This section is meant for other user experience designers or those who are interested in the “behind the scenes” retrospectives. This is a long page, so please use the Table of Contents for navigation to jump to the section that most interests you.
goal – the north star
I wanted the following:
- fit for general, non-technical audience;
- introduced people to disability concerns and why accessibility is important;
- introduced why accessibility is NOT the norm;
- concrete, discrete tips and techniques without necessarily requiring competency in markup or coding;
- differentiated between various meanings of accessibility, such as affordability or discoverability;
- have a minimum viable product (MVP) ready for Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2025;
- deliverable / output(s) be relatively short, as I didn’t want length of the document to be a barrier either.
known challenges
Due to a reduction in force (RIF) this meant that I was operating under several constraints, namely:
- Cost;
- Presentation concerns.
I could not afford tools like CommonLook PDF or the MadeToTag InDesign plugin. This meant I had to work with what I already had, and could mean time-consuming manual remediation with the tag trees etc if using InDesign or PDF. Canva only outputs as an image, as well, so Canva was out of consideration.
In terms of content, there were two additional constraints, both relating to statistics of disability:
- different agency definitions of disability;
- impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
While I am in a US context, there are different agency definitions of who “counts” as disabled. The most infamous example is that the Americans with Disabilities Act will have one operating definition, but the Social Security Administration operates using a much more restrictive definition.
The statistics I also learned, which was a general number of 1 out of 5 people worldwide have some impairment or disabling condition, were statistics released before 2020 and did not account for the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic worldwide or even within specific countries like the US. I wanted to make it clear that these statistics might change depending on which agency, which definition, and which year, especially more we discover about chronic conditions.
process – the journey
process – contents
Tools used: Microsoft Word, Vellum for MacOS, Amazon KDP tools
The requirements meant I had to focus on what to write about.
Color contrast, for example, is a useful factor but not the only factor. I wanted to give discrete examples, and start conversations, without being too vague.
This meant I had to talk about the curb cut effect. I could use the historical example of curb cuts and how they benefit more people than only the original users, who were wheelchair users. But I could also pivot and say yes, this is still important, that we still have a long way to go. That laws may be present, but that does not mean that ableism is somehow over. Let alone I had to try to introduce what ableism even was!
Having the requirements enabled me to focus, though, instead of rambling or going into technical procedure. This was not meant to replicate a coding class. This was not a disability studies class, either.
My first draft of the contents was more geared towards corporate life and project managers. After consideration, I thought I would change that context around in light of various reductions in force, layoffs, remote work changes, and simply wanting the ebook to remain in line with the rest of my website, which has a more fantastical and organic theme. This can be likened to desiring consistent branding throughout products. This also made sense considering people with disabilities found more employment when remote work was more common (Economic Innovation Group analysis ; Forbes ), even those who did not identify as having a disability were often dealing with multitasking, children in school or caretaking relatives, going to appointments, or other areas where an introduction to accessibility could benefit them.
I also decided to take a multiple-formats approach with the content. PDF remediation can be time-consuming, especially remediating the tag tree. My first draft had the reading order in an incomprehensible order. Therefore, I used Vellum for MacOS to output an ebook, put the main chapters in HTML versions, AND still retained a PDF version.
process – visuals
Tools used: Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat; Pexels for stock photos
First draft of the cover, similar to the first draft of the content, was corporate-focused. Inspirations were more along the lines of cover designs from A Book Apart. These types of small reference books with very little distracting cover designs, with the emphasis being on what was within, appealed to me. And in some ways, it was a tribute to how much that A Book Apart and the books published via that company meant to me.
However this presented a situation similar to the content. I redesigned the cover to be more consistent with the fantastical and organic. I have a resource list for tabletop gaming creators; what if I used the metaphor of adventure? And what better adventure than reading and imagination? Someone about to take that first step?
So the second cover took form, with the help of stock photography. This cover was more visually interesting, though the central figure is harder to distinguish at small sizes. I still loved the metaphor of darkness and light and adventure in it, though, so for the initial release, I went with the second cover.
lessons learned
If I had an art budget, I’d further the adventuring metaphor and commission or find stock art for commercial license, that depicted adventurers with obvious disabilities – and adventurers who did not have obvious disabilities, as many disabilities are NOT easily visible.
The cover design could have been a bit more elaborate or bright. This could go three ways; either modifying the existing cover, using new art (see the first point), or commissioning someone to do just a cover design.
The resources list of the ebook was not duplicated in the HTML version (on this site) because of the tabletop resource list already being on the website. I wanted to avoid duplicating items while still ensuring the ebook was available by my self-imposed deadline of Global Accessibility Awareness Day. I hope to update the tabletop resource list and add these resources – several resources are already on that list.
conclusion and thanks
While there are definitely opportunities to grow with this ebook, I also am glad I did it. I hope people get use out of the ebook AND this retrospective / case study!