The Accessibility Insights Consortium (AIC), a group of market research and user experience professionals working to make consumer research more accessible for the entire population, will continue its work as part of the Insights Association IDEA Council
The AIC was formed in 2022 and is comprised of experts from such organizations as Buzzback, Voya Financial, Understood, Smarty Pants, IPSOS, KNow Research, Tamman Inc., Nissan, Verizon, NRG, Fandom, Material+, Purina, and Decision Analyst.
The group shares the IDEA Council’s goal of providing information and resources for insights professionals interested in designing, implementing, and reporting research inclusive of people with disabilities, and in accord with universal design principles. Accessibility is the right thing to do and gives an often-underrepresented audience greater access to products and services; helps differentiate brands from competitors; helps address issues before they become costly mistakes; and benefits use and experiences for all.
The insights industry is only somewhat aware of its collective deficiencies in this area and since each link in the market research chain – data collection, research service providers/insights platforms, and brand-side end client – depends on the other, a collective effort is needed to make progress.
“From the outset, the goal of the AIC has been to improve accessibility to research for all people. With the network and resources of the Insights Association IDEA Council, our work will reach a much broader audience and have more impact,” commented IDEA Council Member and AIC lead, Claire Ferrari, Principal Accessible UX Researcher + Senior Manager at Verizon. “Not only will we have a deeper bench of experts helping us in our research, but we will also be able to have the findings and best practices activated more widely at market research agencies and corporate departments across an array of industries.”
“The work done by the AIC has been extraordinary and they have been superb in their efforts to educate our profession with practical ways to make research more accessible,” commented Melanie Courtright, CEO of the Insights Association, noting workshops conducted by Verizon and AIC members at recent IA conferences.
“We already feel like the AIC is part of the IA and IDEA Council team,” added Shannon Danzy, Senior Director of Research Strategy at the Insights Association. “We’re excited to formalize the combination of our efforts and together continue our research and finalization of a toolkit which we feel will be immensely valuable to practitioners in our profession.”
The “Insights for All!” Toolkit will provide tips for recruitment, information about assistive technologies, guidance on special accommodations for interviews and research design (considerations for participants who are blind or low vision; deaf or hard of hearing; speech and/or cognitive disabilities; motor and mobility disabilities).