Many organisations seem to fear that making their products accessible means dumbing them down: they might then work for everyone, but they will lose a lot of their pizzazz in the process. In this eAccess-13 presentation Jonathan Hassell presents the contrary view - that organisations that really look into the different needs of their disabled audiences often find this breaks them out of fixed positions, allowing them to take innovative leaps in product design. Using examples from the typewriter to the iPhone classic ‘Zombies, Run!’ and his own recent projects involving the Microsoft Kinect games controller, Jonathan guides you through a way of thinking about product development which is inclusive, creative and potentially very lucrative.

1. Accessibility as Innovation
– giving your potential users the chance to inspire you
Prof Jonathan Hassell (@jonhassell)
Director, Hassell Inclusion
Visiting Professor, London Metropolitan University
eAccess-13, London 31st October 2013
jonathanhassell@yahoo.co.uk

2. 1
Accessibility
and innovation

3. “A popular myth relating to Web
accessibility and user experience is that
accessibility and attractive design
simply do not go together…”
Simon Norris
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2013/09/making-web-sites-accessible-without-sacrificing-aesthetics.php

4. 2
Accessibility’s
history of innovation
jonathanhassell@yahoo.co.uk

5. Without these innovators
(and more)
the lives of disabled people
would be much empoverished
jonathanhassell@yahoo.co.uk

6. Jim Thatcher for the first
Screen Reader
Thanks to iheni.com

7. Ray Kurzweil for the first commercial
speech recognition (& much more)

8. Bill Kastner, WGBH and the BBC
for the first closed captioning

9. The legislators behind
Section 508 (USA) and
Disability Discrimination Act Pt III (UK)

10. Rob Sinclair for making ATs
easier to create with MSAA and UIA

11. Maguire & SOCOG for giving the world
its first web accessibility test case

12. The WebAIM crew for getting the word out
and stoking the discussion

13. Mick Curran & James Teh for making
screenreaders affordable with NVDA

14. Steve Jobs for
making
accessibility
built in as
standard in
Apple products

15. And all those who
funded their work,
used what they created,
shared the news…
jonathanhassell@yahoo.co.uk

16. And …
jonathanhassell@yahoo.co.uk

17. Your face here…?

18. None of those guys were available… so you’ve got me:
Jonathan Hassell
•
•
•
>10 years experience in accessibility and inclusion
lead author of BS 8878 British Accessibility Standards
former Head of Usability & Accessibility, BBC
•
•
•
led work to embed accessibility across
BBC web, mobile and IPTV production teams
won BIMA 2008 & Access-IT@Home awards
for the accessibility features of BBC iPlayer
Product Manager of innovative products:
•
•
•
won IMS Global Learning Impact Award 2010
for MyDisplay
won „Best Usability & Accessibility‟ BIMA 2006
for My Web, My Way
3 x Bafta-nominated for breakthrough rich-media
eLearning projects for disabled children

19. 3
What is innovation?

20. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovation

21. http://www.economist.com/specialreports/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=9928154

22. www.businessdictionary.com/definition/innovation.html#ixzz2iko2wNHH

23. Great innovations
come from…
User needs
Great
innovations
Sustainable
market/fundi
ng
Technology
possibilities

24. 4
“Where do you get your
ideas from…?”

25. How to source ideas…
From following
market trends
(e.g. everything
goes social…)
From following
technology
possibilities
(Freeview =>
Youview)
From
encouraging
your team to
come up with
ideas
From listening
to users‟
unmet needs
and finding
ways to meet
them
jonathanhassell@yahoo.co.uk

26. Ideation…
From following
market trends
(e.g. everything
goes social…)
From following
technology
possibilities
(Freeview =>
Youview)
From
encouraging
your team to
come up with
ideas
From listening
to users‟
unmet needs
and finding
ways to meet
them
jonathanhassell@yahoo.co.uk

27. The problem of fixation…
jonathanhassell@yahoo.co.uk

28. How people try to free themselves from it…
jonathanhassell@yahoo.co.uk

29. Why not find a challenge closer to home?
jonathanhassell@yahoo.co.uk

30. The beauty of constraints…
jonathanhassell@yahoo.co.uk

31. The potential of inclusive design: OXO Good Grips
• Well-known pioneer of Inclusive Design in the
USA
• Sam Farber‟s wife, a keen cook, suffered from
arthritis
“Why do ordinary kitchen tools hurt your
hands?”
• First 15 products launched in 1990
• Sales growth over 35% per year from 1991 to
2002
• The line has now grown to over 500 products
• Over 100 design awards received
Centre for Business Innovation
“Connected Communities, helping you Do more with Less”
- 31 © 2011 Centre for Business Innovation Ltd
Engineering Design Centre

32. Focus on users…
From following
market trends
(e.g. everything
goes social…)
From following
technology
possibilities
(Freeview =>
Youview)
From
encouraging
your team to
come up with
ideas
From listening
to users‟
unmet needs
and finding
ways to meet
them
jonathanhassell@yahoo.co.uk

33. Categorising options for user-led ideas generation
Reliability
– Dimensions:
• Reliability: weak… strong
• Cost: low… high
• Visibility: public… private
Visibility
Cost

34. „wisdom of crowds‟
but not
demographically
reliable;
cheap; public
Online ideas generation/prioritisation from users
jonathanhassell@yahoo.co.uk

35. „ wisdom of crowds‟
through data
capture & mining;
free to get, costly
to manage; private
& public
‟
Strategic listening to all feedback channels
(face-for-face, phone email, twitter, facebook…)
jonathanhassell@yahoo.co.uk

36. reasonably reliable
(via right
recruitment);
costly; private
Audience research – focus groups, ethnographic studies etc.
jonathanhassell@yahoo.co.uk

37. Keep listening through iterative user-testing
Do initial
audience
research
If more
improvement
justified,
cycle…
Develop
minimal,
flexible
next version
User test to
get better
audience
research

38. 1st stage:
The right
research
& thought
before you
start
1. Purpose
2. Target audiences
3. Audience needs
4. Preferences & restrictions
5. Relationship
6. User goals
2nd stage:
Making
strategic
choices
based on
that
research
7. Degree of UX
8. Inclusive cf. personalised
9. Delivery platforms
10. Target browsers, OSes, ATs
11. Create/procure, in-house/contract
12. Web technologies
3rd stage:
Production,
launch,
update
cycle
13. Web guidelines
14. Assuring accessibility
15. Launch information
16. Post-launch plans
For more on the process, see BS 8878…

39. How mainstream products have arisen from
innovative ‘beyond inclusion’ solutions

40. 5
Some examples
from my own work
jonathanhassell@yahoo.co.uk

41. Example 1: uKinect Sign Recognition

42. Speech recognition is useful

43. The Funding Vision
•
Learners with disabilities may lack independence due to an
inability to communicate by speech or due to lack of motor
control
•
If signs and gestures can be easily learned, recognized and
converted to digital data, a whole new world of opportunity
opens up.
TechDis, BIS, TSB SBRI „Making Waves‟ competition

44. The ideal

45. The “breakthrough” inspiration
•
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680081/adevice-to-translate-sign-language-intospeech and http://www.uh.edu/newsevents/Fulbright/2012/may/0529MyVoice.ph
p

46. It takes time… – cf. Siri
Speech recognition was able to
understand digits in the 1950s…
Siri‟s intelligence has been
worked on for at least 10 years

47. The problem
We had
6 months…

48. User-focused approach
User needs
Great
innovations
Sustainable
funding/ma
rket
Technology
possibilities

49. The way ahead
Our breakthrough
technology enabler 

50. The way ahead
Looked for
people who
could benefit
from each of
our (baby)
steps…

51. Our target audiences

52. Why choose Makaton?
BSL
Makaton
Thousands of signs (> 21,000) Hundreds of signs
Individual sign vocab > 5,000
Individual sign vocab < 200
Long sequences of signs
Sign quality fairly uniform
1 or 2 sign sequences
Sign quality very variable,
plus personal (idiosyncratic)
signs
Very few competing teams
Many competing teams

53. User-Centred Approach
Engagement
through a
character and
humour…
Inspiration:
Talking Tom

54. Proof of concept solution
Watch it on Vimeo at: http://vimeo.com/32022176

55. Phase Two

56. Users and contexts of use
Users with comms difficulties
through LDs, Autism, stroke
Supporters of these users:
colleagues, teachers, carers, parents
Signing
e-Learning game
Education
Employment
Independent
Living

57. Product launching Nov-13

59. Hints of a new opportunity
“Boris was so engaging
that blind students were
also asking to use it to
learn to sign…”

60. Example 2: The Nepalese Necklace
A Movement Game for Blind and VI Children

61. The Nepalese Necklace Original concept
• The idea:
• using audio-games & Microsoft Kinect‟s
gesture recognition to encourage blind and
partially-sighted children to engage more
readily with their mobility training
• The project:
• an inexpensive, 3 month Proof of Concept
to investigate the idea‟s potential in a
concrete, testable way

62. The Nepalese Necklace
UCD Approach
• Initial user-research
• found experts in the learning, and
representatives of the learners
• created a way of giving both an initial
idea of what we were talking about, to
get their attention and buy-in
• asked questions to “get into their world”
• then created what they needed/wanted
• Iterative user-testing
• we did this every couple of weeks
• there‟s no substitute for it

63. The Nepalese Necklace
Validation
• Did final research to prove value
• in all contexts of use
(in homes as well as as schools)
• over longer periods of testing, without
expert presence (over at least a week,
without you propping the PoC up)
• observed and interviewed users &
experts to understand how they
behave and feel about the PoC
• Got the results on video
• nothing else quite proves your case

64. Partner of the Year
Finalist:
Gamelab UK

65. The Nepalese Necklace Beyond disability
“The idea of the games
are good, but they’re not
made for us…”

66. If you
remember
one thing…

67. Listening to your diverse audiences needs…
identifies challenges…
but innovation often follows a challenge

68. Why shouldn’t this be you?

69. More info:
Book available
from BSI Press
Q1-2014
More info, email:
book@hassellinclusion.com

70. Innovation
Training &
support for
BS8878
Standards
Strategy &
research
www.hassellinclusion.com

71. e: jonathan@hassellinclusion.com
t: @jonhassell
w: www.hassellinclusion.com