The Intersection of Accessibility and Inclusive Design

Invited Speaker!

Accessibility and Inclusive Design are two related disciplines but they have different goals and focuses. Accessibility aims to give as many people as possible the ability to access information, resources, and services through interaction with assistive technologies and devices. Inclusive Design aims to provide access to as many people as possible and to provide the best experience possible, while doing so without the need for assistive devices. Although these may sound like the same thing, they aren’t, and understanding the differences between them can help developers and testers be more effective when implementing both accessibility and inclusive design principles. Join Michael Larsen as he demonstrates some examples to help distinguish between these two related concepts, and shows how developers and testers can leverage both disciplines effectively to ensure the best possible user experience for as many people as possible.

Michael Larsen, Learning Technologies Group

Michael Larsen is a Senior Quality Assurance Engineer with the Learning Technologies Group. Over the past three decades, he has been involved in software testing for a range of products and industries, including network routers & switches, virtual machines, capacitance touch devices, video games, client/server, distributed database, and web applications. Michael is a Black Belt in the Miagi-Do School of Software Testing, helped start and facilitate the Americas chapter of Weekend Testing, is a former Chair of the Education Special Interest Group with the Association for Software Testing (AST), a lead instructor of the Black Box Software Testing courses through AST, and former Board Member and President of AST. He writes the TESTHEAD blog and can be found on Twitter at @mkltesthead.