Holly Schroeder explains that when a touch target is too small she may not be able to complete a task because she doesn’t have the fine motor control to tap her finger on the right area of the screen.
Thanks to 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