Accessibility by Design at Microsoft

In recent years, a transformation in Microsoft’s culture has compelled us to reach higher in the areas of inclusivity and accessibility. Inclusion lies at the heart of the mission statement Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella introduced three years ago: To empower everyperson and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

Most companies comply with accessibility code, mandated across most of the world via standards like the US’s Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). But in many cases, the building code does not go far enough to be inclusive to the needs of everyone. People once defined disability as the problem of an individual, but today we know that disability happens at the points of interaction between an individual and their environment: a mismatch between what a person wants to achieve and an environment that does not support them.

We have learned that empowering human beings by creating environments that can support them is not only the right thing for companies to do—it’s good for business. 

If companies don’t have facilities that support a diverse population, they miss out on the widest possible talent pool. Take physical disability, a category of human diversity that may be bigger than you think. There are a billion people on the planet with a disability, and some 70 percent of these disabilities are invisible. Accommodating this much of the potential workforce—not to mention customers and visitors—is simply sound business sense.

But how does a company accommodate individuals with disabilities if it doesn’t know who they are? That’s a challenge—and one Microsoft has met by working with its Corporate, External, and Legal Affairs (CELA) department to establish a partnership with an advisory group of employees who have disabilities. That community then advises designers on the second most formidable challenge: how to most meaningfully address their needs.

Sometimes, these partners will uncover an area where design does not serve everyone—as they found in one of our buildings where lobby tables weren’t high enough to allow people in wheelchairs to work or set a drink comfortably while waiting for appointments. Other times they help to test ideas in Microsoft’s workplace research lab, the Hive. In one such test, we created cardboard replicas of walls and tables, which the employees who use wheelchairs tested for size, reach, and comfort.

Numerous design and layout decisions within Microsoft have been informed by the knowledge only those who live with a disability can impart. Designers remodeling the cafes on the main campus were preparing to feature digital ordering at point-of-sale, where people with vision impairments can order at a screen reader which conveys information audibly. But before that could be used, employee advisors noted that clear travel paths needed to be established through the queue-clogged floorspace.

That’s why in some Puget Sound Campus cafes, railings and concrete “roads” through the carpeting have been installed to clearly differentiate the travel paths from the queuing areas. In others, salad bars have been switched from a make-it-yourself to an order-what-you-want setup, so that those who use wheelchairs don’t encounter unreachable ingredients. And throughout the campus, utensils and drinks in coolers are now labeled in braille in addition to high-contrast lettering.

We’re often asked whether designing for accessibility is cost-prohibitive. In new buildings this approach to design can be folded into initial planning at little to no extra cost. After all, it costs the same to install a faucet on the side of a kitchen sink, where it’s universally reachable, as in its traditional place in back. When you strive to offer more accommodation than what’s mandated by building codes, it’s simply a matter of consultation with experts—those who use the accommodations—and empowering the designers to pursue integrated solutions.

It doesn’t matter the number of people with disabilities a company employs: design that includes is not only the right thing to do, it benefits more people than we know. Not everyone experiences a disability in their lifetime, but everyone is occasionally in need of accommodation. Anyone whose hands are full will appreciate an automatic door push-plate. High-contrast screen settings were originally developed for people with low vision, but they come in equally handy for anyone trying to use a device in bright sunlight. An oversized revolving door accommodates a wheelchair—or a delivery cart.

These are accommodations that originated with one group, but which ultimately benefited a much larger pool of employees and visitors. That’s inclusivity at its best—and it’s what we at Microsoft are striving every day not just to deliver, but to improve upon.