User Stories and Accessibility

What is a user story?

A user story is a description of a system, from the point of view of a user of the system. It's a story. Once upon a time there was a prince and so on. The traditional end is and they all lived happily ever after.

Every Thursday (18:30 to 19:30 UK time) there's a zoom TeX Hour. Details here.

A modern user story

Once upon a time a Paralympian athlete caught the train. What happened next was that the disabled toilet on the train was and so on. This is a real story, which you can read here.

And was there a happy ending?

The athlete's story isn't over yet. The toilet was out of order, she was force to wet herself, she complained, and went public. Other people got involved. People with disabilities are getting their rights.

The athlete

Here's the Wikipedia page for Anne Wafula Strike.

Here's a news story about this from The Guardian.

In the Guardian story Sue Bott of Disability Rights UK said:

The courts are starting to take cases like this very seriously. Not only the lack of access but also the injury to feeling that occurs.

If Anne decides to take legal action we would be right behind her. No one should have to go through an experience like that.

Access and inclusion need to be taken seriously. These things should not just be tick box exercises.

How you can help?

If you develop web pages or software, ensure that you have enough appropriate user stories. Some of these stories should involve persons who have a disability.

A good way to get these stories is to listen to the experience, satisfactory or not, of many users. And of people who wanted to use your software, and gave up for some reason.

A happy ending?

Again from the Guardian story. The rail company said:

We are extremely sorry for the circumstances of Mrs Strike’s recent journey with us, and our managing director has passed on our apologies to her along with an explanation of why it appears all our systems failed her on that day.