Digital Accessibility: When, Where and How? : Investigating Accessibility in Software Development Through the Lens of Activity Theory

Sammanfattning

In an increasingly digital society, accessible systems are essential for equal participation in everyday life, given the wide variation in abilities that affect how digital systems are used (W3C, 2024b). Despite established accessibility guidelines and growing research, the adoption of accessibility practices in software development remains low, with 95.9% of the one million most visited websites in 2026 containing WCAG 2 conformance failures (WebAIM, 2026). There exists a research gap when it comes to understanding of how accessibility work is carried out in practice. To address this, a qualitative case study was conducted at a European digital consultancy. The data was gathered from nine accessibility-related documents and eight semi-structured interviews with UX/UI designers as well as front-end and full-stack developers. The theoretical lens of the study is Activity Theory (AT), and the unit of analysis is a single activity system with the Object of “developing accessible digital products”. The findings illustrate the need for certain expansions to AT related to the Subject, Community and Rules components. The findings also show that accessibility work is impacted by all components of the activity system, but mainly rules and tools. Contradictions (tensions) relate to unclear accessibility legislation, inadequate tools, a lack of standardized processes, as well as deprioritization and budget constraints. Congruencies (harmonizations) relate to AI integration, accessibility documentation, legislation efforts, and knowledge-sharing.