“Hi, I am Karishma, your festival accessibility volunteer.”
The woman sounded bored. But I was too excited to notice. A friend and I had paid a lot of money to attend arguably India’s best international music festival, and I was eager to get in and enjoy the opening performances. I was looking forward to this for weeks. As per instructions from the organisers, I had shared an entire email thread of documentation and clarifications about my visual impairment to receive accessibility accommodations.
“You are not allowed to go by yourself; our accessible shuttle will drop you,” Karishma told us as we were waiting outside the festival gates. “The shuttle will come back to get you from the accessible section at 8:30pm” she said.
“8:30? But The headline performance only starts at eight! Can’t you pick us up after it ends at ten?” I asked as we were still waiting for the shuttle.
“It will come at 8:30. After that, there’s a lot of other activity going on. We can’t guarantee when it’ll come again, could be 11pm or midnight,” she countered. “If you want the shuttle, you leave at 8:30”.
She seemed surprised that I was arguing with her.
“We’re doing all this for you, and you are still not happy?” she asked exasperatedly as I made the case that I wanted to see the entirety of the show. Which I had paid full price for.
{{/usCountry}}“We’re doing all this for you, and you are still not happy?” she asked exasperatedly as I made the case that I wanted to see the entirety of the show. Which I had paid full price for.
{{/usCountry}}Twenty minutes later, a rickety van showed up. The only problem? This was a wheelchair accessible van with all the rear seats ripped out, and there was space for only one person to sit next to the driver. Although I was happy to give that seat to my friend and toss around in the back, that idea was not entertained and we had to wait for yet another van.
By the time we somehow made it to the festival, an opening performance I was looking forward to, had already ended. What transpired in the festival’s accessibility section could be an entirely different essay but suffice it to say, I felt all the angst that the lead performers were singing about. And I am pretty sure not in a way that the musicians must have wanted.
Many entities today realise the potential of accessibility. Quite a few even publicise their initiatives, especially during occasions such as Global Accessibility Awareness Day or International Day of Persons with Disabilities. A whole range of businesses, organisations and government agencies jostle to appeal to the conscious consumer and each other. They make inspiring videos and create beautifully written press releases. But behind all this so-called purple washing, actual consumers with disabilities mostly end up getting broken experiences —if they even get any experiences at all.
This trend is not limited to any one industry or sector.
A public sector bank made a huge splash by announcing India’s first braille bank card. I was excited and applied. I thought, finally, gone would be the days when I had to memorise card numbers or get someone else to read them out to me. The first problem arose almost immediately. Apparently, I had to fill a paper form in the branch to get it. Yes, you read that right, fill out a paper form to get a…braille card. When I finally got the card, only the first letter of the bank’s name was embossed in Braille. Not the card number, not even the CVV or expiry, only one single braille letter. This may have worked in the card swiping days of the 2010s but in the age of digital payments, this card solves almost nothing.
Another time, I decided to try Mumbai’s latest metro line. Social media claimed that it was world class and the next frontier of accessible public transport -- a service that this city sorely needs. When I showed up at a station alone, I discovered the tactile paving randomly ended in the middle of nowhere. Ticket booking was inaccessible and the assistance provided was inconsistent across stations.
Over the years as conversations about accessibility have started entering the mainstream, I’ve noticed that for organisations, giving disabled users a better experience is not always the motive. Other factors come into play – from PR to marketing to compliance requirements. One sector that does relatively better in this space is tech. While I can’t claim to understand their motives, the experiences feel less broken. Of course, digital accessibility also has a long way to go but I get the sense that their approach might be better.
As someone with no tech background whatsoever, I believe it boils down to one tech concept, the user journey. When a UX designer is thinking through how a user would interact with their product they are mapping a set of user flows. These flows are individual actions and results. In addition to these flows, significant thought is put into the user’s feelings throughout the interaction as well. The flows and feelings come together to form the user journey. I’ve been told that designers first build for a happy flow and then work out various edge cases. The journey is built considering these cases and what results is a seamless experience.
While many physical businesses implement disjointed initiatives, my understanding is that most tech companies think through the user journey holistically. Their designers, developers and product managers work to reduce friction and minimise broken flows. I believe while some flows exist in the physical world, the thought behind feelings is missing. If only festival organisers considered the entire journey of a passionate concert goer with a disability, they may have ensured that shuttles were available till the end.
This change can only happen with a shift in perspective. I strongly believe that businesses should consider customers with disabilities as a legitimate market segment instead of thinking of accessibility as a PR initiative or a CSR or regulatory burden. They need to work with people with disabilities to understand their perspectives, build for them, and enhance their user journeys.
Consider accessibility as a competitive advantage, the ultimate moat to ensure loyalty that most competitors don’t even know exists. Obviously, all the secondary benefits will accrue. And of course, catering to the differentiated requirements of a market segment is just good business.
(The views expressed are personal)
This article is authored by Preetham Gandhi Sunkavalli, deputy general manager, marketing, Godrej Consumer Products.