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Integrating Accessibility and Design: Five Hot Tips for Start-ups

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    Tip #1: Integrate accessible design from the start
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    The reason to integrate accessible design from the start, is not only because retrofitting will cost
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    more. Retrofitting is for information and communication technology is similar constructing a house and
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    not leaving room for the ramp. You're going to have to do a lot of tearing down and changing, and so that's
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    costly. So if its done from the start it need not cost any more, in fact what it might do is save money.
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    Because accessible design allows easier updating. It means more flexible adaptable design, so it means
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    you can reach a larger customer base.
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    Tip #2: Choose the right development tools
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    Development and authoring tools are your friend. The wonderful thing about development and authoring
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    tools is that they can prompt support, provide the necessary utilities such that you are guided and
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    almost lead through the process of accessible design. So someone that isn't very knowledgeable
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    about accessible design and may not be very motivated, by virtue of using the right development or authoring
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    tools, where accessibility is built in, they will produce accessible designs.
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    There are international guidelines on how to create authoring tools that will support the creation
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    of accessible web content. These are called the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines.
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    So in finding a development tool kit or authoring tool, you can look for ATAG compliant, as they are
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    called, authoring tools, and they will provide that support, that guidance and that prompting that helps
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    you to create accessible web content.
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    Tip #3 Focus the message and keep its presentation flexible
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    Good communications means getting the message to your audience. The lesson that I think we need to learn,
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    is that there is no typical audience. There is no typical or average end user.
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    So good design mean flexible design. Most people when they create a communication message, or web content,
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    or an application, the first thing they think about is presentation.
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    But in fact what we should be thinking is what is the goal, what is the message that I want to communicate.
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    And then enable flexible presentations. What that allows you to do is re-purpose that same product, that
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    application, or that web content, for the various audiences. You're going to be much more successful if
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    it's going to be much more usable, it's going to communicate the message much better, if you have that
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    flexible presentation, that can shift according to who your audience member is.
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    Tip #4: Increase your market: Look for "electronic curbcuts"
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    Startups should be looking for electronic curbcuts and what we mean by electronic curbcuts is this phenomenon
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    that whenever you design something for individuals with disabilities, who are, albeit at the margins
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    of your custom base, it usually benefits everyone.
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    One very very current and good example of this, is here in Toronto we had a legal challenge that required that the
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    street car stop be called out automatically. And while that was intended for someone who is blind,
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    who couldn't see what the streets were that were coming up, everyone benefits from that particular redesign.
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    There is a wonderful site that collects all of these examples. It is the electronic curb cuts site. If you
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    just google electronic curb cut you'll see a collection of all of the things that we now come to depend
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    upon that were originally created for people with disabilities. and it includes things like voice recognition,
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    text-to-speech, email, and things that you'll be very very surprised about.
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    Tip #5: Use a diversity of perspectives and challenges
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    If you want innovation and creativity in your designs, and you want your products or the things that you're
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    designing, to have the greatest possible usability across the greatest number of consumers, then the
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    best way to do that is to engage individuals with a diversity of perspectives who have experienced
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    the greatest variety of challenges, directly in your design team from the start.
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    There's research to show the more diverse a team is, the more likely they will make good predictions,
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    they will plan better and they will come up with more innovative and useful ideas.
Title:
Integrating Accessibility and Design: Five Hot Tips for Start-ups
Description:

Jutta Treviranus, Director of the Inclusive Design Research Centre at OCAD University, discusses the business case for inclusive design—and how to implement it.

MaRS - building Canada's next generation of global technology companies. marsdd.com
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Video Language:
English

English subtitles

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