Driving factors of universal design of ICT in Norwegian businesses

Abstract

This study aims to discover promoting and hindering factors for universal design of ICT within Norwegian businesses with a special focus on ICT businesses. This is done through an extensive literature review examining the state of universal design within corporations and how practices can be used. The results of this thesis build on data gathered from semi-structured interviews conducted at six anonymous Norwegian companies with interview participants including designers, developers, project leaders and content creators. Interview participants were divided into two categories after transcription, those displaying positive attitudes towards universal design of ICT and those displaying negative attitudes towards universal design of ICT. This thesis tries to find common themes among the two groups, in identifying these themes this thesis aims to be able to provide advice that can help Norwegian businesses achieve higher levels of accessibility within their products. This thesis only uses qualitative methods and tries to draw generalizable results from interview data, the thesis does however have a rather small sample size and some businesses with above average accessibility ratings. It could prove useful expand on the research presented in this paper with data from more companies closer to the median accessibility conformance level as measured by the Norwegian Agency for Public Management and eGovernment reports. Results from this thesis indicate that accessibility work is dependent on communication and respect within teams and organizations. This thesis has also found accessibility enthusiasts to be important for accessibility within an organization, if allowed these enthusiasts have an ability to spread awareness and accessibility skills throughout an organization. Through interview data this thesis has further found that it is important to both allow for and require training for lean teams. As lean teams often deliver products or features autonomously they are dependent on having all the required knowledge to deliver a product without the help of other parts of an organization. Without team members with pre-existing knowledge of accessibility it can be hard for lean teams to know the importance of and how to do accessibility. Through research presented in this paper we also find arguments for why team leaders should maintain a close relationship to their teams, strive to understand team jargon and attend daily stand ups.