Accessibility can be built into user personas for UX purposes. While the examples here are fictional, any resemblance to existing persons, past or present, are coincidental and the personas are meant as “archetypes” of expected use cases to guide user experience decisions and designs.
Example Persona 1: Monica Cinquenta
Monica Cinquenta is a mid-career account manager who works in both English and Spanish. Due to arthritis, she also uses the keyboard to navigate, and finds keyboard navigation indispensable when navigating large amounts of data or going through contracts and spreadsheets.
Possible Impact of Persona 1:
Checking keyboard navigation, with particular attention to the following tasks: identifying and downloading reports, changing language settings of an application to switch between English and Spanish languages, and being able to schedule appointments via keyboard controls in order to discuss business matters with clients.
Example Persona 2: Danny Muse
Danny is a jam musician and one of the documentation writers in a mid-size company. He’s also a new father. He’s often multitasking but does not want to miss any requirements or any discussion from his colleagues. Due to minor hearing loss over the years, and simply the presence of a lot of ambient noise due to his new baby, he relies on accurate captions.
Possible Impact of Persona 2:
“Chunking” content to make it easier to find relevant information quickly; using captions and making sure any automated captions are accurate; sending meeting agendas in advance whenever possible; flexible scheduling; adding timestamps to documentation or ensuring that people can be reminded of how they found a document / page on a site (that they can return to main, return to earlier in the information hierarchy, that information structure is clear).