“It could be better. It could be much worse”: Understanding Accessibility in User Experience Practice with Implications for Industry and Education

While accessibility is acknowledged as a crucial component in design, many technologies remain inaccessible for people with disabilities. As part of a study to better understand UX practice to inform pedagogy, we analyzed 58 interview sessions that included 65 senior user experience (UX) professionals and asked them “How do you consider accessibility in your work?” Using transitivity analysis from critical discourse analysis, our findings provide insight into the disparate practices of individuals and organizations. Key findings include the growing role of design systems to structurally address accessibility and the range of organizational strategies, including dedicated teams. We also found that the categories of accessibility consideration were somewhat superficial and largely focused on vision-related challenges. Additionally, our findings support previous work that many practitioners did not feel their formal education adequately prepared them to address accessibility. We conclude with implications for education and industry, namely, the importance of implementing and teaching design systems in human-computer interaction and computer-science programs.