Global Awareness Accessibility Day 2020! This is the third year I’m having a special episode for this event. I started with panel discussions for the day – and was planning on keeping that up. However, technical issues limited our ability to come together and have an actual discussion. So I got my guests to record their answers and this is the show. Thanks to Donna Vitan, Alicia Jarvis, Katriel Paige, and Matt May!
Transcript
Nic:
Welcome to the Accessibility Rules Podcast. This is a special episode for the Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2020. The idea was to have a panel discussion like I presented in the last few years. However, despite planning this for the last three months, a series of technical difficulties arose including congestion on the internet pipes. Thank you COVID, and particularly internet providers that aren’t up to delivering service they should. Talk about a lack of accessibility. Anyway, I asked my guests to record their answers, and this is what I’m presenting to you today. Obviously it doesn’t have the same dynamics that an actual discussion would have had, but the answers are fantastic and thought-provoking. My guests are, Donna Vitan, Katriel Page, Matt May, and Alicia Jarvis.
Nic:
Donna is a user experience interaction and visual designers committed to inclusive design. She’s currently working on the TELUS design system for TELUS digital. Katriel or Kit is a non-binary professional with chronic illnesses who works in digital accessibility as well as in tabletop gaming spaces. Matt is head of inclusive design at Adobe, and Alicia is the inclusive design practice lead within the RBC digital design team. My first topic is about non-disabled allies working in digital accessibility and doing consultation. Is it good or bad? And why? Donna says…
Donna:
I’m a non-disabled ally working in digital accessibility. So I am mindful and aware to make sure that I don’t overstep good common sense when you try to speak for someone else. I do cringe at the idea that there are people who take advantage of the accessibility industry that they give bad advice and can potentially harm a lot more people. I often reach out to the accessibility leaders in my organization, Beth Sullivan and Oscar Western, to get their feedback on what I’m thinking, what I’m considering as recommendations because I don’t want to give that level of bad advice.
Nic:
Matt says…
Matt:
So, I think that there’s no guarantee that we’re going to be able to do all of this ourselves. And I think that there are lots of people that are interested in accessibility because they find a way to help. And actually that was how I was before I really understood my ADHD as disability. I had already been diagnosed, but I worked for a good long while in accessibility before I actually connected it to what I had gone through school and in life before. All of those things started to come together and I started to understand that the role of my life in being a decent advocate for accessibility. So I think there’s always room for people who are willing to listen in communities like accessibility and that we always know that we’re going to need abled people to partner with us, whether they’re engineers or product managers, or any other kind of role that we’re working with. So it has to be a symbiotic relationship between the disability community and outside of it.
Matt:
There’s one part of this that I want to caution people about, which is that there are more people like me, people that don’t identify as being disabled but still have a disability that shapes their worldview. And when we get into these conversations, it’s very easy to erase those people. And I’ve had it happened to me for one, I was giving a talk at Adobe for global accessibility awareness day. And I saw a comment, I think it was on Twitter, where somebody just posted… No, it was a Slack that I was a member of. It was, “here’s an abled white guy, that’s talking about accessibility” and partial credit Fair play, most of those things are true, but how are they supposed to know that I was abled? And so whether or not we can be out for some sense of the word, or like publicly identify as having a disability is one thing, but to assume that the person that you’re talking too, does not have one. It’s leaving out a whole bunch of people with invisible disabilities.
Matt:
And I get very angry about that ever since I put those pieces together. That’s an important detail that we need to realize, that not all of us have this identity or think of it as a political or empowered identity and that we can’t create walls like that among people who are experiencing the same kinds of issues that we do as disabled people on a regular basis.
Nic:
Alicia says…
Alicia:
It’s both good and bad. It’s good because accessibility is everyone’s responsibility, so everyone should learn what accessibility is, the requirements. What can I get is all of that. But I think we all have to be mindful that beyond WCAG it really comes down to user experience and the real experts are the users themselves. So whether you are disabled or not, working in digital accessibility, as long as you understand your affordances in that and what you bring to the table and that it is only your perspective and that the users are the experts in all of this. And we all work towards meeting WCAG and being as accessible as we are. But then also requires us to ask who is not in the room and create more inclusive ways to engage as many different perspectives as possible in our work.
Nic:
Kit says…
Kit:
I have very mixed feelings about this because I believe there is a time and a place for non-disabled allies, right? In the sense of they have power in the sense of people tend to listen to non-disabled people over disabled people, whether or not the disability is invisible or not. If you’re read as not being disabled, you tend to be listened to a little bit more. So there is a place to do that, but I also believe it’s very context-sensitive. If you do have somebody with disabilities, the ally might say, oh, let’s listen to my colleague and enable their voices instead, because they would have that lived experience, right? The person with disabilities would have lived experience of certain things even if you’re dealing in digital accessibility and not all of the conditions may be applicable. Digital accessibility tends to have this issue of… From my experience, a lot of people working in it are abled people they don’t necessarily identify as having disabilities.
Kit:
And so some of the issues I’ve seen are literally people asking on an accessibility mailing list, for example, is there some automated tool in which I can put a non-accessible site in and get an accessible site out? In this case, you really do want somebody who is disabled in some capacity to check and be like no automated tools don’t work like that. Even the best-automated checkers can not do that. And not necessarily because it can’t though technological limitations are what they are, but because user design in general, would you really want to? Would you want it to have it at the mercy of automated tools? Automated tools can help, but they’re not the final word. The same thing of non-disabled allies could definitely help and especially bring more attention to issues of disability and accessibility. But I really do think that they shouldn’t really have the final say.
Kit:
Systems being what they are, they often are superiors. They often are managers. They often are the only coordinator given the accessibility hat. So again, I have very mixed feelings about this. It’s not that it’s always good or always bad. It’s just that it’s very nuanced and very much a time and a place thing. And of course, my opinion may vary, just because I’m disabled doesn’t mean that all disabled people have the same opinion either.
Nic:
The second topic is selling accessibility from the perspective of side benefits. For example, contrast is good for folks with low vision and is good for folks on their mobile or crimp cuts are good for wheelchair users and are good for parents with strollers. Yes or no? Matt says…
Matt:
I tend not to like this one much at all. And the way that I describe it is, if you are dangling money in front of somebody and then a task in the other hand, they’re not going to be focused on the tasks, they’re going to be focused on the money, right? They care about the thing that motivates them. And I give search engine optimization as a classic example of this. You had so many people in the olden days of the web, and even still today, where they heard a message that, okay, so Symantec’s are good for SEO, they’re good for accessibility. Great. Okay. That’s somewhat accurate in a fairly narrowly defined sense. But then you ended up having people that were just SEO experts that were only ever motivated by SEO that were selling their SEO services as accessibility services.
Matt:
And now you’re not focused on the right thing. I have a Zen Buddhist quote by DT Suzuki, which talks about the finger and the moon. And it is, to point at the moon, a finger is needed, but woe to those who confuse the finger for the moon. We are talking about accessibility and you’re talking about something different. And as soon as we have distracted people from accessibility as the core value of this thing, and we’re trying to sell-side benefits, then they’re going to be motivated to get those benefits. And they’re going to do it by any means necessary, even if it ends up throwing accessibility out the window, but they heard the story that I did this work, and now I am going to be more accessible because I did some kind of Symantec body blow over here without ever putting those pieces together.
Matt:
And that’s why we have things like the techniques behind the web content accessibility guidelines because we talk about this stuff. We are trying to get people to do this work, and we need it to be done the way that we intended it to be done. And we need it to benefit the users in the use cases that we have defined. And if nobody’s going to go into that detail and they’re not going to try to learn why. Which is what all of those techniques are about, then we’re not going to make any progress in the grand scheme of accessibility. I think that the SEO as accessibility thing and the same thing with just generally be a good web standard esta, because it’s good for accessibility, did us a lot of damage in the long run.
Matt:
It might’ve helped in certain ways. And I think if we take things like responsive design, I think that was a net positive for us because we ended up with a unified use case. And the people that advocated it the most were good, responsible citizens, and always were talking about accessibility. I think about Ethan Marcotte, as an example of this, when you see him talking to a mixed community, you always hear him talk about what you have to do to make a responsive web design accessible, that this is one step of that, it’s not the whole thing. And I think as long as you have somebody that is doing it from a spirit of a community where they’re actually doing something that has beneficial. I think that’s really important. And as far as all of these other cases that you’re talking about, curb cuts being good for wheelchair users and et cetera.
Matt:
We always have those. We can talk about email, we can talk about keyboards being done for the benefit of somebody to communicate with somebody else. I think in both the case of a typewriter and email, we have cases of people wanting to talk to deaf or hard of hearing loved ones. And that’s a powerful message to get people to focus on the fact that we’re actually the ones that are bringing a lot of the technology forward. And I think about things like Siri, where we have speech recognition and speech synthesis to a level that it wouldn’t have been unless we had had 40 years of refinements that were made specifically for people with disabilities. And I want people to understand that first. That we’re doing good things for people in public, but we’re doing it for us, and you get to enjoy those benefits.
Matt:
If you’re just doing it by parroting us, it’s like making a song on a computer, there are all of these machine learning techniques for generating lyrics based on or melodies based on previous hit songs. And they’re all honestly, just crap, right? The intention is the thing that matters the most. And that’s as true for us as it is for any other kind of like, let’s automate this stuff. I think we can’t forget why we got what we got by doing things accessibly. And we should be claiming credit for the work that we do there.
Nic:
Kit says…
Kit:
I tend to use this myself. And again, this is very context-sensitive of when I get resistance to, oh, we don’t have users that we know of with disabilities. Then that’s where I tend to point out the side benefits of yes, but increasing contrast is not only a good idea and useful for in case people have migraines issues or temporary disability, they’re also good for these other populations and segments of users as well. I usually only do this when I encounter initial resistance, because you do see those arguments. You do see the arguments of, we don’t know anyone using this that’s disabled or, and I’ve heard this too of, oh, I felt a blind person won’t be able to use a computer because they’re blind, which is horribly wrong. And not the case, I know people that are legally blind that use computers, screenwriters exist, assistive tech exists, but you do run into cases like these, where people will throw up resistance and say, things like that.
Kit:
I don’t like selling accessibility that way. And in certain contexts, accessibility may be the law, if you’re dealing with US federal agencies, that is the law. Recently there are questions on if the ADA is covered and court decisions have so far said, you can use the WCAG guidelines to meet the ADA requirements, especially in the cases of stores that have an online presence. Yeah, in some cases you may have to do it because it’s the law, you may be invited legal aspects to it. Is that necessarily a good argument for accessibility? No, I don’t like ending the conversation with it’s the law, or these are the side benefits. I shouldn’t have to argue my need for subtitles or captions by saying that it’s good for all these different populations. I shouldn’t have to argue for that in that way. But reality being what it is, a lot of times I have to.
Nic:
Donna says…
Donna:
Accessibility is definitely a multiplier of benefits. When it comes to stakeholders and decision-makers, it really helps to provide a list of benefits rather than meeting one criteria. And it’s not to say that one criteria is not worth being addressed. I’m just making it harder for the stakeholder or the decision-maker to say, no, how can you say no to this amount of benefit?
Nic:
Alicia says…
Alicia:
I would say, do what works. And oftentimes when I’m talking to stakeholders, you really have to connect with someone. And one way that we connect with people is establishing common ground. So if there’s something that I can say or do that brings me closer to the person I’m talking to, to get mutual understanding, that’s what I’ll do. So yeah, selling it in any way that we can is great. And making those connections is also important because I think when we’re talking about this, we have to be mindful that disability comes in all shapes and forms. You can have a permanent disability, you could have a situational disability, we’re all living in right now in COVID-19, or you can have a temporary disability that goes away after a certain period of time. So even us permanently disabled folks need to keep that in mind and make sure that we’re accounting for some of those temporary and situational disabilities as well.
Nic:
The third and last topic is, what’s one surprising aspect of accessibility for folks new to exploring this topic? Donna says…
Donna:
I think people who are new to accessibility have this expectation that you’re coming into a yes or no checklist. And it’s not as simple as that. To me, working inaccessibility is more than compliance, because there are multiple solutions that can meet a criteria. What I like to do is to help provide rationale and resources to support that decision. And then hopefully that will help someone else make informed decisions and considerations when they’re trying to solve for accessibility.
Nic:
Matt says…
Matt:
I think the idea that we are pioneers in a lot of ways in using technology at its apex and we’re the early adopters of these new technologies. And then because disabled users got some benefit where they weren’t able to use something at all, and now they can use it a little. And I think about the curse while reading machine from the 1970s, it scanned this snail mail letter and would try to read it out to the users. And that was mid 70s that this is the technology that’s out there. We take that for granted. The optical character recognition is everywhere, but we wouldn’t have had that if we had not been focused on users with disabilities first. And it’s that missing link I think in a lot of the technologies as they come to fruition, that once we have a common set of users that are more interested in being able to enable something than having 100% accuracy, that’s a great research area.
Matt:
And of course, researchers depend on those cases to have enough runway to get to that point that it’s a 100%. So I want us to get more credit for that. I want us to be considered rightly as the pioneers in a lot of these kinds of technologies. It’s important for us to know our history and who those pioneers are and how we got here. And the research center, it’s like the trace center or the inclusive design research center, or like Leonard Caz day at temple university. There are these people like Jim Thatcher, who passed away recently, but who was creating a screenwriter because he was using it to communicate math with a peer who was blind, not somebody who was working for him, it was a peer to peer relationship.
Matt:
And because of that, we have what are known as screenwriters and it’s those kinds of trailblazing technologies. We have so much that is owed to that, not just in the disability community, but in technology in general. And I feel like we need to get people to understand that, because as long as they feel like we’re dragging them behind, because we’re doing standard stuff, that we have to meet five away and then we’re done, we don’t have to care about disability or accessibility ever again because we met the letter of the law. But to think, okay, great, you figured out a way to do this task, that makes you a traders person. You are able to do something repeatedly in a certain way, and good for you for doing that. But a professional knows the right way among a universe of different ways to reach a given destination. And with that means, we have a requirement that everything from the beginning of our ideas has to be accessible, that we don’t just think about it later on.
Matt:
But as soon as we’ve gotten to the point that there is a final form of this object that we had in our heads, that’s in the world, we have to think about how are we narrowing down the potential world of users because it requires vision, it requires mobility, or it acquires hearing. It requires a tactile ability that may be smell and taste, eventually we’ll get there. I think that’s one of the senses that we just don’t have that much, where we have room to grow, we have more to learn about. But we ought to be recognized as the leaders. And that’s one of the first things that I try to get people to understand about accessibility when they’re just coming into it. And the thing about that is when you tell people that you can actually make a difference and that you can grow both individually, technically, and professionally, by thinking about this stuff, that I think is when a lot of people start to make the connection.
Nic:
Alicia says…
Alicia:
The aspect of accessibility is that really it applies to everything and anything, and that we’re all affected by accessible or inaccessible situations. I think we’re all experiencing that right now in COVID-19. We’ve had to adapt to new ways of working and that’s what… The most surprising aspect of accessibility is that it’s ever-changing, I’m learning every day, new things it’s ever-evolving. And there are many facets of accessibility that you can get involved with. You don’t have to necessarily be an expert in order to help work towards more accessible solutions for everyone.
Nic:
Kit says…
Kit:
Surprising. I don’t know if it’s surprising so much as there’s a lot of disability myths that I have to reiterate over and over again in helping people explore accessibility. And sometimes it’s just dealing with people with disability, it does not necessarily mean people who are receiving disability payments, though that is a subset. Just because in the US context, that’s extremely difficult. But there’s plenty of us that have disabilities that are receiving SSI or SSDI. But there’s also plenty of people who can not or have been refused. Or the definition of disability used in those contexts is so strict, or they just can’t afford to plea the court case. That is one of those myths that I have to contest over and over again. A lot of us are working or a lot of us have freelance gigs that we’re working on. We just want to send pictures, relatives might send us pictures or some other mails or update the update us as to what’s going on with a lot of our lives being done online from making appointments to going to the movies, to just socialization.
Kit:
People do tend to forget if they’re able, they tend to forget that so many people use computers or it might not be the newest ones, we may be using older tech, and they might not be aware of just the costs involved in using screen readers or AT. And it compounds if you’re on SSDI, your assets are limited. And so you may be using old tech, because you could only use your jaws license at the library or something. You can only use your particular screen reader, or you may be having to bounce between two different screen readers. Just kind of dispelling those disability myths. I’ve gotten a lot of surprise and people literally not knowing whether out of ignorance or just because they didn’t have that lived experience of being told you’re disabled, but not disabled enough to count. And even though accessibility guidelines have been in effect for about 20 years and that’s counting both federal guidelines and things like WCAG, they’ve been around in some form for 20 years. And yet, if developers know about it at all, it’s like that one-hour training that everybody forgets a year later.
Kit:
People tend to not prioritize it. And that’s where you start seeing this ingrained myth and ingrained bias and ingrained ableism of that. I started incorporating into presentations now because it’s just so much of people not knowing what the reality is of accessibility and that, yes, just because it is a law or there are guidelines. They’re out there, but people don’t use them or it wasn’t considered a priority or with the pandemic, all of a sudden people that we’re trying to work from home due to chronic illness, as an accommodation were told, they couldn’t do it and now with the pandemic orders, all of a sudden now everybody’s working from home, right? There’s a certain amount of lived experience and frustration and disability myths that people that aren’t disabled literally have no idea what they’re saying. They assume a lot and never actually take a moment to ask someone who is disabled. I know that’s a really big aspect, the disability myths aren’t really investigated, they don’t really look at it to see if it’s a myth or not. They just take this at face value.
Kit:
But I think people new to exploring accessibility, that’s a major hurdle for them. That’s a major surprise when something that you took for granted really isn’t. So that’s my major one. I know that’s not probably the best answer, but in my experience, that’s been the way it is to the point where I’ve had to touch on various disability stereotypes and myths, that disability is not an on-off switch. I may have issues with vision, but most of mine I can just correct with glasses. That doesn’t mean that I don’t still benefit from captions and whatnot. It just means that certain impairments we’re used to as a society. I go and get glasses. In the US that’s actually fairly easy to do. But people don’t think of that as a disability anymore. And so if I say, well, what about arthritis? What about if somebody has an injury and you can’t use the mouse and that really surprises people. “Oh, what do you mean I can’t use the mouse?”
Kit:
What do I do then if I can’t use the mouse? And they’re kind of facing. You bring up these cases or bring up these personas, or you bring up examples, and not just of statistics, but you may say, one of the user personas may be someone with arthritis or joint issues. And to test, say keyboard accessibility, and you have to introduce keyboard accessibility in that way of, yeah don’t assume a mouse is there. Don’t assume you can use a mouse. And I know that I’m starting to ramble now, but just having an abled audience, exploring accessibility and realizing that there’s guidance there, but not realizing having to examine all their assumptions. Especially for abled people and accessibility, I think that’s a very surprising thing because they have to face those stereotypes and they have to face those myths and decide if they’re going to double down or if they’re going to start paying attention.
Nic:
That’s it. Thanks for listening. And a quick reminder the transcript for this and all other shows are available under the shows website at a11yrules.com. Big shout out to my patrons and my sponsors. Without your support, I could not continue to do the show. Do visit https://patreon.com/steenhout if you want to support the Accessibility Rules Podcast.