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Your Role in Accessibility

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Summary

Section titled “Summary”

Accessibility helps everyone take part in everyday life by removing barriers in spaces, content, and communication. This includes people with:

  • Permanent disabilities like blindness or autism;
  • Temporary injuries such as a broken wrist or recovering from surgery, and
  • Everyday challenges like bright sunlight or noisy rooms.

Everyone who creates, maintains or provides products, events, or services has a role to play in improving accessibility.

Overview

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Accessibility ensures that all people can participate in everyday activities, and that people with disabilities encounter fewer barriers when engaging with their environment.

Attention to accessibility makes:

  • Physical spaces easier to move through,
  • Digital content easier to interact with, and
  • Communication easier to understand,

Each person who designs, creates, or maintains products, tools, spaces, and services has a role to play in making them accessible for people with physical, sensory, cognitive, and communication disabilities. Learn more from Your Role in Accessibility.

Accessibility helps:

  • People with mobility disabilities: Navigating buildings using ramps, elevators, and accessible restrooms
  • People with visualdisabilities: Accessing websites using screen readers or Braille signage in buildings
  • People with cognitive disabilities: Understanding instructions or navigating tools and spaces
  • People with auditory disabilities: Following videos using captions or participating in conversations using real-time transcription or sign language interpretation
  • People with chronic illnesses or mental health conditions: Ensuring access to needs and supports to safely and comfortably participate in everyday activities
  • People without disabilities in everyday situations: Walking with a stroller using curb cuts or watching a muted video using captions

When something is inaccessible, people with disabilities are excluded. This can limit their ability to participate in daily life, reduce their independence and dignity, or prevent access to essential resources. These barriers can be physical, digital, or in the way a process is done.

Who Is Helped

Section titled “Who Is Helped”

Accessibility supports many people, including those without disabilities.

  • People with disabilities: As noted in the overview - using screen readers, wheelchairs, hearing aids, or other assistive technology and devices
  • People with temporary injuries or recovery needs: Navigating stairs with crutches, or working while recovering from surgery or treatment
  • Older adults with changing vision, hearing, or mobility: Using larger text, amplified audio, or wider hallways
  • People in challenging situations: Reading on a phone in sunlight or navigating a space in a noisy environment
  • People who prefer flexible tools: Using voice commands, keyboard shortcuts, or captioned videos

Accessible design creates more usable experiences for everyone.

Guidelines

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Use these guidelines to begin contributing to accessibility in your own context.

Recognizing Accessibility as a Shared Responsibility

Section titled “Recognizing Accessibility as a Shared Responsibility”

Everyone has a role in accessibility. Your role will change depending on where you are and what you do.Whether writing content, organizing meetings, maintaining buildings, providing customer service, or developing tools, your decisions affect inclusion. Start by:

  • Understanding that accessibility is not the job of one person or department
  • Contributing by making everyday choices more accessible
  • Asking whether your content, space, or process is usable by all

Ask yourself these questions to think about your role in accessibility:

  • What is one thing you use, build, host, or share regularly?
  • Could someone with a disability use or understand it easily?
  • Can people navigate, see, hear, or understand it without needing help?
  • Are you open to changing it if it is not working for someone?

Start with one thing. Improving one interaction, space, or message helps everyone.

Contributing in Your Context

Section titled “Contributing in Your Context”

At Work

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Start by making your workplace easier for everyone to navigate and understand. Examples include:

  • Creating documents using headings, clear structure, and high contrast
  • Sharing meeting materials ahead of time
  • Removing trip hazards and obstacles in hallways and areas where people walk or wheel
  • Purchasing accessible tools, supplies, and platforms

At School

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Create learning environments that support all students. Examples include:

  • Developing assignments using plain language and flexible formats
  • Providing educational videos with captions
  • Using classroom layouts that support students with mobility or cognitive disabilities

At Home

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Think about how your home can be welcoming and inclusive. Examples include:

  • Letting guests know about the access features of your home in advance - such as an apartment building elevator or any stairs to enter
  • Labeling items with large print or tactile markers
  • Labeling food at parties with potential allergens
  • Teaching children to use inclusive language and engage in inclusive behavior

Online

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Communicate using accessible formats and tools. Examples include:

In Public Spaces

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Help create shared environments that work for more people by:

  • Keeping curb cuts or accessible entrances clear of obstacles
  • Supporting community events that use accessible venues
  • Reporting broken elevators, poor signage, or other barriers
  • Communicating with local governments on improving accessibility in your area

Leaving Room for Growth

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You do not need to be an expert to start making a difference. Accessibility is a lifelong learning process, and your role will change as you gain new knowledge, take on different responsibilities, or encounter new perspectives. Even experts are always learning.

You may make mistakes and that is okay. Be willing to listen, learn, and grow. Small improvements, when made consistently, can have a big impact over time, for example:

  • Staying open to feedback from people with lived experience
  • Adjusting your practices using new knowledge
  • Recognizing that even small actions make a difference

References

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