Decoding designers: The work of responsibility and innovation for accessibility

Abstract

Web users with disabilities from Pakistan critique web design methods as members of online feedback communities. One practice in web design that draws criticism is the omission of accessible features from the coding of the user interface/user experience (UI/UX) in the initial stages of web design production. The initial web design is associated with “innovation,” while accessibility becomes the responsibility of those working on the financially constrained and often delayed stage of repair and maintenance. Such a social hierarchy of design-making propagates the exclusion of accessibility from both web design and design labor practices. Using critique from online feedback communities, two disabled Pakistani software designers highlight how accessibility norms define what innovation, responsibility, and expertise are within their domain of work. Drawing together anthropological work on accessibility and science and technology studies, this article analyzes how designers with disabilities build design systems by using critique from feedback communities, open-sourcing, and reshaping code in a boot camp, a graduate school lab, and a corporate accessibility lab. The social work of design-making and the material form of code therefore become tools to challenge inaccessibility and norms of innovation, responsibility, and expertise.