Organizations have different motives for digital transformation, but cutting down costs and making processes more effective are central. When transforming their processes towards digital ones leaves out accessibility they potentially leave out quarter of their users, generally speaking. Perhaps even more when we consider that there are not only permanent disabilities but also situational and temporary ones. And not to forget people with low computer literacy.
Therefore we need to integrate accessibility into digital transformation. Usually we need to start with the spreading of awareness about accessibility. If (usually short dead-lined) digitalization projects ignore accessibility – they actually work against their own goals without knowing it. They add to the digitalization debt actually. Because digitalization without accessibility is not really digitalization.
Digitalization without accessibility can’t really be called digitalization as it will produce the need to provide alternative formats – manually.
My reflection on digitalization without accessibility
Considering current (still bad) state of accessibility maturity in majority of organizations we still need more awareness, knowledge and implementation of accessibility. Releasing digital channels that are not accessible is leaving people out and if we also drop old channels at the same time, thinking that digital channels will cover all the needs we may understand that those channels really need to be accessible. Even then we may loose people that don’t want to / don’t know how to / don’t have the means to use digital ones.
Luckily there are some positive accessibility signals in our society, mainly based on the legislation requirements. In European Union (EU) first focus was public sector (Web Accessibility Directive) and now the second part will also span to parts of private sector (European Accessibility Act). I can see direct positive effects on the awareness, even if they are not as big as they would need to be. Still, it is encouraging that accessibility gets more attention at higher levels and is also more and more demanded. It will be interesting to see how organizations will work around one of the main issues – low supply of accessibility specialists will probably be an issue when demands for them rise. I also wonder what will this supply versus demand mean for the accessibility specialist profession, but mainly I hope that this gap will be a big enabler for people with disabilities to become also professional accessibility specialists.
Human-centered digital transformation is not human-centered without accessibility
Organizations that understand benefits of human-centered digital transformation against those that concentrate primarily on better revenues and less costs will certainly come out better. Accessibility helps not only with acquisition, but also with retention of the customer base. That is especially true for private organizations – with competition – and perhaps not so very true for government organizations that are one of a kind (luckily we have the legislation as a last frontier – to motivate them. It only needs to be executed).
Perhaps current trends that use Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered assistants – that slowly replace human-powered processes like support centers – seem smart, but when we consider that AI is well known for it’s biases and inconsistencies, I am not very fond of this kind of AI-centered digital transformation. Even if organization saves a lot of money on the short run, only time will show what kind of effects will that have on the long run.
Cost-centered digital transformation is of course popular in harsh times like these. Perhaps human assistants, augmented with AI functionality and proper training, could take away the downsides of bias, saving money and being efficient at the same time.