The most important attribute for developers

Something I’ve found in my time actually working as a developer in the industry is that developers might be missing a really important “skill” - really a characteristic - which is empathy.

In my industrial placement as a frontend developer at HMRC, I worked on the design system which oversees all the components used across HMRC services. To give context, this includes components like:

• Service Timeout
• File Upload
• Add to List

The whole design system can be seen here. You realise quite quickly; oh wow, the entire country (and sometimes further) is our ‘customer’. When this is the case, you really can’t assume anything. You don’t know what device your user is using, or what browser, or how old they are, or whether they’ve ever used a computer before.

This revelation will shock you at first, and then you’ll be invited to try out the ‘Empathy Lab’. Here in the Newcastle office, we have a room with different ways to simulate accessible needs that our users might have. There are glasses to simulate short-sightedness, blindness (a blindfold will do…), and dizziness, which can be caused by vertigo. Go ahead, go to your favourite website, turn on your screen reader and close your eyes. For 5 minutes. Now imagine a lifetime.

With all of this in mind, empathy stands out to me as a key motivator for developers, as well as an important trait that will set us apart from others. If you feel for your user, you will build for your user.

I hope you can think about this going forward when you decide to put off learning about ARIA roles for another day (guilty, myself). Thank you for reading!