HP Innovation Journal Issue 13: Winter 2019 | Page 59

JESSICA MISENER The Inclusion Effect As companies across industries make diversity and inclusion a priority, hiring and supporting people with disabilities has never been more important. Jennison Asuncion, who focuses on digital accessibility within LinkedIn Engineering, is completely blind. On any given day at work, he uses JAWS, software that reads what’s on the screen or display, to access web applications and websites. On mobile, he uses the VoiceOver screen reader setting on his iPhone. Tools and accommodations like the ones Asuncion uses daily have never been more important—for employees and employers. Today, one in four adults in the US lives with some kind of disability—some of which may not be obvious to the people around them. “Many people living with disabili- ties aren’t living with visible ones,” says Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, president of RespectAbility, an organization that fights stigma and advances opportunities for people with disabilities. So-called “invisible” conditions such as chronic pain, dyslexia, bipolar disorder, lupus, Crohn’s dis- ease, or migraines are federally protected, yet many people aren’t even aware their colleagues have them—and many workplaces aren’t fully empowering employees who do. The traditional office setup of a computer, keyboard, mouse, and maybe a landline phone doesn’t meet every- one’s needs. Chronic pain can make using a traditional keyboard and mouse difficult, for example, and people with colorblindness or dyslexia might struggle reading the slides in a presentation on a laptop screen. As companies across industries make diversity and inclu- sion a priority, some are making full use of design and technology to create the accessible workplaces of the future today. Companies who strive to make their offices accessible set themselves up to hire great candidates and tap into a much larger talent pool. INCLUSION BY DESIGN Asuncion says that good inclusive design starts at the beginning of the process and includes users with disabili- ties in testing. “Companies who are doing it right are thinking about accessibility immediately at the beginning of the proj- ect,” he says. “Not weeks from launch, when everything’s basically signed, sealed, and delivered and then they’re like, ‘OK, now we have to think about accessibility.’” For example, Google’s new hires in engineering and product design receive training from the company’s accessibility team as part of their onboarding program, and testing with users with disabilities is baked into the research and development processes. “If tech companies don’t design for accessibility from square one, they’ll spend more resources trying to fix or patch something later that would have made business sense to do in the first place,” says Michael Rohwer, a director at Business for Social Responsibility who works with technology companies on being more inclusive. “Designing for accessibility from the beginning also sends the important message that users with disabilities are more than an afterthought.” This article originally appeared on the Garage by HP. Visit garage.ext.hp.com for more stories on how technology is improving our world. 57