Julieanne says when she’s information seeking, trying to accomplish a task, movement on the screen, that is not something that she causes to happen or choose to happen can absolutely derail her.
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 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.