Responding to accessibility issues in business

A PhD thesis by Chris M. Law at the School of Business Information Technology, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.

Chris M. Law

Summary and recommendations

The following is excerpted from the published thesis.

Summary

Problems that many people with disabilities (PWDs) experience as a part of their everyday lives are the result of decisions made by people in mainstream businesses. Interactive technologies, for example, have interfaces that many of us take for granted, but such interfaces can be difficult or impossible to use for many who have sensory and/or physical disabilities. In this study, I examine what people in mainstream businesses do in response to accessibility issues that affect the design of their products and services, with the aim of understanding the everyday issues that they themselves face as they try to make the best choices for their customers, and for their organizations. This is a new approach to investigating root causes of some of the problems that PWDs experience, an approach that places business activities at the centre of the study. I present in this thesis a list of organizational success factors for addressing the needs of customers with disabilities. These factors can be applied in business as a means of laying the groundwork, and implementing a successful plan, for improving the accessibility of products and services.

In Chapter 1, I examine instances where business decisions on accessibility seem to defy explanation. Cases exist where businesses have on the one hand spent large amounts of money on disability access in one area, and/or made a bold proclamation on how important accessibility is to them; but on the other hand they have made developments elsewhere that incorporate little or no accessibility features. This examination serves as a means of bringing the everyday issues that people in business face to the forefront of the discussion.

Businesses in Australia have no legal obligation to make their products and services directly accessible to PWDs, although there is an obligation not to discriminate against PWDs in the delivery (terms and conditions) of services. Many businesses make a commitment to accessibility even without a legal mandate. They see either a wider social benefit in doing so, or they see it as a means to increase the size of their consumer base, or both. Where businesses are trying to have an impact, the question is what are the factors exemplified in the most successful approaches, and what factors seem to derail organization-wide accessibility efforts? The research question for the study is, therefore:

What organizational factors are involved in successfully addressing the needs of customers with disabilities in the design, development and delivery of products and services?

In Chapter 2, I look at past research relating to the research question. A number of earlier studies had an aim of discovering why there is a low uptake of design for accessibility (or ‘universal design’) practices in mainstream businesses. These studies have generated summative lists of ‘barrier’ and ‘facilitator’ factors, the results of which—along with other research results—form part of the foundations of guidance targeted at developers of mainstream business on how to improve designs and design processes to be more accessible. Knowledge gaps remain, however. In particular, past research has not taken a business-centric approach to the problem. In order to answer the research question there is a need to investigate how accessibility work is being conducted in business organizations, how accessibility responses evolve, and what factors are leading to organization-wide success in product and service developments.

The grounded theory research methodology (Chapter 3) employed for this study is qualitative, and interviews are the primary means of data collection. Twenty-eight interviews have been conducted at ten mainstream businesses. The businesses include three museums, five primarily service-oriented businesses (a large airline, bank, and a theatre complex, a city college and a sports stadium complex), and the Australian branches of two multinational telephony manufacturers.

Chapters 4, 5 and 6 convey stories at these ten organizations concerning their response to issues of product and service accessibility. The chapters are divided into three main themes: (i) success, (ii) change, and (iii) difficulty. First, I focus on the more successful organizations (the theatre and the stadium) where accessibility efforts have been embedded as a part of organizational culture. Second, I look in detail at the efforts of a person working to ‘champion’ accessibility (at the college), and having varying degrees of success as an agent of change. Third, the remaining seven businesses are examined together, because each of the seven exhibited a form of difficulty in moving accessibility from being a ‘priority’, to implementing successful actions throughout the organization.

Lastly, in Chapter 7, I present the list of organizational success factors based on the results of this study. The seven factors are:

1. Adopting the social model of disability (as a means to promote the concept that people with disabilities are a part of the customer-base);
2. Establishing executive-level backing;
3. Establishing accessibility as a priority on the agenda;
4. Taking a planned, proactive approach;
5. Making accessibility a shared task;
6. Providing enabling resources; and
7. Providing sources of accessibility expertise.

The seven success factors answer the research question, and can be worth considering when approaching accessibility issues from an organization-wide perspective. The list is not intended to be prescriptive because what works in one organizational context will not necessarily work in all organizational contexts. (A list of recommendations for people who want to apply an organizational perspective to accessible product and service development is provided in an appendix).

The most common difficulty appears to be in making the transition from ‘priority’ to ‘action’. At the end of the thesis, I provide recommendations for further research. The list of success factors provides a theoretical framework that might, in the future, be built upon in order to develop analytical and diagnostic tools for examining accessibility-related practices in mainstream businesses. It is my hope that the success factors that I have identified in my study will serve as a useful tool for examining and helping to improve the everyday lives of people in business, so that PWDs may then benefit in their everyday lives from more accessible products and services.

Recommendations—Taking an organizational perspective and approach to accessible product and service development

For businesses:

Consider the following organization-wide success factors when implementing a plan and conducting activities aimed at improving the accessibility of your products and services:

• Success factor #1—Adopt the social model of disability as a means to promote the concept that people with disabilities are part of your customer-base;
• Success factor #2—Establish executive-level backing for accessibility;
• Success factor #3—Establish accessibility as a priority on the agenda;
• Success factor #4—Take a planned, proactive approach;
• Success factor #5—Make accessibility a shared task (i.e., one that is worked on by people throughout the organization);
• Success factor #6—Provide enabling resources to those working to solve accessibility problems; and
• Success factor #7—Provide sources of accessibility expertise as needed.

On the last factor, the source of accessibility expertise could either be external, internal, or a mixture of both. If internal accessibility positions are established (and, depending on the size of your organization and the number of problems to be overcome, accessibility offices created), then these staff will ideally be working in support roles. In their support roles they will be helping people elsewhere in the organization, those people who are charged with the accessibility tasks relating to products and/or services, when those people encounter problems that are beyond their current accessibility skills.

For accessibility consultants working with businesses:

It is important to recognize that while solving isolated problems (e.g., the design of a single website, interface, or document) provides the customer with an accessible element of their business, the reason(s) why the element was inaccessible may have more to do with corporate culture than anything else. To help customers make more of their systems accessible, a corporate-wide analysis based on success factors presented herein—and other factors relevant to the particular organization and its products—could prove useful for you and for the business you are helping.

For standards and guidelines groups:

In guidance to industry on how to make products and services more accessible:

• Consider and address different audience needs depending on whether they are working in a task-role or in a support-role; and
• Design and test the guidance primarily around the needs of people working in accessibility support roles (success factor #7). The people working in these roles are the most likely to pass on the guidance to the rest of the organization.

For disability advocacy organizations:

Keep promoting the social model of disability as the model that should be adopted by, and imbued in, corporate cultures. Also recognize that many businesses adopt a reactive approach to complaints about accessibility of their products and services. The best form of encouragement in these situations may be that once any current complaints have been addressed, becoming proactive on accessibility can be a means to avoid complaints in the future, and to expand the potential customer-base.

For policymakers:

Consider proposing cross-organizational success factors, commensurate with those found in this study, as elements to be considered in corporate Disability Action Plans.

Publications and presentations:

Supervisors:

Dr. Supriya Singh
Dr. Elspeth McKay

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