{"id":19577,"date":"2020-04-16T16:20:32","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T15:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marvel7077.wpengine.com\/?p=19577"},"modified":"2020-08-25T16:47:47","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T15:47:47","slug":"growing-a-culture-of-accessibility-at-trade-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/blog\/growing-a-culture-of-accessibility-at-trade-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing a culture of accessibility at Trade Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the first of three articles about our journey growing a culture of accessibility at Trade Me. We\u2019ll share a bit of the process of understanding our customers and our company, as well as some tips for other companies to get started.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Trade Me is New Zealand\u2019s leading online marketplace and auctions website. It has 1.5 million active members. More than 25% of the population of New Zealand are members of Trade Me, making an average of 300k new listings, 11k purchases and 2M sessions every day.<\/p>\n

In New Zealand, 24% of the population identify as having a disability, according to the 2013 Stats New Zealand Disability Survey.<\/a> Of these people, 60% are over 16 years old. This means that approximately 600,000 people that identify as having a disability could be Trade Me users \u2014 and it\u2019s likely that the majority are.<\/p>\n

\"\"Summary of findings from 2013 Stats New Zealand Disability Survey.<\/p>\n

In 2001, the World Health Organisation changed the definition of disability from a \u201cpersonal attribute\u201d to a \u201cmismatch between humans and their environment\u201d. This definition now includes temporary disabilities as well as permanent ones. If you\u2019ve ever broken a leg, for example, you\u2019ll know how difficult simple tasks become. A task we have previously taken for granted suddenly confronts us with new barriers we must negotiate.<\/p>\n

If we think about how many daily mismatches there are between us and our environments, it\u2019s easy to see how quickly the number of members with disabilities escalates far beyond 600,000. So, what can we do about it? How can we shape our product to match our users\u2019 abilities?<\/p>\n

Getting started<\/h2>\n

How can we make our products more inclusive for our members, regardless of who they are or what abilities they have?<\/em><\/p>\n

Research, research, research<\/h3>\n

We start by learning about best practices. There are so many resources about inclusive design, accessibility and web accessibility, and there\u2019s no better way to start working on something you\u2019re not familiar with than researching everything you can about it.<\/p>\n

Some of the resources we use all the time are:<\/p>\n