REALTIME FILE
CDA-An Evening with Marcy Sutton and Derek Featherstone: A Panel Discussion-Livestream Tuesday, August 27, 2019 7:15 p.m. Eastern Time
REMOTE CART CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY: ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION SERVICES, LLC www.CaptionFamily.com
Nick: OK, everybody. We're going to get started. I want to make sure the captionist is -- I haven't seen anything. There it is. This is interesting. We have never had caption through interpreter, so this will be a new experience for everybody.
Welcome to tonight's event. We're going to have a discussion with Marcy Sutton and Derek Featherstone and this will be moderated. Our co-organizers and Karen. If you have any questions, these are the people you want to talk to and we are here at sprouts social and also they are here if you have any questions.
So we'll go ahead and start just a big shout out to sprouts social. Thank you so much for having us. Is anybody from Sprout Social want to say something? Say a few words?
Katy: Hello, everyone. My name is Katy. I'm the events operations manager here at sprouts social. I have been at the company for five and a half years, which is a lifetime in tech terms. It is wonderful to see so many faces. Just a little bit about sprout, we are a social media management software company, so essentially, we empower businesses to connect with their clients on social through one centralized inbox so people can schedule posts, engage with their customers in real time and see how they are engaging with their audience. After all of that, we are hiring, like a lot, just to name a few roles, marketing, sales, design, engineers, so if anybody is interested in staying in touch with us about future events or career opportunities, we do have some laptops out front, totally up to you. You do not have to feel obligated to sign up, but we would love to stay in touch.
Nick: I have a quick question, anybody need the captioning size bigger? I feel like it is small. Could we have the caption size, the font size up a little bit? That would be great. So see where the font size says 30. Do you see where it says font size 30, if you could make that bigger. That looks good. And there is live captioning here and we are streaming live, so you can also view it through your mobile device and you can see the link down below. Also, captioning is sponsored by McDonald's and we really appreciate that.
Now, jobs, if you have open jobs at your company and you want to share a job, because this is a great time to network, especially within this field of accessibility, we will pass it around if anybody has any openings. I'm Mary. I work downtown here with my co-worker. We are hiring for a digital product designer and an engineer, so if any of those opportunities seem interesting, find us afterwards.
I see another hand.
Attendee: Hi, my name is Conner. I work at launch pad lab. We are hiring for an apprentice developer and -- [inaudible] if you're interested in working at a consultant agency, especially if you know access, come and talk to me.
Nick: There is one over here. Towards the front.
Attendee: Hey, I'm Laura. Some of you might have been to our office for this meet up before and the next one, will be at our office, but we're hiring engineers, I believe sales, cloud, a bunch of things, so if you go to -- [indiscernible] check it out.
Attendee: Yes, the group is hiring for accessibility engineer. It is a remote role, so if you're interested go to paciellogroup.com/careers/
Marcy: I have one.
[LAUGHTER]
So not to spoil it, but I'm Marcy and I work at Gatsby and we're hiring for an open source developer to focus on accessibility in Gatsby, in the framework itself. You could impact thousands of websites, making them more accessible and you can find that at GatsbyJS.com/careers.
[Derek Featherstone]: I'm going to go as well.
[LAUGHTER]
If my H.R. group knew I was talking to all of you and did not make some kind of announcement, I might -- [inaudible] I am Derek Featherstone and we are always hiring in managers, other role, sales side of things, people that help with delivering our services that kind of thing -- so any of that stuff or any related things or any unrelated things, we can talk about anything. I'm good with that.
Nick: OK, closing, anybody else? All right, that's it. So we have pronouns just like this and you can grab a pin and if you meet new people, share the pronoun that we use for each other and we have an orange hanger next to the buttons. If you don't want to be photographed for any reason, put one of the orange hangers on and we'll make sure you are not in the photographs.
We also have a Youtube channel for tonight's event and it will be recorded and we're going to upload it here and you can see that on the screen. That is Youtube.com/Chicagoaccessibility and I will try to shorten that because that is pretty long. Also, on Twitter this helps the event. Mostly, you have heard a lot through word of mouth, so share on Twitter @A11YCHi, CHi is for Chicago. You can share on Twitter and this is a really exciting event. This is a cool event that is free. 24 hours online and if you want to stay up for 24 hours straight and watch that and have coffee that is totally your prerogative. Marcy will be involved in this as well, and I think there are two members here, Seth -- where are you? Seth is here. He will be one of the speakers and Melanie will be speaking as well. Here we go.
So Marcy Sutton, I will shorten this up so we can get to the panel discussion. She is the head of learning at a startup creating fast accessible websites. Here is Derek Featherstone. He is a practitioner on inclusive design. He has been working since 1999 when he left his job as a high school teacher and he is the Chief eXperience Officer at Level Access. And so Fen Slattery is an accessibility lead at clique studio where is they work towards a more inclusive digital world. I'm going to go ahead and turn this over to our panel and you can, um, you can tweet if you want to tweet, these names out, you can, the ones up on the screen. I will have that up during the panel discussion so you have that reference. Everybody ready? Here we go.
Fen: I feel like I need to take a deep breath so in announcements. OK, cool, as many of you may not be aware, we had a form asking for questions that you would like asked of these lovely folks. Also, if you're joining us online, you can type questions in the chat and I think if you want to tweet questions you can do it that way. I did not turn off my Twitter notifications on my phone. With that said, we're going to dye into this beautiful list, it does stay in no particular order, so we going to go on at adventure, the three of us tonight. The first question I have for both of you, this person says there is a lot of accessibility work being done with user interfaces, but what about holistic user experiences? Going online to buy furniture, getting it delivered, customer service, each has touch point access barriers that should be addressed. There are any resources or case studies out there for an A11Y overhaul for an experience?
Derek: One second. This is always the before when I'm in Chicago because there are always these drinks. It is fantastic. So a really important question because it speaks to the experience side of things. We think of accessibility as this technical thing and there is a checklist of things we need to do and the most useful framework that I have found in our work and the things like researching is services. I don't know if you have deviled into the service side at all, the service side framework is probably one of the best -- one of the best ways to approach things because it is built in the system of service design is entirely designed to take into account every touch point, to explore kind of a whole universe of all of the interactions in that ecosystem so that is probably, I would say the best place to start to understand that. You know, for me, I can't remember the names, there is a series of books from people who created services designs as a practice kind of thing and it is like service design thinking, service design doing and there is a series of folks and they are quite good. I haven't read all of them, but I'm starting to read some of them and as I read things, I keep thinking how do I reframe them for accessibility and inclusion, so I think service is the best place to start. It is probably the most, theoretically the most holistic view. I don't care about the debate side of it. I'm like is this useful to make things better or not; I would say the service design framework is the best place to start.
Fen: That sounds great. I can imagine all the people Googling that right now. What are your thoughts, Marcy?
Marcy: It is important to think about the customer experience. I hear people go, what, that accessibility is important for big companies, but that does not line up with people's real life experience, if your own requirement is enterprise, what about small companies? What about the other experiences that you incomer a barrier, you leave the website or you can't get something, so other than packaging experiences, which Derek has spoken about them before, making packaging that opens easily, I think that is something that Apple has done very well. Thinking about the holistic experience, more case studies is needed on that lined of work so people think about it and it is not just we can fix it in a digital experience because it is in real life. People need to be supportive in all steps of the process or consuming products and services, so very important question.
Fen: Yeah, I think that is a really good point you make about needing to create more case studies. I'm sure there is work but we're not documenting it. That is a great idea. A different direction here. This person says I rad a study about all text on Twitter, whether only 0.1% of images contained all the text and an event smaller fraction of them are considered well win. They ask, do you have any thoughts or ideas for how to make sure all images have good ALT text? Those on Twitter, social media, but in a general sense as with.
Marcy: That is a tough one and controversial, so I will preface it with that. Humans are terrible with ALT text that is something we have experienced and something I have heard from teens working on social media platforms is some of the, sort of fear and hesitance to make descriptions available for everyone to be used because humans are kind of terrible -- they go from I love people, I hate people, I love people on a daily basis and upswinging most of the time, I love people because I have worked in accessibility. Any descriptions in those fields with more structured data where you can enter the ALT text can factor in abuse, that is why some of that is not enabled by default. We want the ALT text but we want it to be good. This is controversial because A.I. for image descriptions can sidestep the abuse problem in not saying the image of a pepperoni pizza might be more accurate and filled in automatically and you can override that with better ALT text and that is the most realistic answer I have. I don't love it. don't think it is great. I wish more people would write ALT text, but it is not happening often enough.
Fen: Can you go more into, you mentioned using ALT text, do you think people are overusing it or incorrectly using it?
Marcy: Putting painful things, it is the dark underbelly of the platforms that people are -- I don't want to say it out loud but they are putting it there and people who are working at Facebook with the content, I don't know if ALT text is part of the process, but there are dark, horrible stuff getting put in the fields and that is not really fun. That is not happy. That is not what we're thinking about when we create platforms but that is what people are doing with it, so it is unfortunate and sad, but I think that, you know, that is part of the human condition of what we're dealing with out there.
Fen: That's awful. Thank you for elaborating on that. What are your thoughts?
Derek: I used to be a high school teacher so my thoughts is what does teaching have to do with that? Yes, people suck at writing ALT text that is just it, but machines suck at it, too. So let's teach people how to do it better and I think, you know, one of the things I wanted to do for a while and I say this here, so maybe else creates it. I wanted to create bookmarkers that takes ALT text on images and exposes it so you say, click this button and show them the ALT text for these images so it is out there and people can see it, so people can start to now analyze that more, look at it, understand what goes into ALT text, so we can learn from people who write good ALT text, so that is my approach. Let's just teach everybody in the world that is using these social media services to do that and be better assistants that way. There are lots of things we can do to help spread that as well, I have said that, so somebody has to go create that thing.
Each one of you, I think I have -- I have like a tweet that I tweet out every like two or three months or something, it is something I have on repeat that goes every week, almost it is consistent like I post every week the same thing, but if -- that was not intentional, but if that went out every week and we all tweeted something out every week that said hey, if you're out of images add ALT text and here is how and here is tutorial that won't go unnoticed if there is enough of us doing it. When we do things and we do accessibility, super cool, love it, but usually we're talking to ourselves and so what I would love for us to do is get to the point that we're teaching people that don't know anything about ALT text and don't know anything about accessibility how to add stuff so we can talk with non-nerds. Let's teach people who don't know how to do what we know how to do to start adding ALT text. I think there are little things we can do and hopefully that makes things better. That is the teacher in me, you have to do the hard work to get to where you want to be in life that's it.
Marcy: Two things, nice side note for somebody and that is way better and productive way forward, I think. Maybe the A.I. text is a fallback and I know we teach people and the combination of those things make something more productive, because yeah, we do need to teach people that and getting outside of the accessibility communities is valuable and I have seen it with museums, creating social media content, like those conversations, I see those flow out there. If we can get those resources out to people I think that would help.
Fen: What I'm hearing here is an argument for ALT text awareness day on the accessibility awareness day, I'm just saying. Maybe a hash tag. The next question we have, do you have any recommendations for accessible code training? Especially with voice over and writing screen reader friendly code in general, so it sounds like they are asking for recommendations on learning how to write accessible code.
Derek: Yes, do have recommendations.
Fen: Next question.
[LAUGHTER]
Derek: So there are lots of great resources out there, Marcy's courses -- course? Just one, course that is a good place to start. There is a lot of people at Google that put out a load -- load of resources from like their Google IO talks to their podcasts and there are people putting out ridiculous amount of information all of the time, there are mailing lists, there are always people teaching these things all of the time, so lots of recommendations, probably too many to narrow it down. If you look at any accessibility agency, we're always posting stuff, DQ does, and everybody is putting content out there all of the time to learn how to code in a more accessible way. It is all right there.
Marcy: Yeah, there is another one from Google Chrome team that put together, I think it is a six-week long course on web accessibility. It is more of a generalistic accessibility course and it is super awesome. I know they worked hard on that, so I recommend that and I like their resources, too.
Fen: Excellent. Are there any accessibility trainings or certifications out there that you recommend?
Marcy: I'm not familiar with certification route myself. I know the CPACC is one of them, there are training courses for certifications, I know DQ does some of those. If you want the expertise, if you're working all of the time as an accessibility specialist that is a great way to solidify the knowledge and you learn a lot through the practice of studying for it. I think there is a lot of value in doing those regardless what you want to do with it. For me, I think I was pasted that point in my career, so there are two certification programs?
Fen: Yeah, the international association of accessible professionals have two certifications, the CPACC that you mentioned, the certified core competencies and the WAS, which is web accessibility specialists, is that right? Oh, good that is right. That is what Marcy is referring to. Any other thoughts?
Derek: Yes, small thing. I think like -- this is not here is different things to take or different things to, you know, replace that certification with this, I think look at certification as a starting point not an end point. The reality is that those are designed just by certified professional -- the CPACC that is like to make sure people are speaking the same language so you can get in the door. The best way to grow your skills is to do the work, like that is -- so I'm always happy that people are happy in training courses and that sort of thing, but always look at those things as a thing that gets you started, not the thing that takes you all the way there because it is best for you to take it forward and to learn. It is knowledge edge skill, right, so the skills, the actual doing, you don't get that from, you know, certification. There is a practical that needs to be there or for you to be efficient with this stuff.
Fen: Great. All right, so the next question is about code and learning how to write accessible code. Are there plug-ins you use for testing and if so, what are your favorites?
Marcy: Well, I guess I can say UX because I used to work on it. The tools can only go so far, they can only uncover things that are technically possible and there are still testing required that is just always how it is going to be and even so, sometimes there are false positives, I know there are some occasionally it is just the way it goes. You have to use your own judgment as you go through things for your own context and situation and analyze them one by one. I think browser plug-ins are great because you can test websites as they are rendered and it does not matter what framework you are using or no framework. As designers or developers, you can test in the moment, so I think there is a lot of utility and help to be gained from the tools, so it is not like here you go QA team, here you go UX specialist. We can each take on one of the testing and what they uncover is so important. I think there is a plug-in for applications, but it doesn't -- it is a good starting point. It can catch some thing, but it is looking at your markups or your styles and this may change, but your CSS and JavaScript, ultimately, you want those to be applied so you are not going to test the same things multiple times and get different result, but there are plenty of other tools, the WebEx tensions at API. I think what is nice, if you use one set of tools in different context, like a browser extension and have the same rules set in automated tests, so those using the different tools are using the same rule set and you're evaluating the same thing.
Derek: My favorite plug-in is a design plug-in called stock and it is fantastic for people who are, you know, designing things and they want to check color contrast. They want to check how it works with color, what kind of things I need to look at in the design phase and it pushes things further and it creates the idea in the process. It can't detect but that is probably one of my favorites because it is more on the design side of things and it helps raise awareness of the problems and it just released, I think a version four in design, so I think it also works with sketch and different tools it works. Adobe experience design, so it is a plug-in you can use and it is super useful, super useful.
Fen: Great, we'll have to take a look at. So moving on, next question, how do you reconcile or prioritize needs which are opposite or divergent from one another? There are some examples; some people are very distracted by complicated and/or moving layouts. Other people need the richness and activity to remain engaged at the task at hand, or some need contrast in order to read.
Marcy: I think personalization is a good technique and tool to reach for in those situations because people have different needs, especially for applications that are long lived and people go back to them more than once, you have maybe more time and effort to put into that and it can be difficult for short-lived websites. The marketing websites that live for three months that are the flashiest and most distracting, which make it argue for some of this stuff if it is only going to live for three months. Maybe you have tools that you can reuse as a designer or developer some techniques that you could apply to one or more project, but I think letting the user decide what works for them and change the interface and remember those settings can help with a lot of different scenarios, especially contrast, animation if they want to turn off motion that sort of stuff that would be my recommendation.
Fen: Personalization, great. Derek?
Derek: What she said, designing the flexibility. it is not happening a the browser level, it should be happening at the browser level. Think about textiles, we didn't have great control over that in the browser, so what did we see in the name of accessibility? They put text on their websites, so people can live in different places, it can be part of the browser, it can be part of what people create, so that kind of happens over time and I think we build things in websites that we see that people need and maybe browsers take over or third-party technologies take over. All of them are trying to solve the need, so more often we could start with the personal preferences and, you know, we get to a point where we're building things or creating things as authors and take those needs into account, hopefully, they get abstracted out of the things we have to create. We don't have to create the remembering mechanism for contrast stuff in a browser or in a tool, but keeping that in mind is probably the best way to go for that idea of preference and really start defaulting our design.
I'm trying to think, we created this thing a long time ago there was a button, if you had, say and this is a prototype so it is not out there in production on any website anywhere that I'm aware of. If you want to take this and put it on a website, I will pay $10. It is so awesome. We did this thing if you had had a tremor and you had difficulty clicking the button and missed, we move the button and we moved it a little bit more if you missed again. If you got to the point and you clicked it and was successful that larger button, we remember the button size and we make it that big. What happens is you end up with buttons that take up half the screen. The idea is let's find a way to make the button big enough to click or tap on and where they were successful and present that by default. You see why I have to pay someone to put that into production. Let's use it to figure out what is good representations or renderings and give those things a try. It may be horrible in production, but the concept is there, if that makes sense.
Fen: We do have the $10 in because of the captions.
Derek: It is like 35 cents.
Fen: Great, next question. Do you encourage those with a disability to be advocates or part of the accessible and design process -- wait, how do they stand out in these types of roles, when they are competing against those who do 9 no have disabilities?
Marcy: I would say do the work that you want to do so if it is work that someone with a disability wants to do, go for it. My advice would be true for anyone going for a role, being able to talk about what can you succeed at. What can you excel at focus on what you do well is a good way to show passion and show what kind of work you executed before and I think that is true for anyone, sort of the twist on that for someone with a disability, I don't so I can't speak from my own experience here, but just leading into your own experience and communicating how that will be an asset. What experience can you bring that someone else can't? That is compelling because that would be super helpful to make any product more successful, if you have that perspective, that is something who doesn't have a disability can't offer. Make that an asset and make it that it is only something you can bring to the table so I would like to hear other people's thoughts on that.
Fen: Derek, you are other people.
Derek: I am other people. Don't be a tester because you have accessibility needs. It seems to be a default position that people with a disability are going to be testers. If you are a designer, go be a designer that happens to have a disability. Who cares about, like for some people, testing is awesome and it is what they want to do. I think a lot of people and this is partially conjecture, but speaking with lots of different people with disabilities over the course of whatever the last number of year, people want to get involved but they don't know how to get involved because they think they have to do testing or be a developer or whatever role. The more people that have make their way into other jobs or work with everybody else, whatever can be their act, the better it is. It makes more people aware of what accessibility is and why it is needed, so be involved, but be like forward-thinking involved, not just like how do I get involved in the testing side of things. Testing may be the way in but it is not the ultimate ending. We get to the point where testing gets you in the door and doing some of that, but that gives you opportunities like, hey, here is this other stuff that you want to do as well. I want to manage a testing team. I don't want to just be a tester. I just said just -- you know what I mean like, there is no such thing as just a tester, but for some people testing is not enough and they want to -- they don't want to be pigeonhole and put into that position. Do whatever -- do whatever you want, whatever you're passionate about and make that happen.
Marcy: I need to hear from disabled people on this because we're abled body people and for us to answer is uncomfortable. I would love to hear from people on Twitter and give us your ideas to answer this question more authentically.
Fen: So building on what the two of you said, the testing point, I would also add I strongly recommend that if you participate in testing, whether it is at your organization or another one, make sure you are compensated for your labor. Don't let your employer or someone else try to make you feel like just because you are color blind, you will just test this, right? Make sure if it is not a part of your job description, someone acknowledges that you are doing something outside of that that they company you for it. You should not be excepted to do free labor because you have a disability that does not make sense. The other thing I will add is be cautious, especially if you're working in the disability field and if you feel like you have to disclose your disability to feel valid or allowed to work in the space there are some people like, myself, with a disability that can get away without disclosing them. There is a lot to know about the A.D.A., once you bring up what your disability is, it can be easy for employers to accidently discriminate against you. So be careful. Be careful and make sure you are paid for your work is my additional opinion.
The next question only says Marcy, but I think I will let Derek answer it, too.
[LAUGHTER]
It can just be Marcy and it. OK, Marcy, now it is just us. What do you see as the biggest development challenges in the field of accessibility?
Marcy: He really left. I was going to say we can't stop at development and design is super needed. they were talking about shifting earlier, accessibility can't be involved if it is already baked in. If it is in the user, as developers, we can only shine it up as much as we can, so I think the challenge of thinking is you can't stop at development because a lot of times it can't be because you're not set up for success. I would say that is the biggest challenge there are also challenges around what can be done. You hit barriers with what can be accomplished and automated testing for accessibility is a big part of that. We can only do so much in an automated fashion and so as developers, you end up thinking a tool can find everything and I'm done. It takes more involvement from everyone, not just developers, like it is more of a team sport really.
Fen: I like that, accessibility is a team sport. Derek, I think we will let you answer the question, too.
Derek: I was happy to get another drink. I love Chicago.
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah, I think the biggest -- the biggest challenge is mindset and we often think because we're engineers, because we're developers that is where the solution lies and I think Marcy said it very well that the biggest challenge for accessibility is having like -- do you think of the three kind of areas that we need to make a great website or web app or whatever it is, we have design, content, and functionality, right? If you have really awesome accessible content and great design but poor execution, the quality of the content almost doesn't matter. By the same token, if you have perfect technical execution, ridiculously great content and poor design, it does not matter. It has to be all three all together. We don't have that. We kind of have nothing. It makes it -- we also have -- I know -- I'm reading between the lines on this, I don't know if it was one line or multiple lines, if it is multiple lines, read between them. I forgot what I was going to say now. It was -- it was -- it's gone.
Fen: You said it has to be all three, all together and we don't have that. We have nothing. It makes us -- I know I'm reading between the lines, I can keep reading the captions if you want.
[LAUGHTER]
Derek: So I am 48 years old and I have four children and that's kind of my disability because I don't remember anything anymore because I am tired and my children bring me down. I shouldn't say that. They might be watching right now. I'm just kidding. They are not watching right now. There is something really good I was going to say but it is totally gone. If it comes back, I will let you know.
Fen: Jump in and interrupt. I like this question because I wrote this one. If you could give your past self, just starting in their accessibility journey, one piece of advice, what would it be? Think back. You're just having fun reading the captions now aren't you?
Derek: I started looking at it and missed everything you said and now I have no choice but to read them back.
Fen: It says it.
Derek: If you keep talking they are going to disappear.
Fen: I think my question was, if you could give your past sell just starting your accessibility journey, one piece of advice, what would it be?
Derek: Don't be so cocky.
Fen: That is life advice.
Derek: You know nothing compared to -- what you're thinking is nothing compared to what there is, so get over yourself. I'm speaking to myself here. Don't take this as me talking to you. Get over yourself and through more broadly than you are. When I started out, accessibility, I thought I was practicing accessibility. What I was building was building things that were streaming. I was not thinking of any other disabilities other than blindness and that is not how the world is. The whole stop being so cocky is don't think you have it down. Realize there is more to know than you will ever know and start that path of continuous, you know, learning forever and ever, so kind of get over yourself and be willing to admit that you don't know as much as you think you do and that is hard when we're young and trying to, you know, get started out there, so that's my -- maybe that is the cider's advice.
Marcy: That is great advice. I was confronted with my own biases after working with accessibility for a while and it is super important to keep that open mind and always be in that open mindset, because everyone is different and there is always some change or improvement we can make. I think my advice for myself, maybe not when I started because I had an open mind, but when I went to work on the UX team and I was going to we're going to fix it and then two came out and it was a repeat and I left it. I don't know. I feel bitter about it and they are slowly starting to put out jobs and do better at that but I think one of my biggest regrets is it let it happen because I was over it and I thought they had it and I think the lesson there is to do more consensus building, so if I did step away, it was not dropped on the floor. The whole, I got it mindset, what I needed to be doing was building more of a team and more of a consensus, so it is not limited to one person. I don't think that succeeds and that plays out at companies all over the place, where someone has something coming up in their personal life or they change jobs and it is like, oh, well, our champion left. I'm trying to get that beyond just what is in your own head is important and where that is challenging is it might not be part of your role. You might be there to go fix stuff, not to go training, not to create things for other people, but to succeed, I think we need to ask for help more. Go to your team leads and be like hey, I need resources to document this stuff and make sure this isn't just living in my own head.
Fen: That's great. So in folks just starting off in accessibility, this questioner asks, where do you see areas of opportunity career wise, in design, accessibility?
Marcy: Everywhere. Seriously, it is everywhere. We were just talk about is there an agency that you can point to that does accessibility like end-to-end, strategy, design, development, all of that and we couldn't think of -- maybe a couple of companies, but I think from a company perspective that is a huge opportunity. It is sad, but it is the instinct is like, oh, agency work isn't being truly successful in accessibility, so I think from a company's perspective that is a huge opening to stand out and do well. From an individual perspective, I think working in technology is, you know, some of the biggest opportunities right now and just bringing accessibility in your practice in a general sense it is a great way to stand out. It is a great way to feel good for your work and be compensated for it so I think opportunities are abound and it is a great field to be in because it gets you out of bed in the morning and makes a difference and there is not a lot of jobs I can say that about.
Fen: Derek?
Derek: A big part of me, too, is I've been in the field for 20 years now and it always changes like there are certain things that stay the same. Technology is always changing, implementation changes but the same core concepts come back over and over. There will always be new tech that we create that will have the same problems that we have seen before, so the opportunities can be like literally everywhere. That's it. What she said.
Fen: Awesome. So we have about 20 minutes left, so now we're going to do audience questions. The format I'm going to do this in because we have the live stream folks as well, I'm going to do a live stream question right now and give everyone in the room time to think then we'll do a Twitter question then live stream Twitter then the room. You can ask your question in the live stream or Twitter or something. So in the room, think about your questions. Here is the first live stream question. Hi. I'm Margo from Vancouver. Hi.
Derek: There is only one Margo in Vancouver.
Fen: The new accessible Canada Act is enforced in Canada. What do you feel is the most effective approach for preparing for any new legislation?
Derek: So accessible Canada Act, I don't know if you know all of the details of it, but basically, I think it was on June 21, we got a new act in Canada, federal act that applies to people with disabilities and federal organizations and we're in a position right now with the lobbyists, but none of the supporting standards are there yet, so that is the process we're going through. In terms of preparation for it, I would look at two things. I would look at what has happened in each of the provinces in Canada. We have Providences. We don't have states. We have a few Providences that have gone through pains of, you know, enacting their own legislation and having all of the regulations, so I expect the process will be similar to what is going on, but maybe better because we should learn from the things that went well and the things that didn't go well. Preparing for the process to be, I would prepare for a long, long -- when the Ontarians enacted this for Ontario to be fully accessible by 2025 we're like that is such a long time. Why did they choose such a long time and we're here in almost 2020 and now I know why they chose such a long time. I expect the accessible Canada Act to have that. I would also expect it would align to International standards, so I would assume we'll be using 2.1. If they are smart, they will not say 2.1 in the regulations. They will say the most current version of whatever in some kind of period so when we get to the point where 2.2 comes out or whatever it is that there will be a certain ramp up time for that to become the thing. I think one of the mistakes we made in the past in various jurisdictions is we locked it down and said it is tied to this particular standard and when we get a new one and everyone is like the legislation says we have to do the old standard. I would expect a process to be something like that and to be prepared and look at not just 2.1, but everything that goes beyond that.
Fen: Wonderful. Marcy, do you have thoughts to add preparing for legislation?
Marcy: Not really, I'm focused on user experience.
Fen: It sounds like a general in thinking of user experience may be a great way to prepare for the laws. Twitter now, do you want another question or legislation or something about design?
Derek: Design
Fen: Should product designers include tab order and ALT tabs within design -- [inaudible]
Marcy: Yes
Derek: Also yes.
Marcy: I think so because it removes ambiguity about how the design should be executed and designers are thinking about that earlier. ALT text is a good example, rolls it means everybody is thinking about it earlier and I think that is a good training model for people in different roles, so if you have different ways of design, it is not relied on one designer. I think it is a fantastic way it works, so yes.
Fen: OK, we're going to go to questions in the room. As a note, guideline for questions, questions are like jeopardy, questions should be phrased in the form of a question or, unlike jeopardy, you should not be using your questions to prove that you know something. It should be about something that you don't know about that these two will know about, wasn't that cute? Thank you.
This gets to what Marcy said earlier, do you have advice for making accessibilities sustain ability in corporations?
Marcy: I think having it documented is a great way to do that, if you have, I don't know, some sort of portal or documentation on it and include accessibility about it and highlight your comment about make it future proof, if possible. Even if it is just a list of resources of where people can go and learn about that it means they are not having to go and ask somebody every time. If you have automated tests, write it in your automated tests for websites and that is a contract that takes accessibility into your website and it keeps someone from breaking something inadvertently. I think it is a culture thing, so if there are ways you can get people interested with lunch and learns and talks and maybe you have flyers with, you know, tip of the month or something there is all kinds of different ways you can implement that. I think it is just trying to think as a culture that everybody can become a part of that seems to be the most sustainable because you are spreading the knowledge around.
Fen: Derek, do you have anything to add?
Derek: I was going to go to culture because that is the cornerstone of sustainability or for it to live on. If you have culture in tools, sustain ability and if one goes away, the others support it and the other piece is a commitment to not just saying like, this is our process. Your process should change over time as you learn more. If you were where everybody in the organization -- it is a blanket statement, but people in the organization want to do the process now and forget it and never revisit it again that is the wrong way of approaching it, so acknowledging right up front that the only way to make it sustainable in the long run that we're going to review and talk about this retrospective and improve our process after every single project we do. We're going to do a formal thing every quarter or whatever we need to do to build it into the way we work. You know, we hear this all of the time where people will ask something, like why do we do it like this and people say because that is the way we have always done it. We want to use that to our advantage, like let's make doing it in an accessible way the way we always have done it and when we do that, we know we're kind of in the right place.
Fen: We'll go to a live stream question. Twitter is also asking this, so I don't think I can avoid it. I'm going to ask it in the way the Twitter asked it because I think it is funny. So what about this dominoes appeal for some explanation in the audience who aren't familiar, oh, boy. How do I break down this dominoes appeal? Do you want to explain it? I'm trying to be controlled when I talk about it. Essentially, Domino's was inaccessible to screen readers, I believe it is what it was. They had been sued and they are now appealing that lawsuit in the Supreme Court saying they should not have to because they should not be expected to do so because the department of justice has not laid out clear instructions.
Derek: I had a fight with my children over what pizza we were going to have one night because they wanted Domino's and I was like, no.
[APPLAUSE]
They were like, but why and one of my kids said because Domino's won't make their website talk right. So for me the bottom line is they're kind of -- the argument and I do not follow the case, but building on what you're talking about, what a lot of organizations do when they are faced with this, there is no clear guidance so we don't have to do it because there is no real clear guidance. Whatever. Like that is wrong. That is just wrong. I haven't followed the case. I know it is a case. I avoid the legal side of things as much as I possibly can because I don't enjoy that aspect and as a Canadian, things are here, so I don't know like Supreme Court what? A lot of the strategies and tactics that the organizations seem to use is they try to get out of things on a technicality because they want to say it didn't apply to us because of this and because of that and the reality is it probably wouldn't take that much -- I say take that much, I don't know. Like $500,000, $3 million, I don't know what it is, but they are probably spending in conjecture, I'm not a lawyer, they are probably spending more on legal fees than it would be to fix it. Part of the reason, I expect they are doing that because they don't want to be told by someone else what they can and can't do that is probably what it all comes down to. I'm going to cry now because I hate this stuff. This is ridiculous. It really is and that is my personal opinion, but it is ridiculous. We should not have this conversation that is the thing that hurts the most.
Marcy: I agree because of the cost to fix the site, I mean legal fees are not cheap, especially at that level at the Supreme Court. I don't know the official numbers either and I'm also not a lawyer, but at some point, it probably would have been cheaper just to fix the site.
Derek: $38,000.
Marcy: $38,000? Yeah, that is ridiculous. Wasn't Domino's fixing potholes in the road to make their delivery drivers get there faster? Hi, the irony there. Kind of absurd that they would do that maybe it is just this alternative universe where we're going to force the D. O. J. to make a decision and hopefully it will turn out for the best, but knowing it could go either way and I haven't been, like, I don't have any faith that is what they are trying to do but based on the arguments I read a little bit about.
Fen: Maybe do us a favor, go home or wherever you're going after this and tell two people that Domino's is trying to say their website doesn't haven't to be visible to people with disabilities, just do that. Cool. All right. I'm trying very hard to be neutral. Yay, all right, we have about five minutes left, so I'm going to do rapid fire questions and you are so excited to ask a question, so we're going to do go with you. Rapid fire questions.
All right, so let's say you're in a proactive position as a developer and you're at the table with business people and they -- they want to have accessibility in their product outside of hitting the legislation or compliance levels, what can you do to add, like use ability and accessibility into a project plan?
Marcy: I would go after it, sort of depending on there is people here knowing what your colleagues are excepted to, so I read people a little bit, so I adjust my tone and the way I talk to them knowing what might be most effective and that is always good to who you're talking to. One of the things I go towards to the most is talking about quality and if you make something that is a higher quality project, more people can use it, more people can give their money, you -- I think you hold it up as an example that is done great well that is a case study, get your team on board. I think there are a lot of angles that you can use that the company will be proud of and if you're a pivotal hire and they need you really bad, you probably have some leverage, maybe threat on the quit but don't quit. No, I would say this is the hill I'm going to die on and I fight for accessibility because it matters to me. Not everyone has that privilege to be in that position. I think for some people they are in that position and they can kind of throw their weight around a little bit, so there are different approaches. It depends on where you're at, what your team will be receptive to, but the sort of quality and dollars and sense signals work.
Fen: What if you already have that and you're like -- like they want to make a plan, does that make sense? Like they -- they want -- you're the knowledge expert and they are like how do I add accessibility? How do I plan for accessibility? How do I implement that?
Marcy: So it is on the mic, it is how to make it happen? I feel like that is true. The solutions for that, for me, I work at a Starbucks, so I need to have a solution or who is going to do that work, you know, going in with answers like this person is going to do this person, this is going to take this and like the more questions you can answer up front about who is going to do this, how long is it going to take? All of those questions, the more of those you can have answered upfront, the less you're putting the work on someone else to figure out and they are more likely to say yes.
Derek: I'm going to say real quick there is a lot of unknowns, so you don't need a whole plan, you just need some of a plan and if your team is all in on this, then you agree that every time you do something, you're going to keep revising the plan, how can we make this better? How are we going to make this better? How are we going to make this better? That should be enough of a plan to get you started and diving into that and building it into things like retrospectives and whenever you're doing something that gets it in and if everybody is all in, they already know there are unknowns so they should be comfortable with that discomfort and just go for it a little bit at a time. Always aim for better, better, better, abandon the notion of perfect.
Fen: Well, unfortunately, we're pretty much out of time here. I know, I know, but as one last question from me, anything you hoped you would get to talk to that you haven't had a chance to talk about or you want to plug this is a good time.
Marcy: I want to plug user testing and working with people with disabilities more, especially for those in design and developmental roles, maybe you don't have people with disabilities on your team, doing user testing is amazing because you have insights that not others have. Hire people with disabilities to work on your team. Getting more people at the table to give their insights and perspectives is super valuable so I want to plug that.
Derek: Two things that I did not get to talk about tonight that I want to but I could not work it into the conversation, for the first time ever, -- [indiscernible] my kids said you wear your old jeans and I have to wear these ones. I don't know why I told you that. The second piece of it is this is my plug, too. I agree with everything that Marcy said in terms of let's do as much user testing as we can, but remember when we're doing user testing, we are evaluating all of the things we decided as designers, developers, implementers, we made all of the decisions. My plug to you is, yes, do that and get people with disabilities involved. Don't just design for people with disabilities, design for people with disabilities so they have a hand and are valuable in creating the solution, not just evaluating the solution.
Fen: Wonderful. I know there are a lot of questions that were not answered, but we do have the lovely hash tag on Twitter that you can carry the conversation forward. Don't forget to follow the three of us on Twitter if you would like to do so. We do have a space until 8:00 and my understanding is there is still -- oh, yeah a ton of pizza and a ton of drinks and some unfortunate person will have to take that pizza home if you don't eat it. Follow accessibility Chicago on Twitter and we have a bunch of lovely events coming up, so follow us on meet up and on behalf of our lovely host, please out of our space by 8:00. I'm sure they would love to go home eventually, so please be respectful of them. Thank you again for being here and have a wonderful night, everyone.
[APPLAUSE]
Derek: Thank you, Fen, for moderating this.
Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility. CART captioning and this realtime file may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.