A culture of inclusion

I was watching my wife’s favourite TV show, Grand Designs, when I heard something that changed how I think. Design engineer Mark Butler was standing in his new home. He shared an idea that reshaped all I understood about disability.

 An accident left Mark using a wheelchair. But he does not view this need as a problem to be fixed. While touring his house, he pointed to his adjustable kitchen counters that can move lower as needed. He said:

It’s the environment that makes you disabled; this kitchen allows me to do everything I need to do.

Mark’s observation showed that barriers for those with a disability is not caused by their needs. Instead, it happens when there is a mismatch between their needs and the world around them. If a kitchen has high, fixed counters, this is a barrier that disables those who need lower counters. But when the counters move to meet them, the barrier disappears. Now the room is a tool for independence.

The digital space

Today, we spend a massive part of our lives online. A website or an app is a space, just like a kitchen or an office. Sometimes, a development team builds a website that people cannot use with a keyboard. They might use blurry, low-contrast text and images, or forget to add image descriptions for screen readers. When they do this, they are building a staircase with no ramp. They are creating a digital space that disables the person who needs it. True digital accessibility is not just a box to tick. It is a tool that allows everyone to achieve their goals with dignity and ease.

How we build for everyone

Accessibility should never be an afterthought. It should not be a final coat of paint slapped onto a finished product. So we build accessibility into our software from the start. Our process starts early, long before we write any code.

To build for all, we:

• Plan for inclusion: We include diverse user profiles in our early goals. This ensures we think about people who use screen readers from day one. 

• Set goals using global standards: We use global standards to set goals and for how we define success. This puts high-quality inclusion at the foundation.

• Share the duty: We share this duty across our whole team and it is a core function of our engineering. This prevents delays and ensures an inclusive final product.

Accessibility in practice

When we move into design, our teams use strict quality checks. Developers use a checklist that covers all types of needs so we catch and fix common mistakes right away. Checking our work early saves money. We aim to find and fix any mistake during the design stage. This is much cheaper than fixing live applications. To support this, our testing phase is a strict gate. We do not just hunt for bugs. We test the real experiences to reflects all kinds of needs, such as keyboard-only navigation and screen reader use. When we do find an accessibility error, we treat it with the same urgency as a critical security flaw. It stops a release until it is fixed. This makes sure the product works for all on release.

By adopting Mark Butler’s view, we have learned a huge lesson. When we fix the digital environment, we do not just help people. We build a world where technology never holds anyone back.