By Jonee Meiser — All too often, I run into development teams that continuously treat accessibility solely as technical bugs that they will address whenever they get to them. The impact of those existing bugs is perceived as minimal. And that is when I have been known to lose my patience with teams. But when I lose my patience, I encounter the stereotypes that then exclude me from the conversation — and exclude me from participation. What is ironic about that, though, is how folks do not even recognize the irony.
My passion for accessibility is often perceived as me being the “Angry Black Woman” or me having a bad attitude. I am not a team player because I am speaking against the product. Imagine that. I face tone‑policing during my fight for someone else’s inclusion. I get mansplained what “Beta” and what “Minimum Viable Product” means and how testing an inaccessible product or service for market fit does not exclude people with disabilities. Gaslighting is real. Taking the time to justify why accessibility will not be addressed at any given time is called privilege, my friend. Wonder why I am passionate about accessibility? Because I get it. As a Black woman, I get what it feels like to be excluded from society and to be denied access to places and spaces where I know I belong. I have been told my natural hair is inappropriate. Heck, I have been told my experiences altogether as a Black woman are inappropriate to discuss at work. I am a doctoral candidate and have been working since I was a senior in college. Yet, I see people in positions of power with way less professional experience and education, which telegraphs to me that I am not welcome, that people like me are not welcome. People who do not ft the description of the majority are not welcome. This is what inaccessibility telegraphs to people with disabilities: that they are not welcome in your digital environment.
Here is what I want you to know. I simply want you to know that inclusion and belonging are at the heart of web and digital accessibility. When we leave accessibility bugs in our digital and web‑based products, services, and the like, we exclude people with disabilities from the conversation and participation. When we leave accessibility bugs where they are, we are denying people with disabilities access to digital places and spaces where they have a right to belong. We are not talking minor technical bugs here for the developers to fix. We are talking discrimination against people with disabilities. We are talking about the social responsibility of ensuring that folks have fair and equal access. It is just something I want you to think about the next time I lose my patience with you when you tell me you will address it after you release it in production.
From Horton, S., & Sloan, D. (2024). What Every Engineer Should Know About Digital Accessibility. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida.
Know About Accessibility 