Making your website accessible is just plain the right thing to do

Bridging a barrier

I've spent a lot of my work life and free thinking time this year teaching myself (and others, one coworker at a time) the principles and skills of web accessibility, to be applied first on a simple low-risk pilot project, and then so I can be positioned to make a difference when my company finally commits to it whole-heartedly.

Making web content easily available to people with disabilities will take institutional will and know-how.

But mainly will.

Don't tell me it doesn't fit in with the mission, target audience or business needs. I design and manage web projects for the main website of a major financial institution whose mission is to take a stand for their clients, to treat them fairly, and give them the best chance for success. But for all it's altruism, it has yet to get on board fully with coding, design and writing practices that would make it's content available to all people regardless of their technology or disability.

Don't tell me there isn't time or money in the budget. I've just rolled off a 5-year multi-million dollar infrastructure and user interface project where commitment to one internal goal was paramount, but little thought or support was given to complying with basic accessibility guidelines for users.

So I find myself wondering about how large institutions become motivated to take on change.

Where is the will?

I found this excellent WebAIM article, Hierarchy for Motivating for Accessibility Change, which made me wonder if any of these approaches would work at my company.

• Guilt: See above. It is so perfect with our mission, and we've had the opportunities that we've passed up, so why not make it a priority like other projects we've done recently.
• Punish: We could be sued. Others in our industry have recently and the Department of Justice has become increasingly involved.
• Require: The 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act "places of public accommodation" phrase could be interpreted to mean websites, which would require companies who do business on the web to make their websites accessible to those with disabilities. Or, maybe we should just declare that we are making this a company standard and it will become a part of job expectations tied to yearly performance evaluations. 
• Reward: Being accessible will give us a competitive marketing advantage...we'll be able to earn/tout industry certification. Or, we'll strengthen loyalty to the brand and our net promoter score will go up. Or, we'll broaden our client base and that means more money coming in.
• Enlighten: Cleaner simpler code is better for SEO and gets us better Google rankings. Or, it makes for better future readiness as new technologies come along. Accessibility is a side effect of technical excellence. 
• Inspire: It is about taking a stand for people, treating them fairly and giving them the best chance to succeed. So let's see it make a difference in the life of an individual. I'll bet you know someone with a disability who could benefit from our great company philosophy. And, 50% of our clients are over age 50, but they own the lion's share of our assets. Let's make it easier for older eyes and improve their experience. Let's make it more accessible to both clients and prospects. It's just plain the right thing to do. 

Which ones work for you, personally? Which have worked for you at your large company or corporation? Did I miss any?

The new buzz word is Engaged

In the corporate environment being "engaged" is the new buzzword and means being an employee who is involved, focused, energize and committed to the work you do.

For an in-house design group this is especially challenging. So much is design-by-committee, the highest paid person's opinion (hippo) often overriding expert design opinion or user research results, and lack of appreciation for the value designers bring to the company.

The studies say having a best friend at work is an important part of feeling committed and engaged. Many conversations in the office (and laughs) have centered around this idea. And once I understood and paid a little more attention to friendship and being a friend, my own outlook improved a bit.

Here are a few more drivers to consider...connect, shape, learn, stretch, achieve, contribute:

Feeling Blah About Work? Don't Blame Your Boss--Get Engaged

I'll have to say appreciation tops my list. Mark Twain said "I can live two months on a good compliment."

I agree.

Well, maybe not two months.

What keeps you engaged in your work? How do you increase engagement in your design team?

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Strengths

"You cannot be anything you want to be—but you can be a lot more of who you already are."

"When we're able to put most of our energy into developing our natural talents, extraordinary room for growth exists."

Focusing on strengths rather than "opportunity areas" in the workplace, and as a way of managing or leading, makes so much sense to me. It just feels right.

I've been reading StrengthsFinder 2.0, and Strengths Based Leadership in the last few days.

Their research proves that feeling out. People who do have the opportunity to focus on their strengths every day are six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs and more than three times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life in general, according to the Gallup organization.

"If you focus on people's weaknesses they lose confidence."

When you are not able to use your strengths at work, you are six times less likely to be engaged in your job. You are more likely to dread going to work, to treat others poorly, to achieve less on a daily basis, and to have fewer creative moments.

Not good for a designer, right?

I recommend taking the assessment and having a candid discussion with your employer about where you can begin using your strengths every day.

At the very least it will validate what you've already known and give you permission to stop trying to be more of something you aren't.

"...data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision, paralyzing the company and preventing it from making any daring design decisions."

Douglas Bowman, former Visual Design Lead for Google

Every workplace should have this rule

Jerks, bullies, mean-spirited people. Name them what you will. They are people who persistently leave others feeling demeaned and de-energized; usually those who have less power and social standing than their tormentors.

Bob Sutton says that the best test of a person's character is how he or she treats those with less power.

When a person is consistently warm and civilized toward people who are of unknown or lower status, it means he or she is a decent human being. Small decencies not only make you feel better about yourself, but can have a ripple effect through your team and department.

More about the concepts in this book in future posts.

Read Bob Sutton's places and people that use the rule.

. . . that performance management should be like. . .

...good typography, a balanced interplay between positive and negative space, with focus on the positive.

No one pays attention to the negative space, alone, in a letterform. It's counter intuitive (pun intended). When the counter becomes dominant the beauty and function of the letterform is lost in a jumble of shapes that have no meaning.

Likewise emphasis on team members' weaknesses render their positive contributions meaningless.

Strokes, terminals, shoulders, ascenders, descenders, serifs--line and shape make up the contour map of the alphabet. A repetition of curves, verticals, horizontals, and serifs are combined to bring variety and unity to well-designed fonts.

I once read that the greatest potential for growth is in one's areas of strength. Recognizing these strengths and cultivating them through activities that thrill and challenge a particular team member can help them accomplish exponential results personally and as part of a team.

Focus on the positive. Foster the strength. Allow the counter space to support the whole, but recede into the background.

Quotable

The most important thing I have learned is that legibility and beauty stand close together.
~Adrian Frutiger

. . .that design is not a manufacturing activity.

The process of design and design thought is not something that can be corralled into processes that work well for coding.

A developer works to build, or assemble code into a working product. They don't sit and ponder if one set of code instructions is better than another or more beautiful or pleasing. They just know it needs to work flawlessly. The goal is to produce predictable results every time.

The goal of design is to arrive at something new and fresh. For that, design thinking needs time, space, breathing room. It is intensity, then lull, for this is often when ideas are born, solutions become evident, or the right design coalesces. This "loafing" can be seen as unproductive by some, but is essential for designers.

Trying to force the visioning part of the process into the same methods that work for the development part of the process is square-peg-in-round-hole uncomfortable. Each process has it's place in the overall success of a user's experience and should be not only allowed to exist, but supported and encouraged and sought after in the company.

Quotable

Let each person exercise the art they know best.
~Aristophenes

. . . that the gravity of the hairball is strong.

I've just finished reading Orbiting the Giant Hairball, A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace by Gordon MacKenzie. A good read, done in a couple of hours...and funny! Gordon worked for 30 years at Hallmark (the hairball) and managed to keep his sanity.

He says a hairball is formed by two hairs uniting, joined by other hairs that get twisted into a tangled impenetrable mass.

(Though not fluffy as pictured...Gordon must not own a cat. -Aack, aack-)

Anyway, the corporate hairball is made up of established guidelines, techniques, methodologies, systems and measures. This mass exerts a relentless pull of gravity on original thinking and creativity. And many are sucked down into the security of past successes, becoming so attached to a specific outcome, that they feel compelled to control and manipulate.

It's hard for corporations to understand that creativity is not just about succeeding. It's about experimenting and discovering.

Gordon says it's possible to Orbit around a corporate Hairball, to find a place of balance, where you benefit from the physical, intellectual and philosophical resources of the organization. You must invest enough individuality to counteract the gravity. You must find the personal courage to be genuine, to take the best possible course of action to get the job done, without being sucked into the nothingness of the hairball or flung out into deep space.

Yes, it's been a long while since I've posted...I've been hacking my way out of the GH.

More:
Luke W
Fast Company
Idea map by Megan Clark
Amazon

Quotable

We can lick gravity but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.
~Wernher Von Braun, 1912-1977, German Rocket Pioneer