When universal access is not quite universal enough: case studies and lessons to be learned

While the theory of designing for Universal Access is increasingly understood, there remain persistent issues over realising products and systems that meet the goal of being accessible and usable by the broadest possible set of users. Clearly, products or services that are designed without even considering the needs of the wider user base are implicitly going to struggle to be universally accessible. However, even products that have been designed, knowing that they are to be used by broad user bases frequently still struggle to achieve the ambition of being universally accessible. This paper examines a number of such products that did not achieve, at least initially, the desired level of universal accessibility. Principal recommendations from each case study are presented to provide a guide to common issues to be avoided.