This research-centric project investigates accessibility for screen reader and keyboard-heavy users in Jira Service Management-Cloud, an industry-leading software tool for managing IT services.
The accessibility research was designed to understand the domain, involve stakeholders, identify user problems, and engage teams to resolve them. As the project evolved, the scope broadened to also take steps for sustaining the accessibility push, while remaining a research project at the core.
The research process was iterative and improved as it progressed. A series of seven in-depth interviews were conducted to understand their experience of using Jira Service Management (JSM). The interviews were synthesised using Thematic Analysis, and triangulated with automated accessibility checks and customer feedback. The study uncovered user frustrations that ranged from minor inconveniences to complete blockage of certain critical features when interacting with screen readers and keyboards. The findings were shared with the tool’s designers, the accessibility team, and were added to the product improvement backlog.
To ensure accessibility is built into the product from the ground up in future, a workshop was designed to drive empathy in the JSM’s creators towards accessibility use-cases. As a result, the design team agreed to increase the emphasis on accessibility of JSM in their design process.
They were also provided with resources to support this commitment.
This project was one of the few accessibility studies in the company, and the first one after a major revamp of the design system. It was a crucial step in starting the conversation around accessibility within teams involved in creating the product.
The project is also an introspection of a designer in the role of a researcher. It touches the concept of emergence in design research, tries to understand what a designer’s training brings to the table of research in a professional setting, and explores outcome-centric research studies.
