If you don't think that HOW you do the work matters, just look at what is happening around you here on Twitter.

Launch a feature, even as a test, that isn't accessible and you instantly alienate and exclude some of your audience.

So lets break this down, to be really clear:

1. HOW you do the work matters.

2. The tests that you launch should be accessible so that people with disabilities are INCLUDED in that test.

3. Talk with, interview, and otherwise engage people with disabilities in the process.

4. Invite people with disabilities to have a say and to inform the work, the features, the ideas that go into your product.

5. When people with disabilities provide their opinions, thoughts -- CONSUME those thoughts voraciously, and in earnest.

Many teams are getting pretty good at delivering on accessibility.

Most teams are NOT good at including people with disabilities in the process.

When you do that, you're ignoring the lived experience of people that need accessible features.

So that A/B test you want to run? both of them need to be accessible.

That new feature you want to test out? Work with people with disabilities up front, and as you're designing/building/iterating.

Yes, it's hard. Yes, it's more work.

That's the whole point.

Do the WORK.

HOW you do the work matters.

You're smart. You're creative. You're really fucking good at your craft.

Put those smarts and creative minds to work to find a way to make your products accessible, quickly. You're supposed to be some of the very best.

All the strides that you've made with respect to accessibility... all the positive things...

They literally get eclipsed by one negative thing like this.

I'm not naming names in this thread. I'm abstracting it.

Why?

Because it applies to all companies. Sadly this isn't an isolated thing. This happens more often than not.

How we do the work matters.

Including people with disabilities in the PROCESS is just as important OR maybe even MORE IMPORTANT than enabling them to use your product.

Respect the lived experiences of people with disabilities. Respect what they need to participate in all the things.

So many people tell me that they believe in and support accessibility. It is becoming clear that means something VERY different than believing in INCLUSION.

I need to step away as I'm getting a bit angry (and reminding myself that I'm feeling 1 tenth of one percent in comparison to people that are Deaf or hard-of-hearing that NEED equivalents for audio-only features).

Here's a thing I wrote last year about this very topic. I'll have more to share about this... you can count on it. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-we-do-our-work-matters-accessibility-inclusive-derek-featherstone/