When I took my user experience classes almost 20 years ago, one of the first and most challenging, things for me to learn: I wasn’t the user for the websites and services I designed and developed.
My college instructor stressed the importance of research and identifying who our prospective users were.
So we could design websites and services that fit their needs.
And had better outcomes.
At that time—the early to mid 2000’s—including people with disabilities in your projects wasn’t standard practice.
Fast forward to the 2020’s and finally word is spreading and design practices recommend including disabled people in your projects from the start.
In their less than two-minute You are not your user video, Microsoft Accessibility stresses the importance of including disabled people with lived experiences and years of context in your projects.
