Why digital accessibility is important to me Craig Abbott
Craig Abbott
Hi, my name is Craig
I'm a Design Manager at Elastic, and former Head of Accessibility for the Department for Work and Pensions in UK Government.
ADHD + Autism = Me
I have combined presentation ADHD and Autism
Terminology
- Neurotypical?
- Neurodivergent?
- Neurodiversity?
Neuro means to do with the brain.
So neurotypical pretty much means typical brain.
Divergent means different. So, different brain.
Neurodiversity is when you have a collection of people who all think differently.
Being non-typical is actually pretty typical
Around 15% of the population are neurodivergent.
As time goes on, more understanding, more diagnosis and more support is becoming available.
If neurodivergents made up more than 50% of the population, we’d probably be the ones considered neurotypical.
If you’re comfortable
Raise your hand if you identify as being Neurodivergent.
In the past you probably wouldn’t know you were neurodivergent…
unless you were diagnosed with a ‘disorder’.
Attention Deficit, Hyperactivity, Disorder
It basically means:
Easily distracted, wayward, abnormal.
Language matters
- Autism Spectrum Disorder
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
- Bipolar Disorder
- Learning Disorder (Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia)
Almost every neurodivergent person is labelled with a disorder or a syndrome.
Disorder implies chaos
That you are not orderly, or that you don’t fit.
‘Disorder’ relies on context
Books ordered by colour are considered disordered.
Quote from Harvard Business Review
“many people with neurological conditions such as autism spectrum disorder, dyspraxia, and dyslexia have extraordinary skills, including in pattern recognition, memory, and mathematics”
Pay close attention to the language
“many people with neurological conditions such as autism spectrum disorder, dyspraxia, and dyslexia have extraordinary skills, including in pattern recognition, memory, and mathematics”
The stigma still bleeds through in the language.
There’s a thin line between exploitation and culture change
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Quote from the World Economic Forum
“Many of the worlds biggest companies are now actively recruiting neurodiverse workers in order to benefit from their unique skills and abilities.”
Again, pay close attention to the language
“Many of the worlds biggest companies are now actively recruiting neurodiverse workers in order to benefit from their unique skills and abilities.”
This reads very much like exploitation to me.
Why am I telling you this?
Because accessibility regulations and standards are getting better, but culture and attitudes are not!
Statistics
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A common misconception:
Accessibility only affects a small number of people.
1 in 5 people in the UK have a disability…
the same number as those with brown eyes.
The prevalence of disability rises with age:
- 8% of children
- 19% of working-age adults
- 46% of adults over state pension age
The official statistics paint a bleak picture,
but it’s actually far worse.
Definitions and thresholds
Missing data.
Mental health issues
Missing data.
Non-visible disabilities
Missing data.
Hidden disabilities
Missing data.
1 in 3 people
Show unconscious bias towards people with disabilities.
The disability pay gap
Autistic people earn around
33% less than their colleagues
doing the same job.
The need for accessibility is massively underrepresented in the ‘official statistics’.
1 in 5 people is just the tip of the iceberg.
Impairment does not equal disability
This is important!
Impairment
An impairment is medical. It’s the condition or symptoms that a person experiences.
Disability
When a person finds it difficult to perform every-day tasks to a level that is considered comfortable for most people.
Medical Model of Disability
A persons ‘disability’ is due to their impairment. It is a condition to be ‘fixed’ or ‘cured’.
Example: Sam cannot enjoy the cinema because they are blind.
Social Model of Disability
A persons ‘disability’ is due to an environment or a society not accommodating their impairments.
Example: Sam cannot enjoy the cinema because audio descriptions are not available.
An impairment does not always mean a person has a disability
This is important!
Example
Imagine you’re colour blind and it’s your job to analyse pandemic statistics.
Pandemic statistics
This slide shows a heat map for hospitals with over 100 COVID-19 positive inpatients on 30 October.
It is a grid, which shows hospitals down the y axis, and days across the top axis.
Each square in the grid is coloured red, amber or green to show the risk at that hospital on that day.
There is a key, which states red means above previous peak, amber means over half the previous peak and green means below half the previous peak.
Pandemic statistics: filtered
This slide is the same as the previous slide, showing the pandemic grid. Only this time it has been filtered for red green colour blindness.
Now, every tile is yellow, and you cannot make out from the key which tile represents high, medium or low risk.
Colour blindness is a good example of impairment vs disability
1 in 12 men, and 1 in 200 women are colour blind.
People are not always disabled by their impairments
They’re disabled by poorly designed environments.
As Head of Accessibility…
I had a lot of focus on improving compliance.
WCAG 2.2 - Level AA
Does not support most cognitive impairments.
A lot of cognitive support is lost in AAA criteria:
For example:
Examples of affected impairments:
- 1.4.7 Low or no background audio - Auditory processing
- 2.2.4 Interruptions - Focus
- 2.4.8 Location - Memory
- 3.1.5 Reading level - Reading level
Examples of conditions helped by these criteria:
- 1.4.7 Low or no background audio - Autism
- 2.2.4 Interruptions - ADHD
- 2.4.8 Location - Anxiety
- 3.1.5 Reading level - Dyslexia
Around 67% of WCAG failures originate in the design
Anna E Cook
Accessibility is largely a design problem
But everybody expects Software and Test Engineers to fix it.
Accessible by design
Not ‘accessible because it passed an audit’.
Compliant does not equal accessible
This is important!
As a Design Manager…
I get to focus on accessible design.
WCAG 3.0 will support neurodivergence
But it’s not expected until at least 2030.
CogA is a stop gap
CogA = Cognitive Accessibility Guidance.
CogA is a set of 8 principles
Spoiler: Most of them are just good design.
The 8 principles of CogA
- Help users understand what things are and how to use them
- Help users to find what they need
- Use clear and understandable content
- Help users avoid mistakes and know how to correct them
- Help users focus
- Ensure processes do not rely on memory
- Provide help and support
- Support adaptation and personalisation
Wrap up…
The statistics are flawed
More people rely on accessibility than 1 in 5.
Meet standards
At the very least, be compliant.
Accessibility is a user need
Not a technical specification.
Design for accessibility
Don’t just expect developers to fix it.
Hire neurodivergent people
But make sure you support us properly!
Accessibility compliance is our starting block…
Inclusion should be our finish line.
That’s why digital accessibility is important to me!
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