Overview

I have come to learn that accessibility is a controversial term. In a world where we are all trying to do our best, it’s hard to hear we’re still not doing good enough, and will therefore push back to find our sense of comfort once again. This was the challenge I faced at Mural, which organizationally speaking was filled with compassionate and devoted people. However, it was evident from the NPS results, community forums, Twitter posts, and client engagements we were still falling short for 80% of people and 20% of people who deal with severe difficulties.

That’s staggering - 80% of people had trouble using Mural? That number isn’t unique unto Mural, it’s a statistic that relates to digital products as a whole, as determined by a Microsoft study done in 2003. It was this concept that was at the core of my mission, to upskill the design organization to ensure handover documents to engineering included WCAG compliant annotations to ensure the delivery in GA releases.

Model of difficulty definied by Microsoft 2003. Triangle segmented into four parts with severe difficulties at peak and no difficulties as the base segment.

The image depicts a triangle broken up into 4 levels of difficulty: 21% none, 16% minimal, 37% mild, and 25% severe. If you're familiar with Kat Holmes’ book, Mismatch, you know that these divisions are not technically static but can be broken up again with: situational, temporary, and permanent allocation. So someone with no difficulties one day could have severe difficulties the next. However, generally speaking this ratio is how we see difficulties broken down in the public at any one time.

And yet, if you talk to a product team it’s more likely that the perception is 90% of people have no difficulties and 10% have a server difficulty. Everything else in between isn’t really considered. Sheri Byrne-Haber and the UX Collective put out a poignant e-book called Giving a Damn about Accessibility, illustrating the different personas we’ve probably all encapsulated at one point in time regarding our ignorance on the subject and how to overcome them.

But what I really learned in the process is people really want to skip over all the expertise and understanding and fast forward to the how; so they can stop delaying delivery, meet compliance, and move on. Less politics, please, and more productivity!


The setup

This endeavor was not small. It was not straightforward. There were little to no examples of how to approach a paired down how-to toolkit for a design org. Lastly, there were many skills required to put together all the materials and resources to get to the desired outcome: all GA releases were WCAG compliant, and impact: 80% of our users were able to perceive, operate, understand a robust interface so they could equitably collaborate with their teams. 

With any monolithic problem the first step is to break it down into manageable pieces. The end goals and current problem was understood, however 

Skills and required resources

  • WCAG compliance knowledge

  • Organizational and internal cultural research

  • Tools and process practice research

  • Instructional design best practices

  • Measuring successful learning and determining scaled impact

  • Visual design

  • Presentation and documentation

  • Workshop facilitation

Parsed workstreams

  • Understanding the friction
    Determining success metrics

  • Phased release strategy

  • Instructional design practices

  • Requirements and accountability

  • Reducing friction to comply

  • Reflection and measuring success

Solution

Ultimately through stakeholder research, industry training market research, and a dive into the best practices of instructional design I determined an on-demand tool with interval rerelease and educational component was the best approach. Endearingly, I think of this model as Accessibility as a Service. Where each designer can access a Figma library of guides and annotation components whenever they’ve reached the specific need in their delivery cycle.

The least friction in adoption was found by approaching releases of the resource guides and education in line within established organizational rituals and design tools. Therefore checklists, concept summaries, and annotation components were built into Figma and could be accessed alongside Mural’s design system.

Similarly the educational and awareness component was scheduled monthly during regularly scheduled Design Team times. Any additional in-depth review could conveniently happen during the Accessibility Team’s weekly office hours the following day.

While the initial release was in-real-time. The calls were recorded, the education practice was completed in Mural and in Figma, and the components were an available organizational library. This allowed for scalability to new Muralistas and distribution outside of the design organization.

Outcome

With the first release Figma statistics showed active usage of guides within the first week across the 40+ person org, and the #ask-accessibility Slack channel grew its membership by 10%.