Personas have been a staple of UX practice for decades, but when it comes to disability and accessibility, they attract a very specific kind of scepticism. Can a profile really capture the complexity of lived experience? Do they risk flattening disability into something neat and manageable? Or, used thoughtfully, can they play a genuinely useful role in helping teams think more inclusively about who they are designing for?
In this talk, Lucy Collins, Director of Web Usability, an inclusive research agency, sets out the case for and against accessibility personas. Drawing from 10 years of inclusive research practice, she explores the legitimate criticisms of personas, why those criticisms matter, and where personas can and cannot be used responsibly.
She also looks at what it takes to build personas that do not reduce people to a condition or a checklist, but instead bring interaction, access needs, and real human behaviour into focus. With AI tools now offering to simulate user behaviour at scale these questions become more pressing still. What does responsible use of that technology look like? Can a simulated experience carry genuine lived experience insight? How do we ensure these tools are used to enhance, not replace, inclusion of real people in the design and development process?
The talk explores what it means to rehumanise accessibility work, how organisations of any size can begin to introduce perspectives they might otherwise never encounter and the role accessibility personas play in all of this.
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