Improving Web and Mobile Accessibility Resources for Iranian Designers
Laleh Nourian · 2022 · Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '22) · doi:10.1145/3517428.3550418
Summary
This doctoral consortium paper presents early-stage research investigating how cultural differences affect accessible design practices, with a specific focus on Iranian designers. The author, Laleh Nourian at Rochester Institute of Technology, frames her work through the lens of postcolonial computing — the idea that the design, development, and use of technology varies across cultures, and that non-Western cultures are often forced to adopt methods and tools developed primarily for Western contexts. She argues that accessibility research and guidelines are disproportionately centered in the Global North and in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) countries, creating a potential cultural bias in how accessibility is practiced worldwide. The research targets Iran specifically as a non-WEIRD country in the Global South with very limited accessibility research. Nourian highlights several concrete challenges: Persian is a bidirectional language with a right-to-left script, which creates fundamentally different design parameters compared to left-to-right English interfaces; WCAG has no Persian translation; and Iran's national regulations do not sufficiently codify digital accessibility or disability support. The research methodology combines online surveys and interviews with Iranian designers, students, and educators using inductive thematic analysis. Initial work included surveying institutions across 10 non-WEIRD countries about accessibility education, followed by interviews with US students about whether cultural differences are covered in accessibility courses — early findings suggest culture is largely absent from accessibility teaching despite participants agreeing it should be included.
Key findings
The research is at an early stage, so findings are preliminary rather than conclusive. The investigation of Iran's national regulations revealed that digital accessibility and disability support are not sufficiently codified into Iranian law — a significant barrier given that legislation is a key driver of accessibility adoption. Initial interviews with US students found that accessibility education rarely covers cultural differences, even though nearly all participants agreed such topics are essential. The paper identifies multiple research questions to be investigated over three years, including: what Iranian accessibility laws, guidelines, and tools exist compared to established international equivalents; how often Iranian designers consider accessibility; what resources they use; and what challenges arise when those resources are developed by other countries. A particularly interesting question examines how conflicts are resolved when client design requests clash with accessibility standards — a practical concern for designers working across cultural contexts with international clients.
Relevance
This paper raises an important and underexplored issue for the accessibility community: whether established accessibility guidelines and resources — primarily developed in Western, English-speaking contexts — adequately serve designers and users in other cultural settings. For practitioners, this is a prompt to consider that accessibility is not culturally neutral. Bidirectional language support, right-to-left layouts, and the absence of translated guidelines are practical barriers that affect real-world accessibility work in many countries beyond Iran. The postcolonial computing framing challenges the assumption that one set of global standards can be universally applied without adaptation. While the research is early-stage and does not yet offer concrete solutions, it lays groundwork for understanding how accessibility resources might need to be culturally adapted rather than simply translated. The work is particularly relevant as organizations increasingly build products for global audiences and need to consider accessibility across diverse cultural and linguistic contexts.
Tags: global accessibility · cultural accessibility · postcolonial computing · accessibility education · Global South accessibility · bidirectional interfaces · accessible design · WCAG
Standards referenced: WCAG