As part of the 12th Microsoft Ability Summit, Microsoft has inaugurated a new Inclusive Tech Lab. The company has launched new software features and a series of Microsoft accessories designed to offer people with disabilities greater access to technology. Microsoft has been on a path to improve accessibility since the launch of the Xbox controller in 2018. In early 2021, Microsoft also unveiled the Surface Adaptive Kit, a series of labels, indicators and opening systems that allow blind people , visually impaired or with limited mobility of customize Surface devices to better adapt them to your needs.
Design and hi-tech language are also tools for inclusion
by Carolina Milanesi
08 July 2021
On the occasion of World Accessibility Day, I connected with Dave Dame, Director of Accessibility at Microsoft, for a Live on LinkedIn and Twitter where we discussed inclusive design and the “disability gap”.
The new Inclusive Tech Lab is the successor to the original lab opened by the Xbox team in 2017. During the process of building the Xbox controller, Microsoft learned how people with disabilities play. “But the game is only part of their life. How do they work? How do they learn? We have therefore created the laboratory to focus on all these elements of their life”, explained Dame. “In this way we can understand if there are dysfunctional elements in their environment. We truly believe that it is not disability that slows down a person, but that it is the imbalance with the surrounding environment that slows them down “.
Thinking of accessibility as a critical component of the product you are designing allows you to obtain a more complete experience that is not limited to functionality alone. Too often, when we talk about accessible devices, we refer to devices that have been “hacked” to be functional, but do not consider the aesthetic aspect and the fact that an awkwardly placed device attracts more attention. “That’s why the Surface Adaptive Kit it matches the color palette of the devices, in order to integrate better and make it aesthetically pleasing. It’s like when you walk into a building and understand that there is wheelchair ramp it was mounted later, rather than finding an elegant entrance with a dedicated access ramp for the disabled, “Dame explained to me.
For many PC manufacturers, accessibility is still “a retrofit ramp”, above all because they see the market for users with disabilities as a niche opportunity and need to prioritize their investments. However, Dame points out that even though manufacturers today may be designing a product for people with disabilities, the reality is that we shouldn’t assume that our capabilities will remain constant. “One day we will all be disabled. It’s just that some of us get there first. So even though we’re designing for that group today, we’re actually designing for everyone else too, “explains Dame, who also has cerebral palsy. Instead, we should think about a lifecycle of our skills and design accessible products that satisfy people on their personal journey.
Think of accessibility as a fundamental step in design of a product requires a philosophical shift from developing and designing something that simply aspires to meet compliance requirements. To do this, companies need to start engaging people with disabilities in the innovation, design, manufacturing and even marketing process of a product. “Nobody is going to pick up your product and say, this is perfectly compliant,” Dame laughs at me, and adds: “While compliance is important, we also want to create more elegant experiences, so that the disabled user can use. a product at its best “. Dame strongly believes that the best way to learn is to observe, ask questions, be curious and, in doing so, involve the community of people with disabilities in the process, so that we can empathize and understand their point of view, before translate everything you have learned into a real product. “You can call it accessibility. You can call it design. I call it humanity. It’s about bringing our humanity to the fore,” says Dame.
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Meeting people’s needs is also important when considering the new reality of hybrid work. Dame believes an interesting aspect of the pandemic has been forcing everyone to experience what it’s like to live with a disability. We couldn’t go to the doctor like we used to, we couldn’t go shopping, go to work, go out as we usually did. So everyone asked themselves: “Where does this misalignment with our expectations come from? We experienced a new anxiety.” An anxiety that disabled people know well. “This is why Microsoft has decided to focus on empathy and build a platform digital to make it easier for people to do banking, see their doctor online, work and learn. We have lived a significant part of our life digitally and for some it has been fantastic, but for others it has been difficult. understand that we are all different and that we need a flexible approach to move forward ”.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have argued that the superpower of true leaders will be empathy. Dame agrees with me and argues that no matter what skills and talent one may have, potential would be lost without the right leader. “It starts with five words that bring inclusion to the center: how can I help?”. And inclusion is the key for Dame: instead of talking about diversity and inclusion, we should reverse course and start talking about inclusion and diversity: “Because until I feel safe I will never be able to really be myself”.
Dame credits technology with helping him to enter school and allowing him to build friendships with people other than himself who did not have a physical disability. However, he often felt that he could not be himself authentically, eventually masking his disability to fit in. Shortly after starting his career as an “agile trainer” he realized that there is nothing more complex than navigating the world with a disability and that the companies he was trying to prepare for change had to learn how to manage their own. disability. Their cerebral palsy was the status quo and they couldn’t get over it. “Being able to understand that I am different, that I can do things in different ways and that I can still be able to do them, has really helped organizations to accept the kind of change they had called me to manage. So, I realized that my points strengths are related to the fact that I have a disability. I have no weaknesses because I have a disability. It was then that I coined my guiding phrase: “It is I who has cerebral palsy, not you who have me”, concludes Dame .