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A lot of the conversation about web accessibility focuses on development, but how can other disciplines contribute to make the sites we build more accessible?
Yes! Accessibility is too often structured as a niche focus or working group within teams. Instead, accessibility needs to be thought of laterally. It is something that every single team member can positively impact at every single stage of the project.
Content strategists hold a huge role in structuring content in a clear, digestible manner:
-- Content structure's impact on how the body of a website is structured with <main>, <article>, <aside>, for example
-- How content headers is processed through screenreaders via h tags. (I find educating writers on this so they have opinions about it! Some writers I've worked with would label their copy decks with it, which is supremely helpful!)
-- Teaching them the parameters of alt text, table summaries, etc, so that their approach to content is holistic.
Designers hold a huge role in visualising and structuring the content in a perceivable manner from the start:
Product managers and owners place a huge role in ensuring accessibility is considered at all phases of the project by all project contributors:
Customer service and test/support engineers have a huge role in taking in accessibility feedback from real users, which checks if theory is operating in practice:
There are of course more disciplines that beyond this! The general principle is that everyone has a critical role in making products more accessible at every juncture!
Designers and developers are the two disciplines that are bringing the product into being and therefore shoulder the burden of being the de facto advocates, but accessibility is everyone's job.
From the first idea of a product to the end-user who runs into an issue, we should all be mindful of how our products impact others, particularly those under stress. It takes leadership buy-in, manual testing from all the disciplines, and the willingness of ourselves to advocate for a more user-friendly experience.
One of the easiest ways to see this is to have a diverse and inclusive company that brings those other perspectives to the forefront. If that isn't currently the case in your company, creating personas with various limitations can be helpful. Try to see the product through the experience of someone else, and help others understand that impact.