back to the 1930s. Now, however, we have consumer access to this technology, and through integrations with powerful APIs (application programming interfaces) it’s capable of doing day-to-day tasks for us. This has opened the world of technology to new users and has clear benefits for everyone.
Think about the advancements above — how many of them have you used? It’s likely that you use at least one of them on a daily basis, and this is a very short list.
Ability is a Spectrum
According to the World Health Organization’s report on disabilities, around 15% or ⅙ of the global population lives with a permanent disability — 2–4% of whom have significant difficulty functioning. In the United States, ambulatory and mobility disabilities are the most common disabilities, followed by cognitive, hearing, and then vision. But when we shift our perspective away from only permanent disabilities, those numbers grow exponentially.
Disabilities will impact all of us — even if they’re simple, temporary, or even situational. Think about a parent holding their baby and trying to order a new batch of diapers on their phone when they can only use one hand. The person who just had their eyes dilated and needs to order a car-share ride home. Or the person driving cross country with little to no internet connection, but still relies on maps navigation. Ability is truly a spectrum.
Shifting the Design Perspective
What is accessible design? What could happen if we considered a more holistic idea of when and how our products might be used? I like this explanation, from Dennis Deacon, “Inclusive Design is the consideration of all users, with varying levels of ability, following accessibility guidance and best practices upfront and throughout the lifecycle of a project or product.” Accessibility is the foundation of how you build and design a product.
In true UX best practices, accessibility is a part of the conversation from the very beginning and is considered at every decision. Inclusive design should be an approach that moves away from accidental benefits to specific and purposefully designed services and products that enable all users. There is another aspect to inclusive design not included in this definition, beyond accessibility, where you need to consider cultural and social implications, but that’s for another blog post!
Whether you’re watching football, holding a child, or getting a recipe from your virtual assistant, remember that these innovations made our world more inclusive. These advancements have changed my life and yours. However, the conversation is still focused on how we build products for people with disabilities. It’s time for a shift in perspective. It’s time to stop thinking of people as being disabled and catering to them and their particular needs. The need to make something accessible is a problem with the product, not the person. How can we switch the narrative? How can we design products that don’t disable people?
We’ve begun this discussion at Workday. We’re changing how we communicate about and educate about accessibility. Our first steps are including accessibility design guidelines in our Workday Canvas Design System and building an empathy lab at our headquarters. We still have a long way to go for the UX of accessible technology to be at the center of our design practice, but we’re moving the needle. How have you built accessibility and inclusivity into your design process? How have you changed the way people think about solving these problems? Let’s keep this conversation going together!
