How did this employee engagement and wellbeing business make sure it continued to be accessible to people with disabilities?
Helping a human resources and technology leader redesign its platform to meet Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations.
The challenge
Our client is a global technology leader in helping clients support the total wellbeing of their people and build organizational resiliency.
Its leading HR tool is used across the US to allow employees in large organizations to manage their health benefits and pensions. The platform provides users with a way to make changes to their plans and see their retirement savings.
After the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed, all businesses are expected to comply with its regulations.
The ADA requires all state and local governments, businesses, and non-profit organizations to “provide goods, services, and programs to people with disabilities on an equal basis with the rest of the public.”
They needed to make sure its platform met the stringent ADA standards and allowed all people, regardless of ability, to access its app.
Approach
We led the redesign of the application by applying human-centered design approach, which kept customers with disabilities at the core of all design decisions. The technical work followed deep research into user experiences and involved a development approach favoring deliberate experimentation and rapid prototyping.
The first stage was to assume nothing and instead rely on investigating the situation. We defined any exceptional cases as well as new behaviors and linked these standards and UX requirements.
We then created an implementation strategy that included key components for the app redesign, including adjusting for the user experience through new color and component guidelines, analyzing and modifying business requirements, preparing instructions for developers, and adjusting acceptance tests.
We were in constant communication with the team throughout, before implementing the designs for quality assurance verification. This involved manual, automated, and regression testing.
We standardized the approach and integrated it into the ongoing development and testing process.
Working in this iterative way allowed for rapid prototypes developed into intuitive products to not only meet ADA obligations but also the needs of all of our client’s customers.
While several of our team members have had the pleasure to work with Emergn for many years, the organization really began to experience and see both the value and quality Emergn truly delivers – time and time again – over the past 2 years. The Emergn team is an extension of the team rather than just another provider. They strive to meet our delivery commitments and take time to understand our business needs. What has been equally impressive has been the ability for our Emergn team to react so quickly to our ever-changing needs/requirements. It truly proves Emergn’s agility!
VP Software Development Large Market
Our impact
By keeping the users at the core of design decisions, we were able to rapidly support the redesign of the employee assistance platform.
As a result, US employees of all abilities can now manage their benefits and pensions without difficulty. It’s now accessible for people with permanent, situational, and temporary limitations, and the product technical support strategy also allows for further accessibility handling when needed.
In a short space of time, we redesigned the app to meet the stringent standards of the ADA and give our client a product that would keep them ahead in a fiercely competitive market.
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