Anand Sarangam
Technology is the backbone of the 21st century. And tech experts are the mind behind this backbone. Greenlines and accessibility in product development prioritize sustainability and inclusivity by designing eco-friendly products that cater to diverse user needs. This approach ensures responsible innovation while creating solutions accessible to all.
One such illuminary is Anand Sarangam. As an accessibility expert, he has been able to provide accessibility solutions for app UI interfaces by understanding the complexity of UI controls and the technical limitations of the development environment and also controlled by visual functional architecture of the apps.
"Instead of dealing with extensive validation cycles and numerous accessibility issues after design and development, I focused on identifying and addressing non-compliance issues earlier", he remarks. This approach has minimized delays and facilitated smoother production releases for Microsoft and Google, ensuring the apps are accessible to millions of end users with disabilities.
Accessibility implementation in applications can be restricted due to framework limitations and custom UI integrations. Such scenarios were successfully resolved by deriving best alternative accessibility solutions which would yet attain accessibility compliance to make it accessible to users with different types of disabilities
Anand has added significant value as an Accessibility SME by integrating accessibility considerations early in the design phase. This proactive approach has reduced the time and effort required for extensive validation and remediation later on, resulting in cost and time savings and ensuring apps meet accessibility compliance from the outset.
A 50% reduction in effort and cost for UX designers, developers, and accessibility reviewers by implementing Greenlines during the design phase, were reported as a result of Anand's acumen. Greenlines are UI design mockups to capture and document accessibility design for implementation during app development. His proactive approach minimized the need for extensive revalidation and remediation of accessibility issues later, streamlining compliance with accessibility guidelines.
Challenges like integrating accessibility into complex UI controls and navigating technical limitations of development environments are not new. However, Anand, by aligning visual app functionality with accessibility requirements and devising alternative solutions for framework and custom UI constraints, ensuring compliance and accessibility for diverse users has streamlined the process of validating web and mobile apps for accessibility compliance
"Looking ahead, I believe that the creation of Greenlines at application design phase for accessibility implementation should be a new normal for app development, using which enormous accessibility compliance issues could be easily refrained at an early stage", he comments, when asked about future trends. This will help to define roles, names, values, states, expected usage and purpose of UI controls in the applications based on the functionality of the application flows.
