Inclusive design as a way to improve your professional batting average

Tell me… What brings you pride and joy in your work, and what about that is connected to your own purpose?

That question has been nagging at me for as long as I care to remember. It’s a question that has not only influenced my professional journey as a digital accessibility specialist these past 20+ years but it’s also shaped the man, the partner, the father, and the consultant that I’ve become. Mulling over that question has led me to identify a set of core values to live by, such as inclusion, empathy, and pragmatism while discarding other ideals that were more of a distraction. This path I’ve taken has also led me to make decisions that paved the way to a greater sense of empowerment, growth, and impact.

A sort of code of conduct, if you will.

This code not only paved the way for me but also affected those I happen to do this for: end-users out there who have disabilities. The elderly who struggle with deteriorating senses. Anyone else who somehow ends up being marginalized by our use of digital technologies. Real people out there, struggling to utilize the websites and applications that the rest of us so easily take for granted.

If you are a web professional interested in, or maybe even passionate about accessibility (why else would you be reading this piece otherwise), then chances are you probably identify with values such as empathy and inclusion yourself. Maybe you never really took the time to investigate your own “why”, never really questioned what it is in your work that fuels your fire. Could you ever identify what it is that drives you?

So, I want to ask you again: what brings you pride and joy in your work, and what about that is connected to your own purpose?

Over the years, my personal journey has led me to identify what my own purpose was: I, my friends, am on a mission to create a more inclusive world, where people can truly connect. It’s as simple as that. To me, the pride and joy come from knowing that at the end of the day, the work I contribute to society makes a difference in the lives of countless people. That this work empowers people with disabilities to feel like they belong and allows them to truly participate without having to depend on someone else’s support. Knowing that the fruits of my labor allow them to feel seen and cared for brings me joy. I take pride in knowing that this work makes people feel like they matter.

There are days where I don’t even really know why I care this deeply. I just do. That, to me, is reason enough.

Measuring the worth of my own contribution is pretty straightforward: if at the end of a busy day, I can close my laptop, kick my feet up and feel like I’ve made a significant difference to the world by having contributed something meaningful, then I can consider that day to be one that was well spent.

Measuring the worth of my own contribution is pretty straightforward: if at the end of a busy day, I can close my laptop, kick my feet up and feel like I’ve made a significant difference to the world by having contributed something meaningful, then I can consider that day to be one that was well spent. Sometimes, it’s a 4-hour training session. Sometimes, it’s an insightful conversation. Can you say the same about your work? Through the practice of digital accessibility, this sense of worth becomes possible. If you are actively pursuing goals for inclusion, I’m sure you feel the same way.

And if you haven’t given accessibility a shot yet, well… You should try it sometime.

What’s your professional batting average?

With respective batting averages of .366, .358, and .356, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, and Joe Jackson are baseball legends who sit comfortably at the very top of the list for best hitters of all time. They’ve built entire careers that spanned decades, not so much by shooting for that big, juicy home run every single time they walked up to the plate, but by making sure they helped their team members reach the plate themselves, by safely connecting with the ball in a way that strategically allowed the others to score points.

As a digital accessibility specialist, I’m definitely not hitting it out of the park every single day either, but my goal is always to serve the higher purpose of inclusion. To elevate the rest of my team, by supporting them in a way that, in turn, allows them to better serve the end-users. The work I do doesn’t automatically connect with my goals every single time… But if my own professional batting average remains as good as Cobb’s, then it brings me that pride and joy I was writing about earlier. It connects me to that higher sense of purpose. Connection is everything.

Can you relate to this in your own work? How do you measure your own professional batting average? If your ability to maintain that batting average as high as you’d like is challenging, then why is that? Is there a disconnect? Are you missing something? What is it that drives YOU to do the work you do?

How do you measure your own professional batting average? If your ability to maintain that batting average as high as you’d like is challenging, then why is that? Is there a disconnect? Are you missing something? What is it that drives YOU to do the work you do?

A recent conversation with a friend about what we felt our true motivation was for accessibility and inclusive design sparked an interesting two-hour-long conversation that cemented my own beliefs in connecting to that higher professional purpose. In this post, I want to go over what I believe to be the core tenets of the ideal inclusive design or development mindset, but also do a bit of a plea for bringing more passion into our work.

If you are on your way to becoming a more inclusive web professional yourself, and you’re still looking for ways to fast-track your own way to success, to better connect with your own sense of purpose, then hopefully, you will find these insights to be of value for you as well.

Tenet no1: As a web professional, accessibility should be more about the journey than about the destination

For the longest time, I thought that creating accessible websites and applications was just as much about the journey as it was about the destination. In other words, that the processes and techniques used to create accessible websites and applications (what I’d refer to as “the journey”) were just as important as the outcome of said accessible products or services (what I’d define as “the destination”). I no longer believe that to be the case. Over the years, I’ve grown to believe that the outcome really doesn’t matter as much.

Don’t believe me? Just take a look at the scarce landscape of truly accessible websites and applications out there. It’s pretty appalling.

In contrast, most organizations and teams who are first introduced to digital accessibility — typically through the lens of a legal complaint or a lawsuit — will tend to approach the challenge of digital inclusion in a very different light. Obsessed with the idea of getting rid of the threat and alleviating the risk, they will tend to see the task as a checklist item that needs to be addressed. A bug to be squashed.

Everyone’s energy is dedicated to fixing the “problem”, and very little energy is invested in learning from that process. Corners are cut in favor of quickly getting to the end result. Assumptions are made, which lead to uninformed decisions, which, in turn, lead to roadblocks for end users. Everyone’s goal is to hit the mark as quickly and effortlessly as possible, and nobody takes the time to reflect on the bigger picture. Projects are delivered, typically with painfully disappointing results. And no one really understands why.

Worse, no one gets to learn much from the experience, and the same mistakes are likely repeated the next time around.

Whether the destination relates to mitigating the risks of getting sued or achieving a certain level of conformance to a set of internationally recognized standards, this approach leads teams to be focused on “getting it done” so the organization can move on. It makes the entire process about meeting a series of requirements in a checklist, as opposed to making it about creating a more inclusive online experience for people to whom a one-size-fits-all solution just won’t suffice.

Being focused on the final outcome automatically creates an undue burden for team members who are then pressured into getting everything perfect as they frantically rush to the finish line. It doesn’t leave much room for errors, yet accessibility issues pile up nonetheless. It doesn’t allow for web professionals to reflect on their own craft or their own unconscious biases. It doesn’t allow for organizations to truly learn from the experiences either. Internal processes remain inadequate, learning opportunities are missed and the same problems easily creep up into the next project or the next iteration of the same project in the future.

The experience of baking accessibility into the process leaves a very sour taste in the mouth of everyone involved and reinforces the limiting belief that accessibility is only about constraints, blood, sweat, and tears, as opposed to being a celebration of the opportunity to empower millions of additional people to access information in a way that works for them.

Accessibility leaves a sour taste in the mouth of everyone involved and reinforces the limiting belief that accessibility is only about constraints, blood, sweat, and tears, as opposed to being a celebration of the opportunity to empower millions of additional people to access information in a way that works for them.

I’m sure that most of you reading this can relate to such experiences in your own project development life cycles. But trust my experience on this, it doesn’t have to be that way! Accessibility doesn’t have to bring up the same feelings as pulling teeth. By instead choosing to focus on the journey, by proactively choosing to slow down, strategize, plan, reflect and weave accessibility into their process, teams can be a lot more successful, and achieve much higher levels of accessibility with their digital properties.

When it comes to improving your own accessibility batting average, nothing will yield success like focusing on the journey much more than the destination. Great, consistent hitters keep their eyes on the ball and regularly deliver. Sluggers swinging with all their might will hit it out of the park every now and then, but most of the time, they simply walk back to the dugout. Baseball games are won by making sure your team members can regularly get to first, second, then third base. Small, consistent progress always pays off.

Tenet no2: Accessibility won’t be painful, as long as you accept to approach it progressively

Choosing to focus on the journey more than the destination means that as a team or an organization, you accept the old adage that Rome wasn’t built in a single day.

You acknowledge that it’s better to make small, iterative but tangible progress, rather than shoot for that big home run that rarely comes. Slowing down for accessibility might sound pretty utopic in our industry as we know it today, but think about it. What ultimately hurts your organization the most?

• Shutting out millions of users because your project is inaccessible to them, maybe getting sued in the process and risking the potential damage to your brand as the media picks up on the story, all because your organization went for that longball, but ended up striking out?
• Or slowing down to address accessibility challenges as they come up, knowing full well that you won’t possibly be able to cover everything that the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines throws at you just yet, but making sure that you feed upon tangible achievements along the way?

Hear me out. The secret to successful accessibility implementations is baby steps. That’s it. It doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to be daunting. It doesn’t have to be overwhelming. If you and your team make a conscious decision to slow down and thoughtfully tackle the challenge, not only will you be able to better enjoy the ride, but you will also begin to see through the complexity of it all. Your team will be more successful in its endeavors, which will ultimately lead your organization to provide a better user experience for your end-users.

Yes, you will likely cover fewer requirements in the short term, but the ones you will tackle will likely be handled in a much more satisfactory manner. Your players will cover the bases and the next hitters will allow them to reach the home plate. Your team will get a chance to learn about their craft as they go, they will retain the information, they will improve their processes and they will grow as a more inclusive team, which will in turn, dramatically reduce the cost of similar efforts in the future. It will be a win-win.

Allow me to let you in on another little secret as well… one that most accessibility experts and vendors out there would prefer you never find out: this whole accessibility thing is not rocket science. Each granular piece is actually pretty straightforward, both in design, copy, and code. With that said, it often is a huge pain in the neck because people naturally set themselves up for failure.

What makes accessibility difficult is the sheer amount of details and moving parts. The technicality and opacity of the rules. The diversity of disabilities people live with. The multitude of use cases that define human experiences. The complexity of technology stacks. Our attitude towards it.

What makes accessibility difficult is the sheer amount of details and moving parts. The technicality and opacity of the rules. The diversity of disabilities people live with. The multitude of use cases that define human experiences. The complexity of technology stacks. Our attitude towards it.

Ultimately, it’s your call, but know this: accessibility will be less painful if you do approach it progressively. As Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959), an American architect, designer, writer, and educator famously said: “you can use an eraser on the drafting table or a sledgehammer on the construction site.” Fixing and remediating issues after the fact will always take more time and be more painful than properly planning and executing in the first place. It’s always more painful and costly to fix a problem in production than it is in the early stages of design.

If you choose to break down accessibility considerations by topics or content types and decide to address just a few at a time, you will get better results. As your team becomes clearer about how to achieve accessibility on those specific aspects, everyone will feel more confident in their ability to tackle a few more. Before you know it, the team will wrap its head around every piece, and the resulting product will naturally add up to a more robust outcome. With a little bit of luck, you might even get them to document their learnings in your design system, so that future team members can also benefit.

Think of each accessibility consideration you choose to address as one of the players on your team, already in position on the first, second or third base. A steady stream of reliable hitters will allow each one to run safely back to the home plate. And nothing makes baseball fans happier than that steady stream of points adding up to the scoreboard.

Tenet no3: Accessibility has the power to change people’s lives and make them feel like they matter

Speaking of the fans, the third aspect of what I believe to be the ideal inclusive design or development mindset is directly related to those who do this for; the end-users.

It always amazes me how the majority of people in our industry seem to conveniently forget that their job is not to create the next cool thing with design and code. Their job, first and foremost, is to be the transmission belt through which organizations can successfully communicate a message, a service, a product, or a brand to the masses. Sorry to be blunt, but anyone who feels otherwise is grossly mistaken.

It always amazes me how the majority of people in our industry seem to conveniently forget that their job is not to create the next cool thing with design and code. Their job, first and foremost, is to be the transmission belt through which organizations can successfully communicate a message, a service, a product, or a brand to the masses.

By designing and developing products and services that are not accessible to people with disabilities, to the elderly, or to anyone else who struggles one way or another with our use of technologies, what our industry is doing is limiting the number of people who can then take advantage of the products and services these organizations aim to offer. Millions of people are left out. Hundreds of millions in potential sales are lost. Thousands of organizations get sued every year.

By designing and developing products and services that are exclusionary, we short-change the very organizations who pay us to create them. The American Institutes for Research informs us that the after-tax disposable income of working-age Americans with disabilities is worth around half a trillion dollars a year. Clearly, not accounting for the needs and expectations of people with disabilities causes the organizations we design and develop these products and services for to leave millions of dollars on the table, every single year.

But more importantly, beyond the financial considerations, what we are talking about here is not leaving anyone behind, because every person should matter. Accessibility needs are not edge cases. Making people feel like they matter should be at the center of what our industry does because people do matter.

Just try to imagine what your own life would be like if all of a sudden, the web was no longer accessible to you. If you had to depend on other people to do your banking, get information, shop for things, do groceries online, etc. What our inaction does when we don’t work towards more inclusive outcomes is artificially preventing a large segment of our population to be able to autonomously lead their lives, and contribute to society like the rest of us.

By acknowledging various needs, you are choosing to create a more equal society, where everyone has a better chance of belonging.

By making accessibility a part of your process, you are choosing to better serve the organizations that task you with communicating on their behalf.

By elevating accessibility to be a core tenet of your own craft, you are choosing to take part in the solution, as opposed to the problem.

By recognizing accessibility as something that benefits everyone, you are also future-proofing the web for your older self.

I believe that one of the best ways through which web professionals today can connect with their own sense of purpose is by building a skillset around inclusive design and accessible implementations. Pushing pixels around a screen is fun for a while, but how many websites or applications can a person work on until the next one becomes “just another project”? How many of you have lost the passion of your early days in this field? How long has it been since your work brought you pride and joy? How long has it been since you’ve felt your work made a significant difference in the life of others?

We as web professionals have an opportunity to connect with a deeper sense of purpose. We can find new, unsuspected meanings in the job that we do. We can take new pride, find new joy in our work, knowing that the outcome of what we create truly makes a difference in other people’s lives.

Through digital accessibility and inclusive design, we as web professionals have an opportunity to connect with a deeper sense of purpose. We can find new, unsuspected meanings in the job that we do. We can begin to take new pride, find new joy in our work, knowing that the outcome of what we create truly makes a difference in other people’s lives.

The choice is yours. You can try to be the slugger who knocks it out of the park every now and then, or you can choose to be the hitter who constantly helps to move the entire team forward. I’d argue that while the first option might bring you an ephemeral sense of instant gratification, the second option is much more likely to bring you pride and joy, knowing that you elevate others, instead of yourself.

And if this isn’t something that can help every one of us connect more deeply with our own sense of purpose in this world, then I don’t know what can.