Accessibility
Insurance is built upon the promise to protect our customers. What happens if a specific group of customers are constantly held back because of how products and services are built? This is when accessibility comes into play.
What is accessibility?
Accessibility, aka a11y, refers to an inclusive practice where a product can be used by anyone because it was built for everyone. Digital accessibility specifically refers to websites, mobile apps, and anything within the World Wide Web.
It turns out that a bulk of technology has unknowingly blocked customers with disabilities from their service. Customers who may experience cognitive, physical, or social exclusions (i.e. age) due to their circumstances. In the United States alone, 1 in 4 adults have some type of disability. When they face a digital product that doesn’t match the experiences they need, they become excluded from a service and opt to go elsewhere (if possible).
Not only is an investment in accessibility an ethical one, but it will also reap financial benefits. If we ensure that our products are accessible for all users, we are unlocking the 25% of users who would have avoided our product otherwise.
But it doesn’t just end there. When products are built to be inclusive from the start, we can future proof our products as our customers go through life. Imagine if we built an insurance app that helps a visually impaired customer in the present day and the same interface is able to support a 20 year old if they just got laser eye surgery.
Accessibility isn’t just for users who have disabilities, it enables all users to access products across all walks of life.
How is Slice prioritizing a11y?
In our hackathons
We embed it at the start of our process where we first discover and uncover the needs of our users. We do that by facilitating collaborative sessions focused on empathizing our users’ needs and contexts.
During development
Our talented designers and developers utilize best practices when it comes to digital accessibility. This means:
- Text and colors – We implement high contrast colors and text sizes so that users can see what they need and get the information they want.
Interactive elements – We review and iterate on every interactive component of our products. For example: we look at button and form fields and review the different states that these may appear. - Language – Insurance can be hard to understand. We take our copy and distill it into their essence so that users regardless of their reading level understand the coverage offered.
- Testing – We test our prototypes with real users to ensure that the product delivers the most intuitive and satisfying user experience.
And after launch
We work closely with our customer support team to learn about what our current users are doing with our product and we think about the next evolution. Improvement never stops.
Our mission for accessible insurance products for all is continually evolving. By embedding our inclusive practices in the start, we are able to quickly launch (minimum viable products) MVPs. As with everything in life, there’s still always room for improvement and we are excited to see where we’ll go next.
Interested in joining our team?
