Intuit's mobile applications have high ratings within the app stores. The quality also extends to a relatively high level of accessibility. This presentation shows how Intuit's strategy for building high quality mobile applications also leads it to building accessible applications. The secret is a dedication towards user-centered design and high usability. Find out how this can be included in your company's mobile (accessibility) strategy. This presentation was created for the TechShare conference in Delhi, India. Here is an accessible version of this presentation: http://www.last-child.com/mobile-accessibility-strategy/

1. Mobile
Accessibility
Strategy
Ted Drake, Intuit Accessibility
TechShare, Delhi India
This presentation was created for the TechShare conference in Delhi, India Feb. 2014
It shows how Intuit’s mobile strategy has encouraged accessible mobile applications.
Photo: Acrobat on a tightrope, drummer below from the San Diego Museum of Art http://www.flickr.com/photos/asianartsandiego/4837920109/

2. Mobile
Accessibility
Usability
Strategy
Ted Drake, Intuit Accessibility
TechShare, Delhi India
The secret behind Intuit’s mobile accessibility strategy is that it has little to do with
accessibility and everything to do with user experience and user-based design.
Photo:
Acrobat on a tightrope, drummer below from the San Diego Museum of Art http://www.flickr.com/photos/asianartsandiego/4837920109/

3. Prior to working at Intuit, I worked within the Yahoo Accessibility Lab to help teams make
their mobile applications accessible.
Yahoo’s emphasis, at that time, was on building WOW experiences that were consistent
across platforms. This led to heavily customized code that was largely inaccessible.
A great example was the short lived LiveStand application. While this had good intentions, it
was largely an accessibility black hole.

4. Yahoo’s Fantasy Sports applications also placed greater emphasis on design than structure.
The content was largely built of HTML with divs instead of semantic tags. Everything on the
page was treated as disconnected text strings.

5. Yahoo Sportacular also had it’s share of problems.
Yahoo is currently moving from these hybrid/HTML applications to native code.

6. Evolution
I shifted from Yahoo to Intuit a couple years ago and the mobile application philosophy was significantly different.
There’s a consistent pattern within technology.
As a new platform is introduced (iOS, Android), engineers will work within the constraints, but begin looking for loopholes to differentiate their
product.
Moving too far from the technology core leads to unexpected expenses in performance, accessibility, and usability. This is where strategies
(r)evolve within the custom vs. native programming.

7. QuickBooks iPad screen shot
I have consistently found the products released by Intuit have a high level of accessibility
BEFORE I get involved.
Why do they require a much lighter hand than the previous Yahoo products? What is the
secret to Intuit’s mobile application strategy?

8. GoPayment for iPad screen shot
GoPayment for iPhone was the first accessible mobile payments option, as it had an
alternative card swiper that was based on the dock instead of the earphone jack. They
currently offer a card scanning option.

9. Building Strategies
•
•
•
•
•
Task Specific
Native Elements
Shared Components
Respect the device
Fresh Start

10. Task Specific
Intuit creates task specific instead of monolithic applications.
For instance, there are apps for checking on tax return status, keeping track of donations, preparing a payroll
check, etc. Even the QuickBooks app has clearly defined task goals for each screen and some functions are sliced
off as separate apps.
Photo Jax Beach Pier by Rob Bixby http://www.flickr.com/photos/scubabix/9733614245/

11. “Good mobile apps focus on a few
important tasks. Resist the temptation to
make all the features of your main site
into the ones that are most critical for
mobile.”
-Luke Wroblewski (Mobile First)
Luke Wroblewski’s Mobile First proposal ushered in the world of mobile design and taught
designers how to abandon the idea of transforming existing web sites to fit into a mobile
device.
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1028

12. Native Components
Apple, Android, and other platforms have worked very hard to create inherent accessible
functionality.
Using native components significantly reduces the amount of work needed to make your
application accessible.
Intuit’s apps tend to use native components, as they are built to accomplish tasks.
Native components don’t require an additional learning curve and users are able to use the
application quicker.

13. Shared
Components
When the native components are not adequate, Intuit’s Central Technology Group manages a
set of components that are shared across the company.
This allows the team to build high quality components that are tested for security,
performance, usability, and accessibility.

14. Mint’s
Interactive
Charts
Mint, a money management application, is famous for it’s dynamic, interactive charts. Other apps wanted to use
these charts, but did so by forking the Mint code and modifying them for their use. We had many variations of the
forms and none were accessible.
Our CTO group took the Mint charts and made a universal set, fixing the accessibility, and now this version is
being used across Intuit. Further, changes can be made in one code set and propagate across the products.

15. Testing
Testing is done both on actual devices and with automation, such as Calabases and Android Lint.
Intuit’s product development also relies heavily on user testing, including users with disabilities.
Intuit has a mobile device library that allows anyone within Intuit to check out a mobile device for testing. This has significantly
lowered equipment cost and makes it much easier to test applications on an assortment of phones. This can be important as
phone manufacturers may break accessibility, such as the Samsung keyboard.
photo: Page from a manuscript on puppetry from San Diego Museum of Art http://www.flickr.com/photos/asianartsandiego/
4838596692/

16. Education
Intuit has a bi-weekly meeting for mobile developers and product managers. This helps distribute best practices, discoveries,
and new shared components.
Intuit also has an annual mobile gathering and has supported mobile development conference.
Photo: Darbar scene from the San Diego Museum of Art http://www.flickr.com/photos/asianartsandiego/4837755043/

17. Contact
•
•
•
•
•
•
T: @ted_drake
W: last-child.com
Y: 7mary4responding
S: 7mary4
L: DrakeT
E: Ted_Drake@Intuit.com
Contact info
http://twitter.com/ted_drake
http://last-child.com
http://youtube.com/7mary4responding
http://www.slideshare.net/7mary4
http://www.linkedin.com/in/draket/