Claiming your space

Slides for Accessibility & Inclusion, The Outlook 2025 Julie Grundy Head of Accessibility Assessment

Accessibility Assessment?

I help people make sure they’ve reached whatever accessibility standard they’re trying to meet

Who gets the best results?

Clients who include designers early in the process

This quote sums up the contribution that designers can make to accessibility

There are three great design themes: making something beautiful, making something easier, and making something possible. Dan Saffer 100 Things I Know About Design, 2021

Accessibility makes things Possible

A form with tiny radio buttons

It’s not easy to tap small touch targets on your phone

Requirements they didn't tell you about

It’s annoying to get error messages for mistakes you could have avoided if you’d known before you clicked the Submit button

Standards create a baseline

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines v2.2 • Understanding WCAG: Supporting materials with research references

Your allies and tools

• Any accessibility professional (including me!) • WebAIM’s plain-language version of WCAG • Intopia’s Accessibility Not-Checklist by job roles

Accessibility makes things Easier

Usability example

This web page has a table full of links to download Excel files

79 clicks

To get below the table to a different Excel file, a keyboard user would have to press Tab 79 times.

User research and co-design

Find out what your users with disabilities need and want

Your allies

People with disabilities increase the value of your research (especially if they already use your product!)

Getting started

Usability testing with people with disability is a talk by Andrew Arch and Sarah Pulis for Inclusive Design 24 on YouTube

Accessibility makes things Beautiful

We all deserve beautiful things

Let’s make beautiful tools that work for the community and make more things possible

Let’s chat

Photo credits Woman holding smartphone: Alexey Elfimov, Unsplash. Team meeting: Chona Kasinger for Disabled and Here. Know My Name exhibit: National Gallery of Australia. www.intopia.digital hello@intopia.digital