Enterprise hits and misses - UX accessibility matters, Google and Microsoft surprise, and the metaverse gets enterprise scrutiny

Jon Reed Profile picture for user jreed May 2, 2022
Summary:
This week - lessons from UX accessibility keep us on our toes. Microsoft and Google buck the tech earnings blues - thanks to cloud. The metaverse gets an enterprise review, and NoOps wins buzzword bingo. As always, your whiffs.

King Checkmate

Lead story - UX accessibility must move beyond developers - but how?

UX accessibility is not just a legal obligation, it's a better approach for the customer-first world we supposedly live in.

The question is: how do you get there? This week, I got the lowdown from an expert: UX accessibility must move beyond developers - Karen Hawkins on how to turn digital accessibility into a team practice. I also shared a few lessons from diginomica's own digital accessibility pursuits:

  • accessibility is not just a legal obligation - it's a sensibility and a discipline.
  • accessibility factors into every digital feature or design decision you make.
  • the more accessible your digital assets are, the better the UX is for all.
  • the work is never done, and there is always more to learn - and implement.

But what does Hawkins advise? Her organization eSSENTIAL Accessibility, recommends embedding accessibility across design, development, and every stage of the product development lifecycle. One crucial tip from Hawkins? Accessibility "checkpoints":

Another thing that's lacking is checkpoints, where we can inject accessibility into the software or product development life cycles. We're putting in these checks and balances to make sure that for every role, and at every stage in the process, we're designing and creating as much as we can with accessibility in mind.

Going back and re-architecting for accessibility can be difficult, especially if you're at massive web scale. So I asked Hawkins: how can organizations avoid this when launching new digital products/"experiences"? Hawkins:

It's very logical that your foundational elements are as accessible as possible, these foundational elements being colors, but also typography, small atoms and molecules, like your buttons and your links and your text boxes - they get used everywhere. There's that whole concept of atomic design - you build small things, put them into larger organisms, and build those components into two full pages.

For those organizations looking for gut checks, there is no shortage of online resources, hireable experts, and evaluation tools - many of which I've linked from my article. "Compliance" is a limited way to look at this. If some of your accessibility projects really energize your team, you're on the right track.

Diginomica picks - my top stories on diginomica this week

Vendor analysis, diginomica style. Here's my three top choices from our vendor coverage:

A few more vendor picks, without the quotables:

Jon's grab bag - Stuart gets the grab bag all to himself this week, with another love letter to his favorite tech billionaire scorcher on the company formerly known as "a place for friends" Facebook: Meta gets a boost on Wall Street despite mixed results - but nobody mention Elon Musk! Plus we get this nugget: "Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg noted that half of the time spent by users on Facebook now relates to video." How exactly that translates to the enterprise needs a think, but I don't think it's a stat we should ignore either.

Best of the enterprise web

Waiter suggesting a bottle of wine to a customer

My top seven

 

Overworked businessman

Whiffs

Okay, so this was a cheap shot:

But it felt right, so... Then there is this fellow, who didn't need any further mockery:

I usually ignore tech execs' views on the creative discipline of artistic greatness, but I couldn't zip it this time:

Yes, Spotify can't be expected to rely on Pink Floyd to solve its profitability problems, but musicians "interacting" with fans has nothing to do with making better music either. As I wrote in a yet-unpublished piece:

You think Pink Floyd would have benefited from checking LinkedIn while recording The Wall?

Okay, that was too easy. See you next time...

If you find an #ensw piece that qualifies for hits and misses - in a good or bad way - let me know in the comments as Clive (almost) always does. Most Enterprise hits and misses articles are selected from my curated @jonerpnewsfeed.

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