Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Accessibility at Scale

Gold
Wednesday, June 9, 2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Share the love for this talk
Accessibility at Scale
Speakers: Sheri Byrne-Haber
Link:

Summary

The outcome of designing at scale won't be accessible products unless accessibility practices scale in parallel with design. There are six primary challenges to scaling accessibility: 1) Reliance on human testing which is especially complicated for large/dynamic products. 2) SaaS/Native app "release whenever you want" timelines. 3) Third party code/content managers. 4) Achieving "substantive WCAG conformance" 5) Closing the feedback loop by getting defects/feature requests from people with disabilities into the backlog. 6) Shifting the focus to an accessible experience, not just an accessible product.

Key Insights

  • Accessibility encompasses both visible and invisible disabilities, affecting roughly 30% of users via permanent, temporary, or situational impairments.

  • Assistive technologies communicate bidirectionally with software, requiring products to support this interaction cleanly to be accessible.

  • WCAG standards are the international source of truth for accessibility, with version 2.1 AA widely mandated and 3.0 on the horizon.

  • Automated tools catch about 30% of accessibility issues, machine learning tools currently only about 4%, leaving over half to human validation.

  • Making a product accessible initially is straightforward with resources and people; maintaining accessibility over time is far more complex and process-driven.

  • Scaling accessibility in cloud and continuous integration environments is challenging due to rapid, frequent software releases.

  • Integrating accessibility from the beginning into design, development, and definition of done prevents costly retrofitting later.

  • Organizational culture changes including executive buy-in, centralized resources, and accessibility champions are essential for scaling.

  • Hiring and retaining employees with disabilities and ensuring all workplace tools and events are accessible fosters inclusion and eases product accessibility efforts.

  • Accessibility defects should be treated like any other critical bugs and prioritized accordingly to ensure timely remediation.

Notable Quotes

"Accessibility isn’t just about visible disabilities; it’s about invisible disabilities and situational impairments too."

"Either you need accessibility now or you will need accessibility in the future."

"Assistive technology has to communicate with the destination, that’s your website or product."

"You’re not supposed to sell to the US public sector unless you’re WCAG 2.0 AA compliant."

"Getting something accessible is a straight line; keeping something accessible requires process change."

"Keeping something cloud-based accessible is the most complicated because of hundreds of releases per day in continuous integration."

"Accessibility at scale can put you into the VUCA world – volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous."

"You want to catch accessibility defects early through automated testing in your CI/CD pipeline, what we call shifting left."

"If you’re rewarding designers for delivering on time, great, but if you reward them for delivering accessible products on time, you’ll get better results."

"Accessibility defects are bugs. If it’s a P1 blocking bug for an accessibility issue, treat it like any other P1 bug."

Ask the Rosenbot
Kelly Dern
AI as a Design Partner: How to Get the Most Out of AI Tools to Scale Your Process
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Prayag Narula
How to Empower Your Designers to Do Good Research – And Why You Want To
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Dave Malouf
The Future of DesignOps
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Jeff Gothelf
The Intersection of Lean and Design
2019 • Enterprise Community
Robin Beers
How to create actionable insight in the face of politics and silos [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2023 • Advancing Research Community
Roy Opata Olende
How Zapier Uses ‘All Hands Research’ to Increase Exposure to Users
2020 • Advancing Research Community
Chris Hammond
Embedding sustainability into enterprise design and development: A journey towards "sustainability consciousness"
2025 • Climate UX Interest Group
Robert Fabricant
Industry junctures: Paths forwards for UXR and the critical decisions that get us there [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2024 • Advancing Research Community
Dave Gray
Group Activity: Making Sense of DesignOps
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Taylor Jennings
Repository Retrospective: Learnings from Introducing a Central Place for UX Research
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Sheryl Cababa
Expanding Your Design Lens with Systems Thinking
2023 • Enterprise Community
Maria Taylor
Knowledge is Power: Managing the Lifeblood of the Design Org
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Joshua Graves
We Need To Talk: Managing Ludicrous Requests at Work (Part 3 of 3)
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Patrizia Bertini
The (r)evolution of designOps: It’s Time to Think (really) BIG
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
Welcome / Housekeeping
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Patrizia Bertini
Pushing DesignOps’ Influence into New Global Markets
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold

More Videos

Erin Weigel

"Everything is an experiment."

Erin Weigel

Real-world lessons to improve your conversion rates

June 26, 2024

Daniel Korczynski

"The larger the dataset you work with, the more costly it is to run a single operation on AI models."

Daniel Korczynski

Why AI Is Bad at Research (and how to make it actually useful)

March 10, 2026

Kim Lenox

"Design is really a team sport, and we are investing in specialists to help with design systems, operations, research, and content strategy."

Kim Lenox

Leading Distributed Global Teams

May 20, 2019

Brendan Jarvis

"Who do you see? Who do you not see? Why do you not see them?"

Brendan Jarvis

Framing Tomorrow by Questioning Today

June 8, 2022

Carol Massa

"If you come in wanting to change everything at once, you won't get the response needed to make your work meaningful."

Carol Massa

Designing Health: Integrating Service Design, Technology, and Strategy to Transform Patient and Clinician Experiences

December 3, 2024

Dr Chloe Sharp

"As the product journey progressed, research cadence got faster with prototypes and quicker feedback loops."

Dr Chloe Sharp

Using Evidence and Collaboration for Setting and Defending Priorities

November 29, 2023

Sarah Auslander

"Building trust within organizations toward methods and processes is essential to onboarding new ways of working."

Sarah Auslander Betsy Ramaccia Gordon Ross

Insights Panel

November 18, 2022

Susan Simon-Daniels

"The fundamental things do apply as time goes by."

Susan Simon-Daniels

War Stories LIVE! Susan Simon-Daniels

March 30, 2020

Farid Sabitov

"Automation isn't about replacing work but about freeing time for more important, creative efforts."

Farid Sabitov

Automatization for Large Enterprise Teams

January 8, 2024