Building Accessible Products – Jonathan Hassell on The Product Experience

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Jonathan HassellAccessibility is one of those things that we all know we should do, but are rarely confident that we’ve done it well.  To get over that hump, we talked with Prof Jonathan Hassell about how and when to embed and test for accessibility (or a11y!), when you can skip it, and how to convince stakeholders of the importance of designing for inclusivity.

We’re also pleased to offer a free (digital) copy of Jonathan’s book, Inclusive Design for Products: Including your missing 20% by embedding web and mobile accessibility.

In this episode, sponsored by Yellowfin, listen to learn about:

  • Accessibility and inclusion
  • Making products that work for everybody
  • Testing for accessibility

Quote of the Episode

A lot of the rules are “You can’t do this,” “You must do this,” or whatever. It’s almost like if there’s 20% of the population who have a disability and 80% who don’t, accessibility can sometimes come over like the 20% matter and the 80% don’t. Inclusion for me, is the name of the game – because inclusion is to say that everybody matters. How do we get a great experience of a digital product for every single person using it?

Links mentioned in this episode

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Our Hosts

The Product Experience is hosted by Lily Smith and Randy Silver.

Lily enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Head of Innovation at Go Compare and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol (which now has 800+ members!) and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.

Randy is a product consultant and coach who has been working as an interactive producer and product manager across the US and UK for nearly 20 years. A recovering music journalist and editor, he launched Amazon’s music stores in the US and UK, and has worked across sectors including museums and arts groups, online education, media and entertainment, retail and financial services. He’s held Head of Product roles at HSBC and Sainsbury’s, where he also directed their 100+-person product community. Randy’s book, What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19 is out now, with all profits going to COVID-19 relief efforts.