8200 lawsuits*. Over double what was filed ten years ago. That is the number of ADA lawsuits filed in 2023 by people with disabilities who were discriminated against. Over 90 % of these cases are won by the plaintiff.** That’s…
There is no accessibility ‘quick fix’ Good accessibility requires systemic culture change
There is no accessibility fairy. No tool will make a website WCAG compliant with only one line of code changed (and a monthly payment, indefinitely of course) On multiple occasions, I’ve had salespeople ask me for one of those “completed…
Accessibility bugs are a GOOD thing. It means that someone got far enough along in your product to find a bug, cared enough to report it and will continue using your product more easily after it is fixed
Most people think product bugs are a bad thing. In the area of accessibility, that is frequently not the case. The key is how the company responds to the bug: 1) Make it easy for the bug to be reported…
There is a reason W3C and WCAG don’t mention disability in any of their standards. All product accessibility efforts must focus on assistive technology, and not the medical conditions people with disabilities have
People with vision loss can use magnification, screen readers, or the combination of the two. People with dexterity issues might use a mouse, keyboard, or alternative keyboard. You can’t tell anything from a person’s diagnosis about how they will interact…
Vicarious Discrimination Contributes to the High Rate of Burnout in the Accessibility Professionals’ Field.
Have you heard the phrase vicarious discrimination before? Vicarious discrimination is when you witness either first or second-hand discrimination against another individual that belongs to the same underrepresented community that you do. So, for example, if you are helping someone…
Accessibility is Like Oil in a Car
For those of you in the US of a certain age, you may remember a funny commercial for Fram oil filters. The punch line was “you can pay me now or you can pay me later” Accessibility is like that…
If you aren’t doing user research with users with disabilities, you aren’t doing real user research.
User research has been whacked in the most recent rounds of tech layoffs Do you know what that means? The limited amount of research that has been going on with people with disabilities has been severely curtailed 20 % of…
Accessibility is the little red hen of the business world. Almost everyone wants the accessible experience, however, not everyone wants the responsibility of making that happen
The Little Red Hen did all the work. She sewed the grain, pulled the weeds, watered the sprouts, harvested the grain and baked the bread. All along she asked for help but no one was there with her until they…
You want to appear inclusive? Do something that you think might help people with a specific disability. You want to BE inclusive? Do something that all people with disabilities can equally use, and include them in the process
Who are accessibility celebrations for? We have National Disability Employment Awareness Month, but the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is still more than double that of non-disabled individuals. We have Autism Awareness/Acceptance/Action Month, but 85 % of autistic people…
Product owners don’t wake up in the morning and say to themselves “hey, I’m going to break the law and completely ignore and annoy 20% of my potential customers.” But, that is what companies do when accessibility is not part…