Designing for a better world:
Accessibility

Mick McQuaid

2024-11-17

How to Start?

AI isn’t helping (… much)

Vendors tell you to kick back and let AI handle accessibility

  • Yet manual intervention is always required
  • Even the best AI tools don’t save you much time
  • Yet your clients don’t understand why you can’t sprinkle magic fairy dust on your designs to make them accessible
  • Use AI for individual empowerment

We’re losing the struggle for accessibility

  • WCAG is too complicated to understand, let alone implement
  • Clients have a compliance mindset, rather than an anti-ableist mindset
  • Technological development outpaces design—new things appear at a faster rate than we can design for them
  • Universal design is a double-edged sword
  • Did I mention that AI isn’t helping much?

What can you do?

  • You’re a communicator above all
  • You naturally spend more time communicating the design than you do designing
  • Ask your client if they’ve ever had a conversation about disability with a disabled person
  • (Have you?)
  • Humanize the importance of accessibility

Examine yourself!

When you think of disability, do you see this or that?