👩🦽 Accessibility & Ableism
In this module
This module introduces the concepts of accessibility and ableism, from various standpoints.
⛳️ Section: A. What is accessibility?
👥 Audience: Everyone
⏱️ ️Duration: 20'
📚 Prerequisites: 🫳🏿 Feeling the need for accessibility
When to use?
Use this module to get a nuanced sense of what accessibility, ableism and techno-ableism really mean.
What is accessibility
Collective definition of accessibility
Form a circle. The first participant will try to define accessibility. Write their proposition on a whiteboard. Each person must then iterate upon this definition, explaining to everyone the changes they make.
We then read the collective definition, and ask once again if anyone wants to change something. Once it’s settled, we can move onto the next part of this module.
Formal definitions of accessibility
If you did the word-cloud of 🚀 Accessibility starting point, you can go through the words that were proposed and try to match them to one of the following definition standpoints :
From a product design standpoint
According to Wikipedia:
Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by disabled people.[1] The concept of accessible design and practice of accessible developments ensures both "direct access" (i.e. unassisted) and "indirect access" meaning compatibility with a person's assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers).[2]
From a legal standpoint
🇨🇦 Canada
In the Accessible Canada Act (ACA), the government of Canada stated in 2019 that the primary goal of their accessibility policy was to:
The overarching goal of the ACA is to realize a barrier-free Canada by 2040. The legislation benefits all Canadians, specially persons with disabilities, through the proactive dentification, removal and prevention of barriers to accessibility in 7 priority areas:
- employment
- the built environment
- information and communication technologies (ICT)
- communication other than ICT
- the design and delivery of programs and services
- the procurement of goods, services and facilities
- transportation
🇫🇷 France
French law defines accessibility as
Allowing the autonomy and participation of people with disabilities, by reducing or even removing the gap between their abilities, needs and will - and the physical, organizational and cultural components of their environment.
Additionally, French companies are subject to the EAA, which is mentioned below.
🇪🇺 European Union
The European Accessibility Act states that accessibility "should be achieved by the systematic removal and prevention of barriers, preferably through a universal design or ‘design for all’ approach, which contributes to ensuring access for persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others."
Since June of 2025, almost all businesses (excluding microenterprises) are required to comply with the EAA requirements.
From a software standpoint
Dylan Barell defines accessibility in software as
Agile Accessibility Handbook, Dylan Barell
It basically comes down to three principles:
- Can all your users, with the abilities and senses that they possess, perceive the information your application presents to them? For example, can they “see” the meaning of the little icon button with an image of a pen inside t?
- Can your users, with their specific input device or assistive technology, operate all the controls within your application’s user interface? For example, if your application supports the operation of a button through ouching the screen, does it also allow that button to be operated through a keyboard and a voice command?
- Can your users understand the information and the user interface controls? For example, if the application requires the creation of a password with constraints, are those constraints clearly communicated in a way that allows the user to complete the task without undue difficulty or an unreasonable degree of intellectual skill?
In the French DINUM's RGAA (General reference document of accessibility enhancement), an accessible software is defined as one that can be perceived, understood, used, and optimal for people with disabilities.
From a political standpoint
We propose to define politically accessibility as:
Trying to fight back against the structural tendency to exclusion of disabled people and attempting to provide them with a place (virtual or not) where they feel at ease and free to express themselves.
Take some time to reflect together onto which definition is the closest to the one you built together. How do participants feel about all those definitions?
Understanding ableism
What is ableism?
Ableism can be defined as
policies, behaviors, rules, etc. that result in unfair or harmful treatment of disabled people (= people who have an illness, injury, or condition that makes it difficult for them to do things that most other people can do) and in a continued unfair advantage to people who are not disabled
Right now, some parts of your apps might only be accessible to those who can only, for example, see and hear. Thinking these senses as the “default” mediums for interacting with apps is ableist. It is very important to keep in mind that people who are qualified of “disabled” are in reality simply working with a different set of abilities, which is typically more marginal, yet not inferior. If they can’t access your app, it means that your design is broken - not them.
A key to fighting ableism is remembering that disabilities only arise when there is a gap between the environments’ expectations on what people can do, how they are supposed to do it and what and how people can actually do it. Environment - and the way it is designed - plays an equal role as the body when it comes to disability. For example, in an environment built to be completely flat and non-obstructed, people who walk are way slower than people using a wheelchair.
It’s quite clear that our goal is to minimize ableism in the software that we provide, to build a more inclusive environment for everyone.
What is techno-ableism?
Techno-ableism is a term defined by Ashley Shew in her book Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement, a lecture that we truly recommend.
In the introduction of her book, she writes
Ashley Shew, Against Technoableism, Rethinking Who Needs Improvement
Technoableism is a particular type of ableism, one that is highly visible in media and entertainment and omnipresent in the ways most people casually talk about technologies aimed at disability. Technoableism is a belief in the power of technology that considers the elimination of disability a good thing, something we should strive for. It’s a classic form of ableism—bias against disabled people, bias in favor of nondisabled ways of life. Technoableism is the use of technologies to reassert those biases, often under the guise of empowerment.
Put simply, it’s believing that disabled people need to be fixed by technology. Rather than celebrating the diversity and diverging ability of dis-abled people, tech innovators tend to try to “fix” them rather than working on the environment their technologies are structuring, often leaving them outside of the discussion about their needs.
Ashley Shew, Against Technoableism, Rethinking Who Needs Improvement
Sometimes technology is seen as redeeming our lives: non-disabled people believe—and expect us to believe—that technology will “solve” the problem of our disability and save us, or those like us, in the future. Yet these expectations often don’t match our circumstances. They confine us. When people assume that one device will “fix” us, they don’t pay attention to the host of other concerns around disability technology—the bad planning and design, the need for constant ongoing maintenance, the problem of money […], and the staggering lack of social support for disability accommodations […]. These are all forms of ableism.
Software plays a huge role in today’s daily life and communication. It can be a huge lever of inclusion, and consequently also of exclusion. Therefore, it’s our duty as developers to strive to include as many people as possible, without falling into the trap of thinking that we are saving or fixing anything else than our apps.
Some article titles documented by Ashley Shew depict the ableist “hero-syndrom” that can occur in the tech industry.
Ashley Shew, Against Technoableism, Rethinking Who Needs Improvement
“THE TECH GIVING PEOPLE POWER TO DEAL WITH DISABILITY” —BBC NEWS“HOW TECHNOLOGY WILL CHANGE THE LIVES OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES” —FORBES“FIRST PROSTHETIC LIMB DESIGNED FOR WOMEN: ‘I FEEL LIBERATED’” —BBC2“ROBOTIC EXOSKELETONS ARE HERE, AND THEY’RE CHANGING LIVES” —POPSCI
It becomes clearer and clearer that our goal is to try and provide a safe place rather than fix or save anyone. For a more concrete example, Ashley Shew showcases how Discord became a welcoming place for many autistic people.
Ashley Shew, Against Technoableism, Rethinking Who Needs Improvement
Awni mentioned Discord as a social platform “easily adapted by autistic users to facilitate autistic-styled communication due to its flexibility both with custom emotes and for purpose-centric server organization.” Gardiner pointed to the importance of letting autistic people lead tech conversations with what they want and how they want to do things. This doesn’t mean jumping in to teach autistic people to play games in the way allistic people do but rather letting the “nothing about us without us” lesson of the disability rights movement carry into this space: to learn from autistic people how to use spaces autistically.
Design must therefore provide flexibility and adaptability for the varying need of users and not restrict a normative user experience.
Understanding those concepts are crucial to avoid very common misguided behaviors. But now, we need to see how today’s organizations and regulation stand regarding them…
Resources
Particify – Interactive education
Sources
Wikipedia's definition of Accessibility
Notion d'accessibilité numérique - RGAA (France)
Loi accessibilité : cadre légal et obligations
Barrell Dylan. Agile Accessibility Handbook
Shew Ashley, Against Technoableism: rethinking who needs improvement. 2023