Incorporating Social Factors in Accessible Design
Kristen Shinohara, Jacob O. Wobbrock, Wanda Pratt · 2018 · Proceedings of the 20th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '18) · doi:10.1145/3234695.3236346
Summary
This paper investigates how professional designers can incorporate social factors into accessible design using Design for Social Accessibility (DSA), a framework developed in prior work by Shinohara and Wobbrock. The core premise is that accessible design has traditionally focused on functional requirements (can a user complete a task?) while neglecting social factors (does using the technology feel socially comfortable, project desired identity, and facilitate positive interactions?). DSA has three tenets: (1) design should include disabled and nondisabled users together; (2) design should address social and functional factors simultaneously; (3) tools like a framework and method cards should raise awareness of social aspects. The authors conducted five three-hour design workshops with professional UI/UX and industrial designers (3-6+ years experience) who were not accessibility specialists. Each workshop paired one designer with two users — one visually impaired (ranging from low vision to blind) and one sighted — to collaboratively design a personal technology for cruise ship passengers. The DSA framework visualized a two-dimensional design space with social and functional axes, creating four quadrants: functionally usable, socially usable, socially accessible (both social and functional), and inaccessible (neither). Method cards presented social scenarios to prompt reflection on how technology use intersects with social contexts.
Key findings
The DSA framework and method cards successfully helped professional designers incorporate social factors that went beyond what either user would have raised independently. Designers used the framework as a "domain space" — plotting ideas along social and functional axes to evaluate trade-offs, similar to how they already charted ideas on cost-impact axes in regular practice. Method cards prompted rich discussions about social situations: one card about "awkward moments" led a visually impaired user to demonstrate how raising a smartwatch to her face could create uncomfortable social dynamics, which pushed the group toward alternative form factors. A key emergent concept was "duality" — designs that provide value to both disabled and nondisabled users through different but equally appealing features. For example, participants converged on a wristwatch form factor because it could provide visual information for sighted users and audio/haptic navigation for blind users, while being socially normalized since "everyone wears a watch." Co-locating disabled and nondisabled users proved essential: visually impaired users served as disability and accessibility experts, educating both designers and sighted users, while sighted users' perspectives helped identify when accessible solutions might inadvertently create new social problems. Designers reported that DSA was not prescriptive but "prepared them for action," fitting within their existing UCD expertise rather than requiring them to become accessibility specialists.
Relevance
This paper makes a compelling case that accessible design cannot succeed by addressing functional requirements alone — social acceptability, identity projection, and interaction dynamics are equally important to whether people with disabilities will actually use a technology. The finding that professional designers readily incorporated accessibility when given appropriate tools and co-located with disabled users challenges the common assumption that accessibility requires specialized expertise. The "duality" concept — finding design features that serve both disabled and nondisabled users through different modalities — offers a practical path toward genuinely inclusive products that avoid singling out disabled users. For practitioners, the DSA framework and method cards provide concrete, actionable tools for design teams: the two-axis framework (social vs. functional) gives designers a familiar mental model for evaluating accessibility, and the method cards provide structured prompts for considering social scenarios that might otherwise be overlooked. The paper demonstrates that changing design culture around accessibility is achievable through process and tools, not just advocacy.
Tags: design methodology · social accessibility · inclusive design · user-centered design · visual impairment · design workshops · participatory design · stigma · ability-based design