S5 | 421: Agile Accessibility with Corb O'Connor, LevelAccess

Digital StrategyTechnologyConversational AI

Sep 18

About the Episode

Creating accessible digital experiences enables brands to create a more equitable, inclusive world, but doing accessibility well can provide challenges, and unfortunately, many organizations treat accessibility as an afterthought, which makes updates and innovations move slowly and ultimately making digital accessibility harder than it needs to be.

But there’s a solution to this, and it involves… Agile. Today we’re going to talk about Agile Accessibility, and to help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Corbb O'Connor, Director of Accessibility Advocacy, at Level Access.

About Corbb O’Connor

Corbb O’Connor leads accessibility advocacy for Level Access. He thinks like an economist, writes like a journalist, and facilitates meetings like a party host. Corbb taught himself web programming languages and Adobe Photoshop so he could build a resource hub for webmasters in 1998. Since then, he’s started a business-to-business communications firm, U.S. Bank’s accessibility initiative, and a manual testing team. Over the years, he’s educated thousands about creating inclusive environments alongside others with disabilities in the United States, Canada, and Jamaica.

Resources

Getting started with Agile Accessibility report: https://www.levelaccess.com/earesources/getting-started-with-agile-accessibility-a-five-step-guide/

The Agile Brand podcast website: https://www.gregkihlstrom.com/theagilebrandpodcast

Get the latest news and updates on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-brand/

For consulting on marketing technology, customer experience, and more visit GK5A: https://www.gk5a.com The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems.Learn more here: https://www.teksystems.com/versionnextnow

The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company

Synopsis

Agile accessibility is a concept that integrates the principles of Agile and Sprints to prioritize accessibility throughout the entire lifecycle of a digital product. This approach ensures that accessibility considerations are incorporated into the design, development, and delivery stages of the product, rather than treating it as an afterthought. By incorporating accessibility from the beginning, teams can guarantee that the product is usable by individuals with disabilities, promoting inclusivity. This collaborative approach encourages teams to quickly identify and address accessibility issues, while also emphasizing the importance of gathering feedback from users with disabilities at each stage of the process. Ultimately, Agile accessibility aims to make accessibility an integral part of the development process, resulting in more inclusive and equitable digital experiences.

The episode emphasizes the crucial role of training and education in helping teams understand and incorporate accessibility into their day-to-day work. The speaker highlights the need for teams to have a clear understanding of what accessibility entails in order to effectively incorporate it. This understanding can be achieved through role-specific training that emphasizes the responsibilities required to create accessible experiences.

Furthermore, the speaker provides an example of a team that recognized their accessibility issues and prioritized improving the customer's experience. They chose to focus on simplifying the password reset process for users. This example underscores the significance of celebrating incremental progress in accessibility.

Overall, the episode underscores the importance of training and education in enabling teams to understand their responsibilities and make meaningful progress in creating accessible experiences.

The episode also emphasizes the value of celebrating incremental progress and focusing on small improvements to make a meaningful difference in the customer's experience. The speaker highlights the idea that even small changes can have a significant impact on the overall customer experience.

To illustrate this point, the speaker shares an example of a team that identified the password reset process as an area where they could make a difference. Despite facing numerous accessibility issues, the team decided to prioritize making it easy for customers to reset their passwords. This small improvement was celebrated as a meaningful step towards enhancing the customer experience.

The speaker also acknowledges the challenges of implementing such improvements in a financial institution. They emphasize the importance of role-specific training and education to ensure that teams understand their responsibilities in creating accessible experiences. By providing training and education, teams can incorporate accessibility into their day-to-day work and contribute to the ongoing improvement of the customer experience.

Overall, the episode highlights the value of celebrating incremental progress and focusing on small improvements. By taking small steps towards enhancing the customer experience, organizations can consistently and efficiently produce a rich and inclusive experience for everyone.