Gina Bhawalkar

I aim to help clients understand the technologies available to help them scale and report on the progress of their accessibility programs, starting with our just published Forrester Landscape on the Digital Accessibility Platforms market.

Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), a day focused on digital accessibility and inclusion. Why do we need a day dedicated to this? 

What does it mean to practice human-centered design? The answer to that question is evolving. If you’ve read my research, you know it’s critical for businesses to embed accessibility and inclusive design practices into how they design and develop experiences. Doing so helps increase revenue, reduce costs, increase resilience, and build trust with customers and […]

Businesses that create inclusive products, services, and experiences can increase revenue, decrease costs, improve resilience, and build trust with customers and employees. Unlocking these benefits requires an intentional approach to inclusive design, something most firms lack due to low organizational understanding of why inclusive design matters and limited funding.

The White House’s budget proposal for fiscal-year 2024 includes more than $500 million in customer-experience (CX)-related investments to continue progress on the administration’s robust CX goals. Predictably, this hasn’t made headlines: It’s just .007% of the total $6.9 trillion budget proposal and doesn’t excite fiery debates like higher-profile requests do. It’s a strong investment, however, […]

With a turbulent and unprecedented current economy, most retailers are trying to shore up revenue wherever they can. One way to do this is through making your company’s websites and mobile apps more accessible. Annually, the disability community has a disposable income of $1.9 trillion and an accessible digital storefront gives you access to this market.

Empathizing with customers is almost always the first step in design frameworks. Learn how to take the next step and embed empathy into your entire design process.

Our research shows that the best organizations use a design system to streamline and scale experience design (XD). Learn the benefits of a design system.

Twenty-seven percent of design teams plan to hire accessibility experts in the next 12 months. Learn what success in the role requires.

Incorporate inclusive design this holiday season by prioritizing digital accessibility, using inclusive language, and showing that you care.

Retailers can improve their websites and boost customer experience this holiday season by applying these tips.

Much has happened within a short span of time that signals the growing importance of creating experiences that are accessible to all.

On Global Accessibility Awareness Day this year, learn what’s changed in digital accessibility over the past four years. Read more.

Over the last two years, digital accessibility quickly became a business priority. Forrester has seen a significant increase in inquiries related to accessibility, and more companies are hiring accessibility specialists — an encouraging signal that companies are making investments in this space. This increase is partly driven by the pandemic, which elevated the importance of […]

Does your organization want to create inclusive experiences for your customers? Are you following an inclusive design process? If the answer to both questions is “yes,” great! But if you’re like most companies we speak with, you’re missing an essential component for creating inclusive experiences: an inclusive and diverse design team. Having such a team […]

Is your site ready to welcome all customers this holiday season? Follow these best practices to apply inclusive language in your customer experience.

Are you creating inclusive experiences for your customers? Many companies aren’t. For example, here’s a sampling of what we heard when we evaluated typical approaches to collecting personal information from consumers: “There is no open box to identify yourself. Ticking ‘other’ is alienating; therefore, if I didn’t identify as male or female, I wouldn’t feel […]

(This blog is coauthored with Gina Bhawalkar.) Accessibility is one of the hottest topics in design. More and more companies are making it a business priority. We wanted to determine how big of a monetary impact accessibility will have on design technology vendors and services companies offering design. Based on our analysis, at least $10 […]

Update 4/21/22:  For more recent guidance on this category of vendors please see my blog post Get Help With Digital Accessibility: Tips For Selecting An Accessibility Partner. Let’s get straight to the point: There’s no quick fix for making your digital experiences accessible. That’s true even if your approach to accessibility is narrowly focused on […]