Digital Accessibility Maturity Assessment
1 Accessibility Specialist
Team
Industry
Workforce Management Software
Length
June - August 2024
Role
UX Design Intern
Overview
I automated UKG’s manual manual compliance assessment process for accessibility practices, transforming an excel-based rubric into a dynamic web survey. This solution simplified data collection and analysis, enabling quicker evaluations across various tech roles.
Automating the accessibility compliance evaluation, maintaining a 100% on the Disability Equality Index
Self-paced assessments eliminate scheduling conflicts
Your assessment, on your schedule
Accessibility specialist no longer needs to write reports manually
Real time results
Progress indicator and progressive disclosure for ease
Taming complexity
HERE’S THE PROBLEM
UKG’s accessibility team lacks an efficient way to measure accessibility practices across R&D teams, making it tedious to assess WCAG compliance
The current solution requires an accessibility specialist to meet with at least 5 members of each of the 50+ teams in order to administrate the assessment, which is not only time consuming, but difficult to coordinate
Long excel sheet used as rubric for accessibility criteria
Results written manually
for every single team
THE GOAL
Turn this manual process into an automated web form
There proved to be no way to streamline the manual process, and no online survey templates I researched could accommodate the complexity of this assessment. I needed to create an internal tool from scratch.
Existing web form templates are not sufficient
UX RESEARCH
I began by researching statistics that would support the two most important parts of this project— the most effective way to yield accurate responses from users, and how the automation of this assessment could support the company in the long run.
Neilson Norman Group
“When forms follow basic usability guidelines, users are almost twice as likely to submit the form with no errors— 78% in comparison to 42%”
“Digital products that fully conform to WCAG 2.0 compliance are expected to outperform their market competitors by 50%”
Gartner 2023
BEST PRACTICES FOR FORMS
How might we ensure employees are able to complete the form in one sitting, while selecting accurate answers?
Based on research and the identified needs of this assessment,
forms should utilize these UX principles
Priming
Progressive Disclosure
Leads to
Reaching WCAG 2.0
Priming
Uncertainty of the number of questions in the assessment can intimidate a user and lead them to get overwhelmed or ready to exit the assessment before completion
Utilizing priming practices such as a progress bar visualizes proof of progress
Linear Progress Bar
Progressive Disclosure
Lengthy rubric with 2-3 sentence descriptions per criteria, each role specific survey is 4-6 questions long which can be a lot of information to look at when trying to make a choice
Progressive disclosure used to reduce the amount of criteria in a question a user has to read through, ultimately reducing cognitive overload
Progressive Disclosure
USER FLOW
The survey is multi-step, split into 4 different sections
Intro → Demographics → Role Specific Questions → Results
VERSION 1
VERSION 2
VERSION 3
White text isn’t WCAG compliant
Gradient background
Single column layout
Contrast fixed with white modal
Improved, but elements on the screen appear scattered, making it harder for a user to focus on the order what should be completed
Design Improvements Across Iterations
Final DAMA Web Form
NEXT STEPS
Mobile Version
Employees should be able to complete this survey at any time, not just when they’re at their desk. As a result, I designed a responsive mobile version of this survey, allowing them to complete the assessment on the go.
IMPLEMENTATION
I developed the entire front end of this survey using React and TypeScript
KEY TAKEAWAY
Accessibility should be the foundation, not the finishing touch
Simply put, your design isn’t finished if it has any type of usability barriers. Everything that’s WCAG compliant accommodates everyone, but this doesn’t work the other way around. Better accessibility = better products.
