Experiences of Accessibility Design

The Experience of Accessibility Design Meetup, which was part of the GAAD (Global Accessibility Awareness Day) Foundation (#gaad2023), was successfully held yesterday, organized jointly by Budapest Accessibility Meetup, OTP Bank Magyarország , and UX Budapest . Approximately 100 experts and enthusiasts participated in the event. Thanks to the great atmosphere, a larger group continued their conversations even after the official program ended at the Kávés Katica.

The evening started with a playful empathizing game, which drew attention to the importance of accessibility design. Throughout the program, several interesting presentations and roundtable discussions took place, focusing on the process of strategy, research, and implementation.

Among the speakers were Dora Szabo , the OTP CSR Manager, who talked about accessibility as a strategy, and Dorián Gida Hevesi , the OTP Research Expert, who shared research findings on the habits of customers affected by accessibility. árpád Nagy , the OTP UX Lead Designer, presented the 2.0 version of introducing accessibility and shared his experiences regarding implementation.

During the roundtable discussion, participants shared their experiences and discussed the challenges and solutions of implementing accessibility. Alongside árpád Nagy, Károly Szántai, CPWA , a certified web accessibility expert, and Tamás Terjéki , the i-Cell Mobilsoft Product Design Line Manager, joined the conversation.

Several interesting topics were discussed during the meetup, including preconceptions, seeking excuses and exclusions, confrontations, and the importance of dialogue between designers and developers.

The evening concluded with a forum for participants' questions and answers, followed by the conclusion phase, where Péter Klein, the host of the evening, summarized the important lessons and conclusions. Based on the discussions at the event, the following important thoughts emerged:

1. Accessibility affects everyone. Anyone can temporarily or permanently live with a disability, which is why it is crucial to consider everyone's needs during design and development. Accessibility is not just a small part of the big picture but influences the entire user experience.
2. Collaboration and cooperation play a crucial role in the field of accessibility. Designers, developers, and other stakeholders need to work closely together to understand each other's perspectives and find solutions collectively. Only then can a satisfactory and genuinely accessible user experience be created.
3. Accessibility is not a binary concept. It is not simply a matter of "having" or "not having" accessibility but encompasses various nuances. It is essential to continuously improve and enhance products and services to make them accessible to a wider audience.

The success of the event was ensured by the enthusiasm and active participation of the attendees, demonstrating that accessibility is receiving increasing attention within the design and development communities.

Thank you all for attending. We'll see you soon.

Finally, we've collected a few favorite misconceptions on the topic:

• "How many people in Hungary are affected by this issue? If it's only a few, we don't need to address it right now."
• "Can we measure with analytics how many of our visitors are affected?"
• "Our customers don't include people with disabilities, so we don't need to concern ourselves with this topic."
• "People with (xy) type of disability don't want to do/buy (xy) things anyway, so accessibility is not relevant to us."
• "How can we detect if a visitor is affected or not? Because then we'll show them something different."
• "It should be expected from the user to..." / "We could find a compromise solution."
• "Right now, we're only focusing on the MVP."
• "Elderly people don't use the internet anyway."