Game theory is a way of looking at situations where a group of people need to make a choice that affects everyone in the group. They've got a pile of resources to divide, like money, time and skills, and several people have different ideas about what should get priority.
What I understand after reading about game theory is that nobody plays along unless they see something in it for them. To me, that sounded obvious. But it also defines how I should approach problems where setting priorities is a problem.
Let me first walk you through game theory and then I'll circle back to accessibility.
Say you figure out a way to divide things. If half the group ends up losing out while the other half gains something, the losers won't play along. They'll either do a poor job on purpose or simply walk away. They'll look for a different situation where they're on the winning side instead. Since there are always multiple ways to use resources and multiple competing goals, whoever loses out in one proposed solution will rather look for alternatives. The group overall gets stuck because everyone's protecting their own interests.
But when both sides stand to gain from working together, everyone is more likely to play along.
So the challenge becomes to design a system where everyone in the group honestly believes they're better off cooperating than they would be by looking out for themselves alone. You do that through being transparent about how resources are split, making sure the arrangement is fair and giving everyone a genuine say in how things work.
With that in mind, back to accessibility.
During every sprint planning, you're facing a classic game-theory problem with accessibility. A developer, a designer, an accessibility advocate and a product owner each have different incentives. The developer thinks they'll finish fewer features and look less productive if they spend time on accessibility. The designer thinks that accessibility will make their work ugly and outdated. The product owner thinks they can add it later because right now it's blocking work.
And the accessibility advocate knows that it's the right thing to do, morally and legally. Only they stand to win if everyone commits to accessibility now. So their job isn't to argue harder. That'll never work. Instead, they need to redesign the incentives by giving everyone else a reason to want it too.
For the developer, the win is fewer surprises. Accessibility issues caught during a sprint cost an hour to fix. The same issue caught after launch can cost days and lands back on their plate anyway.
For the designer, the win is better design. Accessible design constraints with clear contrast, logical flow and readable type tend to produce cleaner interfaces for everyone.
For the product owner, the win is predictability. Rework is the real blocker, not accessibility. Every accessibility debt they ship becomes an unplanned sprint later. Doing it now keeps the roadmap honest.
None of this requires convincing anyone to care about accessibility as a cause. Just show each person that they're better off with it than without it.
So that's game theory. Nobody plays along unless they see something in it for them. You can't win the accessibility argument, but you can design a situation where if accessibility is ignored everybody loses.