A few months ago, I took on an accessibility audit for a product that never underwent any sort of accessibility review. I knew I would have a difficult few weeks ahead of me.
So I buckled up, fired up VoiceOver, started NVDA in Windows under a virtual box and got to testing.
I wasn't disappointed. I found more than enough issues, some critical that would prevent any sort of keyboard navigation.
That's fine, I thought. I was prepared for this. I filed all the bugs, detailed all the issues, wrote recommendations for how to fix them and offered my assistance in fixing and re-testing.
A few weeks go by, then a month, two months. Okay, I said, something's off. Better check in with them.
They showed me some progress, quite a lot of progress actually. Some things weren't quite right, so I retested and wrote up additional recommendations.
Weeks go by again. This time I was determined to not let it slide. So I checked in just two weeks afterwards.
They apologised for the lack of communication (understandable) and also for the lack of progress (not understandable). They got pulled in another direction, other business priorities. Something more important.
It's now been more than three months without progress.
So I have to wonder what I'm doing wrong. We all agreed this was important. We all saw the customers complain about it. We all got the same tickets from customer support asking for progress.
But only they got the revised list of priorities.
I know I can't succeed with a strategy that requires them to care as much as I care. All I can do is create the conditions for them to make different choices.
But without the entire picture, I can't tell a story that will resonate with them. I can't weave a story that teaches them they're wrong to push accessibility aside.
I haven't figured the right story yet.