Xero
Redesigning the digital accessibility training framework and the landing page within their confluence
Type
Timeline
University project
March - May 2024
Team
Tools
5 students
Figma , Miro
At a glance
For my final capstone project in my Master of User Experience Design, I collaborated with 4 other students to work with the Xero accessibility team.
We were tasked to redesign their digital accessibility training framework and accessibility landing page.
My role
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Primary & secondary research and analysis
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Concept ideation & development
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Lead interviews & usability testing
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Project management
The challenge
We started with a stakeholder meeting with the Xero accessibility team, they told us they had developed a training programme to increase awareness and develop Xero’s (Xero staff) skills in digital accessibility.
Some goals that they wanted to achieve:
Increase motivation from teams to partake in the training programme
Increase attendance in the training programme
Increase engagement during facilitated sessions
Increase learning retention
How can we design a digital accessibility training programme that provides Xero’s with relevant information and skills that they can seamlessly incorporate into their day to day work?
Overview of the outcomes
Research process
Primary Research
Stakeholder interview
Interview with the Accessibility Team at Xero. We wanted to get a clear understanding of the brief and create a reverse brief to ensure we are on the same page for goals, timeline and potential outcomes.
Fable interview
Interview with Felipe Soares - Senior Enterprise Customer Success Manager at Fable.
We wanted to know some success stories with how they approach training with different companies and what models they use.
Fable survey analysis
Xero provided us with the survey data that was collected by Fable after the completion of each training module. This data gave us insights about their thoughts and perspectives on the current training content and digital accessibility.
Xero team (Xeros) interview
We aimed to conduct interviews with five Xeros to gain a deeper understanding of their perception of the accessibility training and how they were applying the skills they acquired several months after completing the training.
Secondary Research
To refine our project goals and objectives we conducted research on:
Proactive & reactive learning approaches
Best practices in teaching accessibility
Accessibility case studies
Adult learning
How might this apply to Xero?
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Provide opportunities for designers and developers to observe people with disabilities using assistive technology while interacting with Xero products
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Make standards clear and accessible to set a clear benchmark for excellence
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Incorporate real-world problems and scenarios into training sessions
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Ensure accessibility considerations are embedded into each project from inception to completion
Considerations
We developed a series of findings and insights from our research which highlighted the important aspects we needed to consider when redesigning the Xero digital accessibility learning programme.
Motivation
Collaboration
Practical application
Personalised training
Creating safe spaces
Asynchronous learning
Accessibility advocates
Design Principles
We developed a some design principles to guide our decision making throughout the project
Accessibility
Adaptability & Inclusion
Practical
Supportive
Empowerment
Job stories
We created job stories to facilitate conversation around who we are designing for.
[situation]
[motivation]
[expected outcome]
When I'm...
I want to...
so I can...
Motivation
When I'm encouraged to make time for additional training programs, I want to understand the importance and relevance to my work so I can feel motivated to attend and prioritise my time accordingly.
Training Sessions
When I'm unable to meet in person for a workshop, I want to participate in activities remotely or in my own time so I can keep up to date with the learning material and still gain benefits from the group interaction aspect of the training.
When I'm away from the workshop setting, I want to be able to revisit the thought process from the group activity so I can reinforce the lessons and maximise the learning.
When I'm learning about accessibility, I want to have a chance to practice what I learned in theory so I can convert my knowledge into problem solving.
Support
When I'm interacting with assistive technology users, I want to feel confident asking questions and comfortable making mistakes so I can learn about accessibility from the user and implement assistive tools effectively.
Training Material
When I'm doing the accessibility training program, I want to have learning material that is new and relevant to me so I can efficiently learn about accessibility without taking up valuable time repeating what I already know.
When I'm learning about accessibility, I want to understand how it can be applied to my current work and our product so I can easily bridge the gap between theory and practice when the training program finishes.
Collaboration
When I'm learning about accessibility, I want to understand how different roles implement accessibility so I can have constructive discussions about how we can work together to create an accessible product.
When I'm discussing accessibility implementations with other roles, I want to have a standard to refer to so I can quickly resolve inconsistencies in expectations between teams.
Lo-Fi - Landing page
Usability test
We made a low fidelity version of the landing page to do usability tests for 6 Xero team members.
Some tasks include:
- Navigate to dashboard
- Navigate to champions program section
- Review onboarding process for champions program
- Navigate to resource page
- Add a resource to your own resource library
Key insights
Motivation for accessibility
Participants are motivated to engage with accessibility initiatives when they perceive relevance to their work and have personally encountered direct experience with accessibility challenges.
Factors like shorter time commitments and ease of completion play a key role in sustaining their interest. As a result, making the content relevant, hands-on, and easy to navigate will greatly increase their motivation to participate.
Training and resources
Participants see training and resources as the primary avenues for acquiring knowledge and skills in accessibility. However, they desire training to offer more than just "a one-stop shop for accessibility" and prefer resources to incorporate additional hands-on examples for reference.
“
I would use it if it's more of a resource, rather than just a place for education and doing courses, like 'a one stop shop for accessibility'.
- Participant
”
The Outcomes
Xero Digital Accessibility Journey Framework
We designed this framework to be used by the accessibility team to support Xero’s and facilitate the multiple stages of the learning journey.
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The tools, events and workshop are categorised into stages to give clarity to the team.
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The framework starts with awareness which we identified to be an important first step and runs through the training stage, implementation and advocacy.
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This framework will be a work in progress as they use it.
User Journey Map Visual
The user journey map for accessibility learning at Xero.
This visual will be used for their accessibility learning page.
Center: Accessibility learning journey
Rocket ship: Empathy workshop - introduction to learning journey
Shooting star: Accessibility advocate (seperate voluntary journey)
To motivate Xero's we want to:
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Show a personalised user journey map
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Show the different stages of learning
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Track user progress
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Gamification through rewards and completion badges
Our initial goal was to gamify the journey by visually showing their progress.
Adaptation
Due to this constraint, we had to adapt the visual to steer away from personalised journeys into a broader visual that represents the full journey.
Our current visual is showing that learning is dynamic, constant and that there is no “one straight path”.
Constraint
When we discussed the feasibility with the accessibility team, personalisation was found to be difficult to make within their learning hub platform.
Empathy Workshop
Our research suggested a powerful way to encourage people to get motivated to learn about accessibility is to create an environment where they feel safe and supported on their learning journey.
We designed an asynchronous empathy workshop on Miro.
3
1
2
To kick off the workshop we got participants to watch a video of an assistive tech user signing up to Xero.
Participants were invited to share stories of experiences they have had with people who use assistive tech.
Empathy task to sign into Xero and create an invoice using only keyboard navigation.
We tested this workshop on 6 Xero team members
Advocate Roadmap
To become an advocate is voluntary and means taking up the responsibility of actively spreading awareness for digital accessibility. The main objective is to nurture the culture of accessibility ownership within the teams and making sure they are following the accessibility standards.
Gamified badges for different levels.
Fable also has a champion programme so we wanted to create a clear distinction between the two programmes.
We decided to rebrand the Accessibility Champion to be Digital Accessibility Advocates to prevent confusion between the two.
There are two levels with different tasks.
Once you complete a level, you get a physical badge (and digital one on the "advanced" version of the hub).
Accessibility hub & Landing page
To consider the constraints of the current website platform, we prototyped three versions with different functionalities
Practical prototype
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Current system only supports static pages
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Can be integrated into Xero system immediately
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Improved static layout and accessibility resources
Intermediate prototype
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This version is an in-between of the practical and ideal.
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Serves as a "work in progress" model
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Incorporates bento layout for landing page
Ideal prototype
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The version is personalised and tailored towards each person
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Our concept is to create a one-stop-shop for resources
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Provide a safe space for learning, collaboration and community discussions
