A matter of empathy
When presenting to my colleagues and clients on accessibility, I used to hear myself saying, as part of my routine speech:
“If you know anyone with disabilities — friends, family members, etc — you'll understand how important accessibility and ADA compliance are.”
I repeated that line dozens if not hundreds of times, trying to appeal to my colleagues' human nature and maybe make them think about accessibility in a way they never had before. But one day it occurred to me: we shouldn't need to know someone with disabilities in order to have empathy for them, to treat them with dignity and respect, and to make the effort to understand their needs. Failing to do so is simply failing to think of users as human beings. It's a careless (and that's the kindest word I can think of here) mindset that some of us may fall into when we're just trying to get our work done, and we don't want extra obstacles or challenges thrown in our way. But it is our duty as people.
So I no longer say, "If you know anyone with disabilities," (et cetera), but I do say:
“I used to say, ‘If you know anyone with disabilities — friends, family members, etc — you'll understand how important accessibility and ADA compliance are’ — but that's absurd; you're human beings and you're more than capable of having empathy for all people. And that's our responsibility.”
We owe it to our colleagues to hold one another accountable for this. We owe it to our clients to educate them about it. And of course we owe it to users with disabilities to always fulfill our responsibility to them.
– Manning
Questions/comments? Feel free to contact me at manning@manningkrull.com. I update these articles pretty frequently — best practices evolve over time as the world of digital quickly changes, and I always welcome insights from others.