“We don't have users with disabilities” and other infuriating excuses
A collection of lies we tell ourselves to avoid making our products accessible
Since the invention of the wheel, humans have been busy perfecting the art of excuse. The ability to foresee and avoid unpleasantries keeps us alive, healthy, and productive. We progress, delegate our pains to machines, and channel our energy to solving creative problems.
Unfortunately, we have also learnt to abuse the power of excuse. Why take responsibility if you can dodge it? Why handle a challenge when you can steer clear of it? “It is not viable”. “We do not have the capacity”. “It is not our priority at the moment”.
In this issue, we will look into some excuses we’ve embraced to neglect accessibility, and respond to each as calmly and reasonably as possible.
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“We don’t have users with disabilities”
When I look in the mirror, I do not see a man with a disability. My reflection is that of a healthy, young person with a bunch of tattoos, perfectly functioning arms and legs, good hearing. He’s active on social media and known in the design community. By all accounts, he is a good representation of an “average user” of any mainstream product or service.
He also lives with a mental impairment that turns completing tasks like writing this text into challenges. He doesn’t rely on assistive tech to browse the web, but his ability to comprehend information is impacted. For instance, he is more likely to make an error when completing an important form.
It may come as a surprise, but people with disabilities also browse the web and use smartphones. Moreover, not every disability is visible and apparent. Are you still sure you only cater to able-bodied, perfectly healthy users?
“We’ll do it later”
The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus believed that humans were designed to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. Actively avoiding suffering, we take measures to reduce it, put efforts in diminishing the struggle. Passive avoidance, on the other hand, only requires patience. “Later” can last as long as required, outliving the source of pain itself.
Unfortunately, we often meet our destiny on the road we took to avoid it. Accessibility concerns, postponed and neglected, accumulate and grow, waiting to explode and wreak havoc.
Solving complex accessibility problems is more challenging, time-consuming, and costly than following the standards from the beginning. In the case of accessibility, “later” coming with the lawmakers introducing new regulations and users abandoning the product for a competitor could have deadly consequences.
“We’ll just use an AI”
Nope.
“We don’t know where to start”
Also known as “We don’t have the specialists yet” and “We know nothing about accessibility”, this excuse gives the leadership a unique opportunity to effortlessly appear genuinely caring.
Accessibility is complex enough to confuse a newcomer, but the standards are clear and detailed. Engineers can turn to Intopia’s “Not-A-Checklist” for directions, and designers are welcome to use annotation plugins for human-friendly instructions.
At some point in your life, you didn’t know how to read, but it hasn’t stopped you, has it?
This post was inspired by and based on the content of the A11y Myths website.