Accessibility Needs to be Continuous

Transcript

0:00 | David Dame
Good afternoon. Everyone. Welcome to the keynote today. What I’m going to be talking about today is accessibility needs to be continuous. We heard matt talk about the complexity of mobile development and mobile testing. But as somebody with a disability and I’ll give you a bit of my background. In a second. There hasn’t been any better technology than mobile devices to give independence and agency to people with disabilities. It’s really allowed us to leave the home and be able to bring compute with us where we’re not just tethered to the desk or near a computer device rather the technology that enables us can follow us wherever we go. So a little bit about who I am. I was born in 1971 and my parents were told Dave may not live past 12. Dave may not be able to speak clearly if at all. And even if he does don’t expect much because there’s not much that someone like Dave can do in this world. They actually advised my parents to put me in an institution. Now that sounds harsh. But in 1971, that was the status quo. And luckily for me, my parents were very blue collar and they didn’t want to make that one single decision that was going to impact the rest of my life. And I couldn’t have been born at any better time in history with a disability because in about 14 years, there was going to be rights that would allow me to go to a normal school, get a university degree and have a career. And there was going to be this new thing called technology that was going to enable me to go further than anybody else could have done with a disability. In years previous. My parents fought hard to get me into school before there was rights. So I got to school and I started using technology because it wasn’t my cerebral palsy that held me back. Rather the mismatch in the environment to accommodate my cerebral palsy is what held me back. But technology was going to close that margin. And I remember being in high school trying to decide if I wanted to go to business or technology for university. And I couldn’t make up my mind and my dad walked down the stairs and said, David, let’s be honest, being in a wheelchair, you’re not going to be a fireman, you’re going to be a police officer, or a construction worker, but, you know, what else? You’re not going to be living under my roof for free the rest of your life. So you better figure it out. And so I went to school. I was in for engineering, did a lot of technology, did a lot of testing. And then I moved. To product management. I worked at numerous companies adopting delivering product to market. But for 14 years before I entered accessibility, I did agile where I helped organizations deliver to customers quicker in all different kind of sizes, either startups that wanted to scale up or large companies that wanted to act more like a startup, whatever it was. I helped change them. And I actually before I joined Microsoft, I became a vice president at a global financial institution. Think about it as a visible disability. I was able to break the glass ceiling. And when the pandemic hit, like most of us, I really thought about what is it I want to do with my life? You know, I’ve done a lot of great things in technology. Now, what, and I did a leadership talk for Microsoft and they started pursuing me and this position came up where it was to lead the accessibility portfolio for windows and devices. Although I’m in a wheelchair. I never really advocated for accessibility in my early years because I never seen others like me so I didn’t know. And I always thought how ironic would it be to do it in a wheelchair preaching about accessibility? So I avoided it. But now that I became an industry leader and have done so many things, been married, had a lot of great things traveling the world. Now, my wife convinced me to join, she said if you join Microsoft, you’re going to help others like you achieve the things you did hopefully with a lot less effort because at my age, I was the canary in the cave. So let’s think back to the seventies, eighties and nineties. There was a time where there wasn’t even ramps to get in the building. Architecture was terrible and, you know what? You even had to get off the chair to turn your own channel. It was before remote controls, but the world was about to change. We’re going to see what the power of diversity would be crucial. So why I like diversity? It’s not for an HR play but I think if you hire all different people with different backgrounds, disability, ability, different cultures, different, whatever you build a more resilient team that really gives you multiple perspectives, different experiences, new ideas and a dynamic tension. Let me share with you an example from my career. After I graduated from university in the nineties. The first job I could get was a training logistics coordinator at a major automotive company. And my first job was a lot of paperwork. If you see my hands, paperwork wasn’t made for them. So what was taking my peers eight hours a day to be able to sign up students and put them to the logistics was taking me 12 hours a day. So it took me four hours longer each day. And I would work that over time just to keep up with my peers. But you know, in the nineties think back. That was before there was a computer on every desk. I was the first one to get a computer on the desk and there was this new thing called the internet that I thought was going to be a big deal. So I designed a website where people could sign up for their own training and the places that wanted to host. It could sign it. What was taking me 12 hours a day was now only taking me three hours a day. I was like who’s disabled now? And it wasn’t like I was smarter than anyone else. But because it was a problem for me first, I decided to solve it which made it better for everybody. So I became from being the outlier, to creating an organization where they were all the outliers because I used technology to really transform in the things we did. But that was the start. The beauty is technology was moving from less stationary to more mobile. So now, how do we bring this innovator? This huge thing that allows people to accomplish more in a mobile device? So you bring your compute with you wherever you’re out through the day. But the challenge is when we’re designing, sometimes we forget to design for accessibility upfront. And just like in testing, we always want to move it left. So too do we want for accessibility? Because if we don’t design with it upfront, it becomes an afterthought. So I’ve always lived the barrier where technology was starting to allow me to enable everything. But then as technology evolved and if accessibility wasn’t to the left or upfront, just like we want testing, it became a lagger where I couldn’t use it. When the computer first came out, it allowed me to type use spreadsheets to move quickly. It was the greatest productivity tool ever. But then the mouse came and the mouse was an input device that I struggled with using. So what was enabling me now was limiting me. I had to wait until we thought of other multimodal inputs like a trackball or like now there’s other input devices that allow to interact with the technology. When you’re designing for mobile or technology, the key?

9:20 | David Dame
multimodal input, how do we find multiple ways for people to input? Where on the mobile device, it could be typing on a touchscreen or why not use voice? Somebody like me uses voice anytime because disability is complex. You can’t find one solution that solves all. The only way you can build and test for accessibility is through multimodal input. And this happens more than just productivity. But even in gaming, I remember when I was a kid going to regular school, the beauty thing, was there was an Atari 2,600. It allowed me to be in a video game. So not just so I could play video games, but it gave me the social platform where I could make friends. I could play with them, compete with them and even score against them. And I got really good where I could talk junk with them. But the problem is as games evolve, the controllers went from one joystick to a button to what you see in front of you multiple buttons and switches. It turned out to be that I could play real hockey easier than video game hockey because the controllers were leaving me behind. And this is constantly the mismatch that always happens as we evolve technology. If we don’t think about accessibility up front, it becomes the lagger, and at Microsoft. That’s when we designed the xbox game controller. So you’ll look at that controller and go what’s the big deal about that? And how do you do it with multitudes of disabilities of different mobile challenges and maybe different interactions? Remember, the only way to solve for complexity is flexibility. So as you can tell all the buttons along the top of the controller, they actually allow input switches. So people can customize the way they want to interact and find the right input for them to be able to do that. And we were always told when we designed this that we’re very innovative and innovation comes with, you know, what have we always heard about innovation? Solve for problems that people don’t know exist yet? And that is the beauty of disability because mismatches are easy to see if somebody doesn’t have a disability and runs into a challenge. They’re easy to mask it because of their ability, they can compensate for it where they don’t realize it’s a mismatch where if you study with people with disabilities, that becomes a fault stopping issue. That now we can study it, understand what’s blocking them and solve the problem to make it possible for them. But it makes it easier for everyone else. I always like to say if accessibility is the solution, then disability is the opportunity. And when we design for disability, that makes it possible through one. Means of input and output. It gives everybody else multiple ways to choose from what they prefer. Depending on the situation. Now, we’ve seen a lot of problems we solve for disability, become kind of commonplace for everybody else to use. Now, closed captioning was originally designed for deaf people. Now, if you go into a bar, your environment can prevent you from listening, but you can still follow the game on TV when closed captioning is on, what if you’re a new parent and you’re trying to put your children to sleep? Now, you can follow your TV shows with closed captioning without wakening the house or the young ones. Voice commands were originally made for someone like me with mobile or dexterity challenges where we used it to really dictate large volumes of text to get content. Now, I watch all of you on your phones dictating and you get just as frustrated as I do when you’re dictating and they get it wrong. That’s what I call equality. Now, we can be equally frustrated. And even texting was originally made for deaf people to have conversations. We can argue that teenagers are hard to hear. But texting has became for everybody. And I bet half the people here today use audio books or podcasts that was originally made for people that were blind. But now everybody uses audio books when they can’t move their eyes from what they’re doing. For example, if you’re commuting to work and you want to keep up on your books. Now, you can play your audio books because your eyes are supposed to be on the road. Now, you’re able to do multiple things by using these things that were once accessibility features now are wide open for everyone else. And this is how I like to really kind of outline how we see disability and opportunity. There are people with permanent disabilities through the way they think speak, hear, see or touch that you’re either born with it or you get an accident which makes a permanent. For example, for touch, you could have one arm, right? You’re born or you lost a limb throughout your life. So we always got to make sure we have multiple ways to interact that might not require two hands, or if it’s a temporary solution, you could break your arm, hurt, your elbow. So temporarily you have a disability, but you still need a multimodal way to do it. There’s. Maybe situations where you want an arm isn’t available, like if you’re rocking your baby to sleep, or maybe you’re in court and you got to find a different way to do your paperwork and come up with a way to do a lot of tax. So when we design for the permanent or temporary, we also get the situational. You heard me about being able to see. So either you’re born blind.

16:32 | David Dame
Or you might have a cataract but then you know what you might need your Siri or your android bot to be able to speak to you because you can’t take your cars off while you’re driving. So when you design for accessibility, you’re giving users the opportunity to be able to interact with your technology no matter what the situation and no matter what the environment is. And we call this inclusive design. And inclusive design is one of the principles is you design for one and extend to many. So that’s like looking at one person with one type of disability, really study it and really figure out what the uniqueness is or the exclusion of it is. And then you design and build for it and then you adapt to it. Then you use the inclusive design process and tools to know that we’ve solved it for one. What are other diverse perspectives, accessibility tools and participation? Can we do to really extend that with solving for one and extend to many? Like what I shared before, whether it was an audio book, whether it was many different things, how do you get it to enable everyone? And that’s the power of using an inclusive design process. You start with one, you begin to understand the problem, look at the problem in a whole different lens and then look at a broader beneficial impact where everybody can use it. Just like what we shared previously… now, when you’re advocating for designing accessibility and invest in it, there’s three usually things I look at there’s the responsibility which everybody gets there’s, equity what everybody gets. And before I was in the field, I noticed those were the two things people weighed on. But remember, I came from product and other non accessible products. I also want to talk about the return on investment for when you design for accessibility, you’re extending your user base and you’re getting to reach more and more users, but you need the ability to influence. I always like to say there’s storytelling that might convince the hearts and minds to invest in it. But there’s also data. I always like to say stakeholders speak two languages, powerpoint and money. So you need to be able to talk about the hearts and the logical sense to do it. But here’s the real business case to do it. In 20 30, there is going to be 2,000,000,000 people that actually identify as having a disability. 2,000,000,000 people, let’s think about that. That’s 2,000,000,000 customers that’s 2,000,000,000 users. If we found another country on the planet with 2,000,000,000 people that we haven’t sold hardware or software to, we would instantly be going up to that market right away. But the truth is we have 2,000,000,000 people all around us that if we don’t think about building for inclusivity and accessibility, we’re leaving 2,000,000,000 people, 2,000,000,000 potential customers to the side that’s money which we could be having. And really there’s a benefit of really the same product metrics. Why we invest in accessibility. There’s acquisition, right? The more open we are to be able to our software and hardware to handle people of all abilities or people with disabilities. And everyone else, we get higher acquisition numbers because we’re not excluding them from the beginning. And then if we make it good, they activate and we keep them and a great retention and they refer people to the product because they see them using it, how it enables their life and it brings revenue. We’ve all heard about the lifetime value of a customer, right? That if you get a customer early, the longer you have a customer, the more profitable it is and less effort it is to keep that customer happy. There was a saying I once said when I first joined Microsoft, an executive went to me and said, Dave, why should I give a damn about accessibility? And I said we’re all going to be disabled someday? Just some of us beat you to it. So when you design for someone like me today, you’re actually designing for your future selves. So if we know this is where the market’s going. If we know this is where every user is coming. If we have technology that meets their needs throughout their whole ability lifecycle, we can build that customer loyalty and keep them and make them our most profitable customers as we go. And this is why I always say we’re all going to be disabled. Someday. It’s just a matter of time. We’re all there with it. When I was a product maker, the first thing I was told was design for the masses. So if we look at this problem, we look at the center. We’re always told to design for where the majority of the users are. That was false. If we design for the edges, we get everybody else in the middle. So when we design development tests for the extreme, we get everybody along the middle. And when I used to work at a financial institution, they were going to build a banking app and I was leading the teams that were designing and building it. And they said, Dave, we’ll put accessibility as a version two point o and I’m like, you know what? I have cerebral palsy, but my money doesn’t so if you want my money, you better build a product from day one that I can use or I’m going. To spend my money elsewhere, it’s good business designing developing and testing for accessibility because that’s a market we need to go after there’s an aging population we need to go after. And I always like to think about the pandemic. We all had those older relatives that used zoom or teams for the first time and they were using it and we could all see up their nose as they were holding the screen. If we didn’t design technology to really enable them, that would have been the difference to be able to talk to them during the pandemic to say, I love you one more time and regret. So the best way to design for accessibility like I showed in the process earlier is designing people with the disability. And it’s also, how do you do that? You actually hire and make sure you have diverse teams? I always like to say the people who build our products should be reflective of those people who use our products. Oops, there’s a spelling mistake there. I’ll have to fix that. But the thing is we create global products now, especially in mobile devices, we’re localized where we go everywhere. But the thing is we need to be reflective of all our different kinds of users. So we build that from day one. So we make sure we build the product that everybody wants to use, can use with that upfront because it’s more than just designing accessible features. It’s about what people can achieve and experience. Because of that technology. It’s not just my banking app makes it accessible for me to use. It allows me to pay bills. It allows me to live on my own. It allows me independence. It’s more than the technology features. It’s what people achieve because of the technology. And now we’ve enabled. I’ve been able to be where I am, I’ve been able to design but it’s all about really getting upfront early and designing it from the beginning because it’s technology that all of you are going to use. So how do you get this from your stakeholders? You really kind of have to get buy in from the top and everywhere else we’re going to go. And it’s really connecting with everybody to be able to get them involved in use, start measuring the usability, start measuring the numbers that you have pre accessible features and post accessible features. Remember, if you wait too late, you might exclude people from ever trying your product again. You get one time to do a first experience. And I know this is really hard. I know what I’m asking is pretty much challenging for a lot of people but you have to imagine the world, what it’s going to be because if I look back to my life when I was born, somebody like me didn’t exist. Luckily, my parents could imagine something different. Luckily, I was able to push through the challenges. I had to struggle in silence where hopefully no one needs to now. And whether you have a disability you recognize to or not, everybody knows what it is to struggle, everybody knows what it is to be excluded. But technology is the platform that is complex challenging and brings everybody together. It makes what was previously impossible possible. And if you can look at the world differently, if you can see a different world, then you’ll have a different world available to you. Now, I’ve left some time for Q a because I would love to really discuss more about how do we create a more inclusive workplace? How do we create more inclusive mobile products? And how do we make sure we’re doing it from the beginning and testing at the end. I’m going to look at the chat here to see if there’s any questions or Q a… oh thanks, Kara, designing for a future self. So if you have any questions, feel free to pop it into the chat or is it the Q a? Oh, here we go. Do you have a top three that some of us who may not let me read more here? I’m trying to learn the tool too. What are the three… top things you can focus on? Starting with? Great question, Chris, I would say start with multimodal input and output, especially when it comes to mobile device. I know when I was designing one at a company I was working for, I came in because they were presenting it to me as a stakeholder and I said, did you guys try it with voice and they’re like, no, we never thought of that. And luckily, the iPhone iOS and dictation really handled it by luck. So when you’re designing mobile applications, try to think of, is there multiple ways to input keyboard and voice and different ways of output? Can it be read and can the device read the text? So that way they can either read it or listen to it… and think about different ways to even visually see it. What does your app look like when it is on a high font and high contrast? So those are the three things, multiple input, multiple output and really validating that your design looks properly in any different font size. Hopefully that answered your question.

29:58 | David Dame
All right, my friend. Do you have any questions?

30:01 | Adam Creamer
Yes, I wanted to pop in and just say, thank you so much. I know I had a few people direct messaging me during this saying it was a great session. So, I think you have some new followers. I’m looking at Woodrow’s comment here in the chat as well. Worked for a company that didn’t care much about accessibility until they wanted to get a contract with the us government. And then all of a sudden they got a care.

30:25 | David Dame
Well, this is the thing too. I want to tell people. People think accessibility is just compliance. And I’m like just because I can use your product, doesn’t mean I would choose it. So don’t build it just to simply meet compliance standards, build it great that I want to use it and I want to choose it that I want to spend my valuable money to actually utilize it. And I know we get caught up in the compliance thing a lot. But I think compliance is like the barrier to entry. But if you start building it where it’s exceptionally usable, it helps everybody.

31:07 | Adam Creamer
Yeah, absolutely. And I think you touched on that with the slide too, where even if you are an able bodied person, you may have a temporary or situational thing that has to be dealt with. And accessibility just really does help all of us.

31:21 | David Dame
I like this. Do you recommend any tools for testing accessibility? I don’t really have a preference on any automated tool that I think a lot of ides have naturally, I’m a big I’m old school. I rather just you get users of different disabilities and when you get to watch them use it because what automation doesn’t show you is the cognitive load or challenge it is for them to perform a function because I think accessibility one point. Oh, and this is just Dave’s opinion. I think it stops short of simply making it possible where I think in accessibility two point, oh, we got to start making it a great experience because we’re noticing a lot of accessible features get abandoned and I think because the automation shows it’s possible, but we don’t really appreciate even though we made it possible, we don’t see the user struggle that it takes them now that it is possible. So understanding the cognitive load and the easiness of using it, I think really amplifies the need for human manual testing. I’d use automation like we do for all unit tests to make sure you have your tab, order, your tags and all those things for the compliance standards. But don’t ever shortcut the user testing?

33:00 | Adam Creamer
Absolutely.

33:04 | David Dame
Thanks Sean for your comment.

33:09 | Adam Creamer
Yeah. There were a couple questions I saw in the chat as well. Let me try and find them.

33:17 | David Dame
Oh, wait, Sean had a question. When I extended it, have you seen accessibility needs ever framed out as better UI? And that has a better chance of getting approved.

33:30 | David Dame
I beg borrow and install. So I’ve used that approach too to show that if we create a user interface where the buttons aren’t too close together, it also helps people that might be thick thumbed might have arthritis or an easier target to land, not that they should be using their device while driving, but if they happen to use their device while driving, it makes it easier for them to multitask.

34:04 | David Dame
I didn’t mean to cut you off, Adam.

34:06 | Adam Creamer
No, you’re good. I think the Q and A comes first. Yeah. So we had a couple questions in here from tam Lee. The first one is what are some of the challenges of mobile accessibility testing from your experience? And then the kind of follow on to that is what are some best practices specifically for mobile accessibility that you’re aware of?

34:29 | David Dame
The biggest challenge, for mobile devices is… you’re limited to the multimodal inputs you can do because of the portability of the device. Sure you can connect bluetooth peripherals, that would help. But then it doesn’t make it any portable, right? So, I think the nature of the portability it needs becomes the real challenge. So that’s why you have to use everything the phone naturally has and even the camera as an input method. I’ve noticed apple recently is starting to use head tracking on their iPad to be able to easily select different icons because the camera can follow where you’re looking on the screen. So try to utilize the native things that do that. And what was the second part of that question? Adam?

35:29 | Adam Creamer
The second part of that question were, are there any best practices specifically for mobile accessibility that you’re aware of?

35:39 | David Dame
Best practices, just multimodal, right? I know I’m a broken record, but if you do that, you cover a big chunk of things to go, the real challenge is the difference between android and iOS. IOS is further ahead in their accessibility journey than android, but Google is actually really doing a lot of good things to help enable developers to use their accessibility features out of their ides. So learn what classes and IDE accessibility features is built in your programming thing, and try to leverage those and just join a lot of meetups with accessibility and… make friends with people with disabilities, right? And just watch learn and observe what they need to do. Because then you understand by using the IDE and automation tools you coded to standard. But then by watching and observing, it gives you ideas how to go beyond that, just like in normal testing where we learn from users and use cases on the edge cases kind of use the same approach but for a specific segment of users. Yeah.

37:11 | Adam Creamer
Absolutely. I have an offline question here from one of my colleagues. Actually, are there any standards for accessibility that you recommend? I know in our world, we kind of come up against W3 C a lot, but are there anything specifically that you think is worth paying attention to?

37:29 | David Dame
Well, W3 C gives you the right to RFP for things, right? So it’s your barrier to entry. So nail that one. But look at inclusive design practices and really kind of amplify that. And if you put that in your RFP, it’s going to make you stand above everybody else that might be using an automation checker.

37:58 | David Dame
like the shameless plug by Kara. Thank you for the link on mobile accessibility testing. And this is, you know, when I see Kara post that, it kind of brings a smile to me because when I was born in the seventies, my disability was my parents’ challenge. And my challenge. Now, it’s comforting to see that organizations like your organization is caring about accessibility too and being an advocate for it, not just the people impacted by it and as somebody that’s kind of been through the whole spectrum of this? That is so heartwarming to see. Thanks Kara for sharing that?

38:53 | Adam Creamer
Who could have thought a shameless plug would be heartwarming?

38:56 | David Dame
Exactly.

38:59 | Adam Creamer
Excellent. Any other questions from the audience… was?

39:05 | David Dame
This worth your time? Did I put you to sleep?

39:09 | Adam Creamer
I mean, I think from my perspective and the few people that reached out to me directly, this was an amazing session. I had quite a few folks ask me if this is going to be available on demand as well. So I think they definitely want to share it with some colleagues and coworkers also.

39:24 | David Dame
And please follow me on LinkedIn. If you have any questions after. I’m, always more than happy to answer and might not respond right away because I use voice to text. So I got it dictated afterwards, but I’m always here to make sure we help everyone and leave no user behind.

39:46 | Adam Creamer
Absolutely. Yeah, I think accessibility is more about usability at this point than specific individuals. So thank you so much, David. Well.

39:55 | David Dame
What I’ve been calling accessibility for a lot of part is relevant… because you heard me say we’re all going to be disabled someday, just.

40:05 | Adam Creamer
Similar to it.

40:07 | David Dame
So we can’t just call it accessibility. It’s going to be where you need to go because that’s where all your user base will eventually be what’s better to keep them is to knowing your platform and knowing the flexibility that they can use by using those features as they need either by preference because a lot of times now I’ll let a screen reader read my blog post while I’m checking my email even though I can visibly read. No problem. It allows me to multitask. But if I ever lose my vision as I age now, I know that tool is available when it’s not just a different or alternative method to consuming. It might become my only choice. So when you design for accessibility, it’s the only path for some users, but it gives every other user a multitude of choice.

41:05 | Adam Creamer
Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Well, hey, we have a few minutes before the next session begins. So if any other questions come through, we’ll grab them while we can. And then David, you’re more than welcome to hang out with us throughout the event. I’m sure people can ping you through the chat as well. So thank you again, this was an amazing session.

41:26 | David Dame
Thank you for having me and thank you everyone for your great questions and engagement. I’m hoping at least even if half of you can carry things forward, it’s moving the movement further for greater products, wider user base and enabling everybody.

41:46 | Adam Creamer
Well said.

41:51 | David Dame
Thank you. Everyone. Enjoy the rest of your conference.