EXCLUSIVE: The accessibility paradox – How segregating ‘additional needs’ undermines inclusive design 

S’unya Dickman is a neurodivergent software developer and Senior Front End Developer at Aer Studios. In this article, S’unya outlines why he believes that segregating ‘additional needs’ undermines inclusive design.

I’ve worked in the tech industry for over 24 years, but it was only in the last four or five that I became aware of myself as neurodivergent.  

You might be asking; how could I have gone so long and not known? The honest answer is that I’ve always been aware of my differences, but I’ve always chalked them down to me being “weird”, “introverted”, or “stupid” even. 

I have multiple divergences, which have meant that, counterintuitively, some of the worst struggles I have, are masked by aspects of the others. It’s because of this that I’ve been able to convince myself (in most areas) that I just need to work harder. That worked for me…to a point. But there’s a price I pay every day for that.  

Now that I have a set of attributes to explain my experience, I’ve come to realise that I’m not alone in my experiences. There are so many people out there (especially in the tech industry!) that face similar struggles. There are also lots of people who face different and often more absolute struggles. I’ve also come to realise that the struggles are not just personal, but also systemic.  

Accessibility as an afterthought 

Generally, society is getting better at accounting for people’s differences. However, I personally think the way that we’re going about that awareness is not always the best way. I’ve noticed, by creating an area of work called “accessibility”, we are making it possible, even “appropriate”, to build exclusive products and services. 

It plays out something like this:  

“I agree that we should, 100 percent, be making accessible software/services, but given the constraints, we need to deliver value to the majority of our users first. Afterwards we can circle back and assess the effort needed to accommodate users with additional needs.” 

Perhaps that seems, from a business point of view, to be sound reasoning. It may even seem “agile”. Nevertheless, on closer inspection, it’s clear to see that this is inefficient and harmful, both to our products and the world we live in.  

Reframing how we think about “normal” 

Let’s start with interrogating what is meant by “the majority of our users,” especially when it’s used in contrast to “users with additional needs”. This distinction implies that the majority of users are somehow “normal” and then there are the other users who need special treatment. 

But what is a “normal” person anyway? 

Our idea of “normality” belongs to a category of paradigms we form subconsciously over time, without ever really inspecting them. Equally, they are amazingly accommodating of a lot of change without prompting much re-evaluation – meaning that to the person holding the idea of “normality,” it seems like a continuous, coherent idea. While actually it’s changing a great deal all the time and means something different in different circumstances.  

Given that this idea of normality is so mutable for a single person, it begs the question: How can even two people working together agree on the same definition, let alone a whole product team? 

As observed by Susan Sontag, when we label something, in this case a person by the challenges they face, we create an absolute concept defined by that idea, to the exclusion of all else. Consequently, the labels we use when focusing on accessibility are not helpful because the reality is that everybody experiences the challenge presented by an obstacle to our products and services, albeit on different parts of a scale.  

Having said that, sometimes it takes a severe case to help us become aware of something or some people that have been overlooked (because of cultural norms or privilege). Let’s look an at example: 

Stairs might seem so simple for some, they might be an inconvenience for others, but for another group of people they literally represent a mortal danger. 

Stairs are a good example because there is such an accepted and simple solution to the problem: a ramp. A ramp helps everyone access a building, without reducing the people themselves. In the same way, if we can identify the obstacles that people face when they interact with our product, we can make a ramp for them too and make our products, and our environment, better for everyone. 

Move the mountains 

The first step in making this change is simply to reconsider this binary of “normal users” and “users with additional needs” and replace it with the single idea of “obstacles preventing or reducing success” in our products and services. 

The second step is to acknowledge that these hurdles are not all equal and are not experienced equally. 

Once we take on these two considerations, we can start to think about the obstacles that people might face when they interact with our work. It may take some initial effort to gain the skills we need so that we don’t overlook the problems people face when they encounter our products. To do that, it is helpful to review our product from the point of view of these six types of challenge that people might face when they interact with our products:  

• Visual (sight impairments, colour blindness, bright sunlight)
• Auditory (hearing impaired, tinnitus, noisy environment) 
• Motor (paralysis, tremors, broken arm, carrying a child) 
• Cognitive (dyslexia, ADHD, Alzheimer’s, fever) 
• Situational (temporary injury, financial (g. 300MB data plan on feature phone), technological impediment, noisy environment) 
• Speech (speech impairments, fluency disorder, laryngitis) 

The most important thing is to do it right from the start rather than trying to “add the blueberries to the muffin once it has been baked.” After all, this is fundamentally just real User Centred Design (UCD). Working outward from a user’s need and progressively removes obstacles to that goal. 

As a final mental shift, try to accept it is OK to be wrong; it is OK to make mistakes; and it is OK to change your mind – but we have to be open to learn. It is Ok to ask for help.  

Delivering real value 

 If we can shift our minds away from what is essentially a bit of an ableist way of thinking, where we label people rather than recognise people’s challenges using our services, then we will be able to deliver real value to all our customers, making happier clients and working more efficiently.  

In other words, this approach promises a way to deliver better products that cost less to develop and have a better climate impact, all the while reaching more clients and platforms. Best of all, over time, we will be living in a world which is designed for everyone!