Tenets for Social Accessibility: Towards Humanizing Disabled People in Design
Kristen Shinohara, Cynthia L. Bennett, Wanda Pratt, Jacob O. Wobbrock · 2018 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS) · doi:10.1145/3178855
Summary
This paper investigates how student designers think about disability and accessibility when tasked with designing for multiple users with and without disabilities, and uses the findings to refine the Design for Social Accessibility framework. Conducted across two university course offerings one year apart, the study examined how students in user-centered design courses approached design projects while working directly with disabled and nondisabled expert users throughout the semester. Students were assigned one of four disability-focused design approaches — Ability-Based Design, Universal Design, User-Sensitive Inclusive Design, or Design for Social Accessibility — and asked to apply its principles while designing a smartphone application for their expert users. Through analysis of student journal reflections, design artifacts, and course observations, the researchers documented how student perspectives on disability and accessible design evolved over the course of the projects. A critical finding was that students initially approached disability with nervousness and preconceptions, often viewing disabled users as fundamentally different "others." However, sustained interaction with multiple expert users — both disabled and nondisabled — challenged these assumptions and revealed that people with the same disability can have very diverse needs, and that many accessibility needs overlap with those of nondisabled users. The study also compared how the four design approaches guided students differently, finding that each offered distinct strengths and blind spots.
Key findings
The research produced three refined tenets for Design for Social Accessibility. First, design should fundamentally incorporate users with and without disabilities throughout the process — designing for both groups simultaneously compelled students to evaluate functional and social requirements seriously and prevented accessibility from being treated as a separate concern. Second, design should address functional and social factors simultaneously, recognizing that both dimensions affect accessibility outcomes. The authors developed a two-axis framework (functional vs. social) producing four quadrants: inaccessible, functionally usable, socially usable, and socially accessible (the ideal). Third, designers should use tools like method cards to foreground social factors in accessible design, prompting consideration of social contexts that designers without disabilities might not naturally consider. The study found that Ability-Based Design gave students concrete strategies for handling conflicting user requirements by focusing on abilities rather than disabilities, while Universal Design struggled to provide actionable guidance when user needs conflicted. User-Sensitive Inclusive Design and Design for Social Accessibility encouraged students to see users as social actors first, shifting the framing from "what are your disabilities" to "who are you as a person."
Relevance
This work challenges a fundamental limitation in how the technology industry approaches accessibility: treating it as a purely technical or functional problem divorced from social context. The three tenets provide actionable guidance for any design team — include disabled and nondisabled users together, consider how technology functions in social situations (not just task completion), and use structured tools to prompt social thinking. The social accessibility framework is particularly relevant as assistive technologies increasingly move into public and workplace settings where social implications of technology use matter deeply to users. The finding that students' ableist preconceptions changed through sustained interaction with disabled users has direct implications for accessibility education and professional development. For practitioners, the method cards offer a concrete tool for integrating social accessibility thinking into existing user-centered design processes without requiring entirely new methodologies.
Tags: social accessibility · design methodology · accessibility education · inclusive design · user-centered design · disability studies
Standards referenced: WAI-ARIA