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.

AccessibilityOps for All
Gold
Monday, January 8, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Share the love for this talk
AccessibilityOps for All
Speakers: Suzan Bednarz and Hilary Sunderland
Link:

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."

Ask the Rosenbot
Sam Ladner
Methodologies: Beyond the interview [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2024 • Advancing Research Community
Nathan Curtis
Beyond the Toolkit: Spreading a System Across People & Products
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Etienne Fang
The Power of Care: From Human-Centered Research to Humanity-Centered Leadership
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Jorge Arango
[Demo] How to re-categorize content at scale using LLMs
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Megan Campos
What Did I Miss? The Hidden Costs of Deprioritizing Diversity in User Research
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Jack Moffett
UX Metrics That Matter and The Future of our Design at Scale Conference: A Community Conversation (Videoconference)
2022 • Enterprise Community
Cennydd Bowles
Responsible Design in Reality
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
Founder’s Welcome
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Jaime Creixems
Best Practices when Creating and Maintaining a Design System
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Greg Petroff
Design is the Differentiator: Bringing New Design Innovations to a Very Antiquated and Very Large Industry
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
How to Identify and Increase your "Experience Quotient"
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Stephen Pollard
Closing Keynote: Getting giants to dance - what can we learn from designing large and complex public infrastructure?
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Kim Holt
A Salesforce Panel Discussion on Values-Driven DesignOps
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Michal Anne Rogondino
Saving Outer Space: The First UX Design System for Our Nation’s Satellites
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Sam Ladner
How Research Can Drive Strategic Foresight
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Lisa Gironda
Opener: Chief of Staff–An unexpected journey
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold

More Videos

Alex Hurworth

"The health of our planet directly influences our health and survival."

Alex Hurworth Bonnie John Fahd Arshad Antoine Marin

Designing a Contact Tracing App for Universal Access

October 23, 2020

Laine Riley Prokay

"It’s really okay if this new position on your team is short-term only; we can provide the initial opportunity to get started on their career paths."

Laine Riley Prokay Lisa Gordon

Carving a Path for Early Career DesignOps Practitioners

September 9, 2022

Eniola Oluwole

"Launching a design system is not a sprint, there’s no end, it’s always a continuous process."

Eniola Oluwole

Lessons From the DesignOps Journey of the World's Largest Travel Site

October 24, 2019

Nathan Shedroff

"Rather than aiming for the chief strategy officer directly, build relationships with junior strategists who are more accessible."

Nathan Shedroff

Double Your Mileage: Use Your Research Strategically

March 31, 2020

Sam Proulx

"Mobile devices not only have built-in screen readers but also pitch-to-zoom and magnification settings out of the box."

Sam Proulx

Mobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World

November 17, 2022

Feleesha Sterling

"It’s important to socialize the research program internally so teams get excited and take initiative."

Feleesha Sterling

Building a Rapid Research Program (Videoconference)

May 18, 2023

Neil Barrie

"Culturally resonant experiences can influence society in ways governments only dream of, with velocity and speed."

Neil Barrie

Widening the Aperture: The Case for Taking a Broader Lens to the Dialogue between Products and Culture

March 25, 2024

John Devanney

"A well framed project is a rare thing — it’s also a creative exercise that unleashes teams’ possibilities."

John Devanney

The Design Management Office

November 6, 2017

Katy Mogal

"Surveys and logs tell us what users do, but qualitative tells us why."

Katy Mogal

But Do Your Insights Scale?

March 12, 2021