Inclusion by design - #a11yTOConf 2021

Editor's Notes

• #2: Hi everyone! I hope you all are enjoying the conference so far. I first want to Thank the Accessibility Toronto organizers for everything they do. In case you don’t know me, my name is Alicia Jarvis, I have light brown hair, brown eyes and today I’m wearing a navy blue shirt that reads, “Friends don’t let friends ship inaccessible code”. My pronouns are she/her and I’m currently working as a Senior Product Manager at Bell Canada. Before joining Bell, I spent the last 7 years working in the financial services industry at both Scotiabank and RBC. I’ve been working in accessibility and inclusive design for over 12 years now. In this talk, we’ll be talking about how to make your design practice a little more inclusive. Thank you all for joining me today.
• #3: So, to break it down, I’ll be going over what inclusive design is and how it differs from accessibility and accessible design, we’ll go over some guiding principles and then we’ll dive right into design research, interaction design, content design, and I will end my talk with visual design. Hopefully by the end of this talk you will all have some practical take-aways that you can use in your own design practice. So, Please reach out to me on twitter at A11yAlicia and let’s keep the conversation going.
• #4: Before we get started, I want you all to think back about a time in your life where you felt excluded or that you didn’t fit in. It could be that time that you didn’t get invited to a party, or when that boy didn’t ask you to the dance. Or maybe it was when an entire room was staring at you for whatever reason that you still don’t understand. The point is…that most of us have experienced it and felt what it feels like it, right? It doesn’t feel too good, does it? Now, I want you to think about a time in your life where you really felt seen. Like really seen. It could be that time that you won an award for something that you were really passionate about, , Or maybe it was that time you made the winning shot in front of the whole school. Or maybe it was that time that you finally got that promotion that you were really gunning for. Or perhaps it was that time that your friends through you an epic surprise party. That feeling that you are feeling right now, it feels good right? that’s what inclusion feels like, and that’s the feeling I what I want you to keep in your mind today.
• #5: Now let me tell you a bit more about me. A very smart man named Cliff Chadderton once told me that the Computer will be the great equalizer. You see I was born with short arms and being a well decorated veteran and amputee himself he knew that a double arm amputee like me may require some assistive technology to help level the playing field and allow me to keep up with my peers. Writing or drawing with a traditional pencil and paper was never my strong suit. From a very young age, I used either a typewriter or computer to get stuff done. And yes, I’m probably aging myself right now. The first picture on the left is of me at a young age wearing myoelectric arms holding an upside down pencil typing on a typewriter and the photo on the right is another picture of me as a youngster typing on a computer without my myoelectrics by holding similar upside-down pencil with a large rubber end on it. If we fast forward to Today, I can tell you that I now only type with just my fingers. So, as I got older, my preferences, my needs and my assistive technology has changed over time.
• #6: Throughout my life, my knowledge, skills, abilities and the ways in which I view myself has also changed. If you asked me 5 years ago if I considered myself a designer. I probably would have just looked at you funny because my background is not in design, and I did not go to design school. My academic background is actually in Criminology and behavioural science. So, I want to take a minute to just level set on what I mean by design in the context of this talk. A few years ago, when I joined the digital design team at RBC, I was introduced to this quote by Herbert Simon. “Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred one’s.” I did some deep thinking, and well I may not have gone to design school, I’m definitely a designer! I realized, I have been doing this my whole life! You see I was born into a world that was not designed for me; so, I’ve had no choice but to devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into something that works for me. .
• #7: So, as you might have guessed, the next question that I had after realizing I was in fact a designer was what is inclusive design anyways and how does it differ from accessibility? Well, here’s the distinction.. So the way I like to look at it is, inclusive design is the methodology and accessibility is an outcome of that methodology. If that makes sense. Inclusive design attempts to acknowledge the intersectional nature of human beings. For example, I’m not a woman on Monday, and a person with a disability on Tuesday. In addition to my gender and ability, my culture, heritage, socio-economic status, language and age all shape how I experience the world.
• #8: To give you a common example of inclusive design that we can all relate to, have you ever struggled with a door knob? Either your hands were wet, or you had gloves on, door knobs can be very tricky in many situations. I have short arms and door knobs are the bain of my existence. However, Doors with Levers allow me and many other arm amputees open doors with ease. Door levers also benefit people with arthritis, and other dexterity challenges; whereas door knobs are often problematic for a lot of people because they depend on a very specific hand function.
• #9: In other words, my friend Billy Gregory summed it up like this…”When User experience doesn’t consider all users it should be called some users experience, yes SUX.” https://twitter.com/thebillygregory/status/552466012713783297
• #10: Now I couldn’t do a design talk without talking about principles now could I?….
• #11: As you can imagine, designing within the financial services sector requires looking at the entire customer journey across all channels. Most of us, interact with our bank in many different ways both online and in-person. So it’s very important that before we start even thinking about a digital experience, we start with the 7 principles of universal design, which are: Equitable use, flexibility in use, simple and intuitive, perceptible information, tolerance for error, low physical effort, and size and space for approach and use.
• #12: Then as we focus more on the digital experience, the 7 principles of inclusive design are there to guide us further. These are: Provide comparable experience Consider situation Be consistent Give control Offer choices Prioritise content Add value In the interest of time, I will not be covering these principles in depth, but You can check them out at https://inclusivedesignprinciples.org/
• #13: And then if we drill down further, we get the 4 principles of accessibility which are: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable and Robust. All of these principles help to guide us in creating a more inclusive user experience and it’s important to ensure these principles fit into our day-to-day as designers. I’m sure that we all would be better designers if we use these principles as a starting point to work from. We must all remember that inclusion is a continuous journey of learning, unlearning and re-learning. It is not a destination. https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/intro.html Photo by Yasin Arıbuğa on Unsplash
• #14: With that, let’s talk about research. Earlier, I showed you a photo of me wearing myoelectric arms. What you probably didn’t realize was that when I was much younger, my doctors told me I couldn’t have prosthetics because I had hands and they had never seen someone like me wear prosthetics. So, with the help of the War Amps I did some research on my own and found a picture of two identical twins from Germany who just like me had short arms and were fitted with prosthetic arms. The key message here is don’t skip your desk research. There is a lot of information out there if you just look for it.
• #15: It is a researcher’s job to ask the hard questions. In order to have an inclusive research practice, you have to first acknowledge and recognize exclusion. In all it’s forms. To quote Kat Holmes, “Designing for inclusion starts with recognizing exclusion.” People are not boxes and labels are for food, not people. One person’s experience, is exactly that, 1 person’s experience, no more, no less. Don’t expect 1 person to represent an entire race or group of people. Yes, I have a disability and I’m a woman, but I cannot and will not speak for or on behalf of all women with disabilities. I can only speak from my own experiences. So, Instead, what you want to do is continuously ask who is not here, why aren’t they here and what can we do about it.
• #16: I wore prosthetic arms from the time I was about 5 years old until well into high school. And not once did I meet a prosthetist that was an amputee themselves. This automatically created a disconnect between the prosthetists who were designing my arms and myself. They didn’t fully understand my needs, or my wants. They often came into the conversation with assumptions based on stereotypes. Like when I started telling them that my arms just weren’t working for me, they responded with well don’t you want them for aesthetic purposes, what about dating and relationships? Like really, if a guy really cares that much about the length of my arms, do you think I want him.. My momma taught me better than that. So, If you want to create a product that is accessible and effective for everyone, start by looking around you, and consider who is designing the product or experience. Does your design team reflect a diverse talent pool or does your organization have some work to do? https://www.facebook.com/handsupnailart1/photos/a.1178561892186906/1178561798853582/?type=1&theater
• #17: In any case, You can immediately start making your research practice more inclusive by involving everyone and I mean everyone! Be intentional about how you conduct research. And with whom. Encourage broad participation in research activities by: Using inclusive language in recruitment and research materials Actively seeking out design input from people who don’t look like you, or sound like you. Interviewing individuals who represent a wide range of human diversity to understand their context and methods of accessing technology. Asking questions that consider outliers or alternate points of view. Synthesizing and implement interview insights and user considerations into every project. Testing content, prototypes, and visuals with people who have varying abilities or use different access methods. Implementing changes based on research findings and user feedback.
• #18: As the good designers you all are, you probably noticed that I didn’t tell you why my prosthetic arms weren’t working for me. This brings me to creating inclusive interactions. Since I was born with hands, I had to unlearn and relearn a lot of things when I was finally fit with prosthetic arms. So, there was a huge learning curve in using them. I couldn’t feel what I was holding, which made things like eating a banana particularly difficult. I already had alternative ways of doing things like using my feet to reach something that was far away. The sockets where hot and made my hands sweat. So, frustration ultimately outweighed any potential benefits or value that they might have had. This is not to say that I regret trying them; it’s actually quite the opposite. All those years of trial and error taught me a lot about myself and it also taught me about design.
• #19: It taught me that my disability was not a problem that I need to solve. That disability itself is just a mismatched interaction between the features of a person’s body and the features of the environment in which they live. It also taught me that sometimes we focus on the wrong thing. Instead of trying to fix the features of my body, I started looking at adjusting the features of my environment, which resulted in much happier outcomes, let me tell you!. The key take-away here is that instead of looking at people with disabilities as a small, niche subset of users, it is important for interaction designers to understand and learn from the mismatches in our society because that’s the only way to improve your craft and grow as designers. Photo by mauro mora on Unsplash
• #20: So, with that, before you even think about firing up a screen reader, please take some time to really learn keyboard interaction. It will make you a better designer and your users will be truly thankful that you did because: Keyboard accessibility is one of the most important aspects of digital accessibility.​ People with mobility / dexterity disabilities rely on keyboards for navigation.​ Blind individuals typically use a keyboard for navigation in combination with screen readers.​ Other assistive technology mimics keyboard functionality
• #21: Next, use design annotations to help you. Interaction models will help you provide context for navigation and list the different elements and interactions needed within the application. Remember,  Wireframes are both project documentation and a visual communication guide; so make annotations part of your work flow to eliminate misunderstandings or confusion along the way.
• #22: Now, let’s take a minute to talk about my favorite subject, inclusive content! As Bill Gates proclaimed in 1996, Content is KING. Without content, my whole talk would be just an empty page. Pretty boring, right? So, there are 2 main aspects to think about when we think of inclusive content. Both are equally important. the substance or in other words what the content is saying The presentation or how the content is being presented.
• #23: First, let’s talk about the what… as content designers, you know that language is a powerful thing that can be used to either include or exclude your users. And with great power comes great responsibility. You can easily start making your language more inclusive by doing these 5 things: 1. Avoiding descriptors that refer to a person’s race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or age, unless those descriptors are relevant to the story 2. when possible, omitting gender-specific pronouns. 3. replacing third person (she/he) with second person pronoun (you). 4. replacing adjectives for neutral alternatives, such as indefinite adjectives, substantives, or objects. 5. Avoiding the use of black, white, dark, or light as metaphors… for obvious reasons that I won’t get into.
• #24: Secondly, you want to ensure the experience is as intuitive and seamless as possible. In other words, don’t make me think! Use plain language. Give just the info your users need, right when they need it. Keep sentences short Aim for 5th-8th grade readability. Write meaningful link text. Create text alternatives for charts and graphs.  Use descriptive alt text for images, icons, and controls. If the text is meant to be read, don’t put it in an image. Ensure semantically meaningful page structure.
• #25: Which brings me to visual design…Visual design plays a significant role in communicating a brand's proposition and personality.
• #26: Remember the dress from 5 or 6 years ago… you know the one.. Was it blue and black or was it white and gold? This little colour illusion reminded us all that colour is almost never seen as it really is. We all see colour slightly differently and our perception is literally ‘coloured’ by the context in which we view it, such as a device’s screen and the surrounding environment. So, visual designers please do not use colour alone to convey meaning and always test your designs with a colour contrast analyzer tool.
• #27: The simplest place to start is to design in greyscale, as this forces you to consider layout, typography and visual balance before tackling the subjectiveness of colour. The design should be clear and easy to read, with a thought through text hierarchy in terms of position on the page, size, weight and shade. By starting in greyscale, it also forces you not to use colour alone to convey meaning.
• #28: As you add colour to your design, remember that Colour is an inexact and relative artform. Being inexact, we need to select colours that will perform well within a range of environments. This should not be under-estimated, as roughly 8% of men and 0.5% of women worldwide are living with some form of colour blindness. Your choice of colours will depend on the look and feel of your brand’s visual identity. This is time for experimentation and you will want to use a colour contrast analyzer tool to help you get the look and feel that you want..
• #29: Ultimately, visual design is about creating delight for all our users. And my friend Rich Donovan said it best… “Customer and employee delight is the goal. All day. Every day. Understanding and delivering actions that delight define whether or not revenue is maximized. Diverse demand has changed how great brands deliver delight. Are you ready to ‘unleash different’?” I don’t know about you, but I’m more than ready to unleash different. We have a very real opportunity right now to build back better and I’m hopeful that we will. Not too long ago, I asked a former colleague what he thought the role of visual designers were in non-visual interfaces, and he couldn’t really give me a good answer. My answer was this, it is the role of visual design to create delight. Visual designers have a very important role to play in non-visual interfaces because it is their job to understand what a pleasurable and delightful experience feels like. It is really easy to say that icon or that image is just decorative. It is much harder to take a step back and ask yourself, why did I choose that particular icon or image, is there something I want my users to get from it? I hope you keep this in mind, the next time you and your team are deciding what the alt text should be on a particular image or icon.
• #30: I know I’ve covered a lot today, but I hope some of this helps you in your journey of making the world a better and more inclusive place for everyone. Thank you so much! You can check out my website at Alicia.Design or catch me on all the socials at A11YAlicia.