Shift-left for Accessibility: The importance of an inclusion-first design approach

Despite more than a billion people globally living with a disability and approximately 15-20% of the world population being neurodivergent—markets valued in the trillions—businesses continue to lack effective strategies for designing and building for accessibility and inclusion. Even deploying something as basic as web accessibility remains a hurdle as WebAIM reports that only 3% of the internet is fully accessible to people with disabilities. To fully capitalize on these opportunities, businesses must learn to adopt an approach that embeds accessibility and inclusion into the creation of products, systems, and environments. By building from this foundation, businesses will be better poised to meet the needs of people with disabilities and be inclusive of neurodivergent individuals. That’s exactly what Cisco did in building its accessible and neuroinclusive London office, setting a new standard for both innovation and a human-centered experience. Leslie Gordon, Vice President of Cisco’s Office of Accessibility, will discuss the importance of designers shifting left for accessibility and inclusion, how this can be achieved, the pros and cons of such an approach. Leslie will also discuss the role people with disabilities and neurodivergent individuals should play in design and execution as well as the wider ramifications of how it can benefit communities as a whole.