00:02
welcome I'm Frederick Philipp von weiss
00:04
and thank you for consuming the Thunder
00:06
nerds a conversation with the people
00:08
behind the technology that love what
00:10
they do and do tech good today we're
00:13
talking to Derek Featherstone welcome to
00:15
the show
00:15
thanks for having me yeah thank you so
00:17
much for spending a little bit of time
00:19
with us today
00:20
before your talk your speaking today at
00:23
two o'clock right just after lunch yeah
00:25
and today is Wednesday October 3rd and
00:28
you know there's been a lot of the
00:30
amazing speakers this whole week and
00:32
really been happy to get a chance to
00:35
speak to them and we're super happy to
00:37
speak to you today happy to be here it's
00:40
a it's an awesome event I love speaking
00:42
we had an event apart it's the premier
00:46
conference for sure so I'm super honored
00:49
to be on the speaking roster and then
00:52
they get some extra time with you it's
00:53
kind of cool too so yeah I think Eric
00:56
and Jeff have been doing this since 2006
00:59
so not mistaken it's it's it's been a
01:01
while so yeah that just keeps growing
01:04
and growing and the participation is
01:07
growing along with it and just such
01:10
amazing takeaways from this event yeah
01:12
so let me know let me read a little bit
01:14
about what you do Derek for us get the
01:16
people a little bit aware of you you are
01:19
a chief experience officer at level
01:22
access you are a teacher a speaker which
01:26
by the way I watched some of your videos
01:28
on LinkedIn learning that's pretty
01:31
awesome and you are a authority on
01:34
accessibility and inclusive design yes
01:38
sir yeah that's that is me in a nutshell
01:43
so I my career I was a high school
01:47
teacher for many many years
01:48
oh wow okay and so that's where the the
01:51
teaching piece of this kind of comes
01:52
pretty naturally to me I wanted to be a
01:55
teacher since I was 12 years old and
01:57
then I read and I taught on high school
01:59
biology chemistry computers and then I
02:03
left left that world but put my teaching
02:06
skills to use right away teaching people
02:09
about web design and and accessibility
02:11
as part of that as well so
02:13
that's kind of where all this the
02:15
speaking background comes from yeah and
02:17
you know I got into accessibility pretty
02:20
early in my so I once I left teaching I
02:24
started I started as a developer I was
02:26
like I can I can build some things I was
02:29
building websites for my students when I
02:31
was teaching so it made sense to I was
02:35
excited about it it was like the new
02:37
thing sure so I got into building you
02:42
know writing HTML writing CSS and
02:43
JavaScript and started building sites
02:45
for people and teaching people about it
02:48
and it just kind of kept going from
02:50
there
02:51
accessibility was a pretty natural
02:53
natural fit then you know here we are
02:56
this many years later and man this is
02:58
what I spend all my time on it's an
03:01
amazing that you had since you had that
03:03
teaching background you had that for
03:05
lack of a better term
03:06
the bug to share your knowledge and
03:10
provide some other tools for people to
03:13
not only know what you know but maybe
03:16
some of the things that we all might not
03:18
know you say now accessibility was kind
03:21
of a natural path or fit could you dive
03:25
into that a little bit like how was that
03:26
any natural fit yeah sure I mean a lot
03:29
of it came from experiences that I had
03:33
as a you know as a teenager and things
03:36
like that my I lived with my
03:38
grandparents for the summers because it
03:41
was easier to work in the city I grew up
03:44
out in out of the country Oh outside of
03:47
Ottawa so living with my grandparents in
03:49
the city made it much easier for for
03:51
working and that kind of thing so my
03:54
grandfather had a stroke in the mid
03:56
1980s and and so I kind of experienced a
04:00
bunch of those you know the challenges
04:02
and barriers that he faced you know with
04:05
with his disability after after his
04:08
recovery period for his recovering from
04:11
the stroke and he was you know mentally
04:13
he was he was all there there was no
04:15
long-term effects on on sort of his you
04:18
know the cognitive abilities but but he
04:21
you know his left leg and his left arm
04:23
were never really the same and he
04:25
couldn't really
04:26
left arm raised hand very much he wasn't
04:29
able to really bend his knee very much
04:30
in his left leg and so he walked with a
04:32
cane and and so there was lots of
04:34
physical barriers that I that I saw and
04:36
experienced with him and I helped you
04:39
know I I helped them and and him you
04:43
know kind of work around some of those
04:45
things and when I was teaching I was
04:49
very much into making sure that the
04:51
lessons that I was teaching were were
04:53
useful for everybody so I was teaching
04:56
sciences and you know a lot of people
04:59
have said things before like oh well you
05:01
either have like a scientific and
05:03
mathematical mind or you doped and and I
05:06
was trying to find ways to connect with
05:08
students that were like those students
05:11
were always going to do well in the
05:13
sciences and that's fun as a science
05:16
teacher I was like I want everybody to
05:18
have an understanding of scientific
05:20
concepts and scientific methods and
05:22
things like that so that they're kind of
05:24
more informed as they as they grow up
05:26
and get out into the world and so I'm
05:29
trying to find ways to connect you know
05:32
students that were more arts focused or
05:35
musically focused or you know really
05:39
good with sort of you know the English
05:41
or creative writing side how do I
05:43
connect science concepts for them hmm
05:47
and so that that was a really important
05:49
thing for me getting you know that
05:50
message this this message is important
05:53
for everybody regardless of their
05:54
learning styles or their you know their
05:57
their predispositions or their
05:59
preferences or whatever it was and so
06:01
when I started building sites it kind of
06:05
seemed really natural that this stuff is
06:07
for everyone right the web I was kind of
06:11
doing that at the beginning of the the
06:13
web sort of boom and it was like this
06:16
great platform that brought information
06:19
to everybody and I just wanted to make
06:21
sure that it was like it actually should
06:23
be everybody not just certain certain
06:25
people and so I got into that and and so
06:28
accessibility kind of float you know
06:31
float float a lot from that I think yeah
06:34
did you find that certain kind of you
06:35
talked about different kind of bringing
06:37
people and we could use
06:39
left brain right brain and a way to talk
06:41
about it did you find a certain kind of
06:44
a person that fit that a little bit
06:47
better as far as being able to consume
06:49
that information and and produce and
06:51
publish no I don't I don't think so I
06:54
think maybe certain you know certain
06:56
people like gravitated towards doing it
06:59
or were interested in it but I don't
07:01
okay I didn't really notice anything
07:03
that was like oh people that were left
07:06
brained or right brained were more
07:09
capable I think there was a lot of a lot
07:12
more or like and the initial interest
07:16
mm-hmm was who was maybe piqued by being
07:18
more of a right brained person versus a
07:20
left brained or something but I didn't
07:23
really notice anything that was like
07:24
anything that impacted their ability or
07:27
their you know capacity for actually
07:31
doing you know and publishing and that
07:33
sort of thing so yeah you know there's
07:35
all kinds of interesting things there
07:36
there's you know a long history of
07:39
things like multiple intelligence theory
07:41
and do ways of knowing is of being able
07:46
to express that you know something or
07:47
demonstrate that you know something so
07:49
there's yeah there's a ton that is
07:50
packed into it but but ultimately for me
07:54
it was like really obvious to me like
07:56
this accessibility you know
07:58
understanding accessibility and that
08:00
that these things are for everybody
08:03
regardless of whether people have a
08:04
disability or not
08:05
was like really obvious to me almost
08:09
right away and and so in kind of in 2005
08:12
ish I could have went all in on
08:14
accessibility I've been doing some
08:17
accessibility work before then but as of
08:19
2005 that was pretty when I said this is
08:21
the thing that I want to do it's
08:24
interesting because in the past we as a
08:27
community really didn't understand what
08:30
accessibility meant just was more like
08:33
yes of course I use headers and the
08:35
proper tags but they there wasn't maybe
08:38
the same level of relevance to their
08:43
every day now like maybe accessibility
08:45
is coming to a point where you know you
08:48
using a tool like Alexa or so I'm
08:51
voice technology and you say hey read
08:54
the recipe from that website and if it's
08:56
not marked properly that could be
08:59
another way to think about accessibility
09:00
yeah you know the that tends to be you
09:05
know I think of stuff like that you know
09:06
using the right markup and making sure
09:09
that things work in those kinds of
09:11
scenarios a lot of that is is more like
09:14
interoperability right yeah but you know
09:18
very closely related to that is
09:20
accessibility and so we and and I find
09:25
that my my understanding of this is is
09:28
always being refined and changing
09:30
because a little while ago we were doing
09:34
a usability test with a woman who
09:38
regularly uses Dragon NaturallySpeaking
09:40
which is its voice recognition software
09:43
she's been using that for years to
09:46
control and work with her computer and I
09:48
asked her questions sort of as a wrap-up
09:51
thing like just kind of further
09:52
exploration after we had tried to
09:55
complete the tasks that she was trying
09:56
to complete and I asked sort of like so
09:58
what other assistive technologies do you
10:00
use mm-hmm and I was thinking like maybe
10:03
she used you know there's there's other
10:06
tools that that people that use dragon
10:09
sometimes use like they'll use a tool
10:13
that has built-in macros so that they
10:16
can do the things that they did with
10:17
Dragon but they can do them five times
10:19
faster right yeah and so they might have
10:21
you know macro puss and so I was
10:23
thinking maybe she's gonna say something
10:24
about a piece of software that is like
10:26
you know a thing that does record macros
10:29
for her so that she can get through
10:30
things faster and she said and it I
10:34
hadn't really pieced it all together
10:36
until she said she said my favorite
10:39
piece of assistive technology is my
10:40
Amazon echo and I said tell me more
10:44
about that and yeah and it was when I
10:46
knew that that was a useful tool for
10:48
people with disabilities but she said
10:50
she said some days I don't have great
10:52
days and when I can use Alexa to open
10:59
the door when my care worker arrives at
11:01
least yeah or and I
11:03
and because I'm you know having a
11:05
particularly you know difficult day and
11:08
I'm not really able to get up out of bed
11:10
without you know tremendous effort or
11:12
really draining me
11:14
I use Alexa to turn off my lights in in
11:17
my place of like you know all things
11:20
that I had that I knew an echo and Alexa
11:23
integration was capable of I haven't
11:26
really it doesn't really come through in
11:29
my mind that that's a form of assistive
11:31
technology even though it was invented
11:34
that way or never really designed to be
11:37
that it's incredibly empowering or it
11:38
can be incredibly empowering for for
11:40
people with certain disabilities so so
11:42
that that was kind of a moment where I'm
11:44
like it wasn't it was really about kind
11:46
of interoperability side all the things
11:49
that people are doing with Alexa skills
11:51
and consuming data that way a lot of
11:54
that is pure interoperability it has
11:56
this great crossover between between
11:58
interoperability and accessibility you
12:02
know when you think about the
12:02
accessibility side of it and I'm a big
12:06
believer in in inclusive design and
12:09
ultimately I believe that when we design
12:14
with people with disabilities as like a
12:18
target as like a thing that we want to
12:20
make sure that people with disabilities
12:22
are included when we when we do that we
12:26
end up making it more interoperable we
12:29
end up making it yes it makes it more
12:31
accessible and more inclusive you know
12:33
it has all these other side benefits
12:34
that go with it
12:35
in terms of you know we've we've
12:38
designed with people with disabilities
12:41
in mind and embrace the men and empower
12:45
them within the inclusive design process
12:48
and ultimately we get to that point
12:52
where all of that has these other
12:55
societal benefits that that we just we
12:58
couldn't have even fathomed and so
13:00
designing with that in mind right from
13:03
the beginning is is really kind of a you
13:06
know that that's an interesting frontier
13:08
that we're kind of now embarking on this
13:10
is is achieving accessibility
13:15
through inclusive design mm-hmm I mean
13:18
we can achieve accessibility in a whole
13:19
lot of different ways
13:20
sure we can do it by accident we can do
13:22
it by you know we can we can make a
13:25
thing that's not accessible test it and
13:27
then go back and make it accessible and
13:29
retrofitted we can make a thing that's
13:31
not accessible and then say go and build
13:34
another version of it that is accessible
13:37
I mean this it's not cost-effective to
13:39
do that domain but we can achieve the
13:44
outcome of accessibility by doing that
13:46
right yeah I'm a big believer that doing
13:50
it through inclusive design makes it
13:52
much more intentional and it makes it a
13:54
much more effective repeatable
13:57
sustainable way to do rather than rather
14:01
than you know hey we got lucky we made a
14:04
thing and it turned out it was
14:05
accessible awesome fantastic we don't
14:08
know why but it worked out okay yeah
14:10
there's so many of scenarios of that
14:13
where what was the company where certain
14:15
people with white skin could put their
14:18
hand under the so thing and so we come
14:19
out and then other people would put
14:20
their hands on there and nose-up will
14:22
come out like there's there's so many of
14:24
those things that don't get tested and
14:27
now we're all being a little bit more
14:29
cognizant to the fact that we really
14:32
need to spend time and all these fronts
14:34
and invest in the research and do this
14:38
right the first time
14:40
Kukui minimal level product well and
14:43
that's you know I think that's that's
14:45
exactly it there's there's a lot of
14:48
different meanings for inclusive design
14:49
these days and a lot of people are
14:52
talking about inclusive design and when
14:55
they when they talk about inclusive
14:56
design they are thinking about and
14:59
referring to in a lot of cases like you
15:02
know racial diversity or gender
15:05
diversity or gender identity diversity
15:08
even age-related things absolutely but
15:12
but there's a lot of a lot of times when
15:14
we hear and see discussions about
15:16
inclusive design that aren't including
15:19
people with disabilities and an
15:21
inclusive design has a long history with
15:24
within the accessibility field and with
15:26
people with disabilities and we're
15:28
at this point where Haley don't don't
15:31
forget us we're being inclusive let's
15:33
not exclude people with disabilities and
15:35
so you know the lens that I put on
15:37
inclusive design tends to be working
15:40
specifically with people with
15:41
disabilities because that's the lens
15:42
that you know I am NOT was like there's
15:44
many many lenses to it and where you
15:48
know where I specialized is so that's
15:53
that's the lens that I that I kind of
15:56
have you know that's where my expertise
15:59
is mm-hmm
16:00
and I am fully aware that there's lots
16:04
of other lenses for inclusion that oh
16:08
gosh that are that aren't my specialty
16:10
that I'm still learning and stuff about
16:11
it all the time then we get into
16:13
intersection Howie where we have you
16:17
know multiple lenses that kind of
16:19
overlap you know what does it mean for
16:22
you know for a person of color that has
16:25
a disability that happens to be female
16:28
or you know like there's there's so much
16:31
wrapped up in there that that kind of
16:34
intersectionality is really a
16:36
interesting it's an interesting topic
16:41
but it's an interesting area for like
16:43
innovation and finding new ways of doing
16:45
things so yeah there's so many
16:47
opportunities out there that are just
16:49
waiting to be discovered
16:52
like you said there's there's lenses and
16:54
there's people that are gonna bring
16:55
light to these lenses to say hey you
16:58
know what let's let's look at this and
16:59
let's see yeah so uh I think we should
17:04
probably go ahead and talk about your
17:06
talk which is inclusive UX techniques
17:11
for everyone yeah so what does that mean
17:14
what inclusive techniques are skooby
17:17
inclusive UX techniques for everyone
17:19
work what what's let's dive into maybe a
17:22
breakdown of this what inclusive UX
17:24
means and then what techniques yeah so I
17:28
mean ultimately you know it for me
17:31
inclusive UX is you know we think about
17:34
the field of user experience design
17:36
right inclusive UX and inclusive design
17:40
is really
17:40
for me a practice where we're doing UX
17:45
work but we prioritize inclusion as a
17:49
core value right and and so ultimately
17:51
that's that's what that means for me so
17:54
what I'm going to you know dig into in
17:58
the talk is here's techniques that you
18:00
can use if you're a designer
18:02
here's techniques that you can use if
18:03
you're a developer here's the techniques
18:04
that you can use as a manager here's
18:06
techniques that you can use as a whole
18:08
team to really dig into the inclusion
18:12
side of things and be more inclusive in
18:14
your work and so that's you know that
18:17
these are techniques that will help
18:19
teams be more inclusive and it's not
18:22
like you know I
18:24
it's an hour little talk so it's not
18:26
like I'm saying like here's the only
18:28
techniques these are like tasters of the
18:30
techniques yeah that that people can use
18:33
to just make their work better and more
18:35
inclusive from the beginning
18:36
particularly include including people
18:39
with disabilities that's that's again
18:41
that's my lens so it's not that these
18:44
techniques are going to help improve the
18:48
you know diversity and other aspects in
18:51
terms of your design it's really about
18:52
how does this these techniques for
18:55
inclusion how do they help make your
18:58
product more accessible to people with
18:59
disabilities in the long run so I'm kind
19:02
of gonna dive into all those you know a
19:03
bunch of different techniques things
19:05
that are you know helpful for teams to
19:08
think about at the beginning of the
19:09
design process during the build process
19:12
afterwards all all throughout kind of
19:16
the life cycle of creating a product so
19:19
so who do you think are the main people
19:21
that should really be thinking about
19:23
this obviously we're talking about the
19:25
designers the experience / interaction
19:28
designers we're talking about developers
19:31
what about people in the QA like they
19:35
should probably be very cognizant of
19:37
what's going on here and let's look for
19:39
yeah I mean so ultimately it's everybody
19:43
yeah I kind of I would say even product
19:46
managers product owners even even people
19:50
had a company that had a
19:52
higher level they have they need some
19:54
kind of awareness of this as well so
19:57
that they have an understanding of what
19:59
their teams need to be doing so that
20:02
they can appropriately budget for it and
20:04
fell out of the right allow the right
20:06
you know amount of time so that when
20:08
somebody comes in and says hey I was
20:11
talking with a guy a few weeks ago just
20:15
like Twitter DM s and you're saying like
20:17
I'm really having trouble selling this
20:18
so I'm like yeah and I feel I feel that
20:21
pain because there there is sort of that
20:23
you know that that selling aspect of it
20:26
that needs to be done because not
20:28
everybody sees it as the right thing to
20:30
do they see it as an extra cost they see
20:32
it as can we do it on Phase two yeah
20:35
exactly and that's why you know that
20:38
whole tell you I talked about this a
20:42
little bit in my chocolate that's what
20:43
you know prioritizing inclusion as a
20:46
core value means is that no we can't do
20:50
it as part of Phase two if it's not in
20:52
there from the beginning our MVP that we
20:56
have put out there in the world is not
20:58
accessible all right so what does you
21:01
know what does viable mean yeah viable
21:05
has a lot of people think a lot of
21:07
different things about what viable means
21:08
but to me
21:09
in eration Xand and putting something
21:12
out that's viable that MVP needs to be
21:14
accessible in many ways as well so and
21:19
nothing is ever perfect that's the
21:20
beauty of MVPs is that when we put them
21:23
out there they're not perfect we
21:25
continue to iterate out them and make
21:27
them better accessibility should be part
21:29
of that as well so I'm a big fan of that
21:33
context so so ultimately you know
21:36
everybody has a role to play yes
21:39
definitely QA you know QA teams they're
21:42
their role though is part of the whole
21:47
you know we think of the testing that we
21:49
do if the only thing we're ever doing is
21:52
QA testing in order to validate like hey
21:56
did we meet the mark in terms of
21:57
accessibility then we are not including
22:01
people with disabilities in that process
22:04
and so I'm a big fan like yes QA the
22:07
heck out of things do as much testing as
22:10
you as you can do from from from QA
22:13
accessibility perspective but we need to
22:17
validate that with people who in the
22:20
community that have disabilities we you
22:23
know we can't exclude them from the
22:24
process so we want we want to do that
22:27
validation work with them so that people
22:29
with disabilities that are part of your
22:32
target market or our part of your
22:35
community as you know whoever you're
22:37
trying to serve if they can actually use
22:41
things and it's accessible to them
22:43
that's more important than it being
22:47
accessible to the QA team but then all
22:50
of this sounds like obviously obvious
22:53
things right this should be an easy sell
22:56
who is the person that is deemed
22:59
responsible to communicate this value to
23:03
say a c-level that might not get that
23:06
right away or look like we were talking
23:08
about sometimes it's hard to sell it
23:10
like how do you one sell it to a sea
23:13
level and how does that sea level sell
23:15
it to the customer yeah so you know I
23:19
don't know that a sea level person needs
23:22
to sell it to a customer okay ultimately
23:25
you know there's a there's a certain
23:27
piece of this where you know an
23:30
organization or a company can be like
23:32
this and I'm saying this being on the
23:35
outside I'm you know I'm not in
23:38
everybody's scenario but I also I'll
23:40
throw that caveat in front of saying
23:42
this but this is the way we do things
23:45
right everything that we produce is
23:47
accessible and you know it it doesn't
23:50
cost more it's just built in because
23:52
this is what it make what it means to
23:54
make a high-quality product and so
23:59
there's this service the piece of that I
24:00
don't know that a c-level person needs
24:02
to sell that to customers there's
24:05
certainly there's value in it we hear
24:07
more and more of our customers people
24:08
continue to come to us and and you know
24:11
to come to other accessibility agencies
24:14
up there people are asking for to learn
24:16
more
24:17
customers are actually starting to
24:18
demand it much more from from the
24:21
organization's so and so I went to their
24:24
business then that's so that to me is
24:26
you know there's a shift that's
24:28
happening there the customers are asking
24:31
for it which means they're actually
24:32
selling it to the company and the
24:35
c-level people are sort of like wow okay
24:37
we need to do something about this so I
24:39
think it kind of plays out a little bit
24:42
a little bit differently yeah ultimately
24:44
I think everybody has to be able to be
24:47
able to speak articulately or reasonably
24:50
articulate articulate funny but
24:55
everybody needs to be able to speak
24:56
reasonably articulately to the value
25:00
that that inclusion and accessibility
25:02
brings the other thing that you know
25:05
many of our our clients do is they have
25:08
kind of corporate social responsibility
25:10
initiatives they are they're committed
25:12
to things here's what we stand for as a
25:14
company in many of those cases diversity
25:17
and inclusion is making its way in to
25:20
you those corporate values and so that's
25:23
like the perfect in writing like it's
25:26
it's there you've said that you're
25:28
committed to this as part of your
25:30
corporate values absolutely so it's now
25:33
time to actually act on that and and and
25:36
and demonstrate that show show us with
25:39
your actions not just with your words
25:40
and so that's a that's usually a really
25:42
great way to start selling them know is
25:45
that you get it people that are already
25:48
committed to that sort of thing but they
25:50
don't know what it means to the day and
25:53
what that the impact of that is on the
25:55
day they work when you can point back to
25:57
it and say we're doing this because it's
26:00
part of our corporate values then that
26:02
goes a long way to kind of yeah I think
26:05
so what are some leave future things
26:08
that may be art on everyone's radar that
26:12
we need to look out for and obviously
26:15
and there might be things that are
26:17
trending that people talking about like
26:19
oh you know what within the next three
26:20
years we really need to talk about this
26:22
yeah and I don't even think it's in the
26:25
next three years I think
26:28
it's like discussions and some of this
26:32
talk is already happening now augmented
26:35
reality virtual reality the
26:38
accessibility of where's interfaces we
26:40
were talking about there you know
26:42
interestingly enough the and one of the
26:46
things that we have seen with
26:49
accessibility and inclusion from the
26:50
beginning is when you rely on a single
26:54
mode of input or output you're
26:57
automatically excluding certain people
26:59
I'm so so you know one of the one of the
27:02
ways that you know the early Amazon echo
27:06
and the Amazon has a great great
27:08
accessibility team and they are totally
27:10
into this but when the echo first came
27:12
out it was basically voice only
27:15
interaction but then they came up with
27:19
the Amazon echo show which has a visual
27:22
representation so now they've actually
27:25
released updates so that you could
27:27
actually see captions of what Alexa is
27:30
saying on the echo show so that somebody
27:32
that that you know wants to consume you
27:37
know the family has it but one of the
27:40
people in the family happens to be deaf
27:41
or hard-of-hearing those captions now
27:43
that are on me that are on the echo show
27:46
of a make cinema more how much more
27:49
inclusive device and more inclusive
27:51
experience so that's you know but that
27:53
reliance on a single modality that's a
27:56
that's a thing that we need to look at
27:58
because that that by definition creates
28:02
barriers yeah so you know how does how
28:05
does an echo work an echo and and Alexa
28:09
that entire ecosystem can work really
28:11
well for people with disabilities what
28:14
do we do for somebody or how do we
28:17
design with somebody in mind that has
28:20
say cerebral palsy that has difficulty
28:23
speaking or maybe somebody that just
28:25
doesn't speak at all for for whatever
28:27
reason you know what what do we what
28:32
other mechanisms are there to interface
28:34
with the echo so that it could still be
28:37
a really powerful tool but for somebody
28:40
that doesn't have the ability to speak
28:42
either
28:43
verily or permanently yeah and then some
28:45
of designing with that scenario in mind
28:47
and designing with people with
28:49
disabilities and getting into that space
28:52
to me is like that's kind of the that's
28:55
the future so any time we come up with
28:57
these new interfaces new technologies
28:58
new you know innovative ideas
29:02
that's like we're right for for
29:05
innovation and let's do so we typically
29:08
see in inclusive sort of UX work or user
29:12
research we see that done in two major
29:16
phases we see it at the end of the work
29:18
right to evaluate whether or not we hit
29:20
the mark what we're not doing enough his
29:22
things earlier on with people with
29:25
disabilities to find out what their
29:29
ideas are for solving some of these
29:31
problems or what they see before we've
29:32
ever built a solution what can we do
29:35
earlier in the process that helps us
29:38
come up with better and more innovative
29:39
solutions so you know I look at that
29:42
sort of thing and that's the kind of
29:43
conversation that I think will or it
29:46
should dominate the next X number of
29:48
years so we're talking about things with
29:51
augmented reality virtual reality and
29:53
whatever else we invent that to me is is
29:57
one of the things that we need to do to
29:59
kind of change the nature of the game
30:00
that's amazing and I think this is
30:03
probably a good time to talk about your
30:05
company as we said you're the chief
30:07
experience officer at level access so it
30:10
what if you don't mind telling us a
30:13
little bit about what the company does
30:14
and what you do have to go yeah so so
30:18
level access we've been we've been in
30:22
the accessibility space for decades like
30:26
we've been doing this for over 20 years
30:28
now and and we have you know as a
30:33
services team we have a software product
30:38
team and so ultimately what we do is we
30:40
work with companies that are interested
30:43
in accessibility that are trying to
30:45
figure this stuff out
30:46
that want to make the quality of their
30:48
work better from an accessibility
30:49
perspective and we help them not only
30:52
figure out where they are but what they
30:53
need to you know we're
30:54
need to get to in order to be doing
30:57
things really well and a big piece of
31:00
that includes figuring out what their
31:03
process is and how to update their
31:07
process and refine their process so that
31:09
they are being more inclusive from the
31:10
beginning so that accessibility has
31:12
built in from the get-go and putting the
31:15
programs in place you know putting
31:19
things in at a program level so that it
31:20
was like you know we deal with a lot of
31:22
large companies and small companies but
31:24
with a lot of large companies there's a
31:26
lot of moving parts sure and so it's
31:28
kind of like how do we do this
31:30
as an organization so that we know that
31:32
we're doing this consistently so that we
31:34
know that across our 48,000 employees
31:37
we've got a system in place that
31:40
automates things that can be on it that
31:44
builds in checks and balances to make
31:47
sure that the process is working that
31:48
accessibility been taken care of all the
31:50
way along and that we can measure it and
31:53
sort of say here's here's where we are
31:57
from an accessibility perspective so so
31:59
that's that's the work that we do we do
32:01
so it's it's you know consulting it's
32:04
testing it is helping with process it is
32:09
teaching it's you know all of literally
32:13
I don't want to say everything but you
32:16
know all of those different aspects that
32:19
you would need to run a successful
32:21
program we kind of work in all of that
32:25
space that's great so a company could
32:26
come to you and say hey you know we need
32:28
help with this project can you evaluate
32:31
yeah that and usually that happens like
32:34
a very typical pathway for people is we
32:38
know we've got work to do help us feel
32:42
go off we'll do some testing we'll work
32:45
work with those teams say here's the
32:47
thing we're finding will work with them
32:49
will then teach their teams to you know
32:51
over a sort of a short term but also a
32:54
long term thing help you figure out what
32:57
you need to know how to change your
32:59
process and then work like most a lot of
33:03
companies have like multiple products or
33:05
multiple things that they have so we
33:07
usually start with
33:07
take those lessons apply them everywhere
33:10
else and then get you know kind of help
33:13
people get on their way
33:14
teach them how to fish yeah yeah and as
33:17
a former teacher and I'm not even a
33:20
former teacher I'm still a teacher but
33:21
you know I'm a I'm a big fan of that you
33:25
know you give a person a fish and you
33:27
feed them for a day teach them to fish
33:30
you feed them for a lifetime there's
33:32
also a certain amount of fish if I don't
33:34
give you any fish while you're learning
33:35
to fish you're gonna starve so there's a
33:38
little bit there's a balance there
33:40
between I'm gonna teach you to fish but
33:42
along the way and why you can't catch
33:44
your own I'm gonna give you some so that
33:46
you're not starving and we we kind of
33:49
move down that pathway so there's
33:50
there's like very tactical things but
33:52
also very strategic things that we do
33:54
with with our clients and people come to
33:56
us and then people come to us for that
33:59
kind of work all the time so I don't
34:01
mind it so yeah yeah so I love the chief
34:04
experience officer and and that to me it
34:08
means like a.m. like c-level executive
34:11
which allows me to kind of you know
34:13
influence the things and you know how in
34:18
a very you know a very specific
34:21
direction and one of the things that is
34:22
a goal for me and why I wanted to be the
34:25
chief experience officer is that one of
34:27
that to kind of signal to to everybody
34:29
that accessibility isn't this checklist
34:33
thing that we do at the end of the
34:35
process
34:36
I've wanted to signify to everybody as
34:39
much as I could that this is part of
34:41
user experience right we we can build
34:44
things that are technically sound but if
34:47
we don't have a good design and we've
34:50
done you know create a perfect technical
34:52
execution on a design that's
34:54
fundamentally inaccessible we've kind of
34:57
missed the mark yeah so you know big
35:00
piece of it for me is is helping people
35:03
understand that this is part of user
35:06
experience it's not a it's not a thing
35:11
that is just for developers designers
35:15
have a role content creators and and
35:17
strategists have a role product teams
35:20
have a role
35:20
developers have enrolled testers have a
35:22
little everybody has a role it's not
35:24
just the domain of well I think we're
35:30
we're just about at the end here you
35:32
know I wanted to ask you if you have any
35:35
kind of final word for our excuse me for
35:39
our audience that couldn't make it down
35:40
to the conference any any advice or
35:43
anything you want to provide as
35:45
benevolent last words well I I think the
35:51
thing that I would encourage you to do
35:53
and then I will encourage everybody to
35:55
do this but you know pick one thing like
36:00
we're never going to be perfect right
36:03
we will never be perfect in terms of
36:05
accessibility but pick one thing making
36:07
without one thing better every week or
36:09
every sprint or one thing a month that
36:12
you want to look at ignore in your work
36:15
and make it more inclusive whether
36:17
that's you know you've included and
36:20
talked with a person with a disability
36:21
and and talked with them about the kind
36:24
of challenges that they're facing or you
36:26
have gone off and learn something new
36:28
and incorporated that into your work
36:29
from through some other means
36:31
pick one thing a month pick one thing
36:33
and sprint whatever it is just always be
36:35
looking to to make things better and
36:38
don't obsess with perfect I'm better I
36:43
will take 80% better than any day over
36:46
zero percent perfect yeah right so
36:49
always make things better and and pick
36:52
you know pick that one thing get really
36:55
good at that
36:56
and then add in another thing I want to
36:58
learn about I need to learn more about
36:59
how to design forms better for people
37:02
with low vision awesome go do that for a
37:04
month yeah I or go to that for two weeks
37:06
or whatever it is and then move on to
37:08
something else and just keep getting
37:10
better that's great advice
37:12
excellent third thank you so much really
37:14
vision coming on the show thank you yeah
37:16
Derek Featherstone and we'll have a lot
37:18
more coming up today thanks everybody
37:20
appreciate it