How inclusive is our discovery?
How inclusive is our discovery?
How inclusive is our discovery?
Aug 1, 2024
Equitable design patterns
When building accessible products most of us spend the bulk our time considering the inclusiveness and accessibility of the final deliverable.
As we start to include more people with disabilities into the discovery process, we need to do the work to avoid excluding community members and partners during planning and ideation.
How are we conducting async communication? Some messaging platforms aren’t as accessible for stakeholders to engage with during project planning.
How are we sharing information during meetings? Slideshows are are primarily visual and mostly inaccessible to people with visual disabilities.
How are we ideating during co-design activities? If we traditionally use a whiteboarding tool like Miro or Figjam, have we paid attention to screen reader users?
Actionable next steps
A couple of things our team at Exygy has started to roll out when we are collaborating with community stakeholders with disabilities:
Learn about the diverse needs of our participants. Ask about their individual experiences, levels of comfort with technology and any accessibility accommodations.
Find out what their preferred tools are to support essential planning activities including messaging, shared documents and scheduling in order to meet their accessibility needs.
If we’re running ideation sessions, we do the work to support inclusive participation including, sending out agendas ahead of time, providing additional facilitators, and creating an accessible ideation format which includes screen reader support, large print and closed captions as needed.
Resources
Hope this is helpful to others looking to include more people with disabilities into product discovery. Big thanks and appreciation to folks and inspiration:
Thanks again to our partners at LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired including Sean Dougherty for their continued expertise in developing an inclusive process.
Inspired by the Guide to CoDesign by JFA Purple Orange which has a detailed list of activities to consider when co-designing.
Also am learning so much from the work of KA McKercher and Cloe Benz who recently published a case study on how exactly to conduct inclusive co-design activities.
When building accessible products most of us spend the bulk our time considering the inclusiveness and accessibility of the final deliverable.
As we start to include more people with disabilities into the discovery process, we need to do the work to avoid excluding community members and partners during planning and ideation.
How are we conducting async communication? Some messaging platforms aren’t as accessible for stakeholders to engage with during project planning.
How are we sharing information during meetings? Slideshows are are primarily visual and mostly inaccessible to people with visual disabilities.
How are we ideating during co-design activities? If we traditionally use a whiteboarding tool like Miro or Figjam, have we paid attention to screen reader users?
Actionable next steps
A couple of things our team at Exygy has started to roll out when we are collaborating with community stakeholders with disabilities:
Learn about the diverse needs of our participants. Ask about their individual experiences, levels of comfort with technology and any accessibility accommodations.
Find out what their preferred tools are to support essential planning activities including messaging, shared documents and scheduling in order to meet their accessibility needs.
If we’re running ideation sessions, we do the work to support inclusive participation including, sending out agendas ahead of time, providing additional facilitators, and creating an accessible ideation format which includes screen reader support, large print and closed captions as needed.
Resources
Hope this is helpful to others looking to include more people with disabilities into product discovery. Big thanks and appreciation to folks and inspiration:
Thanks again to our partners at LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired including Sean Dougherty for their continued expertise in developing an inclusive process.
Inspired by the Guide to CoDesign by JFA Purple Orange which has a detailed list of activities to consider when co-designing.
Also am learning so much from the work of KA McKercher and Cloe Benz who recently published a case study on how exactly to conduct inclusive co-design activities.
When building accessible products most of us spend the bulk our time considering the inclusiveness and accessibility of the final deliverable.
As we start to include more people with disabilities into the discovery process, we need to do the work to avoid excluding community members and partners during planning and ideation.
How are we conducting async communication? Some messaging platforms aren’t as accessible for stakeholders to engage with during project planning.
How are we sharing information during meetings? Slideshows are are primarily visual and mostly inaccessible to people with visual disabilities.
How are we ideating during co-design activities? If we traditionally use a whiteboarding tool like Miro or Figjam, have we paid attention to screen reader users?
Actionable next steps
A couple of things our team at Exygy has started to roll out when we are collaborating with community stakeholders with disabilities:
Learn about the diverse needs of our participants. Ask about their individual experiences, levels of comfort with technology and any accessibility accommodations.
Find out what their preferred tools are to support essential planning activities including messaging, shared documents and scheduling in order to meet their accessibility needs.
If we’re running ideation sessions, we do the work to support inclusive participation including, sending out agendas ahead of time, providing additional facilitators, and creating an accessible ideation format which includes screen reader support, large print and closed captions as needed.
Resources
Hope this is helpful to others looking to include more people with disabilities into product discovery. Big thanks and appreciation to folks and inspiration:
Thanks again to our partners at LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired including Sean Dougherty for their continued expertise in developing an inclusive process.
Inspired by the Guide to CoDesign by JFA Purple Orange which has a detailed list of activities to consider when co-designing.
Also am learning so much from the work of KA McKercher and Cloe Benz who recently published a case study on how exactly to conduct inclusive co-design activities.