https://a11yrules.com/series/a11y-rules-soundbite/ The A11y Rules Sound bites is a series of short shows where individual with disabilities discuss what their impairment is, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Mon, 06 Apr 2026 23:57:19 +0000 en-US © 2018 A11y Rules Podcast Short discussions with people with disabilities about the barriers they encounter on the web. Nicolas Steenhout episodic The A11y Rules Sound bites is a series of short shows where individual with disabilities discuss what their impairment is, and what barriers they encounter on the web. A11y Rules Podcast nic@incl.ca clean https://a11yrules.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/new-a11y-rules-logo.png https://a11yrules.com/ nic@incl.ca No yes 58729aa2-bbe0-52b7-b63b-99bbfe1f274e https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.8 https://a11yrules.com/podcast/kelsey-byers-talks-about-audio-processing-issues-and-online-courses/ Mon, 06 Mar 2023 20:47:54 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=739 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Just a reminder that the transcript for this episode and all other episodes are available at the time of the publication on the website at a11yrules.com. I want to thank Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences. And they do that through product testing and custom courses. You can learn more about how fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Kelsey Byers. Hey, Kelsey, how are you? Kelsey Doing pretty well, thanks, Nic. How about yourself? Nic I'm doing good. I'm glad we connect. We've been speaking on Slack mostly for for a number of years. And we get to connect and I get to grill you with my with my usual questions. Kelsey Yeah. Nic So let's let's ask you what's your disability or your impairment? Kelsey For sure. So I'm actually multiplate disabled. That's the words that I use to describe my disability. Most of them come from Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, which is a genetic condition that makes my joints loose and wobbly and causes pain. I've also got ADHD and I'm also autistic. And there's a variety of other stuff in the background. Nic What's the interaction between all these is there? Is there anything that you know, when I don't know if you have a joints getting particularly more loose? Is that going to have an impact on how ADHD is playing with you? Or is it pretty much each in their own silos? Kelsey That's actually a really great question. So there is a lot of research that shows that people with ADHD are more likely to be hyper mobile. Some of them to the extent that they are diagnosed with Ehlers dauntless. And also autism is more common in Ehlers Danlos. So we think they're definitely related. But I don't think people have built figured out like the biological mechanisms behind that. Nic Fair enough. So what what impairment, what condition has the most impact for you on your use of the web? Kelsey That's a that's a really good question. Actually. It's one that I didn't mention, which is auditory processing disorder. So or APD. So this is a condition where, like, I can hear and my peripheral hearing is okay. But my ability to process audio in my brain is a little bit strange. So like, I have trouble processing sound with background noise. It's a cocktail party problem. And so anytime I'm listening to recordings, or seminars, if there's not, for example, the ability to see the person at the same time and do a little bit of lip reading a how have a lot of trouble. Nic Would you say that's your biggest pet peeve or a barrier on the web, the inability to process audio? Kelsey Yeah, definitely. It is it is one of the two biggest barriers I have, I would say. So I was recently attending a course that had recorded lectures. And the lectures are great, but I couldn't see the lecture. And so I had a lot of trouble following the lectures, which was frustrating. And in person, this wouldn't be an issue. Obviously, I wouldn't be able to attend the course in person, but it was frustrating to not be able to understand very well. Nic We're in year three of a worldwide pandemic right now. We have discovered that providing the ability of working from home or doing remote learning is critical. And yet, we're still providing courses where we're not doing everything we can to make things accessible. And the issue you're describing to me seems like while it's pretty critical for students doing high school or even college that are actually paying to attend to be able to access information. You work in academia, I believe. How would you say this translates into your into your job rather than you as someone attending courses? Kelsey Yeah, that's a great question. So I don't teach and therefore I don't normally process how I would interact with students in an accessible fashion because I'm not normally teaching. But for example, when I give seminars I tried to do audio description of what people might be seeing on the slides that I'm giving. So, if the slide contains an image, I'll try to describe what the image is showing so that people can process it in different ways. Or, for example, someone with visual impairment could process the image and understand the slides. But certainly, in academia, we have courtesy the pandemic, we've gotten a lot of online seminars, which is great, but specialist language means that captioning tools often don't work if they're auto captions. And auto caption quality, as we all know, is not what it could be. Nic Certainly would not. If you had one message to pass on to designers or developers about accessibility, what what would that be? Kelsey I would say for me, transcripts are actually the biggest thing every time I go online, and I look at someone recommends me a podcast, for example. And I look online, and I see the podcast, I don't do audio input only very well. And so I don't tend to listen to podcasts. But for example, your podcast has transcripts. So I can go through and actually read the podcast, I can get the content, I can understand what's going on. And I don't have to try to concentrate really hard to try to understand the podcast. So anytime I see something that has transcripts or where someone's put a video on YouTube, and they've also added subtitles or even just enabled auto subtitling or community subtitling and like, Thank you, this is not that big of an ask, but it is so helpful. Nic I'm glad my transcripts are helping you consume the show. I I think and one of these podcasts host a rare bird that actually does not listen to podcasts because I actually need transcripts to process that information as well. So it's one of the reasons why I care about having transcript from my show. Anyway, Kelsey, thank you for sharing some of your experiences with us and we'll see you around on the web. Kelsey Thanks so much, Nic. It's been great]]> full 65 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Just a reminder that the transcript for this episode and all other episodes are available at the time of the publication on the website at a11yrules.com. I want to thank Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences. And they do that through product testing and custom courses. You can learn more about how fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Kelsey Byers. Hey, Kelsey, how are you? Kelsey Doing pretty well, thanks, Nic. How about yourself? Nic I'm doing good. I'm glad we connect. We've been speaking on Slack mostly for for a number of years. And we get to connect and I get to grill you with my with my usual questions. Kelsey Yeah. Nic So let's let's ask you what's your disability or your impairment? Kelsey For sure. So I'm actually multiplate disabled. That's the words that I use to describe my disability. Most of them come from Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, which is a genetic condition that makes my joints loose and wobbly and causes pain. I've also got ADHD and I'm also autistic. And there's a variety of other stuff in the background. Nic What's the interaction between all these is there? Is there anything that you know, when I don't know if you have a joints getting particularly more loose? Is that going to have an impact on how ADHD is playing with you? Or is it pretty much each in their own silos? Kelsey That's actually a really great question. So there is a lot of research that shows that people with ADHD are more likely to be hyper mobile. Some of them to the extent that they are diagnosed with Ehlers dauntless. And also autism is more common in Ehlers Danlos. So we think they're definitely related. But I don't think people have built figured out like the biological mechanisms behind that. Nic Fair enough. So what what impairment, what condition has the most impact for you on your use of the web? Kelsey That's a that's a really good question. Actually. It's one that I didn't mention, which is auditory processing disorder. So or APD. So this is a condition where, like, I can hear and my peripheral hearing is okay. But my ability to process audio in my brain is a little bit strange. So like, I have trouble processing sound with background noise. It's a cocktail party problem. And so anytime I'm listening to recordings, or seminars, if there's not, for example, the ability to see the person at the same time and do a little bit of lip reading a how have a lot of trouble. Nic Would you say that's your biggest pet peeve or a barrier on the web, the inability to process audio? Kelsey Yeah, definitely. It is it is one of the two biggest barriers I have, I would say. So I was recently attending a course that had recorded lectures. And the lectures are great, but I couldn't see the lecture. And so I had a lot of trouble following the lectures, which was frustrating. And in person, this wouldn't be an issue. Obviously, I wouldn't be able to attend the course in person, but it was frustrating to not be able to understand very well. Nic We're in year three of a worldwide pandemic right now. We have discovered that providing the ability of working from home or doing remote learning is critical. And yet, we're still providing courses where we're not doing everything we can to make things accessible. And the issue you're describing to me seems like while it's pretty critical for students doing high school or even college that are actually paying to attend to be able to access information. You work in academia, I believe. How would you say this translates into your into your job rather than you as someone attending courses? Kelsey Yeah, that's a great question. So I don't teach and therefore I don't normally process how I would interact with students in an accessible fashion because I'm not normally teaching. But for example, when I give seminars I tried to do audio description of what people might be seeing on the slides that I'm giving. So, if the slide contains an image, I'll try to describe what the image is showing so that people can process it in different ways. Or, for example, someone with visual impairment could process the image and understand the slides. But certainly, in academia, we have courtesy the pandemic, we've gotten a lot of online seminars, which is great, but specialist language means that captioning tools often don't work if they're auto captions. And auto caption quality, as we all know, is not what it could be. Nic Certainly would not. If you had one message to pass on to designers or developers about accessibility, what what would that be? Kelsey I would say for me, transcripts are actually the biggest thing every time I go online, and I look at someone recommends me a podcast, for example. And I look online, and I see the podcast, I don't do audio input only very well. And so I don't tend to listen to podcasts. But for example, your podcast has transcripts. So I can go through and actually read the podcast, I can get the content, I can understand what's going on. And I don't have to try to concentrate really hard to try to understand the podcast. So anytime I see something that has transcripts or where someone's put a video on YouTube, and they've also added subtitles or even just enabled auto subtitling or community subtitling and like, Thank you, this is not that big of an ask, but it is so helpful. Nic I'm glad my transcripts are helping you consume the show. I I think and one of these podcasts host a rare bird that actually does not listen to podcasts because I actually need transcripts to process that information as well. So it's one of the reasons why I care about having transcript from my show. Anyway, Kelsey, thank you for sharing some of your experiences with us and we'll see you around on the web. Kelsey Thanks so much, Nic. It's been great]]> clean no 0:00 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/meagan-eller-talks-about-autoimmune-disorders-foggy-memory-and-the-web/ Mon, 06 Feb 2023 13:19:14 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=734 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts, where disabled people explain their impairment and what barrier they encounter on the web. Quick reminder that transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication on the website. At A one one, why are you l es.com? This is the time to thank our sponsor fable. Fable is an accessibility platform a leader in the field powered by disabled people, I think that's important because nothing about us without us. Anyway, fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences. You can learn more about how Fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Megan eller. Hey, Megan, how are you? Meagan Hi, I'm alright. Nic We haven't really spoken we I think we hang around in the web accessibility slack a little bit. And we may have exchanged a few words, but I don't know you. So this is going to be fun to get to know you a little bit. My first question is typically what's your disability or your impairment, but when we were talking about having you on as a guest, you were a little bit concerned that you don't have a disability, you said, but you do have a condition that is an impairment. Tell us a little bit about that. Meagan So I have an autoimmune hypothyroidism Hashimotos disease. And basically, I have an underactive thyroid, because my immune system attacks my thyroid and your thyroid and the hormones it produces are involved with a lot of body systems. So it can affect a lot of things when the levels aren't, you know, when you're not producing enough hormone from the thyroid. It's very easily treatable with medication. But because it's auto immune, it's not stable. So sometimes medication level isn't... Right. I ran into actually last winter, with our overwhelmed health system, having the delay in getting a correct dosage. And so that was when I had messaged you about being on the podcast, that was the kind of what I was thinking about. Where I really was for a couple of weeks, feeling very I guess. I don't find it disabling but I was definitely feeling very impaired by trying to do things. Nic That's an interesting thing to consider is that you can have a condition that is 90% of the time fine and controlled with medication or, you know, any other kind of fixes. I say fixes in quote marks, but when things get off the rails and even though you're not necessarily longterm, disabled, you still encounter barriers, right? Meagan Absolutely. Yep. It was, I actually went and looked back at apt notes from at that time, because I had mentioned to you that I have a really great boss, that when I told him what was going on, he was very willing to work with me, but you know, explaining that, you know, I was having these difficulties and, and a big one I had mentioned to you was just the fatigue and kind of that brain fog, having trouble concentrating. It's like, I know, I can feel my brain being slow. And I know I'm not you know, doing as much work and maybe not as succinctly as I usually do, you know, in writing, things like that. Nic So how does that translate as a barrier on using the web what what kind of thing really jumped out at you and were problematic? Meagan So the, with the just being tired and having trouble concentrating. That was making it difficult. I was rereading things I found myself every so often I'll use reader mode for articles, especially when there's a lot of motion and videos and stuff, I find that distracting normally, but I really needed that to be able to concentrate. Because I needed the simplified, maybe make the text bigger just to make it easier to concentrate. So long paragraphs of text are much more difficult. In when you're you're having to reread something to really understand it. A nice bullet pointed list is really nice, a wall of text, a lot of paragraphs, were just a lot more effort. I was also running into it wasn't cognitive, but it was the winter. So you know, dry skin normally. But that's another thing that low thyroid can affect is things like dry skin, joint pain and stiffness. So I was and dry skin you might not think about but then when say your knuckles start to crack and bleed. Which is probably more vivid than people necessarily need. But it made it hard to type or, you know, using a mouse I was trying to use smaller movements just because moving my hands was painful. So yeah, things that were continuous scroll can be difficult. Luckily, because I work in an accessibility space doing you know, I sometimes do accessibility reviews, I am familiar with using voice control, I can use a keyboard. So I was using some of the things that I use for testing, like, instead of having to scroll my mouse, that down arrow key was was a lot easier. Nic Yeah, it's I think in many ways, those of us who work in accessibility can kind of cheat. Because we know the resources. We know the tools. When I broke both my wrist, I ended up going to Dragon and it was steep learning curve, because I had never relied on Dragon as much. But yeah, at least I was familiar with the concepts. Now of course, I use it all the time for testing. Because, folks, we had a technical glitch, we had to stop the recording and restart it again. So Meagan, wait, you were telling us about how how you were able to use some assistive technologies because you're familiar with it. And that was a lifesaver to your ability to function on the web. Meagan So yeah, I was just explaining how because I'm familiar with using the keyboard using voice control or speech recognition, a little bit for testing, those were some things that I was able to use. So instead of having to continually scroll my mouse, I could use my down arrow key for some things. I could turn on the speech recognition feature on my device and just use that instead of having to use my hands, which were sometimes painful. Nic Yeah. If you had one message for designers or developers around web accessibility, what would you like them to, to know or remember or pay particular attention to? Meagan The big thing for me is just remembering that people are in different situations and designing you know, accessibility isn't just a blind screen reader user. That is that's an attitude that I seem to run into a lot when talking to people who aren't as familiar. And there are a lot of other audiences and sometimes a disability or an impairment is temporary. It's situational. Sometimes, you know, most of the time I don't have issues, but when I do I really have them. So just trying to keep things as simple and easy to use as possible. I think that actually helps in a lot of a lot of situations, if you're not making your interface super complicated, it's just easier when things fail to, you know, even if it's, it's as simple as a poor internet connection. So. So things are slow. If if it's not as complicated, it will fail much more gracefully. And that applies to in situations where someone is maybe using a technology they're not as familiar with, or they're having difficulty. Because they're not is they're not used to doing things a certain way or just like their their body or their brain is not functioning as well as it normally does. Nic Yeah. Yeah, I think that's that's certainly something that I've seen as well is this idea that, at least in the digital world, accessibility is about blind screenreader users, and in the physical world that accessibility is about wheelchair users, but I'm a wheelchair user, I and I will be the first to say, Well, no, actually, accessibility in the real world is about everybody. Meagan Yeah, I, I've run in the in the physical world, there is a particular intersection, that it's a busy intersection and has, you know, the pedestrian signal. And it is completely unintuitive to me, where they've placed those signals, which one is for which direction? So even things as simple is as that it's Nic Yeah, makes no sense sometimes. And maybe maybe that's the conclusion we have to reach is that sometimes things make no sense. And accessibility is about making sense of these things that make no sense. Meagan Yeah. Yes. Nic Meagan Eller, thank you for being a guest on the show. That was actually a great convo. I'll see you around probably on Slack. Meagan Yes, thank you. Cheers.]]> full 64 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts, where disabled people explain their impairment and what barrier they encounter on the web. Quick reminder that transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication on the website. At A one one, why are you l es.com? This is the time to thank our sponsor fable. Fable is an accessibility platform a leader in the field powered by disabled people, I think that's important because nothing about us without us. Anyway, fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences. You can learn more about how Fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Megan eller. Hey, Megan, how are you? Meagan Hi, I'm alright. Nic We haven't really spoken we I think we hang around in the web accessibility slack a little bit. And we may have exchanged a few words, but I don't know you. So this is going to be fun to get to know you a little bit. My first question is typically what's your disability or your impairment, but when we were talking about having you on as a guest, you were a little bit concerned that you don't have a disability, you said, but you do have a condition that is an impairment. Tell us a little bit about that. Meagan So I have an autoimmune hypothyroidism Hashimotos disease. And basically, I have an underactive thyroid, because my immune system attacks my thyroid and your thyroid and the hormones it produces are involved with a lot of body systems. So it can affect a lot of things when the levels aren't, you know, when you're not producing enough hormone from the thyroid. It's very easily treatable with medication. But because it's auto immune, it's not stable. So sometimes medication level isn't... Right. I ran into actually last winter, with our overwhelmed health system, having the delay in getting a correct dosage. And so that was when I had messaged you about being on the podcast, that was the kind of what I was thinking about. Where I really was for a couple of weeks, feeling very I guess. I don't find it disabling but I was definitely feeling very impaired by trying to do things. Nic That's an interesting thing to consider is that you can have a condition that is 90% of the time fine and controlled with medication or, you know, any other kind of fixes. I say fixes in quote marks, but when things get off the rails and even though you're not necessarily longterm, disabled, you still encounter barriers, right? Meagan Absolutely. Yep. It was, I actually went and looked back at apt notes from at that time, because I had mentioned to you that I have a really great boss, that when I told him what was going on, he was very willing to work with me, but you know, explaining that, you know, I was having these difficulties and, and a big one I had mentioned to you was just the fatigue and kind of that brain fog, having trouble concentrating. It's like, I know, I can feel my brain being slow. And I know I'm not you know, doing as much work and maybe not as succinctly as I usually do, you know, in writing, things like that. Nic So how does that translate as a barrier on using the web what what kind of thing really jumped out at you and were problematic? Meagan So the, with the just being tired and having trouble concentrating. That was making it difficult. I was rereading things I found myself every so often I'll use reader mode for articles, especially when there's a lot of motion and videos and stuff, I find that distracting normally, but I really needed that to be able to concentrate. Because I needed the simplified, maybe make the text bigger just to make it easier to concentrate. So long paragraphs of text are much more difficult. In when you're you're having to reread something to really understand it. A nice bullet pointed list is really nice, a wall of text, a lot of paragraphs, were just a lot more effort. I was also running into it wasn't cognitive, but it was the winter. So you know, dry skin normally. But that's another thing that low thyroid can affect is things like dry skin, joint pain and stiffness. So I was and dry skin you might not think about but then when say your knuckles start to crack and bleed. Which is probably more vivid than people necessarily need. But it made it hard to type or, you know, using a mouse I was trying to use smaller movements just because moving my hands was painful. So yeah, things that were continuous scroll can be difficult. Luckily, because I work in an accessibility space doing you know, I sometimes do accessibility reviews, I am familiar with using voice control, I can use a keyboard. So I was using some of the things that I use for testing, like, instead of having to scroll my mouse, that down arrow key was was a lot easier. Nic Yeah, it's I think in many ways, those of us who work in accessibility can kind of cheat. Because we know the resources. We know the tools. When I broke both my wrist, I ended up going to Dragon and it was steep learning curve, because I had never relied on Dragon as much. But yeah, at least I was familiar with the concepts. Now of course, I use it all the time for testing. Because, folks, we had a technical glitch, we had to stop the recording and restart it again. So Meagan, wait, you were telling us about how how you were able to use some assistive technologies because you're familiar with it. And that was a lifesaver to your ability to function on the web. Meagan So yeah, I was just explaining how because I'm familiar with using the keyboard using voice control or speech recognition, a little bit for testing, those were some things that I was able to use. So instead of having to continually scroll my mouse, I could use my down arrow key for some things. I could turn on the speech recognition feature on my device and just use that instead of having to use my hands, which were sometimes painful. Nic Yeah. If you had one message for designers or developers around web accessibility, what would you like them to, to know or remember or pay particular attention to? Meagan The big thing for me is just remembering that people are in different situations and designing you know, accessibility isn't just a blind screen reader user. That is that's an attitude that I seem to run into a lot when talking to people who aren't as familiar. And there are a lot of other audiences and sometimes a disability or an impairment is temporary. It's situational. Sometimes, you know, most of the time I don't have issues, but when I do I really have them. So just trying to keep things as simple and easy to use as possible. I think that actually helps in a lot of a lot of situations, if you're not making your interface super complicated, it's just easier when things fail to, you know, even if it's, it's as simple as a poor internet connection. So. So things are slow. If if it's not as complicated, it will fail much more gracefully. And that applies to in situations where someone is maybe using a technology they're not as familiar with, or they're having difficulty. Because they're not is they're not used to doing things a certain way or just like their their body or their brain is not functioning as well as it normally does. Nic Yeah. Yeah, I think that's that's certainly something that I've seen as well is this idea that, at least in the digital world, accessibility is about blind screenreader users, and in the physical world that accessibility is about wheelchair users, but I'm a wheelchair user, I and I will be the first to say, Well, no, actually, accessibility in the real world is about everybody. Meagan Yeah, I, I've run in the in the physical world, there is a particular intersection, that it's a busy intersection and has, you know, the pedestrian signal. And it is completely unintuitive to me, where they've placed those signals, which one is for which direction? So even things as simple is as that it's Nic Yeah, makes no sense sometimes. And maybe maybe that's the conclusion we have to reach is that sometimes things make no sense. And accessibility is about making sense of these things that make no sense. Meagan Yeah. Yes. Nic Meagan Eller, thank you for being a guest on the show. That was actually a great convo. I'll see you around probably on Slack. Meagan Yes, thank you. Cheers.]]> clean no 0:00 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/justin-yarbrough-talks-about-form-validation-and-screen-readers/ Mon, 30 Jan 2023 13:28:15 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=732 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barrier they encounter on the web. Just a reminder, that transcript for this episode and all other episodes are available on the website at the time of publication. You can find them at https://a11yrules.com. I want to thank fable for sponsoring this episode. Without Fable the show would not be possible. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible accessible user experiences through product testing, and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Justin Yarborough again. Hey, Justin, how are you? Justin I'm doing good. How about you? Nic I'm doing good. I'm glad that the first encounter with me for the podcast didn't turn you off completely and that you wanted to bring up a new topic. Before we dive into that, let me ask you, for those people that didn't listen to the other episode, what's your impairment or your disability? Justin I'm blind, I basically have zero vision. Nic Okay, and that means I assume you're using a screen reader? Justin Yep. Nic Cool. So, blind screen reader user, and you said you wanted to talk about form validation? I guess that's a current pet peeve of yours. Tell me about what's the issue around form validation? How's it an impact for you? Justin It's, I think it's I mean, it's, it's definitely a valuable one, especially, you know, for someone who's blind, but it's something that definitely one of those areas that definitely can benefit a, you know, benefits a whole host of people. It the the reason I think of it, it's an it's an it's an area that kind of just interests me, you know, as in my work day to day, working in accessibility myself, is just thinking through, like how a form is built, and how you, you know, let people know, maybe there are mistakes in it, or, and how to fix it, and stuff like that. And when I, when I emailed you, actually, or sent you a message to talk about this topic, I was actually working on a project working with this was one of the clients I work with, and was why it was fresh in the mind. You know, I think the the really important thing with form validation is just to, you know, if someone, you know, fills out that form, and like, hit submit, and maybe they have no idea what happened, you know, why is it not moving through, especially if like, you're, you're someone like me, who can't, you know, you're not seeing the screen, you hit that submit button, and it just doesn't do anything, you're just, I'm probably just going to just assume something's broken and move on. So you know, looking at a good like, form validation pattern where someone can understand what's going on, what the problems are, in, you know, be given some guidance on how to fix it is, I think, just usually important. One of the pattern that is most used with the client I work with, and one I'm a huge fan of, is when you hit that submit button, if not everything validates I love those forms where they'll automatically throw focus up to the first field with an error and have that, you know, error message programmatically associated with the form because it tells it tells me immediately, okay, hey, there's something wrong here. You know, it, it takes him to the field, it tells me there's something wrong, it gives me a description, basically, you know, of what's wrong, what, what I need to fix, and lets me know that and then, you know, since it's that that first one, if you've got, you know, say multiple fields with errors, I can just go tab, you know, tabbing through it through all the forms, see what does, you know, if there's anything else with an error and then go to resubmit? I just, it's a I, I'm a real big fan of that pattern. Just because I think just from a usability factor of anything you're doing, that's just, I think it's just the easiest way to go about it for a screener two years and have that and I feel like that kind of a pattern is going to have a benefit. For a lot more people than just screen nerd are used to, Nic How'd you feel about disabling the submit button until all the fields are actually validating? Justin I hate it. I hate it with the fire of 1000 suns. Nic Why? Justin Because Especially like, as a screen or user, even maybe if you don't have if you don't have it set up, right, or potentially, even if you I guess I should say, if you don't have it says like, there's some sort of like an announcement, hey, this field is not valid, you know, when you like, tap out of one and move to the next. Part of the problem that creates is, you know, someone's moving through what using the tab key that submit, but that submit button is not in the tab order. So I as far as I would know, that submit button doesn't exist. And I could rightfully assume, okay, well, something with this form is broken, it doesn't have a submit button, what the heck is going on here? Why do I not understand it? I it's just, you know, it just feels like a really clunky and, you know, uncomfortable pattern to me. And it's, you know, a, I think it's something that really, really should be avoided. And, you know, like, like, we were talking about, like what, you know, the benefits of like, being someone outside of a screen reader user, I can see plenty of other users, like, you know, maybe they go look at that button, even if it is grayed out in your own, you know, problems with, you know, disabled buttons, and often not meeting color contrast, even though I know they don't need to Don't, don't get me started on that. But, you know, they're not, they might go look at it. And if especially if you're not getting given good messaging, you know, as to what's going on, they might just assume something's wrong here with the formula, it kind of puts everyone in the same. The same, what the heck's going on here, boat? Yeah. It's just, you know, I like, I remember, like this when I was taking a JavaScript class, you know, just to learn JavaScript at my previous job. One of the projects we had actually in that class was to build a form and disable the submit button until it's valid. It's a great, it's a great exercise. I feel like maybe for learning, you know, when you're trying to learn how to do JavaScript, but in the real world, gosh, I hate it as a pattern, and it is just really not. I just think it's really confusing. Nic Yeah. Here's another question for you around form validation. And I have my own thoughts. And I've not been shy on sharing those thoughts. But I'd love to hear what you think of it. And this is inline validation, where each time you type a character, it validates and it tells you this is not correct until it is. And they often use ARIA live assertive on that error message. How do you feel about that? Justin Oh, my gosh, that's I'm just, I'm just hearing, assertive, and I'm cringing. I mean, I cringe anytime I'm hearing Aria, you know, assertive ARIA live, that's, that's odd automatically cringe worthy. This is this, I am I'm having flashbacks to like the, the, the the text area inputs that might be have a character limit. And they'll put an aria live on the you have, you know, the 132 characters remaining. And every time you're typing, it's just immediately saying again, and it's just going to keep throwing that in your ear it, that kind of thing just could be really, really annoying, and could really throw off someone, especially a screen reader and a screen reader user. I don't have a problem with I mean, I can understand like some, to a point at least like the valid, you know, why someone might want to do a validation like that, although, I mean, if you want to do like a validation of each field, I would feel like using doing it on blur would be a much better way to go about it. Nic Thank you this, this is what they actually recommend. It's wonderful to hear an actual screen reader user say this is better. So thank you. Justin Yeah, do it on Blur, or I mean, even if you're going to do like an aria live something while someone's typing it, at least, you know, set it up in a way so that you're not getting an announcement till maybe the person hasn't typed for a second or two. Yeah, you know, that would at least make it a little less painful if you want to go with that pattern. But yeah, do it on or why. Why not? Nic Why not? Yeah. We're talking about validation, which is really, in some way a very A dev specific kind of implementation, but I guess designers also have their, their say in, in what things should look like. But if you had one message for designers and developers around for validation, what would it be? Justin The biggest thing and this would fall into if you're going to talk in like designers or you know, in this, like a content writer type role. The big, the biggest emphasis, I would say, is just, you know, when you provide those error messages, make them clear, make them make them understandable. And, you know, don't, you know, don't write a paragraph when you could write a sentence. Be basically, yeah, be succinct. Make it clear, make it understandable. So someone can go, okay. Hey, I know what I did wrong here and how I can fix it. But you know, like, it's like I said, don't write a don't write a book or a paragraph. Give it to me in a sentence. Nic Justin, thank you very much for sharing that. I'm loving this discussion. And maybe you'll think about another topic to bring up at some time in the future. But in the meantime, let's call it a wrap. Thank you, Justin. Justin I thank you for having me again.]]> full 63 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barrier they encounter on the web. Just a reminder, that transcript for this episode and all other episodes are available on the website at the time of publication. You can find them at https://a11yrules.com. I want to thank fable for sponsoring this episode. Without Fable the show would not be possible. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible accessible user experiences through product testing, and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Justin Yarborough again. Hey, Justin, how are you? Justin I'm doing good. How about you? Nic I'm doing good. I'm glad that the first encounter with me for the podcast didn't turn you off completely and that you wanted to bring up a new topic. Before we dive into that, let me ask you, for those people that didn't listen to the other episode, what's your impairment or your disability? Justin I'm blind, I basically have zero vision. Nic Okay, and that means I assume you're using a screen reader? Justin Yep. Nic Cool. So, blind screen reader user, and you said you wanted to talk about form validation? I guess that's a current pet peeve of yours. Tell me about what's the issue around form validation? How's it an impact for you? Justin It's, I think it's I mean, it's, it's definitely a valuable one, especially, you know, for someone who's blind, but it's something that definitely one of those areas that definitely can benefit a, you know, benefits a whole host of people. It the the reason I think of it, it's an it's an it's an area that kind of just interests me, you know, as in my work day to day, working in accessibility myself, is just thinking through, like how a form is built, and how you, you know, let people know, maybe there are mistakes in it, or, and how to fix it, and stuff like that. And when I, when I emailed you, actually, or sent you a message to talk about this topic, I was actually working on a project working with this was one of the clients I work with, and was why it was fresh in the mind. You know, I think the the really important thing with form validation is just to, you know, if someone, you know, fills out that form, and like, hit submit, and maybe they have no idea what happened, you know, why is it not moving through, especially if like, you're, you're someone like me, who can't, you know, you're not seeing the screen, you hit that submit button, and it just doesn't do anything, you're just, I'm probably just going to just assume something's broken and move on. So you know, looking at a good like, form validation pattern where someone can understand what's going on, what the problems are, in, you know, be given some guidance on how to fix it is, I think, just usually important. One of the pattern that is most used with the client I work with, and one I'm a huge fan of, is when you hit that submit button, if not everything validates I love those forms where they'll automatically throw focus up to the first field with an error and have that, you know, error message programmatically associated with the form because it tells it tells me immediately, okay, hey, there's something wrong here. You know, it, it takes him to the field, it tells me there's something wrong, it gives me a description, basically, you know, of what's wrong, what, what I need to fix, and lets me know that and then, you know, since it's that that first one, if you've got, you know, say multiple fields with errors, I can just go tab, you know, tabbing through it through all the forms, see what does, you know, if there's anything else with an error and then go to resubmit? I just, it's a I, I'm a real big fan of that pattern. Just because I think just from a usability factor of anything you're doing, that's just, I think it's just the easiest way to go about it for a screener two years and have that and I feel like that kind of a pattern is going to have a benefit. For a lot more people than just screen nerd are used to, Nic How'd you feel about disabling the submit button until all the fields are actually validating? Justin I hate it. I hate it with the fire of 1000 suns. Nic Why? Justin Because Especially like, as a screen or user, even maybe if you don't have if you don't have it set up, right, or potentially, even if you I guess I should say, if you don't have it says like, there's some sort of like an announcement, hey, this field is not valid, you know, when you like, tap out of one and move to the next. Part of the problem that creates is, you know, someone's moving through what using the tab key that submit, but that submit button is not in the tab order. So I as far as I would know, that submit button doesn't exist. And I could rightfully assume, okay, well, something with this form is broken, it doesn't have a submit button, what the heck is going on here? Why do I not understand it? I it's just, you know, it just feels like a really clunky and, you know, uncomfortable pattern to me. And it's, you know, a, I think it's something that really, really should be avoided. And, you know, like, like, we were talking about, like what, you know, the benefits of like, being someone outside of a screen reader user, I can see plenty of other users, like, you know, maybe they go look at that button, even if it is grayed out in your own, you know, problems with, you know, disabled buttons, and often not meeting color contrast, even though I know they don't need to Don't, don't get me started on that. But, you know, they're not, they might go look at it. And if especially if you're not getting given good messaging, you know, as to what's going on, they might just assume something's wrong here with the formula, it kind of puts everyone in the same. The same, what the heck's going on here, boat? Yeah. It's just, you know, I like, I remember, like this when I was taking a JavaScript class, you know, just to learn JavaScript at my previous job. One of the projects we had actually in that class was to build a form and disable the submit button until it's valid. It's a great, it's a great exercise. I feel like maybe for learning, you know, when you're trying to learn how to do JavaScript, but in the real world, gosh, I hate it as a pattern, and it is just really not. I just think it's really confusing. Nic Yeah. Here's another question for you around form validation. And I have my own thoughts. And I've not been shy on sharing those thoughts. But I'd love to hear what you think of it. And this is inline validation, where each time you type a character, it validates and it tells you this is not correct until it is. And they often use ARIA live assertive on that error message. How do you feel about that? Justin Oh, my gosh, that's I'm just, I'm just hearing, assertive, and I'm cringing. I mean, I cringe anytime I'm hearing Aria, you know, assertive ARIA live, that's, that's odd automatically cringe worthy. This is this, I am I'm having flashbacks to like the, the, the the text area inputs that might be have a character limit. And they'll put an aria live on the you have, you know, the 132 characters remaining. And every time you're typing, it's just immediately saying again, and it's just going to keep throwing that in your ear it, that kind of thing just could be really, really annoying, and could really throw off someone, especially a screen reader and a screen reader user. I don't have a problem with I mean, I can understand like some, to a point at least like the valid, you know, why someone might want to do a validation like that, although, I mean, if you want to do like a validation of each field, I would feel like using doing it on blur would be a much better way to go about it. Nic Thank you this, this is what they actually recommend. It's wonderful to hear an actual screen reader user say this is better. So thank you. Justin Yeah, do it on Blur, or I mean, even if you're going to do like an aria live something while someone's typing it, at least, you know, set it up in a way so that you're not getting an announcement till maybe the person hasn't typed for a second or two. Yeah, you know, that would at least make it a little less painful if you want to go with that pattern. But yeah, do it on or why. Why not? Nic Why not? Yeah. We're talking about validation, which is really, in some way a very A dev specific kind of implementation, but I guess designers also have their, their say in, in what things should look like. But if you had one message for designers and developers around for validation, what would it be? Justin The biggest thing and this would fall into if you're going to talk in like designers or you know, in this, like a content writer type role. The big, the biggest emphasis, I would say, is just, you know, when you provide those error messages, make them clear, make them make them understandable. And, you know, don't, you know, don't write a paragraph when you could write a sentence. Be basically, yeah, be succinct. Make it clear, make it understandable. So someone can go, okay. Hey, I know what I did wrong here and how I can fix it. But you know, like, it's like I said, don't write a don't write a book or a paragraph. Give it to me in a sentence. Nic Justin, thank you very much for sharing that. I'm loving this discussion. And maybe you'll think about another topic to bring up at some time in the future. But in the meantime, let's call it a wrap. Thank you, Justin. Justin I thank you for having me again.]]> clean no 0:00 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/brennan-roy-talks-about-multiple-disabilities-and-how-web-use-is-impacted/ Mon, 23 Jan 2023 13:00:45 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=730 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript   Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barrier they encounter on the web. Just a reminder, that transcript for this episode and all other episodes are available on the website at the time of publication. You can find them at https://a11yrules.com. I want to thank fable for sponsoring this episode. Without Fable the show would not be possible. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible accessible user experiences through product testing, and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Brennan Roy. Hey, Brennan, how are you? Brennan Alright, how are you? Nic I'm good. I'm good. I'm glad that we are finally connecting. We've been juggling our sheduled for a little bit. And it's been fun. So here we are. Let me ask you the very first question I ask just about everybody else is what's your disability or your impairment? Brennan I have a number of them. I'm.. I have disabilities that impact my mobility, my vision, my cognition, a number of things I think the most impactful are vision and mobility and yeah... Cognition. I have like a current concussion I have a damage to my optic nerve from intracranial hypertension. I have Chiari that impacts my brain pressure kind of all the time. And Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, which impacts my joints and pain levels. Yeah, those are the big ones. Nic So you you really one of the trifecta of disabilities right there. What... What conditions of these one or two are the ones that impact your web use the most? Brennan I think they all do in different ways. Nic Okay Brennan As I'm looking at my computer setup, right now I have like an adapted... Well, I have an external keyboard with a trackpad in front of it. Because a typical keyboard is hard to use. I have bigger monitors with a number of software adaptations on them and resolution changes so that I can see them. So it's both vision and mobility, I would say that are the biggest ones. My CCTV beside me here that allows me to read printed text. Nic Cool. We don't see those very often in individuals' places. It's typically at the library for reading microfilms, isn't it? Brennan Yeah, I was really lucky. In Ontario, there's a program through the University of Waterloo, where you can get used from individuals who have had them funded through the assistive devices program. So when they finished with them, if you want one that's been used, you can buy it from the University of Waterloo who have refurbished them for $250. Nic Wow, that's, that's a good, good scheme. So we're looking at mobility and visions are probably where you're having the most problem on the web. Tell us a little bit about maybe your biggest two barriers or pet peeves that you encounter related to your disability when you use the web. Brennan I think like, for me, one of the some of the biggest things are like that things are difficult to navigate physically like it requires a lot of like mouse navigation. And it's not like obvious where you need to go. So that's one and so I find that I'm doing a lot with my hands to get to where I need to be. And if I try and tab through it doesn't sensically follow. Nic Yes. Brennan And another one is that If I try and do something in dark mode, most of my computer's in dark mode, pop ups, the text is invisible, like the text won't follow the dark mode. Like if I have to pick a pet peeve, that's probably one of the biggest ones. Or if I'll switch of like a program using one of my dark mode overlays, the whole text just disappears, especially with Google Docs. That's a really bad one for it. Nic That's, that's interesting. It's not, it's not an experience I've had. I'm not a dark mode user. So I hadn't heard that as being something to consider. But that's really, yeah, that's good. So what message would you like designers or developers to remember about accessibility? Brennan I think like that, people who create and teach and have disabilities actually use this stuff. And we're out in the world creating things while using the products that they're making. So it can't just be like the first layer of the system that they're making. Meet the, the, like, their level of accessibility. Like, I work with programs like Audacity and iMovie, and things like that to create videos. And, like, I'll get three or four layers into more complicated action, and suddenly, the access thing doesn't work. Or like, I'll have my screen zoomed in, and I can't see half the program because it won't resize to my screen. And I'm like, why can't I resize this window? So I'm just really frustrated at the things that they don't expect disabled people to be doing with their programming. Yeah. Or like an Audacity? How, like, half of the hover text will work for their symbols, but the other half won't. It's just really annoying. Nic Yeah, I, I used to use Audacity all the time. And I had some blind friends that use Audacity and they said, it's the most accessible free audio editing software out there. I have since switched to Adobe Audition. So I don't know where audacity is gone now. But I do find it frustrating as well, when you start getting comfortable with an application and it feels like hey, this is actually comfortable and accessible. And then suddenly, when you start digging in, it's like, oh, what's just happened there? Brennan like, okay, so I have half of it. I guess I will squint. get really, really close to my screen. Yes, that's okay. Kind of, Nic Kind of. Yep. I actually think that this conclusion for for the show. It's okay. Kind of is fantastic. So, Brennan, thank you for being a guest on the show, and I'll see you on Slack or on the web somewhere. Thanks for being a guest. Brennan Thanks for having me.]]> full 62 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript   Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barrier they encounter on the web. Just a reminder, that transcript for this episode and all other episodes are available on the website at the time of publication. You can find them at https://a11yrules.com. I want to thank fable for sponsoring this episode. Without Fable the show would not be possible. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible accessible user experiences through product testing, and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Brennan Roy. Hey, Brennan, how are you? Brennan Alright, how are you? Nic I'm good. I'm good. I'm glad that we are finally connecting. We've been juggling our sheduled for a little bit. And it's been fun. So here we are. Let me ask you the very first question I ask just about everybody else is what's your disability or your impairment? Brennan I have a number of them. I'm.. I have disabilities that impact my mobility, my vision, my cognition, a number of things I think the most impactful are vision and mobility and yeah... Cognition. I have like a current concussion I have a damage to my optic nerve from intracranial hypertension. I have Chiari that impacts my brain pressure kind of all the time. And Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, which impacts my joints and pain levels. Yeah, those are the big ones. Nic So you you really one of the trifecta of disabilities right there. What... What conditions of these one or two are the ones that impact your web use the most? Brennan I think they all do in different ways. Nic Okay Brennan As I'm looking at my computer setup, right now I have like an adapted... Well, I have an external keyboard with a trackpad in front of it. Because a typical keyboard is hard to use. I have bigger monitors with a number of software adaptations on them and resolution changes so that I can see them. So it's both vision and mobility, I would say that are the biggest ones. My CCTV beside me here that allows me to read printed text. Nic Cool. We don't see those very often in individuals' places. It's typically at the library for reading microfilms, isn't it? Brennan Yeah, I was really lucky. In Ontario, there's a program through the University of Waterloo, where you can get used from individuals who have had them funded through the assistive devices program. So when they finished with them, if you want one that's been used, you can buy it from the University of Waterloo who have refurbished them for $250. Nic Wow, that's, that's a good, good scheme. So we're looking at mobility and visions are probably where you're having the most problem on the web. Tell us a little bit about maybe your biggest two barriers or pet peeves that you encounter related to your disability when you use the web. Brennan I think like, for me, one of the some of the biggest things are like that things are difficult to navigate physically like it requires a lot of like mouse navigation. And it's not like obvious where you need to go. So that's one and so I find that I'm doing a lot with my hands to get to where I need to be. And if I try and tab through it doesn't sensically follow. Nic Yes. Brennan And another one is that If I try and do something in dark mode, most of my computer's in dark mode, pop ups, the text is invisible, like the text won't follow the dark mode. Like if I have to pick a pet peeve, that's probably one of the biggest ones. Or if I'll switch of like a program using one of my dark mode overlays, the whole text just disappears, especially with Google Docs. That's a really bad one for it. Nic That's, that's interesting. It's not, it's not an experience I've had. I'm not a dark mode user. So I hadn't heard that as being something to consider. But that's really, yeah, that's good. So what message would you like designers or developers to remember about accessibility? Brennan I think like that, people who create and teach and have disabilities actually use this stuff. And we're out in the world creating things while using the products that they're making. So it can't just be like the first layer of the system that they're making. Meet the, the, like, their level of accessibility. Like, I work with programs like Audacity and iMovie, and things like that to create videos. And, like, I'll get three or four layers into more complicated action, and suddenly, the access thing doesn't work. Or like, I'll have my screen zoomed in, and I can't see half the program because it won't resize to my screen. And I'm like, why can't I resize this window? So I'm just really frustrated at the things that they don't expect disabled people to be doing with their programming. Yeah. Or like an Audacity? How, like, half of the hover text will work for their symbols, but the other half won't. It's just really annoying. Nic Yeah, I, I used to use Audacity all the time. And I had some blind friends that use Audacity and they said, it's the most accessible free audio editing software out there. I have since switched to Adobe Audition. So I don't know where audacity is gone now. But I do find it frustrating as well, when you start getting comfortable with an application and it feels like hey, this is actually comfortable and accessible. And then suddenly, when you start digging in, it's like, oh, what's just happened there? Brennan like, okay, so I have half of it. I guess I will squint. get really, really close to my screen. Yes, that's okay. Kind of, Nic Kind of. Yep. I actually think that this conclusion for for the show. It's okay. Kind of is fantastic. So, Brennan, thank you for being a guest on the show, and I'll see you on Slack or on the web somewhere. Thanks for being a guest. Brennan Thanks for having me.]]> clean no 8:57 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/nash-van-gool-talks-about-adhd-and-distractions-on-the-internet/ Wed, 18 Jan 2023 18:05:25 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=729 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barrier they encounter on the web. Just a reminder, that transcript for this episode and all other episodes are available on the website at the time of publication. You can find them at https://a11yrules.com. I want to thank fable for sponsoring this episode. Without Fable the show would not be possible. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible accessible user experiences through product testing, and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Nash Van Gool. Hey, Nash, how are you? Nash Hi, Nic. I'm doing good. How are you? Nic I'm good. I'm glad to see you. This is our third go at recording this show. The first time I forgot to press record the second time we had a gremlin that dropped us. So let's make sure that this works this time. Nash Third time's the charm. Nic So we we have been talking a lot on enough primary through slack and Twitter. And you told me a lot of really interesting things about your disability. So for our audience, what's your disability or your impairment? Nash I have ADHD predominantly inattentive, which means I don't so much have the typical ADHD hyperactivity and impulsivity. I do have that to some degree. But my problems are more with attention span and motivation. So yeah, I don't have an attention span to speak of really? Nic How does that translate itself? When you use the web, then what what would you be say your barrier is or your, your pet peeve is around? Nash Well, I can't really, yeah, I can't really keep my attention on, on whatever I'm doing for very long most of the time. So anything that requires an attention span, to speak of is very difficult to do. And also I'm extremely distractible by things like moving images and sounds and whatnot. So that that gets in the way of staying on track as well. Nic What concrete example, could you give us a website or platform that is particularly difficult for you to use? Nash Well, the entire internet without an ad blocker is fairly unusable. It's, it's horrible by anybody's standards, of course. But when when most of the content is obscured by moving images and things that make noise and things that move around, things that pop up, it becomes impossible to get anything done. I don't know if any concrete sites specifically that do anything that gets in the way without an ad blocker there, there are platforms that are centered around keeping you distracted and keeping your attention on on everything things like tick tock and YouTube lately with the shorts or you get lost in there for hours. But otherwise, some bloggers like to use animated GIFs and things like that, that really gets in the way of reading which is a struggle anyway because sometimes my brain just stops Nic alright, I have to say I really liked this this answer the entire internet is broken for disabled people, which actually is true. But that's that's a different topic altogether. I think we could talk about for a while. If you one message for designers or developers around making the web more usable to you considering that they may not have control over ads and stuff what what would you tell them Nash Account for people not having the attention span to perform whatever task you want them to perform in one go. So that means things like not having a session timeout for instance, because f I need some external thing to use what I'm using, and that could be a password manager or an external website or anything, I may well get distracted while doing that. And I could be back in five minutes, or I could be back in weeks. That's not an exaggeration that has actually happened. So if my session times out, and I've lost all my work in that, in that time, that makes it that much harder for me to use whatever, whatever project you have. But also things like, video instructions are absolutely horrible. It takes me an hour to watch a two minute video. So if all I have is a video showing me how to use your product, chances are I won't be able to use your product other than just messing around and finding out what button works. Nic That's, that's fascinating. Actually, I never considered that. For someone with ADHD, a two minute video could take an hour to watch, because I hate video-only instructions, I can read a five minute video in 30 seconds, I can jump straight to the point where I want to see it. And sure video is good for some people. But I I do like the idea of giving both. But this argument that you just made, you know, I'll get distracted, I will not be able to process your information. That's really powerful. Nash Yeah, and it's it's, you make a good point also with with processing information, because it's not always getting distracted, I'll sometimes find myself watching a video and just having completely missed the past few minutes. Because I've zoned out. And I just don't know what you've said in your video for the past few minutes. And then I find myself having to backtrack to where I where I lost my attention. Chances are I'll lose my attention while backtracking. So that really makes it makes it hard to hard to follow along. Transcripts are a lifesaver for that, by the way, because then I can just skim back to what I missed and find out where I where it was so awesome. That does help. Nic Cool. Nash. Thank you for being candid and and sharing your experiences and we'll see you around on the web. Nash Definitely. It was good to be here. Nice to have you. Cheers. Thanks for having me.]]> full 61 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barrier they encounter on the web. Just a reminder, that transcript for this episode and all other episodes are available on the website at the time of publication. You can find them at https://a11yrules.com. I want to thank fable for sponsoring this episode. Without Fable the show would not be possible. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible accessible user experiences through product testing, and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Nash Van Gool. Hey, Nash, how are you? Nash Hi, Nic. I'm doing good. How are you? Nic I'm good. I'm glad to see you. This is our third go at recording this show. The first time I forgot to press record the second time we had a gremlin that dropped us. So let's make sure that this works this time. Nash Third time's the charm. Nic So we we have been talking a lot on enough primary through slack and Twitter. And you told me a lot of really interesting things about your disability. So for our audience, what's your disability or your impairment? Nash I have ADHD predominantly inattentive, which means I don't so much have the typical ADHD hyperactivity and impulsivity. I do have that to some degree. But my problems are more with attention span and motivation. So yeah, I don't have an attention span to speak of really? Nic How does that translate itself? When you use the web, then what what would you be say your barrier is or your, your pet peeve is around? Nash Well, I can't really, yeah, I can't really keep my attention on, on whatever I'm doing for very long most of the time. So anything that requires an attention span, to speak of is very difficult to do. And also I'm extremely distractible by things like moving images and sounds and whatnot. So that that gets in the way of staying on track as well. Nic What concrete example, could you give us a website or platform that is particularly difficult for you to use? Nash Well, the entire internet without an ad blocker is fairly unusable. It's, it's horrible by anybody's standards, of course. But when when most of the content is obscured by moving images and things that make noise and things that move around, things that pop up, it becomes impossible to get anything done. I don't know if any concrete sites specifically that do anything that gets in the way without an ad blocker there, there are platforms that are centered around keeping you distracted and keeping your attention on on everything things like tick tock and YouTube lately with the shorts or you get lost in there for hours. But otherwise, some bloggers like to use animated GIFs and things like that, that really gets in the way of reading which is a struggle anyway because sometimes my brain just stops Nic alright, I have to say I really liked this this answer the entire internet is broken for disabled people, which actually is true. But that's that's a different topic altogether. I think we could talk about for a while. If you one message for designers or developers around making the web more usable to you considering that they may not have control over ads and stuff what what would you tell them Nash Account for people not having the attention span to perform whatever task you want them to perform in one go. So that means things like not having a session timeout for instance, because f I need some external thing to use what I'm using, and that could be a password manager or an external website or anything, I may well get distracted while doing that. And I could be back in five minutes, or I could be back in weeks. That's not an exaggeration that has actually happened. So if my session times out, and I've lost all my work in that, in that time, that makes it that much harder for me to use whatever, whatever project you have. But also things like, video instructions are absolutely horrible. It takes me an hour to watch a two minute video. So if all I have is a video showing me how to use your product, chances are I won't be able to use your product other than just messing around and finding out what button works. Nic That's, that's fascinating. Actually, I never considered that. For someone with ADHD, a two minute video could take an hour to watch, because I hate video-only instructions, I can read a five minute video in 30 seconds, I can jump straight to the point where I want to see it. And sure video is good for some people. But I I do like the idea of giving both. But this argument that you just made, you know, I'll get distracted, I will not be able to process your information. That's really powerful. Nash Yeah, and it's it's, you make a good point also with with processing information, because it's not always getting distracted, I'll sometimes find myself watching a video and just having completely missed the past few minutes. Because I've zoned out. And I just don't know what you've said in your video for the past few minutes. And then I find myself having to backtrack to where I where I lost my attention. Chances are I'll lose my attention while backtracking. So that really makes it makes it hard to hard to follow along. Transcripts are a lifesaver for that, by the way, because then I can just skim back to what I missed and find out where I where it was so awesome. That does help. Nic Cool. Nash. Thank you for being candid and and sharing your experiences and we'll see you around on the web. Nash Definitely. It was good to be here. Nice to have you. Cheers. Thanks for having me.]]> clean no 7:45 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/guy-kisel-speaks-of-sensory-overload/ Mon, 09 Jan 2023 19:03:35 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=726 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. Just a reminder, I have transcripts available for all episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. This is the time to thank Fable, our sponsor for the show. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. They move organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences. And they do that through product testing and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Guy Kisel. Hey, Guy, how are ya? Guy Hi, I'm pretty doing pretty well. Nic Good. We've been talking a lot in the background about all kinds of stuff that's super fascinating. But obviously, this is my soundbite. So we're not going to be able to cover everything all the things. Let's start with what's your disability or your impairment that you want to talk about today? Guy Oh, good question. Yeah, I have some RSI issues in my hands. Basically, just from overuse over the years of playing a lot of video games and spending a lot of time on the computer and so on. Largely like tendinitis in my wrist and my hands and and then yeah, the sensory issues, I've always been extremely sensitive, and had issues with, like sensory processing. And that includes, you know, being extremely sensitive to smells, and getting easily overwhelmed and sounds and like feelings and textures and all these things. And yeah, it does sometimes, you know, cause issues with technology or with gaming or stuff like that. On that note, to be clear, I work in the games industry, but I'm only here to represent myself and my own, like perspectives and opinions and not have any sort of official representative Nic that that's totally fair. Now, being very sensitive to smells, I guess, is not a big problem using computers games, we haven't yet gotten to smell-o-vision. And I think I'm happy about that. But how does does this sensory overload? How does that translate in either gaming or using the web or working digitally? Guy Yeah, good question. I'm also very grateful that we have not yet invented smell-o-vision. Even you know, virtual reality doesn't seem to have that yet. And for me, at least, I'm thankful for that. It doesn't always actually have an effect. You know, in a lot of cases, Everything's just fine. But the sort of things that can happen are, it's often like, related to hearing things. So I'm not, I'm not deaf or hearing impaired in any way that I'm aware of. I'm actually very sensitive to sounds. But what that can result in is that I have trouble filtering out... sounds. So like, as an example, if I'm in a crowded room, and there's a lot of conversations going on, it can be really hard to pick out the conversation I'm trying to participate in. And so what can happen in, you know, online situations, is, if you're in a call with people, and there's a lot of background noise coming through their microphone, it can be like nearly impossible to understand them, which I know everybody, or a lot of people probably experienced this as frustrating or difficult. But it can be get, like, especially bad. Or if there's high pitched sounds like feedback, or especially for whatever reason, I'm super sensitive to like whistling. But, you know, if you suddenly have headphones on, you suddenly hear somebody whistling. It's almost like it's being projected directly into your brain. It can be kind of difficult to cope with. Nic So you're not talking about just a bit of a frustration or annoyance. You really are talking about these kinds of sounds, wreck your brain in some way. Guy Yeah, it can lead to just all like thinking or processing or anything. You know, trying to actually be a person just stops and for as long as as you know, whistling are there. high pitched noises are going on. I'm just desperately trying to survive it or get past it. And then you know, if that goes away, then try to resume a normal train of thought or conversation or something. It takes a while to like, collect myself. Of course, you know, this varies, it's like, if I'm really tired, this can be a lot worse than if I'm like, in good spirits or so on. Nic Yeah, but isn't that the thing about accessibility, though that situation vary, situations vary for individual depending on time of day, day of week or period of the year. But that doesn't mean that because it's not always the same. It's any less important, does it? Guy Oh, yeah, for sure. I agree. I'm definitely not like an expert on accessibility or anything. I'm just, from this point of view, survive, as a normal user, try my best to get through the day and do the things I want to do. But yeah, I agree with you that it shouldn't, it shouldn't matter that much. I guess I just add that for like, context or color. Nic Fair enough! Guy, if you had a message for designers, or developers around web accessibility, or digital accessibility or, or things like that, what what would you want them to remember about either disability, inclusion, or accessibility? Guy I mean, I think part of it is just that everyone's different. Everyone has different needs, and preferences, and so on. And it's very hard to do like a one size fits all design. So I, I always really appreciate any software tools or websites that have controls and settings basically, like, let me toggle on and off different sound effects, or turn on and off, sound entirely or music entirely. Often I really liked when things default to not having sound and then have you like opt into sound or something like that. Right? I've often experienced websites that you know, you go to a website to read some documentation about a product and a little chat window pops up in the bottom right with like a cloud high pitch, dinging noise, asking if you want to check with Representative and like, I really appreciate the the effort to provide good service and support. But it's also often like very startling. And the first thing I want to do after after one of those things pops up is just like closed the website and never go back. Nic Yeah, so they're trying to be helpful, but in fact, they are pushing customers away. Guy Yeah, it can happen. And you know, it's one of those tricky things because it's clearly well intentioned, but intentions aren't always enough. Yeah, Nic yeah. I like that intentions aren't always enough. Guy. Thank you very much for sharing your your thoughts and experiences with me and we'll see you around on the web. Guy Sounds good. Thanks for having me on. Nic Cheers.]]> full 60 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. Just a reminder, I have transcripts available for all episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. This is the time to thank Fable, our sponsor for the show. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. They move organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences. And they do that through product testing and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Guy Kisel. Hey, Guy, how are ya? Guy Hi, I'm pretty doing pretty well. Nic Good. We've been talking a lot in the background about all kinds of stuff that's super fascinating. But obviously, this is my soundbite. So we're not going to be able to cover everything all the things. Let's start with what's your disability or your impairment that you want to talk about today? Guy Oh, good question. Yeah, I have some RSI issues in my hands. Basically, just from overuse over the years of playing a lot of video games and spending a lot of time on the computer and so on. Largely like tendinitis in my wrist and my hands and and then yeah, the sensory issues, I've always been extremely sensitive, and had issues with, like sensory processing. And that includes, you know, being extremely sensitive to smells, and getting easily overwhelmed and sounds and like feelings and textures and all these things. And yeah, it does sometimes, you know, cause issues with technology or with gaming or stuff like that. On that note, to be clear, I work in the games industry, but I'm only here to represent myself and my own, like perspectives and opinions and not have any sort of official representative Nic that that's totally fair. Now, being very sensitive to smells, I guess, is not a big problem using computers games, we haven't yet gotten to smell-o-vision. And I think I'm happy about that. But how does does this sensory overload? How does that translate in either gaming or using the web or working digitally? Guy Yeah, good question. I'm also very grateful that we have not yet invented smell-o-vision. Even you know, virtual reality doesn't seem to have that yet. And for me, at least, I'm thankful for that. It doesn't always actually have an effect. You know, in a lot of cases, Everything's just fine. But the sort of things that can happen are, it's often like, related to hearing things. So I'm not, I'm not deaf or hearing impaired in any way that I'm aware of. I'm actually very sensitive to sounds. But what that can result in is that I have trouble filtering out... sounds. So like, as an example, if I'm in a crowded room, and there's a lot of conversations going on, it can be really hard to pick out the conversation I'm trying to participate in. And so what can happen in, you know, online situations, is, if you're in a call with people, and there's a lot of background noise coming through their microphone, it can be like nearly impossible to understand them, which I know everybody, or a lot of people probably experienced this as frustrating or difficult. But it can be get, like, especially bad. Or if there's high pitched sounds like feedback, or especially for whatever reason, I'm super sensitive to like whistling. But, you know, if you suddenly have headphones on, you suddenly hear somebody whistling. It's almost like it's being projected directly into your brain. It can be kind of difficult to cope with. Nic So you're not talking about just a bit of a frustration or annoyance. You really are talking about these kinds of sounds, wreck your brain in some way. Guy Yeah, it can lead to just all like thinking or processing or anything. You know, trying to actually be a person just stops and for as long as as you know, whistling are there. high pitched noises are going on. I'm just desperately trying to survive it or get past it. And then you know, if that goes away, then try to resume a normal train of thought or conversation or something. It takes a while to like, collect myself. Of course, you know, this varies, it's like, if I'm really tired, this can be a lot worse than if I'm like, in good spirits or so on. Nic Yeah, but isn't that the thing about accessibility, though that situation vary, situations vary for individual depending on time of day, day of week or period of the year. But that doesn't mean that because it's not always the same. It's any less important, does it? Guy Oh, yeah, for sure. I agree. I'm definitely not like an expert on accessibility or anything. I'm just, from this point of view, survive, as a normal user, try my best to get through the day and do the things I want to do. But yeah, I agree with you that it shouldn't, it shouldn't matter that much. I guess I just add that for like, context or color. Nic Fair enough! Guy, if you had a message for designers, or developers around web accessibility, or digital accessibility or, or things like that, what what would you want them to remember about either disability, inclusion, or accessibility? Guy I mean, I think part of it is just that everyone's different. Everyone has different needs, and preferences, and so on. And it's very hard to do like a one size fits all design. So I, I always really appreciate any software tools or websites that have controls and settings basically, like, let me toggle on and off different sound effects, or turn on and off, sound entirely or music entirely. Often I really liked when things default to not having sound and then have you like opt into sound or something like that. Right? I've often experienced websites that you know, you go to a website to read some documentation about a product and a little chat window pops up in the bottom right with like a cloud high pitch, dinging noise, asking if you want to check with Representative and like, I really appreciate the the effort to provide good service and support. But it's also often like very startling. And the first thing I want to do after after one of those things pops up is just like closed the website and never go back. Nic Yeah, so they're trying to be helpful, but in fact, they are pushing customers away. Guy Yeah, it can happen. And you know, it's one of those tricky things because it's clearly well intentioned, but intentions aren't always enough. Yeah, Nic yeah. I like that intentions aren't always enough. Guy. Thank you very much for sharing your your thoughts and experiences with me and we'll see you around on the web. Guy Sounds good. Thanks for having me on. Nic Cheers.]]> clean no 8:21 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/alex-marositz-talks-about-screen-reader-use-and-the-lack-of-progress-of-accessibility-on-the-web/ Mon, 12 Dec 2022 17:06:38 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=705 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. As usual, transcripts are available for this episode and all other episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yryules.com. Thanks to Fable for sponsoring this show. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible accessible user experience. They do that through product testing, and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Alex Marositz. It's Hey, Alex, how are you? Alex Hi, good morning. Nic Good morning. So you reached out and you said after I asked you said yeah, I'm game to have you ask me some questions. So here's my first question. What is your disability or your impairment, Alex? Alex Well, yeah, I guess I am blind. And I use a screen reader and electronic Braille display to access the computer and the internet. A little bit about me is I spent 12 years teaching assistive technology and access technology and training students to use it in the in the community college system. And then I spent the last three years doing accessibility audits and testing for accessibility and kind of handling the compliance piece. And then about four days ago, I started a new job, which is exactly why I reached out to yo. I was kind of going through a little bit of a switching roles a bit coming back to the community colleges, and I had some some time on my hands and just was participating in the accessibility community overall. So aside from that, I do write for the top tech tidbits flying blind website and participate in some of the other accessibility spaces. I'd say kind of just throughout my career, you're right, kind of the basis of that was having to learn accessible technology, and how to use a screen reader and mix sort of Braille and auditory learning styles. But that's on the computer now. Nic I'm going to get away from my usual questions, because you are the right person to ask this. I'm going to circle back to my other questions. But as someone who has done education and teaching people how to use screen readers for for good portion of time. And as someone who has also worked in the accessibility field, what would you say your top one or two tips for people doing accessibility testing fairly new to it? What would you say the two top tips are for someone looking to learn how to use a screen reader for testing if they are sighted users? Alex You know, that's a good question. And I can only tell you what's kind of helped me, and I feel has kind of set me apart in that space is try to find some time engaging in an activity that you enjoy doing or something like that. Volunteer in some way with an organization that involves disabled people in some way. So I don't know if that means volunteering at an at a youth camp sports camp for persons with disabilities or find something in your area and actually just get to know you know a little bit about the culture and the lives of the people whose work you'll be impacting moving forward. And I just I can't tell you how valuable that is interacting with students every day for 12 or 13 years really gave me sort of a unique perspective and also just kind of oriented the work that I was doing in a better way. You know, knowing what WCAG standards for example are going to impact which folks is a little bit easier to understand when you when you've met them when you when you've met them in a social space for example, like I kind of said rather than just understanding it from from the standards themselves and and why they matter and so forth type documents. Nic I actually love that. I have... Here I am asking for a tech tip and youre really flipping things over the head in a way that I really love is, if I paraphrase you, learning how to use a screen reader is not so much about tech and how you use a screen reader. It's about understanding the culture, and the lives and experiences of people who use screen readers, because I guess you can learn the tech, but unless you understand the people who use the tech, it's not really going to be as useful as it could be, Alex You know, and just an example that comes to mind, and it's not a great one, but we're just talking here, you might work for a company that does simulations of flying cockpits kind of thing, you know, that you might not think that accessibility is very important, right in your work until you maybe join a social group and realize, you know, there are screen reader users who are interested in this field, and, and so forth. And, and just knowing that your work actually matters just as much as in that space, as it does in a banking app, or, or something that we all know that everybody needs to, you know, access. Nic So coming back to the usual shedule of my show, what would you say for you personally, as a screen reader user, what's your biggest barrier, or your biggest pet peeve on the web? Alex You know, okay, I'm glad you use the word pet peeve, a little bit because I kind of flipped the answer around a little bit, from barrier to frustration. And I did that, because I think, you know, we kind of know what some of the barriers are in this space for a screen reader user, right? We know about, you know, using color to identify errors on a form, right? We know about, you know, alternative text on buttons and charts and, and to an extent, images as well, you know, and we kind of do know about what makes what would make if you're a screen reader user, if there's if there's no keyboard access, then that's going to present an absolute barrier, right to your web application. So I think since we kind of already knew that, I think I'm just gonna share kind of what my frustration is. And in that, when on new platform, a line of business application or entertainment website, that sort of video or what have you, ticketing application. Social media is obviously in the news right now quite a bit with new social media platforms out there, running into the same barriers, every time a new platform is released, is the biggest frustration that I think I have on the web. I come from the education space, right. So just kind of the example I had here was just realizing that a student is struggling with some of the same things that I struggled with 30 years ago on a website, right? Nic Yeah. Alex Every time you come up with a new application, you know, we seem to make the same mistakes again. And that kind of leads me into my, the your third question, which is what message would I share moving forward right? Nic Yeah. Alex And that is participate, you know, if you find out something new, really participate in the accessibility space in any way that you can, whether it's coming on a podcast like this, sharing something on Twitter, joining the a11y Slack channel, which is where you and I met, right? Nic Yeah. Alex And just participate and share, take the time to learn, but also just share tips and really just participate and be active in the community. I think that that's the only way we're going to prevent repeats of the same accessibility barriers throughout, you know, new products and things like that. Nic I love that: Participate, get involved. That's a fantastic message to end the show on. Alex, thank you so much for your sharing your experiences and your thoughts, and we'll see you around the web.]]> full 59 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. As usual, transcripts are available for this episode and all other episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yryules.com. Thanks to Fable for sponsoring this show. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible accessible user experience. They do that through product testing, and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Alex Marositz. It's Hey, Alex, how are you? Alex Hi, good morning. Nic Good morning. So you reached out and you said after I asked you said yeah, I'm game to have you ask me some questions. So here's my first question. What is your disability or your impairment, Alex? Alex Well, yeah, I guess I am blind. And I use a screen reader and electronic Braille display to access the computer and the internet. A little bit about me is I spent 12 years teaching assistive technology and access technology and training students to use it in the in the community college system. And then I spent the last three years doing accessibility audits and testing for accessibility and kind of handling the compliance piece. And then about four days ago, I started a new job, which is exactly why I reached out to yo. I was kind of going through a little bit of a switching roles a bit coming back to the community colleges, and I had some some time on my hands and just was participating in the accessibility community overall. So aside from that, I do write for the top tech tidbits flying blind website and participate in some of the other accessibility spaces. I'd say kind of just throughout my career, you're right, kind of the basis of that was having to learn accessible technology, and how to use a screen reader and mix sort of Braille and auditory learning styles. But that's on the computer now. Nic I'm going to get away from my usual questions, because you are the right person to ask this. I'm going to circle back to my other questions. But as someone who has done education and teaching people how to use screen readers for for good portion of time. And as someone who has also worked in the accessibility field, what would you say your top one or two tips for people doing accessibility testing fairly new to it? What would you say the two top tips are for someone looking to learn how to use a screen reader for testing if they are sighted users? Alex You know, that's a good question. And I can only tell you what's kind of helped me, and I feel has kind of set me apart in that space is try to find some time engaging in an activity that you enjoy doing or something like that. Volunteer in some way with an organization that involves disabled people in some way. So I don't know if that means volunteering at an at a youth camp sports camp for persons with disabilities or find something in your area and actually just get to know you know a little bit about the culture and the lives of the people whose work you'll be impacting moving forward. And I just I can't tell you how valuable that is interacting with students every day for 12 or 13 years really gave me sort of a unique perspective and also just kind of oriented the work that I was doing in a better way. You know, knowing what WCAG standards for example are going to impact which folks is a little bit easier to understand when you when you've met them when you when you've met them in a social space for example, like I kind of said rather than just understanding it from from the standards themselves and and why they matter and so forth type documents. Nic I actually love that. I have... Here I am asking for a tech tip and youre really flipping things over the head in a way that I really love is, if I paraphrase you, learning how to use a screen reader is not so much about tech and how you use a screen reader. It's about understanding the culture, and the lives and experiences of people who use screen readers, because I guess you can learn the tech, but unless you understand the people who use the tech, it's not really going to be as useful as it could be, Alex You know, and just an example that comes to mind, and it's not a great one, but we're just talking here, you might work for a company that does simulations of flying cockpits kind of thing, you know, that you might not think that accessibility is very important, right in your work until you maybe join a social group and realize, you know, there are screen reader users who are interested in this field, and, and so forth. And, and just knowing that your work actually matters just as much as in that space, as it does in a banking app, or, or something that we all know that everybody needs to, you know, access. Nic So coming back to the usual shedule of my show, what would you say for you personally, as a screen reader user, what's your biggest barrier, or your biggest pet peeve on the web? Alex You know, okay, I'm glad you use the word pet peeve, a little bit because I kind of flipped the answer around a little bit, from barrier to frustration. And I did that, because I think, you know, we kind of know what some of the barriers are in this space for a screen reader user, right? We know about, you know, using color to identify errors on a form, right? We know about, you know, alternative text on buttons and charts and, and to an extent, images as well, you know, and we kind of do know about what makes what would make if you're a screen reader user, if there's if there's no keyboard access, then that's going to present an absolute barrier, right to your web application. So I think since we kind of already knew that, I think I'm just gonna share kind of what my frustration is. And in that, when on new platform, a line of business application or entertainment website, that sort of video or what have you, ticketing application. Social media is obviously in the news right now quite a bit with new social media platforms out there, running into the same barriers, every time a new platform is released, is the biggest frustration that I think I have on the web. I come from the education space, right. So just kind of the example I had here was just realizing that a student is struggling with some of the same things that I struggled with 30 years ago on a website, right? Nic Yeah. Alex Every time you come up with a new application, you know, we seem to make the same mistakes again. And that kind of leads me into my, the your third question, which is what message would I share moving forward right? Nic Yeah. Alex And that is participate, you know, if you find out something new, really participate in the accessibility space in any way that you can, whether it's coming on a podcast like this, sharing something on Twitter, joining the a11y Slack channel, which is where you and I met, right? Nic Yeah. Alex And just participate and share, take the time to learn, but also just share tips and really just participate and be active in the community. I think that that's the only way we're going to prevent repeats of the same accessibility barriers throughout, you know, new products and things like that. Nic I love that: Participate, get involved. That's a fantastic message to end the show on. Alex, thank you so much for your sharing your experiences and your thoughts, and we'll see you around the web.]]> clean no 9:07 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/nick-colley-speaks-about-adhd-and-engagement-patterns-on-the-web/ Mon, 05 Dec 2022 17:56:07 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=702 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. Just a reminder that transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. Thanks to Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences through product testing, and custom courses. Learn more about how Fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Nick Colley Hey, Nick, how are you? Nick Hello. Yeah, I'm Nick with a k. Nic Yes! One Nic without K talking to another Nick with a K. So, my first question to you like everybody else is, what's your disability or your impairment? Nick So, I have ADHD. So I guess the, for me, disability side of things is like if, if I am struggling, it tends to be more outside the web too. And it's like in my work life and things like that. And I can end up with depression or anxiety, depending on different situations. So that's kind of like, yeah, how things can manifest. I'm not necessarily disabled, specifically from ADHD. Its often I feel disabled from specific environments. I mean, if it's a Yeah, people aren't like, not used to working with people with ADHD and stuff like that. Nic So it's not the ADHD itself that is disabling for you. It's all the surrounding conditions that derive from it. Nick Yeah, it's not cut and dry. So sometimes, there has been a few things in my personal life where I was, like, if I could just concentrate now, I'd be great. Yeah, a lot of like, the worst things that tend to be being in spaces where I'm not really being supported in the way I'd hoped. And then, yeah, it can lead to feeling really bad about yourself if you can't get stuff done and things like that. Which, yeah, leads to like, longer term issues and stuff like that. Nic Right! So how, how does that translate onto the web? So, you know, my, my typical web question is, what's your greatest barrier, or your greatest pet peeve related to your disability on the web? Nick So, I was thinking about that, because a lot of like, a lot of the stuff that impacts me is not necessarily directly related to the web. But the main, the main thing I've been thinking about is, like, a lot of the high engagement stuff I find, like, I imagine for a lot of people that quite like, it keeps them hooked, but for me, it's like, I can lose like, four hours consuming something, I don't enjoy it. And like it can ruin my day kind of thing. So I think the My biggest like pet peeve in that in that respect is like yeah, a lot of engagement patterns that aren't really thinking about what happens if you're quite suspect susceptible to more like addictive things. So it's a bit like, like an extreme example would be like online gambling and you've got examples of like loot box stuff where you've got this concept of whales kind of people who are relying on people to like spend a lot of money on things. I think that's the main thing that I find bad on the web is like, yeah, I a lot of the like YouTube and Instagram app I delete them. I tried Tic Tok and I was like scrolling for hours and hours. I imagine a lot of people like that. But like, for me, it's like, I can be there for like six hours like yeah, and then YouTube's added it and then I'm not that I'm not there to watch like a Tic Tok on YouTube. I'm there to watch longer form videos and stuff, but I'm still like falling into these design patterns that are designed to engage, but I think they're too engaging. Nic Yeah. So obviously a platform wants to get their audience engaged. But it becomes almost like a dark, dark pattern where you just, you're hooked and you can't get off. Nick Yeah, I just have to delete the whole thing. Yeah, to get rid of Instagram. I like Instagram, because it's take like taking pictures and stuff. But again, I'm not there for the shorts, but then I ended up. So in the analytics somewhere, there's a dashboard, and it says my account like, Oh, um, when they released shorts, I really started to enjoy Instagram. But actually, if you came in, saw what the impact is, it's like me miserably hooked to this dopamine loop of it is like, is really not enjoyable. Nic It hink that's a brilliant point that the analytics data may not actually reflect the reality of your audience. Because, yeah, what you describe is, okay, so just this user is spending four hours, they really must like it. But in fact, it's No, I hate it. Let me off here. Nick Yeah. I don't know how we could get better at I guess it is making sure that you don't focus too much on just quantitative data and have more like quality stuff? So like conversations with people, interviewing people? Yeah, it's the fact that I've got fireworks going off in the background, because it's Halloween. So if that's a problem.. Nic No problem. No problem. We are all dealing with real life. I know some podcasters that, you know, they freak out if a dog is scratching a colar, and there's a jingle in the background, of fireworks, but it's not really interfering at all. So let's let's not worry about it. We are all living in real life. Nick Yeah, if I if I struggled to keep on track, cuz there's currently like bangers going off in the background. Nic So obviously, a message you could have for developers was... Don't use these patterns to keep audiences engaged. But would you have something else to let developers or designers think about accessibility? Nick I think. Yeah. And on that pattern, specifically, I think it's, it's, we do have a responsibility, I guess, as designers to consider like, is that is there such thing as too much engagement? And I think the answer is definitely yes. And you can only really get to that conclusion, if you focus on the people that will be the most impacted. So I think it's about like inviting people that are more susceptible to Addictive patterns and things like that into the design process. Yeah, so trying to do more user research of neurodivergent people and cognitive accessibility is something that people are starting to get into. And I think, if people invest more in that, it's going to make a big impact on how you think about engagement. It's not just like, Oh, someone's really enjoying themselves. Like, it could be someone is ruined out there all day. And now they've had to delete your app. It's like, it's not. It's not like, yeah, trying to get the why behind some of this data and not just assume, Nic Is this something that could be solved through a user preference interface? So you know, hey, I want to see all these shorts or No, please hide them from me? Nick Yeah. Even just like, I think I always talk about is that the difference between Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing? They're, they're not exactly the same game. But if you think about that, for anyone, I don't know if you played them, but Nic I am afraid I have not played them. Nick They essentially the game loop. In Stardew Valley, you're a farmer. And each day you farm crops, and then you sell the crops. And there's nothing really stopping you from playing that forever, right? So when I played it, I played it for three days straight. Whereas Animal Crossing is similar kind of vibe, you you kind of do things in the day, but it's based on real time. So when it when it gets to 6pm in your real in real life, the shops close in the game and encourages you to take a break just by the nature of design. So I think I think we can learn a lot from just just that kind of design practice where you're thinking about like, how do you you can still do engagement, but I played Animal Crossing for like many months, maybe like six months, but I was only playing maybe like an hour a day. And that to me, that to me is like healthy engagement. I'm enjoying myself. I'm not burning out. Where Stardew I played for four days straight. I still think it's an excellent game. But I, I cannot go back to it because I just it makes me feel like a burn out for you. So I think trying to, it's not about necessarily straying away from patterns that keep people coming back to whatever you're building. It's more about thinking about how do you do that in a sustainable way. Ultimately, like that is like if you want a catalyst take on it. That is the way to keep your thing successful for the long term because then you've got people, if someone's consuming your thing for an hour, over five years, that's much more impact than four days of straight. Yeah. Four days. Nic Absolutely. Hey, Nick, thank you so much for your insight that was really good and powerful. And I'll see you around on the web. Nick Yeah, look forward to talking to you]]> Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. Just a reminder that transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. Thanks to Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences through product testing, and custom courses. Learn more about how Fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Nick Colley Hey, Nick, how are you? Nick Hello. Yeah, I'm Nick with a k. Nic Yes! One Nic without K talking to another Nick with a K. So, my first question to you like everybody else is, what's your disability or your impairment? Nick So, I have ADHD. So I guess the, for me, disability side of things is like if, if I am struggling, it tends to be more outside the web too. And it's like in my work life and things like that. And I can end up with depression or anxiety, depending on different situations. So that's kind of like, yeah, how things can manifest. I'm not necessarily disabled, specifically from ADHD. Its often I feel disabled from specific environments. I mean, if it's a Yeah, people aren't like, not used to working with people with ADHD and stuff like that. Nic So it's not the ADHD itself that is disabling for you. It's all the surrounding conditions that derive from it. Nick Yeah, it's not cut and dry. So sometimes, there has been a few things in my personal life where I was, like, if I could just concentrate now, I'd be great. Yeah, a lot of like, the worst things that tend to be being in spaces where I'm not really being supported in the way I'd hoped. And then, yeah, it can lead to feeling really bad about yourself if you can't get stuff done and things like that. Which, yeah, leads to like, longer term issues and stuff like that. Nic Right! So how, how does that translate onto the web? So, you know, my, my typical web question is, what's your greatest barrier, or your greatest pet peeve related to your disability on the web? Nick So, I was thinking about that, because a lot of like, a lot of the stuff that impacts me is not necessarily directly related to the web. But the main, the main thing I've been thinking about is, like, a lot of the high engagement stuff I find, like, I imagine for a lot of people that quite like, it keeps them hooked, but for me, it's like, I can lose like, four hours consuming something, I don't enjoy it. And like it can ruin my day kind of thing. So I think the My biggest like pet peeve in that in that respect is like yeah, a lot of engagement patterns that aren't really thinking about what happens if you're quite suspect susceptible to more like addictive things. So it's a bit like, like an extreme example would be like online gambling and you've got examples of like loot box stuff where you've got this concept of whales kind of people who are relying on people to like spend a lot of money on things. I think that's the main thing that I find bad on the web is like, yeah, I a lot of the like YouTube and Instagram app I delete them. I tried Tic Tok and I was like scrolling for hours and hours. I imagine a lot of people like that. But like, for me, it's like, I can be there for like six hours like yeah, and then YouTube's added it and then I'm not that I'm not there to watch like a Tic Tok on YouTube. I'm there to watch longer form videos and stuff, but I'm still like falling into these design patterns that are designed to engage, but I think they're too engaging. Nic Yeah. So obviously a platform wants to get their audience engaged. But it becomes almost like a dark, dark pattern where you just, you're hooked and you can't get off. Nick Yeah, I just have to delete the whole thing. Yeah, to get rid of Instagram. I like Instagram, because it's take like taking pictures and stuff. But again, I'm not there for the shorts, but then I ended up. So in the analytics somewhere, there's a dashboard, and it says my account like, Oh, um, when they released shorts, I really started to enjoy Instagram. But actually, if you came in, saw what the impact is, it's like me miserably hooked to this dopamine loop of it is like, is really not enjoyable. Nic It hink that's a brilliant point that the analytics data may not actually reflect the reality of your audience. Because, yeah, what you describe is, okay, so just this user is spending four hours, they really must like it. But in fact, it's No, I hate it. Let me off here. Nick Yeah. I don't know how we could get better at I guess it is making sure that you don't focus too much on just quantitative data and have more like quality stuff? So like conversations with people, interviewing people? Yeah, it's the fact that I've got fireworks going off in the background, because it's Halloween. So if that's a problem.. Nic No problem. No problem. We are all dealing with real life. I know some podcasters that, you know, they freak out if a dog is scratching a colar, and there's a jingle in the background, of fireworks, but it's not really interfering at all. So let's let's not worry about it. We are all living in real life. Nick Yeah, if I if I struggled to keep on track, cuz there's currently like bangers going off in the background. Nic So obviously, a message you could have for developers was... Don't use these patterns to keep audiences engaged. But would you have something else to let developers or designers think about accessibility? Nick I think. Yeah. And on that pattern, specifically, I think it's, it's, we do have a responsibility, I guess, as designers to consider like, is that is there such thing as too much engagement? And I think the answer is definitely yes. And you can only really get to that conclusion, if you focus on the people that will be the most impacted. So I think it's about like inviting people that are more susceptible to Addictive patterns and things like that into the design process. Yeah, so trying to do more user research of neurodivergent people and cognitive accessibility is something that people are starting to get into. And I think, if people invest more in that, it's going to make a big impact on how you think about engagement. It's not just like, Oh, someone's really enjoying themselves. Like, it could be someone is ruined out there all day. And now they've had to delete your app. It's like, it's not. It's not like, yeah, trying to get the why behind some of this data and not just assume, Nic Is this something that could be solved through a user preference interface? So you know, hey, I want to see all these shorts or No, please hide them from me? Nick Yeah. Even just like, I think I always talk about is that the difference between Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing? They're, they're not exactly the same game. But if you think about that, for anyone, I don't know if you played them, but Nic I am afraid I have not played them. Nick They essentially the game loop. In Stardew Valley, you're a farmer. And each day you farm crops, and then you sell the crops. And there's nothing really stopping you from playing that forever, right? So when I played it, I played it for three days straight. Whereas Animal Crossing is similar kind of vibe, you you kind of do things in the day, but it's based on real time. So when it when it gets to 6pm in your real in real life, the shops close in the game and encourages you to take a break just by the nature of design. So I think I think we can learn a lot from just just that kind of design practice where you're thinking about like, how do you you can still do engagement, but I played Animal Crossing for like many months, maybe like six months, but I was only playing maybe like an hour a day. And that to me, that to me is like healthy engagement. I'm enjoying myself. I'm not burning out. Where Stardew I played for four days straight. I still think it's an excellent game. But I, I cannot go back to it because I just it makes me feel like a burn out for you. So I think trying to, it's not about necessarily straying away from patterns that keep people coming back to whatever you're building. It's more about thinking about how do you do that in a sustainable way. Ultimately, like that is like if you want a catalyst take on it. That is the way to keep your thing successful for the long term because then you've got people, if someone's consuming your thing for an hour, over five years, that's much more impact than four days of straight. Yeah. Four days. Nic Absolutely. Hey, Nick, thank you so much for your insight that was really good and powerful. And I'll see you around on the web. Nick Yeah, look forward to talking to you]]> clean no 11:16 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/alyssa-cheeseman-talks-about-screen-readers-and-false-wcag-conformance-claims/ Mon, 28 Nov 2022 17:01:44 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=697 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout, and you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. I just want to remind you that transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. Thanks to Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences. They do that through product testing and customer courses. You can learn more about how fable can work with you and your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Alyssa Cheeseman. Hey, Alisa, how are you? Alyssa Not too bad? How's it going with you? Nic It's going good. I'm glad we connected. We didn't know each other before this. So it's going to be a fun show to get to know you and your experiences on the web a little bit. Alyssa Yeah, thank you for having me. Nic Let me start by asking you this, what's your disability or your impairment? Alyssa So I am actually considered legally blind. I do have some usable vision. But not of course, not enough to be able to drive. I also have a guide dog named Ruth, who has a yellow yellow Labrador Retriever. And she is amazing and always there. But overall, my condition is legal blindness with some residual vision. Nic Thank you. Service dogs are amazing. And I say this. I say this, as Winston, my mobility assistance dog is sleeping on my feet right now. So it's wonderful. However, we're not here to talk about service dogs, because so far, they haven't managed to help us on the web. Alyssa Yeah! Nic What would you say your greatest barrier or your greatest pet peeve when you're using the web is? Alyssa So my biggest pet peeve is that sometimes I hear about different products that are going to be implemented, especially if they're my company that I work for now. And I haven't even seen it yet. But they say that it's WCAG compliant. And whenever I get to the website, it's actually not. And the biggest fear that I have is when there's a bunch of unlabeled links and buttons, it makes it very challenging for screen reader users to be able to navigate. And I use the JAWS screen reader with a blue refreshable Braille display. And it makes it really hard if there's just a ton of unlabeled things and buttons. Nic So what I'm hearing is twofold, really first is unlabeled elements make it really difficult for you to perceive and understand what's on the page. But the other aspect of that is that these products are coming to you as being supposedly WCAG conformant. But they're not. Alyssa Right, exactly. Like there's some, there was one instance where we had launched a flagship product, and there was just a bunch of unlabeled buttons. And I test, I actually test our products for accessibility. But sometimes it gets to us and I go to test a product and before it gets to the other customer. And I see these bugs, and I'm just like, this is really crazy. Why didn't we see this new design before it even got to the public? Nic Yeah, that's... As an accessibility consultant myself, that is something I've been struggling with, on and off. It's, it seems like there's a big disconnect there. So what would you say your, your message for designers or developers would be? Is it related directly to that? Or is it something sideways? Alyssa Well, it's very similar to that is if you're testing for screen reader accessibility, you can't just hit Tab through the page. That's not just that's not going to get to where you need to be in terms of screen reader testing, you need to tab into the page as well as arrow down the page using arrow keys. That'll make it easier to know where things are located on the screen visually, and making sure that things are in the tab order because if you're just tabing you may not visually see that something isn't in the tab order. So it's really important to actually arrow through the page, as well as have when you're testing for screen reader accessibility. Nic Thank you for that. I was just talking with a QA tester last week who had logged a bug. And he said, I cannot tab through all the cells in a table. And I told them, why do you need to do that these cells are not interactive. And he says, well, screen reader users need to be able to tap to the content in a data table to be able to understand it and... Alyssa No Nic Yeah, nope, is exactly right. Alyssa That's not the case. Nic Nope Alyssa That is not the case. Because yes, there are table shortcut commands. But that's not necessarily tabbing through. Nic Yeah. Alyssa Cheeseman. Thank you very much for being a guest on the show this week. Alyssa Yeah, of course, I'm glad to be able to spread the word about accessibility and the fact that things definitely need to change from the top down because in just major corporations like the one I work in sometimes accessibility is kind of still up in the air and a lot of corporate managers don't really understand that until a big bug happens and you lose customers because of it. Nic That's a fantastic message to end the show on. Thank you, Alyssa. Have a good rest of your week. Alyssa Awesome. Thank you so much.]]> full 57 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout, and you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. I just want to remind you that transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. Thanks to Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences. They do that through product testing and customer courses. You can learn more about how fable can work with you and your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Alyssa Cheeseman. Hey, Alisa, how are you? Alyssa Not too bad? How's it going with you? Nic It's going good. I'm glad we connected. We didn't know each other before this. So it's going to be a fun show to get to know you and your experiences on the web a little bit. Alyssa Yeah, thank you for having me. Nic Let me start by asking you this, what's your disability or your impairment? Alyssa So I am actually considered legally blind. I do have some usable vision. But not of course, not enough to be able to drive. I also have a guide dog named Ruth, who has a yellow yellow Labrador Retriever. And she is amazing and always there. But overall, my condition is legal blindness with some residual vision. Nic Thank you. Service dogs are amazing. And I say this. I say this, as Winston, my mobility assistance dog is sleeping on my feet right now. So it's wonderful. However, we're not here to talk about service dogs, because so far, they haven't managed to help us on the web. Alyssa Yeah! Nic What would you say your greatest barrier or your greatest pet peeve when you're using the web is? Alyssa So my biggest pet peeve is that sometimes I hear about different products that are going to be implemented, especially if they're my company that I work for now. And I haven't even seen it yet. But they say that it's WCAG compliant. And whenever I get to the website, it's actually not. And the biggest fear that I have is when there's a bunch of unlabeled links and buttons, it makes it very challenging for screen reader users to be able to navigate. And I use the JAWS screen reader with a blue refreshable Braille display. And it makes it really hard if there's just a ton of unlabeled things and buttons. Nic So what I'm hearing is twofold, really first is unlabeled elements make it really difficult for you to perceive and understand what's on the page. But the other aspect of that is that these products are coming to you as being supposedly WCAG conformant. But they're not. Alyssa Right, exactly. Like there's some, there was one instance where we had launched a flagship product, and there was just a bunch of unlabeled buttons. And I test, I actually test our products for accessibility. But sometimes it gets to us and I go to test a product and before it gets to the other customer. And I see these bugs, and I'm just like, this is really crazy. Why didn't we see this new design before it even got to the public? Nic Yeah, that's... As an accessibility consultant myself, that is something I've been struggling with, on and off. It's, it seems like there's a big disconnect there. So what would you say your, your message for designers or developers would be? Is it related directly to that? Or is it something sideways? Alyssa Well, it's very similar to that is if you're testing for screen reader accessibility, you can't just hit Tab through the page. That's not just that's not going to get to where you need to be in terms of screen reader testing, you need to tab into the page as well as arrow down the page using arrow keys. That'll make it easier to know where things are located on the screen visually, and making sure that things are in the tab order because if you're just tabing you may not visually see that something isn't in the tab order. So it's really important to actually arrow through the page, as well as have when you're testing for screen reader accessibility. Nic Thank you for that. I was just talking with a QA tester last week who had logged a bug. And he said, I cannot tab through all the cells in a table. And I told them, why do you need to do that these cells are not interactive. And he says, well, screen reader users need to be able to tap to the content in a data table to be able to understand it and... Alyssa No Nic Yeah, nope, is exactly right. Alyssa That's not the case. Nic Nope Alyssa That is not the case. Because yes, there are table shortcut commands. But that's not necessarily tabbing through. Nic Yeah. Alyssa Cheeseman. Thank you very much for being a guest on the show this week. Alyssa Yeah, of course, I'm glad to be able to spread the word about accessibility and the fact that things definitely need to change from the top down because in just major corporations like the one I work in sometimes accessibility is kind of still up in the air and a lot of corporate managers don't really understand that until a big bug happens and you lose customers because of it. Nic That's a fantastic message to end the show on. Thank you, Alyssa. Have a good rest of your week. Alyssa Awesome. Thank you so much.]]> clean no 6:44 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/negoslav-sabev-talks-about-how-critical-accessibility-is/ Tue, 15 Nov 2022 21:28:32 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=695 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they encountered on the web. Just a reminder that transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication from my website at http://a11yrules.com. I want to take the time to thank Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform. They are powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences. They do this through product testing and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable can work with your team at http://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Negoslav Sabev. Hi, Negoslav, how are you? Negoslav Hi Nic, I'm fine, thank you. Nic We've been interacting on Twitter on enough for for a while. And finally we connected. So thank you for for willing to come and chat with me about the barriers you experience on the web. Negoslav Thank you for the invitation. Nic You know by now my first question is what's your disability or your impairments? So can you tell us a little bit more about that? Negoslav I'm blind. I was born with glaucoma. And through a series of operations. Finally, I reached here. So since 2001, I'm totally blind. And I'm using computers and other electronic devices since 2003. Nic What's your favorite screen reader? Negoslav Oh, it's it's different experience on different devices. So it's hard to say to tell that on Windows, I mostly use JAWS because I'm doing a lot of text editing. I also use NVDA, for reasons. And on iOS device. So you know that there is only one screen reader and that's quite sober. So I use them. Nic Thank you. What would you say your greatest barrier or your biggest pet peeve is when you're using the internet. Negoslav Sometimes I feel that the developers and teams that are working on websites are trying to hide... trying to hide something from me and try to lock me out. What I mean is that sometimes text that should be heading is not a heading and just a big and bolded text. Sometimes there's a CAPTCHA that I have to solve. And it's not accessible at all. Even it has no alternative. Or the audio that is playing as an alternative is so bad that I can hardly hear it, even though I have very good hearing abilities. And I can give some examples. Last year, I was trying to get documents from the Ministry of Justice that I'm not been I have not been judged. And it I went to the website, I filled the form, I paid the tax to get this document and the document was in electronic format. And I had to open a link to to see it. But when I get got there and open the link, there was a CAPTCHA that had no alternative that even the screen reader couldn't see as a picture. Nic Wow. Negoslav So I was locked out and never saw this document and I was contacting the people that were working there some government agencies but unfortunately, no result and sometimes accessibility work is happening so slowly. That it's so bad. It's so bad. I read today someone who was tweeting. "I want it all, I want it now. But step by step." Nic Yes. And so what you're describing is an experience where it's not just a small barrier, it's not just something that's annoying. It's not that you can't order something on an online shopping platform, it really is that you aren't able to get critical government documents because they're creating barriers for you. Negoslav Yes, unfortunately, there are many other examples, I can give that somehow a content is hidden, I had such an experience, while trying to enter a pin that was presented in a totally inaccessible way no screen reader could see where I should, should press with the mouse or something else. The keyboard wasn't working, or there's something like pressing a button, and content is somewhere on the window. And I have to, to look through it thoroughly to see to see what's there and to interact with it. Nic If you had one message for designers or developers, what would that message be? Negoslav Maybe to be more open minded for different users with different abilities or different needs. Because for some people, reaching to something, reading something or interacting with something that is inaccessible is essential to do. But they cannot enough because they are stupid, not because they are unable to do this not because they are incompetent, just because the technology is preventing them from doing this or not. Not exactly the technology. But the way technologies are implemented Nic I like this. It's not the user who's incompetent. It's the designer and the developer who didn't do the job correctly. Negoslav Yes, and that makes things hard, but they could be much easier. Nic Negoslav Sabev. Thank you for sharing your insight that's been actually really, really powerful for me. So thank you, and we'll see you around on the web. Negoslav Thank you, Nic.]]> full 56 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they encountered on the web. Just a reminder that transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication from my website at http://a11yrules.com. I want to take the time to thank Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform. They are powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences. They do this through product testing and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable can work with your team at http://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Negoslav Sabev. Hi, Negoslav, how are you? Negoslav Hi Nic, I'm fine, thank you. Nic We've been interacting on Twitter on enough for for a while. And finally we connected. So thank you for for willing to come and chat with me about the barriers you experience on the web. Negoslav Thank you for the invitation. Nic You know by now my first question is what's your disability or your impairments? So can you tell us a little bit more about that? Negoslav I'm blind. I was born with glaucoma. And through a series of operations. Finally, I reached here. So since 2001, I'm totally blind. And I'm using computers and other electronic devices since 2003. Nic What's your favorite screen reader? Negoslav Oh, it's it's different experience on different devices. So it's hard to say to tell that on Windows, I mostly use JAWS because I'm doing a lot of text editing. I also use NVDA, for reasons. And on iOS device. So you know that there is only one screen reader and that's quite sober. So I use them. Nic Thank you. What would you say your greatest barrier or your biggest pet peeve is when you're using the internet. Negoslav Sometimes I feel that the developers and teams that are working on websites are trying to hide... trying to hide something from me and try to lock me out. What I mean is that sometimes text that should be heading is not a heading and just a big and bolded text. Sometimes there's a CAPTCHA that I have to solve. And it's not accessible at all. Even it has no alternative. Or the audio that is playing as an alternative is so bad that I can hardly hear it, even though I have very good hearing abilities. And I can give some examples. Last year, I was trying to get documents from the Ministry of Justice that I'm not been I have not been judged. And it I went to the website, I filled the form, I paid the tax to get this document and the document was in electronic format. And I had to open a link to to see it. But when I get got there and open the link, there was a CAPTCHA that had no alternative that even the screen reader couldn't see as a picture. Nic Wow. Negoslav So I was locked out and never saw this document and I was contacting the people that were working there some government agencies but unfortunately, no result and sometimes accessibility work is happening so slowly. That it's so bad. It's so bad. I read today someone who was tweeting. "I want it all, I want it now. But step by step." Nic Yes. And so what you're describing is an experience where it's not just a small barrier, it's not just something that's annoying. It's not that you can't order something on an online shopping platform, it really is that you aren't able to get critical government documents because they're creating barriers for you. Negoslav Yes, unfortunately, there are many other examples, I can give that somehow a content is hidden, I had such an experience, while trying to enter a pin that was presented in a totally inaccessible way no screen reader could see where I should, should press with the mouse or something else. The keyboard wasn't working, or there's something like pressing a button, and content is somewhere on the window. And I have to, to look through it thoroughly to see to see what's there and to interact with it. Nic If you had one message for designers or developers, what would that message be? Negoslav Maybe to be more open minded for different users with different abilities or different needs. Because for some people, reaching to something, reading something or interacting with something that is inaccessible is essential to do. But they cannot enough because they are stupid, not because they are unable to do this not because they are incompetent, just because the technology is preventing them from doing this or not. Not exactly the technology. But the way technologies are implemented Nic I like this. It's not the user who's incompetent. It's the designer and the developer who didn't do the job correctly. Negoslav Yes, and that makes things hard, but they could be much easier. Nic Negoslav Sabev. Thank you for sharing your insight that's been actually really, really powerful for me. So thank you, and we'll see you around on the web. Negoslav Thank you, Nic.]]> clean no 7:13 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/le-silveus-mcnamara-talks-about-neurodivergence-color-choices-and-overstimulation/ Mon, 07 Nov 2022 19:12:19 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=693 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout, and you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Just to remind you that transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. I am really grateful to Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences. They do that through product testing and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable can work with your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Lē McNamara. Hey, Lē, how are you? Lē Hi, I'm doing well thank you, Nic. Nic It's been a while since we've been in touch on and off on the web. And we worked a little bit together a while back on the Knowbility internet accessibility rally. And that was fun. And finally we get to connect. So let me ask you this, what's your disability or your impairment? Lē So well, I am a multiple neurodivergent. So I and I also live with a chronic illness. So the nuts and bolts are C PTSD, chronic pain condition and autoimmunity with self diagnosed autism, which is kind of a recent discovery that I have made of myself as part of being a part of the accessibility world. And man has that discovery, blown some things up wide open for me. So it's been that's been an exciting adventure the last few years. Nic It can be very exciting to realize you, you have something that has never been diagnosed, but suddenly when you realize it's like all the pieces of puzzle come together. Lē Exactly. Yep. Yeah. Nic So we're talking about barriers on the web, what would you say your your greatest barrier or your biggest pet peeve related to your disabilities and using the web? What what would that be? Lē So I would say the number one is going to be the overuse of high saturation, or what I call emergency colors. So when you are neurodivergent, although many of us see especially high saturation colors differently. So if you imagine, in your mind, a bright red, we might see that as more of a neon. And that same mechanism of you know, when you see when you're online and you see an emergency pop up, for example, and it's in that bright, high saturation red, that same mechanism that makes it so that that red gets your attention is overly stimulating for me. Right. And so when that color, whether it's high saturations reds, yellows, or oranges, when those colors are used, outside of the context of their intention, which is to say, an emergency, we need your attention right now. That hook, right, that hook into the mind can be very problematic. And in fact, when I see a website that uses especially high saturation, red as a branding color, and so you'll see it in blocks all over the side, or see buttons all over the site. It actually causes both high anxiety and nerve pain so that overstimulation can be so severe that it puts the nervous system into overload. And the experience of that internally is anxiety, frustration, sometimes a sense of panic, but also active pain that can last sometimes for a few minutes, but sometimes for several days. Nic Would you say then that companies that have red as a brand color need to change that or what would be a solution there? Lē Yes. So really, what we're looking at is the saturation level. So you can use red, but you want to bring the saturation level down. Right. And actually, if you want to see examples of what I mean by this, I did write a blog post that is currently posted on the TPGi website. It's called Going beyond WCAG losing spoons online. And in that article, I extrapolate some of the various issues that I have found on the internet and one of these, this is one of the issues and I do give visual examples that you can consent into or not for my, my neurodivergent peers, and also hex codes so that you can really see what I mean by high saturation, but your designers will know what you mean. And so you just want to bring the saturation down. So if you're using a warmer read that that's better Right. And then I would just say if you do you know, if you're a company that sort of stuck with a high saturation color that you've invested a lot of time in marketing in, and it's in your logo. Well, if it's just in your logo that might be okay. But take it out of the website in large blocks, right? Take it out as a big block background color, or as button colors, text colors, etc. Nic Thank you. If you had one message for designers or developers, what would it be? Is it along the lines of beware your colors? Or do you have something else for for them to think about? Lē I think it's I think it's broader than that. I think one of the things that, as a culture we are still overlooking when it comes to these new technologies, and how much time we're all spending with them is that at the end of the day, consuming Tech has a stimulant effect on the nervous system. And this is true for everyone, regardless of whether or not they're neuro divergent, but not unlike the consumption of overconsumption of a stimulant, like caffeine, for example, is bad for your health, the overconsumption of a stimulant, like technology, like the screen based technologies that we use, is also bad for your health. And that's just even more so true for those of us with what we call sensory sensitivities who are neurodivergent. Right? So I would encourage designers to educate themselves on the basic neuroscience of that and be thinking about it as they're designing to minimize their does minimize the stimulant nature of their designs, you know, as that as that light comes in through the eyes and affects the brain and affects the nervous system, right. So and that can be that can be a lot of things that can be minimizing motion, minimizing the amount of content on the screen at any one time, so minimizing clutter, you know, not not putting too much information all in one space. Limiting limiting color, color variance, decreasing the saturation of colors across the color spectrum, right. So there are a lot of things that we can think about and imagine to do to say, to say we understand this as a stimulant, naturally. So what can we do to minimize that effect, and that is going to not only help my population, but it's also going to decrease the negative long term effects of technology use on the population at large. Nic Lē, thank you so much for sharing your your experiences and giving some advice to our listeners. So thank you. Yeah, thank you]]> full 55 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout, and you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Just to remind you that transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. I am really grateful to Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences. They do that through product testing and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable can work with your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Lē McNamara. Hey, Lē, how are you? Lē Hi, I'm doing well thank you, Nic. Nic It's been a while since we've been in touch on and off on the web. And we worked a little bit together a while back on the Knowbility internet accessibility rally. And that was fun. And finally we get to connect. So let me ask you this, what's your disability or your impairment? Lē So well, I am a multiple neurodivergent. So I and I also live with a chronic illness. So the nuts and bolts are C PTSD, chronic pain condition and autoimmunity with self diagnosed autism, which is kind of a recent discovery that I have made of myself as part of being a part of the accessibility world. And man has that discovery, blown some things up wide open for me. So it's been that's been an exciting adventure the last few years. Nic It can be very exciting to realize you, you have something that has never been diagnosed, but suddenly when you realize it's like all the pieces of puzzle come together. Lē Exactly. Yep. Yeah. Nic So we're talking about barriers on the web, what would you say your your greatest barrier or your biggest pet peeve related to your disabilities and using the web? What what would that be? Lē So I would say the number one is going to be the overuse of high saturation, or what I call emergency colors. So when you are neurodivergent, although many of us see especially high saturation colors differently. So if you imagine, in your mind, a bright red, we might see that as more of a neon. And that same mechanism of you know, when you see when you're online and you see an emergency pop up, for example, and it's in that bright, high saturation red, that same mechanism that makes it so that that red gets your attention is overly stimulating for me. Right. And so when that color, whether it's high saturations reds, yellows, or oranges, when those colors are used, outside of the context of their intention, which is to say, an emergency, we need your attention right now. That hook, right, that hook into the mind can be very problematic. And in fact, when I see a website that uses especially high saturation, red as a branding color, and so you'll see it in blocks all over the side, or see buttons all over the site. It actually causes both high anxiety and nerve pain so that overstimulation can be so severe that it puts the nervous system into overload. And the experience of that internally is anxiety, frustration, sometimes a sense of panic, but also active pain that can last sometimes for a few minutes, but sometimes for several days. Nic Would you say then that companies that have red as a brand color need to change that or what would be a solution there? Lē Yes. So really, what we're looking at is the saturation level. So you can use red, but you want to bring the saturation level down. Right. And actually, if you want to see examples of what I mean by this, I did write a blog post that is currently posted on the TPGi website. It's called Going beyond WCAG losing spoons online. And in that article, I extrapolate some of the various issues that I have found on the internet and one of these, this is one of the issues and I do give visual examples that you can consent into or not for my, my neurodivergent peers, and also hex codes so that you can really see what I mean by high saturation, but your designers will know what you mean. And so you just want to bring the saturation down. So if you're using a warmer read that that's better Right. And then I would just say if you do you know, if you're a company that sort of stuck with a high saturation color that you've invested a lot of time in marketing in, and it's in your logo. Well, if it's just in your logo that might be okay. But take it out of the website in large blocks, right? Take it out as a big block background color, or as button colors, text colors, etc. Nic Thank you. If you had one message for designers or developers, what would it be? Is it along the lines of beware your colors? Or do you have something else for for them to think about? Lē I think it's I think it's broader than that. I think one of the things that, as a culture we are still overlooking when it comes to these new technologies, and how much time we're all spending with them is that at the end of the day, consuming Tech has a stimulant effect on the nervous system. And this is true for everyone, regardless of whether or not they're neuro divergent, but not unlike the consumption of overconsumption of a stimulant, like caffeine, for example, is bad for your health, the overconsumption of a stimulant, like technology, like the screen based technologies that we use, is also bad for your health. And that's just even more so true for those of us with what we call sensory sensitivities who are neurodivergent. Right? So I would encourage designers to educate themselves on the basic neuroscience of that and be thinking about it as they're designing to minimize their does minimize the stimulant nature of their designs, you know, as that as that light comes in through the eyes and affects the brain and affects the nervous system, right. So and that can be that can be a lot of things that can be minimizing motion, minimizing the amount of content on the screen at any one time, so minimizing clutter, you know, not not putting too much information all in one space. Limiting limiting color, color variance, decreasing the saturation of colors across the color spectrum, right. So there are a lot of things that we can think about and imagine to do to say, to say we understand this as a stimulant, naturally. So what can we do to minimize that effect, and that is going to not only help my population, but it's also going to decrease the negative long term effects of technology use on the population at large. Nic Lē, thank you so much for sharing your your experiences and giving some advice to our listeners. So thank you. Yeah, thank you]]> clean no 7:48 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/sam-evans-talks-about-being-hard-of-hearing-and-the-importance-of-captions/ Mon, 31 Oct 2022 04:53:23 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=686 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and the barrier they experience on the web. Just a quick reminder, transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. I would like to thank Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organization from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experience through product testing and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable works with your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Nic So today I'm talking with Sam Evans. Hey, Sam, how are you? Sam Doing very well today. Thank you, Nic. Nic We have been talking a lot over the years. I've been trying to organize you coming on this show for a little bit. So I'm glad we finally connect. Let me start with the question I asked everybody. The first question is what's your disability or your impairment? Sam The biggest challenge I face is being hard of hearing I have... I use hearing aids. And so I am very much relying on captions. And if I'm in person with someone lip reading, or if their image is large enough on a screen to compensate for being able to hear and understand clearly what the spoken word is. Nic How does doing video calls like this on a platform where there's not necessarily captions? How does that work? Sam I'm familiar with your speaking tone and, and how that works for you. And having seen your face in person, and a clearer view of your face where we have video while we're chatting. But I turned my audio up. Now if you're if you're covering your mouth, I wouldn't be able to but but I turned my audio up. And I also have my hearing aids tuned in for audio input from a computer device. So I rely a lot on trying to understand context, if it's on a video call. And trying to catch what's happening, I'll often use a secondary tool or device if there's not captions included in the episode or in the event. Most of that is AI. So at best 60%, 70%, maybe 80% accuracy. So it's a lot of guestimation which is a lot of cognitive load on top of trying to engage. Nic That would actually be very tiring. I mean, everybody finds video calls tiring. But if you have to have that added cognitive load on top of it, how... What's the effect, if you have, you know, three or four or five hours of video call in a day? Sam It's exhausting. And for those of us who've come up in trying to multitask and functionally do more than one thing at a time, you cannot do other things other than follow along, listen, try to hear, read and engage. So even if you are dedicated to doing nothing but being on focus, it's still a lot of load. It's mentally strenuous, in addition to trying to take in what audio my ears can hear. Nic All right, so that seems like a pretty significant thing. But my usual second question is what's your biggest barrier or your biggest pet peeve on the web related to your disability? Is it different from from this thing that we've just been talking about? Or? Sam One of the other things that accompanies that, for me is vestibular disability about balance and motion. And so if those two things come together with online video content, it's it can be just absolutely draining for the day. So my biggest pet peeve is why people who produce content where they have the script, they have the content, they have the time they have the resources, don't provide captions that are accurate or don't make the time to invest in accurate and usable captions, perhaps not understanding and I think that's the biggest challenge. For me, the biggest pet peeve is not understanding what quality accurate usable captions mean to people who need them. And this concept of just turn the captions on and you're done. And that seems to skip over the entire part of understanding the people who have a need. And I don't think it's malicious and intent, but the outcome is the same for people who are prevented and from engaging and face that barrier. Nic You talk about accurate captions, and you throw out some numbers before. We said 60% or 70%, maybe 80%. Isn't 80% success rate good enough? I mean that, you know, if you use sit to test, typically 80%, you've passed the test 80% When I was at university is an A. Sam It is for evaluations for maybe knowledge assessments. But when we talk about the accuracy of captions, every 1% loss and accuracy in captions in the research I've read most recently is about a 10% loss in comprehension. So if we're talking 80% As a best for AI, that's a 20% loss in accuracy. And if you multiply that by 10%, for comprehension, we've reduced the comprehension by 200%. Nic Nice. That's very nice. I mean, it's not but it's, it's, it's an interesting set of numbers. Thank you. Sam So 1% accuracy if we consider just a simple word, and it depends on someone's pronunciation, or accent or speaking patterns. If AI, artificial intelligence gets the word can't C A N, apostrophe T wrong, then somebody is going to say, oh, I can do this. One word. Nic Yeah. Sam And make a massive difference in the guidance, instructions, or information someone comes away with. So that's one to 20%. That's massive, and change. Nic Yeah, I come across that all the time. I use voice to text on my phone very often. And I cannot use voice to text without editing what I'm sending. And a couple of days ago, I had a good laugh. I said argument, and Siri wrote sex garment. And it was in the context of a business communication. So that would not have gone very well. Sam I also cannot trust Siri to hear and translate what I speak all the time. I tried to double check, but we're not there yet. And 20? Nic Yeah, we are not there yet. So if you had one message for designers or developers around accessibility, what, what would that be? Sam I want to encourage designers and developers to first think about the people. So first, start by understanding disability. Pick one, two or three types of disability and consider the barriers that disabled people face with digital engagement and learn just some of those personas, and how disabled people engage, and how inaccessible content prevents them from having an equitable experience. If we can start with the who, then we can think about why there's a challenge a barrier or how we, as developers, designers, can change our methods to remove a barrier instead of creating or sustaining existing barriers. And I think if developers can take one moment to think I want to make the world less full of barriers, they don't have to remove them all. But what can I do to remove one barrier? I think that's a really empowering opportunity for developers, when they can make it a personal effort, as opposed to a task list or challenge or an add on to what they're already doing in their busy days. If they can find a personal commitment to why it affects humans, to make the world a better place, I think that usually is the way that I find developers most likely to voluntarily affect change in their process. Nic I love that. Sam Evans, thank you for being such a good guest. And I'm sure we'll see you around on the web. Sam We will. Thanks so much for having me join today, Nic, I appreciate it.]]> full 54 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and the barrier they experience on the web. Just a quick reminder, transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. I would like to thank Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organization from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experience through product testing and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable works with your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Nic So today I'm talking with Sam Evans. Hey, Sam, how are you? Sam Doing very well today. Thank you, Nic. Nic We have been talking a lot over the years. I've been trying to organize you coming on this show for a little bit. So I'm glad we finally connect. Let me start with the question I asked everybody. The first question is what's your disability or your impairment? Sam The biggest challenge I face is being hard of hearing I have... I use hearing aids. And so I am very much relying on captions. And if I'm in person with someone lip reading, or if their image is large enough on a screen to compensate for being able to hear and understand clearly what the spoken word is. Nic How does doing video calls like this on a platform where there's not necessarily captions? How does that work? Sam I'm familiar with your speaking tone and, and how that works for you. And having seen your face in person, and a clearer view of your face where we have video while we're chatting. But I turned my audio up. Now if you're if you're covering your mouth, I wouldn't be able to but but I turned my audio up. And I also have my hearing aids tuned in for audio input from a computer device. So I rely a lot on trying to understand context, if it's on a video call. And trying to catch what's happening, I'll often use a secondary tool or device if there's not captions included in the episode or in the event. Most of that is AI. So at best 60%, 70%, maybe 80% accuracy. So it's a lot of guestimation which is a lot of cognitive load on top of trying to engage. Nic That would actually be very tiring. I mean, everybody finds video calls tiring. But if you have to have that added cognitive load on top of it, how... What's the effect, if you have, you know, three or four or five hours of video call in a day? Sam It's exhausting. And for those of us who've come up in trying to multitask and functionally do more than one thing at a time, you cannot do other things other than follow along, listen, try to hear, read and engage. So even if you are dedicated to doing nothing but being on focus, it's still a lot of load. It's mentally strenuous, in addition to trying to take in what audio my ears can hear. Nic All right, so that seems like a pretty significant thing. But my usual second question is what's your biggest barrier or your biggest pet peeve on the web related to your disability? Is it different from from this thing that we've just been talking about? Or? Sam One of the other things that accompanies that, for me is vestibular disability about balance and motion. And so if those two things come together with online video content, it's it can be just absolutely draining for the day. So my biggest pet peeve is why people who produce content where they have the script, they have the content, they have the time they have the resources, don't provide captions that are accurate or don't make the time to invest in accurate and usable captions, perhaps not understanding and I think that's the biggest challenge. For me, the biggest pet peeve is not understanding what quality accurate usable captions mean to people who need them. And this concept of just turn the captions on and you're done. And that seems to skip over the entire part of understanding the people who have a need. And I don't think it's malicious and intent, but the outcome is the same for people who are prevented and from engaging and face that barrier. Nic You talk about accurate captions, and you throw out some numbers before. We said 60% or 70%, maybe 80%. Isn't 80% success rate good enough? I mean that, you know, if you use sit to test, typically 80%, you've passed the test 80% When I was at university is an A. Sam It is for evaluations for maybe knowledge assessments. But when we talk about the accuracy of captions, every 1% loss and accuracy in captions in the research I've read most recently is about a 10% loss in comprehension. So if we're talking 80% As a best for AI, that's a 20% loss in accuracy. And if you multiply that by 10%, for comprehension, we've reduced the comprehension by 200%. Nic Nice. That's very nice. I mean, it's not but it's, it's, it's an interesting set of numbers. Thank you. Sam So 1% accuracy if we consider just a simple word, and it depends on someone's pronunciation, or accent or speaking patterns. If AI, artificial intelligence gets the word can't C A N, apostrophe T wrong, then somebody is going to say, oh, I can do this. One word. Nic Yeah. Sam And make a massive difference in the guidance, instructions, or information someone comes away with. So that's one to 20%. That's massive, and change. Nic Yeah, I come across that all the time. I use voice to text on my phone very often. And I cannot use voice to text without editing what I'm sending. And a couple of days ago, I had a good laugh. I said argument, and Siri wrote sex garment. And it was in the context of a business communication. So that would not have gone very well. Sam I also cannot trust Siri to hear and translate what I speak all the time. I tried to double check, but we're not there yet. And 20? Nic Yeah, we are not there yet. So if you had one message for designers or developers around accessibility, what, what would that be? Sam I want to encourage designers and developers to first think about the people. So first, start by understanding disability. Pick one, two or three types of disability and consider the barriers that disabled people face with digital engagement and learn just some of those personas, and how disabled people engage, and how inaccessible content prevents them from having an equitable experience. If we can start with the who, then we can think about why there's a challenge a barrier or how we, as developers, designers, can change our methods to remove a barrier instead of creating or sustaining existing barriers. And I think if developers can take one moment to think I want to make the world less full of barriers, they don't have to remove them all. But what can I do to remove one barrier? I think that's a really empowering opportunity for developers, when they can make it a personal effort, as opposed to a task list or challenge or an add on to what they're already doing in their busy days. If they can find a personal commitment to why it affects humans, to make the world a better place, I think that usually is the way that I find developers most likely to voluntarily affect change in their process. Nic I love that. Sam Evans, thank you for being such a good guest. And I'm sure we'll see you around on the web. Sam We will. Thanks so much for having me join today, Nic, I appreciate it.]]> clean no 9:36 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/barry-hill-talks-about-screen-readers-and-lack-of-semantic-meaning-on-the-web/ Mon, 24 Oct 2022 13:37:47 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=685 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. A reminder that there are transcripts for this, and all other episodes on the podcast's website a11yrules.com/ Thanks to Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences, through product testing and custom courses. Learn more about how Fable can work for your team at: makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Barry Hill. Hey, Barry, how are you? Barry I'm good. Thank you very much happy, I'm healthy, Nic Happy and healthy is good, is good. You come to us from the UK. So we... We had a little bit of fun and games scheduling these things. You're You're in my future right now. Barry Yes, yes. It's nearly time for me to make dinner over here. And I think you've just about finished breakfast. Nic That's right. That's right. Breakfast and dinner. Nothing wrong with having breakfast for dinner. Anyway, Barry What's your disability or your impairment? Barry I've been blind for 28 years now. I went blind, suddenly, through a car crash. Many hours, a sales rep driving for a living. And then I had a horrific car crash and woke up in hospital with no sight. You never know what's going to happen to you the day after? Nic Yeah, that would be quite a quite a shock and a complete change of lifestyle, wouldn't it? Barry Oh, yes. Yes, it was. Nic So 28 years blind, you've probably come to develop a lot of coping mechanisms and techniques to function on the web. But I'm still quite certain you encounter barriers, what would you say is your biggest barrier or your biggest pet peeve on the web? Barry My biggest pet peeve is the way that developers program writers have gone from writing basic code to using WYSIWYG and drag and drop programs. So you're not writing code anymore. And it seems like everything, either is a hacked or needs to be hacked. And that makes it difficult for me to use my screen reader online as I would to interpret websites. It's not as straightforward. So I have to guess a lot of things or work around them, I have to figure out workarounds, or go by experience of when I've come across this hash up before and just don't like it when there's an easy alternative. It really does irritate me that it's there. People just don't understand that we have tools there that can make things so much simpler. Nic So if I understand correctly, what you're saying is that the reliance on JavaScript frameworks is making everything worse for you as a screen reader user. Barry Yeah, yeah. I don't know the language. But JavaScript do sound very much like what's happening. But yes, without a doubt, people are just and it's not just that as well. People are using links for buttons and buttons for links, they are coding divs as buttons, and I just don't understand why they need to do that sort of thing. Why not just use the proper elements? Nic Yeah, well, that's certainly a rant I've been on about for for a little while, you know, HTML matters. Yeah. Yeah. Barry, my message to designers and developers, it's HTML matters. But what would be your one message to designers and developers as regards to web accessibility? Barry It's that very thing. I just wish that coders would learn HTML, it's not difficult. I learned HTML, took me two months to learn that 100 different pieces of code for it. And I wrote a website and that was about 10 or 12 years ago. Did that. I can still remember a lot of it. So it's really not difficult to do and some of the things that are really useful for me the structural HTML, you only need maybe 12 or 15 of them to know how to go to a website to make it so that I can navigate a website with ease, using things like headers, footers, main skip links. It just makes it so much easier. If I can open a webpage, and my screen reader will just tell me the whole layout of that page through this semantic markup, and I know what to expect then before I even started looking at. So I can almost get a feel for the page at the same speed as a sighted person when they glance at our page, if it's got proper semantic markup. Nic Thank you, Barry. I love to hear this message coming from a screen reader user. Because, you know, a lot of people in the accessibility community are saying the very same thing. So we're not just inventing things it's the lived experience of a blind screen reader users. Use semantic HTML user outlines. This is fantastic. Thank you. Barry You're welcome. Nic Barry, thanks for being a good guest and your candid answers, really appreciate it. And we'll see you around on the web. Barry Definitely. And probably on Twitter as well. I've been following you on Twitter for a while as well, Nic. Nic Probably on Twitter. I spent a lot of time there. Barry, thank you.]]> Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. A reminder that there are transcripts for this, and all other episodes on the podcast's website a11yrules.com/ Thanks to Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences, through product testing and custom courses. Learn more about how Fable can work for your team at: makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Barry Hill. Hey, Barry, how are you? Barry I'm good. Thank you very much happy, I'm healthy, Nic Happy and healthy is good, is good. You come to us from the UK. So we... We had a little bit of fun and games scheduling these things. You're You're in my future right now. Barry Yes, yes. It's nearly time for me to make dinner over here. And I think you've just about finished breakfast. Nic That's right. That's right. Breakfast and dinner. Nothing wrong with having breakfast for dinner. Anyway, Barry What's your disability or your impairment? Barry I've been blind for 28 years now. I went blind, suddenly, through a car crash. Many hours, a sales rep driving for a living. And then I had a horrific car crash and woke up in hospital with no sight. You never know what's going to happen to you the day after? Nic Yeah, that would be quite a quite a shock and a complete change of lifestyle, wouldn't it? Barry Oh, yes. Yes, it was. Nic So 28 years blind, you've probably come to develop a lot of coping mechanisms and techniques to function on the web. But I'm still quite certain you encounter barriers, what would you say is your biggest barrier or your biggest pet peeve on the web? Barry My biggest pet peeve is the way that developers program writers have gone from writing basic code to using WYSIWYG and drag and drop programs. So you're not writing code anymore. And it seems like everything, either is a hacked or needs to be hacked. And that makes it difficult for me to use my screen reader online as I would to interpret websites. It's not as straightforward. So I have to guess a lot of things or work around them, I have to figure out workarounds, or go by experience of when I've come across this hash up before and just don't like it when there's an easy alternative. It really does irritate me that it's there. People just don't understand that we have tools there that can make things so much simpler. Nic So if I understand correctly, what you're saying is that the reliance on JavaScript frameworks is making everything worse for you as a screen reader user. Barry Yeah, yeah. I don't know the language. But JavaScript do sound very much like what's happening. But yes, without a doubt, people are just and it's not just that as well. People are using links for buttons and buttons for links, they are coding divs as buttons, and I just don't understand why they need to do that sort of thing. Why not just use the proper elements? Nic Yeah, well, that's certainly a rant I've been on about for for a little while, you know, HTML matters. Yeah. Yeah. Barry, my message to designers and developers, it's HTML matters. But what would be your one message to designers and developers as regards to web accessibility? Barry It's that very thing. I just wish that coders would learn HTML, it's not difficult. I learned HTML, took me two months to learn that 100 different pieces of code for it. And I wrote a website and that was about 10 or 12 years ago. Did that. I can still remember a lot of it. So it's really not difficult to do and some of the things that are really useful for me the structural HTML, you only need maybe 12 or 15 of them to know how to go to a website to make it so that I can navigate a website with ease, using things like headers, footers, main skip links. It just makes it so much easier. If I can open a webpage, and my screen reader will just tell me the whole layout of that page through this semantic markup, and I know what to expect then before I even started looking at. So I can almost get a feel for the page at the same speed as a sighted person when they glance at our page, if it's got proper semantic markup. Nic Thank you, Barry. I love to hear this message coming from a screen reader user. Because, you know, a lot of people in the accessibility community are saying the very same thing. So we're not just inventing things it's the lived experience of a blind screen reader users. Use semantic HTML user outlines. This is fantastic. Thank you. Barry You're welcome. Nic Barry, thanks for being a good guest and your candid answers, really appreciate it. And we'll see you around on the web. Barry Definitely. And probably on Twitter as well. I've been following you on Twitter for a while as well, Nic. Nic Probably on Twitter. I spent a lot of time there. Barry, thank you.]]> clean no 6:53 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/john-tubbs-talks-about-dyslexia-and-user-choice/ Mon, 17 Oct 2022 22:52:48 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=683 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts, where disabled people explain their impairment and what barriers they encounter on the web. Just a quick reminder that transcripts are available for all episodes at a time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. Thanks to Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences through product testing, and custom courses. Learn more about how fable can work for your team at makeitfable.com/nic Nic Today I am talking with John Tubbs. Hey, John, how are ya? John Good to be here. Nic. Thank you. Nic Well, thanks for joining me. Let's talk a little bit first about what's your disability or your impairment? John It's an interesting question. I've never had a formal diagnosis. But working with the whole area of accessibility, universal design such in my work at the University, I've been able to kind of self diagnose and looking back at my history academically, educationally, developmentally, I could see where there were certainly some things that I did not address or were not addressed with me by people in my past institutions, in my past that they probably should have! Really what I can trace it down to is I have a language processing, a Semantic Processing problem that really jumbles words, re... puts words back together in odd situations, or relationships. The best way to describe it, and for folks that are from America, and of my age, which is late 50s. You probably remember the electric company is a children's show on public television. And they had a learning skit that they always did, and they took an opening consonant sound, and a closing vowel consonant sound, and then assemble them pa at Pat, cup at cat. So what my processing does is it will look across a sentence of words on a page, and it will start reassembling the words on me. So I will see Pat instead of cat or bat instead of cat, as I'm reading through, and the biggest place where I see it happen often is between lines of text. So as I'm reading through, I will be reassembling words based on letters in combination and see in other lines while I'm reading. So it's it's pretty difficult for me to consistently read through long form, especially if it's tightly compressed words on a page or on the screen. The other interesting thing about this though, it's not just in my own reading practice, it comes to me just... It rolls in my head as noise. So the best option I can ever description I can give of this is growing up I played hockey. And I would remember being on the ice, like lining up for a face off. And I would hear these, the electric company playing in my head. It was something I would see something in the stairs on the scoreboard on the stands, a sign a fan might be who knows, a word would hit me and I would start spinning of all what consonant combination in my head as I'm playing hockey, so it's something that once my head starts spinning, it's it's like the roulette wheel with the ball going around in one direction and balls go in the other direction. And it just becomes this cognitive noise. That is just nerve racking. Yeah, and I've never outgrown that, surprisingly. Nic So, if we were to put a label on, at least the first part of what you describe, I would associate that strongly with dyslexia. John Yeah, that's been that's been my take on it. My wife who also studies disability and has a lot of experience with her own students, as a professor would go to the same way, come to the same conclusion. I would also have to add, you know, I do have some of the classic can't do left, right. Right, I'll say left. And I mean, right, and vice versa. And so that is obviously a very difficult situation. Nic Yeah. John When you're driving with somebody, Nic Yes, I can see that. So what would you say your biggest pet peeve or your biggest barrier related to that and accessibility on the web is? John Well, the web gives me a fighting chance, sometimes. A printed page, I'm stuck with the printed page, I can't do anything about it. But the web, at least gives me the opportunity to do some things with my devices, whether it be a browser on screen or mobile device, or whatever else if I can control the CSS. Now, the problem is, for me, it's not just bigger letters. That doesn't help. Because the relative space between the lines stays the same, the letters just get bigger, maybe it's a bigger problem. Hard to say. But what, when I first learned about CSS, all of a sudden, in the places I had some control over CSS, I could take better control of my reading, in that I could adjust the line spacing, at a doesn't have to be double space, you know, the page, the density of text on the page, all that would contribute. But if I could change the line spacing, I was really, I was in a much better situation, I could turn off the noise that I would see between lines of text. So if it's densely packed, and I can't do anything about it, that's tough, you know, sometimes, just reorienting, the length of the line can help it. So if I'm on a mobile device, especially I can go portrait landscape flip. And sometimes that helps, because I changed, again, just the density of lines. And sometimes, you know, you go with the go there and the CSS changes, you know, because you're in different views. So it's it that can be helpful. It's not necessarily helpful. But, you know, over over the years, I've just come to instinctively do different things to try to give myself a leg up. Nic So what I'm hearing from you is that the web can either be really helping you because if you have control, you can actually interact with the content in a way that works for you. Or it can be just as bad a barrier as the printed word. Because if you can't adjust to your own print preference, if you want. John Right, Nic then you're stuck. John Yeah, yeah. Again, in, you know, traditionally, we think with, you know, either some visual challenges or, you know, cognitive challenges and reading, reading, processing, you know, large screen text and stuff was often the thing that you'd be, you know, considering, but that doesn't help me seemingly. So yeah, the web gives me this fighting chance, like I was saying, now it comes down to, you know, great user interface design, that would allow you to have that available to the user, so they can make their own decisions. And not to let the cat out of the bag about you and I Nic. But we've had lots of discussions over the years, just about user preference to handle their assistive technologies. We and you know, myself and my background as a instructional media designer, and producer. You know, I learned the hard way, by getting, you know, some incredible pushback from disability, disabled people that were in my classes that I was providing content for, that they didn't like what I provided them, because it didn't fit what they wanted to use. And the example of course, that we've discussed it at length in the past is I provided what would be the textbook, assistive technology and remediation and content for someone who was blind. That person didn't want the textbook blind, accommodation. They wanted something else. I was doing what I thought was the best thing and it was not what they needed. And then I said to myself as a content creator and producer, how do I know? I never will when you do big online learning. I in the courses that I was designing for I had half A million learners in a single course half a million. That's 50,000. At minimum, folks with some sort of need for an accommodation. Nic Yeah. John I will never know, know those 50,000 people. So you know, the web and the user interface design is crucial that it lets the user make their own decisions. And that's what I had to do. And maybe I just did I put that in the back of my mind and said, Gosh, here's the user interface that I really like, because I can change the line spacing. Or I can do this or I can do Yeah, so my brain can see the page can connect with the page and make, derive meaning from that page. Nic If you had one message for designer or developer, would it be around this concept of let the user choose? Or would it be something else? John Oh, let the user choose is my mantra, and has been my mantra for the last 10 years, really, if it just has to be the case, I as a designer, I never wanted to let a good, universally designed page look bad, esthetically. And so I always was, you know, wandering between my designers, and my content. And then my folks that work with accessibility stuff along with me to make it all come together all, you know, in something that's beautiful, but yet completely universally designed. So then every user can have a successful experience. So it's, it can be done. We've, I've I've worked very, very hard on trying to do that it can be done. It takes effort, and it takes, you know, again, great knowledge of CSS, but then also knowing what kind of CSS accommodations to build for what what what do I put in that CSS control panel that can be called out easily. And you know that it's there as a user on that page. That allows it not just for oh, you're blind, you're deaf, you're this You're that you? Whatever. Have it open the CSS open enough that anybody can choose their way of participating. So if there's like a magic bullet, or you know, the ultimate target to shoot for, that's what I would look for, not to ever, ever, ever dictate to someone's assistive technologies. Nic Yeah. Thank you, John, that that is a very powerful way to finish the show. John Tubbs, thank you for sharing that stuff with us and we'll see you around on the web. John Thank you very much Nic, appreciate it. Nic Cheers.]]> full 52 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts, where disabled people explain their impairment and what barriers they encounter on the web. Just a quick reminder that transcripts are available for all episodes at a time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. Thanks to Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences through product testing, and custom courses. Learn more about how fable can work for your team at makeitfable.com/nic Nic Today I am talking with John Tubbs. Hey, John, how are ya? John Good to be here. Nic. Thank you. Nic Well, thanks for joining me. Let's talk a little bit first about what's your disability or your impairment? John It's an interesting question. I've never had a formal diagnosis. But working with the whole area of accessibility, universal design such in my work at the University, I've been able to kind of self diagnose and looking back at my history academically, educationally, developmentally, I could see where there were certainly some things that I did not address or were not addressed with me by people in my past institutions, in my past that they probably should have! Really what I can trace it down to is I have a language processing, a Semantic Processing problem that really jumbles words, re... puts words back together in odd situations, or relationships. The best way to describe it, and for folks that are from America, and of my age, which is late 50s. You probably remember the electric company is a children's show on public television. And they had a learning skit that they always did, and they took an opening consonant sound, and a closing vowel consonant sound, and then assemble them pa at Pat, cup at cat. So what my processing does is it will look across a sentence of words on a page, and it will start reassembling the words on me. So I will see Pat instead of cat or bat instead of cat, as I'm reading through, and the biggest place where I see it happen often is between lines of text. So as I'm reading through, I will be reassembling words based on letters in combination and see in other lines while I'm reading. So it's it's pretty difficult for me to consistently read through long form, especially if it's tightly compressed words on a page or on the screen. The other interesting thing about this though, it's not just in my own reading practice, it comes to me just... It rolls in my head as noise. So the best option I can ever description I can give of this is growing up I played hockey. And I would remember being on the ice, like lining up for a face off. And I would hear these, the electric company playing in my head. It was something I would see something in the stairs on the scoreboard on the stands, a sign a fan might be who knows, a word would hit me and I would start spinning of all what consonant combination in my head as I'm playing hockey, so it's something that once my head starts spinning, it's it's like the roulette wheel with the ball going around in one direction and balls go in the other direction. And it just becomes this cognitive noise. That is just nerve racking. Yeah, and I've never outgrown that, surprisingly. Nic So, if we were to put a label on, at least the first part of what you describe, I would associate that strongly with dyslexia. John Yeah, that's been that's been my take on it. My wife who also studies disability and has a lot of experience with her own students, as a professor would go to the same way, come to the same conclusion. I would also have to add, you know, I do have some of the classic can't do left, right. Right, I'll say left. And I mean, right, and vice versa. And so that is obviously a very difficult situation. Nic Yeah. John When you're driving with somebody, Nic Yes, I can see that. So what would you say your biggest pet peeve or your biggest barrier related to that and accessibility on the web is? John Well, the web gives me a fighting chance, sometimes. A printed page, I'm stuck with the printed page, I can't do anything about it. But the web, at least gives me the opportunity to do some things with my devices, whether it be a browser on screen or mobile device, or whatever else if I can control the CSS. Now, the problem is, for me, it's not just bigger letters. That doesn't help. Because the relative space between the lines stays the same, the letters just get bigger, maybe it's a bigger problem. Hard to say. But what, when I first learned about CSS, all of a sudden, in the places I had some control over CSS, I could take better control of my reading, in that I could adjust the line spacing, at a doesn't have to be double space, you know, the page, the density of text on the page, all that would contribute. But if I could change the line spacing, I was really, I was in a much better situation, I could turn off the noise that I would see between lines of text. So if it's densely packed, and I can't do anything about it, that's tough, you know, sometimes, just reorienting, the length of the line can help it. So if I'm on a mobile device, especially I can go portrait landscape flip. And sometimes that helps, because I changed, again, just the density of lines. And sometimes, you know, you go with the go there and the CSS changes, you know, because you're in different views. So it's it that can be helpful. It's not necessarily helpful. But, you know, over over the years, I've just come to instinctively do different things to try to give myself a leg up. Nic So what I'm hearing from you is that the web can either be really helping you because if you have control, you can actually interact with the content in a way that works for you. Or it can be just as bad a barrier as the printed word. Because if you can't adjust to your own print preference, if you want. John Right, Nic then you're stuck. John Yeah, yeah. Again, in, you know, traditionally, we think with, you know, either some visual challenges or, you know, cognitive challenges and reading, reading, processing, you know, large screen text and stuff was often the thing that you'd be, you know, considering, but that doesn't help me seemingly. So yeah, the web gives me this fighting chance, like I was saying, now it comes down to, you know, great user interface design, that would allow you to have that available to the user, so they can make their own decisions. And not to let the cat out of the bag about you and I Nic. But we've had lots of discussions over the years, just about user preference to handle their assistive technologies. We and you know, myself and my background as a instructional media designer, and producer. You know, I learned the hard way, by getting, you know, some incredible pushback from disability, disabled people that were in my classes that I was providing content for, that they didn't like what I provided them, because it didn't fit what they wanted to use. And the example of course, that we've discussed it at length in the past is I provided what would be the textbook, assistive technology and remediation and content for someone who was blind. That person didn't want the textbook blind, accommodation. They wanted something else. I was doing what I thought was the best thing and it was not what they needed. And then I said to myself as a content creator and producer, how do I know? I never will when you do big online learning. I in the courses that I was designing for I had half A million learners in a single course half a million. That's 50,000. At minimum, folks with some sort of need for an accommodation. Nic Yeah. John I will never know, know those 50,000 people. So you know, the web and the user interface design is crucial that it lets the user make their own decisions. And that's what I had to do. And maybe I just did I put that in the back of my mind and said, Gosh, here's the user interface that I really like, because I can change the line spacing. Or I can do this or I can do Yeah, so my brain can see the page can connect with the page and make, derive meaning from that page. Nic If you had one message for designer or developer, would it be around this concept of let the user choose? Or would it be something else? John Oh, let the user choose is my mantra, and has been my mantra for the last 10 years, really, if it just has to be the case, I as a designer, I never wanted to let a good, universally designed page look bad, esthetically. And so I always was, you know, wandering between my designers, and my content. And then my folks that work with accessibility stuff along with me to make it all come together all, you know, in something that's beautiful, but yet completely universally designed. So then every user can have a successful experience. So it's, it can be done. We've, I've I've worked very, very hard on trying to do that it can be done. It takes effort, and it takes, you know, again, great knowledge of CSS, but then also knowing what kind of CSS accommodations to build for what what what do I put in that CSS control panel that can be called out easily. And you know that it's there as a user on that page. That allows it not just for oh, you're blind, you're deaf, you're this You're that you? Whatever. Have it open the CSS open enough that anybody can choose their way of participating. So if there's like a magic bullet, or you know, the ultimate target to shoot for, that's what I would look for, not to ever, ever, ever dictate to someone's assistive technologies. Nic Yeah. Thank you, John, that that is a very powerful way to finish the show. John Tubbs, thank you for sharing that stuff with us and we'll see you around on the web. John Thank you very much Nic, appreciate it. Nic Cheers.]]> clean no 13:08 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/andy-feuling-talks-about-one-handed-gaming/ Mon, 10 Oct 2022 18:38:02 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=678 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barrier they encounter on the web. Quick reminder that transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. Thanks to Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences, through product testing, and custom courses. Learn more about how Fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Andy fueling. Andy is I think going to talk more about gaming rather than specifically, web accessibility. But I think it all falls into the realm of digital accessibility and it's good stuff to know about. Hey, Andy, how are you doing? Andy Hey doing good, how about yourself? Nic I'm doing all right. I'm glad we connected. We haven't really spoken before, but super excited about talking about this topic. Andy Yeah, me too. Me too. Nic So what's your impairment or your disability? Andy Um, so I am missing most of my right arm, I actually have one hand, and a very little portion of my right arm itself, actually. Andy Okay, so how does that impact your gaming? I mean, the obvious thing I could think of is if you have a console controller, which is basically a two handed thing, but is there any? Any other thing that is maybe less obvious9:38, yeah. So yeah, first one, absolutely correct. Controllers themselves for year, I've had issues with constantly because the fact that Yeah, they really are a two handed object. You kind of need both hands to use both sides of the actual controller, primarily the triggers. For a very long time, I was never able to play FPS games, like first person shooters, or any game that really required you to use both the left triggers and the right triggers simultaneously. At the same time, I always ran into that issue. And I had workarounds, you know, like I would, you know, like, jam the controller into my hip, so that I could hit ... or like my thigh, so I could hit the right trigger, or the right bumper if I needed to. But I was always discouraged from playing games like Halo, and Call of Duty, even Forzas games, like with a lot of like automobile games, like you had to use the right trigger. So I always ran into issues with that. And then the only other main thing that I have always seen as a big issue with games was custom button. Yeah, button mapping. So like, you know, you can make certain inputs on your controller different from what they are inside of the game. So say you wanted to make a like left trigger, you could do that. I've always enjoyed it when I found games I could do that with because I could actually customize it to my own specific needs. So yeah, Nic So okay, so apart from controllers what else is there that is a significant barrier for you and gaming? Andy Outside of the actual button mapping, and everything else, I would say it's the competition. And just general play with other people, because the way that I see it, and if you go into and you look around with different players, there are multiple ways you can hold on to a controller. But on top of that you have mouse and keyboard players at the same exact time. I have never been able to play with mouse and keyboard actually. So bringing back too many games, one of the biggest ones is World of Warcraft. I was always, always ran into issues trying to play that game because you kind of do need to have both functionalities of both hands, to press things on the keyboard and to press things or to you know, point and click with your mouse. And so one thing that I've always wanted to be able to see was more customization and possibilities for anything that is mouse and keyboard can also be for controller. And also seeing that as a huge disparity because, you know, it brings you away from gameplay, it isn't the way the developers initially intended you to play the actual game. But the way that I've seen is that everybody has an interest in wanting to play almost any kind of game, you know, specifically, World of Warcraft, for me, I played it here and there, but it was very, very pulled back for me, I wasn't able to be able to press certain buttons on the keyboard fast enough, as I was moving back and forth. With my one hand, trying to use both the mouse and the keyboard or, because I do have like a knob is the actual medical terminology for it. I can't press more than two buttons at the same time. So, you know, I'm trying to cast a spell on trying to activate an ability, and I'm hitting two at the same time. So it's like one to gray both at the same exact time. So I'm like, well, that's, that's not going to work out. So I'm having to like, you know, go move back and forth and everything. But um, yeah, on top of that, it's also like, the adjustments you can do for the analog sticks. And or mouse's, like, menu, cursors, changing fonts, sizes, and their aspects for the screen, so that I, you know, can take a little more time to having to press exactly what I need to press, instead of only pressing one I don't want to. And I've seen games here and there that actually do very, very well with that. One primarily being Apex legends right now. Very much enjoy it. But then another game, I have issues with this Call of Duty, because it's very, very, very, very, like, what's the word I'm trying to think of, like, strict, it's very rigid in the way that it kind of have it, there's not really that too much customization. They only have like six or seven different controller button mapping inputs that you can change around, and I can't do much of it. So it's very discouraging more than anything for me, because I really want to play the games. I just can't. Nic Yeah, that's kind of defeating the purpose. The idea of gaming is to be fun and exciting. And if you are left with a feeling of discouragement, it just, it's really well, discouraging. Andy Yeah. Nic Yeah. If you had a message for game builders, game designers, developers, what would it be? Andy Bring us in any of us, individuals with disabilities or impairments, we are more than willing to help you. Because of our in general love for games. We just want to see them, you know, to be more fair to be more accessible to just allow for everybody to play with any sort of disability or impairment. So just let us know, bring out like, have an ad or whatever. Just know that we are out there. We want to help you. Because we want to play your games. Nic Yeah, I like that. Bring us in. We are out there. Last census I think said there's 26% of adults with disabilities in the United States. So it's not a negligible number really, is it? Andy No, no, not at all. Nic Right. Well, Andy, thank you so much for sharing that information. And hopefully we have game developers and game studios that pay a little bit of attention to this and improve things. Andy Yeah, yeah. And if they do, just Yeah, that's the biggest thing is we are out there. We play your games. We enjoy them. We want to make them better because we know you want to make them better as well. So let's do it together. Nic Awesome. Andy Feuling. Thank you. Andy Absolutely. Thank you.]]> full 51 Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barrier they encounter on the web. Quick reminder that transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. Thanks to Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences, through product testing, and custom courses. Learn more about how Fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Andy fueling. Andy is I think going to talk more about gaming rather than specifically, web accessibility. But I think it all falls into the realm of digital accessibility and it's good stuff to know about. Hey, Andy, how are you doing? Andy Hey doing good, how about yourself? Nic I'm doing all right. I'm glad we connected. We haven't really spoken before, but super excited about talking about this topic. Andy Yeah, me too. Me too. Nic So what's your impairment or your disability? Andy Um, so I am missing most of my right arm, I actually have one hand, and a very little portion of my right arm itself, actually. Andy Okay, so how does that impact your gaming? I mean, the obvious thing I could think of is if you have a console controller, which is basically a two handed thing, but is there any? Any other thing that is maybe less obvious9:38, yeah. So yeah, first one, absolutely correct. Controllers themselves for year, I've had issues with constantly because the fact that Yeah, they really are a two handed object. You kind of need both hands to use both sides of the actual controller, primarily the triggers. For a very long time, I was never able to play FPS games, like first person shooters, or any game that really required you to use both the left triggers and the right triggers simultaneously. At the same time, I always ran into that issue. And I had workarounds, you know, like I would, you know, like, jam the controller into my hip, so that I could hit ... or like my thigh, so I could hit the right trigger, or the right bumper if I needed to. But I was always discouraged from playing games like Halo, and Call of Duty, even Forzas games, like with a lot of like automobile games, like you had to use the right trigger. So I always ran into issues with that. And then the only other main thing that I have always seen as a big issue with games was custom button. Yeah, button mapping. So like, you know, you can make certain inputs on your controller different from what they are inside of the game. So say you wanted to make a like left trigger, you could do that. I've always enjoyed it when I found games I could do that with because I could actually customize it to my own specific needs. So yeah, Nic So okay, so apart from controllers what else is there that is a significant barrier for you and gaming? Andy Outside of the actual button mapping, and everything else, I would say it's the competition. And just general play with other people, because the way that I see it, and if you go into and you look around with different players, there are multiple ways you can hold on to a controller. But on top of that you have mouse and keyboard players at the same exact time. I have never been able to play with mouse and keyboard actually. So bringing back too many games, one of the biggest ones is World of Warcraft. I was always, always ran into issues trying to play that game because you kind of do need to have both functionalities of both hands, to press things on the keyboard and to press things or to you know, point and click with your mouse. And so one thing that I've always wanted to be able to see was more customization and possibilities for anything that is mouse and keyboard can also be for controller. And also seeing that as a huge disparity because, you know, it brings you away from gameplay, it isn't the way the developers initially intended you to play the actual game. But the way that I've seen is that everybody has an interest in wanting to play almost any kind of game, you know, specifically, World of Warcraft, for me, I played it here and there, but it was very, very pulled back for me, I wasn't able to be able to press certain buttons on the keyboard fast enough, as I was moving back and forth. With my one hand, trying to use both the mouse and the keyboard or, because I do have like a knob is the actual medical terminology for it. I can't press more than two buttons at the same time. So, you know, I'm trying to cast a spell on trying to activate an ability, and I'm hitting two at the same time. So it's like one to gray both at the same exact time. So I'm like, well, that's, that's not going to work out. So I'm having to like, you know, go move back and forth and everything. But um, yeah, on top of that, it's also like, the adjustments you can do for the analog sticks. And or mouse's, like, menu, cursors, changing fonts, sizes, and their aspects for the screen, so that I, you know, can take a little more time to having to press exactly what I need to press, instead of only pressing one I don't want to. And I've seen games here and there that actually do very, very well with that. One primarily being Apex legends right now. Very much enjoy it. But then another game, I have issues with this Call of Duty, because it's very, very, very, very, like, what's the word I'm trying to think of, like, strict, it's very rigid in the way that it kind of have it, there's not really that too much customization. They only have like six or seven different controller button mapping inputs that you can change around, and I can't do much of it. So it's very discouraging more than anything for me, because I really want to play the games. I just can't. Nic Yeah, that's kind of defeating the purpose. The idea of gaming is to be fun and exciting. And if you are left with a feeling of discouragement, it just, it's really well, discouraging. Andy Yeah. Nic Yeah. If you had a message for game builders, game designers, developers, what would it be? Andy Bring us in any of us, individuals with disabilities or impairments, we are more than willing to help you. Because of our in general love for games. We just want to see them, you know, to be more fair to be more accessible to just allow for everybody to play with any sort of disability or impairment. So just let us know, bring out like, have an ad or whatever. Just know that we are out there. We want to help you. Because we want to play your games. Nic Yeah, I like that. Bring us in. We are out there. Last census I think said there's 26% of adults with disabilities in the United States. So it's not a negligible number really, is it? Andy No, no, not at all. Nic Right. Well, Andy, thank you so much for sharing that information. And hopefully we have game developers and game studios that pay a little bit of attention to this and improve things. Andy Yeah, yeah. And if they do, just Yeah, that's the biggest thing is we are out there. We play your games. We enjoy them. We want to make them better because we know you want to make them better as well. So let's do it together. Nic Awesome. Andy Feuling. Thank you. Andy Absolutely. Thank you.]]> clean no 9:38 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/robert-jolly-talks-about-cognitive-impairments-and-complex-interfaces/ Mon, 03 Oct 2022 13:34:11 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=671 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barrier they encounter on the web. A quick reminder that transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. Today I'm talking with Robert jolly. Hey, Robert, how are you? Robert Hey, Nic, I'm doing well. Thank you. Nic Glad to be talking to you. You've been on the show before for the long form. Actually, I think you were the very first guest of the podcast back in Oh, 2017. So it's been a while? Robert It definitely has, it's good to be back. Nic It's good to have you back. So let me start by asking you this, what's your disability or your impairment? Robert So Nic, I had a stroke a little over 10 years ago, and that stroke had some some significant initial effects that I've largely recovered from, but I still have some, some cognitive deficits, where I, I have some memory issues, sometimes I can't hold a train of thought, for a long time, especially on a complicated matter. So you know, definitely I have a bit of a disability with, with how my brain is working these days. Nic So how does that impact your use of the web? Is there... What would you say your greatest barrier, or maybe your greatest pet peeve is around web use and cognitive impairments? Robert I think, both a barrier and pet peeve because it's really frustrating to have overly complicated interfaces, you know, presented to me or, or if there are a series of instructions, or a lack of instructions, and just the assumption that I'm going to know exactly what's needed of me, especially if I'm inputting information somewhere. You know, one of those examples is, you know, having instructions in placeholders that disappear. That's really, you know, off putting to me, you know, both because I've worked in accessibility, but also just as a person who can't remember what the label was in that field from, you know, potentially 5 or 10 seconds ago. That makes me you know, that makes me either do one of two things, either I try to refresh the page with it being blank, so I can review that, that placeholder and then go back to filling out the form. Or if it's something that's really complicated, and I'm super frustrated, I'll just leave and, and so that's the, that's the area where like, you know, overcomplicating things, making making people think really, really hard in in the process of, say, navigating a transaction that makes me just say, like, this isn't worth it, and I'm, I'm just gonna go somewhere else. It's not worth it for me, my brain to hurt or for me to question, you know, my ability to complete the task. Nic Robert, what would be your one message to designers or developers around web accessibility? Robert I think the message I had to give folks if it was just one is don't make assumptions about how people with disabilities use the web. What I mean by that is, is that I think there are sometimes generalizations that get made are often generalizations that get made. And those could be very incorrect without having a you know, good education and background in the diversity of web users or technology users. And you know, just because you build a thing, and you think that your user doesn't have a disability, they certainly might. And, in my case, mine is relatively invisible until it shows up when I'm trying to speak or, or, you know, form a complex, you know, thought or, you know, or speak in some sort of way that I don't have to like pause and think about it, right. So, so that, that sort of, you know, assumptions and generalizations and, and, and sort of decision making that happens that exclude people whether it is intentional or not, is what I see as a really big barrier that kind of perpetuates the problem that we see in, in people not understanding the depth and breadth of accessibility and why, why it's needed so badly to be a part of our practice areas. Nic Really like that don't make assumptions. I think. I think it would serve all of us well, to keep that in mind in all areas of work. But you're right. As it relates to accessibility. I think it's critical. Robert Yeah, me too. Nic Robert, thank you for your candid responses, and I'll see you around on the web. Robert Thank you, Nic. I will see you around as well. Nic Cheers.]]> full 49 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barrier they encounter on the web. A quick reminder that transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. Today I'm talking with Robert jolly. Hey, Robert, how are you? Robert Hey, Nic, I'm doing well. Thank you. Nic Glad to be talking to you. You've been on the show before for the long form. Actually, I think you were the very first guest of the podcast back in Oh, 2017. So it's been a while? Robert It definitely has, it's good to be back. Nic It's good to have you back. So let me start by asking you this, what's your disability or your impairment? Robert So Nic, I had a stroke a little over 10 years ago, and that stroke had some some significant initial effects that I've largely recovered from, but I still have some, some cognitive deficits, where I, I have some memory issues, sometimes I can't hold a train of thought, for a long time, especially on a complicated matter. So you know, definitely I have a bit of a disability with, with how my brain is working these days. Nic So how does that impact your use of the web? Is there... What would you say your greatest barrier, or maybe your greatest pet peeve is around web use and cognitive impairments? Robert I think, both a barrier and pet peeve because it's really frustrating to have overly complicated interfaces, you know, presented to me or, or if there are a series of instructions, or a lack of instructions, and just the assumption that I'm going to know exactly what's needed of me, especially if I'm inputting information somewhere. You know, one of those examples is, you know, having instructions in placeholders that disappear. That's really, you know, off putting to me, you know, both because I've worked in accessibility, but also just as a person who can't remember what the label was in that field from, you know, potentially 5 or 10 seconds ago. That makes me you know, that makes me either do one of two things, either I try to refresh the page with it being blank, so I can review that, that placeholder and then go back to filling out the form. Or if it's something that's really complicated, and I'm super frustrated, I'll just leave and, and so that's the, that's the area where like, you know, overcomplicating things, making making people think really, really hard in in the process of, say, navigating a transaction that makes me just say, like, this isn't worth it, and I'm, I'm just gonna go somewhere else. It's not worth it for me, my brain to hurt or for me to question, you know, my ability to complete the task. Nic Robert, what would be your one message to designers or developers around web accessibility? Robert I think the message I had to give folks if it was just one is don't make assumptions about how people with disabilities use the web. What I mean by that is, is that I think there are sometimes generalizations that get made are often generalizations that get made. And those could be very incorrect without having a you know, good education and background in the diversity of web users or technology users. And you know, just because you build a thing, and you think that your user doesn't have a disability, they certainly might. And, in my case, mine is relatively invisible until it shows up when I'm trying to speak or, or, you know, form a complex, you know, thought or, you know, or speak in some sort of way that I don't have to like pause and think about it, right. So, so that, that sort of, you know, assumptions and generalizations and, and, and sort of decision making that happens that exclude people whether it is intentional or not, is what I see as a really big barrier that kind of perpetuates the problem that we see in, in people not understanding the depth and breadth of accessibility and why, why it's needed so badly to be a part of our practice areas. Nic Really like that don't make assumptions. I think. I think it would serve all of us well, to keep that in mind in all areas of work. But you're right. As it relates to accessibility. I think it's critical. Robert Yeah, me too. Nic Robert, thank you for your candid responses, and I'll see you around on the web. Robert Thank you, Nic. I will see you around as well. Nic Cheers.]]> https://a11yrules.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/000-bird-scaled.jpg clean no 6:08 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/jessie-zhang-speaks-about-deafness-and-the-need-for-captions/ Mon, 26 Sep 2022 13:39:35 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=672 White Coat Captioning for providing in-kind sponsorship for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout, and you're listening to the A11y Rules Soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. Thank you to today's sponsor, White Coat Captioning. The White Coat Captioning team specializes in and focuses on tech, medical, science, and social justice jargon so that your domain‑specific language is typed correctly. Get the best captioning you can for your event, large or small, internationally. Today I'm talking with Jessie Zhang. Hi, Jessie, how are you? Jessie Hi, Nic, it's nice to meet you. I'm doing pretty well. Nic Good, it's very nice to meet you, as well. Let me start with the first question. What's your disability or your impairment? Jessie Well, so my name is Jessie, and I identify as Deaf or hard of hearing. If you want me to be more elaborate, I would say I have bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, but to put it, I'm deaf. Nic Thank you. It's good to ‑‑ I have to say, it makes me happy to show that people running podcasts not only can make the podcast accessible for Deaf people at the end, but we can have Deaf guests if we try to figure out how it works, so thank you for being willing to participate and show that to my audience. Jessie For sure. Nic So what would you say your biggest barrier on the web is? Jessie I think on the web ‑‑ or on the mobile ‑‑ on the phone, as well ‑‑ my biggest barrier would be captioning and videos, and also podcasts, as well. So in general, when I'm browsing a website, like CNN or NPR, I usually watch videos, but sometimes the videos are not captioned, or I don't have any indication that the video is being captioned, and even if it is captioned, sometimes it's not much or sometimes there is a lag or sometimes ‑‑ I cannot tell you how many virtual conferences or events or meetings I have missed out on because there is no captions. And even if there is captions, like on Zoom, I have to request that the host enable captions. But sometimes captions are not enabled. Nic Yeah, I am always surprised at the lack of captions, at the lack of transcripts for podcasts. It's not that difficult to make happen. I mean, sure, it can be technically a little bit more complicated than just doing whatever we're doing, but the impact on Deaf and hard of hearing folks, and so many other people. If you had one message for designers or developers on the web, what would you like them to know about accessibility? Jessie Um, that accessibility does not mean just catering to a specific group of people. Accessibility is not just for people with disabilities, accessibility is for everyone! And that includes people with disabilities. That includes people who speak a different language, and people who might have difficulty accessing a website in any way or any form. So I'm asking designers to be really mindful of that and try not to create more barriers, but instead, to put captions on videos. You do not have to go with what is already there. You can do something new, and you can do something that is more creative, more innovative, and also include people with disabilities in the process, too. I just realized that was more than one thing I shared. Nic That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, get out of my brain! You say what I'm thinking. Thank you for that. I'm so glad we're on the same wavelength. Jessie Also, I'm really excited to help pave for a better future that is more accessible for everyone. Nic Awesome, Jessie. Thank you so much for being a great guest, and we'll see you around on the web, whether it's Slack or Twitter or elsewhere. Thanks again for being a guest. Jessie Thank you so much for having me here.]]> full 48 White Coat Captioning for providing in-kind sponsorship for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout, and you're listening to the A11y Rules Soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. Thank you to today's sponsor, White Coat Captioning. The White Coat Captioning team specializes in and focuses on tech, medical, science, and social justice jargon so that your domain‑specific language is typed correctly. Get the best captioning you can for your event, large or small, internationally. Today I'm talking with Jessie Zhang. Hi, Jessie, how are you? Jessie Hi, Nic, it's nice to meet you. I'm doing pretty well. Nic Good, it's very nice to meet you, as well. Let me start with the first question. What's your disability or your impairment? Jessie Well, so my name is Jessie, and I identify as Deaf or hard of hearing. If you want me to be more elaborate, I would say I have bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, but to put it, I'm deaf. Nic Thank you. It's good to ‑‑ I have to say, it makes me happy to show that people running podcasts not only can make the podcast accessible for Deaf people at the end, but we can have Deaf guests if we try to figure out how it works, so thank you for being willing to participate and show that to my audience. Jessie For sure. Nic So what would you say your biggest barrier on the web is? Jessie I think on the web ‑‑ or on the mobile ‑‑ on the phone, as well ‑‑ my biggest barrier would be captioning and videos, and also podcasts, as well. So in general, when I'm browsing a website, like CNN or NPR, I usually watch videos, but sometimes the videos are not captioned, or I don't have any indication that the video is being captioned, and even if it is captioned, sometimes it's not much or sometimes there is a lag or sometimes ‑‑ I cannot tell you how many virtual conferences or events or meetings I have missed out on because there is no captions. And even if there is captions, like on Zoom, I have to request that the host enable captions. But sometimes captions are not enabled. Nic Yeah, I am always surprised at the lack of captions, at the lack of transcripts for podcasts. It's not that difficult to make happen. I mean, sure, it can be technically a little bit more complicated than just doing whatever we're doing, but the impact on Deaf and hard of hearing folks, and so many other people. If you had one message for designers or developers on the web, what would you like them to know about accessibility? Jessie Um, that accessibility does not mean just catering to a specific group of people. Accessibility is not just for people with disabilities, accessibility is for everyone! And that includes people with disabilities. That includes people who speak a different language, and people who might have difficulty accessing a website in any way or any form. So I'm asking designers to be really mindful of that and try not to create more barriers, but instead, to put captions on videos. You do not have to go with what is already there. You can do something new, and you can do something that is more creative, more innovative, and also include people with disabilities in the process, too. I just realized that was more than one thing I shared. Nic That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, get out of my brain! You say what I'm thinking. Thank you for that. I'm so glad we're on the same wavelength. Jessie Also, I'm really excited to help pave for a better future that is more accessible for everyone. Nic Awesome, Jessie. Thank you so much for being a great guest, and we'll see you around on the web, whether it's Slack or Twitter or elsewhere. Thanks again for being a guest. Jessie Thank you so much for having me here.]]> clean no 0:00 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/justin-yarbrough-talks-about-alt-text/ Mon, 19 Sep 2022 13:44:28 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=670 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barrier they encounter on the web. Today, I'm talking with Justin Yarbrough. Hey, Justin, how are you? Justin Doing pretty good today? How about you? Nic I'm quite happy. I'm quite happy. Happy to finally connect, as we were talking about in before the recording. It's been nearly three years since we've been planning to do this chat. So it's, it's good to finally connect in front of a microphone. Justin Yes, yes. Nic So just let me start by asking you, what's your disability or your impairment? Justin So I am almost completely blind. I just have a little light perception. Nic Okay, almost completely blind. And what would you say your greatest barrier or pet peeve on the web is? Justin Boy, where do I start? The one I can think of, that I've been kind of tinkered around on my head today was we were thinking about this is just on Twitter, which is, you know, where we kind of met know each other, is just folks not using alt text. I mean, you know, it's such a visual medium, everyone loves all their pictures. And it's like, I want to know what you're talking... what you're posting about, or, or more even, you know, the even where it really gets under my skin isn't maybe necessarily just okay, it's, you know, someone showing their picture of what they have for lunch, or whatever. But where it really gets me is, it's like, politicians, news organization, something like that. And they, they're that trend, they just love taking that screenshot of their statement, or whatever, and just posting that thing without any alt text. So that, you know, if I see something firm, I will just give you an example, like the mayor of Phoenix, early in the pandemic, you know, she was all the time posting updates like that, and those never had alt text on them. So I had no idea what the mayor was, you know, tweeting about at that, at that time, you know, what, what are we trying to find out and you know, early in the pandemic, stuff coming from folks like them, it was kind of important. Nic It sounds like, from what I'm seeing a lot of is more and more organizations are moving to social media to pass on some critical information around emergency messaging, and nine times out of 10. It's through an image of text, and there's no alt text. So folks, like you who rely on alt texts are really up the creek without a paddle. Justin Yeah, yeah, that's a really, that's a great way to describe it. You know, it's, I need this information too, hello, it's important enough that you're sharing it, share it, so everyone can take advantage. Nic What I find interesting is, I've been talking about the importance of alternate text on the web, since the mid 1990s. And I just feel like I never managed to reach everyone that needs to be reached, do you have any ideas how we can expand the reach and make sure that the people that need to hear about it, a hear about it and be start implementing these, these habits of making images accessible to all? Justin I think that, you know, a lot of a lot of the times with it, if you know, we have groups like this maybe you know, political candidates or folks who are in office or government organizations or stuff like that, what I've been doing a lot is I just say, you know, I just have been posting kind of a simple reply, hey, kind of like just going like, hey, blind guy here. Next time, could you please include alt text just so that I can understand what's going on here too. And then I throw in a link to the article actually up on my own website that I'd written about using alt texts on social media a few years ago. And does it get the attention? Sometimes it actually, you know, sometimes it kind of gets ignored and, you know, whatever. But, uh, you know, occasionally I've had some areas that are really receptive to and like, oh my gosh, I didn't know about that. And they, you know, they learn and then start working on it and getting into the habit. And in so much really, especially on like a social media platform like Twitter or something. What I tell a lot of people with it is, especially when they find out about, I think it's cool, they really want to do it. So much I emphasize what it's really is just getting in the habit of doing it and remembering to do it. I mean, it's getting a little easier now with Twitter's you know, started to roll out that reminder feature to some people, you know, that's gonna, I think that's going to help make a difference, especially for, at least for those people who really do want to, but just aren't in that habit, you just need to build that muscle memory. Nic Yeah, I like that concept, build your muscle memory about adding alt text. So what we've been talking about really is around the end users doing their bit for, for making sure the content they publish is accessible. What would be one message you'd have for designers or developers around web accessibility? Justin You you'd think I'd have a lot for this, considering that I work with him every day. But you know, this is another one of those just pinning it down to one thing is tough, but I guess maybe not so much related, just specifically to just what we've been talking about with all text and social media and stuff, but it's just, just in general, it's just to remember to think not everyone, remember, just not everyone uses the web like you do. And then to think about to think about those kinds of things. So think about your screen, you're using your keyboard only users, your folks with cognitive disabilities, you're all all those kinds of things. So just to just think outside of think outside of your use case. And that it's open Beyond Good. Because believe me, I, I understand, it's easy to think, Oh, well, you know, what my use case? This is? What would do? I mean, I would say I've probably been guilty of it myself at times. You Yeah, I mean, as a, you know, as a blind screener to us. I mean, granted, you know, I wasn't always so, but I didn't really go. I wasn't doing any, like, web development or accessibility work or anything like that when I was when I was in that case. And it was it was something I would have never thought about. Prior to losing my sight of how a screener user might go do something I probably, I think I was aware that screen readers existed. But that was pretty much all I knew. Nic Yeah. Justin, thank you very much. I like this, this idea of not everybody uses the web the way we do. To think about that to just expand a little bit our horizons as that's fantastic. Thank you for being a guest and sharing one of your pet peeves. I'm sure I'm sure we might record another one at some point. Maybe not in three years from now, maybe sooner, but I'll give you a little bit of time to come down with another with another one that really irks. Justin Certainly, certainly I'll be in touch and be thinking about and thanks for having me. Nic Thanks for coming on board. Justin. See you around on the web. Justin All right. You're welcome. Thank you. Nic Cheers. Justin Take care.]]> full 47 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barrier they encounter on the web. Today, I'm talking with Justin Yarbrough. Hey, Justin, how are you? Justin Doing pretty good today? How about you? Nic I'm quite happy. I'm quite happy. Happy to finally connect, as we were talking about in before the recording. It's been nearly three years since we've been planning to do this chat. So it's, it's good to finally connect in front of a microphone. Justin Yes, yes. Nic So just let me start by asking you, what's your disability or your impairment? Justin So I am almost completely blind. I just have a little light perception. Nic Okay, almost completely blind. And what would you say your greatest barrier or pet peeve on the web is? Justin Boy, where do I start? The one I can think of, that I've been kind of tinkered around on my head today was we were thinking about this is just on Twitter, which is, you know, where we kind of met know each other, is just folks not using alt text. I mean, you know, it's such a visual medium, everyone loves all their pictures. And it's like, I want to know what you're talking... what you're posting about, or, or more even, you know, the even where it really gets under my skin isn't maybe necessarily just okay, it's, you know, someone showing their picture of what they have for lunch, or whatever. But where it really gets me is, it's like, politicians, news organization, something like that. And they, they're that trend, they just love taking that screenshot of their statement, or whatever, and just posting that thing without any alt text. So that, you know, if I see something firm, I will just give you an example, like the mayor of Phoenix, early in the pandemic, you know, she was all the time posting updates like that, and those never had alt text on them. So I had no idea what the mayor was, you know, tweeting about at that, at that time, you know, what, what are we trying to find out and you know, early in the pandemic, stuff coming from folks like them, it was kind of important. Nic It sounds like, from what I'm seeing a lot of is more and more organizations are moving to social media to pass on some critical information around emergency messaging, and nine times out of 10. It's through an image of text, and there's no alt text. So folks, like you who rely on alt texts are really up the creek without a paddle. Justin Yeah, yeah, that's a really, that's a great way to describe it. You know, it's, I need this information too, hello, it's important enough that you're sharing it, share it, so everyone can take advantage. Nic What I find interesting is, I've been talking about the importance of alternate text on the web, since the mid 1990s. And I just feel like I never managed to reach everyone that needs to be reached, do you have any ideas how we can expand the reach and make sure that the people that need to hear about it, a hear about it and be start implementing these, these habits of making images accessible to all? Justin I think that, you know, a lot of a lot of the times with it, if you know, we have groups like this maybe you know, political candidates or folks who are in office or government organizations or stuff like that, what I've been doing a lot is I just say, you know, I just have been posting kind of a simple reply, hey, kind of like just going like, hey, blind guy here. Next time, could you please include alt text just so that I can understand what's going on here too. And then I throw in a link to the article actually up on my own website that I'd written about using alt texts on social media a few years ago. And does it get the attention? Sometimes it actually, you know, sometimes it kind of gets ignored and, you know, whatever. But, uh, you know, occasionally I've had some areas that are really receptive to and like, oh my gosh, I didn't know about that. And they, you know, they learn and then start working on it and getting into the habit. And in so much really, especially on like a social media platform like Twitter or something. What I tell a lot of people with it is, especially when they find out about, I think it's cool, they really want to do it. So much I emphasize what it's really is just getting in the habit of doing it and remembering to do it. I mean, it's getting a little easier now with Twitter's you know, started to roll out that reminder feature to some people, you know, that's gonna, I think that's going to help make a difference, especially for, at least for those people who really do want to, but just aren't in that habit, you just need to build that muscle memory. Nic Yeah, I like that concept, build your muscle memory about adding alt text. So what we've been talking about really is around the end users doing their bit for, for making sure the content they publish is accessible. What would be one message you'd have for designers or developers around web accessibility? Justin You you'd think I'd have a lot for this, considering that I work with him every day. But you know, this is another one of those just pinning it down to one thing is tough, but I guess maybe not so much related, just specifically to just what we've been talking about with all text and social media and stuff, but it's just, just in general, it's just to remember to think not everyone, remember, just not everyone uses the web like you do. And then to think about to think about those kinds of things. So think about your screen, you're using your keyboard only users, your folks with cognitive disabilities, you're all all those kinds of things. So just to just think outside of think outside of your use case. And that it's open Beyond Good. Because believe me, I, I understand, it's easy to think, Oh, well, you know, what my use case? This is? What would do? I mean, I would say I've probably been guilty of it myself at times. You Yeah, I mean, as a, you know, as a blind screener to us. I mean, granted, you know, I wasn't always so, but I didn't really go. I wasn't doing any, like, web development or accessibility work or anything like that when I was when I was in that case. And it was it was something I would have never thought about. Prior to losing my sight of how a screener user might go do something I probably, I think I was aware that screen readers existed. But that was pretty much all I knew. Nic Yeah. Justin, thank you very much. I like this, this idea of not everybody uses the web the way we do. To think about that to just expand a little bit our horizons as that's fantastic. Thank you for being a guest and sharing one of your pet peeves. I'm sure I'm sure we might record another one at some point. Maybe not in three years from now, maybe sooner, but I'll give you a little bit of time to come down with another with another one that really irks. Justin Certainly, certainly I'll be in touch and be thinking about and thanks for having me. Nic Thanks for coming on board. Justin. See you around on the web. Justin All right. You're welcome. Thank you. Nic Cheers. Justin Take care.]]> clean no 9:05 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/matt-trask-speaks-about-depression-and-web-forms/ Tue, 13 Sep 2022 21:40:14 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=668 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Today I'm talking with Matt Trask. Hey, Matt, how are you? Matt I'm good. How are you doing? Nic I'm doing okay. We're a little bit smoked out with wildfires right now. So that's, that's not fun. But other than that, doing good. Matt Aah I saw that on Twitter. That's not fun, especially like for the photography aspect of what you want to do. Nic Yeah, there's no photography happening. There's no birds out there No, nothing. Let's let's get started with my first opening question to you, what's your disability or your impairment? Matt Mostly around depression and anxiety is really I think, what I would be classified under, just and it's it's one of those things where I've been diagnosed with both of them. I manage them, both through medications and also therapies and things like that. It's, it's one of those things that I've just accepted that I will never be fully rid of, I just have to manage it the best that I can with the tools available to me. Nic Hmm. So depression is not typically something you hear about in relation to web accessibility. What would be your greatest barrier, or maybe pet peeve that ties to web accessibility and depression. Matt It's... I... So depression presents in everybody very differently. In fact, I asked my wife about this because she also has depression. And she is also very much on the internet, probably more than I am at this point. Because once it's like four or five o'clock, I shut my computer and just try and hide. I t, at least for me, when when depression really strikes it, two things happen. Whenever I'm browsing the web one is just a very hard time synthesizing other people's achievements, and good news and anything like that. And it it kind of drives me away from the internet, because I'm just I, the lens of depression makes me not want to be around that. And that's not something that can be fixed. That's just a thing that happens with me. But it's also if I'm on a webpage, and I have to sign up for something. Car insurance is probably a really good example, where they ask a lot of questions and a lot of information, and I have to have it all very much ready to answer these questions. If I'm in a very depressive state, it, it requires a massive amount of effort for me to push through the form or to answer the questions, anything like that. See, it's with me it is it is the biggest challenge I face is the drive to accomplish anything that requires a ton of information and more time than I would deem willing to spend on something if that makes sense. Nic Yeah, that does make sense. What's the solution? Is making forms shorter or no breaking it down in steps or what would be a solution from your perspective, Matt I think a multi step form that is saveable to a point might be one way to do it. Whether that is I have to log back in after the fact and finish it when I have time or the mental capacity to do that. Or if they give me a gentle nudge reminder say hey, you know your form is still here. We'd like you to come finish it. I think those are those are two possible things I think another thing too and while the car insurance thing was a great example upfront, you can't finish the form until you have all the information for the car insurance company to say we will insure you for X amount of money or whatever it is. But breaking you know figuring out looking at the forms that you have on on your websites on your apps, like is all this information absolutely necessary or can I come back and fill it out later? Like most websites you need an email and a password to get started. You know if you want my name if you want my birthday if you want to know where I live if you want to know you know reference to photography, if it's a camera website, what cameras am I am I playing on these days? What lenses do I have? Make all that optional, make it where I can fill it in on my time. So if on Monday if my depression strikes really hard, I can just get through with just the bare minimum amount of effort required and then Wednesday, when I'm feeling better, I can come back and say, you know, okay, cool, I have this and this, here's my birthday, here's all this, I think, I think that's kind of is paring down your forms to the absolute bare minimum possible, and allowing your users to come back to filling it out when they have time when they have the energy to do so. Nic Yeah, it makes sense. If you had one message to give designers or developers around web accessibility, what would that be? Matt I mean, in terms of like depression and stuff, I mean, it at least like when my depression presents, it's very blue. It's like I see the world in a very blue sadness lens, I would say pull back on the blues, just because that just only makes things worse Am I it to when I'm going through a depressive state. But really, it's just make... Make it... Make a form... And forms are really the only thing users going to interact with on your on a site. So that's why I come back to them, make the form as clear as possible, and make it as as simple as possible to start and finish it within one sitting. Any information that does not require app like is absolutely required, push it off, and let your users come back to it. And I think if you'll see a lot more people who have severe chronic depression that maybe don't have the access that I do to manage these things, they will be able to finish those forms that users or websites are sitting here like I wish these are finished that way we could close that out or something like that, just make it just simplify the process down to the bare minimum and let people come back. And I think overall, you'll see better adoption throughout your site with regards to users with depression. Nic Fantastic. I love that. I, for me, it makes sense because I mean, it is one of the web content accessibility guideline concepts, you know, you can save the data and people can return to it to complete stuff. That's mostly around financial and other kinds of personal data. But I think in terms of any kind of forms, as you say, if if you don't need it right now to do things, let the user complete it later. Matt, thank you. That was super good. And we'll see you around on the internet. Matt Absolutely. Thank you so much. It's my pleasure.]]> full 46 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Today I'm talking with Matt Trask. Hey, Matt, how are you? Matt I'm good. How are you doing? Nic I'm doing okay. We're a little bit smoked out with wildfires right now. So that's, that's not fun. But other than that, doing good. Matt Aah I saw that on Twitter. That's not fun, especially like for the photography aspect of what you want to do. Nic Yeah, there's no photography happening. There's no birds out there No, nothing. Let's let's get started with my first opening question to you, what's your disability or your impairment? Matt Mostly around depression and anxiety is really I think, what I would be classified under, just and it's it's one of those things where I've been diagnosed with both of them. I manage them, both through medications and also therapies and things like that. It's, it's one of those things that I've just accepted that I will never be fully rid of, I just have to manage it the best that I can with the tools available to me. Nic Hmm. So depression is not typically something you hear about in relation to web accessibility. What would be your greatest barrier, or maybe pet peeve that ties to web accessibility and depression. Matt It's... I... So depression presents in everybody very differently. In fact, I asked my wife about this because she also has depression. And she is also very much on the internet, probably more than I am at this point. Because once it's like four or five o'clock, I shut my computer and just try and hide. I t, at least for me, when when depression really strikes it, two things happen. Whenever I'm browsing the web one is just a very hard time synthesizing other people's achievements, and good news and anything like that. And it it kind of drives me away from the internet, because I'm just I, the lens of depression makes me not want to be around that. And that's not something that can be fixed. That's just a thing that happens with me. But it's also if I'm on a webpage, and I have to sign up for something. Car insurance is probably a really good example, where they ask a lot of questions and a lot of information, and I have to have it all very much ready to answer these questions. If I'm in a very depressive state, it, it requires a massive amount of effort for me to push through the form or to answer the questions, anything like that. See, it's with me it is it is the biggest challenge I face is the drive to accomplish anything that requires a ton of information and more time than I would deem willing to spend on something if that makes sense. Nic Yeah, that does make sense. What's the solution? Is making forms shorter or no breaking it down in steps or what would be a solution from your perspective, Matt I think a multi step form that is saveable to a point might be one way to do it. Whether that is I have to log back in after the fact and finish it when I have time or the mental capacity to do that. Or if they give me a gentle nudge reminder say hey, you know your form is still here. We'd like you to come finish it. I think those are those are two possible things I think another thing too and while the car insurance thing was a great example upfront, you can't finish the form until you have all the information for the car insurance company to say we will insure you for X amount of money or whatever it is. But breaking you know figuring out looking at the forms that you have on on your websites on your apps, like is all this information absolutely necessary or can I come back and fill it out later? Like most websites you need an email and a password to get started. You know if you want my name if you want my birthday if you want to know where I live if you want to know you know reference to photography, if it's a camera website, what cameras am I am I playing on these days? What lenses do I have? Make all that optional, make it where I can fill it in on my time. So if on Monday if my depression strikes really hard, I can just get through with just the bare minimum amount of effort required and then Wednesday, when I'm feeling better, I can come back and say, you know, okay, cool, I have this and this, here's my birthday, here's all this, I think, I think that's kind of is paring down your forms to the absolute bare minimum possible, and allowing your users to come back to filling it out when they have time when they have the energy to do so. Nic Yeah, it makes sense. If you had one message to give designers or developers around web accessibility, what would that be? Matt I mean, in terms of like depression and stuff, I mean, it at least like when my depression presents, it's very blue. It's like I see the world in a very blue sadness lens, I would say pull back on the blues, just because that just only makes things worse Am I it to when I'm going through a depressive state. But really, it's just make... Make it... Make a form... And forms are really the only thing users going to interact with on your on a site. So that's why I come back to them, make the form as clear as possible, and make it as as simple as possible to start and finish it within one sitting. Any information that does not require app like is absolutely required, push it off, and let your users come back to it. And I think if you'll see a lot more people who have severe chronic depression that maybe don't have the access that I do to manage these things, they will be able to finish those forms that users or websites are sitting here like I wish these are finished that way we could close that out or something like that, just make it just simplify the process down to the bare minimum and let people come back. And I think overall, you'll see better adoption throughout your site with regards to users with depression. Nic Fantastic. I love that. I, for me, it makes sense because I mean, it is one of the web content accessibility guideline concepts, you know, you can save the data and people can return to it to complete stuff. That's mostly around financial and other kinds of personal data. But I think in terms of any kind of forms, as you say, if if you don't need it right now to do things, let the user complete it later. Matt, thank you. That was super good. And we'll see you around on the internet. Matt Absolutely. Thank you so much. It's my pleasure.]]> clean no 7:57 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/iris-mcleary-talks-about-adhd-and-how-she-cant-use-social-media-anymore/ Tue, 06 Sep 2022 17:59:21 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=665 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Today I'm talking to Iris McCleary. Hey, Iris, how are you? Iris I'm doing well today made it to work in time to record which is that smallest. Nic That's a bonus.  I'm very, very happy to talk to you. We've been, we've been trying to organize this for a few weeks now. And finally, the stars align. So let me ask you this, what's your disability or your impairment? Iris Three main ones, ADHD, bipolar type two and chronic pain. The ADHD is definitely the one that gets me in the most trouble on the web, it's gotten more and more inaccessible over my lifetime. Nic More and more inaccessible. That's that's actually a dire indictment of the state of the web. If you had one major pet peeve or barrier to talk about what, what would be the biggest thing that causes problem for you? Iris Oh the monetization of everything, and the rise of the addiction based model of value measurement, the idea that the best thing you can do as a product is keep eyes on your product or on your website for as long as possible, because that very intentionally hooks into those parts of the brain that are involved in hyperfocus and addictive tendencies. And I can't use social media anymore since the rise of infinite scroll and the algorithmic feed, because it's designed to hook and keep your attention. And I can't get out. I f I open Facebook, I'm losing minimum an hour of my life no matter how self aware I am, so I just can't use it anymore, which is a shame because there are friends whose contact info I primarily have on there, and it's a struggle to get back in touch. Nic That's actually quite a massive barrier considering more and more of our human interactions are happening on social media. Iris Yep, for example, I live in San Francisco and Munis primary method of an most reliable method of disseminating service alerts is Twitter. And I don't have an active Twitter account, it only lets you scroll so far without giving you the little login block. Nic Right. That is, yeah, that's quite, quite something. So what's the solution? Iris I think fundamentally, the incentives for the industry are pretty majorly broken. The incentives to monetize everything at all costs, the ignoring of the effect on human attention. I understand wanting, there's a difference between getting people to return to your product and holding them on it for as long as possible in each interaction. And that is, I think, something that the company I work at, has started to recognize and we've started to do in our product where we're much more interested in did we get you to value fast? Because if you're spending your entire day looking at your product analytics and Mixpanel, we have failed as a product because we're not giving you answers, and you're not spending your time doing your actual job with that data. And then, then the question is, okay, well, Was it useful? Did you come back and do it again, and then go do whatever your actual job is, then do to come back and find more data and then go do whatever your actual job was? Like? I think that kind of model is much. It's much healthier. And also, interestingly, it's much more. We are a b2b company. And so that is part of it. Like we know that people are using our product to do their jobs. Nic Yeah Iris They're spending their entire day on it. That's no one's 100% day job. But I think that kind of model for something like a social platform could also be valuable. It's like, you logged in and you did some stuff and you and you had good interactions with some friends. And then you wandered off and did something in the real world. You chose to come back and it's that lack of trust that your customers will choose to come back. Or maybe your investors lack of trust that they will choose to come back that I think really drives that pattern. Nic Yeah, yeah. I think in some ways, this barrier you're experiencing on the web is really a reflection of a broken society. And there's no easy fix there, unless we get a massive meteor that comes and wipes us out. But that's also not really a solution. I don't think. Iris No, not so much wishing for the apocalypse doesn't seem like... That's, that's a big one. And that's one that's hard to... It's big. And it's very societally structural, and it's hard to directly counteract there are, there are a lot of smaller ones, though, like websites have gotten more complicated, infinite scroll in and of itself, rather than having to click to the next page, it removes that moment of interaction that would give me a chance to reflect and go do I actually want to click the button like that? That minuscule instant is something I could potentially hook into? And decide, no, I don't want to load more of whatever this is. I need to go do the dishes. Nic You shouldn't be able to multitask. You can do infinite scroll, and the dishes at the same time if your device is waterproof, right? Iris Oh, that sounds like a recipe for a huge mess. I'm just imagining my kitchen after this attempt. Nic Yeah. Hey, Iris, if you had one message for designers of developers, other than you know, don't keep me hooked up and don't use infinite scroll. What would you suggest to them? I know, asking you to pick one thing is a bit of a torture thing. But Iris Oh, decision paralysis. Keep your design, layout and content simple and easy to navigate. Nic Keep design and layout simple and easy to navigate. I like that. Keep it simple. Iris Yeah, that's the modern web is kept getting more complicated more bells and whistles, more things, animate and move and drag my eyes off to some other part of the screen. And, you know, bits that don't appear until you hover over them or... it's just hard for my brain to process. And the navigation layout of websites is not as... I mean, there were times when the old web was extremely ugly. But it was not hard to navigate a lot of the time. Nic Yeah Iris Find where the links were no one got rid of Link formatting. You don't have to mouse over every line of text looking for where you put the link. That is exhausting. Nic Yeah, yep. Bring back HTML 1, gray pages, black headings, blue links, purple underline visited links. There is something to that though, isn't there? It's it was fugly, but it was usable? Iris Yeah, it was. And then even progressing beyond that you can start adding some styling to it and maybe your link, you know, maybe your color scheme was something that you found prettier. But and maybe the margins of your page were more visually pleasant and readable. But it retained that sort of fundamental structure and the links had their own styling and color for a long time. And then we got fancier and we moved farther and farther away from that, and it feels like bells and whistles, animated, aesthetically pleasing, and it's a lot harder to just read a website and read the data, even if it looks way, way prettier. Nic Yeah. Iris, thank you for being such a great guest. I look forward to people's reaction to this podcast. And we'll talk to you at some point in the near future, I'm sure. Iris Yeah, sounds good. And if you ever want to have me back, you know where to find me. Nic I will find you I will hunt you down. That didn't sound right But yeah, let's chat. Cheers. Iris Thank you]]> full 45 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Today I'm talking to Iris McCleary. Hey, Iris, how are you? Iris I'm doing well today made it to work in time to record which is that smallest. Nic That's a bonus.  I'm very, very happy to talk to you. We've been, we've been trying to organize this for a few weeks now. And finally, the stars align. So let me ask you this, what's your disability or your impairment? Iris Three main ones, ADHD, bipolar type two and chronic pain. The ADHD is definitely the one that gets me in the most trouble on the web, it's gotten more and more inaccessible over my lifetime. Nic More and more inaccessible. That's that's actually a dire indictment of the state of the web. If you had one major pet peeve or barrier to talk about what, what would be the biggest thing that causes problem for you? Iris Oh the monetization of everything, and the rise of the addiction based model of value measurement, the idea that the best thing you can do as a product is keep eyes on your product or on your website for as long as possible, because that very intentionally hooks into those parts of the brain that are involved in hyperfocus and addictive tendencies. And I can't use social media anymore since the rise of infinite scroll and the algorithmic feed, because it's designed to hook and keep your attention. And I can't get out. I f I open Facebook, I'm losing minimum an hour of my life no matter how self aware I am, so I just can't use it anymore, which is a shame because there are friends whose contact info I primarily have on there, and it's a struggle to get back in touch. Nic That's actually quite a massive barrier considering more and more of our human interactions are happening on social media. Iris Yep, for example, I live in San Francisco and Munis primary method of an most reliable method of disseminating service alerts is Twitter. And I don't have an active Twitter account, it only lets you scroll so far without giving you the little login block. Nic Right. That is, yeah, that's quite, quite something. So what's the solution? Iris I think fundamentally, the incentives for the industry are pretty majorly broken. The incentives to monetize everything at all costs, the ignoring of the effect on human attention. I understand wanting, there's a difference between getting people to return to your product and holding them on it for as long as possible in each interaction. And that is, I think, something that the company I work at, has started to recognize and we've started to do in our product where we're much more interested in did we get you to value fast? Because if you're spending your entire day looking at your product analytics and Mixpanel, we have failed as a product because we're not giving you answers, and you're not spending your time doing your actual job with that data. And then, then the question is, okay, well, Was it useful? Did you come back and do it again, and then go do whatever your actual job is, then do to come back and find more data and then go do whatever your actual job was? Like? I think that kind of model is much. It's much healthier. And also, interestingly, it's much more. We are a b2b company. And so that is part of it. Like we know that people are using our product to do their jobs. Nic Yeah Iris They're spending their entire day on it. That's no one's 100% day job. But I think that kind of model for something like a social platform could also be valuable. It's like, you logged in and you did some stuff and you and you had good interactions with some friends. And then you wandered off and did something in the real world. You chose to come back and it's that lack of trust that your customers will choose to come back. Or maybe your investors lack of trust that they will choose to come back that I think really drives that pattern. Nic Yeah, yeah. I think in some ways, this barrier you're experiencing on the web is really a reflection of a broken society. And there's no easy fix there, unless we get a massive meteor that comes and wipes us out. But that's also not really a solution. I don't think. Iris No, not so much wishing for the apocalypse doesn't seem like... That's, that's a big one. And that's one that's hard to... It's big. And it's very societally structural, and it's hard to directly counteract there are, there are a lot of smaller ones, though, like websites have gotten more complicated, infinite scroll in and of itself, rather than having to click to the next page, it removes that moment of interaction that would give me a chance to reflect and go do I actually want to click the button like that? That minuscule instant is something I could potentially hook into? And decide, no, I don't want to load more of whatever this is. I need to go do the dishes. Nic You shouldn't be able to multitask. You can do infinite scroll, and the dishes at the same time if your device is waterproof, right? Iris Oh, that sounds like a recipe for a huge mess. I'm just imagining my kitchen after this attempt. Nic Yeah. Hey, Iris, if you had one message for designers of developers, other than you know, don't keep me hooked up and don't use infinite scroll. What would you suggest to them? I know, asking you to pick one thing is a bit of a torture thing. But Iris Oh, decision paralysis. Keep your design, layout and content simple and easy to navigate. Nic Keep design and layout simple and easy to navigate. I like that. Keep it simple. Iris Yeah, that's the modern web is kept getting more complicated more bells and whistles, more things, animate and move and drag my eyes off to some other part of the screen. And, you know, bits that don't appear until you hover over them or... it's just hard for my brain to process. And the navigation layout of websites is not as... I mean, there were times when the old web was extremely ugly. But it was not hard to navigate a lot of the time. Nic Yeah Iris Find where the links were no one got rid of Link formatting. You don't have to mouse over every line of text looking for where you put the link. That is exhausting. Nic Yeah, yep. Bring back HTML 1, gray pages, black headings, blue links, purple underline visited links. There is something to that though, isn't there? It's it was fugly, but it was usable? Iris Yeah, it was. And then even progressing beyond that you can start adding some styling to it and maybe your link, you know, maybe your color scheme was something that you found prettier. But and maybe the margins of your page were more visually pleasant and readable. But it retained that sort of fundamental structure and the links had their own styling and color for a long time. And then we got fancier and we moved farther and farther away from that, and it feels like bells and whistles, animated, aesthetically pleasing, and it's a lot harder to just read a website and read the data, even if it looks way, way prettier. Nic Yeah. Iris, thank you for being such a great guest. I look forward to people's reaction to this podcast. And we'll talk to you at some point in the near future, I'm sure. Iris Yeah, sounds good. And if you ever want to have me back, you know where to find me. Nic I will find you I will hunt you down. That didn't sound right But yeah, let's chat. Cheers. Iris Thank you]]> clean no 10:30 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/paul-fenwick-talks-about-color-blindness-and-not-using-color-alone/ Wed, 24 Aug 2022 01:06:08 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=662 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Today I'm talking with Paul Fenwick. Hey, Paul, how are you? Paul Hi, I am doing pretty well today. How are you doing, Nic? Nic I'm doing good. Very happy to talk to you. We've bumped into each other, I think in New Zealand, in Australia in the States, but it's been several years since we have had a chance to speak properly. Paul It has back in the before times. Nic The before times. That's right. Let me ask you the first question I ask all my guests What's your disability or your impairment? Paul So the one that we'll be talking about today is colorblindness, I have good old garden variety red green colorblindness, which means that I can still see colors just not as well as somebody without colorblindness. Nic When you say you have red green colorblindness, does that mean that red and green are exactly the same? Or they're brownish? Or they're slightly different twos? What does that mean? Paul So if you look at it from a biological standpoint, the receptors which pick up green and red light in my eyes, there, there's some overlap in the spectrums which they fire from. And what this means is, I still see, when I look at something which is green, I think it's green, when I look at something which is red, it looks like it's red. But if something is low saturation, if it is washed out, if it's a dark lighting, those sorts of situations, I can't necessarily tell and how this manifests is not me saying like, Oh, it's like gray, or it's brown. Human brains are fascinating. So my brain just fills it in with what color logically makes sense there. And we do this all the time. If you are in a dark room, then everyone's color vision is impaired. But we still see all the plant over there is green, even though your eyes are incapable of perceiving green at that point, because it just gets filled in. And this was really interesting when I was a child, because I remember one day I came home from school, my parents had repainted the lounge room. And I'm like, Oh, wow, like what a lovely shade of green, you've painted the lounge room. And they're like, Paul, it's, it's not green. And I'm like, oh, oh, it's it's like, it's like a peach color that's really lovely like that matches the furniture, like pullets, it's not peach, and I'm like, Well, what color is it then. And they had painted the room gray. And in my mind, my parents would never paint the room Gray, that would just be a little bit too boring. So I immediately filled it in with a color which made sense with the rest of the furniture and the rest of the house. And so that was sort of a bit of a moment for me relaxed, realizing that, wow, I really do have colorblindness because as a child, I would deny it a lot. And at this point, it was like, Oh, wow, that is actually a thing. Nic So I assume you're not a child anymore. You've made these realizations, you've probably developed some coping strategies. But we're here talking about barriers you encounter on the web. So what kind of barriers you encounter directly related to color blindness. Paul So the number one... the number one thing which I hit all the time, with my color blindness, there are different types of colorblindness is specifically using red and green to convey information when there is no other channel. Alongside that to convey the same information. And unfortunately, that is extremely common, that we will use green to indicate something's good red to indicate something as bad. If there's an orange in there as well, that just makes it even worse, because that's an intermediate color between the two. And I encountered this all the time on the web, and also in consumer, Alex, electronics as well, to where you'll have green and red lights to indicate something. And if it's a very bold, saturated green or red, maybe I can tell you, but really the best thing is you have like a green tick or a Red Cross or something else there to indicate what the actual status is. Nic Yeah, I think I've seen a lot of toggles where, you know, on the one side, you have a bit of green on the other side, you have a bit of red and which side is which? Paul Yeah. Nic Yeah. Paul Well, even if it's a toggle where it's moving left or right, that's at least an extra piece of information. But I'm actually looking with the software which we're using now. And below us. There's Paul and there's Nick and there's two dots which I think Green. But if they weren't green, I probably wouldn't be able to tell. There's an example right here in front of us. Nic Yes. Well, Zencastr accessibility is a is another question entirely. I've been on their back for five years now to improve that. But that's another question. Right? So toggles and consumer electronics are, are a barrier. If you were to quantify how much of an annoyance it is, on your day to day basis, what would you say it is? Paul It is something which I mostly forget about it until there is something that, like, there's no other choice but using color. So there has been so many monitoring systems I've used, like during my time in DevOps, and before that, when we call it system administration. And you'd have like these beautiful displays of here's everything, which is working well and not, and it would be all red, green coded. And unless there was something else there, I had a really hard time telling. And it was really a case of having to concentrate and say like, okay, well what color is that. So for a lot of things I don't notice because it's you know, traffic lights, you have positions, and a lot of things naturally in the environment you don't have to worry about, but when it's like, here's a status display, involved with video games, working in the United States as a video game developer, and anytime you have video games, people love to just put it all it's have green and reds to show things, this text will turn green when it's available. And this will go green when it can such and such and I often can't tell or it takes me an extra moment to tell. So it is it is something which I am mostly able to work around. But when it's noticeable, it's it's very, very noticeable. The other thing that comes up with is fashion. And that can be much, much more amusing. i For years I had a t shirt that I put in the wash, and some of my bedsheets had stained it, I had these bright red bedsheets and the color leaked. And so I had this this pink t shirt, which I didn't know was pink. So everyone thought I was making a fashion statement wearing these pink clothes around. And I think it was a pink dress shirt in there as well for the same reason. And I just I just had no idea. So that was very amusing. But that was something I was completely unconscious of. Nic So it doesn't have to be a daily frustration a daily annoyance. It's you know, you ignore it, you ignore it, you ignore it, and then suddenly, bam, you're blocked. Paul Yes, yes. Nic Yeah. Paul There have been times with open source tools where like, you know, I've injected my own custom stylesheet or something. So I can see what's going on. Because otherwise it's just using colors. Yeah. Yeah. So it really is, most of the time not a problem. And then sometimes yeah, as you said, boom, I'm blocked. I'm not sure what this is. Nic If you had one message for designers or developers around accessibility, what would it be? Paul So with relation to colorblindness, do not use color as your only way of conveying information. And you see this lots and lots of times you have something's wrong in a monitoring system, have an emoji of something being on fire that works really, really well. It's extremely noticeable. If you're not sure if using color as your only source of information, take a screenshot and just desaturate it entirely. And people say to me, like what like, is this screen strong enough for you? And I'm like, well, there's lots of different types of colorblindness. Just take the screenshot completely desaturate it, can you still tell what's going on? And this is something that we like back in the way before times when we only had black and white televisions. This is something that people would think about, it's like, how does this look like in black and white because a lot of our audience will be viewing that. So if you can tell what's going on completely desaturating everything excellent and then color can enhance that information as opposed to being the only source of that information. Nic Fantastic. Thank you. Paul this has been really good. Thank you for sharing your your barriers and colorblindness and I bet you love the classic Christmas colors right? Paul Oh I love Christmas for the ridiculousness, the whole commercialized Christmas let's have parades and let's have tinsel and let's have all of these things which are very much modern inventions. I actually adore that because of the frivolity associated with it and the whimsy associated with it. But no, I can't I can't tell whatever's going on with Christmas. I also live in Australia. So Christmas happens in the middle of the summer. And it was only when I moved to the United States for a while that I realized that oh, it makes sense to have like all these heavy warm foods during this time and wear warm clothes because yeah, in Australia, that does not make sense at all. You wear a lot of sunscreen. Nic I remember people in New Zealand, spraying you know, the snow thing in the window. Paul Yes. Nic All right. Paul, thank you so much for being such a good guest and we'll bump into each other on the interwebs Paul My absolute pleasure, Nic, thank you so much for having me on. Cheers.]]> full 44 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Today I'm talking with Paul Fenwick. Hey, Paul, how are you? Paul Hi, I am doing pretty well today. How are you doing, Nic? Nic I'm doing good. Very happy to talk to you. We've bumped into each other, I think in New Zealand, in Australia in the States, but it's been several years since we have had a chance to speak properly. Paul It has back in the before times. Nic The before times. That's right. Let me ask you the first question I ask all my guests What's your disability or your impairment? Paul So the one that we'll be talking about today is colorblindness, I have good old garden variety red green colorblindness, which means that I can still see colors just not as well as somebody without colorblindness. Nic When you say you have red green colorblindness, does that mean that red and green are exactly the same? Or they're brownish? Or they're slightly different twos? What does that mean? Paul So if you look at it from a biological standpoint, the receptors which pick up green and red light in my eyes, there, there's some overlap in the spectrums which they fire from. And what this means is, I still see, when I look at something which is green, I think it's green, when I look at something which is red, it looks like it's red. But if something is low saturation, if it is washed out, if it's a dark lighting, those sorts of situations, I can't necessarily tell and how this manifests is not me saying like, Oh, it's like gray, or it's brown. Human brains are fascinating. So my brain just fills it in with what color logically makes sense there. And we do this all the time. If you are in a dark room, then everyone's color vision is impaired. But we still see all the plant over there is green, even though your eyes are incapable of perceiving green at that point, because it just gets filled in. And this was really interesting when I was a child, because I remember one day I came home from school, my parents had repainted the lounge room. And I'm like, Oh, wow, like what a lovely shade of green, you've painted the lounge room. And they're like, Paul, it's, it's not green. And I'm like, oh, oh, it's it's like, it's like a peach color that's really lovely like that matches the furniture, like pullets, it's not peach, and I'm like, Well, what color is it then. And they had painted the room gray. And in my mind, my parents would never paint the room Gray, that would just be a little bit too boring. So I immediately filled it in with a color which made sense with the rest of the furniture and the rest of the house. And so that was sort of a bit of a moment for me relaxed, realizing that, wow, I really do have colorblindness because as a child, I would deny it a lot. And at this point, it was like, Oh, wow, that is actually a thing. Nic So I assume you're not a child anymore. You've made these realizations, you've probably developed some coping strategies. But we're here talking about barriers you encounter on the web. So what kind of barriers you encounter directly related to color blindness. Paul So the number one... the number one thing which I hit all the time, with my color blindness, there are different types of colorblindness is specifically using red and green to convey information when there is no other channel. Alongside that to convey the same information. And unfortunately, that is extremely common, that we will use green to indicate something's good red to indicate something as bad. If there's an orange in there as well, that just makes it even worse, because that's an intermediate color between the two. And I encountered this all the time on the web, and also in consumer, Alex, electronics as well, to where you'll have green and red lights to indicate something. And if it's a very bold, saturated green or red, maybe I can tell you, but really the best thing is you have like a green tick or a Red Cross or something else there to indicate what the actual status is. Nic Yeah, I think I've seen a lot of toggles where, you know, on the one side, you have a bit of green on the other side, you have a bit of red and which side is which? Paul Yeah. Nic Yeah. Paul Well, even if it's a toggle where it's moving left or right, that's at least an extra piece of information. But I'm actually looking with the software which we're using now. And below us. There's Paul and there's Nick and there's two dots which I think Green. But if they weren't green, I probably wouldn't be able to tell. There's an example right here in front of us. Nic Yes. Well, Zencastr accessibility is a is another question entirely. I've been on their back for five years now to improve that. But that's another question. Right? So toggles and consumer electronics are, are a barrier. If you were to quantify how much of an annoyance it is, on your day to day basis, what would you say it is? Paul It is something which I mostly forget about it until there is something that, like, there's no other choice but using color. So there has been so many monitoring systems I've used, like during my time in DevOps, and before that, when we call it system administration. And you'd have like these beautiful displays of here's everything, which is working well and not, and it would be all red, green coded. And unless there was something else there, I had a really hard time telling. And it was really a case of having to concentrate and say like, okay, well what color is that. So for a lot of things I don't notice because it's you know, traffic lights, you have positions, and a lot of things naturally in the environment you don't have to worry about, but when it's like, here's a status display, involved with video games, working in the United States as a video game developer, and anytime you have video games, people love to just put it all it's have green and reds to show things, this text will turn green when it's available. And this will go green when it can such and such and I often can't tell or it takes me an extra moment to tell. So it is it is something which I am mostly able to work around. But when it's noticeable, it's it's very, very noticeable. The other thing that comes up with is fashion. And that can be much, much more amusing. i For years I had a t shirt that I put in the wash, and some of my bedsheets had stained it, I had these bright red bedsheets and the color leaked. And so I had this this pink t shirt, which I didn't know was pink. So everyone thought I was making a fashion statement wearing these pink clothes around. And I think it was a pink dress shirt in there as well for the same reason. And I just I just had no idea. So that was very amusing. But that was something I was completely unconscious of. Nic So it doesn't have to be a daily frustration a daily annoyance. It's you know, you ignore it, you ignore it, you ignore it, and then suddenly, bam, you're blocked. Paul Yes, yes. Nic Yeah. Paul There have been times with open source tools where like, you know, I've injected my own custom stylesheet or something. So I can see what's going on. Because otherwise it's just using colors. Yeah. Yeah. So it really is, most of the time not a problem. And then sometimes yeah, as you said, boom, I'm blocked. I'm not sure what this is. Nic If you had one message for designers or developers around accessibility, what would it be? Paul So with relation to colorblindness, do not use color as your only way of conveying information. And you see this lots and lots of times you have something's wrong in a monitoring system, have an emoji of something being on fire that works really, really well. It's extremely noticeable. If you're not sure if using color as your only source of information, take a screenshot and just desaturate it entirely. And people say to me, like what like, is this screen strong enough for you? And I'm like, well, there's lots of different types of colorblindness. Just take the screenshot completely desaturate it, can you still tell what's going on? And this is something that we like back in the way before times when we only had black and white televisions. This is something that people would think about, it's like, how does this look like in black and white because a lot of our audience will be viewing that. So if you can tell what's going on completely desaturating everything excellent and then color can enhance that information as opposed to being the only source of that information. Nic Fantastic. Thank you. Paul this has been really good. Thank you for sharing your your barriers and colorblindness and I bet you love the classic Christmas colors right? Paul Oh I love Christmas for the ridiculousness, the whole commercialized Christmas let's have parades and let's have tinsel and let's have all of these things which are very much modern inventions. I actually adore that because of the frivolity associated with it and the whimsy associated with it. But no, I can't I can't tell whatever's going on with Christmas. I also live in Australia. So Christmas happens in the middle of the summer. And it was only when I moved to the United States for a while that I realized that oh, it makes sense to have like all these heavy warm foods during this time and wear warm clothes because yeah, in Australia, that does not make sense at all. You wear a lot of sunscreen. Nic I remember people in New Zealand, spraying you know, the snow thing in the window. Paul Yes. Nic All right. Paul, thank you so much for being such a good guest and we'll bump into each other on the interwebs Paul My absolute pleasure, Nic, thank you so much for having me on. Cheers.]]> clean no 11:06 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/myriam-jessier-talks-about-adhd-and-the-barriers-she-encounters-on-the-web/ Thu, 18 Aug 2022 17:06:16 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=659 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. Today, I'm talking to Myriam, Jessier. Hi, Myriam, how are you? Myriam Hello, I'm excited to be here. Nic Glad you're excited to be here. It's been a while that we've talked about having you on the show. And finally, it's happening. Let me ask you this, what is your disability or impairment? Myriam So I never thought about it as a disability. I have ADHD. And I see this as sometimes a really frustrating impairment, and sometimes a really nice thing to have. Nic I think most people wouldn't understand the frustration. But how is it nice? Myriam You can launch me in a Canadian field with grass. And I will find you four leafed clovers super fast. If  my partner loses a tiny little screw from his very expensive bike, and he spends an hour and a half looking for it. He comes to me and I find it within 10 minutes. I pick out patterns randomly. Nic Picking up patterns randomly. That's cool. All right. So frustration and benefit. What would you be? What would you say your greatest barrier or pet peeve as regards to ADHD and web accessibility is? Myriam Most people don't even consider that people like me could have an issue with their website. They don't even think about it. And my problem is that sometimes I will look at things and go, nope, my brain just goes, No. So a concrete example of this is if I go on specific governmental websites, and I have to fill out a form online that is on a page, and that form is just all over the place for me, I physically cannot force myself to fill it out. I just can't. Nic So what do you mean by all over the place? Do you talk about layout or content or labeling? And how do you fix that? Myriam The answer is yes to all three. So if you see me use a website, it's rather interesting, because I will use my mouse to scroll up and down super fast to figure things out, and then my eyes will go left, right, left, right, like very, very fast trying to pick out certain things. And I know that most humans do that, but maybe not to that extent, and not with the same amount of frustration that I have. So whenever labels don't make sense, as in, they're not necessarily very clear, my mind will skip to something else. So I will miss out a few steps. Nic Does the frustration have a concrete impact? Apart from Oh, I'm frustrated with this thing? Myriam I give up very often, I will leave a website and find something else that maybe answers the question faster for me from my brain. Or I will try to genuinely like I said, scroll up down Ctrl+F to find a keyword because I'm desperately seeking information, and I'm not finding it. So this means that the way I navigate is a bit unexpected compared to most humans, I will not necessarily follow the proper steps. I may forget to fill out a little bit of something and then get rejected by the machine or a human reading whatever I submitted, because I'm discounted since I couldn't follow the exact steps because not all of them made sense to me. Nic Hmm. That makes sense that it doesn't make sense for you. What message would you have for designers or developer apart from obviously, you know, build your forms so they make sense. Myriam This is the portion where I get to talk about another impairment I didn't know I had until well, I met accessibility experts. Please don't design things in parallax. I mean, I have ADHD, but I have also a slight impairment that makes me want to vomit when things move too fast on the web. And these things go together hand in hand for me because in parallax, I'm supposed to somehow magically figure out where I'm supposed to go, how to find the information while still wanting to vomit. Oh, this is not a good combo. So if I had to give another piece of advice as some folks try to go a bit faster than what you would expect they are used to muddling through because they function differently. And I know we all muddle through, but the way I muddle through is kind of impressive to people who do not have my impairment. It's grandiosely unexpected and weird. So what I what really, really helps me personally, I'm not an ambassador of everyone dealing with the same impairment. Be clear on your subheadings I need a visual anchor that's telling me I'm in the right spot. And very often subheadings are vague or confusing or contain one word. Nic So I like this idea of, you know, designers, developers, don't make your users sick. That's seems like a good start, doesn't it? And clear headings, I've been harping on about headings for a very long time now. And it just, it's interesting to have people come back over and over different end users to say, hey, you know, headings are important. I use headings to navigate, I use headings to understand. And if your heading text is not clear, well, why do you have headings to start with? Myriam That's another problem very often headings are missing. And I'm just wondering, why are you leaving me this this wall of text to figure out my brain just can't parse it. Another element is some fonts cause me real issues, very, very real issues. There are some fonts that I, I mean, I wish I could read them patiently. But I cannot parse them. I literally have to copy paste the content into Google Docs. Nic Which fonts? And what would be a solution for that? Because I guess fonts that don't work for you might work very well for other people. So how, how do we fix that we make sure that our font choices work for everyone. Myriam This is a portion where I don't have the answer, because my solution has always been to copy paste things into google doc to be able to parse it patiently. And just put my mouse over it and just go step by step if I need to genuinely concentrate. And that is very hard for me. So what I would say about the fonts is I know that some fonts will work better for some folks, but it's very often a combination of the color, the size and the font, and the spacing that causes me issues. So if the text is very scrunched up, you can tell I'm a designer clearly scrunched up is my professional term. No, But joking aside, it's genuinely difficult for me to parse this through. And I don't have a magical answer for this. But now I want to dive into a rabbit hole and figure this out. Nic Would implementing user preferences, or letting users easily override style sheets, be an option, you think? Myriam One option that I found already that I really, really enjoyed was the ability to make letters larger. So I don't have problems reading, in terms of my eyes work well, but if I make it bigger, there's more spacing, I actually can breathe and dive into the content. So just having this helps me. Nic Yeah. Yeah, it's it's not a question of the eyes mechanic, but it's a question of the perception of the fault. And space helps. Yeah. Myriam And another element that is unusual, I guess is I never pondered what people could do to fix things for me. Because from the start of the web, I started navigating in 97. I had issues. And nobody was here to tell me that this was not normal. I just got used to it. So I don't have solutions because I learned to just satisfice. That's it. And remember my four leaf clover talent. So sometimes when I'm hyper focused, well, I'm going to find that information very fast. Maybe not on your website, but I can Google for my life. Nic Yeah, maybe I'm Thank you. That's been super fun. We'll see you around on the web. Myriam Thank you very much for having me.]]> full 43 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. Today, I'm talking to Myriam, Jessier. Hi, Myriam, how are you? Myriam Hello, I'm excited to be here. Nic Glad you're excited to be here. It's been a while that we've talked about having you on the show. And finally, it's happening. Let me ask you this, what is your disability or impairment? Myriam So I never thought about it as a disability. I have ADHD. And I see this as sometimes a really frustrating impairment, and sometimes a really nice thing to have. Nic I think most people wouldn't understand the frustration. But how is it nice? Myriam You can launch me in a Canadian field with grass. And I will find you four leafed clovers super fast. If  my partner loses a tiny little screw from his very expensive bike, and he spends an hour and a half looking for it. He comes to me and I find it within 10 minutes. I pick out patterns randomly. Nic Picking up patterns randomly. That's cool. All right. So frustration and benefit. What would you be? What would you say your greatest barrier or pet peeve as regards to ADHD and web accessibility is? Myriam Most people don't even consider that people like me could have an issue with their website. They don't even think about it. And my problem is that sometimes I will look at things and go, nope, my brain just goes, No. So a concrete example of this is if I go on specific governmental websites, and I have to fill out a form online that is on a page, and that form is just all over the place for me, I physically cannot force myself to fill it out. I just can't. Nic So what do you mean by all over the place? Do you talk about layout or content or labeling? And how do you fix that? Myriam The answer is yes to all three. So if you see me use a website, it's rather interesting, because I will use my mouse to scroll up and down super fast to figure things out, and then my eyes will go left, right, left, right, like very, very fast trying to pick out certain things. And I know that most humans do that, but maybe not to that extent, and not with the same amount of frustration that I have. So whenever labels don't make sense, as in, they're not necessarily very clear, my mind will skip to something else. So I will miss out a few steps. Nic Does the frustration have a concrete impact? Apart from Oh, I'm frustrated with this thing? Myriam I give up very often, I will leave a website and find something else that maybe answers the question faster for me from my brain. Or I will try to genuinely like I said, scroll up down Ctrl+F to find a keyword because I'm desperately seeking information, and I'm not finding it. So this means that the way I navigate is a bit unexpected compared to most humans, I will not necessarily follow the proper steps. I may forget to fill out a little bit of something and then get rejected by the machine or a human reading whatever I submitted, because I'm discounted since I couldn't follow the exact steps because not all of them made sense to me. Nic Hmm. That makes sense that it doesn't make sense for you. What message would you have for designers or developer apart from obviously, you know, build your forms so they make sense. Myriam This is the portion where I get to talk about another impairment I didn't know I had until well, I met accessibility experts. Please don't design things in parallax. I mean, I have ADHD, but I have also a slight impairment that makes me want to vomit when things move too fast on the web. And these things go together hand in hand for me because in parallax, I'm supposed to somehow magically figure out where I'm supposed to go, how to find the information while still wanting to vomit. Oh, this is not a good combo. So if I had to give another piece of advice as some folks try to go a bit faster than what you would expect they are used to muddling through because they function differently. And I know we all muddle through, but the way I muddle through is kind of impressive to people who do not have my impairment. It's grandiosely unexpected and weird. So what I what really, really helps me personally, I'm not an ambassador of everyone dealing with the same impairment. Be clear on your subheadings I need a visual anchor that's telling me I'm in the right spot. And very often subheadings are vague or confusing or contain one word. Nic So I like this idea of, you know, designers, developers, don't make your users sick. That's seems like a good start, doesn't it? And clear headings, I've been harping on about headings for a very long time now. And it just, it's interesting to have people come back over and over different end users to say, hey, you know, headings are important. I use headings to navigate, I use headings to understand. And if your heading text is not clear, well, why do you have headings to start with? Myriam That's another problem very often headings are missing. And I'm just wondering, why are you leaving me this this wall of text to figure out my brain just can't parse it. Another element is some fonts cause me real issues, very, very real issues. There are some fonts that I, I mean, I wish I could read them patiently. But I cannot parse them. I literally have to copy paste the content into Google Docs. Nic Which fonts? And what would be a solution for that? Because I guess fonts that don't work for you might work very well for other people. So how, how do we fix that we make sure that our font choices work for everyone. Myriam This is a portion where I don't have the answer, because my solution has always been to copy paste things into google doc to be able to parse it patiently. And just put my mouse over it and just go step by step if I need to genuinely concentrate. And that is very hard for me. So what I would say about the fonts is I know that some fonts will work better for some folks, but it's very often a combination of the color, the size and the font, and the spacing that causes me issues. So if the text is very scrunched up, you can tell I'm a designer clearly scrunched up is my professional term. No, But joking aside, it's genuinely difficult for me to parse this through. And I don't have a magical answer for this. But now I want to dive into a rabbit hole and figure this out. Nic Would implementing user preferences, or letting users easily override style sheets, be an option, you think? Myriam One option that I found already that I really, really enjoyed was the ability to make letters larger. So I don't have problems reading, in terms of my eyes work well, but if I make it bigger, there's more spacing, I actually can breathe and dive into the content. So just having this helps me. Nic Yeah. Yeah, it's it's not a question of the eyes mechanic, but it's a question of the perception of the fault. And space helps. Yeah. Myriam And another element that is unusual, I guess is I never pondered what people could do to fix things for me. Because from the start of the web, I started navigating in 97. I had issues. And nobody was here to tell me that this was not normal. I just got used to it. So I don't have solutions because I learned to just satisfice. That's it. And remember my four leaf clover talent. So sometimes when I'm hyper focused, well, I'm going to find that information very fast. Maybe not on your website, but I can Google for my life. Nic Yeah, maybe I'm Thank you. That's been super fun. We'll see you around on the web. Myriam Thank you very much for having me.]]> clean no 9:37 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/albert-kim-talks-about-ocd-ptsd-and-web-accessibility/ Fri, 13 May 2022 17:36:28 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=656 Nic All right, I'm Nic Steenhout and you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Today, I'm talking with Albert Kim. Hey, Albert, how are you? Albert I'm good. Thank you for having me, Nic. Nic Well, thank you for coming. We've been trying to organize this session for a while, and we finally connect. So this is this is exciting. Albert Yeah, it's very exciting for me as well. Nic Let's dive right in. Let me ask you, what is your disability or your impairment? Albert I have PTSD, OCD, anxiety, depression, dyslexia and ADHD. I know it's kind of a lot, but that's what I have. And because of some of those conditions, I always have a medical condition of chronic gastritis and TMJ, which are very common among people with anxiety and ADHD. Nic So how does how does that impact your use of the web? Is there any condition that has created a bigger barrier? Or is there anything specific that, you know jumps to mind in terms of Well, I can tie this condition directly with this barrier on the web? Albert Yeah, I think I'd have to be a little bit general at first, but overall, obviously, the impact will be on my mental health. And one thing is that, I guess most sensible thing is triggering content for my PTSD, anxiety. When I see contents without any trigger warning, and it's a violent, or it triggers my traumas, I get very anxious and stressed out, and I get my chronic gastritis symptom very, really, really bad. Albert And also, another thing is, for me, this is something that not many people really think about, but it is OCD. I know, OCD has a preconception that many people think it's about like cleaning and organizing. Actually, for me, my OCD is on completion. It might sound not really clear at first, but when I say completion, I feel like I have to say everything completely. I feel like I have to complete tasks completely. So what that really entails is a profound impact in my daily life. So when I'm navigating web, especially when I'm like shopping, or trying to sign up for an account, and oftentimes, many social media accounts ask for what your interests are, and topics of interest. And then it'll be an endless scroll of list of things that might sound similar sometimes like computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, I guess, all similar topic, but it'll be an endless list of interest, topics of interest that I can select. And I get up, I would have a compulsion to completely express everything of my interest, so cycled through that endless scroll until the bottom to be able to finish that and I ended up consuming several hours just to sign up for an account. Albert And another thing is that with the shopping, same thing, when I'm going through like endless Scroll of items, and I'm trying to compare different things then and it's not based on like, there aren't them there aren't like there's no limit to one page, but it's an endless scroll. Then I spend hours hours just scrolling down to completely go through the whole list. Yeah, it impacts me pretty significantly and I just sit down in my chair, scrolling through webs for hours and hours without even going to bathroom or eating. Yeah, Nic That's... I've always been annoyed by page that don't have an actual bottom that you can scroll endlessly. I've often said we shouldn't have those. But your experience really makes a strong point for that. I'd like to go back to you were talking about PTSD being a big barrier, because then you have triggers and it can really retraumatize you. Because PTSD can be, you know, the triggers can be very varied from, from one person to the next. How do we how do we avoid triggering people? How do we create content that avoids these triggers for all the possibilities that are out there? Albert I think the technology already exists. And the first thing that comes to my mind is parental control. Right. So any kind of sexual or violent images, there are, most of by law, we require such tool to exist and to help our children. And having that freedom to choose which content that you can see, rather than the content being imposed to you, is important. So, such filters are like, I know that a lot of times we talk about, isn't that like censorship, but it's not about censorship, it's about actually giving users freedom to choose what they want to look at. So if you don't even have an option to choose which content you want to filter out, then it's not really a sensor, it's not even giving a choice. In the first place, I don't even have an option to choose. So yeah, such content filtering or not bait, not contents, not filter the bait by the designers, but giving the users which content they want to filter out. Albert That is more important. And obviously, because PTSD and anxiety is triggered by many different factors for different people. And it's very hard to generalize those triggers for everyone. So it's really important for users to be able to choose. And one thing I can think about is parental control, as an example Nic I love that, I really liked the approach of giving user controls and this concept of parental control whether or not, you know, it's a parent using it for a kid or a user making those settings for themselves. I think it's very, very powerful stuff. Nic Hey, Albert, if you had one message for designers or developers around accessibility, what would you like them to remember or think about? Albert I think, think about the end user, not the compliance. So see beyond WCAG compliance, and actually think about the experience of the users, the people who will be using your product, because we often have a really this catch up game for Wii CAG. But as we all know, will take is not complete, especially for people with neurodiverse people. A lot of the WCAG compliant compliance focuses around physical disabilities, blindness, Deaf, motor disability, but we are very, very far away from including neurodiverse people in the WCAG. So when we are actually talking about accessibility, it's really just beyond that standards and just compliance. It has to be including the people at the very end. Who will be using your product. Lawyers and and judges who will look at your product to determine the lawsuit. Nic I really love that. I think it's really powerful to think about the user. The guidelines, they're there to help us they're here to guide us, but it's certainly not the target. It's the starting point. I love when when other people express that in different ways because it's so true. Nic Albert before we wrap up, is there anything else that you'd like to share with the audience? Albert I think one more thing that I want to address is, is trying not to assume the end user what the experience of the end user would be. Especially for neurodiverse people, users, it's really hard to generalize. For example, I have maybe if you have an OCD, and or an presume that all the other users with OCD will be OCD about just organizing and cleaning. It's really a huge mistake. I often have that. I go through that a lot. When I share that I have OCD people ask me, Oh, do you organize your like over clean or wash your hands a lot? Like, that's not like for me, I have a lot more than that. That also does a lot more than that. So and try not to colloquially just use that word. I must have OCD for this or whatever. Like it really downplays the weight and the actual impact of the medical diagnosis. People's lives. Yeah, absolutely. Nic Albert, thank you so much for being a guest on the show. I really enjoyed talking with you. I'm sure the audience will actually learn quite a bit from what you had to share and we'll see you around on the web. Albert Thank you.]]> full 42 Nic All right, I'm Nic Steenhout and you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Today, I'm talking with Albert Kim. Hey, Albert, how are you? Albert I'm good. Thank you for having me, Nic. Nic Well, thank you for coming. We've been trying to organize this session for a while, and we finally connect. So this is this is exciting. Albert Yeah, it's very exciting for me as well. Nic Let's dive right in. Let me ask you, what is your disability or your impairment? Albert I have PTSD, OCD, anxiety, depression, dyslexia and ADHD. I know it's kind of a lot, but that's what I have. And because of some of those conditions, I always have a medical condition of chronic gastritis and TMJ, which are very common among people with anxiety and ADHD. Nic So how does how does that impact your use of the web? Is there any condition that has created a bigger barrier? Or is there anything specific that, you know jumps to mind in terms of Well, I can tie this condition directly with this barrier on the web? Albert Yeah, I think I'd have to be a little bit general at first, but overall, obviously, the impact will be on my mental health. And one thing is that, I guess most sensible thing is triggering content for my PTSD, anxiety. When I see contents without any trigger warning, and it's a violent, or it triggers my traumas, I get very anxious and stressed out, and I get my chronic gastritis symptom very, really, really bad. Albert And also, another thing is, for me, this is something that not many people really think about, but it is OCD. I know, OCD has a preconception that many people think it's about like cleaning and organizing. Actually, for me, my OCD is on completion. It might sound not really clear at first, but when I say completion, I feel like I have to say everything completely. I feel like I have to complete tasks completely. So what that really entails is a profound impact in my daily life. So when I'm navigating web, especially when I'm like shopping, or trying to sign up for an account, and oftentimes, many social media accounts ask for what your interests are, and topics of interest. And then it'll be an endless scroll of list of things that might sound similar sometimes like computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, I guess, all similar topic, but it'll be an endless list of interest, topics of interest that I can select. And I get up, I would have a compulsion to completely express everything of my interest, so cycled through that endless scroll until the bottom to be able to finish that and I ended up consuming several hours just to sign up for an account. Albert And another thing is that with the shopping, same thing, when I'm going through like endless Scroll of items, and I'm trying to compare different things then and it's not based on like, there aren't them there aren't like there's no limit to one page, but it's an endless scroll. Then I spend hours hours just scrolling down to completely go through the whole list. Yeah, it impacts me pretty significantly and I just sit down in my chair, scrolling through webs for hours and hours without even going to bathroom or eating. Yeah, Nic That's... I've always been annoyed by page that don't have an actual bottom that you can scroll endlessly. I've often said we shouldn't have those. But your experience really makes a strong point for that. I'd like to go back to you were talking about PTSD being a big barrier, because then you have triggers and it can really retraumatize you. Because PTSD can be, you know, the triggers can be very varied from, from one person to the next. How do we how do we avoid triggering people? How do we create content that avoids these triggers for all the possibilities that are out there? Albert I think the technology already exists. And the first thing that comes to my mind is parental control. Right. So any kind of sexual or violent images, there are, most of by law, we require such tool to exist and to help our children. And having that freedom to choose which content that you can see, rather than the content being imposed to you, is important. So, such filters are like, I know that a lot of times we talk about, isn't that like censorship, but it's not about censorship, it's about actually giving users freedom to choose what they want to look at. So if you don't even have an option to choose which content you want to filter out, then it's not really a sensor, it's not even giving a choice. In the first place, I don't even have an option to choose. So yeah, such content filtering or not bait, not contents, not filter the bait by the designers, but giving the users which content they want to filter out. Albert That is more important. And obviously, because PTSD and anxiety is triggered by many different factors for different people. And it's very hard to generalize those triggers for everyone. So it's really important for users to be able to choose. And one thing I can think about is parental control, as an example Nic I love that, I really liked the approach of giving user controls and this concept of parental control whether or not, you know, it's a parent using it for a kid or a user making those settings for themselves. I think it's very, very powerful stuff. Nic Hey, Albert, if you had one message for designers or developers around accessibility, what would you like them to remember or think about? Albert I think, think about the end user, not the compliance. So see beyond WCAG compliance, and actually think about the experience of the users, the people who will be using your product, because we often have a really this catch up game for Wii CAG. But as we all know, will take is not complete, especially for people with neurodiverse people. A lot of the WCAG compliant compliance focuses around physical disabilities, blindness, Deaf, motor disability, but we are very, very far away from including neurodiverse people in the WCAG. So when we are actually talking about accessibility, it's really just beyond that standards and just compliance. It has to be including the people at the very end. Who will be using your product. Lawyers and and judges who will look at your product to determine the lawsuit. Nic I really love that. I think it's really powerful to think about the user. The guidelines, they're there to help us they're here to guide us, but it's certainly not the target. It's the starting point. I love when when other people express that in different ways because it's so true. Nic Albert before we wrap up, is there anything else that you'd like to share with the audience? Albert I think one more thing that I want to address is, is trying not to assume the end user what the experience of the end user would be. Especially for neurodiverse people, users, it's really hard to generalize. For example, I have maybe if you have an OCD, and or an presume that all the other users with OCD will be OCD about just organizing and cleaning. It's really a huge mistake. I often have that. I go through that a lot. When I share that I have OCD people ask me, Oh, do you organize your like over clean or wash your hands a lot? Like, that's not like for me, I have a lot more than that. That also does a lot more than that. So and try not to colloquially just use that word. I must have OCD for this or whatever. Like it really downplays the weight and the actual impact of the medical diagnosis. People's lives. Yeah, absolutely. Nic Albert, thank you so much for being a guest on the show. I really enjoyed talking with you. I'm sure the audience will actually learn quite a bit from what you had to share and we'll see you around on the web. Albert Thank you.]]> clean no 11:53 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/amy-carney-talks-about-text-that-gets-cut-off/ Fri, 04 Mar 2022 22:14:01 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=653 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout, and you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Today, I'm talking to Amy Carney, again, Hey, Amy, how are you? Amy Hi, Nic. Good. Nic Good, good. For those people who haven't heard your previous interviews, can you tell us a little bit about what your disability is? Amy Yeah, so I have a visual impairments. It's kind of just on the edge of low vision. I don't have lenses in my eyes that were removed when I was just a baby. So they have that medical term for me called afakik. And so my glasses that I wear are my lenses, externally. So what I have is just usually just enough to get by as a sighted person. Nic What's your barrier? What's your big pet peeve you'd like to share about accessibility with with the audience today? Amy One of the things that I've encountered a lot, even in 2022, is on apps, as well as web pages that there's a trend to going of text that gets cut off, usually due to a box of a fixed height. And so information whether they want me to click on it to read more or not. It ends in three little dots, an ellipsis. And sometimes it doesn't even end it just cuts off. Because the content doesn't reflow to push down the blocks to be any taller. And so I'll miss out on content that's hidden away from me. And the real problem with ellipsis is that if there's no where to click to read more, that they just included paragraph in that spot, then I miss out on what the rest of the paragraph is. And I can't read more to see what they're trying to tell me. Nic Hhmm What's the solution to that? Amy Hmm. Allowing the box to expand? Nic Allowing the box to expend, ok yeah. All right. Amy So we're having a clickable area, if they really are set on a fixed height, I'm fine with going to another page or having a dialog box open up. I just like to see what's there. Nic Yeah, because a lot of designers today seem to really like this dot dot dot at the end of a line? Amy Yeah, cuz it, it lets people know that there is more to it. But it's like the second step was forgotten if there's more to it. How do I read more to that thing? Nic Yeah. Amy And so Nic I seem to encounter that pattern more when you reach the so called mobile view, you know, you even if you test on desktop, because you've resized your browser, you seem to come across that more more often in mobile view. Is that something that that you'd say, is that accurate? Amy I think so. Um, I really hate it. When people do that. For mobile apps, especially I have actually deleted some when they've updated their UI, to the user interface to, you know, improve the layout, I don't know if it's, I'm wondering if the design idea is to have more things to look at in one space. And so they kind of compress. But in the same instance, say, like a weather app that I had to delete, not only did the font get smaller, and it didn't coordinate with the size of font that I wanted on my system, but it also cut off with an ellipsis. And so here, there's this supporting weather information, and I can't get to it and on top of it. Sometimes when people do that, I will turn my phone to landscape. And it didn't have a landscape view. It was stuck in portrait. And so I could not get a lot of information. And it was just like, Well, okay, so this app is unusable to me. So now I have to just find a different one was there was too much information cut off. It was too small, I couldn't rotate. It was a lot of things I couldn't do with it. Nic If you want to know about the weather, you just stick your nose outside Amy [Laughter] Lick my finger Nic If you had one message for designers or developers today around accessibility, what would it be? Amy Oh, I would say that hiding less content is a good step forward because it not only benefits me, it benefits other people, especially if you do have a cut off points. If you have more to share that doesn't fit in the layout, giving me an additional location to be able to read that in the font size that I need. So I'm, I'm okay with everything fitting in boxes, but I need to be able to get to the content. Nic Thank you Amy. You've been, as usual. Great. Thanks again, and we'll see you on the web.]]> full 40 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout, and you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Today, I'm talking to Amy Carney, again, Hey, Amy, how are you? Amy Hi, Nic. Good. Nic Good, good. For those people who haven't heard your previous interviews, can you tell us a little bit about what your disability is? Amy Yeah, so I have a visual impairments. It's kind of just on the edge of low vision. I don't have lenses in my eyes that were removed when I was just a baby. So they have that medical term for me called afakik. And so my glasses that I wear are my lenses, externally. So what I have is just usually just enough to get by as a sighted person. Nic What's your barrier? What's your big pet peeve you'd like to share about accessibility with with the audience today? Amy One of the things that I've encountered a lot, even in 2022, is on apps, as well as web pages that there's a trend to going of text that gets cut off, usually due to a box of a fixed height. And so information whether they want me to click on it to read more or not. It ends in three little dots, an ellipsis. And sometimes it doesn't even end it just cuts off. Because the content doesn't reflow to push down the blocks to be any taller. And so I'll miss out on content that's hidden away from me. And the real problem with ellipsis is that if there's no where to click to read more, that they just included paragraph in that spot, then I miss out on what the rest of the paragraph is. And I can't read more to see what they're trying to tell me. Nic Hhmm What's the solution to that? Amy Hmm. Allowing the box to expand? Nic Allowing the box to expend, ok yeah. All right. Amy So we're having a clickable area, if they really are set on a fixed height, I'm fine with going to another page or having a dialog box open up. I just like to see what's there. Nic Yeah, because a lot of designers today seem to really like this dot dot dot at the end of a line? Amy Yeah, cuz it, it lets people know that there is more to it. But it's like the second step was forgotten if there's more to it. How do I read more to that thing? Nic Yeah. Amy And so Nic I seem to encounter that pattern more when you reach the so called mobile view, you know, you even if you test on desktop, because you've resized your browser, you seem to come across that more more often in mobile view. Is that something that that you'd say, is that accurate? Amy I think so. Um, I really hate it. When people do that. For mobile apps, especially I have actually deleted some when they've updated their UI, to the user interface to, you know, improve the layout, I don't know if it's, I'm wondering if the design idea is to have more things to look at in one space. And so they kind of compress. But in the same instance, say, like a weather app that I had to delete, not only did the font get smaller, and it didn't coordinate with the size of font that I wanted on my system, but it also cut off with an ellipsis. And so here, there's this supporting weather information, and I can't get to it and on top of it. Sometimes when people do that, I will turn my phone to landscape. And it didn't have a landscape view. It was stuck in portrait. And so I could not get a lot of information. And it was just like, Well, okay, so this app is unusable to me. So now I have to just find a different one was there was too much information cut off. It was too small, I couldn't rotate. It was a lot of things I couldn't do with it. Nic If you want to know about the weather, you just stick your nose outside Amy [Laughter] Lick my finger Nic If you had one message for designers or developers today around accessibility, what would it be? Amy Oh, I would say that hiding less content is a good step forward because it not only benefits me, it benefits other people, especially if you do have a cut off points. If you have more to share that doesn't fit in the layout, giving me an additional location to be able to read that in the font size that I need. So I'm, I'm okay with everything fitting in boxes, but I need to be able to get to the content. Nic Thank you Amy. You've been, as usual. Great. Thanks again, and we'll see you on the web.]]> clean no 5:48 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/amy-carney-talks-about-low-vision-sticky-elements-and-overlays/ Tue, 08 Feb 2022 23:49:38 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=651 Nic Hi. I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules sound bytes, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barrier they encounter on the web. Today, I'm talking with Amy Carney. Hi, Amy, how are you? Amy Hi, I'm good. Nic Good. So glad that we get to catch up. We interact on Slack and on Twitter quite a bit. But face to face audio discussion is rare. Let me jump right in and ask you what's your disability or your impairment? Amy Well, I have a visual impairment. I was born with cataracts. And so I had my lenses removed when I was just a baby. And they have a technical term for that. Aphakic. So I have no lenses in my eyes. So these glasses I wear are my lenses. Nic All right. What impact does that have on your use of the web? What? What is your current pet peeve, biggest barrier you're experiencing? Amy Well, the biggest pet peeve would be anytime that something is blocked or text is cut off. So anything sticky on the screen, like sticky headers, sticky footers, sometimes even a little help icon on the side that stay in place, it all blocks my view because I have to enlarge my type a little bit sometimes when I'm zooming in through the browser, and it all bumps together really fast, especially when I have smaller screens, like phone or small laptop. Nic So sticky elements that basically reduce the viewport, because you have to enlarge the content within the viewport make access to the information really difficult. Amy It can yes, most definitely. Any kind of boxes that have to stay in place and don't allow expansion, any kind of things that are just fixed, and have to stay the way they look. Nic Why do you think there's such a trend for these sticky elements, though? Amy I think I've heard for headers, it's usually, so people can get back up to the top access the menu right away. And then I think it's common to have like chatbots and things. So you have buttons on the side. Some of the trend is having the accessibility overlay, which has a button that opens up and stays in place. And that can really block content for me as well. So yeah, anything that they they think that they want this at your fingertips quite literally, for the phones even. And it's it just blocks, you know, I'd rather just be able to scroll to what I need. Instead of having it stuck right in the way of the text that I want to read. Nic You opened the door for a follow up question. You mentioned these accessibility overlay widgets. From the perspective of a user with low vision, do you find that widgets useful at all? Amy I don't. And I know there's high contrast available. But sometimes that has weird effects for the text, I would much rather that I can use my own high contrast mode on Windows, which I have and do. I use dark mode. And I really appreciate when people put thought into coding in dark mode prefers theme dark for their webpage. So then I can go to the text heavy sites like blogs and be able to read before dark mode was when I was using a reader mode a lot through Firefox. So I can just press a button up there and adjust the font size, or even have it read to me along the way. And it also takes out a lot of excess stuff. So it doesn't get confusing what I need to click on. So I have my own technology and strategies for that. And I don't need that extra help that actually just gets in the way. Nic Thank you. What one message would you have for designers or developers around web accessibility? Amy Give me the freedom for my options of increasing text to zooming into the screen. Stop putting things in one spot where they don't move that gets in the way of what I do. The least you could do is let me unpin without some kind of bookmarklet. Unpin the header or the footer or whatever other widgets that you have to have on there. So I can get it out of the way. Let me read in my large print on my own screen. Nic Fantastic. Amy Thank you. That's really, really good information and hopefully we'll gonna have a whole bunch of people paying attention to this. Amy Welcome. Thanks for having me on the show. Nic Yeah, my pleasure. I'm sure you have other pet peeves we can get you back on to discuss at some point. Amy Very likely. Nic Right. Amy, thank you so much. We'll see you around.]]> full 39 Nic Hi. I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules sound bytes, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barrier they encounter on the web. Today, I'm talking with Amy Carney. Hi, Amy, how are you? Amy Hi, I'm good. Nic Good. So glad that we get to catch up. We interact on Slack and on Twitter quite a bit. But face to face audio discussion is rare. Let me jump right in and ask you what's your disability or your impairment? Amy Well, I have a visual impairment. I was born with cataracts. And so I had my lenses removed when I was just a baby. And they have a technical term for that. Aphakic. So I have no lenses in my eyes. So these glasses I wear are my lenses. Nic All right. What impact does that have on your use of the web? What? What is your current pet peeve, biggest barrier you're experiencing? Amy Well, the biggest pet peeve would be anytime that something is blocked or text is cut off. So anything sticky on the screen, like sticky headers, sticky footers, sometimes even a little help icon on the side that stay in place, it all blocks my view because I have to enlarge my type a little bit sometimes when I'm zooming in through the browser, and it all bumps together really fast, especially when I have smaller screens, like phone or small laptop. Nic So sticky elements that basically reduce the viewport, because you have to enlarge the content within the viewport make access to the information really difficult. Amy It can yes, most definitely. Any kind of boxes that have to stay in place and don't allow expansion, any kind of things that are just fixed, and have to stay the way they look. Nic Why do you think there's such a trend for these sticky elements, though? Amy I think I've heard for headers, it's usually, so people can get back up to the top access the menu right away. And then I think it's common to have like chatbots and things. So you have buttons on the side. Some of the trend is having the accessibility overlay, which has a button that opens up and stays in place. And that can really block content for me as well. So yeah, anything that they they think that they want this at your fingertips quite literally, for the phones even. And it's it just blocks, you know, I'd rather just be able to scroll to what I need. Instead of having it stuck right in the way of the text that I want to read. Nic You opened the door for a follow up question. You mentioned these accessibility overlay widgets. From the perspective of a user with low vision, do you find that widgets useful at all? Amy I don't. And I know there's high contrast available. But sometimes that has weird effects for the text, I would much rather that I can use my own high contrast mode on Windows, which I have and do. I use dark mode. And I really appreciate when people put thought into coding in dark mode prefers theme dark for their webpage. So then I can go to the text heavy sites like blogs and be able to read before dark mode was when I was using a reader mode a lot through Firefox. So I can just press a button up there and adjust the font size, or even have it read to me along the way. And it also takes out a lot of excess stuff. So it doesn't get confusing what I need to click on. So I have my own technology and strategies for that. And I don't need that extra help that actually just gets in the way. Nic Thank you. What one message would you have for designers or developers around web accessibility? Amy Give me the freedom for my options of increasing text to zooming into the screen. Stop putting things in one spot where they don't move that gets in the way of what I do. The least you could do is let me unpin without some kind of bookmarklet. Unpin the header or the footer or whatever other widgets that you have to have on there. So I can get it out of the way. Let me read in my large print on my own screen. Nic Fantastic. Amy Thank you. That's really, really good information and hopefully we'll gonna have a whole bunch of people paying attention to this. Amy Welcome. Thanks for having me on the show. Nic Yeah, my pleasure. I'm sure you have other pet peeves we can get you back on to discuss at some point. Amy Very likely. Nic Right. Amy, thank you so much. We'll see you around.]]> clean no 5:41 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/dacey-nolan-talks-about-epilepsy-and-her-barriers-on-the-web/ Thu, 09 Dec 2021 23:14:18 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=649 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rule sound bites, a series of short podcasts. with disabled people explain their impairments in what barrier they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provide accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. Today I'm talking with Dacey Nolan. Hi, Dacey, how are you? Dacey Good. How are you? Nic I'm good. We were on a panel discussion about the state of accessibility recently, and now we're on my podcast together. We just can't get away from one another. Dacey No, there was a lot of fun. And I learned so much he had really great perspective on accessibility. Nic Thank you. Let's go for this. What's your disability or your impairment? Dacey Yeah, so I was diagnosed with both ADHD and epilepsy. But today I'm going to be talking about my experience with epilepsy. So for those that don't know, Epilepsy is a neurological condition that affects the nervous system. So when nerve cells or neurons send information to your brain, they do this by releasing electrical impulses. If the electrical activity suddenly increases, it's called a seizure. So this can occur with many neurons are rapidly releasing those electrical impulses. So this can cause uncontrollable symptoms. And in most cases, it is life threatening, if the person is unconscious and hits their head, or there is something called unexplained death and epilepsy. So when most people hear the word seizure, they probably think of what's called a grand mal seizure, which is the unconscious and the violent muscle contractions or convulsions. There's so many different types. I actually have what's called juvenile myoclonic epilepsy. So you get it when you start going through puberty. And that accounts for 7% of the types of epilepsy and is actually the most diagnosed. So we're very, very, that's a put in perspective, all the different types. So there's also different types of seizures. So again, the grandma being one with the convulsing, there's also one called absent seizure, and it used to be I think, call it was called something else. But that's mistakenly for daydreaming, there's also gelastic and Christic seizures, which is uncontrollable, laughing and crying, and then tonic clonic, which is like muscle stiffening. So for me, I have grand mal  seizures, where, you know, I'll go unconscious and have the convulsions as well as I do have muscle spasms, so my arms will like, move without me actually like doing anything. And they'll be like really big jerks. Like sometimes, like if I'm putting makeup on in the morning, my arm will like fly away, and I have mascara all over my face. So each person is different in regards to what type of seizures they have, but also what triggers their seizures. So my triggers includes stress, lack of sleep, alcohol consumption, certain sounds, and I am photo sensitive. So photo sensitivity, that's a weird word to say,  is when seizures are triggered by flickering or flashing lights. Nic Thank you. Now I want to actually sidestep the main purpose of the show and I'd like to maybe do a short PSA as to what should someone do when they come across someone who's in the middle of a grand mal seizure? Dacey Absolutely. Thank you for asking. Especially there's so many misconceptions. I know, when my mom was growing up in the 80s, they used to tell people to hold their tongue. If y'all have heard of that, that that's completely false as person with epilepsy, having a grand mal seizures, not going to severe their tongue, it's physically impossible. But what you do is first and foremost, you know, you definitely want to make them as comfortable as possible put something under their head to make sure that they're not flailing around. Try to roll them over on their side that way if they do have any kind of like spittle or things that they're not going to choke on that. Again, not the tongue it's just like fluids in the mouth. You want to let them just do their thing don't try to stop it don't put any weight on them. Make sure their surroundings they're clear so they can't hurt themselves. Also somebody might like urinate on themselves so protect their dignity by like covering up their their Like bottom half of their area, just have someone if you're in pairs, really try to time it and then look for a MedicAlert bracelet, it'll, you know, let them know, but let you know if they do have a history of this. Most of the time, if you know the person and they're having multiple seizures, you don't have to call the ambulance. But definitely, if it's a first time seizure, or if someone is pregnant, or if you don't know the person, it's really good to call, you know, the ambulance 911. And the reason why we time it is because that's valuable information to tell, you know, the paramedics, because if it goes over a certain length of time, they're going to have to do more things. But most cases, it's just going to be you know, a really quick like 30 seconds, it's gonna feel like an eternity to you. But if they do wake up before paramedics, get there, don't crowd them. There's something that fight or flight really kicks in, when you're waking up. You don't know what happened, you're embarrassed for me, I always cry, and then I'm angry with myself. And so just be very supportive, letting them know everything is okay. And try not to bombard them with questions like, How do you feel? What year is this? Because that gets very scary. But yeah, so just to recap, roll them over on their side, protect their head, and, you know, try to time and call the ambulance. Nic Thank you. Coming back to the main purpose of the podcast, what would you say your greatest barrier is on the web? Dacey Yeah, so what's ironic is most web content is completely harmless to individuals with epilepsy. Now, with that being said, my very first seizure was when I was sitting at a computer, I was scrolling through social media. This was the time of, I think, examine MySpace, my friend texted me was like, Hey, I just updated my profile, can you go look at it, and she had this effect of the stars twinkling. And the last thing I remember, I'm waking up in the emergency room, and they told me I had a seizure. So what ends up happening is many developers use effects like flashing lights are flickering light effects, which could be dangerous to users. So some triggers for people that are photosensitive, are certain types of visual patterns, especially if they have a high contrast in color. certain colors, like the color red, and the color blue, and really high contrast, alternating patterns, especially stripes, you know, that are really high contrast, like a white and black next to each other. Also, you know, I always think of like flashing is, you know, like strobe lights, but even like a load or state like a spinner, that is going to have some flickers, and then also videos, animated GIFs, PNGs, and then those types of animations. So what's really hard for me right now is going through social media. Right now, you know, reels are really popular with Instagram. So many content creators are trying to find like, how are we going to, you know, make engaging content and grab people's attention. So they're using a lot of strobe lights, a lot of flashing lights. The same with GIFs, I've seen so many GIFs with, really, you know, flashing things because you're trying to get people's attention. And so these are really very difficult. And so I don't always have a seizure. I'm very lucky, I've been seizure free for about eight years now. But I've been having horrible migraines, and these migraines, are because of my epilepsy. And it'll last for about, you know, from three days all the way to seven days. So you know, definitely interacting with these. Yeah, is, is not fine. And you definitely don't want to have that experience. Like that's my experience with watching grills. And that's not a pleasant thing to have your users associate that kind of pain with your content. Nic That's, that's the thing I think that most people don't realize is that you don't have to actually trigger a seizure in your user to actually really ruin their life. Because if you if you trigger a migraine that send someone to a dark room and bed for a week, you've basically ruined their life. So you have to be really careful about what you're doing. Dacey Yeah, and especially too like I was saying, I mean, there's so many other different life threatening conditions, but you know, I when I had my first seizure, I was sitting on a stool and I fell and hit my head on my bed frame. And luckily, you know, my brother was in the room and was able to go and get help and said, you know, she hit her head. You know, even if it's, you know, something like that you don't know what people surrounding someone could be walking in a busy street on their phone. I know you're not supposed to do that, but you just never know. And they, you know, can really put themselves in danger. And so I definitely think it's very, you know, life threatening, not having things as accessible for people with epilepsy. Nic Yeah. One of the way the web content accessibility guideline addresses that is one of the success criteria talks about no more than three flashes per second, which, to me has always seemed not quite enough to, to talk about. And from what you're what you're describing, this is really the case that there's so much more to it than that. So I think I think people need to remember, no, WCAG is the starting point is at the target here. Dacey Yes, especially, you know, when I go in and get tested periodically to find out how my epilepsy is going. So I have to do what is called an EEG. So they put these things all over my head. And one of the test is they put a strobe light in front of me, in the first part of the test, it's a light that flashes, like, once every, you know, 30 seconds. So it's a pretty big gap. And I have had brain activity or seizure activity, even when the flashes are that low. So yes, I think that what you're saying that I think it was about three flashes a second. I yeah, I feel like that's still not not enough, because any kind of like crazy light is going to happen in it in no, it happens with both natural light and artificial light. The weirdest thing for me is when snow is falling in the winter time and the light hits it. It also does this weird effect where so many people have seizures then. So yeah, it's, it is one of those everyone's different, like I said, sounds also trigger my epilepsy too. So it's one of these, like, I guess, like a balancing act of like, how do you handle every use case? Nic Yeah. So if you had a message for designers or developers working on the web, what would that be? Dacey Yeah, so I've got about three. So the first one is utilizing a tool, it's a free tool called photosensitive epilepsy analysis tool. And the acronym is PAT, or Pete. But devs can use this to identify potential photosensitive seizure risks. So I played around with a little bit there, there's some really great information on like, how to use the test. And so really great tool, I wouldn't rely heavily on just that, like do the test. I think a lot of people with that, you know, work with accessibility, they'll tell you some of those tests, like definitely test for yourself don't rely on a lot of like automated tools, things could always slip through the cracks. If you're going to include like animated GIFs, I would recommend them not playing by default, but allowing the user to click a play button. And then also utilize media queries, because that's going to give users control over certain web features. So I can put in my settings that I prefer reduced emotion. And so using those media queries is just going to help. You know, make sure that your users using whatever they want, as far as some of those preferences. Nic I love the idea of relying on preferred reduced motion to alleviate some of the seizure risk, because most of the time, we're talking about this feature as a accessibility feature for folks with vestibular motion disorder. So it's, it's similar and at the same time, it's different. I love that there's more than one use for the tool. Thank you. Yeah, Dacey Yeah, of course. Thank you. Nic Dacey you've been fantastic. Thank you for all this information. And I'm sure I'll see you around on the web. Dacey Yeah, thank you again for having me.]]> full 38 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rule sound bites, a series of short podcasts. with disabled people explain their impairments in what barrier they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provide accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. Today I'm talking with Dacey Nolan. Hi, Dacey, how are you? Dacey Good. How are you? Nic I'm good. We were on a panel discussion about the state of accessibility recently, and now we're on my podcast together. We just can't get away from one another. Dacey No, there was a lot of fun. And I learned so much he had really great perspective on accessibility. Nic Thank you. Let's go for this. What's your disability or your impairment? Dacey Yeah, so I was diagnosed with both ADHD and epilepsy. But today I'm going to be talking about my experience with epilepsy. So for those that don't know, Epilepsy is a neurological condition that affects the nervous system. So when nerve cells or neurons send information to your brain, they do this by releasing electrical impulses. If the electrical activity suddenly increases, it's called a seizure. So this can occur with many neurons are rapidly releasing those electrical impulses. So this can cause uncontrollable symptoms. And in most cases, it is life threatening, if the person is unconscious and hits their head, or there is something called unexplained death and epilepsy. So when most people hear the word seizure, they probably think of what's called a grand mal seizure, which is the unconscious and the violent muscle contractions or convulsions. There's so many different types. I actually have what's called juvenile myoclonic epilepsy. So you get it when you start going through puberty. And that accounts for 7% of the types of epilepsy and is actually the most diagnosed. So we're very, very, that's a put in perspective, all the different types. So there's also different types of seizures. So again, the grandma being one with the convulsing, there's also one called absent seizure, and it used to be I think, call it was called something else. But that's mistakenly for daydreaming, there's also gelastic and Christic seizures, which is uncontrollable, laughing and crying, and then tonic clonic, which is like muscle stiffening. So for me, I have grand mal  seizures, where, you know, I'll go unconscious and have the convulsions as well as I do have muscle spasms, so my arms will like, move without me actually like doing anything. And they'll be like really big jerks. Like sometimes, like if I'm putting makeup on in the morning, my arm will like fly away, and I have mascara all over my face. So each person is different in regards to what type of seizures they have, but also what triggers their seizures. So my triggers includes stress, lack of sleep, alcohol consumption, certain sounds, and I am photo sensitive. So photo sensitivity, that's a weird word to say,  is when seizures are triggered by flickering or flashing lights. Nic Thank you. Now I want to actually sidestep the main purpose of the show and I'd like to maybe do a short PSA as to what should someone do when they come across someone who's in the middle of a grand mal seizure? Dacey Absolutely. Thank you for asking. Especially there's so many misconceptions. I know, when my mom was growing up in the 80s, they used to tell people to hold their tongue. If y'all have heard of that, that that's completely false as person with epilepsy, having a grand mal seizures, not going to severe their tongue, it's physically impossible. But what you do is first and foremost, you know, you definitely want to make them as comfortable as possible put something under their head to make sure that they're not flailing around. Try to roll them over on their side that way if they do have any kind of like spittle or things that they're not going to choke on that. Again, not the tongue it's just like fluids in the mouth. You want to let them just do their thing don't try to stop it don't put any weight on them. Make sure their surroundings they're clear so they can't hurt themselves. Also somebody might like urinate on themselves so protect their dignity by like covering up their their Like bottom half of their area, just have someone if you're in pairs, really try to time it and then look for a MedicAlert bracelet, it'll, you know, let them know, but let you know if they do have a history of this. Most of the time, if you know the person and they're having multiple seizures, you don't have to call the ambulance. But definitely, if it's a first time seizure, or if someone is pregnant, or if you don't know the person, it's really good to call, you know, the ambulance 911. And the reason why we time it is because that's valuable information to tell, you know, the paramedics, because if it goes over a certain length of time, they're going to have to do more things. But most cases, it's just going to be you know, a really quick like 30 seconds, it's gonna feel like an eternity to you. But if they do wake up before paramedics, get there, don't crowd them. There's something that fight or flight really kicks in, when you're waking up. You don't know what happened, you're embarrassed for me, I always cry, and then I'm angry with myself. And so just be very supportive, letting them know everything is okay. And try not to bombard them with questions like, How do you feel? What year is this? Because that gets very scary. But yeah, so just to recap, roll them over on their side, protect their head, and, you know, try to time and call the ambulance. Nic Thank you. Coming back to the main purpose of the podcast, what would you say your greatest barrier is on the web? Dacey Yeah, so what's ironic is most web content is completely harmless to individuals with epilepsy. Now, with that being said, my very first seizure was when I was sitting at a computer, I was scrolling through social media. This was the time of, I think, examine MySpace, my friend texted me was like, Hey, I just updated my profile, can you go look at it, and she had this effect of the stars twinkling. And the last thing I remember, I'm waking up in the emergency room, and they told me I had a seizure. So what ends up happening is many developers use effects like flashing lights are flickering light effects, which could be dangerous to users. So some triggers for people that are photosensitive, are certain types of visual patterns, especially if they have a high contrast in color. certain colors, like the color red, and the color blue, and really high contrast, alternating patterns, especially stripes, you know, that are really high contrast, like a white and black next to each other. Also, you know, I always think of like flashing is, you know, like strobe lights, but even like a load or state like a spinner, that is going to have some flickers, and then also videos, animated GIFs, PNGs, and then those types of animations. So what's really hard for me right now is going through social media. Right now, you know, reels are really popular with Instagram. So many content creators are trying to find like, how are we going to, you know, make engaging content and grab people's attention. So they're using a lot of strobe lights, a lot of flashing lights. The same with GIFs, I've seen so many GIFs with, really, you know, flashing things because you're trying to get people's attention. And so these are really very difficult. And so I don't always have a seizure. I'm very lucky, I've been seizure free for about eight years now. But I've been having horrible migraines, and these migraines, are because of my epilepsy. And it'll last for about, you know, from three days all the way to seven days. So you know, definitely interacting with these. Yeah, is, is not fine. And you definitely don't want to have that experience. Like that's my experience with watching grills. And that's not a pleasant thing to have your users associate that kind of pain with your content. Nic That's, that's the thing I think that most people don't realize is that you don't have to actually trigger a seizure in your user to actually really ruin their life. Because if you if you trigger a migraine that send someone to a dark room and bed for a week, you've basically ruined their life. So you have to be really careful about what you're doing. Dacey Yeah, and especially too like I was saying, I mean, there's so many other different life threatening conditions, but you know, I when I had my first seizure, I was sitting on a stool and I fell and hit my head on my bed frame. And luckily, you know, my brother was in the room and was able to go and get help and said, you know, she hit her head. You know, even if it's, you know, something like that you don't know what people surrounding someone could be walking in a busy street on their phone. I know you're not supposed to do that, but you just never know. And they, you know, can really put themselves in danger. And so I definitely think it's very, you know, life threatening, not having things as accessible for people with epilepsy. Nic Yeah. One of the way the web content accessibility guideline addresses that is one of the success criteria talks about no more than three flashes per second, which, to me has always seemed not quite enough to, to talk about. And from what you're what you're describing, this is really the case that there's so much more to it than that. So I think I think people need to remember, no, WCAG is the starting point is at the target here. Dacey Yes, especially, you know, when I go in and get tested periodically to find out how my epilepsy is going. So I have to do what is called an EEG. So they put these things all over my head. And one of the test is they put a strobe light in front of me, in the first part of the test, it's a light that flashes, like, once every, you know, 30 seconds. So it's a pretty big gap. And I have had brain activity or seizure activity, even when the flashes are that low. So yes, I think that what you're saying that I think it was about three flashes a second. I yeah, I feel like that's still not not enough, because any kind of like crazy light is going to happen in it in no, it happens with both natural light and artificial light. The weirdest thing for me is when snow is falling in the winter time and the light hits it. It also does this weird effect where so many people have seizures then. So yeah, it's, it is one of those everyone's different, like I said, sounds also trigger my epilepsy too. So it's one of these, like, I guess, like a balancing act of like, how do you handle every use case? Nic Yeah. So if you had a message for designers or developers working on the web, what would that be? Dacey Yeah, so I've got about three. So the first one is utilizing a tool, it's a free tool called photosensitive epilepsy analysis tool. And the acronym is PAT, or Pete. But devs can use this to identify potential photosensitive seizure risks. So I played around with a little bit there, there's some really great information on like, how to use the test. And so really great tool, I wouldn't rely heavily on just that, like do the test. I think a lot of people with that, you know, work with accessibility, they'll tell you some of those tests, like definitely test for yourself don't rely on a lot of like automated tools, things could always slip through the cracks. If you're going to include like animated GIFs, I would recommend them not playing by default, but allowing the user to click a play button. And then also utilize media queries, because that's going to give users control over certain web features. So I can put in my settings that I prefer reduced emotion. And so using those media queries is just going to help. You know, make sure that your users using whatever they want, as far as some of those preferences. Nic I love the idea of relying on preferred reduced motion to alleviate some of the seizure risk, because most of the time, we're talking about this feature as a accessibility feature for folks with vestibular motion disorder. So it's, it's similar and at the same time, it's different. I love that there's more than one use for the tool. Thank you. Yeah, Dacey Yeah, of course. Thank you. Nic Dacey you've been fantastic. Thank you for all this information. And I'm sure I'll see you around on the web. Dacey Yeah, thank you again for having me.]]> https://a11yrules.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/dacey-nolan.jpg clean no 15:02 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/listen-to-disabled-peoples-stories-idpd-2021/ Fri, 03 Dec 2021 20:24:45 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=647 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. Today's episode is a bit different - I'm not talking to a disabled web user. I'm talking about the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. I have mixed feelings about any international day of celebration or acknowledgement of any specific topic. It's a bit as if some people think "ok, we've done this topic and we can forget it until next year". What should be the start of awareness building ends up being more like a quickly discharged duty. My message on this International Day of Persons with Disabilities is simple: Listen to disabled people. Accept that we are the expert at how our impairments impact our interactions on the web. Not all disabled folks are technical experts on web issues. They may not know how to fix a barrier on the web. But they certainly can tell you what's a barrier and why it's a barrier for them. Before the corona virus pandemic hit the world so hard, disabled folks had been asking for accommodations, and often refused those on the basis that they were too difficult to implement. Or too expensive to make happen. Then, almost overnight, a lot of the things disabled folks wanted happened, including remote work instead of in-office work, and video calls instead of in-person meetings. And a lot of people experienced an improvement in their quality of life, not just disabled folks. So it wasn't too hard. It wasn't too expensive. It was a question of attitude. It was a question of willingness to listen to disabled folks. Don't dismiss our message. Listen to us. Listen to us on more than one or two days a year. This series of podcasts is here to provide you with information about accessibility barriers disabled people experience on the web. In their own words. I hope you benefit from this resource. I hope you listen to what my guests have to say. I hope you spread the word. By all means, let's celebrate the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. But keep on listening to disabled folks' stories and histories year round. Because it's worse to be celebrated for one day and then put back in the cupboard for a year.]]> full 37 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. Today's episode is a bit different - I'm not talking to a disabled web user. I'm talking about the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. I have mixed feelings about any international day of celebration or acknowledgement of any specific topic. It's a bit as if some people think "ok, we've done this topic and we can forget it until next year". What should be the start of awareness building ends up being more like a quickly discharged duty. My message on this International Day of Persons with Disabilities is simple: Listen to disabled people. Accept that we are the expert at how our impairments impact our interactions on the web. Not all disabled folks are technical experts on web issues. They may not know how to fix a barrier on the web. But they certainly can tell you what's a barrier and why it's a barrier for them. Before the corona virus pandemic hit the world so hard, disabled folks had been asking for accommodations, and often refused those on the basis that they were too difficult to implement. Or too expensive to make happen. Then, almost overnight, a lot of the things disabled folks wanted happened, including remote work instead of in-office work, and video calls instead of in-person meetings. And a lot of people experienced an improvement in their quality of life, not just disabled folks. So it wasn't too hard. It wasn't too expensive. It was a question of attitude. It was a question of willingness to listen to disabled folks. Don't dismiss our message. Listen to us. Listen to us on more than one or two days a year. This series of podcasts is here to provide you with information about accessibility barriers disabled people experience on the web. In their own words. I hope you benefit from this resource. I hope you listen to what my guests have to say. I hope you spread the word. By all means, let's celebrate the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. But keep on listening to disabled folks' stories and histories year round. Because it's worse to be celebrated for one day and then put back in the cupboard for a year.]]> clean no 3:06 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/kelly-hussey-talks-about-speech-input-and-visible-element-separation/ Wed, 17 Nov 2021 19:47:25 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=645 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules sound bites, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment and what barrier they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. Today I'm talking with Kelly Hussey. How are you, Kelly? Kelly I'm good. How are you? Nic I'm good. Thanks for joining me on this podcast. We've spoken on Twitter and social media before but it's good to have a live chat finally. Kelly Yes, and thank you Dr. Prendergast for introducing us. Hi. Nic Absolutely. Thank you, Cathy. Let me jump right in and ask you what your disability or impairment is? Kelly I have cerebral palsy. And my main issues when it comes to accessing web and software is my hands suck at being hands is the joke I always make. And visual processing is an issue at times. Nic Alright, so given that your, your hands suck at being hands, what, what would be your greatest barrier on the web? Kelly Um, I don't know if this counts as a web barrier, because it's not the website fault. Dragon does not like to dictate into anything but... But word and notepad and it's frustrating. And you know what? I dropped off again didn't I? Nic No, no, you're you're in your I don't have your video but haven't got your audio. Kelly Okay. Coolio. Because videos... But yes. So my issues are dragon does not like dictating into websites, even with the dictation box. And also websites that put like tables and things up without clear boundaries of what, what is in what cell can be very annoying, Nic Right. I like that you're talking about Dragon Naturally Speaking as an issue, because I think it's important that we we look at technology as a whole rather than, you know, just websites. So if you're having problems using the web, because your preferred input method is speech to text. And that doesn't work, then that to me is most definitely a big barrier for using the web. Kelly Yes. Yes. I mean, it's not a huge deal, because I just typed into notepad, then copy and paste. Nic But doesn't that increase your cognitive load, though? I mean, why would you have to do that and take more time than to actually just do it straight? Kelly Yes, it does, definitely increase the cognitive load well. Well, the reality is, I have like this habit, tracker to do list after they use and one of the habits I have is actually remember to open Dragon for like, social media things. Because I, because I, because I can type a bit. So I just want to, like, type of quick things. Sometimes I forget, you know, this will take up half the time if you actually open the thing that lets you do it faster, Nic Yeah. So what if you were able to speak directly to a designer or developer? What message would you have for them? Kelly Well, the dragon thing I think, is more of a Nuance thing. So yeah. Mostly the idea of if you have like, long tables and lists actually put borders on them, so I know what I'm picking up. Nic Hmm. I like that. Make sure that tables and lists are obviously separated from one another. Kelly Yes. Nic Fantastic. Kelly, thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing your experience and we'll see you around on the web. Kelly Okay, that was good. Coolio.]]> full 36 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules sound bites, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment and what barrier they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. Today I'm talking with Kelly Hussey. How are you, Kelly? Kelly I'm good. How are you? Nic I'm good. Thanks for joining me on this podcast. We've spoken on Twitter and social media before but it's good to have a live chat finally. Kelly Yes, and thank you Dr. Prendergast for introducing us. Hi. Nic Absolutely. Thank you, Cathy. Let me jump right in and ask you what your disability or impairment is? Kelly I have cerebral palsy. And my main issues when it comes to accessing web and software is my hands suck at being hands is the joke I always make. And visual processing is an issue at times. Nic Alright, so given that your, your hands suck at being hands, what, what would be your greatest barrier on the web? Kelly Um, I don't know if this counts as a web barrier, because it's not the website fault. Dragon does not like to dictate into anything but... But word and notepad and it's frustrating. And you know what? I dropped off again didn't I? Nic No, no, you're you're in your I don't have your video but haven't got your audio. Kelly Okay. Coolio. Because videos... But yes. So my issues are dragon does not like dictating into websites, even with the dictation box. And also websites that put like tables and things up without clear boundaries of what, what is in what cell can be very annoying, Nic Right. I like that you're talking about Dragon Naturally Speaking as an issue, because I think it's important that we we look at technology as a whole rather than, you know, just websites. So if you're having problems using the web, because your preferred input method is speech to text. And that doesn't work, then that to me is most definitely a big barrier for using the web. Kelly Yes. Yes. I mean, it's not a huge deal, because I just typed into notepad, then copy and paste. Nic But doesn't that increase your cognitive load, though? I mean, why would you have to do that and take more time than to actually just do it straight? Kelly Yes, it does, definitely increase the cognitive load well. Well, the reality is, I have like this habit, tracker to do list after they use and one of the habits I have is actually remember to open Dragon for like, social media things. Because I, because I, because I can type a bit. So I just want to, like, type of quick things. Sometimes I forget, you know, this will take up half the time if you actually open the thing that lets you do it faster, Nic Yeah. So what if you were able to speak directly to a designer or developer? What message would you have for them? Kelly Well, the dragon thing I think, is more of a Nuance thing. So yeah. Mostly the idea of if you have like, long tables and lists actually put borders on them, so I know what I'm picking up. Nic Hmm. I like that. Make sure that tables and lists are obviously separated from one another. Kelly Yes. Nic Fantastic. Kelly, thank you for your time. Thank you for sharing your experience and we'll see you around on the web. Kelly Okay, that was good. Coolio.]]> https://a11yrules.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/kelly-hussey.jpg clean no 5:20 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/kevin-mar-molinero-talks-about-dyscalculia-and-copy-pasting/ Thu, 04 Nov 2021 22:43:57 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=641 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility soundbites, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barrier they encounter on the web. Of course, first, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provide accessibility as a service, they offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. Today, I'm talking with Kevin Mar-Molinero. Hey, Kev, how are you? Kevin Very good. Thank you. Nic Thank you for joining me, I know this the end of the day for you, it's the start of the day for me. So we have a little bit of time split. Let me jump right into it and ask you, what's your disability or your impairment? Kevin So I have a couple actually. So I've only admitted to them I found out about them relatively recently. So I have dyscalculia, which is effectively the dyslexia of numbers. Numbers, frankly, to me make no sense. I find it very, very difficult to comprehend. When I see them, I see them as shapes. And I by and large survived kind of got through my life, my life through memory tricks and through kind of running my finger over a screen or just remembering what shapes looked like and what the shape expected shapes coming out of the bar. It's incredibly similar to dyslexia in that you can often place new numbers or completely arbitrarily miss numbers out of strings, so on and so forth. So it's kind of, I guess, it's a less a less well known cousin of dyslexia. But I am also dyslexic. So this is something which I've probably known all of my life, but I never went to get diagnosed. My sister is quite heavily dyslexic. My dad has dyslexia, my brother has dyslexia. I was of a generation where it wasn't something that was considered at school. So I was never diagnosed at school. And I went through my working career for years and years and years, right up to my late 30s, kind of avoiding the very obvious thing that I was dyslexic. And eventually, after a lot of nagging from my sister went to get it actually checked out and get it diagnosed. My dyslexia tend to be more, it's less around the kind of confusion of letters and within a sentence, I tend to manifest both in just completely arbitrarily missing words in a sentence, or, I guess from experience, I get the words, the wrong words in the wrong places. And I add things in. I do this quite regularly. It's understanding it has allowed me to kind of have coping mechanisms, I think it's been very interesting to kind of finally be honest about the fact that I have dyslexia and kind of realizing that sometimes my communication may be a bit more abrupt because I will think something in my head that won't appear out of my mouth. And certainly when I'm typing, it's, it's all over the place. Likewise, we chatted briefly before we came into the call. But I mentioned that today is the end of a long day of zooms. And I think for a lot of people, they see zoom and zoom fatigue has been a real problem. I'm the opposite. At the end of the day, I'd much rather do a zoom call, or do a telephone call, because I just reach the end of the day, and I don't want to read anything else that I want to type anything else, because I'm making so many mistakes. Nic It must be quite difficult to have dyslexia or any other condition and go through life and struggling with that. And then finally, when you're in your 30s, get that confirmed,. How much of a relief versus you know, I should have done this earlier versus do I have coping strategies that are established? And is that going to change with the diagnosis? How much of that happened? Kevin It was a bit of an embarrassment about not doing it earlier? Absolutely. I think, I guess, kind of, I grew up in the 80s and 90s. And there was still a lot of ableist language around there's still a kind of, there's a bit of shame in having something like that. And I think I perhaps carry some of that over with me as I got older. I think finally accepting and kind of going and having it checked out and thank God, my sister nagged me into it. It made me realize, yes, I have coping strategies, but these coping strategies don't necessarily work. And actually, once I started to look into it as I speak to people and I started to understand what this was, I've I've become a little more productive in the way I do things. I don't feel so embarrassed to ask somebody to jump onto a phone call when I need to talk through something. I understand as well why, if I'm sat trying to do collaborative working, I'm not going to work as well, when I'm in a shared Google document, I'm going to need to be in a room, I need to be listening to people, because that's how that sparks my thought process. And the written, the written word is always going to be something which it just doesn't work properly for me. Nic Yeah. So this thing that everybody goes on about, you know, this meeting could have been an email. Really, you would take the opposite approach, right? Kevin It’s the worst possible thing for me? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I do understand why. And I understand that the kind of you get the cognitive fatigue, if you if you've, if you are on meetings all day long, but I'm the opposite. I need a phone call, I need to speak I need to hear I need to listen and I to respond through speech. Because it's... I just get tired of reading, I just, my brain does not want to read anything else by the end of the day. Nic So let me let me ask you this. Apart from this... This fatigue, what would be your greatest barrier on the web? Kevin So dyscalculia... My dyscalculia far worse than my dyslexia. Numbers. So if we're talking about direct barrier, something which I'll give you two prime examples of things, which really, really just infuriate me. Phone numbers. Phone numbers might seem like such a small thing to most people, a long phone number, which is grouped together with no gaps in it, I will get wrong every single time. I just will, I know, I know, mobile phone number, for example, I need to break it down into into segments to be able to get it right. I rely very heavily on if I'm doing something copying and pasting out. So let's say I take in the UK, we have postcodes, and I've got postcode, and I want to find out what something is. A lot of people will make those clickable links which open in a specific app. The minute I go to copy it open to an app, or it copies all the metadata behind it. And I can't just paste that into the thing I want to paste it in. And this, it just angers me because otherwise, I have to and particularly on my phone, actually which I find easier. I open the browser tabs and then I almost have them side by side and get the first two digits and then go back and get the next two digits and then go back until I've got what I need to be able to input because I will not hold that in my head in the same way. I will get it wrong. So because they're arbitrary, they're not... They're not word. So I’ll get it wrong. Also alongside this reading, so I didn't realize I was doing this. And this is you interesting to talk about coping techniques. And until I kind of spoke to other people with dyslexia and realized it's fairly normal. Quite often when I read I will highlight text. So highlight a chunk of the paragraph with my... Literally take the cursor and highlight it. So I can read that specific bit without muddling it up with the lines above and below. It is so common nowadays. Firstly, that it's not designed for you to have a highlight. So I cannot highlight the text. And secondly, and immeasurably more annoying. Someone somewhere has decided the fact I'm highlighting it means I want to share it on social media. And a pop up appears. And I don't want to share it on social media, I want to be able to read it. It's just it's that kind of I guess it's the arrogance of the person doing I think, well, with the highlighting it definitely wants to share. It's like no, I want to get to the end of that chunk. And then do the same thing just down below so that we can carry on reading. Nic Yeah. See, I'm so glad I'm talking to you because that was not something I would have thought about. So yeah! We hear a lot about sighted screen reader users. And the use case that people talk a lot about is folks with severe dyslexia. Have you played around with using a screen reader to alleviate some of that? That cognitive load? Kevin Not intentionally. So I do use screen readers at work for testing purposes. I do find some of the functions a hell of a lot easier than scanning and reading a site. But I've not intentionally used one in a knowing way. As opposed to you know, I haven't thought to go and use one in the knowing why. I think... I think I've just kind of gotten used to how I am if that makes sense. I don't really look for... I quite often will just kind of if there's a mistake which I've done I'll just think it's my fault. Nic Fair enough. Kevin So it's not something which I've had personal experience with. Going back to the other point, which I find really frustrating. And it's something which I think a lot of people may be surprised by because they may not realize this but type ahead or predictive search when you have search boxes. I misspell things. It will almost always bring up the wrong thing, which I'm looking for. When for many people, it seems kind of a valuable thing to have these things coming down. I'm just going, why isn't it showing what I want. Actually, I prefer to be able to type in my word. And then once it's all in be able to use the AutoCorrect to change it and then search. Nic So what's the solution there? Is it providing a toggle to turn on or off the word prediction? Or how do we reconcile the usability for folks that actually find that useful and the accessibility for folks like you that need it? Kevin It's choice. It's choice, I think, obviously, what's good for me won't be good for somebody else. And we shouldn't be designing for kind of a homogenous grey of people. So actually, what I want is, rather than it start, for example, filtering stuff out, before I finish typing, I prefer it to wait to the end, if you've got a predictive text, by all means, start showing underneath what's there. Because I can filter that out. I can ignore that. I mean, there's just something going on below the screen. But don't start editing the products. Don't start editing the page, don't start changing the user experience around me. Allow me to make that that deliberate choice at the end to do that. Nic So while we're mentioning design, what what would be one message you have for designers or developers? Kevin Well, I mean, two messages, really. First message is: Let me copy and paste things I need to do it. Please don't think that your your UI decisions should hijack that native behavior of me being able to copy and paste stuff. I need to Google word sometimes I need to be able to copy and copy and paste out so that I don't have to remember things. And also, I need to be able to highlight the text to read it. Nic Fantastic. Kevin, thank you so much. You've been a great guest and you've, you've taught me stuff I hadn't thought about. So that's that's wonderful. I'm sure the audience is going to enjoy that as well. Kevin Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on this Nic Cheers.]]> full 35 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility soundbites, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barrier they encounter on the web. Of course, first, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provide accessibility as a service, they offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. Today, I'm talking with Kevin Mar-Molinero. Hey, Kev, how are you? Kevin Very good. Thank you. Nic Thank you for joining me, I know this the end of the day for you, it's the start of the day for me. So we have a little bit of time split. Let me jump right into it and ask you, what's your disability or your impairment? Kevin So I have a couple actually. So I've only admitted to them I found out about them relatively recently. So I have dyscalculia, which is effectively the dyslexia of numbers. Numbers, frankly, to me make no sense. I find it very, very difficult to comprehend. When I see them, I see them as shapes. And I by and large survived kind of got through my life, my life through memory tricks and through kind of running my finger over a screen or just remembering what shapes looked like and what the shape expected shapes coming out of the bar. It's incredibly similar to dyslexia in that you can often place new numbers or completely arbitrarily miss numbers out of strings, so on and so forth. So it's kind of, I guess, it's a less a less well known cousin of dyslexia. But I am also dyslexic. So this is something which I've probably known all of my life, but I never went to get diagnosed. My sister is quite heavily dyslexic. My dad has dyslexia, my brother has dyslexia. I was of a generation where it wasn't something that was considered at school. So I was never diagnosed at school. And I went through my working career for years and years and years, right up to my late 30s, kind of avoiding the very obvious thing that I was dyslexic. And eventually, after a lot of nagging from my sister went to get it actually checked out and get it diagnosed. My dyslexia tend to be more, it's less around the kind of confusion of letters and within a sentence, I tend to manifest both in just completely arbitrarily missing words in a sentence, or, I guess from experience, I get the words, the wrong words in the wrong places. And I add things in. I do this quite regularly. It's understanding it has allowed me to kind of have coping mechanisms, I think it's been very interesting to kind of finally be honest about the fact that I have dyslexia and kind of realizing that sometimes my communication may be a bit more abrupt because I will think something in my head that won't appear out of my mouth. And certainly when I'm typing, it's, it's all over the place. Likewise, we chatted briefly before we came into the call. But I mentioned that today is the end of a long day of zooms. And I think for a lot of people, they see zoom and zoom fatigue has been a real problem. I'm the opposite. At the end of the day, I'd much rather do a zoom call, or do a telephone call, because I just reach the end of the day, and I don't want to read anything else that I want to type anything else, because I'm making so many mistakes. Nic It must be quite difficult to have dyslexia or any other condition and go through life and struggling with that. And then finally, when you're in your 30s, get that confirmed,. How much of a relief versus you know, I should have done this earlier versus do I have coping strategies that are established? And is that going to change with the diagnosis? How much of that happened? Kevin It was a bit of an embarrassment about not doing it earlier? Absolutely. I think, I guess, kind of, I grew up in the 80s and 90s. And there was still a lot of ableist language around there's still a kind of, there's a bit of shame in having something like that. And I think I perhaps carry some of that over with me as I got older. I think finally accepting and kind of going and having it checked out and thank God, my sister nagged me into it. It made me realize, yes, I have coping strategies, but these coping strategies don't necessarily work. And actually, once I started to look into it as I speak to people and I started to understand what this was, I've I've become a little more productive in the way I do things. I don't feel so embarrassed to ask somebody to jump onto a phone call when I need to talk through something. I understand as well why, if I'm sat trying to do collaborative working, I'm not going to work as well, when I'm in a shared Google document, I'm going to need to be in a room, I need to be listening to people, because that's how that sparks my thought process. And the written, the written word is always going to be something which it just doesn't work properly for me. Nic Yeah. So this thing that everybody goes on about, you know, this meeting could have been an email. Really, you would take the opposite approach, right? Kevin It’s the worst possible thing for me? Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I do understand why. And I understand that the kind of you get the cognitive fatigue, if you if you've, if you are on meetings all day long, but I'm the opposite. I need a phone call, I need to speak I need to hear I need to listen and I to respond through speech. Because it's... I just get tired of reading, I just, my brain does not want to read anything else by the end of the day. Nic So let me let me ask you this. Apart from this... This fatigue, what would be your greatest barrier on the web? Kevin So dyscalculia... My dyscalculia far worse than my dyslexia. Numbers. So if we're talking about direct barrier, something which I'll give you two prime examples of things, which really, really just infuriate me. Phone numbers. Phone numbers might seem like such a small thing to most people, a long phone number, which is grouped together with no gaps in it, I will get wrong every single time. I just will, I know, I know, mobile phone number, for example, I need to break it down into into segments to be able to get it right. I rely very heavily on if I'm doing something copying and pasting out. So let's say I take in the UK, we have postcodes, and I've got postcode, and I want to find out what something is. A lot of people will make those clickable links which open in a specific app. The minute I go to copy it open to an app, or it copies all the metadata behind it. And I can't just paste that into the thing I want to paste it in. And this, it just angers me because otherwise, I have to and particularly on my phone, actually which I find easier. I open the browser tabs and then I almost have them side by side and get the first two digits and then go back and get the next two digits and then go back until I've got what I need to be able to input because I will not hold that in my head in the same way. I will get it wrong. So because they're arbitrary, they're not... They're not word. So I’ll get it wrong. Also alongside this reading, so I didn't realize I was doing this. And this is you interesting to talk about coping techniques. And until I kind of spoke to other people with dyslexia and realized it's fairly normal. Quite often when I read I will highlight text. So highlight a chunk of the paragraph with my... Literally take the cursor and highlight it. So I can read that specific bit without muddling it up with the lines above and below. It is so common nowadays. Firstly, that it's not designed for you to have a highlight. So I cannot highlight the text. And secondly, and immeasurably more annoying. Someone somewhere has decided the fact I'm highlighting it means I want to share it on social media. And a pop up appears. And I don't want to share it on social media, I want to be able to read it. It's just it's that kind of I guess it's the arrogance of the person doing I think, well, with the highlighting it definitely wants to share. It's like no, I want to get to the end of that chunk. And then do the same thing just down below so that we can carry on reading. Nic Yeah. See, I'm so glad I'm talking to you because that was not something I would have thought about. So yeah! We hear a lot about sighted screen reader users. And the use case that people talk a lot about is folks with severe dyslexia. Have you played around with using a screen reader to alleviate some of that? That cognitive load? Kevin Not intentionally. So I do use screen readers at work for testing purposes. I do find some of the functions a hell of a lot easier than scanning and reading a site. But I've not intentionally used one in a knowing way. As opposed to you know, I haven't thought to go and use one in the knowing why. I think... I think I've just kind of gotten used to how I am if that makes sense. I don't really look for... I quite often will just kind of if there's a mistake which I've done I'll just think it's my fault. Nic Fair enough. Kevin So it's not something which I've had personal experience with. Going back to the other point, which I find really frustrating. And it's something which I think a lot of people may be surprised by because they may not realize this but type ahead or predictive search when you have search boxes. I misspell things. It will almost always bring up the wrong thing, which I'm looking for. When for many people, it seems kind of a valuable thing to have these things coming down. I'm just going, why isn't it showing what I want. Actually, I prefer to be able to type in my word. And then once it's all in be able to use the AutoCorrect to change it and then search. Nic So what's the solution there? Is it providing a toggle to turn on or off the word prediction? Or how do we reconcile the usability for folks that actually find that useful and the accessibility for folks like you that need it? Kevin It's choice. It's choice, I think, obviously, what's good for me won't be good for somebody else. And we shouldn't be designing for kind of a homogenous grey of people. So actually, what I want is, rather than it start, for example, filtering stuff out, before I finish typing, I prefer it to wait to the end, if you've got a predictive text, by all means, start showing underneath what's there. Because I can filter that out. I can ignore that. I mean, there's just something going on below the screen. But don't start editing the products. Don't start editing the page, don't start changing the user experience around me. Allow me to make that that deliberate choice at the end to do that. Nic So while we're mentioning design, what what would be one message you have for designers or developers? Kevin Well, I mean, two messages, really. First message is: Let me copy and paste things I need to do it. Please don't think that your your UI decisions should hijack that native behavior of me being able to copy and paste stuff. I need to Google word sometimes I need to be able to copy and copy and paste out so that I don't have to remember things. And also, I need to be able to highlight the text to read it. Nic Fantastic. Kevin, thank you so much. You've been a great guest and you've, you've taught me stuff I hadn't thought about. So that's that's wonderful. I'm sure the audience is going to enjoy that as well. Kevin Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on this Nic Cheers.]]> https://a11yrules.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/kevin-mar-molinero.jpg clean no 12:46 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/ruben-nic-talks-about-kerotoconus/ Sat, 30 Oct 2021 19:48:42 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=639 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules podcast, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they experience on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. My guest today is Ruben Nic. Hey, Ruben. How are you? Ruben I'm doing well. Thank you so much, Nic. Nic Thanks for coming on the show. Let's dive right in. And let me ask you, what is your disability or your impairment? Ruben So I have three, I have ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder, and keratoconus. But specifically I do actually want to focus on keratoconus today, which is a degenerative eye condition. Nic Thank you. What would be the greatest barrier you experience on the web related to your vision condition? Ruben Yeah, so there's, there's three main ones that I suffer from, or that make websites difficult for me. So the first one is that we're sort of on the tail end of the trend of designers and developers preferring lighter fonts, right, like thinner, wispy or fonts. And that makes reading actually quite difficult for me, because my eyes change shape, sometimes daily. And usually, my eyesight is very blurry, and so thin, wispy fonts, even if they are 12 to 14 point, right. So they meet WCAG can actually become difficult for me to read. The other one that I kind of face is because you know, sometimes these thinner fonts can cause this is I have to zoom in, right? And, and what that causes is Text Reflow. And so this doesn't happen often. But sometimes when you zoom in, if the container is given a predetermined with a hard coded with that text will actually go over the container. And sometimes I can't even see what things say I have to like, open up the developer console and actually look at it. Nic That's gonna be a pain. Ruben Yeah, it doesn't happen that much. I mean, we, you know, on the web, we've moved away from hard coding widths, which is really nice. So it used to happen more. And then the other thing is, like, I'm very happy that as a design trend, we're moving, we're moving more towards thicker fonts towards, you know, we're we're entering the chunk phase of font weight. And then the last one, I would say is, is contrast, right? Because contrast isn't just about color, it's also about shape and texture, and size. And so because my vision is blurry, if you have a small button. Even if it's kind of like a good contrast, I can miss it. A good example of this is at my work, we had a, we have a tool that before we before we push changes for our product, it will give you like a snapshot side to side of like, oh, the changes that you made would actually change the UI in this way. And I made a change that, you know, remove the UI element. But that UI elements contrast was so low, I couldn't see it. I I tried to figure out what was going on for an hour. And I actually had to pull in another developer and say, look at these images for me, because they're the exact same thing for me. Nic Wow! I mean, it would be a problem from a end user perspective, but when it starts impacting your professional life as well, that that's really a massive barrier. Ruben Yeah, I mean, I definitely wasted about an hour and a half. Nic If you had one message for developers or designers around web accessibility, what what would that be? Ruben I would say, you know, think of of contrast as, as more than just color, think of it as shape and texture. You know, and realize that there's more than just color blindness. There's also blurry vision. And and that's not because I drink, you know, while I'm working. That's because that's, that's just the shape of my eyes. Nic Yeah. Ruben And yeah, just just make sure you test Text Reflow, I would say to about 150%. Nic When you're talking about shape, and texture, what makes a good shape and texture for you? Ruben Yeah, so I would say, is it visually distinctive, right, because I think I think shape and texture can also be can also be characters, right. So I, the the standard example of this, you know, given in accessibility trainings is if you have a form, and you know, the required elements, the labels for that form is in red text only, you know, if for certain colorblind, folks, that is invisible, but if you have, you know, right next to it, you know, required in parentheses, that shape and texture, right, even though it's not... and you can put that in red too, if you want to. The other thing, I would say that's very common. is graphs, right, making sure that graphs have, you know, a texture on them, whether that's like a dot texture or slashes, you know, just to help provide another distinguishing factor besides just color alone. Nic Fantastic! Shape is... Ruben Yeah, shape up. Sorry. I cut you off. Nic No worries. Ruben Yeah, shape is difficult. I, you know, I think Stark, and I think other tools are now starting to build in blurry vision simulators. And, you know, I think, in my opinion, just like, try a blurry vision simulator and see if your icon is still distinguishable, given the size that it's at. Nic Right. Okay. Thank you. Reuben, you've been a fantastic guest. I think people are gonna learn a lot from your experience and I appreciate you sharing with us. Ruben Yeah, thank you for having me. This has been this has been really fun.]]> full 34 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules podcast, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they experience on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. My guest today is Ruben Nic. Hey, Ruben. How are you? Ruben I'm doing well. Thank you so much, Nic. Nic Thanks for coming on the show. Let's dive right in. And let me ask you, what is your disability or your impairment? Ruben So I have three, I have ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder, and keratoconus. But specifically I do actually want to focus on keratoconus today, which is a degenerative eye condition. Nic Thank you. What would be the greatest barrier you experience on the web related to your vision condition? Ruben Yeah, so there's, there's three main ones that I suffer from, or that make websites difficult for me. So the first one is that we're sort of on the tail end of the trend of designers and developers preferring lighter fonts, right, like thinner, wispy or fonts. And that makes reading actually quite difficult for me, because my eyes change shape, sometimes daily. And usually, my eyesight is very blurry, and so thin, wispy fonts, even if they are 12 to 14 point, right. So they meet WCAG can actually become difficult for me to read. The other one that I kind of face is because you know, sometimes these thinner fonts can cause this is I have to zoom in, right? And, and what that causes is Text Reflow. And so this doesn't happen often. But sometimes when you zoom in, if the container is given a predetermined with a hard coded with that text will actually go over the container. And sometimes I can't even see what things say I have to like, open up the developer console and actually look at it. Nic That's gonna be a pain. Ruben Yeah, it doesn't happen that much. I mean, we, you know, on the web, we've moved away from hard coding widths, which is really nice. So it used to happen more. And then the other thing is, like, I'm very happy that as a design trend, we're moving, we're moving more towards thicker fonts towards, you know, we're we're entering the chunk phase of font weight. And then the last one, I would say is, is contrast, right? Because contrast isn't just about color, it's also about shape and texture, and size. And so because my vision is blurry, if you have a small button. Even if it's kind of like a good contrast, I can miss it. A good example of this is at my work, we had a, we have a tool that before we before we push changes for our product, it will give you like a snapshot side to side of like, oh, the changes that you made would actually change the UI in this way. And I made a change that, you know, remove the UI element. But that UI elements contrast was so low, I couldn't see it. I I tried to figure out what was going on for an hour. And I actually had to pull in another developer and say, look at these images for me, because they're the exact same thing for me. Nic Wow! I mean, it would be a problem from a end user perspective, but when it starts impacting your professional life as well, that that's really a massive barrier. Ruben Yeah, I mean, I definitely wasted about an hour and a half. Nic If you had one message for developers or designers around web accessibility, what what would that be? Ruben I would say, you know, think of of contrast as, as more than just color, think of it as shape and texture. You know, and realize that there's more than just color blindness. There's also blurry vision. And and that's not because I drink, you know, while I'm working. That's because that's, that's just the shape of my eyes. Nic Yeah. Ruben And yeah, just just make sure you test Text Reflow, I would say to about 150%. Nic When you're talking about shape, and texture, what makes a good shape and texture for you? Ruben Yeah, so I would say, is it visually distinctive, right, because I think I think shape and texture can also be can also be characters, right. So I, the the standard example of this, you know, given in accessibility trainings is if you have a form, and you know, the required elements, the labels for that form is in red text only, you know, if for certain colorblind, folks, that is invisible, but if you have, you know, right next to it, you know, required in parentheses, that shape and texture, right, even though it's not... and you can put that in red too, if you want to. The other thing, I would say that's very common. is graphs, right, making sure that graphs have, you know, a texture on them, whether that's like a dot texture or slashes, you know, just to help provide another distinguishing factor besides just color alone. Nic Fantastic! Shape is... Ruben Yeah, shape up. Sorry. I cut you off. Nic No worries. Ruben Yeah, shape is difficult. I, you know, I think Stark, and I think other tools are now starting to build in blurry vision simulators. And, you know, I think, in my opinion, just like, try a blurry vision simulator and see if your icon is still distinguishable, given the size that it's at. Nic Right. Okay. Thank you. Reuben, you've been a fantastic guest. I think people are gonna learn a lot from your experience and I appreciate you sharing with us. Ruben Yeah, thank you for having me. This has been this has been really fun.]]> clean no 8:09 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/julia-ferraioli-talks-about-chronic-pain-and-brain-fog/ Fri, 22 Oct 2021 18:21:47 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=636 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barrier they encounter on the web. I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode, Tenon provide accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. Today, I'm talking with Julia Ferraioli. Hi, Julia, how are you? Julia I'm doing okay. How are you? Nic I'm doing good. I'm so happy to talk to you today. We exchange on the web and Slack and all over the place. But it's good to have an actual real live chat. Julia Yes, indeed. Nic Let me start by asking you what's your disability or impairment? Julia Yeah, so I have a few, I guess. One is I have kind of fluctuating vision problems. So on any given day, I'm not really sure what, what the quality of my eyesight is going to be like. And then the other is I have a condition that causes chronic pain. So I frequently have pain levels that cause some amount of confusion, or what they call brain fog, as well as kind of making the small muscle control a little bit difficult for me. Nic Okay Julia fine motor control. That's the actual word. Nic Fine motor control and brain fog around pain that that would be tricky. How does? How does the web cause barrier, barriers for you, when when you're dealing with pain and brain fog, and having difficulty with fine motor control? Julia Well, it tends to make my movements a little bit more sporadic. So a lot of the kind of modern websites have very finicky controls, right. So if I'm going to a drop down menu, and either I, my mouse stays put for too long, or it like gets to the edge of the drop down menu and that everything disappears. I will admit that it makes me quite short tempered. And definitely depletes my energy levels. As as that happening. So it can be pretty frustrating, especially as we trend towards more and more interactivity in our websites. It just has it has a side effect that people should be aware of. Nic Yeah. So you're dealing with brain fog already. And then the level of frustration caused by the interactions increase your cognitive load. So that's kind of like almost a snowball effect, isn't it? Julia Absolutely. It feeds this kind of vicious cycle, because as you're getting more frustrated, also frustration can amplify pain. So more pain, less fine motor control, more frustration, and rinse repeat. Nic Right? Yeah, that does not sound fun at all. Julia I don't particularly enjoy it, if you can prove that. Yeah. Nic Yeah, I believe it. If you had one message for designers or developers, what, what would it be? Julia I'd say be very intentional about the elements of interactivity that they introduce. It's so easy to kind of get caught up with the latest features or the latest like tricks that you learn about to make, you know, a shiny website. But you have to consider the usability of all of your users not just, you know, the folks like you or the folks that are super tech savvy, or the folks that you know, might use the standard sort of mouse/keyboard approach, but consider like the cognitive load as you mentioned, it's so important to, to take that into account when designing the interactive components of a site. Nic Awesome, Julia. Thank you. You've been great. And I'll see you around on the web. Julia Thanks for having me.]]> full 33 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barrier they encounter on the web. I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode, Tenon provide accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. Today, I'm talking with Julia Ferraioli. Hi, Julia, how are you? Julia I'm doing okay. How are you? Nic I'm doing good. I'm so happy to talk to you today. We exchange on the web and Slack and all over the place. But it's good to have an actual real live chat. Julia Yes, indeed. Nic Let me start by asking you what's your disability or impairment? Julia Yeah, so I have a few, I guess. One is I have kind of fluctuating vision problems. So on any given day, I'm not really sure what, what the quality of my eyesight is going to be like. And then the other is I have a condition that causes chronic pain. So I frequently have pain levels that cause some amount of confusion, or what they call brain fog, as well as kind of making the small muscle control a little bit difficult for me. Nic Okay Julia fine motor control. That's the actual word. Nic Fine motor control and brain fog around pain that that would be tricky. How does? How does the web cause barrier, barriers for you, when when you're dealing with pain and brain fog, and having difficulty with fine motor control? Julia Well, it tends to make my movements a little bit more sporadic. So a lot of the kind of modern websites have very finicky controls, right. So if I'm going to a drop down menu, and either I, my mouse stays put for too long, or it like gets to the edge of the drop down menu and that everything disappears. I will admit that it makes me quite short tempered. And definitely depletes my energy levels. As as that happening. So it can be pretty frustrating, especially as we trend towards more and more interactivity in our websites. It just has it has a side effect that people should be aware of. Nic Yeah. So you're dealing with brain fog already. And then the level of frustration caused by the interactions increase your cognitive load. So that's kind of like almost a snowball effect, isn't it? Julia Absolutely. It feeds this kind of vicious cycle, because as you're getting more frustrated, also frustration can amplify pain. So more pain, less fine motor control, more frustration, and rinse repeat. Nic Right? Yeah, that does not sound fun at all. Julia I don't particularly enjoy it, if you can prove that. Yeah. Nic Yeah, I believe it. If you had one message for designers or developers, what, what would it be? Julia I'd say be very intentional about the elements of interactivity that they introduce. It's so easy to kind of get caught up with the latest features or the latest like tricks that you learn about to make, you know, a shiny website. But you have to consider the usability of all of your users not just, you know, the folks like you or the folks that are super tech savvy, or the folks that you know, might use the standard sort of mouse/keyboard approach, but consider like the cognitive load as you mentioned, it's so important to, to take that into account when designing the interactive components of a site. Nic Awesome, Julia. Thank you. You've been great. And I'll see you around on the web. Julia Thanks for having me.]]> clean no 5:47 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/meryl-k-evans-talks-about-being-deaf-and-caption-quality/ Wed, 20 Oct 2021 22:12:10 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=633 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. Today, I'm talking with Meryl Evans. Hi, Meryl. How are you? Meryl I'm doing great. Thank you, Nic, How about yourself? Nic I'm doing fantastic. And I'm so glad to finally get you on the show. We've been speaking for two years now. And it's time! Meryl Yeah, thank you for having me. Nic So let's jump right in it. What is your disability or your impairment? Meryl Well, if the audience hasn't figured out by now, my accent doesn't exactly hail from anywhere. So I was born profoundly deaf. And as you know, deaf and hard of hearing people are different. My deaf background is that took lots and lots of speech therapy, to learn how to speak and read lips. I am not fluent in American Sign Language, that's not a good thing or a bad thing. It's not better or worse. It just is. Anyway, being born Deaf also makes me more susceptible to vertigo. Nic Okay. All right. So vertigo, is all happening in the inner ear. And that's tied to your deafness. That's kind of a thing I think most people would not be aware of. Meryl I wasn't even aware about until I had my cochlear implant surgery. It left me with a severe case of vertigo, the worse of my whole life. And I had it for weeks. I couldn't get out of bed. I could barely sit up to drink. So after that happened, they referred me to vestibular specialist. And that's when I learned that being born deaf probably messed up something inside the inner ear as you said. That makes me more susceptible to vertigo. And I did a little research not long ago because I was curious if that's a common for deaf people in general, a lot. And it's pretty common. It depends on the hearing loss and all that. But it's really pretty common. Nic Fascinating. Let's circle back to web, and what would be the greatest barrier you experienced on the web? Around your deafness? Meryl Let me ask your audience would you publish a blog without editing? Well, then why do so many publish their captions without editing? Thus the greatest barrier I experience on the web is the lack of high quality captioned videos. But let’s dig deeper. Either videos have no caption or rely 100% on automatic captions. Or autocraptions as I call them. They're a great starting point. The next step is to edit them for accuracy and timing. The littlest improvement makes a huge difference in preventing cognitive overload. What do I mean by that? It means keeping a line no more than 32 characters per line. It means having only one or two lines. It means clearly identifying sound and speaker. It means including song titles and lyrics. It means not using italics or all uppercase. To top it all off, some videos contain no player controls and starts playing automatically. Even as a profoundly deaf person, it bugs me when the video plays unexpectedly and the sound blasts my head off. Nic Ha! Meryl And there was no volume control or even a rewind one or a fast forward. Nic Yeah. What would you say is the acceptable level of accuracy? Because we often see people refer to automated captions being 80 or 85% accurate and we often have People say well, even when you have manually transcripted content or manually captioned content, you can't get better than 95 or 96%. If you had to, say the percentage of acceptable accuracy, what would you say that would be? Meryl It would have to be in the high 90's. It's amazing how one word or one letter that’s incorrect can confuse you on the whole line. Now, it may be obvious to people, I can figure out this one. But don’t forget the caption are always moving. They don't stop. You don't have time to fill in the wrong words and wrong lines, one letter. I mean, even one letter can throw you off. So, it means the high 80's, 85, 90 is definitely not acceptable. It would be a very bad viewing experience. Nic It's funny what you're saying reminds me of when I was learning English, English is my fourth language. And early on, it often happened that by the time I had understood the first sentence, the first speaker was already on the fifth or sixth sentence. And that's where you're talking about cognitive overload is there's so much to take in that you just can't keep going. Meryl Exactly. You get it. Thats exactly what's happening, and people just don't realize, even though a lot of people who use captions aren't deaf they have to fall back, they have their hearing to fall back on. And they don't depend on captioning like I do. I use captions every day, for years for decades, actually. And so, the  slightest things can really affect the experience? Nic What message would you have for designers or developers around accessibility? Meryl It's important to give viewers as much control as possible. And this includes motion. Don't autoplay anything that moves including sliders, background video on landing pages, and animated GIFs. It's entirely possible to let the viewer be in control. Twitter has a reduced motion and autoplay settings. So, animated GIFs only play when I push play and they stop when I tap again. Nic Yeah Meryl Please stop using parallax. There's a reason why accessibility settings include reduce motion as an option. You'd be surprised how many people have vertigo, migraines and other vestibular disorders. One study found 70% of deaf and hard of hearing children with sensorineural hearing loss have a vestibular disorder. That's why it's important for people not to walk and talk on video calls. It is dizzying especially for lip readers. Additionally, vestibular disorders affect more than those who are deaf and hard of hearing. Nic Yeah. Meryl The Vestibular Disorder Association says more than 35% of U.S. adults aged 40 and older, experience a vestibular dysfunction at some point in their lives. It's always better user experience to let viewers have control over any motion. Nic Hmm Meryl Designers and developers may turn off the sound to test the caption. But the results won't be as good as having someone who depends on the captions to test it. Nic Yeah. Meryl If you depend on captions every day, you've become accustomed to what works and what doesn't work. Someone turning off the sound to test them isn't going to see these problems. If we notice the caption, it's a sign they're not good quality. Just like editing is part of the publishing process. Please make accessibility part of your entire process. Nic Fantastic. Meryl, thank you so much for your insight, and we'll see you on the web sometime. Meryl Thank you. Nic Thank you]]> full 32 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. Today, I'm talking with Meryl Evans. Hi, Meryl. How are you? Meryl I'm doing great. Thank you, Nic, How about yourself? Nic I'm doing fantastic. And I'm so glad to finally get you on the show. We've been speaking for two years now. And it's time! Meryl Yeah, thank you for having me. Nic So let's jump right in it. What is your disability or your impairment? Meryl Well, if the audience hasn't figured out by now, my accent doesn't exactly hail from anywhere. So I was born profoundly deaf. And as you know, deaf and hard of hearing people are different. My deaf background is that took lots and lots of speech therapy, to learn how to speak and read lips. I am not fluent in American Sign Language, that's not a good thing or a bad thing. It's not better or worse. It just is. Anyway, being born Deaf also makes me more susceptible to vertigo. Nic Okay. All right. So vertigo, is all happening in the inner ear. And that's tied to your deafness. That's kind of a thing I think most people would not be aware of. Meryl I wasn't even aware about until I had my cochlear implant surgery. It left me with a severe case of vertigo, the worse of my whole life. And I had it for weeks. I couldn't get out of bed. I could barely sit up to drink. So after that happened, they referred me to vestibular specialist. And that's when I learned that being born deaf probably messed up something inside the inner ear as you said. That makes me more susceptible to vertigo. And I did a little research not long ago because I was curious if that's a common for deaf people in general, a lot. And it's pretty common. It depends on the hearing loss and all that. But it's really pretty common. Nic Fascinating. Let's circle back to web, and what would be the greatest barrier you experienced on the web? Around your deafness? Meryl Let me ask your audience would you publish a blog without editing? Well, then why do so many publish their captions without editing? Thus the greatest barrier I experience on the web is the lack of high quality captioned videos. But let’s dig deeper. Either videos have no caption or rely 100% on automatic captions. Or autocraptions as I call them. They're a great starting point. The next step is to edit them for accuracy and timing. The littlest improvement makes a huge difference in preventing cognitive overload. What do I mean by that? It means keeping a line no more than 32 characters per line. It means having only one or two lines. It means clearly identifying sound and speaker. It means including song titles and lyrics. It means not using italics or all uppercase. To top it all off, some videos contain no player controls and starts playing automatically. Even as a profoundly deaf person, it bugs me when the video plays unexpectedly and the sound blasts my head off. Nic Ha! Meryl And there was no volume control or even a rewind one or a fast forward. Nic Yeah. What would you say is the acceptable level of accuracy? Because we often see people refer to automated captions being 80 or 85% accurate and we often have People say well, even when you have manually transcripted content or manually captioned content, you can't get better than 95 or 96%. If you had to, say the percentage of acceptable accuracy, what would you say that would be? Meryl It would have to be in the high 90's. It's amazing how one word or one letter that’s incorrect can confuse you on the whole line. Now, it may be obvious to people, I can figure out this one. But don’t forget the caption are always moving. They don't stop. You don't have time to fill in the wrong words and wrong lines, one letter. I mean, even one letter can throw you off. So, it means the high 80's, 85, 90 is definitely not acceptable. It would be a very bad viewing experience. Nic It's funny what you're saying reminds me of when I was learning English, English is my fourth language. And early on, it often happened that by the time I had understood the first sentence, the first speaker was already on the fifth or sixth sentence. And that's where you're talking about cognitive overload is there's so much to take in that you just can't keep going. Meryl Exactly. You get it. Thats exactly what's happening, and people just don't realize, even though a lot of people who use captions aren't deaf they have to fall back, they have their hearing to fall back on. And they don't depend on captioning like I do. I use captions every day, for years for decades, actually. And so, the  slightest things can really affect the experience? Nic What message would you have for designers or developers around accessibility? Meryl It's important to give viewers as much control as possible. And this includes motion. Don't autoplay anything that moves including sliders, background video on landing pages, and animated GIFs. It's entirely possible to let the viewer be in control. Twitter has a reduced motion and autoplay settings. So, animated GIFs only play when I push play and they stop when I tap again. Nic Yeah Meryl Please stop using parallax. There's a reason why accessibility settings include reduce motion as an option. You'd be surprised how many people have vertigo, migraines and other vestibular disorders. One study found 70% of deaf and hard of hearing children with sensorineural hearing loss have a vestibular disorder. That's why it's important for people not to walk and talk on video calls. It is dizzying especially for lip readers. Additionally, vestibular disorders affect more than those who are deaf and hard of hearing. Nic Yeah. Meryl The Vestibular Disorder Association says more than 35% of U.S. adults aged 40 and older, experience a vestibular dysfunction at some point in their lives. It's always better user experience to let viewers have control over any motion. Nic Hmm Meryl Designers and developers may turn off the sound to test the caption. But the results won't be as good as having someone who depends on the captions to test it. Nic Yeah. Meryl If you depend on captions every day, you've become accustomed to what works and what doesn't work. Someone turning off the sound to test them isn't going to see these problems. If we notice the caption, it's a sign they're not good quality. Just like editing is part of the publishing process. Please make accessibility part of your entire process. Nic Fantastic. Meryl, thank you so much for your insight, and we'll see you on the web sometime. Meryl Thank you. Nic Thank you]]> clean no 10:09 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/dave-brown-talks-about-low-vision-and-simplicity-on-the-web/ Fri, 08 Oct 2021 19:23:07 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=630 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provide accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix this ability fast. Today I'm talking with Dave Brown. Hey, Dave, how are you? Dave Hey, Nic, I'm great. Thank you for having me on the show. I really appreciate it. Nic Thank you for coming on board and being willing to submit yourself to my questions. Dave It's a pleasure. I'm usually on the other end of the microphone for these things. So I'm very happy to be a part of it. Nic Nice. Let's start with with the first question, which is what's your disability or your impairment? Dave So I'm legally blind. I was born an albino, which means that I'm light sensitive, as well as legally blind. It's hard to really put a precise measurement on it. But I have about between 9% to 10% vision so I'm nearsighted and farsighted, can't read small prints, can't read things that are far away. And typically use in non technology world accessibility tools like magnifying glasses and telescopes in my day to day. Nic All right. So you're not a screen reader user? Dave No, no, I'm someone who typically uses a lot of zoom technology. And someone who uses a lot of contrast, to make it easier for me to read the screen with my light sensitivity. Nic Right! I think that's one of the things that a lot of people out there have this impression that if you're legally blind, you automatically start using a screen reader. So it's nice to have the echo from someone who doesn't rely on that assistive technology. Dave Yeah, you're absolutely right, that certainly we've come a long way with screen readers. And a lot of that voiceover technologies become very commonplace. But I think for someone like me, who's who was born legally blind, and has always kind of adapted wanting larger fonts and zoom technology, some of that occasionally gets left out of the conversation. Nic Hmm. So that seems like a good segue. What would you say your biggest barrier on the web is? Dave For me, I it's hard to describe it precisely. But what I'll say is that when you're using a lot of built in zoom features, so for example, inside a web browser, holding down Ctrl, and scrolling your mouse to zoom in, and make fonts look bigger. So often, that ends up disrupting the way in which information and buttons are presented on the screen. So for me, as I'm trying to maybe engage in something like online shopping, as I'm zooming in to try and make text bigger to read product descriptions, reviews, even just something simple, like price, size, shipping details, as I do that kind of zooming, what ends up happening is the boxes, which may require me to put in some information, address, name, credit card, a lot of those start to lose their functionality, because the buttons are not designed to be utilized in that way with that kind of zoom, or what ends up happening is the information becomes difficult to read, because it either jumbles together or disappears. Nic Hmm. It's really nice to hear from a user. This is the kind of stuff that I tell clients, when I do audits, you know, you can't do that. Because folks, were legally blind folks with low vision that need to increase page size, resize. reflow are going to have problems. But hearing it from from the horse's mouth is fantastic. Not that I think you're a horse, Dave. Dave I do eat like a horse, though. So there is that? Nic Hey, if you had one message for designers or developers, about accessibility, what would that be? Dave I think it comes down to simplicity. And I think there is elegance in simplicity. But so many times we see all the bells and whistles that pop up on a website that people think gives it an elegant beauty or makes it makes it more pleasurable to the eye. What ends up happening is it makes the website more difficult to use. And that isn't to say that simple can't be beautiful. There's all kinds of things you can do with edges or your boxes that make it work. But if it takes away the clarity and the surfing experience for me as a user, it means that I'm oftentimes going to stay with websites that that make it easier for me to interact with it. The other thing I'll say, and I probably should have mentioned this in my last answer is that be mindful of the fact that some people are going to be inversing colors in their browsers. I guess some folks would call dark mode, which they do to make it easier to go to bed at night is something that I will use on my screens to make it easier for me to read. But so oftentimes, I'll be in an app or I'll be on the web. And when you do that in version, all of a sudden, it becomes more difficult to actually go through the processes of hitting the buttons to move forward. So I would, I would say, the overall simple message, I know, you asked me for a simple answer, and I started rambling, because that's what I do as a broadcaster, I would say the true answer is find a way to present your stuff in a simple way that's easy to navigate. That's not going to be disrupted by alterations. Nic Thank you. Something occurred to me as you were talking about the built in functionality for resizing pages, have you come across overlays, when you surf? And if you have, What's your feeling on these so called accessibility overlays. Dave I haven't necessarily meshed too much with those overlays. I, what I will say is people that I have discussed them with have generally been not too pleased with sort of the one size fits all solution, but personally, I haven't necessarily noticed them. But Nic, the ultimate confession here is I'm a little bit of a Luddite, so even if I was kind of working through them, I wouldn't even know. Nic That that's fair enough, that's fair enough. Thank you, Dave. Youve been a fantastic guests and I look forward to listening to your show. Dave Hey, Nic, it's my pleasure to be here. I'm so glad you invited me on. I love this micro podcast idea definitely changes the two hour show format that I run every day.]]> full 31 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provide accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix this ability fast. Today I'm talking with Dave Brown. Hey, Dave, how are you? Dave Hey, Nic, I'm great. Thank you for having me on the show. I really appreciate it. Nic Thank you for coming on board and being willing to submit yourself to my questions. Dave It's a pleasure. I'm usually on the other end of the microphone for these things. So I'm very happy to be a part of it. Nic Nice. Let's start with with the first question, which is what's your disability or your impairment? Dave So I'm legally blind. I was born an albino, which means that I'm light sensitive, as well as legally blind. It's hard to really put a precise measurement on it. But I have about between 9% to 10% vision so I'm nearsighted and farsighted, can't read small prints, can't read things that are far away. And typically use in non technology world accessibility tools like magnifying glasses and telescopes in my day to day. Nic All right. So you're not a screen reader user? Dave No, no, I'm someone who typically uses a lot of zoom technology. And someone who uses a lot of contrast, to make it easier for me to read the screen with my light sensitivity. Nic Right! I think that's one of the things that a lot of people out there have this impression that if you're legally blind, you automatically start using a screen reader. So it's nice to have the echo from someone who doesn't rely on that assistive technology. Dave Yeah, you're absolutely right, that certainly we've come a long way with screen readers. And a lot of that voiceover technologies become very commonplace. But I think for someone like me, who's who was born legally blind, and has always kind of adapted wanting larger fonts and zoom technology, some of that occasionally gets left out of the conversation. Nic Hmm. So that seems like a good segue. What would you say your biggest barrier on the web is? Dave For me, I it's hard to describe it precisely. But what I'll say is that when you're using a lot of built in zoom features, so for example, inside a web browser, holding down Ctrl, and scrolling your mouse to zoom in, and make fonts look bigger. So often, that ends up disrupting the way in which information and buttons are presented on the screen. So for me, as I'm trying to maybe engage in something like online shopping, as I'm zooming in to try and make text bigger to read product descriptions, reviews, even just something simple, like price, size, shipping details, as I do that kind of zooming, what ends up happening is the boxes, which may require me to put in some information, address, name, credit card, a lot of those start to lose their functionality, because the buttons are not designed to be utilized in that way with that kind of zoom, or what ends up happening is the information becomes difficult to read, because it either jumbles together or disappears. Nic Hmm. It's really nice to hear from a user. This is the kind of stuff that I tell clients, when I do audits, you know, you can't do that. Because folks, were legally blind folks with low vision that need to increase page size, resize. reflow are going to have problems. But hearing it from from the horse's mouth is fantastic. Not that I think you're a horse, Dave. Dave I do eat like a horse, though. So there is that? Nic Hey, if you had one message for designers or developers, about accessibility, what would that be? Dave I think it comes down to simplicity. And I think there is elegance in simplicity. But so many times we see all the bells and whistles that pop up on a website that people think gives it an elegant beauty or makes it makes it more pleasurable to the eye. What ends up happening is it makes the website more difficult to use. And that isn't to say that simple can't be beautiful. There's all kinds of things you can do with edges or your boxes that make it work. But if it takes away the clarity and the surfing experience for me as a user, it means that I'm oftentimes going to stay with websites that that make it easier for me to interact with it. The other thing I'll say, and I probably should have mentioned this in my last answer is that be mindful of the fact that some people are going to be inversing colors in their browsers. I guess some folks would call dark mode, which they do to make it easier to go to bed at night is something that I will use on my screens to make it easier for me to read. But so oftentimes, I'll be in an app or I'll be on the web. And when you do that in version, all of a sudden, it becomes more difficult to actually go through the processes of hitting the buttons to move forward. So I would, I would say, the overall simple message, I know, you asked me for a simple answer, and I started rambling, because that's what I do as a broadcaster, I would say the true answer is find a way to present your stuff in a simple way that's easy to navigate. That's not going to be disrupted by alterations. Nic Thank you. Something occurred to me as you were talking about the built in functionality for resizing pages, have you come across overlays, when you surf? And if you have, What's your feeling on these so called accessibility overlays. Dave I haven't necessarily meshed too much with those overlays. I, what I will say is people that I have discussed them with have generally been not too pleased with sort of the one size fits all solution, but personally, I haven't necessarily noticed them. But Nic, the ultimate confession here is I'm a little bit of a Luddite, so even if I was kind of working through them, I wouldn't even know. Nic That that's fair enough, that's fair enough. Thank you, Dave. Youve been a fantastic guests and I look forward to listening to your show. Dave Hey, Nic, it's my pleasure to be here. I'm so glad you invited me on. I love this micro podcast idea definitely changes the two hour show format that I run every day.]]> clean no 7:03 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/ben-lesh-talks-about-adhd-and-reducing-noise/ Fri, 01 Oct 2021 18:22:05 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=627 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rule soundbite a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to fix accessibility fast. Today, I'm talking with Ben Lesh. Hey, Ben, how are you? Ben Fine. How are you? Nic I'm doing good. Let's get right into it. What is your disability or your impairment? Ben So my my impairment is I have ADHD, and I have had it well diagnosed as far back as I think about seventh or eighth grade. So it's, it's been a long time. Nic So you're one of those folks that have had a chance to develop coping skills and techniques to work around that, right? Ben Yes, but I would say that I probably didn't develop many of those until later in my adult life, to be honest. Nic Right. You're a web developer. Is that right? Ben That's correct. Nic Yeah. So you live on the web, what what would be the greatest barrier you encounter on the web as it relates to your ADHD? Ben Well, ADHD, at least, for me, it's defined by two things. And it's different for everybody. But for me, specifically, I am quite forgetful when it comes to like executive function, like the things I'm supposed to do next. And like my list of chores to do, like, I tend to forget things. And then the other thing is, of course, like the impulse control, specifically, like getting into like Yak shaving or digging into, like, a problem, and then you dig into another problem. And... Or like getting really interested in some esoteric tech thing. And of course, the web is just chock full of these sorts of distractions, and even more, so like a lot of articles or different pages are actually engineered to try to keep you engaged, and stimulate you and get you to go after those things. And and I think it's, it's challenging to not get sucked into those things. And, you know, and still be able to remember, the other stuff that you have to get done and prioritize those things. Prioritization is a big difficulty when you've got that much stimulus. Nic How could websites do better to to reduce that kind of stress on you? Ben Oh, well, that's a good question. It would be, it'd be great if there were, you know, modes just to limit distraction. Another thing that gets me sometimes is just very noisy interfaces, or things where there's just walls of, of texts, like any sort of productivity tool or productivity website, that gives me too much information actually gives me a little bit of anxiety to look at. So if there were modes where you could kind of set those things to be more specific to your individual needs, that'd be great. Because I don't think it would be, you know, ADHD mode, because it's so broad for, like, a whole group of different needs between different people. But for me, personally, it'd be great if, you know, there was maybe fewer distractions or less noise on particular tools and pages, if I could toggle all that sort of stuff, it'd be great. Nic If you had one message to pass on to designers or other developers around accessibility, what would it be? Ben Specifically with regards to ADHD, it's, it's sort of hard to say but like, I think that it'd be very, like the the whole thing is, I went to art school, and I took design classes. And I think if you can do your best to actually get the users focus on what matters and kind of limit the noisiness of the other things that would be a big deal for certain folks. And then the other thing too, is you know, trying to make sure that their interactivity is somehow interesting or engaging like if content is too bland or boring, I hate to say it Like, it's it's sometimes hard to maintain focus on things if it's too overwhelming, is another thing, but if it's also too sterile I think that you can actually have the effect the opposite direction where it's hard to, to keep someone's attention on that and not on the, you know, wonderful things going on around them or out the window or Nic right. So it's really a question of finding the right balance between right, too much is too much, but not enough is just not there. Ben Yeah, yeah, definitely. And it's, I think it's a really hard problem to solve for. Because there are so many different flavors of ADHD, there's some people with ADHD that really need to have like something to, to fidget with, or play with, or whatever, in order to maintain focus on what they're doing, even though that seems like it would distract them. And then there's other people who are more like myself where, you know, any, any distraction for what they're they need to do becomes a hindrance. So, you know, it's, it's, it's just such a broad category, and it's diagnosed and an awful lot of people. But the big thing is, it's like an impulse control thing. And so it just depends on what their impulses are. And I think that you just need a lot of customization in order to make sure that people can set things to some thing that's right for them. Nic It's so funny, you mentioned that because I was just about to suggest that maybe we should look into user control of what is or isn't displayed, then you're talking customization. So it's really coming down to user choice, doesn't it? Ben Yeah, yeah. I you know, I here's one thing is I do wish that some of the social media platforms and they have tools that do this, like you can honestly get in get tools that will limit your access to certain things, but it'd be nice if the, the social media platforms themselves, like whether it's YouTube or, you know, whatever, actually had mechanisms that recognize the fact that they were, they're a little bit too addictive for some people that could, they could just, you know, like, Okay, so how much do you want to limit your time to like, I honestly, it would get certain platforms like that would get more engagement from me, if I knew that they weren't going to actively try to suck me into what they're doing. Because like, I'll avoid certain things like Facebook and whatever, because I worry about getting sucked down rabbit holes, because I know that about myself, like, I know that that's going to happen to me. So... Nic Excellent. Well, it's not excellent to be sucked down rabbit holes, but your answer is excellent. Thank you, Ben. Thanks for sharing with us and I'll see you around on the web.]]> full 30 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rule soundbite a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to fix accessibility fast. Today, I'm talking with Ben Lesh. Hey, Ben, how are you? Ben Fine. How are you? Nic I'm doing good. Let's get right into it. What is your disability or your impairment? Ben So my my impairment is I have ADHD, and I have had it well diagnosed as far back as I think about seventh or eighth grade. So it's, it's been a long time. Nic So you're one of those folks that have had a chance to develop coping skills and techniques to work around that, right? Ben Yes, but I would say that I probably didn't develop many of those until later in my adult life, to be honest. Nic Right. You're a web developer. Is that right? Ben That's correct. Nic Yeah. So you live on the web, what what would be the greatest barrier you encounter on the web as it relates to your ADHD? Ben Well, ADHD, at least, for me, it's defined by two things. And it's different for everybody. But for me, specifically, I am quite forgetful when it comes to like executive function, like the things I'm supposed to do next. And like my list of chores to do, like, I tend to forget things. And then the other thing is, of course, like the impulse control, specifically, like getting into like Yak shaving or digging into, like, a problem, and then you dig into another problem. And... Or like getting really interested in some esoteric tech thing. And of course, the web is just chock full of these sorts of distractions, and even more, so like a lot of articles or different pages are actually engineered to try to keep you engaged, and stimulate you and get you to go after those things. And and I think it's, it's challenging to not get sucked into those things. And, you know, and still be able to remember, the other stuff that you have to get done and prioritize those things. Prioritization is a big difficulty when you've got that much stimulus. Nic How could websites do better to to reduce that kind of stress on you? Ben Oh, well, that's a good question. It would be, it'd be great if there were, you know, modes just to limit distraction. Another thing that gets me sometimes is just very noisy interfaces, or things where there's just walls of, of texts, like any sort of productivity tool or productivity website, that gives me too much information actually gives me a little bit of anxiety to look at. So if there were modes where you could kind of set those things to be more specific to your individual needs, that'd be great. Because I don't think it would be, you know, ADHD mode, because it's so broad for, like, a whole group of different needs between different people. But for me, personally, it'd be great if, you know, there was maybe fewer distractions or less noise on particular tools and pages, if I could toggle all that sort of stuff, it'd be great. Nic If you had one message to pass on to designers or other developers around accessibility, what would it be? Ben Specifically with regards to ADHD, it's, it's sort of hard to say but like, I think that it'd be very, like the the whole thing is, I went to art school, and I took design classes. And I think if you can do your best to actually get the users focus on what matters and kind of limit the noisiness of the other things that would be a big deal for certain folks. And then the other thing too, is you know, trying to make sure that their interactivity is somehow interesting or engaging like if content is too bland or boring, I hate to say it Like, it's it's sometimes hard to maintain focus on things if it's too overwhelming, is another thing, but if it's also too sterile I think that you can actually have the effect the opposite direction where it's hard to, to keep someone's attention on that and not on the, you know, wonderful things going on around them or out the window or Nic right. So it's really a question of finding the right balance between right, too much is too much, but not enough is just not there. Ben Yeah, yeah, definitely. And it's, I think it's a really hard problem to solve for. Because there are so many different flavors of ADHD, there's some people with ADHD that really need to have like something to, to fidget with, or play with, or whatever, in order to maintain focus on what they're doing, even though that seems like it would distract them. And then there's other people who are more like myself where, you know, any, any distraction for what they're they need to do becomes a hindrance. So, you know, it's, it's, it's just such a broad category, and it's diagnosed and an awful lot of people. But the big thing is, it's like an impulse control thing. And so it just depends on what their impulses are. And I think that you just need a lot of customization in order to make sure that people can set things to some thing that's right for them. Nic It's so funny, you mentioned that because I was just about to suggest that maybe we should look into user control of what is or isn't displayed, then you're talking customization. So it's really coming down to user choice, doesn't it? Ben Yeah, yeah. I you know, I here's one thing is I do wish that some of the social media platforms and they have tools that do this, like you can honestly get in get tools that will limit your access to certain things, but it'd be nice if the, the social media platforms themselves, like whether it's YouTube or, you know, whatever, actually had mechanisms that recognize the fact that they were, they're a little bit too addictive for some people that could, they could just, you know, like, Okay, so how much do you want to limit your time to like, I honestly, it would get certain platforms like that would get more engagement from me, if I knew that they weren't going to actively try to suck me into what they're doing. Because like, I'll avoid certain things like Facebook and whatever, because I worry about getting sucked down rabbit holes, because I know that about myself, like, I know that that's going to happen to me. So... Nic Excellent. Well, it's not excellent to be sucked down rabbit holes, but your answer is excellent. Thank you, Ben. Thanks for sharing with us and I'll see you around on the web.]]> clean no 8:05 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/mike-calvo-talks-about-blindness-and-inclusion/ Tue, 28 Sep 2021 23:29:02 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=625 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcast where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcripts for this episode, Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. My guest today is Mike Calvo. Hey, Mike, how are you? Mike Good. How are you? Nic I'm doing pretty good. Really happy to get to talk to you today. Mike As am I. Nic So let's jump right in and ask you what's your disability or impairment? Mike I am totally blind since birth. Well, actually, I had some light perception as a child and lost the rest of it when I was about 18. So I saw enough to get in trouble. Not enough to be usable. Nic Right! What would you be your greatest barrier on the web? Mike I think it's the lack of adherence to web standards and accessibility practices. And when I say accessibility, I don't just mean following WCAG compliance rules and standards. I also mean, usable, make sure that you're taking as many varied types of disabilities into account when you're making your website not only accessible, but usable. The user experience is as important as the user interface. Nic Would you say accessibility is a subset of usability? Mike I would say that they're that they're pretty right there hand in hand, because to suggest that one is a subset of another means that you need that you could possibly have one without the other. And I don't think so i think that I think that they're both one is as important as the other. You can't have a usable website, if it's not accessible. And accessibility starts and making a website as usable as possible. Nic I find no argument which which what you're saying is spot on. If you had a message for designers and developers, what would that be? Mike I think that accessibility is a best business practice. Bolting on accessibility is always going to be more expensive than being as inclusive with your user base. And understanding that we aren't disabled in the way that we can't do stuff. We as disabled users of the web, do things differently. Therefore, if you want to have our patronage, our support, our buying of your products, then you need to adjust your website to facilitate the way that we do things. Whether that be captioning for folks that are deaf, whether that be putting all tags, alternative text tags, on graphics, whatever it takes, but get to know your user. And then you can create an inclusive experience instead of so much focus on accessibility. Let's try and give everybody a chance to play in this great big web of ours. Nic I like that. Let me play devil's advocate here. You said, If businesses want our patronage, do they want our patronage? Mike Well, as a unapologetic capitalists, I gotta tell you, I mean, you know, billions of dollars, billions of discretionary dollars, from basically almost 1/3 of the Earth's people that identify as having some form of disability. I mean, how do you know how do you know which disability is more important? Or another? Should we justify Oh, well, that's just a, there's only a small group that have that disability? No, let's just try and make things work for everybody. And if we just come outside of our little boxes, our comfort zones and talk to one another, and share and say I really love what you're doing. And it would make it so much easier for me as a person with a visual impairment to be able to use your product or service if you could only do this or do that. And I think that by partnering together, we can build a more inclusive web experience. Nic I really like the idea of working together for it. It's not It's not our jobs as disabled users to always be complaining and saying, Hey, your product is not accessible and all that. At the same time. We can partner with people to get to teach about our experience. If and when we're able to do that, and they can learn from us. And if we work in collaboration, then we'll get much further. Mike Well, that's, that's where one where we, as a company at Pneuma solutions are also trying to look at making sure that we can use augmented remediation, which means computer assisted or artificial intelligence to do these very tedious jobs. Accessibility is not difficult, Nicolas, it's tedious. And there's a huge attention to detail. And you know, who does that really good, that computer? Does it really good. And it doesn't take a rest, it doesn't go to sleep, it doesn't quit because it's tired. And you know, what, as a blind consumer, of content, information, whatever, I don't care where I get it, as long as I get it. Information is what I need. And if accessibility compliance by humans is standing in my way, then by golly, let's let the machines do it. And and maybe we'll have a much more accessible world. Nic Let me ask you this in terms of automating accessibility. When we're talking about automated accessibility testing, we can identify about 35 to 40% of accessibility issues automatically. Can we really rely on automated accessibility fixing for 100% of making this site accessible? Mike Not yet. But that's the key, can we depend totally on, on autonomous driving cars? No, but they do a really good job. And you know what, the more you use them, the better they get. And that's the same thing here, by accepting the fact that there is the distinct, very strong possibility that computer assisted. Accessibility is possible, not only possible, but it's being done already, as you said, 40%, when it comes to website accessibility 95% when it comes to document accessibility. So you're talking a market and a technology that's growing every day, and it's not just little, little Pneuma solutions is doing this is something that Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, these are all dealing with computer vision, when it comes to augmented media remediation of whatever kind. Nic If you were to look into your crystal ball, when do you think we can reach 100% of automation for accessibility? On the web? Mike It is a cloudy ball indeed. But no, I think that I mean, I think it's fair to say that within five years of 2021, so in 2025/2026, there abouts, what we're going to find is we're going to find that technology is a whole lot closer to that 100%. The reality is that not even humans are 100%. In our research, of dealing with 20 different remediators on one document, everybody does it different. And they still are WCAG compliant. So does that mean that they're wrong? No, it just means that you say tomato, I say tomato. And I don't care, as long as I can understand what the word means is sometimes you're gonna pay a little bit better when you remediate it, and the other person, maybe the other person over there's got trouble at home, they needed to go to the office, they missed a heading or two, and oops. But you know, I think that we need to give augmented media remediation a try. And the website stuff it'll come with, there's no such thing as a silver bullet, things like AccessiBe. And those types of products are just not where they they should be. And, you know, I like the spirit of it. I like the idea of it. You know, the only reason that we need to have people do it is because it can't be automated. But the moment it can be automated, why should people have to worry about it? I mean, do you expect somebody to draw you a map every time you want to go to the grocery store? Now you just turn on your GPS, and it takes you there? You know, there used to be a time where if you were a blind person and you needed and you need a mobility instruction to get to the grocery store, they'd give you a tactile map. don't need that anymore. Does that makes sense? Nic That makes perfect sense. Hey, Mike, thank you for your insights. This was fascinating Mike Thank you for having me. Nic I think the the audience is going to find this interesting. I'll see you around on the web and LinkedIn and keep in touch. Mike Thank you. Nic Cheers.]]> full 29 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcast where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcripts for this episode, Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. My guest today is Mike Calvo. Hey, Mike, how are you? Mike Good. How are you? Nic I'm doing pretty good. Really happy to get to talk to you today. Mike As am I. Nic So let's jump right in and ask you what's your disability or impairment? Mike I am totally blind since birth. Well, actually, I had some light perception as a child and lost the rest of it when I was about 18. So I saw enough to get in trouble. Not enough to be usable. Nic Right! What would you be your greatest barrier on the web? Mike I think it's the lack of adherence to web standards and accessibility practices. And when I say accessibility, I don't just mean following WCAG compliance rules and standards. I also mean, usable, make sure that you're taking as many varied types of disabilities into account when you're making your website not only accessible, but usable. The user experience is as important as the user interface. Nic Would you say accessibility is a subset of usability? Mike I would say that they're that they're pretty right there hand in hand, because to suggest that one is a subset of another means that you need that you could possibly have one without the other. And I don't think so i think that I think that they're both one is as important as the other. You can't have a usable website, if it's not accessible. And accessibility starts and making a website as usable as possible. Nic I find no argument which which what you're saying is spot on. If you had a message for designers and developers, what would that be? Mike I think that accessibility is a best business practice. Bolting on accessibility is always going to be more expensive than being as inclusive with your user base. And understanding that we aren't disabled in the way that we can't do stuff. We as disabled users of the web, do things differently. Therefore, if you want to have our patronage, our support, our buying of your products, then you need to adjust your website to facilitate the way that we do things. Whether that be captioning for folks that are deaf, whether that be putting all tags, alternative text tags, on graphics, whatever it takes, but get to know your user. And then you can create an inclusive experience instead of so much focus on accessibility. Let's try and give everybody a chance to play in this great big web of ours. Nic I like that. Let me play devil's advocate here. You said, If businesses want our patronage, do they want our patronage? Mike Well, as a unapologetic capitalists, I gotta tell you, I mean, you know, billions of dollars, billions of discretionary dollars, from basically almost 1/3 of the Earth's people that identify as having some form of disability. I mean, how do you know how do you know which disability is more important? Or another? Should we justify Oh, well, that's just a, there's only a small group that have that disability? No, let's just try and make things work for everybody. And if we just come outside of our little boxes, our comfort zones and talk to one another, and share and say I really love what you're doing. And it would make it so much easier for me as a person with a visual impairment to be able to use your product or service if you could only do this or do that. And I think that by partnering together, we can build a more inclusive web experience. Nic I really like the idea of working together for it. It's not It's not our jobs as disabled users to always be complaining and saying, Hey, your product is not accessible and all that. At the same time. We can partner with people to get to teach about our experience. If and when we're able to do that, and they can learn from us. And if we work in collaboration, then we'll get much further. Mike Well, that's, that's where one where we, as a company at Pneuma solutions are also trying to look at making sure that we can use augmented remediation, which means computer assisted or artificial intelligence to do these very tedious jobs. Accessibility is not difficult, Nicolas, it's tedious. And there's a huge attention to detail. And you know, who does that really good, that computer? Does it really good. And it doesn't take a rest, it doesn't go to sleep, it doesn't quit because it's tired. And you know, what, as a blind consumer, of content, information, whatever, I don't care where I get it, as long as I get it. Information is what I need. And if accessibility compliance by humans is standing in my way, then by golly, let's let the machines do it. And and maybe we'll have a much more accessible world. Nic Let me ask you this in terms of automating accessibility. When we're talking about automated accessibility testing, we can identify about 35 to 40% of accessibility issues automatically. Can we really rely on automated accessibility fixing for 100% of making this site accessible? Mike Not yet. But that's the key, can we depend totally on, on autonomous driving cars? No, but they do a really good job. And you know what, the more you use them, the better they get. And that's the same thing here, by accepting the fact that there is the distinct, very strong possibility that computer assisted. Accessibility is possible, not only possible, but it's being done already, as you said, 40%, when it comes to website accessibility 95% when it comes to document accessibility. So you're talking a market and a technology that's growing every day, and it's not just little, little Pneuma solutions is doing this is something that Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, these are all dealing with computer vision, when it comes to augmented media remediation of whatever kind. Nic If you were to look into your crystal ball, when do you think we can reach 100% of automation for accessibility? On the web? Mike It is a cloudy ball indeed. But no, I think that I mean, I think it's fair to say that within five years of 2021, so in 2025/2026, there abouts, what we're going to find is we're going to find that technology is a whole lot closer to that 100%. The reality is that not even humans are 100%. In our research, of dealing with 20 different remediators on one document, everybody does it different. And they still are WCAG compliant. So does that mean that they're wrong? No, it just means that you say tomato, I say tomato. And I don't care, as long as I can understand what the word means is sometimes you're gonna pay a little bit better when you remediate it, and the other person, maybe the other person over there's got trouble at home, they needed to go to the office, they missed a heading or two, and oops. But you know, I think that we need to give augmented media remediation a try. And the website stuff it'll come with, there's no such thing as a silver bullet, things like AccessiBe. And those types of products are just not where they they should be. And, you know, I like the spirit of it. I like the idea of it. You know, the only reason that we need to have people do it is because it can't be automated. But the moment it can be automated, why should people have to worry about it? I mean, do you expect somebody to draw you a map every time you want to go to the grocery store? Now you just turn on your GPS, and it takes you there? You know, there used to be a time where if you were a blind person and you needed and you need a mobility instruction to get to the grocery store, they'd give you a tactile map. don't need that anymore. Does that makes sense? Nic That makes perfect sense. Hey, Mike, thank you for your insights. This was fascinating Mike Thank you for having me. Nic I think the the audience is going to find this interesting. I'll see you around on the web and LinkedIn and keep in touch. Mike Thank you. Nic Cheers.]]> clean no 10:12 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/thane-pullan-talks-about-switch-input-and-captchas/ Wed, 22 Sep 2021 19:23:23 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=622 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcripts for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility, fast! My guest today is Thane Pullan. Thane is nonverbal. So we did the interview via email, he typed his answers and recorded this text to speech software reading his part of the conversation. Thane, let's start with our first question. What's your disability or impairment Thane Cerebral palsy. I use eye tracking and a knee switch to operate my computer, I can move the mouse to a specific area of the screen then make small corrections to the position with my knee switch scanning system, I type with eye tracking and word prediction. Nic For those of us who aren't familiar with eye tracking and switches, could you tell us a bit more about the specifics of relying on that assistive software? How does eye tracking work specifically? Thane With eye tracking, I look at letters and hold my gaze and then to type and the cursor follows my gaze too. I click with a big button on my tray. Right clicking is done through my knee switch scanning system. A menu pops up on my screen and I can choose from dozens of functions that I want the computer to perform. Nic What is the greatest barrier you experienced on the web Thane The worse, CAPTCHAS with time outs. I type very slowly and sometimes I can't type the CAPTCHA in time. and the picture ones can be difficult to solve on occasion. One more thing popup menus are horrible for eye tracking, most eye tracking users probably can't use them. you have to keep your mouse in an area from then not to close. What's ridiculous is some disability websites use them. on another note it always makes me cringe when I see companies offering services to the disability community and they have ambiguous links etc. Nic What do you mean by ambiguous links? How's that a barrier for you? Thane Ambiguous links aren't a barrier for me but horrible for blind users. They're links that say click here, read more etc. they're basically non descriptive links. When scanning through links on screen reader a link saying click here without any other context tells the screen reader user nothing. I'm just amused by sites offering services to the disability community that can't follow very basic accessibility guidelines. Nic What is one message you have for designers or developers Thane I guess go to https://peoplewithdisabilities.com/accessible_websites.html and read the article. It have has some great information. Just research the best accessibility practices really. Also don't create infographics without some sort of alternative for blind people. marketers be like infographics are great, well not if you're blind . A tool I use for my sites is the web accessibility in mind scanner. It probably doesn't detect everything but it's good enough. Nic Automated testing is certainly a good start and better than what most web developers do in terms of checking accessibility. Thane, thank you for being such a great guest and we'll catch you up on the web.]]> full 28 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcripts for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility, fast! My guest today is Thane Pullan. Thane is nonverbal. So we did the interview via email, he typed his answers and recorded this text to speech software reading his part of the conversation. Thane, let's start with our first question. What's your disability or impairment Thane Cerebral palsy. I use eye tracking and a knee switch to operate my computer, I can move the mouse to a specific area of the screen then make small corrections to the position with my knee switch scanning system, I type with eye tracking and word prediction. Nic For those of us who aren't familiar with eye tracking and switches, could you tell us a bit more about the specifics of relying on that assistive software? How does eye tracking work specifically? Thane With eye tracking, I look at letters and hold my gaze and then to type and the cursor follows my gaze too. I click with a big button on my tray. Right clicking is done through my knee switch scanning system. A menu pops up on my screen and I can choose from dozens of functions that I want the computer to perform. Nic What is the greatest barrier you experienced on the web Thane The worse, CAPTCHAS with time outs. I type very slowly and sometimes I can't type the CAPTCHA in time. and the picture ones can be difficult to solve on occasion. One more thing popup menus are horrible for eye tracking, most eye tracking users probably can't use them. you have to keep your mouse in an area from then not to close. What's ridiculous is some disability websites use them. on another note it always makes me cringe when I see companies offering services to the disability community and they have ambiguous links etc. Nic What do you mean by ambiguous links? How's that a barrier for you? Thane Ambiguous links aren't a barrier for me but horrible for blind users. They're links that say click here, read more etc. they're basically non descriptive links. When scanning through links on screen reader a link saying click here without any other context tells the screen reader user nothing. I'm just amused by sites offering services to the disability community that can't follow very basic accessibility guidelines. Nic What is one message you have for designers or developers Thane I guess go to https://peoplewithdisabilities.com/accessible_websites.html and read the article. It have has some great information. Just research the best accessibility practices really. Also don't create infographics without some sort of alternative for blind people. marketers be like infographics are great, well not if you're blind . A tool I use for my sites is the web accessibility in mind scanner. It probably doesn't detect everything but it's good enough. Nic Automated testing is certainly a good start and better than what most web developers do in terms of checking accessibility. Thane, thank you for being such a great guest and we'll catch you up on the web.]]> clean no 4:10 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/diana-van-dulken-talks-about-adhd-and-things-moving-on-screen/ Mon, 20 Sep 2021 20:59:57 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=620 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite. A series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. Today, I'm talking with Diane van Dulken. Hey, Di, how are you? Di I'm great. Thank you. How are you? Nic I'm doing good. Very glad to have you on board. We have not spoken very much before today. So it's going to be a fun, fun interaction getting to know you. First question I have for you is what's your disability or your impairment? Di Okay, so I have ADHD, I'm quite a late diagnosed ADHD person, you would have found that a lot of females are like that. So I only got diagnosed with ADHD about five, six years ago. But yes, it explains so much about how I interact with the world. Nic I understand that it's actually very difficult to get diagnosed with ADHD later in life, especially as a woman, can you tell me a little bit about that process? Di Yes, sure. There's a bit of a discussion with my child about how this happened because my child was diagnosed with ADHD. And they believe that my psychiatrist, first of all said that I had ADHD, and that made their psychiatrist diagnose them with ADHD. But I think it was the other way around. It's because it's extremely genetic, when this talk was happening. In either case, it was basically Yes, you do actually fit all of those criteria. That explains a lot of things that we had previously thought was just anxiety driven, because of course, there's a very large overlap between. So but the process was, I already had a psychiatrist. I think the main impact, or the main thing that stops people from getting this diagnosis is that they need to have a mental health care professional. And that's actually very difficult for people to get in the first place. In Australia, we're lucky that you can get things like mental health care plans and things like that, to actually get these diagnoses. But I'm on Tick tock, for example, and you see a huge amount of people who are self diagnosing with ADHD because they reverberate with people who are talking about ADHD on there. But it does make it an official diagnosis, there's a whole heap of criteria that you have to match. And I had to do things like go and discover my school reports from very long time ago, because I'm old. And bring those in so that there was evidence that was actually existing as a child, but just wasn't picked up all of those sorts of things. So I certainly never thought I'd have to look at those again. Yeah, Nic That sounds like quite a journey. Di Yes, it was, but it was, it was extremely freeing. When I actually did get diagnosed. It was one of those things where this is going to sound a little bit sad. But for most of my life, I knew that I wasn't living up to my potential. And I would get extraordinarily frustrated with myself because of that, like, why am I like this, why other people would be able to do things without, you know, procrastinating, or getting distracted or wasting time or you know, not self sabotaging all of those sorts of things. So the diagnosis has been an incredibly good thing for me. And it's not always a great thing to put yourself in  boxes. But sometimes it can be a very good thing when it helps you to understand yourself. Nic Thank you. What would you say your greatest barrier is when you're on the web? Di Okay, so when I'm on the web, my greatest barrier and also possibly just my pet peeve, are things that automatically move because things like automatic playing videos, automatic sound, especially automatic moving carousels. I, I am a web developer myself and I hate carousels with a passion. But I hated those well, before I am, because I would react to them is one of two things, I will either go, Ah, stop, stop, stop it, and just try to get it to stop straightaway. Or I will just dive into a rabbit hole and forget what I'm actually on therefore, and just sit there going, Okay, what's coming up next, oh, blah, blah, blah. I don't think either of those are the intended result. And so, it basically it just absolutely drives me insane and can completely waste my time and completely distract me from the purpose of the reason I'm there. And it just makes me hate that. I will not go back to that website again, if I know that it exists like that. It just No. No, they are horrible things. Nic Yeah. There's so many people that dislike the experience as an end user. And yet designers and stakeholders appear to really love carousels and moving things. And I don't know where the dichotomy is, where it comes from that so many people that create things love them, and so many people who actually use them hate them. It's it's an interesting thing. Di Well, I've always got a little bit of a philosophy about these things is, do you know why you're actually putting this there. So when it comes to carousels, for example, there's a whole heap of evidence out there that people have things like banner blindness, and completely ignore things during carousels, the interaction with carousels goes down from something like 80% on the first image, down to 20%, on the second image, things like that, so they don't even work. So quite often, what they used for is just to get a tick off for marketing people saying, yes, we're putting your stuff right at the very top. So be happy that we're giving you this priority, but they're not actually. So I think, you know, with things like your, your automatic playing videos, or the especially background videos, I hate background videos, because you generally can't stop them. I can understand for things that you can stop. But you shouldn't be automatically playing them anyway, you should be giving people not letting them know that a video there if they want to watch it, but you shouldn't be automatically playing it because that's really you're infringing on their rights in a way. Yeah, just saying, I've decided that you need to have this. And whether you want it or not, is irrelevant to me. And I think you know, there are very few rare cases where that might be appropriate. So if, for example, you are, I believe the Sydney Opera House has a background image that they use. And given that their art community and things like that, maybe that's appropriate. But I still would vastly prefer if it was something that I could just stop. But I think in most cases, people just don't think about what is the purpose of this? Because if the only purpose is that somebody thinks that looks cool, that actually doesn't have a purpose at all? Nic Yes. Di It's kind of the contrary. So what are you trying to achieve with any of the things that you put on your website. And if you actually put it into, if you have an understanding about the purpose of the things on your website, you'll have a much cleaner website, and ones that people want to actually interact with. And once which you could at least, do some analysis to see if your purpose is being met, where at the moment people just find a shove stuff up there and go, Oh, I think it looks pretty. That's nice. Nic So what would you have as one message for designers or developers around accessibility? Is this around this concept that you were just talking about to find the purpose of what you're doing what you're putting there, or is there something else you think is more critical? Di Oh, the thing that I think is more critical is understanding that being accessible or especially not being accessible, is going to cost your business. One in five people have some sort of accessibility issue as you would know. And that means that you are... basically, if you're not trying to be accessible on your website, that you are cutting off, accessibility or actionability to 20% of the people, I don't know any business that can afford to say, we don't want to 20 of our customers. And I think that's something that a lot of companies don't quite grasp that there's a massive business cost in not being accessible. And they tend to go on I'm sure that other people out there who have been web developers have people say things to them, like, Oh, we don't have blind people come to our site. Yes, you do. That we have people with cognitive issues come to your site, you have people with arthritis come to your site, you have the people who have color blindness come to your site, you have all these other people and, and often for people who have got physical impairments, the web is their escape into the world and the chance to actually really interact with the world. And to make it more difficult than it needs to be for them. It's just, it's really shitty. It's a shitty thing to do. And it doesn't reflect well on you. Nic Fantastic. Di But yes, that's, that's my main thing. There's a business cost to being non accessible, and it's a big one. Nic Then thank you so much for your insights. And I'm sure I'll see you on the web somewhere. Di Thank you so much, Nic.]]> full 27 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite. A series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. Today, I'm talking with Diane van Dulken. Hey, Di, how are you? Di I'm great. Thank you. How are you? Nic I'm doing good. Very glad to have you on board. We have not spoken very much before today. So it's going to be a fun, fun interaction getting to know you. First question I have for you is what's your disability or your impairment? Di Okay, so I have ADHD, I'm quite a late diagnosed ADHD person, you would have found that a lot of females are like that. So I only got diagnosed with ADHD about five, six years ago. But yes, it explains so much about how I interact with the world. Nic I understand that it's actually very difficult to get diagnosed with ADHD later in life, especially as a woman, can you tell me a little bit about that process? Di Yes, sure. There's a bit of a discussion with my child about how this happened because my child was diagnosed with ADHD. And they believe that my psychiatrist, first of all said that I had ADHD, and that made their psychiatrist diagnose them with ADHD. But I think it was the other way around. It's because it's extremely genetic, when this talk was happening. In either case, it was basically Yes, you do actually fit all of those criteria. That explains a lot of things that we had previously thought was just anxiety driven, because of course, there's a very large overlap between. So but the process was, I already had a psychiatrist. I think the main impact, or the main thing that stops people from getting this diagnosis is that they need to have a mental health care professional. And that's actually very difficult for people to get in the first place. In Australia, we're lucky that you can get things like mental health care plans and things like that, to actually get these diagnoses. But I'm on Tick tock, for example, and you see a huge amount of people who are self diagnosing with ADHD because they reverberate with people who are talking about ADHD on there. But it does make it an official diagnosis, there's a whole heap of criteria that you have to match. And I had to do things like go and discover my school reports from very long time ago, because I'm old. And bring those in so that there was evidence that was actually existing as a child, but just wasn't picked up all of those sorts of things. So I certainly never thought I'd have to look at those again. Yeah, Nic That sounds like quite a journey. Di Yes, it was, but it was, it was extremely freeing. When I actually did get diagnosed. It was one of those things where this is going to sound a little bit sad. But for most of my life, I knew that I wasn't living up to my potential. And I would get extraordinarily frustrated with myself because of that, like, why am I like this, why other people would be able to do things without, you know, procrastinating, or getting distracted or wasting time or you know, not self sabotaging all of those sorts of things. So the diagnosis has been an incredibly good thing for me. And it's not always a great thing to put yourself in  boxes. But sometimes it can be a very good thing when it helps you to understand yourself. Nic Thank you. What would you say your greatest barrier is when you're on the web? Di Okay, so when I'm on the web, my greatest barrier and also possibly just my pet peeve, are things that automatically move because things like automatic playing videos, automatic sound, especially automatic moving carousels. I, I am a web developer myself and I hate carousels with a passion. But I hated those well, before I am, because I would react to them is one of two things, I will either go, Ah, stop, stop, stop it, and just try to get it to stop straightaway. Or I will just dive into a rabbit hole and forget what I'm actually on therefore, and just sit there going, Okay, what's coming up next, oh, blah, blah, blah. I don't think either of those are the intended result. And so, it basically it just absolutely drives me insane and can completely waste my time and completely distract me from the purpose of the reason I'm there. And it just makes me hate that. I will not go back to that website again, if I know that it exists like that. It just No. No, they are horrible things. Nic Yeah. There's so many people that dislike the experience as an end user. And yet designers and stakeholders appear to really love carousels and moving things. And I don't know where the dichotomy is, where it comes from that so many people that create things love them, and so many people who actually use them hate them. It's it's an interesting thing. Di Well, I've always got a little bit of a philosophy about these things is, do you know why you're actually putting this there. So when it comes to carousels, for example, there's a whole heap of evidence out there that people have things like banner blindness, and completely ignore things during carousels, the interaction with carousels goes down from something like 80% on the first image, down to 20%, on the second image, things like that, so they don't even work. So quite often, what they used for is just to get a tick off for marketing people saying, yes, we're putting your stuff right at the very top. So be happy that we're giving you this priority, but they're not actually. So I think, you know, with things like your, your automatic playing videos, or the especially background videos, I hate background videos, because you generally can't stop them. I can understand for things that you can stop. But you shouldn't be automatically playing them anyway, you should be giving people not letting them know that a video there if they want to watch it, but you shouldn't be automatically playing it because that's really you're infringing on their rights in a way. Yeah, just saying, I've decided that you need to have this. And whether you want it or not, is irrelevant to me. And I think you know, there are very few rare cases where that might be appropriate. So if, for example, you are, I believe the Sydney Opera House has a background image that they use. And given that their art community and things like that, maybe that's appropriate. But I still would vastly prefer if it was something that I could just stop. But I think in most cases, people just don't think about what is the purpose of this? Because if the only purpose is that somebody thinks that looks cool, that actually doesn't have a purpose at all? Nic Yes. Di It's kind of the contrary. So what are you trying to achieve with any of the things that you put on your website. And if you actually put it into, if you have an understanding about the purpose of the things on your website, you'll have a much cleaner website, and ones that people want to actually interact with. And once which you could at least, do some analysis to see if your purpose is being met, where at the moment people just find a shove stuff up there and go, Oh, I think it looks pretty. That's nice. Nic So what would you have as one message for designers or developers around accessibility? Is this around this concept that you were just talking about to find the purpose of what you're doing what you're putting there, or is there something else you think is more critical? Di Oh, the thing that I think is more critical is understanding that being accessible or especially not being accessible, is going to cost your business. One in five people have some sort of accessibility issue as you would know. And that means that you are... basically, if you're not trying to be accessible on your website, that you are cutting off, accessibility or actionability to 20% of the people, I don't know any business that can afford to say, we don't want to 20 of our customers. And I think that's something that a lot of companies don't quite grasp that there's a massive business cost in not being accessible. And they tend to go on I'm sure that other people out there who have been web developers have people say things to them, like, Oh, we don't have blind people come to our site. Yes, you do. That we have people with cognitive issues come to your site, you have people with arthritis come to your site, you have the people who have color blindness come to your site, you have all these other people and, and often for people who have got physical impairments, the web is their escape into the world and the chance to actually really interact with the world. And to make it more difficult than it needs to be for them. It's just, it's really shitty. It's a shitty thing to do. And it doesn't reflect well on you. Nic Fantastic. Di But yes, that's, that's my main thing. There's a business cost to being non accessible, and it's a big one. Nic Then thank you so much for your insights. And I'm sure I'll see you on the web somewhere. Di Thank you so much, Nic.]]> clean no 12:03 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/default-focus-outlines-dont-remove-them/ Fri, 17 Sep 2021 19:05:11 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=617 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbites. This one's a bit different. We have designers and developers talking about why focus outline is important. I want to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix this ability, fast! Nic Someone was saying on Twitter: "The thing with the outline that I'm struggling with, is that when you click a button with mouse, it shows the outline so designers asked me to remove it because it's ugly." I don't think there's anyone in the digital accessibility community that hasn't heard something along the same lines. So I asked the twitterverse for feedback, and got some really awesome responses. For me, though, the interaction that strikes me still are the long discussions I had with the designer that was forced to keep focus outlines. He did, but he styled the button to be the exact same blue as the Chrome default outline color. His approach defeated the purpose of course, I'm not sure he ever truly understood why it wasn't a good idea. However, here's some great thoughts on focus outline from folks on Twitter. Kylie Timpani says we should talk about people before guidelines. Kylie I think it would help to explain why the outline is important, making sure to lead with how removing the outline could affect people before talking about any specific guidelines. For what by saying that the outline can be customized and that we could work together on something more aesthetically pleasing. Nic Hidde de Vries offers an analogy comparing focus outline to streetlights. Hidde And I like to talk about focus outlines, in terms of streetlights. When people tell me focus outlines aren't very pretty, and it might be designers or other people on the project. I'll tell them that street lights aren't very pretty either. But they are extremely useful because they like to know where you are, in the dark when you walk home or something like that. It's the same thing for focus outlines, they help people see where they are. And even if they're not very pretty, they're still very helpful. And yeah, you could do the work to make them for the audience leave them ugly, but they're so essential that you wouldn't want to get rid of them just like you wouldn't want to get rid of street lights. Nic Another analogy as offered by Charles Halls. He compares removing focus offline to removing handles from doors and windows. Charles Have them remove all the handles from the windows and doors because they interrupt the elegant smooth surfaces and remove all the street signs because they can obstruct views, then remove all the numbers and lights and indicators from elevator buttons because they're visual clutter. Nic Lasse Diercks tells us to consider how the button would behave without CSS. Lasse So I had to push this topic for native HTML point of view. How does that behave without CSS? And the button has a focus state. So my question would be what the... What is the alternative for this focus state, which is present in Native HTML? And if the answer to this is there shouldn't be a focus state that this isn't about the outline. It's about focus states at all. And then we can shift the conversation to why this is important. But my stab at what I've tried to argue is that if we take away capabilities that native HTML has, we actually make our page work without any CSS at all. Nic Deborah Edwards-Onoro asks the designer why they think it's ugly, then suggests they try using only a keyboard to navigate their design. Deborah I start with why. I ask the colleague why they believe it's ugly. And ask them if they're open to trying something out. And have them use their keyboard to navigate a design with missing focus. Nic Along the same lines, Denis Boudreau suggests they use a keyboard and see the reaction when they realize how hard it is to do without focus outline. Denis As someone who understands accessibility, the way that I would convince a designer colleague, who wants developers to remove default outline because they feel it so ugly, would simply be to suggest to them to use the web for about 10 minutes without the use of their mouse or a trackpad. As they use their keyboard to navigate, you can easily watch their jaw drop, their minds blow up, and both their cheeks grow crimson red with  embarrassment, when they realize how broken the web is without a mouse. And when they're actually asking if the developers when they're telling them not to use the outlines. Nic Kit Paige adds that it's not ugly. If you take care of coordinating the design. Kit It's not ugly if the outline coordinates or if the button was designed to not be ugly with a focus outline. Plus, would you want so called slight incongruity, or someone not being able to use the design at all because they couldn't tell where the focus is, or if they were on the button in the first place? Nic Chance Strickland suggests something similar, and tells us to incorporate the focus style into the design with more purpose. He suggests looking at it as a design challenge. Chance You know, anytime a designer comes to me and asks if we can remove the outline styles, from a focus style on, say, like a button. There, it's usually because they're convinced that the outline is ugly, it's this blue glowy thing that probably clashes with the design overall. And I like to remind them that you can actually and should actually incorporate your focus styles and incorporate that outline into the design more purposefully. Rather than simply rely on these browser defaults that you think clash with your system. And you know, it's just like any other staple design of an element, a designer is going to likely give you a button design in a hover state and active state and disabled state. There's no reason why they shouldn't also come to you with a design for a button in a focus state. And as long as you can teach them the constraints, I think that opens up a new world of opportunities for creativity, and designers get really excited about that. It would be great if we could just wave a wand and make everyone care about accessibility the same way that we do. But the truth is, you often have to talk to people and make arguments from where they stand and from the values that they hold dear. And if you can find a way to do that, and communicate diplomatically, I think you'll have a lot more success. Nic Julie Moynat says that the focus style should be made beautiful and contrasting. She also suggests a script to remove focus style on mouse click while leaving it there for keyboard interaction. If there's no other options. Julie If someone wants to remove the default outline, because it's ugly, I would tell him or her to make it beautiful and contrasted enough. The focus style doesn't have to be ugly. And in last resort, if there is nothing to do to convince this person, there is fortunately a script on GitHub, called focus visible. It's a polyfill based on the proper CSS focus visible pseudo class. It allows you to disable focus style on mouse click, but not on keyboard navigation. So it's a good way to ensure visible keyboard navigation. If designers or clients don't care about accessibility, Nic Philip Blume points out that taking the outline away is just lazy and irresponsible. Philip The focus outline doesn't have to be ugly. And making it nice in most cases only takes a little bit of work. Then again, the "ugly" outline is what most people are used to. So that's a consideration. Taking the outline away is simply lazy, from a design point of view, not to mention irresponsible, as it inhibits use of your site by people who won't or cannot use a mouse or trackpad. So that's a no go. Anyone who claims that accessibility must be balanced against aesthetics. hasn't thought about the problem carefully enough. Nic There you have it, folks, several ideas to consider about focus outlines. The nutshell? Consider people before guidelines. Don't remove default focus outlines, style focus outlines to fit within your overall design. Make it beautiful. It's your job as a designer, isn't it? And then everybody wins.]]> full 26 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbites. This one's a bit different. We have designers and developers talking about why focus outline is important. I want to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix this ability, fast! Nic Someone was saying on Twitter: "The thing with the outline that I'm struggling with, is that when you click a button with mouse, it shows the outline so designers asked me to remove it because it's ugly." I don't think there's anyone in the digital accessibility community that hasn't heard something along the same lines. So I asked the twitterverse for feedback, and got some really awesome responses. For me, though, the interaction that strikes me still are the long discussions I had with the designer that was forced to keep focus outlines. He did, but he styled the button to be the exact same blue as the Chrome default outline color. His approach defeated the purpose of course, I'm not sure he ever truly understood why it wasn't a good idea. However, here's some great thoughts on focus outline from folks on Twitter. Kylie Timpani says we should talk about people before guidelines. Kylie I think it would help to explain why the outline is important, making sure to lead with how removing the outline could affect people before talking about any specific guidelines. For what by saying that the outline can be customized and that we could work together on something more aesthetically pleasing. Nic Hidde de Vries offers an analogy comparing focus outline to streetlights. Hidde And I like to talk about focus outlines, in terms of streetlights. When people tell me focus outlines aren't very pretty, and it might be designers or other people on the project. I'll tell them that street lights aren't very pretty either. But they are extremely useful because they like to know where you are, in the dark when you walk home or something like that. It's the same thing for focus outlines, they help people see where they are. And even if they're not very pretty, they're still very helpful. And yeah, you could do the work to make them for the audience leave them ugly, but they're so essential that you wouldn't want to get rid of them just like you wouldn't want to get rid of street lights. Nic Another analogy as offered by Charles Halls. He compares removing focus offline to removing handles from doors and windows. Charles Have them remove all the handles from the windows and doors because they interrupt the elegant smooth surfaces and remove all the street signs because they can obstruct views, then remove all the numbers and lights and indicators from elevator buttons because they're visual clutter. Nic Lasse Diercks tells us to consider how the button would behave without CSS. Lasse So I had to push this topic for native HTML point of view. How does that behave without CSS? And the button has a focus state. So my question would be what the... What is the alternative for this focus state, which is present in Native HTML? And if the answer to this is there shouldn't be a focus state that this isn't about the outline. It's about focus states at all. And then we can shift the conversation to why this is important. But my stab at what I've tried to argue is that if we take away capabilities that native HTML has, we actually make our page work without any CSS at all. Nic Deborah Edwards-Onoro asks the designer why they think it's ugly, then suggests they try using only a keyboard to navigate their design. Deborah I start with why. I ask the colleague why they believe it's ugly. And ask them if they're open to trying something out. And have them use their keyboard to navigate a design with missing focus. Nic Along the same lines, Denis Boudreau suggests they use a keyboard and see the reaction when they realize how hard it is to do without focus outline. Denis As someone who understands accessibility, the way that I would convince a designer colleague, who wants developers to remove default outline because they feel it so ugly, would simply be to suggest to them to use the web for about 10 minutes without the use of their mouse or a trackpad. As they use their keyboard to navigate, you can easily watch their jaw drop, their minds blow up, and both their cheeks grow crimson red with  embarrassment, when they realize how broken the web is without a mouse. And when they're actually asking if the developers when they're telling them not to use the outlines. Nic Kit Paige adds that it's not ugly. If you take care of coordinating the design. Kit It's not ugly if the outline coordinates or if the button was designed to not be ugly with a focus outline. Plus, would you want so called slight incongruity, or someone not being able to use the design at all because they couldn't tell where the focus is, or if they were on the button in the first place? Nic Chance Strickland suggests something similar, and tells us to incorporate the focus style into the design with more purpose. He suggests looking at it as a design challenge. Chance You know, anytime a designer comes to me and asks if we can remove the outline styles, from a focus style on, say, like a button. There, it's usually because they're convinced that the outline is ugly, it's this blue glowy thing that probably clashes with the design overall. And I like to remind them that you can actually and should actually incorporate your focus styles and incorporate that outline into the design more purposefully. Rather than simply rely on these browser defaults that you think clash with your system. And you know, it's just like any other staple design of an element, a designer is going to likely give you a button design in a hover state and active state and disabled state. There's no reason why they shouldn't also come to you with a design for a button in a focus state. And as long as you can teach them the constraints, I think that opens up a new world of opportunities for creativity, and designers get really excited about that. It would be great if we could just wave a wand and make everyone care about accessibility the same way that we do. But the truth is, you often have to talk to people and make arguments from where they stand and from the values that they hold dear. And if you can find a way to do that, and communicate diplomatically, I think you'll have a lot more success. Nic Julie Moynat says that the focus style should be made beautiful and contrasting. She also suggests a script to remove focus style on mouse click while leaving it there for keyboard interaction. If there's no other options. Julie If someone wants to remove the default outline, because it's ugly, I would tell him or her to make it beautiful and contrasted enough. The focus style doesn't have to be ugly. And in last resort, if there is nothing to do to convince this person, there is fortunately a script on GitHub, called focus visible. It's a polyfill based on the proper CSS focus visible pseudo class. It allows you to disable focus style on mouse click, but not on keyboard navigation. So it's a good way to ensure visible keyboard navigation. If designers or clients don't care about accessibility, Nic Philip Blume points out that taking the outline away is just lazy and irresponsible. Philip The focus outline doesn't have to be ugly. And making it nice in most cases only takes a little bit of work. Then again, the "ugly" outline is what most people are used to. So that's a consideration. Taking the outline away is simply lazy, from a design point of view, not to mention irresponsible, as it inhibits use of your site by people who won't or cannot use a mouse or trackpad. So that's a no go. Anyone who claims that accessibility must be balanced against aesthetics. hasn't thought about the problem carefully enough. Nic There you have it, folks, several ideas to consider about focus outlines. The nutshell? Consider people before guidelines. Don't remove default focus outlines, style focus outlines to fit within your overall design. Make it beautiful. It's your job as a designer, isn't it? And then everybody wins.]]> clean no 9:15 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/julieanne-king-talks-about-age-related-reduction-in-visual-acuity/ Mon, 13 Sep 2021 19:14:31 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=610 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbites, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Nic I want to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode, Tenon provide accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility, fast. Today, I'm talking with Julieanne King. Hi, Julieanne, how are you? Julieanne Hi, thanks for having me back. Again. Nic I'm very happy. You had some interesting things to say late last time we spoke and I think you have some interesting things to say today. Last time, you spoke a little bit about ADHD and high sensitivity. So for the purpose of this episode, what is your disability or impairment? Julieanne Age related reduction in visual acuity, I need reading glasses and more contrast. Nic Okay, so you would say this is not just like, everybody, I mean, so many people just need glasses. You're talking about having this as really reaching impairment level of condition? Julieanne On the web, yes, it is reaching that place. For many people as we age. Nic Tell me a little bit about the greatest barrier on the web related to that, then. Julieanne Super thin, font strokes, really, really skinny lettering, and using like a medium gray font color. Because even when you use assistive technology to try and increase the color, it's not always successful, because websites are not coded for it. And they don't let me make that adjustment. So I can actually read the article, read the news. Read the instructions, the information I need from that particular site. Nic Funny thing I've noticed, especially with really thin fonts is that they often technically meet color contrast requirements from the web content accessibility guidelines, but because they're so thin, they just blend in the background and become so hard to read. Julieanne Oh, yeah, even even magnified, I struggle with it. And I'll zoom in to 200%. And still, I'm struggling and the shade is... Well, for me, I really like if I'm looking at a white screen, I want black font, because even if it's a dark gray, when I get done reading, I am visually and physically fatigued, from straining to try and make it out. It is very, very effortful. And I have to step away from the computer for a while and you know, I work on the computer. Julieanne It is it is a real problem, this trend of very thin letters and you know, again, that gray font, and they tend towards a medium font are the ones that are the hardest. Nic What's the solution here, though? Because you have... You state that you prefer black text on white background, but that can be harsh on the eyes of other people who may prefer a dark gray on white or... Julieanne Exactly. Nic Other color combinations. So how do we how do we reconcile your needs with somebody else's needs? Julieanne Thicker font strokes, thicker letters, if they're thicker, if it's not so thin, where the colors color sort of bleeds out on the edges, where the dark part is just one pixel right up the middle? You know, the thicker fonts are helpful that way. And sometimes I can make those changes with my browser with my operating system. And sometimes I can't. And it's the ones that I can't that are super, super fatiguing, where it's something I absolutely have to consume. Nic This goes back to give users control over what they need, right? Julieanne Yes, it does. Nic Yeah. So what would be one message you would have for designers and developers? Julieanne Allow for user control, allow us to do high contrast, to choose our own color schemes for buttons, links, text, the background. I like the sites that allow me to do that. So they can still have their style that they they want for the you know, the largest body of consumers that come on their site, but it allows me to then make it functional for me to consume. And so having the ability to have that coding in the background work so that I can change what I need to change is absolutely key for that. And I'm in the process of like teaching my mom how to do that, because she's older than I am. And doesn't, you know, she's on the computer all the time. Yeah, but doesn't know how to do that in her eye sites even farther than mine. And so it's, you know, as I've learned, some of these techniques, I'm super excited to then go help her understand what's available to help her a lot of the times, but not all of the time. Nic That's wonderful. Julieanne, thank you so much for being a guest on the show again this time, and I'll see you around on the web. Julieanne Awesome. Thank you.]]> full 25 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbites, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Nic I want to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode, Tenon provide accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility, fast. Today, I'm talking with Julieanne King. Hi, Julieanne, how are you? Julieanne Hi, thanks for having me back. Again. Nic I'm very happy. You had some interesting things to say late last time we spoke and I think you have some interesting things to say today. Last time, you spoke a little bit about ADHD and high sensitivity. So for the purpose of this episode, what is your disability or impairment? Julieanne Age related reduction in visual acuity, I need reading glasses and more contrast. Nic Okay, so you would say this is not just like, everybody, I mean, so many people just need glasses. You're talking about having this as really reaching impairment level of condition? Julieanne On the web, yes, it is reaching that place. For many people as we age. Nic Tell me a little bit about the greatest barrier on the web related to that, then. Julieanne Super thin, font strokes, really, really skinny lettering, and using like a medium gray font color. Because even when you use assistive technology to try and increase the color, it's not always successful, because websites are not coded for it. And they don't let me make that adjustment. So I can actually read the article, read the news. Read the instructions, the information I need from that particular site. Nic Funny thing I've noticed, especially with really thin fonts is that they often technically meet color contrast requirements from the web content accessibility guidelines, but because they're so thin, they just blend in the background and become so hard to read. Julieanne Oh, yeah, even even magnified, I struggle with it. And I'll zoom in to 200%. And still, I'm struggling and the shade is... Well, for me, I really like if I'm looking at a white screen, I want black font, because even if it's a dark gray, when I get done reading, I am visually and physically fatigued, from straining to try and make it out. It is very, very effortful. And I have to step away from the computer for a while and you know, I work on the computer. Julieanne It is it is a real problem, this trend of very thin letters and you know, again, that gray font, and they tend towards a medium font are the ones that are the hardest. Nic What's the solution here, though? Because you have... You state that you prefer black text on white background, but that can be harsh on the eyes of other people who may prefer a dark gray on white or... Julieanne Exactly. Nic Other color combinations. So how do we how do we reconcile your needs with somebody else's needs? Julieanne Thicker font strokes, thicker letters, if they're thicker, if it's not so thin, where the colors color sort of bleeds out on the edges, where the dark part is just one pixel right up the middle? You know, the thicker fonts are helpful that way. And sometimes I can make those changes with my browser with my operating system. And sometimes I can't. And it's the ones that I can't that are super, super fatiguing, where it's something I absolutely have to consume. Nic This goes back to give users control over what they need, right? Julieanne Yes, it does. Nic Yeah. So what would be one message you would have for designers and developers? Julieanne Allow for user control, allow us to do high contrast, to choose our own color schemes for buttons, links, text, the background. I like the sites that allow me to do that. So they can still have their style that they they want for the you know, the largest body of consumers that come on their site, but it allows me to then make it functional for me to consume. And so having the ability to have that coding in the background work so that I can change what I need to change is absolutely key for that. And I'm in the process of like teaching my mom how to do that, because she's older than I am. And doesn't, you know, she's on the computer all the time. Yeah, but doesn't know how to do that in her eye sites even farther than mine. And so it's, you know, as I've learned, some of these techniques, I'm super excited to then go help her understand what's available to help her a lot of the times, but not all of the time. Nic That's wonderful. Julieanne, thank you so much for being a guest on the show again this time, and I'll see you around on the web. Julieanne Awesome. Thank you.]]> clean no 6:08 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/julieanne-king-talks-about-moving-content-on-pages-and-adhd/ Fri, 25 Jun 2021 21:00:49 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=608 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment and what barriers they encounter on the web. Nic First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility, fast. Nic Today, I'm talking with Julieanne King. Hi, Julieanne, how are you? Julieanne Hi, I'm doing great today. Nic Thanks for coming on board. I think everyone's now familiar with the format. So I'm gonna jump right in and ask you, Julieanne, what's your disability or impairment? Julieanne ADHD and high sensitivity. Nic Tell me what, what does that mean? I think a lot of people are familiar with ADHD but maybe don't really understand what that is. And high sensitivity. What's that? Julieanne High sensitivity is when your nervous system is kind of highly aware, some people prefer compression, sort of like the Temple Grandin compression thing that she developed for cows. So sometimes more close fitting clothing calms, helps calm my nervous system. So my nervous system is a little amped up and I pick up on lots of stuff in my environment. It also exacerbates some of the symptoms of ADHD, which is why I wanted to actually mention that. So things like test anxiety and, you know, taking comments to a more extreme level and personally, that's where the high sensitivity comes in and further exacerbates the ADHD. Nic Thank you for sharing that. What would be your greatest barrier on the web? Because for most people, you know, we think accessibility is good for blind people and maybe deaf people. But how does ADHD come into the into the play and the high sensitivity of course. Julieanne Movement that is not of my choosing, or my control. So when I go into a video game, I know I'm going to play a game and I know there's going to be movement. So that's my expectation. But when I'm information seeking, trying to accomplish a task, movement on the screen, that is not something that I cause to happen or choose to happen can absolutely derail me. Things like ads, videos, GIFs oh my god stop the GIFs. They move too fast, carousel, slideshows, parallax websites, and password creation has been one of my latest ones that's been driving me nuts. Nic And when you said derails you what's what's that? mean? In particular. Julieanne It can make me forget what I was there to do. I'm trying to accomplish something in it sort of scrambles, my ability to focus. And so I'm trying to get a task done, accomplish a goal, get specific information. And when I get too much distraction or interruption, I have to step back because it raises anger, it raises anxiety, it raises stress, it raises agitation, from the high sensitivity space that sort of makes me feel like I'm like quivering or vibrating and can't control it. So yeah, it's problematic. Nic So basically, movement on a page can block you not only from completing the workflow you were going to complete, but it can also ruin your day. Julieanne Yeah. Or at least, you know, a couple of hours. Yeah, it can literally derail me for a couple of hours it takes, it's sort of related to like when you're trying to do deep focus, and you're really in that place. And any kind of distraction can pull you out of that deep focus where you're making those deep work connections. And it's like that, and even just a telephone ringing, a ping, from some messaging system can actually take you out of it. And it takes two to three times as long to get back to where you were. As if you had not been interrupted as it did the first time you were engaging in it. Because meanwhile, it's in the background, distracting you, you know, making you think of all these other things that need doing instead of focusing on that task you were trying to work on. Nic Right. Thanks for that, that that's actually fascinating. annoying for you when there's movement on the page was fascinating for folks listening. But Julieanne, what would be one message you would have for designers or developers? Julieanne Let me control the movement. Let me control the action if you've got a slideshow Let me choose what speed it moves at. Because sometimes there's text on it, or sometimes I really want to take in an image. And they'll have it on a five second timer and it slides and trying to get back to where you were as frustrating or trying to read the information accompanied with it isn't enough time. For me to focus I want to take in whatever. Also, if there's an ad on the page, let me initiate the play of it. If there's a video on the page, let me initiate the play of it don't automatically do it. One of the biggest culprits is websites with recipes on them, because they'll start three or four different videos going, you'll be trying to read through the recipe and some ad opens up and shifts the page down or up. And then it closes and it shifts the page down or up again, it's like I couldn't even get through a sentence, and then trying to find where I am. And I literally will abandon a page faster than anything. If it's got all that stuff going on. Nic Autoplay video must die. Julieanne Oh, yes. And I guess one more thing I'd like to say to developers, as far as something they need to know, one of the new trends I've seen recently is when you are signing up for something and you have to create a password. And this one is really problematic for people with ADD or ADHD. I know the intention is really well meant they'll have those things, you know, you have to have a character, you have to have a symbol, you have to have uppercase, lowercase, a number, you know, you have to have X numbers of these and they will. Now when you go to enter a password or create a password, they create a box that has these things in red. And you type the first character and it will like jump out at you it will have movement with you to signal like you still need these and I'm like, I'm only one character in! Give me a break. And it sends my anxiety through the roof and takes me back to test anxiety of like, Do I have enough time? Oh my god, you know, Nic Yeah Julieanne I need to do things in a different way. I need to get the big picture, whatever. Let me get through that. And if I don't have it, then notify me. Don't notify me with every touch of a key with that jumping out because that makes me forget the password I'm trying to create. Nic Absolutely. I'm so with you on that. Julieanne, thank you for sharing with us. We're going to wrap up this episode. I'll talk to you later. I'm sure. Thanks for being a good guest. Julieanne Thank you for letting me be on and share my perspective.]]> full 24 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment and what barriers they encounter on the web. Nic First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility, fast. Nic Today, I'm talking with Julieanne King. Hi, Julieanne, how are you? Julieanne Hi, I'm doing great today. Nic Thanks for coming on board. I think everyone's now familiar with the format. So I'm gonna jump right in and ask you, Julieanne, what's your disability or impairment? Julieanne ADHD and high sensitivity. Nic Tell me what, what does that mean? I think a lot of people are familiar with ADHD but maybe don't really understand what that is. And high sensitivity. What's that? Julieanne High sensitivity is when your nervous system is kind of highly aware, some people prefer compression, sort of like the Temple Grandin compression thing that she developed for cows. So sometimes more close fitting clothing calms, helps calm my nervous system. So my nervous system is a little amped up and I pick up on lots of stuff in my environment. It also exacerbates some of the symptoms of ADHD, which is why I wanted to actually mention that. So things like test anxiety and, you know, taking comments to a more extreme level and personally, that's where the high sensitivity comes in and further exacerbates the ADHD. Nic Thank you for sharing that. What would be your greatest barrier on the web? Because for most people, you know, we think accessibility is good for blind people and maybe deaf people. But how does ADHD come into the into the play and the high sensitivity of course. Julieanne Movement that is not of my choosing, or my control. So when I go into a video game, I know I'm going to play a game and I know there's going to be movement. So that's my expectation. But when I'm information seeking, trying to accomplish a task, movement on the screen, that is not something that I cause to happen or choose to happen can absolutely derail me. Things like ads, videos, GIFs oh my god stop the GIFs. They move too fast, carousel, slideshows, parallax websites, and password creation has been one of my latest ones that's been driving me nuts. Nic And when you said derails you what's what's that? mean? In particular. Julieanne It can make me forget what I was there to do. I'm trying to accomplish something in it sort of scrambles, my ability to focus. And so I'm trying to get a task done, accomplish a goal, get specific information. And when I get too much distraction or interruption, I have to step back because it raises anger, it raises anxiety, it raises stress, it raises agitation, from the high sensitivity space that sort of makes me feel like I'm like quivering or vibrating and can't control it. So yeah, it's problematic. Nic So basically, movement on a page can block you not only from completing the workflow you were going to complete, but it can also ruin your day. Julieanne Yeah. Or at least, you know, a couple of hours. Yeah, it can literally derail me for a couple of hours it takes, it's sort of related to like when you're trying to do deep focus, and you're really in that place. And any kind of distraction can pull you out of that deep focus where you're making those deep work connections. And it's like that, and even just a telephone ringing, a ping, from some messaging system can actually take you out of it. And it takes two to three times as long to get back to where you were. As if you had not been interrupted as it did the first time you were engaging in it. Because meanwhile, it's in the background, distracting you, you know, making you think of all these other things that need doing instead of focusing on that task you were trying to work on. Nic Right. Thanks for that, that that's actually fascinating. annoying for you when there's movement on the page was fascinating for folks listening. But Julieanne, what would be one message you would have for designers or developers? Julieanne Let me control the movement. Let me control the action if you've got a slideshow Let me choose what speed it moves at. Because sometimes there's text on it, or sometimes I really want to take in an image. And they'll have it on a five second timer and it slides and trying to get back to where you were as frustrating or trying to read the information accompanied with it isn't enough time. For me to focus I want to take in whatever. Also, if there's an ad on the page, let me initiate the play of it. If there's a video on the page, let me initiate the play of it don't automatically do it. One of the biggest culprits is websites with recipes on them, because they'll start three or four different videos going, you'll be trying to read through the recipe and some ad opens up and shifts the page down or up. And then it closes and it shifts the page down or up again, it's like I couldn't even get through a sentence, and then trying to find where I am. And I literally will abandon a page faster than anything. If it's got all that stuff going on. Nic Autoplay video must die. Julieanne Oh, yes. And I guess one more thing I'd like to say to developers, as far as something they need to know, one of the new trends I've seen recently is when you are signing up for something and you have to create a password. And this one is really problematic for people with ADD or ADHD. I know the intention is really well meant they'll have those things, you know, you have to have a character, you have to have a symbol, you have to have uppercase, lowercase, a number, you know, you have to have X numbers of these and they will. Now when you go to enter a password or create a password, they create a box that has these things in red. And you type the first character and it will like jump out at you it will have movement with you to signal like you still need these and I'm like, I'm only one character in! Give me a break. And it sends my anxiety through the roof and takes me back to test anxiety of like, Do I have enough time? Oh my god, you know, Nic Yeah Julieanne I need to do things in a different way. I need to get the big picture, whatever. Let me get through that. And if I don't have it, then notify me. Don't notify me with every touch of a key with that jumping out because that makes me forget the password I'm trying to create. Nic Absolutely. I'm so with you on that. Julieanne, thank you for sharing with us. We're going to wrap up this episode. I'll talk to you later. I'm sure. Thanks for being a good guest. Julieanne Thank you for letting me be on and share my perspective.]]> clean no 7:59 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/tori-clark-talks-about-visible-labels-and-dragon/ Fri, 16 Apr 2021 18:49:42 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=605 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic   Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rule soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they encounter on the web.    Nic   First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility fast.    Nic   Today, I'm talking with Tori Clark. Hi, Tori. How are you?    Tori   Hi, good. How are you?   Nic   I'm good. super happy to connect with you here. It's been a while that we spoke about it.   Tori   Absolutely, yes.   Nic   Yeah. Let me ask you this. What is your disability or your impairment?   Tori   So I actually call myself multiply disabled. For me, it means I both have multiple medical conditions and multiple limitations attached to them. And I can't really separate them out. Generally speaking, for me, it's definitely all one picture. But today I'm really here to talk about my primary disability, which is Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. And it's a connective tissue disorder that causes frequent and mostly painful subluxations and dislocations of all of my joints. In my entire body, there are no exclusions. In particular, my left shoulder is so bad that my left arm goes numb, or gets shooting pains whenever I try to use it for any repetitive task. And naturally, I'm sure most people can guess that would make it really hard to use a keyboard   Nic   And a mouse.   Tori   Yet, luckily, I do have use of my right hand mostly it does get tired after a while. But I am fortunate enough to use a mouse when I am facing blockers on the web. And not everyone has that as an option.   Nic   What's your solution? If you can't use a keyboard or no, not readily a mouse all the time? What kind of assistive technology do you use?    Tori   Yeah, so it took a while to find the right fit for me. And there aren't a lot of perfect technologies out there. But for me speech recognition, and specifically Dragon Naturally Speaking was the best fit for me because Dragon has macros and I can set it up to really work with me, rather than against me, and not all other speech recognition. Has that versatility.   Nic   Hmm. Yeah. So you spoke about blockers, what would be your greatest barrier on the web?   Tori   I have many, but if I had to pick one, I would say it's a lack of visual labels or mismatch between the visual label and the accessible name of the label. In particular, old versions of Dragon also require that the first word of the actual accessible label be the visual label otherwise, I have no idea how to interact with or click buttons or form fields, or even certain types of links.   Nic   How does that work with links or buttons that are image only like a magnifying glass for search form? Or I guess social media images like Facebook or Twitter are fairly straightforward, but we've find a lot of images as the only content of an actionable item how how do you end up interacting with that if you have to guess at what the label is?   Tori   Honestly not very well. Fortunately, there does seem to be some common language and some common icon so for me if I see a house icon that's meant to be for the homepage, I can pretty reliably say home and click on that link because did link text that's not visible is home. I do the same thing for mobile menus. I can say menu or main menu or mobile menu and it works. But occasionally some people try to get fancy and they have an accessible name of toggle navigation. And there's no way I could guess that. I think my favorite example though is the trash can for a remove or delete icon. I have had to guess so many different accessible names from remove to cancel to delete to trash. So I I often jokingly say what I'm trying to tell people how to do better. icon only buttons are trash. And then I use the trash icon as an example.   Nic   So you would recommend that in every instances we have both an icon and text, visible text for for actionable elements?   Tori   Absolutely. Unless it is something that is so common, and the only way to really verify that is user testing.    Nic   Hmm. How do we convince designers that are so in love with their icons only designs to implement that kind of stuff? Because I can, I can hear screams from the designer community from here that's like, Oh, it's gonna polute our design?   Tori   I absolutely. And I've heard, I've heard those complaints. I've heard those screams, those shouting into the void. And really, I just I challeng designers to try for better. And there are ways to both have aesthetics and to still provide a visual label. In fact, one thing that I'm finding very interesting is there's a new trend in website designs, including it's on the White House website, the new one that was launched in the US. And it actually has a couple of lines. And then underneath the mobile menu, it actually says menu. And that was really powerful to me, because clearly, people are starting to look at solutions to still provide the content so that people can more easily use the web, because visual labels are helpful for a lot more than just speech recognition users.   Nic   Yeah, absolutely. I can think of people with cognitive issues, memory issues, a whole lot of things. I mean, even if we go beyond accessibility, there's cultural issues, you know, if you're looking at, oh, I'm going into colors here rather than than iconography, but red and green is not having the same meaning in the east as it is in the West. So we have absolutely careful with that. Hey, that's amazing. Um, so let me ask you this last question for you. If you had one message for designers or developers, what would you like to tell them and remember about accessibility?    Tori   Yeah, I feel like I already addressed the designers pretty well. So I'm going to talk about developers a little bit here. And I think the biggest thing is to remember that assistive technology user is not synonymous with screen reader user. And this is a mistake I see everywhere. And it's something that I advocate for so heartily, um, and I just, I do it wherever I go. And it's not just something that affects me personally, it's something that affects so many other assistive technology users. Um, and there are actually some cases where, in trying to provide extra context for screen reader users, it's actually removing access for other people. So developers should be very careful and really start thinking of the full meaning of the word assistive technology user, because ARIA and other techniques aren't just for screen readers. They're for any technology that interacts with it. And that includes speech recognition.   Nic   So there's a conflict between different assistive technologies, which is a little bit tricky to to get around. I guess it's a little bit like no, as a wheelchair user, I really love polished concrete surfaces. But a friend of mine who uses a cane says he hates polished concrete surfaces, especially when they're wet. So you know, what's, what's the the middle ground carpet, but lush carpet is hard on wheels. So yeah, we have to balance these things in there are solutions. We just need to make sure that we think about them a little bit of absolutely thinking about what we're doing rather than implementing things because we've always done it this way. Tori Clark, thank you so much for sharing your experiences on the show, and we'll see you around on the web.   Tori   Awesome. Thank you so much, Nic.]]> full 23 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic   Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rule soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment, and what barriers they encounter on the web.    Nic   First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training and tooling to help fix accessibility fast.    Nic   Today, I'm talking with Tori Clark. Hi, Tori. How are you?    Tori   Hi, good. How are you?   Nic   I'm good. super happy to connect with you here. It's been a while that we spoke about it.   Tori   Absolutely, yes.   Nic   Yeah. Let me ask you this. What is your disability or your impairment?   Tori   So I actually call myself multiply disabled. For me, it means I both have multiple medical conditions and multiple limitations attached to them. And I can't really separate them out. Generally speaking, for me, it's definitely all one picture. But today I'm really here to talk about my primary disability, which is Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. And it's a connective tissue disorder that causes frequent and mostly painful subluxations and dislocations of all of my joints. In my entire body, there are no exclusions. In particular, my left shoulder is so bad that my left arm goes numb, or gets shooting pains whenever I try to use it for any repetitive task. And naturally, I'm sure most people can guess that would make it really hard to use a keyboard   Nic   And a mouse.   Tori   Yet, luckily, I do have use of my right hand mostly it does get tired after a while. But I am fortunate enough to use a mouse when I am facing blockers on the web. And not everyone has that as an option.   Nic   What's your solution? If you can't use a keyboard or no, not readily a mouse all the time? What kind of assistive technology do you use?    Tori   Yeah, so it took a while to find the right fit for me. And there aren't a lot of perfect technologies out there. But for me speech recognition, and specifically Dragon Naturally Speaking was the best fit for me because Dragon has macros and I can set it up to really work with me, rather than against me, and not all other speech recognition. Has that versatility.   Nic   Hmm. Yeah. So you spoke about blockers, what would be your greatest barrier on the web?   Tori   I have many, but if I had to pick one, I would say it's a lack of visual labels or mismatch between the visual label and the accessible name of the label. In particular, old versions of Dragon also require that the first word of the actual accessible label be the visual label otherwise, I have no idea how to interact with or click buttons or form fields, or even certain types of links.   Nic   How does that work with links or buttons that are image only like a magnifying glass for search form? Or I guess social media images like Facebook or Twitter are fairly straightforward, but we've find a lot of images as the only content of an actionable item how how do you end up interacting with that if you have to guess at what the label is?   Tori   Honestly not very well. Fortunately, there does seem to be some common language and some common icon so for me if I see a house icon that's meant to be for the homepage, I can pretty reliably say home and click on that link because did link text that's not visible is home. I do the same thing for mobile menus. I can say menu or main menu or mobile menu and it works. But occasionally some people try to get fancy and they have an accessible name of toggle navigation. And there's no way I could guess that. I think my favorite example though is the trash can for a remove or delete icon. I have had to guess so many different accessible names from remove to cancel to delete to trash. So I I often jokingly say what I'm trying to tell people how to do better. icon only buttons are trash. And then I use the trash icon as an example.   Nic   So you would recommend that in every instances we have both an icon and text, visible text for for actionable elements?   Tori   Absolutely. Unless it is something that is so common, and the only way to really verify that is user testing.    Nic   Hmm. How do we convince designers that are so in love with their icons only designs to implement that kind of stuff? Because I can, I can hear screams from the designer community from here that's like, Oh, it's gonna polute our design?   Tori   I absolutely. And I've heard, I've heard those complaints. I've heard those screams, those shouting into the void. And really, I just I challeng designers to try for better. And there are ways to both have aesthetics and to still provide a visual label. In fact, one thing that I'm finding very interesting is there's a new trend in website designs, including it's on the White House website, the new one that was launched in the US. And it actually has a couple of lines. And then underneath the mobile menu, it actually says menu. And that was really powerful to me, because clearly, people are starting to look at solutions to still provide the content so that people can more easily use the web, because visual labels are helpful for a lot more than just speech recognition users.   Nic   Yeah, absolutely. I can think of people with cognitive issues, memory issues, a whole lot of things. I mean, even if we go beyond accessibility, there's cultural issues, you know, if you're looking at, oh, I'm going into colors here rather than than iconography, but red and green is not having the same meaning in the east as it is in the West. So we have absolutely careful with that. Hey, that's amazing. Um, so let me ask you this last question for you. If you had one message for designers or developers, what would you like to tell them and remember about accessibility?    Tori   Yeah, I feel like I already addressed the designers pretty well. So I'm going to talk about developers a little bit here. And I think the biggest thing is to remember that assistive technology user is not synonymous with screen reader user. And this is a mistake I see everywhere. And it's something that I advocate for so heartily, um, and I just, I do it wherever I go. And it's not just something that affects me personally, it's something that affects so many other assistive technology users. Um, and there are actually some cases where, in trying to provide extra context for screen reader users, it's actually removing access for other people. So developers should be very careful and really start thinking of the full meaning of the word assistive technology user, because ARIA and other techniques aren't just for screen readers. They're for any technology that interacts with it. And that includes speech recognition.   Nic   So there's a conflict between different assistive technologies, which is a little bit tricky to to get around. I guess it's a little bit like no, as a wheelchair user, I really love polished concrete surfaces. But a friend of mine who uses a cane says he hates polished concrete surfaces, especially when they're wet. So you know, what's, what's the the middle ground carpet, but lush carpet is hard on wheels. So yeah, we have to balance these things in there are solutions. We just need to make sure that we think about them a little bit of absolutely thinking about what we're doing rather than implementing things because we've always done it this way. Tori Clark, thank you so much for sharing your experiences on the show, and we'll see you around on the web.   Tori   Awesome. Thank you so much, Nic.]]> clean no 10:13 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/ted-galanos-talks-about-switch-input-and-the-darcy-keyboard/ Tue, 30 Mar 2021 22:36:46 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=599 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Thanks to Make It Fable for sponsoring the guest appearance for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi I'm Nic Steenhout and you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite. A series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment and what barriers they encounter on the web Nic First I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provide accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. Also thanks to Make It Fable for their sponsorship of this episode. Nic Today I'm talking with Ted Galanos. Hi Ted how are you? Ted I'm well thanks and how are you Nic? Nic Doing very good. Super happy to be talking to you. So let me ask you this, the first question I have for you is what's your disability or your impairment? Ted Actually i have two the one that i've had the longest was my blindness. First legally blind then totally blind at the age of 27.  I'm 47 years old now due to retinitis pigmentosa. But also i have a physical impairment: peripheral sensory neuropathy which means the further away you get from the core of the body the less I can feel which means I can injure my fingertips or my toes, hands, or feet and not necessarily realizing. So I'm prone to bruising, burning skin tears and not necessarily realize that it's happened and I've had to deal with chronically this all of my life and have had to sustain many many different cases of bacterial infection such as staph and strep. And so when you have to deal with this over and over again taking loads and loads of antibiotics whether it be oral such as a pill or intravenous and dealing also with the resistance factor of bacteria sometimes the bacteria will get into the bone and then the only option is left amputation. And so I have if you imagine your hands and you have three bones for each of the four fingers and two bones for the thumbs coming from the palm of your hand well the bone under the fingernail and the bone just behind that the medial are gone on all of my fingers and I don't even have a ring finger on my left hand. Ted So my wife jokingly says well you'll wear your ring around your neck. Nic Yeah Ted Which I indeed I do. I have a gold chain with a gold ring around my neck. Nic That's fair enough. So what do you think your... What would you say your greatest barrier on the web is?What causes you the most problem? Ted Well the biggest barriers are if there's a whole lot of clutter on a particular web page and I've heard other blind people talk about for the sighted world there's a lot of eye candy and if the screen reader has to read through a bunch of garbage to get to the meat of the content of the page, the meaningful content of the page. it's hard to wade through a lot of that. And if labels and links and other actionable items are not labeled properly or don't function correctly then that is definitely a barrier. Now because of my fingers being amputated I cannot use a standard qwerty keyboard so I do use an alternative input device known as the Darcy USB. And what this device allows me to do is type using two switches one represents dot the other represents dash and in an expanded version of Morse code I can type through that code any character whether it be your alphabet, your numbers, your special characters and punctuation, your modifier keys, function keys. I can do anything with the Morse code as you might be able to do with the 104 type qwerty keyboard including certain JAWS/mouse cursor commands, putting it into a mouse mode or JAWS mode as it were. Ted So having said that I ran into a situation just the other day where I found a link on a particular webpage that I was testing. And I tried to hit my equivalent of enter on the link. It wouldn't activate. I tried to hit the spacebar to activate it in the event that maybe the link was actually a button filled in. So I had to route JAWS to PC and click it with the JAWS cursor mouse. Nic Wow. Ted And that was kind of a headache to try to, you know, decide, do I do this? Well, this didn't work, do I do that that didn't work. So I did. And what clued me in the instructions was hover. And so hovering on things is not ideal for somebody that uses both the switch input and a screen reader. Nic Yeah, Ted Now somebody the the whole, the Darcy was invented for a woman who was sighted, but born without arms or legs. And that's what they named it after her, Darcy. So but the Darcy can be put in a mouse mode, unrelated to the screen reader. So somebody sighted can track the mouse as it goes across the screen as if you were using the mouse with your hand. Nic Right. Ted And of course, when the mouse pointer gets to a certain place, obviously, it's known as hovering. And so that's just one example of an inconvenience or a barrier, as it were, as it relates to both technologies. Nic I'm super pleased, you're talking about that. Because just yesterday, I was talking at a conference, at React Finland, and I was telling people, developers and designers don't actually know how the end user is going to interact with their platform. And using the Darcy keyboard is functional, obviously, but it's not going to be as fast to, to use as someone who can type 80 words or 100 words per minute on a on a regular, QWERTY keyboard. So I'm really happy, you've described that because I think it's going to be super useful for a lot of people to realize, specifically, you know, there's all these ways to do inputs that are different from what most developers and designers use out there. So thanks for that. Ted Right and, and just so your listeners have a, an even deeper understanding of what you mean by typing 80 to 100 words per minute with your eight fingers and two thumbs. And I am basically the Morse code input amounts to typing with one finger on one hand, and that includes typing the Ctrl key, for example, or all or whatever your modifier key is. And then the follow up key, same shift a for a capital A, you're, you're basically taking one finger, type shift, and then type A now one finger typist on a normal QWERTY keyboard, that he that is slower, but it's faster than what I will describe next. Let's say if anyone knows Morse code "dot" is the letter E,  "dash" is the letter T, that is a king single key keystroke, right? Yep. But let's say if you wanted to type the letter x dash dot, dot dash, or spacebar, dot dot dash dash, well, I can get pretty quick with this. But it's still not anywhere close to typing the way somebody would on a standard keyboard. And furthermore, there can be up to six keystrokes per key. For example, your function keys is for like f1, dot dot dash dash dash dash, or the control key, dash dot dash dot dash, and then the follow up key dot dash dash, which would be a Ctrl W to say, out a window. So, and you have to pause a certain bit of time, based on what you have your type Matic rate set to. So, even the pauses, you know, take time, and time is relevant, but a route excuse me, time is relative, but you get the idea. Nic Yeah, and I would imagine there's also a certain level of cognitive load because you have to concentrate even more on the combination that you have to type to be able to remember all the combination of dashes and dots and and what not, so you have to focus on that on top of focusing on trying to complete the task you're doing on the web, right? Ted Yes, sir. That's true. And so and I'm glad you mentioned that because I've been using Morse code in a couple of different ways since the summer of 1992. Actually, excuse me, the fall of 1992. When I, when I was, I was hospitalized due to some some physical problems with my hands and such. And so it delayed me going to college for a semester, I had just gotten done with Chris Cole. There, their college prep program. And I ended up getting a couple of infections, and it required surgery in Austin, Texas. And then it was recommended that I go to a rehabilitation hospital in downtown Houston, called at the time it was called Texas Institute for rehabilitation and research. Well, Texas Commission for the blind, had to couple up with Texas Institute for rehab and research to find out what was the best way for me to be able to type on a computer while being visually impaired, but also having these problems with my hands. Nic Hmm. Ted And so that was the whole idea. And because they knew that my vision was declining, and would eventually go completely away, I needed to use ZoomText. I needed to use vocalize. And by the way, this is all in DOS at the time, because there wasn't really a thing just yet. And in 1992 93, and, and then a, a form of Morse code input, because I didn't like wearing headphones, I still like wearing headphones. And so they tested me on dragon, which is a voice input. But the problem with that is that if I'm using voice input, and then using speech output, then you have a kind of feedback loop that causes a problem. Nic Yeah. Ted And so that's why they used the, at that time, it was handy code. And then later, we found the Darcy, because we needed something that would be transparent to the computer, and be able to work under a Windows GUI interface rather than dos interface. And so that's where we found the Darcy. A few years later, I was able to continue with my educational path in computer information systems. And I graduated with a Bachelor in Business Administration and in the fall of 2000. And so and then the Darcy USB is actually the third iteration of the Darcy device. I use the Darcy two as an Tw O. And then now the darsie USB, which I've used for 20 years. And, and they have not changed their technology in that 20 years. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it does take a bit of cognitive remembrance. And when you're training, to and learning all of the keystrokes and memorizing and I don't have all the keystrokes memorized, I got most of them memorized. But yeah, there are some things that I mean, who uses a scroll lock, and who uses the page break all that often, unless you're using it in programming or something, and, and so there are certain keys that I just don't know, I could look them up, but I don't use them. But in training, you can actually attach a third switch, so that when you're learning to type, and later, it's just like touch typing on the keyboard, you just you just learn it and know it and do it out of habit rather than anything else. But say I'm learning Morse code. And let's say I don't remember what the keystroke x is. I can do dash dot, what are the other two, or three or two dot dash? Well, that pause would do a couple of things. If you didn't have that third, call it a character return switch, it would then type dash dot would be n dot dash would be a so you have an a rather than the X that you originally wanted... Nic Of course. Ted We're trying to think through what letter Am I really trying to type. So that once somebody has memorized most of the keystrokes, and they've basically adapted it into a touch type method, then then you can eliminate that third switch, which is of course what I've done years and years ago, decades ago. Nic Wow. Hey, Ted, if there was one message you'd like to pass on to web developers and web designers, what, what would it be? Ted Make sure each of your actionable elements be it a link button, combo box, etc, etc, make sure they are labeled properly and make sure that they are able to be activated both by mouse. And by switch. And by keyboard. And I'll go even further and say, buy a switch such as a head mouse or eye gaze technology. I mean, there's all kinds of switches out there. Now, I could be using a sip and puff tied to the Darcy. Or I could be using cheek switches or tongues switch this switch that plugs into the Darcy itself. I mean, there's there. There's all kinds of stuff out there. I just happen to use platform switches that are Velcroed to the table. They don't slide move around when I'm typing with my hands or my chin. But just make sure each element is actionable and true. And that there's not too much busy-ness for those that are blind and have to listen through a bunch of stuff to get to the heart of what the page is really wanting to communicate. Eye candy is nice for sighted folks, but even I think sighted folks, especially those that are using screen magnification for visually impaired. It's tough to wade through a lot of the stuff that is non relevant. Nic Yeah. Ted Keep it simple, silly. Nic Keep it simple, silly. On that great note. Ted Galanos, thank you for being such a great guest and sharing your experiences with us. Ted Yes, Nic, and thank you so much for having me.]]> full 22 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Thanks to Make It Fable for sponsoring the guest appearance for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi I'm Nic Steenhout and you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite. A series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairment and what barriers they encounter on the web Nic First I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provide accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. Also thanks to Make It Fable for their sponsorship of this episode. Nic Today I'm talking with Ted Galanos. Hi Ted how are you? Ted I'm well thanks and how are you Nic? Nic Doing very good. Super happy to be talking to you. So let me ask you this, the first question I have for you is what's your disability or your impairment? Ted Actually i have two the one that i've had the longest was my blindness. First legally blind then totally blind at the age of 27.  I'm 47 years old now due to retinitis pigmentosa. But also i have a physical impairment: peripheral sensory neuropathy which means the further away you get from the core of the body the less I can feel which means I can injure my fingertips or my toes, hands, or feet and not necessarily realizing. So I'm prone to bruising, burning skin tears and not necessarily realize that it's happened and I've had to deal with chronically this all of my life and have had to sustain many many different cases of bacterial infection such as staph and strep. And so when you have to deal with this over and over again taking loads and loads of antibiotics whether it be oral such as a pill or intravenous and dealing also with the resistance factor of bacteria sometimes the bacteria will get into the bone and then the only option is left amputation. And so I have if you imagine your hands and you have three bones for each of the four fingers and two bones for the thumbs coming from the palm of your hand well the bone under the fingernail and the bone just behind that the medial are gone on all of my fingers and I don't even have a ring finger on my left hand. Ted So my wife jokingly says well you'll wear your ring around your neck. Nic Yeah Ted Which I indeed I do. I have a gold chain with a gold ring around my neck. Nic That's fair enough. So what do you think your... What would you say your greatest barrier on the web is?What causes you the most problem? Ted Well the biggest barriers are if there's a whole lot of clutter on a particular web page and I've heard other blind people talk about for the sighted world there's a lot of eye candy and if the screen reader has to read through a bunch of garbage to get to the meat of the content of the page, the meaningful content of the page. it's hard to wade through a lot of that. And if labels and links and other actionable items are not labeled properly or don't function correctly then that is definitely a barrier. Now because of my fingers being amputated I cannot use a standard qwerty keyboard so I do use an alternative input device known as the Darcy USB. And what this device allows me to do is type using two switches one represents dot the other represents dash and in an expanded version of Morse code I can type through that code any character whether it be your alphabet, your numbers, your special characters and punctuation, your modifier keys, function keys. I can do anything with the Morse code as you might be able to do with the 104 type qwerty keyboard including certain JAWS/mouse cursor commands, putting it into a mouse mode or JAWS mode as it were. Ted So having said that I ran into a situation just the other day where I found a link on a particular webpage that I was testing. And I tried to hit my equivalent of enter on the link. It wouldn't activate. I tried to hit the spacebar to activate it in the event that maybe the link was actually a button filled in. So I had to route JAWS to PC and click it with the JAWS cursor mouse. Nic Wow. Ted And that was kind of a headache to try to, you know, decide, do I do this? Well, this didn't work, do I do that that didn't work. So I did. And what clued me in the instructions was hover. And so hovering on things is not ideal for somebody that uses both the switch input and a screen reader. Nic Yeah, Ted Now somebody the the whole, the Darcy was invented for a woman who was sighted, but born without arms or legs. And that's what they named it after her, Darcy. So but the Darcy can be put in a mouse mode, unrelated to the screen reader. So somebody sighted can track the mouse as it goes across the screen as if you were using the mouse with your hand. Nic Right. Ted And of course, when the mouse pointer gets to a certain place, obviously, it's known as hovering. And so that's just one example of an inconvenience or a barrier, as it were, as it relates to both technologies. Nic I'm super pleased, you're talking about that. Because just yesterday, I was talking at a conference, at React Finland, and I was telling people, developers and designers don't actually know how the end user is going to interact with their platform. And using the Darcy keyboard is functional, obviously, but it's not going to be as fast to, to use as someone who can type 80 words or 100 words per minute on a on a regular, QWERTY keyboard. So I'm really happy, you've described that because I think it's going to be super useful for a lot of people to realize, specifically, you know, there's all these ways to do inputs that are different from what most developers and designers use out there. So thanks for that. Ted Right and, and just so your listeners have a, an even deeper understanding of what you mean by typing 80 to 100 words per minute with your eight fingers and two thumbs. And I am basically the Morse code input amounts to typing with one finger on one hand, and that includes typing the Ctrl key, for example, or all or whatever your modifier key is. And then the follow up key, same shift a for a capital A, you're, you're basically taking one finger, type shift, and then type A now one finger typist on a normal QWERTY keyboard, that he that is slower, but it's faster than what I will describe next. Let's say if anyone knows Morse code "dot" is the letter E,  "dash" is the letter T, that is a king single key keystroke, right? Yep. But let's say if you wanted to type the letter x dash dot, dot dash, or spacebar, dot dot dash dash, well, I can get pretty quick with this. But it's still not anywhere close to typing the way somebody would on a standard keyboard. And furthermore, there can be up to six keystrokes per key. For example, your function keys is for like f1, dot dot dash dash dash dash, or the control key, dash dot dash dot dash, and then the follow up key dot dash dash, which would be a Ctrl W to say, out a window. So, and you have to pause a certain bit of time, based on what you have your type Matic rate set to. So, even the pauses, you know, take time, and time is relevant, but a route excuse me, time is relative, but you get the idea. Nic Yeah, and I would imagine there's also a certain level of cognitive load because you have to concentrate even more on the combination that you have to type to be able to remember all the combination of dashes and dots and and what not, so you have to focus on that on top of focusing on trying to complete the task you're doing on the web, right? Ted Yes, sir. That's true. And so and I'm glad you mentioned that because I've been using Morse code in a couple of different ways since the summer of 1992. Actually, excuse me, the fall of 1992. When I, when I was, I was hospitalized due to some some physical problems with my hands and such. And so it delayed me going to college for a semester, I had just gotten done with Chris Cole. There, their college prep program. And I ended up getting a couple of infections, and it required surgery in Austin, Texas. And then it was recommended that I go to a rehabilitation hospital in downtown Houston, called at the time it was called Texas Institute for rehabilitation and research. Well, Texas Commission for the blind, had to couple up with Texas Institute for rehab and research to find out what was the best way for me to be able to type on a computer while being visually impaired, but also having these problems with my hands. Nic Hmm. Ted And so that was the whole idea. And because they knew that my vision was declining, and would eventually go completely away, I needed to use ZoomText. I needed to use vocalize. And by the way, this is all in DOS at the time, because there wasn't really a thing just yet. And in 1992 93, and, and then a, a form of Morse code input, because I didn't like wearing headphones, I still like wearing headphones. And so they tested me on dragon, which is a voice input. But the problem with that is that if I'm using voice input, and then using speech output, then you have a kind of feedback loop that causes a problem. Nic Yeah. Ted And so that's why they used the, at that time, it was handy code. And then later, we found the Darcy, because we needed something that would be transparent to the computer, and be able to work under a Windows GUI interface rather than dos interface. And so that's where we found the Darcy. A few years later, I was able to continue with my educational path in computer information systems. And I graduated with a Bachelor in Business Administration and in the fall of 2000. And so and then the Darcy USB is actually the third iteration of the Darcy device. I use the Darcy two as an Tw O. And then now the darsie USB, which I've used for 20 years. And, and they have not changed their technology in that 20 years. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it does take a bit of cognitive remembrance. And when you're training, to and learning all of the keystrokes and memorizing and I don't have all the keystrokes memorized, I got most of them memorized. But yeah, there are some things that I mean, who uses a scroll lock, and who uses the page break all that often, unless you're using it in programming or something, and, and so there are certain keys that I just don't know, I could look them up, but I don't use them. But in training, you can actually attach a third switch, so that when you're learning to type, and later, it's just like touch typing on the keyboard, you just you just learn it and know it and do it out of habit rather than anything else. But say I'm learning Morse code. And let's say I don't remember what the keystroke x is. I can do dash dot, what are the other two, or three or two dot dash? Well, that pause would do a couple of things. If you didn't have that third, call it a character return switch, it would then type dash dot would be n dot dash would be a so you have an a rather than the X that you originally wanted... Nic Of course. Ted We're trying to think through what letter Am I really trying to type. So that once somebody has memorized most of the keystrokes, and they've basically adapted it into a touch type method, then then you can eliminate that third switch, which is of course what I've done years and years ago, decades ago. Nic Wow. Hey, Ted, if there was one message you'd like to pass on to web developers and web designers, what, what would it be? Ted Make sure each of your actionable elements be it a link button, combo box, etc, etc, make sure they are labeled properly and make sure that they are able to be activated both by mouse. And by switch. And by keyboard. And I'll go even further and say, buy a switch such as a head mouse or eye gaze technology. I mean, there's all kinds of switches out there. Now, I could be using a sip and puff tied to the Darcy. Or I could be using cheek switches or tongues switch this switch that plugs into the Darcy itself. I mean, there's there. There's all kinds of stuff out there. I just happen to use platform switches that are Velcroed to the table. They don't slide move around when I'm typing with my hands or my chin. But just make sure each element is actionable and true. And that there's not too much busy-ness for those that are blind and have to listen through a bunch of stuff to get to the heart of what the page is really wanting to communicate. Eye candy is nice for sighted folks, but even I think sighted folks, especially those that are using screen magnification for visually impaired. It's tough to wade through a lot of the stuff that is non relevant. Nic Yeah. Ted Keep it simple, silly. Nic Keep it simple, silly. On that great note. Ted Galanos, thank you for being such a great guest and sharing your experiences with us. Ted Yes, Nic, and thank you so much for having me.]]> clean no 17:05 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/dr-ellen-spertus-talks-about-essential-tremors-and-password-fields/ Wed, 10 Mar 2021 20:38:41 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=592 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite a series of short podcasts, where disabled people explain their impairment and what barrier they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provide accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility, fast. So today, I'm talking with Dr. Ellen spertus. Hi, Ellen, how are you? Ellen Good. Thank you, Nic. Nic Thanks for joining me. I invited you because I heard you say something really great on Slack that I'd love to discuss. But first, let me ask you, what's your disability or impairment? Ellen I have an essential tremor. Nic And what does that mean? Ellen Well, the name essential means it's not a symptom of anything else. If when people see me shake, they wonder if I have Parkinson's or something like that. But no, it's just a tremor. And it's also called familial tremor. It tends to run in families and it runs in mine, and my hands shake. And sometimes you can hear a shake in my voice. Nic Thank you. What would you say is your greatest barrier on the web at the moment? Ellen If I'm at a desktop, I really don't have much of a problem. My problem's more if I'm using my phone. And something that's frustrating is entering a password, I have to do that a lot. We all have to do that a lot, even if we use password managers. And sometimes when I access the site, I don't know if I have the right password. And when I type in a password on my phone, you know just which is a soft keyboard, unlike the chunky keyboard I use with my computer, I might hit the wrong key. And if the password field is hidden, where it only displays like a little circle after I type something instead of the character, then I don't know if my password was refused because I entered the wrong password or because I accidentally pressed the wrong key. Nic Right. So the show password feature is something that's really critical for you. Ellen Yes. Nic Thank you. If you had one message to give designers or developers, what would that be? Ellen Curb cuts. I know you're familiar, Nic. And I hope your listeners are to the curb cuts that were created for people with wheelchairs where they turned out to be useful for many different people, including people with bicycles or baby carriages. And an option like show password can be useful to people with motor disabilities, or people with memory problems or just about anyone. I understand you can't clutter a user interface with every possibility. But there are some accessibility enhancements that are useful at times to just about everyone and why not include those. Nic That's a wonderful message. Ellen, thank you so much for being a guest on the show. Ellen My pleasure. Thank you Nic.]]> full 21 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite a series of short podcasts, where disabled people explain their impairment and what barrier they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provide accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility, fast. So today, I'm talking with Dr. Ellen spertus. Hi, Ellen, how are you? Ellen Good. Thank you, Nic. Nic Thanks for joining me. I invited you because I heard you say something really great on Slack that I'd love to discuss. But first, let me ask you, what's your disability or impairment? Ellen I have an essential tremor. Nic And what does that mean? Ellen Well, the name essential means it's not a symptom of anything else. If when people see me shake, they wonder if I have Parkinson's or something like that. But no, it's just a tremor. And it's also called familial tremor. It tends to run in families and it runs in mine, and my hands shake. And sometimes you can hear a shake in my voice. Nic Thank you. What would you say is your greatest barrier on the web at the moment? Ellen If I'm at a desktop, I really don't have much of a problem. My problem's more if I'm using my phone. And something that's frustrating is entering a password, I have to do that a lot. We all have to do that a lot, even if we use password managers. And sometimes when I access the site, I don't know if I have the right password. And when I type in a password on my phone, you know just which is a soft keyboard, unlike the chunky keyboard I use with my computer, I might hit the wrong key. And if the password field is hidden, where it only displays like a little circle after I type something instead of the character, then I don't know if my password was refused because I entered the wrong password or because I accidentally pressed the wrong key. Nic Right. So the show password feature is something that's really critical for you. Ellen Yes. Nic Thank you. If you had one message to give designers or developers, what would that be? Ellen Curb cuts. I know you're familiar, Nic. And I hope your listeners are to the curb cuts that were created for people with wheelchairs where they turned out to be useful for many different people, including people with bicycles or baby carriages. And an option like show password can be useful to people with motor disabilities, or people with memory problems or just about anyone. I understand you can't clutter a user interface with every possibility. But there are some accessibility enhancements that are useful at times to just about everyone and why not include those. Nic That's a wonderful message. Ellen, thank you so much for being a guest on the show. Ellen My pleasure. Thank you Nic.]]> clean no 4:06 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/holly-schroeder-talks-about-working-memory-and-add/ Sun, 31 Jan 2021 02:34:27 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=589 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic  Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts, where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility, fast. So today I'm speaking with Holly Schroeder. Hi, Holly, how are you? Holly I'm great. Thanks for having me today. Nic Thanks for being on this is going to be fun. So the format of the show is the same as usual, three questions. And the first one is maybe not the easiest. What is your disability or impairment, Holly? Holly Well, that's a little bit of a trick question for me. I have multiple disabilities. And today, I think we're gonna focus on my working memory disability and ADD, and how that impacts my web experience. Nic All right, I think you were saying to me that there is a link between what's happening between ADD and your working memory, one makes it worse than the other, I think. Holly I feel like it's really hard to separate them sometimes. So when I'm trying to, you know, if I go to a website, whether I'm on a mobile device, or I'm actually on a desktop computer or a laptop, if there is a lot of busy content on a website, whether you know if it's visually busy, or if it's got, you know, just lots of color, or if there's motion, that can be... I get overstimulated very easily. And so it can make it really difficult for me to focus on whatever it is they are wanting me to focus on. And then the working memory comes in, when I'm trying to complete tasks that I'm wanting to do. So maybe I go to a website, and I'm wanting to get the phone number for something. If they don't have a clickable link, and I need to try and remember the phone number so that I can dial it on my phone. It might take me five attempts to complete that task if I don't have pen and paper handy. Nic Wow. That's, you know, that's, I think it might be more common than people think. But it's such a big thing that we don't necessarily think about. Holly Yeah, and there's certain things like parallax effects really, almost make me feel seasick. Nic Yeah. parallax is is a big thing I spoke with Julia Ferraioli about that a while back, and, yeah, so many people have physical reactions. You know, it's it's a problem when your web design starts making people physically sick. Holly Exactly. I think a lot of people know, okay, we can't use Blinky things, because that could cause a seizure. But they don't think about the impact of maybe having I'm thinking about one website in particular, they had a video clip on their homepage. And it was a sped up version of a networking event. And I literally had to scroll further down on the page. Because just having that motion made me feel off kilter. It was like being carsick. Nic Yeah, that's no good. Holly, I think we've actually answered the question before I asked a question about your greatest barrier, would you say these combination of you know working memory and ADD and clickable elements and movable parts, would you say that's your greatest barriers related to these conditions? Or do you have another greatest barrier that you think is more more important? Holly I think that it really comes in to play with those two particular things. One, if I will navigate away immediately if something is very visually busy, whether it's got its movement or color or design that's just kind of cramped. It's just too too much stimuli all at once I get really overwhelmed feeling. And then I, it's like it. Like I can't process properly. And then that interferes with task completion for whatever it was I was trying to do when I went there in the first place. And if I'm trying to go to a website, because I'm wanting to read, I'm a researcher, so I'm wanting to research something, and I'm kind of collecting information as I go, that working memory can become really a big barrier if they have that information architecture and the website isn't intuitive. Because I have to try and remember, what this kind of unconventional structure is that they have. And then I might have to go relearn it in the same session, because I already forgot it. Nic Yeah, that makes sense. Holly, thank you. Let's close by asking you what one message would you have for designers or developers of digital products? Holly I think the one thing that is most important is that there be a greater emphasis on inclusion and accessibility. When it comes to development. I know I took, I did a web development boot camp myself. And the topic of you know, how to make your code accessible wasn't even addressed. I think that, you know, if you are someone who does web development, and you know how to do you know how, how to properly use headings, and how to use alt text and those kind of things. Teach your colleagues, you know, be vocal about it, be an ally in your workplace, and include it in your code. It doesn't take much effort on the part of the person who's doing the code to include those things. But it's a big lift to go back and try and correct it later. So it's a win for everyone if we if we put a greater emphasis on a prior to development. Nic Thank you. I wish more people paid attention to that. Holly Schroeder, thank you so much for being a great guest. That's it for now. Thanks for listening, folks. If you enjoyed this accessibility to soundbite Please support the show on Patreon https://patreon.com/steenhout]]> full 19 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic  Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts, where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. First, I need to thank Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility, fast. So today I'm speaking with Holly Schroeder. Hi, Holly, how are you? Holly I'm great. Thanks for having me today. Nic Thanks for being on this is going to be fun. So the format of the show is the same as usual, three questions. And the first one is maybe not the easiest. What is your disability or impairment, Holly? Holly Well, that's a little bit of a trick question for me. I have multiple disabilities. And today, I think we're gonna focus on my working memory disability and ADD, and how that impacts my web experience. Nic All right, I think you were saying to me that there is a link between what's happening between ADD and your working memory, one makes it worse than the other, I think. Holly I feel like it's really hard to separate them sometimes. So when I'm trying to, you know, if I go to a website, whether I'm on a mobile device, or I'm actually on a desktop computer or a laptop, if there is a lot of busy content on a website, whether you know if it's visually busy, or if it's got, you know, just lots of color, or if there's motion, that can be... I get overstimulated very easily. And so it can make it really difficult for me to focus on whatever it is they are wanting me to focus on. And then the working memory comes in, when I'm trying to complete tasks that I'm wanting to do. So maybe I go to a website, and I'm wanting to get the phone number for something. If they don't have a clickable link, and I need to try and remember the phone number so that I can dial it on my phone. It might take me five attempts to complete that task if I don't have pen and paper handy. Nic Wow. That's, you know, that's, I think it might be more common than people think. But it's such a big thing that we don't necessarily think about. Holly Yeah, and there's certain things like parallax effects really, almost make me feel seasick. Nic Yeah. parallax is is a big thing I spoke with Julia Ferraioli about that a while back, and, yeah, so many people have physical reactions. You know, it's it's a problem when your web design starts making people physically sick. Holly Exactly. I think a lot of people know, okay, we can't use Blinky things, because that could cause a seizure. But they don't think about the impact of maybe having I'm thinking about one website in particular, they had a video clip on their homepage. And it was a sped up version of a networking event. And I literally had to scroll further down on the page. Because just having that motion made me feel off kilter. It was like being carsick. Nic Yeah, that's no good. Holly, I think we've actually answered the question before I asked a question about your greatest barrier, would you say these combination of you know working memory and ADD and clickable elements and movable parts, would you say that's your greatest barriers related to these conditions? Or do you have another greatest barrier that you think is more more important? Holly I think that it really comes in to play with those two particular things. One, if I will navigate away immediately if something is very visually busy, whether it's got its movement or color or design that's just kind of cramped. It's just too too much stimuli all at once I get really overwhelmed feeling. And then I, it's like it. Like I can't process properly. And then that interferes with task completion for whatever it was I was trying to do when I went there in the first place. And if I'm trying to go to a website, because I'm wanting to read, I'm a researcher, so I'm wanting to research something, and I'm kind of collecting information as I go, that working memory can become really a big barrier if they have that information architecture and the website isn't intuitive. Because I have to try and remember, what this kind of unconventional structure is that they have. And then I might have to go relearn it in the same session, because I already forgot it. Nic Yeah, that makes sense. Holly, thank you. Let's close by asking you what one message would you have for designers or developers of digital products? Holly I think the one thing that is most important is that there be a greater emphasis on inclusion and accessibility. When it comes to development. I know I took, I did a web development boot camp myself. And the topic of you know, how to make your code accessible wasn't even addressed. I think that, you know, if you are someone who does web development, and you know how to do you know how, how to properly use headings, and how to use alt text and those kind of things. Teach your colleagues, you know, be vocal about it, be an ally in your workplace, and include it in your code. It doesn't take much effort on the part of the person who's doing the code to include those things. But it's a big lift to go back and try and correct it later. So it's a win for everyone if we if we put a greater emphasis on a prior to development. Nic Thank you. I wish more people paid attention to that. Holly Schroeder, thank you so much for being a great guest. That's it for now. Thanks for listening, folks. If you enjoyed this accessibility to soundbite Please support the show on Patreon https://patreon.com/steenhout]]> clean no 8:13 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/holly-schroeder-talks-about-essential-tremors-and-worsening-vision/ Sun, 03 Jan 2021 14:00:39 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=590 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Thanks to Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility, fast. Today I'm speaking with Holly Schroeder. Hi, Holly. How are you? Holly I'm great. Thanks for having me back again. Nic Yeah, well, first conversation was good. So let's have another one. Holly I sounds like a party to me. I'm in. Nic Alright, so last time, we spoke about how you had working memory issues and ADD and how those two are related to one another? What disability or impairment would you like to discuss today? Holly Well, so I am a person who has multiple disabilities, which I don't think is really particularly unusual, especially as you age. So today, I thought we could talk about, I have a movement disorder, which the official name for it is called essential tremor, although I don't particularly find it essential. If you'd like to learn more about essential tremors, there's a really nice nonprofit called the essential tremor Foundation, and you can look them up on the web. And what that means is that, for me, I have tremors in both hands, I have "no no" head tremor, which means that my tremor makes it look like I'm just very gently saying no. nodding my head "No." I also have facial tremors on both sides of my face, that are only typically activated when I'm trying to do particular tasks. And then sometimes I have internal tremors as well. But along with that tremor package comes movement disability that, in essence makes me pretty clumsy. So I I fall down more than your average person and bump into things a lot. I am the CEO of knocking things over. All you down. And I think that the another thing I'm over 40 so and I've always worn glasses, but between 40 and 42 most people get the the gift of bifocals in their life. I'm an overachiever, I got trifocals. So now in addition to my movement, my tremors now my vision has become a factor in digital space. Nic Hmm. So talking of digital space, how do those conditions affect your use of the web? What's your greatest barrier on the web related to that? Holly So in terms of vision, just things literally being too tiny for me to read, even sometimes using the accessibility tools. It's difficult for me to figure out where I'm supposed to be. I mean, it's certainly an improvement over having no tools. But with my tremors, if I'm having a bad tremor day, or I forgot to take my medicine or something like that, or I'm in a stressful condition that will make them worse. Things like touch targets not being large enough, or tasks like completing a CAPTCHA can be maddening. Nic So the tremors mean that you're having problem placing your mouse specifically on one small area of the screen. Holly Right, exactly. Or if I'm on my phone, and I'm trying to... My brain saying I want to touch this spot. My hand isn't always cooperating. You know what my intention is, and then what my hand does doesn't match up. So for example, earlier this week, I'm not sure why tremors are kind of a funny thing. They have kind of an ebb and flow typically. But I was trying to mouse to do something. And every time I went to go grip my mouse, my tremor got worse, which made it more difficult for me to navigate and I ended up using the keyboard to complete the task I was trying to do because every time I touch the mouse that just my hand wasn't tremoring until I tried to use the mouse. Nic Most people when we're talking, most accessibility expert when we're talking about, you know, use case for sighted keyboard only users, we tend to forget about the kind of situation you describe where you might be a sighted keyboard only user for only part of the time. So I think hearing you talking about that specific instance, is very useful, I think, for people to realize that, you know, things are not set in concrete, you have conditions that ebb and flow and mean that you have to adapt and use different assistive technologies, depending on the day, the situation, what's going on around you. Holly Absolutely. And tremors in particular are kind of a funny one, that when I was younger, they would come and go for long periods of time, sometimes even months and then reappear, like, you know, an unwanted houseguest. As I age, they became more more frequent, more consistent, and fewer gaps. And now I have them all the time. And that's a typical trajectory for someone who has my particular disability. The same thing with the movement disorder, you know, the older I get the clumsier I get. And right now I'm doing physical therapy to try and improve my balance so that I don't fall down as much. Nic Yeah. Holly But with the tremors, things like navigating on a digital device where I don't have a mouse or keyboard available to me, having a touch target that isn't accessible in size, can mean I just can't do something at all, or that it may take me numerous attempts to do something, because my hand is tremoring enough that I'm not able to put it where I want to, you know, touch target is too small or it it's a CAPTCHA and I'm supposed to be dragging a puzzle piece into a spot or something like that, you know, I just don't at that moment, I have the fine motor skill that I need to be able to complete it. And there's no workaround. Nic Yeah. Hey, if there was one thing you'd like designers and developers to remember about digital accessibility, what would that be? Holly I think, you know, just to make it a priority to learn about how you can be a better... How you can better educate yourself about the different types of disabilities that are out there, and what things you can do to improve your code so that digital spaces are more accessible for more people. My hope is always that people want to do it because it's the right thing to do. Nic Yeah. Holly If you care about people, it's going to mean that your business is more successful. So it's a win either way. Nic Yeah, yeah. Holly I hope, I hope that you do it because you have heart and you care about people. But if you don't, it also means you're gonna make more money probably. So either way, it's an investment that's worthwhile. And I think that you can always when you... If you get pushback that says, We don't have time for that. There's plenty of information out there that shows that the return on investment for making things accessible is absolutely 100% worth it. Nic Holly Schroeder, thank you for this. This is a great note to finish on. Thanks for being a guest. Holly Thank you for having mean this was so much fun. Nic It was indeed and for everybody out there listening. Thank you for listening. That's it for now. If you enjoyed this accessibility somebody please do support the show on Patreon at http://patreon.com/steenhout]]> full 20 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Thanks to Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility, fast. Today I'm speaking with Holly Schroeder. Hi, Holly. How are you? Holly I'm great. Thanks for having me back again. Nic Yeah, well, first conversation was good. So let's have another one. Holly I sounds like a party to me. I'm in. Nic Alright, so last time, we spoke about how you had working memory issues and ADD and how those two are related to one another? What disability or impairment would you like to discuss today? Holly Well, so I am a person who has multiple disabilities, which I don't think is really particularly unusual, especially as you age. So today, I thought we could talk about, I have a movement disorder, which the official name for it is called essential tremor, although I don't particularly find it essential. If you'd like to learn more about essential tremors, there's a really nice nonprofit called the essential tremor Foundation, and you can look them up on the web. And what that means is that, for me, I have tremors in both hands, I have "no no" head tremor, which means that my tremor makes it look like I'm just very gently saying no. nodding my head "No." I also have facial tremors on both sides of my face, that are only typically activated when I'm trying to do particular tasks. And then sometimes I have internal tremors as well. But along with that tremor package comes movement disability that, in essence makes me pretty clumsy. So I I fall down more than your average person and bump into things a lot. I am the CEO of knocking things over. All you down. And I think that the another thing I'm over 40 so and I've always worn glasses, but between 40 and 42 most people get the the gift of bifocals in their life. I'm an overachiever, I got trifocals. So now in addition to my movement, my tremors now my vision has become a factor in digital space. Nic Hmm. So talking of digital space, how do those conditions affect your use of the web? What's your greatest barrier on the web related to that? Holly So in terms of vision, just things literally being too tiny for me to read, even sometimes using the accessibility tools. It's difficult for me to figure out where I'm supposed to be. I mean, it's certainly an improvement over having no tools. But with my tremors, if I'm having a bad tremor day, or I forgot to take my medicine or something like that, or I'm in a stressful condition that will make them worse. Things like touch targets not being large enough, or tasks like completing a CAPTCHA can be maddening. Nic So the tremors mean that you're having problem placing your mouse specifically on one small area of the screen. Holly Right, exactly. Or if I'm on my phone, and I'm trying to... My brain saying I want to touch this spot. My hand isn't always cooperating. You know what my intention is, and then what my hand does doesn't match up. So for example, earlier this week, I'm not sure why tremors are kind of a funny thing. They have kind of an ebb and flow typically. But I was trying to mouse to do something. And every time I went to go grip my mouse, my tremor got worse, which made it more difficult for me to navigate and I ended up using the keyboard to complete the task I was trying to do because every time I touch the mouse that just my hand wasn't tremoring until I tried to use the mouse. Nic Most people when we're talking, most accessibility expert when we're talking about, you know, use case for sighted keyboard only users, we tend to forget about the kind of situation you describe where you might be a sighted keyboard only user for only part of the time. So I think hearing you talking about that specific instance, is very useful, I think, for people to realize that, you know, things are not set in concrete, you have conditions that ebb and flow and mean that you have to adapt and use different assistive technologies, depending on the day, the situation, what's going on around you. Holly Absolutely. And tremors in particular are kind of a funny one, that when I was younger, they would come and go for long periods of time, sometimes even months and then reappear, like, you know, an unwanted houseguest. As I age, they became more more frequent, more consistent, and fewer gaps. And now I have them all the time. And that's a typical trajectory for someone who has my particular disability. The same thing with the movement disorder, you know, the older I get the clumsier I get. And right now I'm doing physical therapy to try and improve my balance so that I don't fall down as much. Nic Yeah. Holly But with the tremors, things like navigating on a digital device where I don't have a mouse or keyboard available to me, having a touch target that isn't accessible in size, can mean I just can't do something at all, or that it may take me numerous attempts to do something, because my hand is tremoring enough that I'm not able to put it where I want to, you know, touch target is too small or it it's a CAPTCHA and I'm supposed to be dragging a puzzle piece into a spot or something like that, you know, I just don't at that moment, I have the fine motor skill that I need to be able to complete it. And there's no workaround. Nic Yeah. Hey, if there was one thing you'd like designers and developers to remember about digital accessibility, what would that be? Holly I think, you know, just to make it a priority to learn about how you can be a better... How you can better educate yourself about the different types of disabilities that are out there, and what things you can do to improve your code so that digital spaces are more accessible for more people. My hope is always that people want to do it because it's the right thing to do. Nic Yeah. Holly If you care about people, it's going to mean that your business is more successful. So it's a win either way. Nic Yeah, yeah. Holly I hope, I hope that you do it because you have heart and you care about people. But if you don't, it also means you're gonna make more money probably. So either way, it's an investment that's worthwhile. And I think that you can always when you... If you get pushback that says, We don't have time for that. There's plenty of information out there that shows that the return on investment for making things accessible is absolutely 100% worth it. Nic Holly Schroeder, thank you for this. This is a great note to finish on. Thanks for being a guest. Holly Thank you for having mean this was so much fun. Nic It was indeed and for everybody out there listening. Thank you for listening. That's it for now. If you enjoyed this accessibility somebody please do support the show on Patreon at http://patreon.com/steenhout]]> clean no 9:44 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/julia-ferraioli-talks-about-contrast-and-parralax/ Mon, 21 Dec 2020 22:24:28 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=585 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where people with disabilities explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Thanks to Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility, fast. Today, I'm speaking with Julia Ferraioli. Hi, Julia, how are you? Julia I'm doing okay. How are you? I'm doing good. Nic Thanks for joining us. Julia Thanks for having me. Nic I'd like to start by asking you what is your disability or impairment? Julia Hmm, that is a complicated question. Because we don't really know specifically, I do have a gap in my spine called a syrinx, which they seem to think accounts for some of my symptoms. But I also have difficulties with my vision. My eyes themselves are fine. So we think that the issue is primarily neurological. And basically I get this, I get some interesting artifacts like I will get blurry, intermittently, blurry or double vision. And then sometimes it'll almost be like a curtain falls over my vision and everything becomes a bit darker, a bit muted. So that's the one that probably affects my day to day at work the most. Yeah, I've been searching for one for, you know, going on 10 years how it seems. Wow. Um, but because all of the the symptoms seem so unrelated. And the fact that they can't actually tell what's going on with my eyes through testing. It's, it's kind of throws doctors for a loop. To be honest. Yeah. Nic Wow. All right, well, what's your biggest barrier on the web at the moment? Julia So I use a couple different types of assistive technology with with my work on the web. The first is plain old man magnification, right? Whether I'm on a Mac or a PC, or, or whatever, I use the system built in magnification. And, the other one that I use occasionally is text to speech, when my vision is getting really bad. So but a couple of things make some of this difficult. The first is the fact that people don't use high enough contrast on their websites. Hmm. Good, like light to dark gray is really in vogue right now. I'm not really sure why. But even with magnification that becomes difficult to read, because it tends to look all severely pixelated. And if you're already dealing with blurry vision, making something blurry bigger, isn't necessarily going to help that much. Um, the other issue is with not dynamic websites, but websites that have a lot of animation. Or like the the one that that really bugs me these days is when you scroll, and the website content changes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And when I'm trying to really focus where my eyes are paying attention to, and what content having something on the side of my screen moving or animating in some way, shape or form makes it incredibly difficult. I miss just pure static sites, right. Yeah. Nic If you had one word of advice to give to designers and developers, what would that be? Julia I would say that go back to the basics, design simply because these these elements that people pepper in to spark engagement or interactivity don't actually serve their purposes in the way that that they think they might see like a handy new set of animations. And they automatically go to pepper that in without really considering what it does to focus and attention. Nic Thank you. That that's, I think, is a really good insight. And I look forward to, to see the reaction from from people to that because I think it's, it's one of these things that we have said on and off the contrast around the contrast is really important and, and moving animations and parallax and all that stuff is also so important for so many of us. So hopefully the message will get through. Julia Yes, parallax. That is the word that I was searching for. Nic Julia, thank you for participating on this soundbite and we'll see you around on the web. Julia Sounds good. Thanks for having me. Nic And that's it for now. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this accessibility soundbite Please support the show on https://patreon.com/steenhout]]> full 18 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where people with disabilities explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Thanks to Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility, fast. Today, I'm speaking with Julia Ferraioli. Hi, Julia, how are you? Julia I'm doing okay. How are you? I'm doing good. Nic Thanks for joining us. Julia Thanks for having me. Nic I'd like to start by asking you what is your disability or impairment? Julia Hmm, that is a complicated question. Because we don't really know specifically, I do have a gap in my spine called a syrinx, which they seem to think accounts for some of my symptoms. But I also have difficulties with my vision. My eyes themselves are fine. So we think that the issue is primarily neurological. And basically I get this, I get some interesting artifacts like I will get blurry, intermittently, blurry or double vision. And then sometimes it'll almost be like a curtain falls over my vision and everything becomes a bit darker, a bit muted. So that's the one that probably affects my day to day at work the most. Yeah, I've been searching for one for, you know, going on 10 years how it seems. Wow. Um, but because all of the the symptoms seem so unrelated. And the fact that they can't actually tell what's going on with my eyes through testing. It's, it's kind of throws doctors for a loop. To be honest. Yeah. Nic Wow. All right, well, what's your biggest barrier on the web at the moment? Julia So I use a couple different types of assistive technology with with my work on the web. The first is plain old man magnification, right? Whether I'm on a Mac or a PC, or, or whatever, I use the system built in magnification. And, the other one that I use occasionally is text to speech, when my vision is getting really bad. So but a couple of things make some of this difficult. The first is the fact that people don't use high enough contrast on their websites. Hmm. Good, like light to dark gray is really in vogue right now. I'm not really sure why. But even with magnification that becomes difficult to read, because it tends to look all severely pixelated. And if you're already dealing with blurry vision, making something blurry bigger, isn't necessarily going to help that much. Um, the other issue is with not dynamic websites, but websites that have a lot of animation. Or like the the one that that really bugs me these days is when you scroll, and the website content changes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And when I'm trying to really focus where my eyes are paying attention to, and what content having something on the side of my screen moving or animating in some way, shape or form makes it incredibly difficult. I miss just pure static sites, right. Yeah. Nic If you had one word of advice to give to designers and developers, what would that be? Julia I would say that go back to the basics, design simply because these these elements that people pepper in to spark engagement or interactivity don't actually serve their purposes in the way that that they think they might see like a handy new set of animations. And they automatically go to pepper that in without really considering what it does to focus and attention. Nic Thank you. That that's, I think, is a really good insight. And I look forward to, to see the reaction from from people to that because I think it's, it's one of these things that we have said on and off the contrast around the contrast is really important and, and moving animations and parallax and all that stuff is also so important for so many of us. So hopefully the message will get through. Julia Yes, parallax. That is the word that I was searching for. Nic Julia, thank you for participating on this soundbite and we'll see you around on the web. Julia Sounds good. Thanks for having me. Nic And that's it for now. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this accessibility soundbite Please support the show on https://patreon.com/steenhout]]> clean no 7:16 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/michael-ausbun-talks-about-blindness-and-aria-live-regions/ Sat, 12 Dec 2020 01:17:50 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=582 Nic Hi. I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite a series of short podcasts where people with disabilities explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Today I'm speaking with Michael Ausbun . Michael is an accessibility specialist who currently works at a university in the States. So welcome aboard Michael, how are you? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm doing good. Glad to finally get to talk to you about this. We've been bouncing ideas back and forth for several months now. But finally, taking time to do this. Michael, what is your impairment or your disability? Michael Yeah, so I am blind. Blind is the way that I choose to identify. I lost my sight at age six as a result of a condition called hydrocephalus. Basically, the ventricles on my brain were blocked. And it resulted in fluid being built up on the optic nerve, resulting in optic nerve atrophy. Growing up, it was really interesting, because I was told that I needed to identify as visually impaired because I had some residual vision. And for a long time, that was how I did identify. When I turned 18, I really got interested in disability activism and identity politics. And in doing some research, I realized that it was totally respectable to be blind, and that there was nothing wrong with it, a lot of the tropes that I had been led to believe around blindness were incorrect, such as blind people don't contribute to society, all they do is sit at home and live off the dole, etc. And in that process, I learned also that a blind person could continue to live on their terms, and compete on terms of equality with our non disabled peers. And so I'm very happily blind. Nic I think this question of self identity is so important. It's actually critical for disabled folks. Lovely to hear your take on that. Michael Yeah, absolutely. I think that, you know, when we talk about self determination and living in the world, it's absolutely critical. That, you know, we learn to embrace some kind of identity. You know, other folks might relate to their disability differently than I do, and that's totally fine. But when we look at some of the root cause problems with accessibility, and with employment and things of that nature, and really, inclusion and equity, it oftentimes boils down to the expectations that we hold for disabled folks. And a key part of the expectations, to me seems to be the way in which we identify or you know, what our identity means to us? Hmm, yeah. Nic We've spoken at length about barriers we encounter on the web. And I know that you probably could talk for a week about the different things. What one barrier do you think, is the most annoying for you at the moment. Michael I think at the moment, the biggest barrier is the proliferation, or the increased use in using Aria live regions, specifically Aria alert, to convey meaning to screen reader users. In a lot of cases, I'll be moving through a website that might be a recipe website, or my wife, who's also blind, just recently told me that she was visiting a website for a stamping project that she just started and in a lot of times, our screen reader will be reading through and all of a sudden it will say alert, yada, yada, yada, and most times the message really isn't all that important. You know, it really could wait until after the screen reader is done conveying the information and the relationship between the elements that are on the page. Before I actually need to know what has occurred. Nic What would be the top two or three cases were using aria assertive, or role of alert actually be justified or warranted? Michael I think if it were Something that we're absolutely dire such as a warning, the computer will shut down in 10 seconds. Or alert, you have a virus because you've wandered down the wrong dark area of the internet and you shouldn't be here. Those types of messages, I think would be critical information for me to know. But press ALT one for screen reader mode. Definitely not something that is needed at all. Nic Yeah, I would venture to say that screen reader mode would not be needed at all because it should be marked up in a way that works for all assistive technologies without having separate modes. Michael Yeah, absolutely. I think that there is a big gap in the understanding of HTML for a lot of folks. And you know, we've seen a lot of discussion recently online with, we ought to replace HTML and CSS with just JavaScript and let's go that way. And people fail to to think about it in a way that HTML really is the bone structure that really guides, folks. Right. And so, Nic Yeah! Michael I think you're 100% on target. If we reconceptualize the way that we are thinking about the foundations, then a screen reader mode is absolutely unnecessary. Nic If you had one message to pass on to designers or developers, what would that message be? Michael I think the most important thing that we fail to do on a daily basis is talking with people with disabilities or talking with the users in general. A lot of solutions that I've seen folks come up with are super creative, and they could be very interesting. But in functionality, or in reality, if we talk to users is actually solving the problem that is theoretically non existent. A really good example of that would be things like overlays or screen reader modes. And a lot of cases, they purport to solve this mysterious problem of nobody can access the Internet, and so they don't have an ability to gain knowledge or book, their hotel and poor people with disabilities. It's so hard. But I would venture to say that 9 times out of 10, in my experience, most issues are at a level in which they are annoying, yes. But in terms of task orientation, and completing the day to day ventures on the web, the experience is not nearly as dire as perfect, you know, as detailed by these folks who want to implement all of these fancy solutions. And really, it comes back to getting back to our foundations and engaging the people that you want to save. Because, you know, we really don't need saviors we need partners in terms of creating a more equitable digital space. Nic I really like that: We don't need saviors we need partners. What a fantastic note to end this soundbite on. Michael, thank you for sharing your thoughts and for being such a great guests. Thank you for having me. And that's it for now. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this accessibility soundbite Please support the show at http://patreon.com/steenhout]]> full 17 Nic Hi. I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite a series of short podcasts where people with disabilities explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Today I'm speaking with Michael Ausbun . Michael is an accessibility specialist who currently works at a university in the States. So welcome aboard Michael, how are you? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm doing good. Glad to finally get to talk to you about this. We've been bouncing ideas back and forth for several months now. But finally, taking time to do this. Michael, what is your impairment or your disability? Michael Yeah, so I am blind. Blind is the way that I choose to identify. I lost my sight at age six as a result of a condition called hydrocephalus. Basically, the ventricles on my brain were blocked. And it resulted in fluid being built up on the optic nerve, resulting in optic nerve atrophy. Growing up, it was really interesting, because I was told that I needed to identify as visually impaired because I had some residual vision. And for a long time, that was how I did identify. When I turned 18, I really got interested in disability activism and identity politics. And in doing some research, I realized that it was totally respectable to be blind, and that there was nothing wrong with it, a lot of the tropes that I had been led to believe around blindness were incorrect, such as blind people don't contribute to society, all they do is sit at home and live off the dole, etc. And in that process, I learned also that a blind person could continue to live on their terms, and compete on terms of equality with our non disabled peers. And so I'm very happily blind. Nic I think this question of self identity is so important. It's actually critical for disabled folks. Lovely to hear your take on that. Michael Yeah, absolutely. I think that, you know, when we talk about self determination and living in the world, it's absolutely critical. That, you know, we learn to embrace some kind of identity. You know, other folks might relate to their disability differently than I do, and that's totally fine. But when we look at some of the root cause problems with accessibility, and with employment and things of that nature, and really, inclusion and equity, it oftentimes boils down to the expectations that we hold for disabled folks. And a key part of the expectations, to me seems to be the way in which we identify or you know, what our identity means to us? Hmm, yeah. Nic We've spoken at length about barriers we encounter on the web. And I know that you probably could talk for a week about the different things. What one barrier do you think, is the most annoying for you at the moment. Michael I think at the moment, the biggest barrier is the proliferation, or the increased use in using Aria live regions, specifically Aria alert, to convey meaning to screen reader users. In a lot of cases, I'll be moving through a website that might be a recipe website, or my wife, who's also blind, just recently told me that she was visiting a website for a stamping project that she just started and in a lot of times, our screen reader will be reading through and all of a sudden it will say alert, yada, yada, yada, and most times the message really isn't all that important. You know, it really could wait until after the screen reader is done conveying the information and the relationship between the elements that are on the page. Before I actually need to know what has occurred. Nic What would be the top two or three cases were using aria assertive, or role of alert actually be justified or warranted? Michael I think if it were Something that we're absolutely dire such as a warning, the computer will shut down in 10 seconds. Or alert, you have a virus because you've wandered down the wrong dark area of the internet and you shouldn't be here. Those types of messages, I think would be critical information for me to know. But press ALT one for screen reader mode. Definitely not something that is needed at all. Nic Yeah, I would venture to say that screen reader mode would not be needed at all because it should be marked up in a way that works for all assistive technologies without having separate modes. Michael Yeah, absolutely. I think that there is a big gap in the understanding of HTML for a lot of folks. And you know, we've seen a lot of discussion recently online with, we ought to replace HTML and CSS with just JavaScript and let's go that way. And people fail to to think about it in a way that HTML really is the bone structure that really guides, folks. Right. And so, Nic Yeah! Michael I think you're 100% on target. If we reconceptualize the way that we are thinking about the foundations, then a screen reader mode is absolutely unnecessary. Nic If you had one message to pass on to designers or developers, what would that message be? Michael I think the most important thing that we fail to do on a daily basis is talking with people with disabilities or talking with the users in general. A lot of solutions that I've seen folks come up with are super creative, and they could be very interesting. But in functionality, or in reality, if we talk to users is actually solving the problem that is theoretically non existent. A really good example of that would be things like overlays or screen reader modes. And a lot of cases, they purport to solve this mysterious problem of nobody can access the Internet, and so they don't have an ability to gain knowledge or book, their hotel and poor people with disabilities. It's so hard. But I would venture to say that 9 times out of 10, in my experience, most issues are at a level in which they are annoying, yes. But in terms of task orientation, and completing the day to day ventures on the web, the experience is not nearly as dire as perfect, you know, as detailed by these folks who want to implement all of these fancy solutions. And really, it comes back to getting back to our foundations and engaging the people that you want to save. Because, you know, we really don't need saviors we need partners in terms of creating a more equitable digital space. Nic I really like that: We don't need saviors we need partners. What a fantastic note to end this soundbite on. Michael, thank you for sharing your thoughts and for being such a great guests. Thank you for having me. And that's it for now. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this accessibility soundbite Please support the show at http://patreon.com/steenhout]]> clean no 9:26 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/alex-umstead-discusses-autism-flickering-screens-and-keyboard-use/ Tue, 08 Dec 2020 18:50:48 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=579 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite a series of short podcasts where people with disabilities explain their impairments, what barriers they encounter on the web. Today I'm speaking with Alex Umstead. Alex is an accessibility professional in Philadelphia, and he has a background in disability studies. Alex, welcome on the show. Alex Thank you very much for having me. I'm glad to be here. Nic Awesome. Let me ask you, right off the bat, what is your disability or your impairment? Alex Oh, yeah, so I am autistic. And I actually will just deal right off the bat, I am using what we call identity first language, which is a lot of autistic people use that rather than person with autism. So I generally do as well. I also have Tourette's, which I will use person first language in that regard. And I was a preemie. So I also have although don't officially, so to speak, have a physical disability, I do have some motor and coordination issues that can come into play accessibility wise from that. Nic Thank you for sharing. What would you say is the biggest barrier you encounter on the web? Alex So it's, it's interesting, I think I actually have a lot of barrier. There's a lot of barriers I don't encounter. I guess, I guess I'm sort of lucky in that regard that the web is pretty accessible to me. At least in terms of things that would be like showstoppers, where things tend to get a little dicey, though, is like, I am not a so called keyboard only user, but I'm definitely a keyboard preferential user. So if something doesn't work properly with keyboard interaction, definitely slows me down. Again, that I think that's maybe partly a disability thing. But I'm, I'm not sure. And then one thing that's definitely disability related is if you know, if something has either a lot of a lot of motion going on, and I'm trying to read something, or let's say if the color scheme is such that it makes my screen flicker because because of my autism, I am more sensitive to like LED backlight or on older computers, fluorescent backlight flicker, then somebody who's not on the spectrum, then that can be a problem as well. Nic Right. In terms of keyboard access, you say it's not a blocker. But when I hear you describe it, what it sounds like, to me is that this is actually increasing the cognitive load, you have to, to experience when you're working on the web, would that be accurate? Alex I would say more the physical effort to I just, and again, I'm not 100% sure if this comes from the coordination issues, or just personal preference or not, but I know that for me to work most efficiently. Being able to simply navigate without having to constantly jump my arm over to my mouse and jump back to my keyboard and yarn over the mouse keyboard, and dragging and then getting tendinitis issues from dragging things over. You know, the more that I have to kind of move around doing that, the slower I'm going to get a task done. And I think we're actually where the cognitive piece comes in is, then if I have to do a task over and over, let's say, you know, to go through a longer flow in something, the more steps I have to go through, the less likely I am going to be to be able to put attention to all of the detail that I need to do. You know, Nic yeah. So I like that. I think that's an important aspect. The this idea that the harder we make it for people to use our systems, the less likely they are to be able to either complete it or complete it properly. Yeah. Alex One thing I one thing I do a lot when I, you know, have say repetitive tasks is I being a tech guy and somebody who likes to code, I tend to automate things. So if I, if I'm going to be typing the same word, what I use plugins to automatically expand text to minimize, you know, the amount of repetitive stuff I have to do. And the same kind of thing, like if I have a task that's just gonna be like, Hey, I have to click open a drop down and select something from 300 items, I might just create a control that lets me filter it because that reduces that load and just makes it easier. Just get the job done. Ultimately, makes it less distracting get through if there's fewer steps. Nic Yeah. If you had one message to pass on to designers and developers, what would that message be? Alex I mean, I would. That's a tough one. I'd say at a broad level, you know, learn about accessibility, care about accessibility. Realize that people are going to access your content in a variety of ways and work on making sure that your stuff is built flexibly to work with those different ways. Nic Thank you. Alex Sure. Nic Well, Alex, thanks for being a guest. Short and sweet stuff, but I think you shared some powerful experiences and thoughts. So thanks again, and we'll see you around on the interweb. Alex Great. Thanks for having me. Nic And that's it for now. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this Accessibility Soundbite, please support the show at https://patreon.com/Steenhout. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.C-O-M/S-T-E-E-N-H-O-U-T.]]> full 16 Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite a series of short podcasts where people with disabilities explain their impairments, what barriers they encounter on the web. Today I'm speaking with Alex Umstead. Alex is an accessibility professional in Philadelphia, and he has a background in disability studies. Alex, welcome on the show. Alex Thank you very much for having me. I'm glad to be here. Nic Awesome. Let me ask you, right off the bat, what is your disability or your impairment? Alex Oh, yeah, so I am autistic. And I actually will just deal right off the bat, I am using what we call identity first language, which is a lot of autistic people use that rather than person with autism. So I generally do as well. I also have Tourette's, which I will use person first language in that regard. And I was a preemie. So I also have although don't officially, so to speak, have a physical disability, I do have some motor and coordination issues that can come into play accessibility wise from that. Nic Thank you for sharing. What would you say is the biggest barrier you encounter on the web? Alex So it's, it's interesting, I think I actually have a lot of barrier. There's a lot of barriers I don't encounter. I guess, I guess I'm sort of lucky in that regard that the web is pretty accessible to me. At least in terms of things that would be like showstoppers, where things tend to get a little dicey, though, is like, I am not a so called keyboard only user, but I'm definitely a keyboard preferential user. So if something doesn't work properly with keyboard interaction, definitely slows me down. Again, that I think that's maybe partly a disability thing. But I'm, I'm not sure. And then one thing that's definitely disability related is if you know, if something has either a lot of a lot of motion going on, and I'm trying to read something, or let's say if the color scheme is such that it makes my screen flicker because because of my autism, I am more sensitive to like LED backlight or on older computers, fluorescent backlight flicker, then somebody who's not on the spectrum, then that can be a problem as well. Nic Right. In terms of keyboard access, you say it's not a blocker. But when I hear you describe it, what it sounds like, to me is that this is actually increasing the cognitive load, you have to, to experience when you're working on the web, would that be accurate? Alex I would say more the physical effort to I just, and again, I'm not 100% sure if this comes from the coordination issues, or just personal preference or not, but I know that for me to work most efficiently. Being able to simply navigate without having to constantly jump my arm over to my mouse and jump back to my keyboard and yarn over the mouse keyboard, and dragging and then getting tendinitis issues from dragging things over. You know, the more that I have to kind of move around doing that, the slower I'm going to get a task done. And I think we're actually where the cognitive piece comes in is, then if I have to do a task over and over, let's say, you know, to go through a longer flow in something, the more steps I have to go through, the less likely I am going to be to be able to put attention to all of the detail that I need to do. You know, Nic yeah. So I like that. I think that's an important aspect. The this idea that the harder we make it for people to use our systems, the less likely they are to be able to either complete it or complete it properly. Yeah. Alex One thing I one thing I do a lot when I, you know, have say repetitive tasks is I being a tech guy and somebody who likes to code, I tend to automate things. So if I, if I'm going to be typing the same word, what I use plugins to automatically expand text to minimize, you know, the amount of repetitive stuff I have to do. And the same kind of thing, like if I have a task that's just gonna be like, Hey, I have to click open a drop down and select something from 300 items, I might just create a control that lets me filter it because that reduces that load and just makes it easier. Just get the job done. Ultimately, makes it less distracting get through if there's fewer steps. Nic Yeah. If you had one message to pass on to designers and developers, what would that message be? Alex I mean, I would. That's a tough one. I'd say at a broad level, you know, learn about accessibility, care about accessibility. Realize that people are going to access your content in a variety of ways and work on making sure that your stuff is built flexibly to work with those different ways. Nic Thank you. Alex Sure. Nic Well, Alex, thanks for being a guest. Short and sweet stuff, but I think you shared some powerful experiences and thoughts. So thanks again, and we'll see you around on the interweb. Alex Great. Thanks for having me. Nic And that's it for now. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this Accessibility Soundbite, please support the show at https://patreon.com/Steenhout. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.C-O-M/S-T-E-E-N-H-O-U-T.]]> clean no 6:40 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/jl-sorak-talks-about-dyslexia-and-how-sites-handle-mistakes/ Fri, 28 Feb 2020 04:00:24 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=555 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the Accessibility Rules Soundbite, a series of short podcasts where people with disabilities explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Thanks to Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. This week I'm speaking to Jean Luc Sorak. JL is a software engineer at Holiday Extras in Kent, United Kingdom. Thanks for talking to me. JL. How are you? JL Very good. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you for having me on. Nic My pleasure. So let me ask you what is your disability or your impairment? JL So I have dyslexia and dyspraxia they often come as a pair. Just in case anyone isn't aware they're both learning difficulties dyslexia, primarily affecting reading and writing. But also that coordination organization and memory and dyspraxia primarily affects motor coordination, but also articulation, perception, and thought. I kinda like to think of them as alternate thinking styles. And I think this just better describes how our brains work a little bit differently. Nic Yeah. One thing I've heard many people comment on is that people should not equate dyslexia with stupidity because you can't have difficulty with the written word, but that does not affect your intellect. I assume you agree with that? JL Yeah, 100% there's lots of positives from having dyslexia or something like dyspraxia, as well as coming with lots of difficulties. So definitely. Nic What is the greatest barrier you encounter on the web? JL So the greatest barrier for me is when applications can't tolerate errors. So by errors, I mean mistakes, I tend to make more mistakes than a typical user. And I've relative difficulties with reading and avoid it at all costs. So often I don't follow the instructions properly, which can probably lead me down the wrong path quite a lot of times. And the idea of tolerating errors can be a bit high level. And I've got an example if you want to hear it. Recent shopping experience. Nic Yes, yes, absolutely. JL So recently, I was I was making an order for something quite boring with some new blinds. And when it took my payment I was redirected to paypal. And when it finished to take payment, it came up with a big tick or something like that. And I didn't bother reading the rest of the information on the page. So I just clicked off and presumed my payment had been taken around and I'd receive my order soon. But then three weeks ago  nothing arrived. I looked into it. And it turns out there was a button on that page to return to the merchant to the main site that that I'd ordered from. So the order wasn't actually completed. This is just an example of when that site didn't tolerate that error. were more my order was just lost because I failed to complete an action and it was my mistake, but the site should be helping users to recover from those sorts of issues. Nic Yeah, there's that old adage, you know, don't make me think. And I think that's probably... You didn't finalize the process, but the developers and the designers did not make it easy for you or anybody else to actually finish the process. JL Yes, I really like that idea of not having to think because a lot of the time you have multiple things in your mind. You're not focusing on that one action of taking payment on the site, you most of the time people are doing something else, whether that's listening to the radio in the background or TV or talking someone else. Nic Now, you were talking about ordering blinds which can be perceived as fairly mundane, but has there been situation where an interface that did not tolerate mistakes caused more critical problems for you? JL Sometimes, like getting the delivery address wrong on orders, when you don't realize and then it turns up at your old accommodation where you used to rent or something like that. And then you have a look in hindsight at the order and realize it's gone to your old place. And by that time, it's too late. That can be very frustrating. And there are ways interfaces to kind of deal with that situation and make it more clear. Nic Thank you. What message would you like designers and developers to remember about web accessibility? JL I'd like them to remember that mistakes will always occur no matter how clever their UI is, or however proud they are of what they've done. And it should always be possible for users to reverse those errors. And reversing those without penalty and without difficulty. Some really good examples are Gmail, when you send an email, it doesn't actually send the email until a couple of seconds later. So you have the opportunity to undo that action. And then the thing in that email that you forgot to write about all the attachment that you forgot to send, and Amazon does it as well. With delivery addresses, you can change your delivery address, cancel the order before it's been dispatched. Nic Yeah, that's cool. Thank you. JL Sorak, thank you for sharing with us some of your experiences dealing with the web and encountering barriers related to your disability. JL You're very welcome. Thanks for having me on. Nic Thank you. JL Hope to speak to you again soon. Thank you very much. Nic And that's it for now. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this accessibility soundbite, please support the show https://patreon.com/steenhout]]> full 14 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the Accessibility Rules Soundbite, a series of short podcasts where people with disabilities explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Thanks to Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. This week I'm speaking to Jean Luc Sorak. JL is a software engineer at Holiday Extras in Kent, United Kingdom. Thanks for talking to me. JL. How are you? JL Very good. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you for having me on. Nic My pleasure. So let me ask you what is your disability or your impairment? JL So I have dyslexia and dyspraxia they often come as a pair. Just in case anyone isn't aware they're both learning difficulties dyslexia, primarily affecting reading and writing. But also that coordination organization and memory and dyspraxia primarily affects motor coordination, but also articulation, perception, and thought. I kinda like to think of them as alternate thinking styles. And I think this just better describes how our brains work a little bit differently. Nic Yeah. One thing I've heard many people comment on is that people should not equate dyslexia with stupidity because you can't have difficulty with the written word, but that does not affect your intellect. I assume you agree with that? JL Yeah, 100% there's lots of positives from having dyslexia or something like dyspraxia, as well as coming with lots of difficulties. So definitely. Nic What is the greatest barrier you encounter on the web? JL So the greatest barrier for me is when applications can't tolerate errors. So by errors, I mean mistakes, I tend to make more mistakes than a typical user. And I've relative difficulties with reading and avoid it at all costs. So often I don't follow the instructions properly, which can probably lead me down the wrong path quite a lot of times. And the idea of tolerating errors can be a bit high level. And I've got an example if you want to hear it. Recent shopping experience. Nic Yes, yes, absolutely. JL So recently, I was I was making an order for something quite boring with some new blinds. And when it took my payment I was redirected to paypal. And when it finished to take payment, it came up with a big tick or something like that. And I didn't bother reading the rest of the information on the page. So I just clicked off and presumed my payment had been taken around and I'd receive my order soon. But then three weeks ago  nothing arrived. I looked into it. And it turns out there was a button on that page to return to the merchant to the main site that that I'd ordered from. So the order wasn't actually completed. This is just an example of when that site didn't tolerate that error. were more my order was just lost because I failed to complete an action and it was my mistake, but the site should be helping users to recover from those sorts of issues. Nic Yeah, there's that old adage, you know, don't make me think. And I think that's probably... You didn't finalize the process, but the developers and the designers did not make it easy for you or anybody else to actually finish the process. JL Yes, I really like that idea of not having to think because a lot of the time you have multiple things in your mind. You're not focusing on that one action of taking payment on the site, you most of the time people are doing something else, whether that's listening to the radio in the background or TV or talking someone else. Nic Now, you were talking about ordering blinds which can be perceived as fairly mundane, but has there been situation where an interface that did not tolerate mistakes caused more critical problems for you? JL Sometimes, like getting the delivery address wrong on orders, when you don't realize and then it turns up at your old accommodation where you used to rent or something like that. And then you have a look in hindsight at the order and realize it's gone to your old place. And by that time, it's too late. That can be very frustrating. And there are ways interfaces to kind of deal with that situation and make it more clear. Nic Thank you. What message would you like designers and developers to remember about web accessibility? JL I'd like them to remember that mistakes will always occur no matter how clever their UI is, or however proud they are of what they've done. And it should always be possible for users to reverse those errors. And reversing those without penalty and without difficulty. Some really good examples are Gmail, when you send an email, it doesn't actually send the email until a couple of seconds later. So you have the opportunity to undo that action. And then the thing in that email that you forgot to write about all the attachment that you forgot to send, and Amazon does it as well. With delivery addresses, you can change your delivery address, cancel the order before it's been dispatched. Nic Yeah, that's cool. Thank you. JL Sorak, thank you for sharing with us some of your experiences dealing with the web and encountering barriers related to your disability. JL You're very welcome. Thanks for having me on. Nic Thank you. JL Hope to speak to you again soon. Thank you very much. Nic And that's it for now. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this accessibility soundbite, please support the show https://patreon.com/steenhout]]> clean no 7:00 No no https://a11yrules.com/podcast/devon-persing-talks-about-depression-and-brain-fog/ Sat, 22 Feb 2020 04:30:38 +0000 https://a11yrules.com/?post_type=podcast&p=549 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic: Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout and you're listening to the Accessibility Rules Soundbite, a series of short podcasts where people with disabilities explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. Thanks to Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. Today we're talking with Devon Persing who is a accessibility specialist. She works with Shopify. Devon, thanks for coming on the show and talking a little bit about the barriers you encounter on the web. Devon: Thank you. Nic: Let me ask you, what is your disability or your impairment? Devon: I have depression and anxiety. I got formally diagnosed when I was in college. I was 19 and looking back I know that I was exhibiting symptoms as a kid, but that was when it was crystallized into a professional telling me that I had something. It's something that I definitely go through cycles where it's worse or better, but it definitely impacts how I interact with the world and with digital spaces. Nic: That's actually something that's interesting because most people wouldn't think that depression would have an effect on interacting with the digital world. What would you say the biggest barrier is that is related to depression and anxiety? Devon: I think for me the biggest thing is brain fog. On days when I'm low energy for whatever reason, it can be many things. I can be tired. I might've had to do a lot of intensive gear switching the day before. I'm mostly introvert, but I do a log of teaching and training. If I've had a big week where I've done a lot of training sessions, I'm drained and then it's just harder to do pretty much everything. I have a harder time remembering things. I have a harder time processing information and understanding information that's in front of me. Devon: As a result, I rely heavily on things like to-do apps and auto complete things like 1Password. But people probably don't think of those as assistive tools but definitely are. I tried to offload as much of that cognitive admin level thinking, keeping track of things as much as I can so I can dedicate my brain space to the stuff I'm actually trying to accomplish. Because otherwise I'll forget things or I will obsess over them so I don't forget them. And then they are taking up space that I need to be using for other stuff. Nic: That's so good. Well it's not good that you're dealing with that, but it's good that we're able to tell our listeners about this because it's an important aspect of accessibility that we tend to forget about. What would be one message you'd like to tell designers and developers about accessibility? Devon: I think that it's not something to fix. It's not something to design and build something and then say, "Okay, is it accessible", and to go back and test it, it's very important to include it from the start of the process. And it's also very important to think about those edge cases. I guess the the 80/20 rule that people often focus on working for the majority. I think it's really important to make sure that you're not creating barriers first. And that's difficult because there's no one solution for that. It's very much about the context of the thing that you're making, making it flexible enough that people can adapt it to their different needs and then also building it in a way that is not going to conflict with different types of tools they're trying to use. I think thinking about it as early in the process when you're making it work as you can is really important. Nic: It certainly is. Devon, thank you for this pearl of wisdom and I'll catch yo u around on the internet. Devon: Okay. Nic: And that's it for now. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this Accessibility Soundbite, please support the show at https://patreon.com/Steenhout. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.C-O-M/S-T-E-E-N-H-O-U-T.]]> full 13 Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic: Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout and you're listening to the Accessibility Rules Soundbite, a series of short podcasts where people with disabilities explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. Thanks to Tenon for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Tenon provides accessibility as a service. They offer testing, training, and tooling to help fix accessibility fast. Today we're talking with Devon Persing who is a accessibility specialist. She works with Shopify. Devon, thanks for coming on the show and talking a little bit about the barriers you encounter on the web. Devon: Thank you. Nic: Let me ask you, what is your disability or your impairment? Devon: I have depression and anxiety. I got formally diagnosed when I was in college. I was 19 and looking back I know that I was exhibiting symptoms as a kid, but that was when it was crystallized into a professional telling me that I had something. It's something that I definitely go through cycles where it's worse or better, but it definitely impacts how I interact with the world and with digital spaces. Nic: That's actually something that's interesting because most people wouldn't think that depression would have an effect on interacting with the digital world. What would you say the biggest barrier is that is related to depression and anxiety? Devon: I think for me the biggest thing is brain fog. On days when I'm low energy for whatever reason, it can be many things. I can be tired. I might've had to do a lot of intensive gear switching the day before. I'm mostly introvert, but I do a log of teaching and training. If I've had a big week where I've done a lot of training sessions, I'm drained and then it's just harder to do pretty much everything. I have a harder time remembering things. I have a harder time processing information and understanding information that's in front of me. Devon: As a result, I rely heavily on things like to-do apps and auto complete things like 1Password. But people probably don't think of those as assistive tools but definitely are. I tried to offload as much of that cognitive admin level thinking, keeping track of things as much as I can so I can dedicate my brain space to the stuff I'm actually trying to accomplish. Because otherwise I'll forget things or I will obsess over them so I don't forget them. And then they are taking up space that I need to be using for other stuff. Nic: That's so good. Well it's not good that you're dealing with that, but it's good that we're able to tell our listeners about this because it's an important aspect of accessibility that we tend to forget about. What would be one message you'd like to tell designers and developers about accessibility? Devon: I think that it's not something to fix. It's not something to design and build something and then say, "Okay, is it accessible", and to go back and test it, it's very important to include it from the start of the process. And it's also very important to think about those edge cases. I guess the the 80/20 rule that people often focus on working for the majority. I think it's really important to make sure that you're not creating barriers first. And that's difficult because there's no one solution for that. It's very much about the context of the thing that you're making, making it flexible enough that people can adapt it to their different needs and then also building it in a way that is not going to conflict with different types of tools they're trying to use. I think thinking about it as early in the process when you're making it work as you can is really important. Nic: It certainly is. Devon, thank you for this pearl of wisdom and I'll catch yo u around on the internet. Devon: Okay. Nic: And that's it for now. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this Accessibility Soundbite, please support the show at https://patreon.com/Steenhout. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.C-O-M/S-T-E-E-N-H-O-U-T.]]> clean no 5:00 No no