Banner with the text 'How human-centered design improves accessibility remediation' on a pink background surrounded by two illustrations of people with disabilities, a laptop sceren displaying a website wireframe, assistive technology icons, and an icon representing human centered design.

How human-centered design improves accessibility remediation

Sam Proulx
Accessibility Evangelist at Fable

Human-centered design has the best intentions. It’s focused on avoiding assumptions and prioritizing the true needs, behaviors, and experiences of all people throughout the product design process. This approach extends to digital products.

Given human-centered design’s focus on context, research with users, and iterative testing, accessibility should be a natural outcome. But most organizations today think about accessibility as a compliance effort, meaning they don’t start to consider it until much later in the product development lifecycle. If you ask anyone who uses assistive technology about the barriers they navigate in digital experiences, it’s clear this is creating a disconnect.

Many of these barriers could be avoided if companies included people with disabilities early in the UX research process. When companies don’t do this, they get caught in an accessibility remediation loop – fixing accessibility issues after the fact instead of designing for all humans from the start. The big question is why this dynamic continues to play out.

How human-centered design improves accessibility remediation

Human-centered design has the best intentions. It’s focused on avoiding assumptions and prioritizing the true needs, behaviors, and experiences of all people throughout the product design process. This approach extends to digital products.

Given human-centered design’s focus on context, research with users, and iterative testing, accessibility should be a natural outcome. But most organizations today think about accessibility as a compliance effort, meaning they don’t start to consider it until much later in the product development lifecycle. If you ask anyone who uses assistive technology about the barriers they navigate in digital experiences, it’s clear this is creating a disconnect.

Many of these barriers could be avoided if companies included people with disabilities early in the UX research process. When companies don’t do this, they get caught in an accessibility remediation loop – fixing accessibility issues after the fact instead of designing for all humans from the start. The big question is why this dynamic continues to play out.

Sam Proulx
Accessibility Evangelist at Fable

Why is accessibility still an afterthought for so many product organizations?

There are a few reasons why accessibility isn’t always prioritized in UX research and design processes:

1. A bias towards “average” users

Some teams assume that designing for the majority will naturally cover the needs of all users. This leads to only testing with average users. There are misconceptions around the complexity of accessibility testing and even apprehension around doing or saying the wrong thing when working with people with disabilities. There are also many people living with invisible disabilities that are easily overlooked. These dynamics can be compounded by time/resource constraints and a lack of leadership buy-in.

2. The assumption that compliance makes it accessible

Complying with accessibility laws is important, but that doesn’t always lead to more usable products for people with disabilities. A compliance-only mindset can also trap teams in endless (and expensive) accessibility remediation loops.

3. Lack of lived experience

Many UX designers and researchers have neither personally used assistive technology nor observed what it’s like to navigate a digital product using assistive technology. This may feel like a big hurdle, but getting started can be as simple as asking the right questions.

Seeing the friction points is powerful

As a completely blind screen reader user I’m happy to show and share the barriers I face when navigating digital products. In this video, you’ll see me and two other assistive technology users, Andrew and Tin, encounter accessibility friction points and bad UX design examples you may have never considered.

Some accessibility barriers are obvious

There are some digital experiences that simply can’t be navigated using certain types of assistive technology. For example, as a completely blind person using a screen reader, I can’t interact with the traditional image-based CAPTCHA security feature.

  • When a CAPTCHA relies on visual elements, like distorted text and image recognition, my screen reader can’t interpret and convey what’s presented to me on screen.
  • Many CAPTCHAs lack an accessible alternative, so I’m unable to complete the task without asking someone else to help me.
  • A CAPTCHA offering an “accessible” alternative, like audio, often ends up being distorted and difficult to understand or harder to find on the page.

It doesn’t need to be this way. There are plenty of accessible alternatives. For example, Google’s reCAPTCHA v3 doesn’t require users to solve any CAPTCHAs. Instead, it analyzes user behavior to assess the risk of a bot. It’s also possible to verify someone is a human by offering to send a code by text. Most bots don’t have valid cell numbers.

Remember that not all disabilities are visible. Even a logic-based CAPTCHA that directs the user to solve a math problem, like 7 + 2, can fail to meet the needs of users with cognitive disabilities or diminished number literacy.

A CAPTCHA presenting an image of a traffic light on a city street. The CAPTCH instructions are to select all images of traffic lights.

Shining a light on accessibility grey areas

Since the purpose of a CAPTCHA is to verify human users, how can a human relying on a computer (assistive technology) be expected to complete one? This is a straightforward example of the friction that people with disabilities experience online.

Assistive technology users will tell you there are also a lot of grey areas when it comes to friction in digital experiences. Here are some UX design examples from the video I shared earlier:

  • Many apps are missing shortcut keys or require half a dozen keyboard presses to complete a task that would only require a single mouse click from an average user.

  • Some assistive technology is efficient when it’s focusing on a specific task. But when it comes to context switching–like moving from a web browser to a different application–it slows down. For Tin, this creates a drag on workday productivity.

“At work, if we use 3 to 4 different types of tools where Dragon [Naturally Speaking] might be flawless and two where it’s not that great, it’s just an uphill battle where I’m constantly troubleshooting.”

– Tin, Dragon NaturallySpeaking user

Tin, an asian man with short dark hair seated with two computer monitors in the background
  • Something as simple as excessive white space on a page can disorient screen magnification users, like Andrew.

“I like dark mode because it allows me to have better contrast of my text. With excessive white space, when you’re zoomed in to 300% you don’t know where you are on the screen. You kind of adjust, but you can just lose where you are and that makes it hard to navigate.”

– Andrew, screen magnification user

Andrew, a white man with light hair and glasses, seated at an office desk with large windows in the background

A timer feature in an online checkout can boot assistive technology users out of the process before they’ve completed their transaction. Imagine the frustration of waiting 45 minutes in a digital queue to buy highly coveted concert tickets only to be kicked out of the seat selection and purchase interface because it times out. (Taylor Swift fans would riot!) Yet this is a common experience for assistive technology users.

Compliance can’t catch every accessibility problem

Grey areas can creep in when digital products meet legal accessibility requirements (like color contrast minimums, image alt text, and keyboard navigation) yet still create frustrating digital experiences for people with disabilities. They may pass compliance checks but fail at delivering usability. Here are a few bad UX design examples:

  • The interface colors meet contrast ratio standards…

  • But the interface is cluttered, making it hard for users with cognitive disabilities or screen magnifiers to focus. Or, a user who is legally blind has to pan around the screen for a long time just to locate the checkout button.

  • All images have alternative text…

  • But the alt text is auto-generated and doesn’t provide meaningful context for screen reader users.
    Or, the image carousel requires swiping or clicking, making it impossible for alternative keyboards to go through the images.

  • The form is properly labeled…
  • But the form’s error messages are vague (e.g., “Invalid input” instead of “Please enter a valid phone number with no spaces”).

  • The platform is navigable by keyboard (no mouse)…

  • But the tab order is illogical, making it difficult for users navigating via assistive keyboard commands to predict where they’ll land next.

  • Pre-recorded videos are captioned…
  • But there is no option to customize the size or background color of captions, which can be challenging for people with visual impairments.

  • Menus are labeled for screen readers…

  • But some controls aren’t clearly labeled for screen readers (like reactions, emojis or hand raising in video conferencing platforms).

Breaking free of accessibility remediation

When a digital experience is blatantly inaccessible – like the CAPTCHA example I shared earlier – it’s easy for people with disabilities to flag because it’s entirely unusable by a large population of people. But what happens when navigating the experience with assistive technology is really slow and frustrating yet still technically “usable?” Some people with disabilities resign themselves to asking a friend, loved one, or coworker to help them, even though they’d rather use digital products independently.

“I have to find workarounds day-to-day and problem solve how I can be as efficient as possible. But, obviously, not all these barriers are fixed at the current moment. I wish they were, but since they aren’t, then we do have to problem solve quite a bit when using assistive technology.”

– Tin, Dragon NaturallySpeaking user

Proactive human-centered design prioritizes usability for all

A human-centered design process is rooted in empathy, iteration, and user feedback. With co-creation and testing at its core, human-centered design strives to involve users at every relevant stage of product design. This should absolutely include people with disabilities. If you’re worried your UX research and design teams aren’t equipped for this change, don’t be. It’s way easier than you think to get started.

Include people with disabilities in your UX research from the start

This doesn’t need to be a huge lift. For example, a platform like Fable Engage gives you on-demand access to a diverse community of people with disabilities who are pre-vetted and well-trained in how to provide useful feedback in a research setting. These users offer crucial insights that go far beyond accessibility compliance checklists, diving into how common design practices create usability issues for assistive technology users like them.

Include a range of perspectives

By testing with a variety of people using different types of assistive technology you get valuable feedback on how your design decisions affect their daily lives.

Seeing how people navigate your digital products using a screen reader, a switch system, or screen magnification quickly reveals the many places where friction pops up or tasks break down.

Sessions can even focus on the ins and outs of how a particular assistive technology works if you don’t have a product to test yet.

“Designers and researchers can improve by understanding more about how an assistive technology works and not just understanding one point of view. Because people have a wide variety of disabilities and they use their assistive technologies differently from one another.”

– Tin, Dragon NaturallySpeaking user

Fill your team’s inclusive design knowledge gaps

The empathy embedded in human-centered design extends to your teams. Your UX researchers and designers have amazing core skills to build on, but they don’t know what they don’t know when it comes to accessibility. You can help them build their knowledge and skills faster with expert-designed training that’s customized to your tools and systems.

Think small wins over big swings

Building inaccessible, unusable digital products is expensive for companies. The consequences are also very real for people with disabilities. Experiences are closed off. Work becomes more isolating. Participating in common digital experiences is annoying and frustrating.

“Inaccessible experiences definitely slow down your workflow and take you out of the rhythm of getting your work done.”

– Andrew, screen magnification user

I’m personally excited about the possibility of more UX teams incorporating the perspectives of people with disabilities into their processes. I look forward to a future where digital products are flexible enough to let every person with a disability create the specific experiences we wish to have.

Your research, design and development teams will be equally excited about breaking free from an overwhelming accessibility remediation cycle. It’s way more satisfying to proactively and collaboratively build products that work well for every user from the start.

Illustration of a UX researcher. The person is holding a pen and pink sticky notes, while pointing at a presentation that shows three user personas, a growing bar graph.
Illustration of a UX researcher. The person is holding a pen and pink sticky notes, while pointing at a presentation that shows three user personas, a growing bar graph.

By starting with a few changes to your research and design processes today, you can dramatically improve outcomes for people with disabilities everywhere. Once the ball is rolling, the momentum kicks in transforming accessibility from checkbox to core operating principle.

Tap into practical tips for getting started with your human-centered accessibility research.

Create exceptional product experiences

Uncover how accessibility for people with disabilities makes your products better for everyone.

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