Summary
The Cigna Digital Design Operations stood up a new Digital Accessibility and AccessbilityOps team. Digital accessibility as a general term is the inclusive practice of ensuring that digital products (websites, apps, PDFs, etc.) can be used by everyone — including those with a disability or physical impairment — while retaining functionality and usability. Our team ran into many roadblocks including establishing processes, team structure, organizational support, and human resource issues, including onboarding a new team member who was blind. This case study showcases the steps, challenges, and lessons learned standing up a Digital Accessibility Ops team at a Fortune 100 Health Insurance company.
Key Insights
-
•
One in four US adults has a disability, highlighting the critical need for accessible digital experiences.
-
•
Despite diversity accolades, many companies lack basic operational readiness to onboard employees with disabilities.
-
•
Accessibility ops is distinct but complementary to design ops, focusing on embedding accessibility throughout design, development, QA, and vendor management.
-
•
Accessibility should be integrated early in design, not just addressed during QA or retrofitting.
-
•
Increasing digital accessibility lawsuits underscore the legal and business risks of ignoring accessibility.
-
•
Effective accessibility advocacy requires champions within the organization and continuous education to overcome knowledge gaps.
-
•
Using a screen reader to demonstrate inaccessible sites provides a powerful leadership eye-opener.
-
•
Contract clauses mandating vendor accessibility compliance are key to operationalizing accessibility at scale.
-
•
Accessibility teams must simplify complex guidelines like WCAG for broader team understanding and collaboration.
-
•
Incremental improvements in accessibility can yield substantial long-term impact even if full compliance is initially unreachable.
Notable Quotes
"Mike became less excited when he realized onboarding wasn’t as easy for him as it was for sighted peers."
"One digital accessibility lawsuit was filed every hour in 2018, a 177 percent increase from the year before."
"Remember that people are empathetic and may not know what they do not know—it’s our responsibility to educate and move the needle."
"Would you testify in court right now that all your digital properties are accessible? Can you onboard a disabled employee easily?"
"Accessibility ops is really design ops but with a focus on ensuring all tools and processes accommodate accessibility."
"We had to send Mike’s laptop preloaded with all assistive technology to enable timely onboarding."
"We need to distill accessibility guidelines down to layman’s terms to gain business buy-in."
"When starting accessibility ops, accept it will be iterative and you won’t get to 100% accessibility the first time."
"Moving the needle from 50% to 80% accessibility on a feature was a huge win for our team."
"Getting an enterprise mandate and leadership buy-in is crucial for embedding accessibility into your organization."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Sometimes you’re the leader, sometimes you’re at the end, sometimes you’re trying to get other folks to come in."
Jennifer KanyamibwaCreating the Blueprint: Growing and Building Design Teams
November 8, 2018
"We took a broad definition of research repositories to lessen shame and embrace the complexity."
Brigette Metzler Dana ChrisfieldResearch Repositories: A global project by the ResearchOps Community (Videoconference)
August 27, 2020
"Sometimes you just have to do what you can and come back to it later when analyzing culture versus delivery demands."
Carl TurnerYou Can Do This: Understand and Solve Organizational Problems to Jumpstart a Dead Project
March 28, 2023
"Gina was closing the dots and shifting perspective from a designer closer to the business."
John Mortimer Milan Guenther Lucy Ellis Patrick QuattlebaumPanel Discussion
December 3, 2024
"We don’t have all the answers; we’re in the thick of it all and actively learning just like you."
Dante GuintuHow to Crush the Talent Crunch
September 8, 2022
"Sustainability is dead because we don’t know what to sustain; we need to create flourishing communities instead."
Richard BuchananCreativity and Principles in the Flourishing Enterprise
June 15, 2018
"Sharzad is going to share wisdom earned the hard way from working inside and outside."
Dan WillisTheme 3: Intro
January 8, 2024
"Innovation is novelty with impact — three words to remember."
Dan WardFailure Friday #1 with Dan Ward
February 7, 2025
"Researchers are positioned at the nexus of insight and action."
Chris GeisonTheme Two Intro
March 28, 2023