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?

A so-called handicapped parking space

A fast wheelchar icon

Examine yourself!

When you see this, do you think of accessibility?

Steps with no ramp

Examine yourself!

When you think of disability, do you think of a spectrum?

Good news, everyone!

Professor Farnsworth mixing chemicals

  • Title II of the ADA was released in April of this year (amended in June)
  • Title II, Subpart H of the ADA means more clients
  • Title II, Subpart H of the ADA means clients take accessibility more seriously and are more willing to budget for it

But the bad news is

  • Clients still have the compliance mindset, not the anti-ableist mindset
  • You may need to communicate the difference to them
  • You may need to recruit disabled people to design and test
  • This is extra work on top of your current burdens

We’re awakening to more challenges

Neurodiverse communities

genAI can be helpful!

  • ADHD: use genAI for note taking, task management, budgeting and meal planning
  • Dyslexia: use genAI as a writing support
  • Autism: use genAI for communication, ensuring intended tone
  • Biases are a problem
  • Neurodiverse communities build their own inclusive tools

Takeaways

How can you streamline your work?

  • If you must remediate pdfs, use CommonLook PDF in preference to Acrobat alone
  • Think of accessibility as a design principle rather than a set of activities
  • Teach developers with templates (borrowed from usability)
  • Treat participants well in your user studies so they’ll come back because disabled participants are hard to come by

Above all, talk about accessibility

  • to anyone who will listen
  • remember the rarity of conversations with the disabled
  • share shortcuts
  • recruit disabled designers
  • keep in mind that accessibility improves usability!

For more

  • visit the folder where this slideshow is stored for introductory slides about accessibility
    • use the s key on your keyboard for speaker’s notes and attributions
  • attend ASSETS or review the work there
  • have informal conversations with academics

Please contact me!

email mcq@utexas.edu to share further ideas and questions

visit https://mickmcquaid.com and click on Accessibility

Thanks for listening!

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