Bringing digital accessibility to the forefront with Doshii

In recent years, hospitality-tech has become an integral part of our daily lives. From QR codes to queue-skipping, a new generation of apps are here to make life easier for patrons and staff alike.

Doshii brings hospitality apps together and gets them talking to the point of sale system at the venue.

For hospitality staff, that means less double-handling, admin and confusion and more time to focus on the important stuff – amazing food, drinks and service!

To date Doshii has facilitated over $200m of transactions, and is on track to grow its reach to approximately 80% of the Australian hospitality market this year.

Importantly, Doshii recognises that a critical part of fulfilling their vision and growth trajectory is ensuring that the platform is accessible and inclusive to all users, no matter their circumstance or ability.

1 in 5 Australians have a form of disability – that’s 4.4 million people. And the prevalence increases with age, with as many as 50% of people over 65 having a disability. Ensuring digital products are accessible means designing and developing them so that people with disabilities can use and contribute to them. In this context, disabilities can include auditory, cognitive, neurological, physical, speech and visual.

The Challenge

Doshii’s Connect product is the digital front-of-house for Doshii’s venue customers. It allows venues to sign up and connect their apps from Doshii’s marketplace, which boasts the largest range in Australia, and gets them talking to their point of sale system (POS).
 
Having established a trusted partnership over several initiatives over a number of years, Doshii engaged Transpire, now CI&T, to audit the accessibility of their flagship Connect product after it was rebuilt across 2021 and 2022. 

The key objectives of this audit were to: 

Transpire (CI&T) has earned a reputation in the market for expertise in accessibility. A project team was assembled for this project, establishing a 50-point success criteria and providing feedback on what needs to be actioned to ensure a AA compliance level according to the WCAG 2.1 criteria. AA compliance is the level of compliance that government digital assets must meet, and provides a strong level of accessibility while still being achievable to reach for the majority of digital tools.

The process

Part of the process the Transpire (CI&T) team went through was using assistive technologies to assess various pages of the website. The findings for each of the criteria were then broken down as to whether they were Perceivable; Operable; Understandable or Robust. 

All the elements that were presenting as accessibility issues were segmented as whether they were found on desktop, mobile or both, and then ranked by severity. 
Importantly, the team also documented recommendations for remedying each of the accessibility issues.

Impact

AA accessible

It’s important to note that accessibility compliance is not easy to achieve. To achieve Level AA conformance, the website/app needs to be usable and understandable for the majority of people with or without disabilities. This includes affordances such as strong colour contrast, video captions, and robust integration with assistive technology. 

How did the Doshii Connect website perform?

Pleasingly, it did really well in the audit! However, as expected, there were some accessibility issues uncovered. One of the key issues that we uncovered – which is extremely common – was with headers and labels. Vision-impaired users need to be informed of what something is, if it’s clickable or important. 

For example, if an image, logo, page or form doesn’t have correct labels and/or titles, it can lead to them being read out incorrectly by screen readers. There were also some relatively easy fixes identified to do with font sizes and colour ratios, ensuring that the content is legible for a majority of users. 

Following the audit

The Doshii team immediately began remediating issues and updated their design system to reduce the risk of future accessibility issues arising. This audit represents a moment in time, not a set and forget solution. Technology, abilities, and our understanding of digital accessibility is ever-changing, meaning we must always keep inclusion at the front of our minds. However, for now, the Doshii team can be confident that their product is a market-leader in accessibility. 

With a commitment to inclusion, and an ambition to always improve and be ahead of the curve, Doshii will continue to define the future of technology in the hospitality industry.