Today I attended #GAconf Europe.
It was a very interesting event full of wonderful and useful information.
Some things I've learned:
1) Usability is accessibility - "if it's not accessible, it's not usable". This is the idea that well thought out usability / UX greatly, if not fully, overlap with accessibility. This makes great sense to me, great UX is easy, simple and adaptable. I think that's the key here - accessibility needs things to be adaptable to be able to fit the individual's needs. It might be tempting to have some hard presets, hoping they cover everything, but accessibility needs are too personal and too much of a multi-dimensional spectrum to be so easily quantified and neatly packaged. This is reflected in some parts of the industry, where the same department takes care of them both (I know I myself for others have given both usability and accessibility feedback mixed together into one since they're so tightly related).
2) Start accessibility research and testing early and have a plan/roadmap, it will pay off in the long run by helping to build the product with accessibility ingrained, not retrofitted. Also, it might be a good idea to have the usability & accessibility team not tell the devs what they'll test next, as devs tend to quickly cram in features to meet that and ignore others, rather than implementing them as they go - i.e. to keep them on their toes. The latter part came with a "this might not work for all, but it's what fits our studio" disclaimer.
3) Pay your research/testing participants for their knowledge - I mean this one just makes sense to me, they are there to give you feedback (personal, valuable info), so naturally they should be compensated for sharing it with you. But more than that, accommodate them and check their needs beforehand - then if it's not a fit for test X, you can try to fit them in for test Y.
4) The pandemic, or more precisely the wide and rapid adaptation and evolution of the online format, has been beneficial to accessibility testing/research. It's highlighted the importance of allowing the option of doing it online. For example, participants might have a more suitable environment and/or equipment at their desired location; or in mixed sessions, it's easier to keep their adjustments/disabilities hidden from other participants, in some cases promoting a more organic session and data.
5) This is cheeky, but sometimes a necessary one - if you're struggling to get your bosses to give accessibility research the funding you need, dress it up as usability. This is a sad one because one should not be seen as worth more than the other, especially if we go back to point 1, but unfortunately, accessibility still has a long way to go in terms of being widely adapted and correctly valued.
The general consensus was that "every little helps" - doing the best you can, even if it's only a little bit, is better than nothing.
The whole conference, broken into chunks can be found here: https://www.gaconf.com/gaconf-europe-online-2022/ - a resource I know I will come back to many times down the road.
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