The approach to product testing revolves around three key programs: the Accessibility User Research Collective (AURC), a community of people with disabilities who give feedback to Microsoft; Disability Answer Desk, a free 24/7 support team that solves problems for customers with disabilities and passes their feature ideas to product teams; and the Department of Homeland Security Trusted Tester program, which trains and certifies accessibility testers.
“These programs help build trust with the disability community, which is foundational to maintaining credibility and creating better products and experiences,” says Megan Lawrence, Microsoft senior accessibility evangelist.
“We have built a scalable system that brings the voice of people with disabilities into our company, better understands how they use our products and provides feedback to engineers to make our tools more accessible. We’re sharing how we do this to help others, and we’re constantly learning.”
A community of more than 900 people with disabilities, the AURC is managed by Shepherd Center researchers who organize diverse, targeted cohorts for Microsoft design and engineering research. Separate from the AURC, Shepherd Center is a rehabilitation hospital in Atlanta for people with spinal cord and brain injury and other neuromuscular conditions. Research participants do not need to be hospital patients.
“The overall goal is to help bring technology to all different types of people with all different disabilities,” says AURC operations director Nicole Thompson. “Accessible technology gives people the chance to be independent and do the things they love and want to do.”
This year, more than 500 members, who include Flaherty and McQuade, have shared their experiences with engineers. In the last three years, AURC members, who earn $50 an hour for their research participation, have contributed feedback to roughly 75 projects that led to new and improved products and features. Research with McQuade and other members has led to improvements to Windows Ease of Access features like pointer sizing, text sizing and high-contrast color mode.
“Anne regularly gives fantastic feedback,” says Windows accessibility leader Jeff Petty. “When you have a person with a disability who can share their story and articulate why they love using bigger text, it helps us connect with their experience and understand the importance of building better features.”
For McQuade, a former telecommunications software tester, working with the AURC and Microsoft makes her feel good about using her tech skills to help others. She had to leave her job six years ago when her vision deteriorated from retinal dystrophy and now works as a disability advocate.
“One of the hardest parts when I stopped working is that I felt I lost my purpose,” McQuade says. “It feels great to be asked now for my input. It makes me feel confident.”
While the AURC supports targeted user research, Disability Answer Desk provides a big picture of what customers want. The live, global tech support service for customers with disabilities fields 150,000 inquiries a year, but the broader work involves listening to customer stories and identifying opportunity areas.
“Not only do we want to solve your issue in the moment, we want to understand what we can do to make better products,” says Neil Barnett, director of accessibility and inclusive hiring at Microsoft. “So we have systems in place to drive that feedback into engineer groups.”
To provide quick access in their own language, Disability Answer Desk agents can provide direct video support in American Sign Language instead of using a video interpreting relay service. They also partner with the mobile app Be My Eyes for customers who are blind or have low vision, which allows agents to see a customer’s screen or device through the app and the customer’s camera phone.
The service has been so successful that Microsoft helped Google and others start their own disability support services and work with Be My Eyes last year. This year, the Disability Answer Desk team published an industry playbook to help more organizations start their own support desks for customers with disabilities.
“We’re sharing our learnings because we see it as a valuable way to accelerate efforts across industry and power up the disability community,” Barnett says. “And we want to see more companies invest in accessibility.” Learnings include the playbook, webinars and product training opportunities for customers.
