The UAE leads the world in several arenas. The government’s willingness to tackle social issues with a clear eye on decision-making has led to a society that is envied and set as a benchmark by peers in the region. For example, a series of federal laws and resolutions lay the groundwork for what is repeatedly referred to as “an inclusive society”, and prohibit discriminatory actions regarding care or employment for people with disabilities. This time, the UAE is addressing a global issue with compassion and vision. The World Bank tells us that around one billion people worldwide — that’s one in seven — live with some form of disability and are more likely to experience “adverse socioeconomic outcomes” than others. The UAE is laser-focused on ensuring that its citizens and residents do not experience such outcomes.
The importance of ‘accessibility for all’ is well established in the physical world. Visit almost any building in the UAE and you will find a ramp available for people in wheelchairs or who have difficulty climbing stairs. The pandemic has dialed up discussions about diversity and inclusion in the real world and with greater reliance on technology, those delivering digital experiences have also begun to understand that there are many reasons to increase options on accessibility in the digital world.
The economic argument
Countries such as the UAE have formalized this morality in regulatory frameworks, many of which include clauses on digital accessibility based on the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). But adherence to these principles is now widely seen not just as a moral or regulatory imperative, but as a competitive advantage. The fact that many devs go beyond WCAG shows that they view accessibility models as a natural extension of usability. True usability includes everything — something WCAG, as it currently stands, does not guarantee. Devs do this because they know that happier, more productive users and employees are, and always have been, the end game. Reach more people, command more market share. So, if good ethics and good governance cannot deliver accessibility, economics will.
This issue is so important, that digital businesses are now setting up their own dedicated digital accessibility programs. These initiatives address how to adapt accessibility principles used in the design of physical environments — ramps, for example — for use in the digital realm. Many amazing technologies are in service, but the solutions may be partial or may not communicate well with each other. While they may seem complete to someone who will never use them, they can cause frustration for those who use them. Design principles from the real world — such as ambidextrous scissors — should be ported and applied to websites, shopping carts, productivity software, social media, and entertainment.
A good rule of thumb in any sustainable design is to push back against incremental improvements in favor of core functions that serve everyone’s needs. Accessibility features can help as add-ons in the short term but lead to complex learning curves over time, not to mention associated maintenance issues for development teams. A comprehensive, platform-first approach ticks most boxes. It will accept Braille keypads, screen readers, eye-tracking technology, voice to text, and sign language. This will allow for an inclusive workplace without discrimination regarding work location or disability.
Second nature
It says that the World Bank used the word “socioeconomic” to describe the daily obstacles faced by people of determination. People living with disabilities often have to make their own way of navigating obstacles when society at large falls apart. Because of their problem-solving history, feedback from these users can be of tremendous value to designers of digital experiences and workflows. The single best way to get this feedback is to have people with disabilities on the design, development, and QA teams building accessible experiences, on customer success teams that tracks public perception of apps, and marketing teams that build narratives around products.
Accessibility needs to be included in all induction training, carefully tailored to the new employee’s role, whether it’s design, development, or program management. Accessibility must become second nature if we want to build the kind of society envisioned by UAE government leaders. Once we reach the mature stage of our accessibility journey, we will incorporate the concept into each step of the software development lifecycle, and we will continue to monitor what works and what doesn’t. At this stage, we learn to put the right people in positions where their insights can do more good. We’ll document our innovations and missteps, train our teams, and train them again, until everyone lives and breathes accessibility.
We must find our way to a more equal and inclusive workforce. We must imagine the world as others travel through it and think about how to bridge the experience gaps between the one billion who live with a disability and those who do not. People with determination have long overcome those gaps on their own. Let us all who build the digital world show the same determination to make it, in the words of the UAE government, “an inclusive society”.
Mark Ackerman is the area VP – Middle East and Africa at ServiceNow
Read: GB Talks: In conversation with Cathy Mauzaize, VP and general manager, EMEA South, ServiceNow