CHENNAI: Accessibility must move beyond checklists and compliance frameworks to become a core design philosophy embedded from the very first stage of innovation, experts asserted at a high-level panel discussion held at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) on Sunday.
The discussion, titled ‘Design Thinking in Accessibility’, brought together researchers, technologists, clinicians, entrepreneurs and members of the disabled community to examine how inclusive design can be reimagined through lived experiences and organisational change.
The panel focused on many themes, including designing with lived experiences of persons with disability (PwD), moving away from superficial compliance-driven approaches, embedding accessibility early in product development, and cultivating leadership mindsets that prioritise inclusion as a fundamental value rather than an afterthought.
J Karthika, post-doctoral researcher at the Accessibility Research Centre, IIT-M, highlighted a persistent disconnect between creators and the disabiliy.
“Engineers and designers often build software tools and technologies without engaging the disabled community during the conceptual stage,” she pointed out. “Products are created first and placed before society later, by which time the real challenges faced by PwD have already been overlooked. This disconnect begins in academia, where technical education rarely centres the voices of the disabled.”
Another panellist from the disabled community emphasised the need to bridge the divide between technical and natural languages. “There is a crucial gap between how technology is expressed and how we, as users, understand it,” she argued, calling for web codes and math logic to be translated into more intuitive, natural-language-based systems. “This can substantially reduce learning barriers and democratise access to technology.”
Krishna Thiruvengadam Rajagopal, CEO and founder of dVerse, entrepreneur, impact designer and James Dyson Awardee, said that engineers were more open to understanding accessibility challenges. “Coding is no longer an insurmountable barrier, it’s a challenge that can be reimagined through better interfaces and inclusive design,” he explained.
Cautioning against retrospective fixes, another expert with disability observed that accessibility was often treated as an addon rather than a foundational principle in any design. “While Web Content Accessibility Guidelines set minimum standards, true inclusion requires moving from technical compliance to cultural commitment,” he opined.