IBM Accessibility Website and Toolkit.
Project Description
This project entailed a single point of entry for accessibility materials at IBM as well as a toolkit for development teams to do accessibility work during the development cycle.
The goal was to create a delightful and intuitive experience for users to easily find information about how to integrate accessibility into development operations.
Summary
After identifying stakeholders and understanding our users, I created sketches and mid-fidelity prototypes in Sketch. We then rapidly built the website in an agile process.
Stakeholder Map
Identifying the impact of our work on the users and the business kept us on a path toward success throughout the whole process. We were also able to identify key stakeholders to work with along the way.
Empathy Map
This project entailed a single point of entry for accessibility materials at IBM as well as a toolkit for development teams to do accessibility work during the development cycle.
Information Architecture
We were constrained by two standards that were moving targets: IBM’s Gatsby design guide as well as the Carbon Design System. One of the major constraints this put on us was a two-level left navigation.
The home page was not only the main entry point for the toolkit, but also the jump-off point for all of the accessibility information at IBM.
The toolkit is arranged by role so each different person on the team can quickly find their respective accessibility responsibilities.
One of the major challenges of doing accessible design is knowing what to do first and when to do it. We created a three-level, cumulative hierarchy of tasks for designers to complete.
Visual Design
During the process, I worked with an amazing visual designer to create assets that conveyed our meaning and gave us a visual voice.
Development
Our product team worked feverishly to launch the new website and toolkit in a short time period. I was embedded in this process and delivered high fidelity prototypes and annotated wireframes to facilitate a quick build.
Result
The IBM Accessibility website and toolkit are available to the 400,000 employees as well as the public. The creation of this tool allows designers, developers and product managers to do their own accessibility work without support.