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
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Accessibility includes both visible and invisible disabilities, impacting around 30% of users permanently, temporarily, or situationally.
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Assistive technology acts as a bridge between users and software, requiring products to properly communicate with these tools for effective accessibility.
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The WCAG guidelines (levels A, AA, AAA) are the international standard for accessibility, with AA being the most widely adopted compliance target.
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Only about 30% of accessibility issues can be reliably detected via automated code inspection, with 50-66% needing human validation, making scale challenging.
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Maintaining accessibility is harder than achieving it once; without process integration, accessible products tend to become inaccessible within 9-12 months.
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Scaling accessibility in a cloud-based environment is particularly complex due to hundreds of deployments and continuous integration.
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Embedding accessibility into the entire DevOps pipeline early (shift-left testing) dramatically reduces defects and improves outcomes.
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Having accessibility embedded in hiring, onboarding, and retention processes fosters greater inclusion and improves organizational maturity.
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Executive sponsorship, centralized resources, and local accessibility champions are essential for growing accessibility programs at scale.
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Treating accessibility bugs as P1 (critical) issues and avoiding checkbox compliance leads to more meaningful and lasting accessibility.
Notable Quotes
"Either you need accessibility now or you will need accessibility in the future."
"About 30% of most user audiences have permanent, temporary, or situational disabilities."
"Assistive technology has to communicate with your product; if this communication breaks, accessibility fails."
"Getting something accessible is a straight line and a check-engineering problem; keeping it accessible requires process change."
"Cloud-based accessibility is the most complicated because of continuous integration and hundreds of releases per day or week."
"If you get a product accessible but don’t embed accessibility process changes, it will revert to inaccessible in 9 to 12 months."
"Accessibility has to be part of every product conversation, minimum viable product, and definition of done."
"People with disabilities are tired of complaining; 91% leave for more accessible competitors without giving feedback."
"Accessibility is a civil right under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but if you need a business case, 18% of users have disabilities."
"Don’t use overlays or checklists; they only offer a narrow perspective instead of holistic accessibility."
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