When do you think about accessibility when you’re building products?

Accessibility has to be integral to the design itself and thought of during the architecture building. The entire concept gets killed if you think of accessibility as a post-design feature/add-on.

Accessibility has to be part of initial design; it cannot be an afterthought. It's far more painful to make an existing product accessible then to build with accessibility as a requirement.

Sembly Personal can be used by people with hearing impairments, thus our product solves the problem of "accessibility" of popular online meetings on all popular platforms. We do not focus on this, but we are glad that this opportunity is covered by our product :)

For tech products, my ideas of accessibility are: 1. Make it easy for users to try/use the product. Add social one-click logins and take the users to the core value of the product within the first few seconds. 2. Use straightforward copywriting that's common lingo among your user base. 3. Make it easy for users to switch from an alternative. 4. Reduce steps to achieving tasks on the application. 5. Don't force users to set usernames, passwords, and input lots of data before they get to jump into the application. There are many more, I'd be able to think clearly depending on the product. This is more of a case-to-case situation. Best of lunch for your upcoming launches 🎉. @aaronoleary Do @ me whenever you launch anything, I'd love to see those products.

Our methode is: - Defining how our ideal functionality would look like. - Then how it could be used for a 5 years old - How it could be used for someone with visual limitations.

From day one. You can’t bake it in, accessibility in needs to be thought about throughout the development process from idea to release.

Most certainly at the beginning for me but I'll be the first to admit that its something I have sometimes overlooked or haven't put in enough time with so I have put an item on my to-do list after reading this.

Depending on what product/ service you offer will depend on the difficulty of providing accessibility and what stage it is introduced. In my position as a marketer, steps can be taken to cater the process to each client and their needs. Of course, to get clients that require accessibility, our own marketing must be accessible. From the start of online profile building, we have created all of our online content in various formats. If we have a video about best campaign practices, it has captions. Simultaneously we also upload the same content in a carousel format on our other platforms. I would personally recommend considering the aspects of accessibility early on in the launch of a brand. Particularly with the use of social media, there are many steps you can take that open your product up to a broader range of people. Implementation might not be immediate, but knowing what steps you will take should be addressed. I have found that the most straightforward steps to implement on an online basis are: structuring form layouts (to be read from top to bottom for screen readers), using descriptive links, avoiding flashing/ fast-moving content, using clear, larger fonts, choosing a colour scheme that presents text clearly and also using recognisable symbols as indicators on your website or landing page. I think the answer to this question is a matter of case by case, but it is a great discussion.