Artwork for podcast The Digital Accessibility Podcast
Shaun Conner - Head of Accessibility at Monzo Bank
Episode 66th October 2023 • The Digital Accessibility Podcast • Joe James
00:00:00 01:00:15

Share Episode

Shownotes

A new episode of The Digital Accessibility Podcast featuring Shaun Conner, Head of Accessibility at Monzo Bank. We discuss Shaun's experience starting out as a web developer and moving into the Accessibility space. Realising that Digital Accessibility is not just one team or one persons' responsibility. The work that Shaun is currently doing to raise more awareness for Digital Accessibility and what businesses can be doing ahead of new EU regulations. Implementing Accesssibility a practice level so that it is a fundamental thing all stages of the SDLC are considering.

Resource Links:

Joe's Social Media Links:

Shaun's Social Media Links:

Transcripts

Speaker:

Hi and welcome to the Digital Accessibility Podcast, sponsored by PCR

Speaker:

Digital, who provide people centric recruitment. Throughout this series, I'll

Speaker:

be interviewing professionals who work within the field of accessibility to share

Speaker:

their expertise, journeys and general thoughts on the key issues facing the

Speaker:

industry today. My aim is to provide an in depth look into the world

Speaker:

of digital accessibility and the impact it has on everyone. The goal is to

Speaker:

bridge the skills gap in the current market and inspire other people to join

Speaker:

the movement towards a more accessible digital world. So whether you're a

Speaker:

seasoned professional or just starting out, I hope that this platform will

Speaker:

provide you with valuable insights and practical advice from experts and

Speaker:

advocates within this extremely important community. So sit back, relax, and I

Speaker:

hope you enjoy the chat.

Speaker:

Today.

Speaker:

I'm joined by Shaun Connor, who is Accessibility and Inclusion Strategy

Speaker:

Manager at Monzo Bank, the bank that lives on your phone, who are on

Speaker:

a mission to make money work for everyone. Shaun has also worked as an

Speaker:

accessibility lead for the HMRC and spent eleven years within development and

Speaker:

leadership for the NHS. He's an excellent keynote speaker, experienced front end

Speaker:

developer, specialising in web accessibility, digital inclusion and

Speaker:

accessibility standards. Welcome to the podcast, Shaun.

Speaker:

Thank you very much. That's a very flattering when you read it like that,

Speaker:

it sounds like I've done loads, but I promise you it's not that it's

Speaker:

not that impressive.

Speaker:

Well, eleven years working through the ranks at the well, nearly twelve years

Speaker:

working through the ranks at the NHS. I think that's impressive to that'd be

Speaker:

impressive to most people.

Speaker:

No one can tell you you're not.

Speaker:

Loyal or committed to the cause, right?

Speaker:

Well, that's it. And it's, it's weird when you're, you're in a place

Speaker:

like that because you almost become a little bit institutionalised. And then

Speaker:

when I was looking for a new job, I realised, actually, the world

Speaker:

outside of this, there's like, much higher paying jobs for this line of work.

Speaker:

There you go.

Speaker:

Yeah. Interesting stuff.

Speaker:

But then, I guess, obviously being the Digital Accessibility podcast, the first

Speaker:

question I was going to ask you is if you can tell us a

Speaker:

bit about your first experience with Digital Accessibility and if it was a

Speaker:

passion. From day one, you get a lot of passionate people in the space.

Speaker:

Or if it's something that took you some time to sink in. Because I

Speaker:

know that, like I said, your background's in the sort of development and technical

Speaker:

kind of space.

Speaker:

Yeah. So it's a good question. While I was working at the NHS,

Speaker:

there was a conference, and I think it was called Future Gov, if you've

Speaker:

heard of that. They were like a really good conference and it wasn't an

Speaker:

accessibility conference, but one of the speakers who was there was called Kat

Speaker:

McCauley, and Kat was Head of Design at the Scottish Government and she was

Speaker:

a very sweary Glaswegian who was just fed up. She was disabled as well

Speaker:

and she talked very passionately about, first of all, it was around physical

Speaker:

barriers and accessible toilets and hotel rooms. And then she sort of transitioned

Speaker:

into the digital side of it and just talking about how really there's no

Speaker:

need for any of this stuff to be inaccessible because we have the

Speaker:

technology now to make things fully accessible. So I was sat at this

Speaker:

conference and I just remember sitting there so inspired by the talk, and

Speaker:

she was effing and blinding and it was very right down my street. And

Speaker:

I remember thinking in the moment when she was talking, I'm like, well, I'm

Speaker:

a front end developer, i can fix almost everything that she's talking about

Speaker:

here. And I know how to do that. You know, I met Kat after the

Speaker:

talk, and I was speaking to her for a little while, and I'm like,

Speaker:

listen, that has just lit a fire under me, because I can take what

Speaker:

you've experienced and start to fix some of this stuff. So I came away

Speaker:

from that conference and at the time I had a small team of front

Speaker:

end developers and I was sort of advocating for it. And then in 2018,

Speaker:

the public sector accessibility regs came in, so it was like, all

Speaker:

right, okay, I know all this stuff, but now we legally have to do

Speaker:

it. So it almost by accident became my job. And because I was inspired

Speaker:

by Kat and started running accessibility talks at the NHS, and then with

Speaker:

the public sector regs, when all that stuff come in, it was like, right,

Speaker:

well, I get to do this as part of my job now. So went

Speaker:

on after that to lead the full remediation piece at the NHS. So there

Speaker:

was a lot of things that we needed to fix. We had to put

Speaker:

accessibility statements on literally hundreds of services. The second part of

Speaker:

that was like, going and fixing some of the stuff, so it meant upskilling

Speaker:

some of the team. And suddenly I found myself in a sort of accessibility

Speaker:

leadership role and I enjoyed it at the NHS, but it wasn't very mature

Speaker:

as a process. It didn't really have the top down support that it needed,

Speaker:

which ultimately meant that I left and joined HMRC, where, as you say I was

Speaker:

an accessibility lead, there so much sort of better set up. There was one

Speaker:

of the bigger accessibility teams in government and I led the Audit and

Speaker:

Assurance Team. So my team was like seven people. Then there was, I think

Speaker:

the same on another team around compliance and governance, and then there was more

Speaker:

people and contractors and stuff. So it was a breath of fresh air when

Speaker:

I went there and it was like, these folks know what they're doing with

Speaker:

this stuff. And then, obviously now I've joined Monzo to focus on strategy, so

Speaker:

it became a passion, I suppose. To answer your question. And as soon as this industry,

Speaker:

people slam doors in your face all day, every day. And I'm a very

Speaker:

stubborn person and I just think, you know what, keep slamming the doors, I'll

Speaker:

keep opening them again. And it was sort of a match for my personality,

Speaker:

I suppose.

Speaker:

I think it's funny you say that, because obviously, being a recruiter, you

Speaker:

can imagine the stigma behind recruiters constantly banging on people's doors and

Speaker:

getting the door slammed in their face. Maybe I'm just glutton for punishment.

Speaker:

Recruiter - within accessibility.

Speaker:

Well, I know you get a double whammy, but it's funny because I was

Speaker:

talking to Jamie, a friend of mine who also works in accessibility, and we

Speaker:

come up with this analogy about our jobs as accessibility professionals is

Speaker:

almost to become those metal things that you put on doors that stop doors

Speaker:

from slamming. And then eventually people stop trying to slam the door because

Speaker:

they just think, well, this is pointless, it's just going to slowly shut.

Speaker:

I live and breathe this stuff now and for the past eight years, it's

Speaker:

all I've done. And we've came a long way and it's good to see

Speaker:

the progress, but there's just still so much to do.

Speaker:

Absolutely. And I think you'll find that hopefully not, but most people I've spoken

Speaker:

to that have been in the space for 20 odd years and they're just

Speaker:

like, yeah, we've seen progress, but there's still so much to do. And

Speaker:

I think it's always going to be the case. There's no full stop, I

Speaker:

don't think, because tech is always going to keep changing, people's needs are going

Speaker:

to keep evolving. So I think it's more, as we keep saying on this

Speaker:

podcast, it's about the mindset and getting people sort of engaged with it

Speaker:

and understand that there is an ever evolving need for people that focus on

Speaker:

this stuff.

Speaker:

Definitely. And I feel sorry for anyone who's been doing it for 20 years,

Speaker:

still telling people add alt text to images, but I suppose you just have to

Speaker:

be a certain type of person to just keep on keeping on with it.

Speaker:

Which is why you find a lot of passionate people who do this line

Speaker:

of work, because it's like, right, well, it's the right thing to do, we'll

Speaker:

just keep shouting about it. Yeah.

Speaker:

And it's horrible, because the first word that came into my mind going to

Speaker:

use to coin a phrase from Craig Abbott, who I know you know personally

Speaker:

as well, when he was on the podcast, he said, the unfortunate thing is

Speaker:

when I'm looking for people to work in accessibility, the first word that came

Speaker:

to mind was resilience. And then when you think about these people that have

Speaker:

been in the space for 20 odd, even yourself, eight plus years, it does

Speaker:

go hand in hand, unfortunately. I think it's like, yeah, got to be resilient.

Speaker:

You just got to keep on keeping on, keep banging down those doors.

Speaker:

You do. I remember I listened to Craig's podcast. I thought it was

Speaker:

brilliant by the way and you know, Craig talking about if, for me, you can be

Speaker:

the most resilient person in the world and eventually it's going to get on

Speaker:

top of that. I think that's where all the burnout stuff comes. We just

Speaker:

we want to keep on keeping on and it just gets too yeah.

Speaker:

interesting stuff.

Speaker:

This isn't a question I've already posed you, Sean, so I'm apologising. I'm going

Speaker:

to add another one in there, but it sounds like you almost got a

Speaker:

bit of a lucky head start with attending that Future Gov talk, hearing

Speaker:

Kat talk, and then going back to the NHS, where you said it wasn't

Speaker:

very mature. There wasn't the support top down. So your inroads to accessibility

Speaker:

probably helped the NHS on their way to becoming a bit more sort of

Speaker:

focused in that area. So I guess by the time you left, did you

Speaker:

feel that that maturity was starting to grow?

Speaker:

Definitely. So while I was there, off the back of the Remediation project,

Speaker:

we implemented certain things, so there was, like, things had to be signed

Speaker:

off before they went into production around the technical compliance of stuff,

Speaker:

and it was getting there. But I think the problem at the NHS was

Speaker:

nobody wanted to "own" accessibility. It just was this sort of hot potato

Speaker:

that would land in somebody else's lap and then they would be like, absolutely

Speaker:

not, I'm not having any of this, and then it would get passed to

Speaker:

the next person. And when you're trying, especially from an elite position, to

Speaker:

shout up about accessibility and they're not shouting down, then you're on a

Speaker:

certain path to failure with this stuff. And I did burnout very quickly at

Speaker:

the end of that, because I'm like, I'm fine to keep shouting about it,

Speaker:

but I need other people to at least have my back. And I spoke

Speaker:

about this at a conference that I was at in Sweden a few weeks

Speaker:

ago. And I was just saying I could probably find an old NHS service

Speaker:

that we fixed and we published an accessibility statement on to say, like,

Speaker:

right, we'll fix this by, I don't know, September 2019, and that statement

Speaker:

won't have been updated. So as much as we've done the work up front,

Speaker:

it didn't have what it needed to continue and start assuring some of this

Speaker:

stuff. So it might be better now. I mean, that was a few years

Speaker:

ago, but certainly when I left, I was disappointed and I sort of took

Speaker:

some of the responsibility for that, because I'm like, Well, I'm the one

Speaker:

who's trying to drive this, but anybody who's worked in this line of work

Speaker:

will know that you need buy in for this stuff. It doesn't just happen

Speaker:

with one person. Certainly not yeah, I was going to say;

Speaker:

you can't fight, it's trying to win a war with a one man

Speaker:

army. You just can't take that on. No amount of resilience is going to

Speaker:

help you win that battle, unfortunately, but great that you started them on

Speaker:

that path, so that's all good. So the next part, I believe that you

Speaker:

were part of the team that worked to get the DDaT Accessibility Specialist

Speaker:

role description together when you were at the HMRC. And a couple of weeks

Speaker:

ago I was at Accessibility Scotland, and Beverly Newing was talking about that. And

Speaker:

I know that you've worked alongside and things as well, so just wanted to

Speaker:

know a bit more from my perspective as a recruiter, why that was important

Speaker:

for you to get something together and why it was so hard to actually

Speaker:

implement that in public sector.

Speaker:

Shout out to Bev by the way, she is a lovely human. I've been talking

Speaker:

to her, actually over the last couple of days, coincidentally. But yeah, so

Speaker:

around the accessibility Specialist, that was led actually by David Caldwell

Speaker:

and Beverly, so they sort of spearhead that. And I was part of the

Speaker:

focus group. So the focus group was made up of different government

Speaker:

departments. And why this was so important was because, and I've seen this everywhere

Speaker:

I've worked, everybody approaches accessibility in different ways, which is

Speaker:

fine, there's no right or wrong way to do it, and we're all still

Speaker:

trying to figure this out, especially off the bat of the public sector Accessibility

Speaker:

Regulations. So we had to come up with some sort of job description that

Speaker:

would work for more or less everybody. So I was part of one of

Speaker:

the bigger accessibility teams, so there was two of us who went, myself

Speaker:

and Wojcek. So Wojcek was part of the governance side of it and I

Speaker:

would lead the auditing team. And then you had people I think we had

Speaker:

somebody from Department of Education, Kev was there, who ran Accessibility Scotland,

Speaker:

so he was part of it, there was like quite a few of her.

Speaker:

And it was good because it just meant that we could come to a

Speaker:

general consensus of what we thought this role should look like. And of course

Speaker:

it was important because we had teams who we legally have to do this

Speaker:

now. So just like you would have a front end developer, the idea was

Speaker:

that we would have an accessibility specialist and it was a route into

Speaker:

accessibility, which was good, and then it was also a route for people to

Speaker:

progress within the profession as well, which was just as important. And it

Speaker:

was an interesting project. I think at one point the job description was very

Speaker:

much looking like a front end developer, so there was a lot of back

Speaker:

and forth around what should this role look like? And as much as I

Speaker:

would say the technical skills are important, my view on it is that

Speaker:

we should have more user researchers, content designers, like varied experience

Speaker:

in there. It doesn't really always have to rely on just being a technical

Speaker:

person. So getting that balance right was really important. And we

Speaker:

got a first version of it out, and I think that's worth pointing out

Speaker:

as well, that what you see on the accessibility specialism was meant to

Speaker:

be taken by departments and add to it or create your own roles off

Speaker:

the back of it. It was just like a structure, really, for teams to

Speaker:

recruit. Brilliant. But it was just amazing to get that added to the DDaT

Speaker:

framework because it just added credibility to the profession, which we

Speaker:

spend a lot of time shouting about why we need accessibility specialists. And

Speaker:

now to be part of that DDaT framework, it's a massive success. And

Speaker:

probably one of the things I'm most proud of in my career is being

Speaker:

part of that group to get that done. I think I was looking at

Speaker:

the governance side of it, which was probably the most boring side of it,

Speaker:

but we got it done. And I just think to collaborate across many

Speaker:

different departments as well and come to an agreement was like a massive success

Speaker:

for everyone involved. So I'm excited to see over the next couple of years

Speaker:

how that changes and how we improve it over time.

Speaker:

I think it's also, from my perspective, obviously, job specs and job descriptions,

Speaker:

they're a daily occurrence for me. And we actually spoke pre recording about

Speaker:

certain job specs, and especially in the private sector, how convoluted and

Speaker:

complicated and daunting they can be. Because even if you have half the

Speaker:

skills that they've listed, because they're not really sure they know what

Speaker:

they're asking for, it can put so many applicants off. It can make a

Speaker:

lot of people think, I don't think that's quite right for me, or that

Speaker:

may be that I'm biting off more than I can chew. I think that's

Speaker:

a team of people, not just, I can't go in there and do that,

Speaker:

especially for the salary they're offering. So I think to get that

Speaker:

in the public sector, we definitely need to try and start pushing that into

Speaker:

the private as well, and just being like, right, take that by example and

Speaker:

just say, Right, okay, well, we need to set some edges. If you set

Speaker:

those boundaries and be like, right, these are the key elements that people should

Speaker:

and will need to have to be successful in the role, then people feel

Speaker:

more comfortable applying. They'll feel, yeah, that's an achievable role. I'm going

Speaker:

to gain something from it. I can progress within that rather than, oh, my

Speaker:

God, I'm burnt out. Just reading the spec before I even.

Speaker:

Start.

Speaker:

I think, what an amazing achievement. And you were part of the accessibility. X-Med

Speaker:

or Avengers, great group of people.

Speaker:

Well, people who are far better than me that was in that group, but this

Speaker:

was it as well. And it was just I think what we're starting to

Speaker:

see now is a lot of places will model around Gov.UK And particularly

Speaker:

around design systems, and the data framework is very much the same. So

Speaker:

private firms will look in and look at what a good team should look

Speaker:

like. So the fact that accessibility is now part of that, and then of

Speaker:

course, you've got the European Accessibility Act coming in in 2025, which

Speaker:

the cynical side of me thinks, well, nobody's going to listen to that and

Speaker:

they'll just pretend it hasn't happened. But what realistically should happen, and

Speaker:

what I would hope would happen is that firms then go, actually we need

Speaker:

like an accessibility team because we have to do this legally now. So we'll

Speaker:

see how that unfolds but really solid group of people who've done that. And

Speaker:

it landed pretty well as well. So we only had five or six departments

Speaker:

involved in actually doing that. And of course, government is massive. So there

Speaker:

was a risk that we sort of put it out there to get other

Speaker:

people's opinions and they were like, oh my god, you've got this all wrong.

Speaker:

But we kept it quite high level and I think that's why it worked

Speaker:

brilliant.

Speaker:

I know it's not a simple job to describe or explain and because there

Speaker:

are so many moving parts and different areas of focus within accessibility,

Speaker:

digital accessibility, or physical or social, but it's a big job that

Speaker:

needed to be done. So it's great that you were part of that, like

Speaker:

you say. And as I mentioned in the intro, you have quite a heavy

Speaker:

development and technical background. I know you're less so sort of hands

Speaker:

on tech at the minute, but you like to keep up with things. I

Speaker:

actually saw you posted not too long ago about Daniel Devesa Derksen-Staats

Speaker:

from Spotify, the iOS engineer who wrote writing accessible iOS applications. So

Speaker:

he's a guy that I'd love to have on the podcast and we're working

Speaker:

at it. So I know that you're keeping up to date with stuff, but

Speaker:

I think that there's a bit of a misconception that tech and development

Speaker:

is the hotspot. That's where digital accessibility responsibility lies. That's

Speaker:

a tongue twister. The responsibility lies with technical or development teams. But

Speaker:

do you agree as a leader in the space that that's where it should

Speaker:

lie? Or what do you think needs to be done to kind of share

Speaker:

and split that responsibility out?

Speaker:

Yeah, that is a real misconception. And my position on it is that accessibility

Speaker:

is everybody's responsibility. Most people don't know that. So I think a

Speaker:

big part of what I do is educating people around the role that they

Speaker:

can play and ensuring that they're embedding accessibility at the right

Speaker:

times. So that could be product managers, delivery managers, designers, developers,

Speaker:

testers content across the spectrum of the product and even outside of the product

Speaker:

as well. One of the bits that I did at Monzo was like training

Speaker:

our customer service representatives how to speak to disabled people.

Speaker:

Everybody has got a role to play in this. And I suppose as a

Speaker:

developer, yes, I could fix a lot of this stuff, but also developers try

Speaker:

to be smart and developers break more than they fix. So I'm throwing shade

Speaker:

on developers here, but it was me who would have to go in and

Speaker:

often fix some of this stuff. But again, it's an education piece and I

Speaker:

think one of the things that we did at HMRC, so the Gov.UK Design

Speaker:

system is arguably one of the most accessible, best built design systems that

Speaker:

there is. But we were finding that teams were making the same mistakes over

Speaker:

and over and over again. So what we did was we would log all

Speaker:

of our accessibility issues in Jira not jira, sorry, in GitHub. And what that

Speaker:

meant that we could do is we could hit the GitHub API and look

Speaker:

at all of the audits that we've ever done and pull them down by

Speaker:

tag and we could create this nice little front end that said the most

Speaker:

failed thing was something like error messages or inputs. And we got all

Speaker:

of this amazing data where we could go back and say, well, actually, we

Speaker:

need to do a session with the content designers because we're not doing

Speaker:

very well with our error messages. Or we would have to go to our

Speaker:

developers and say, you keep breaking radio buttons. Can we teach you how

Speaker:

to do this properly? So, again, it's doing it within the context of what

Speaker:

are the real problems here? And I think taking an approach like that, it

Speaker:

helps teams understand as well. Actually, this is my responsibility and doing things

Speaker:

like role based training, but again, you have to have a top down approach

Speaker:

to this. And one of the mistakes I made early on in my career

Speaker:

was I tried to sort of embed accessibility into teams. So I would go

Speaker:

to a team and say, like, right, this is your job. And we would

Speaker:

do all this interest, and you spend all this time training the team. And

Speaker:

then two weeks later, they would leave and somebody else would come in. And

Speaker:

it was like, oh, actually, hang on. I'm doing this the wrong way here.

Speaker:

So then I rolled it up a level and be like, well, actually, why

Speaker:

don't we just embed into Practice? So rather than hit individual teams, start

Speaker:

getting in amongst communities of Practice. So one week we would go

Speaker:

and sit in front of the automation testers, or the next week it would

Speaker:

be designers. And this is still something I do at Monzo. Now, I would

Speaker:

much rather do it that way. And then you increase your reach as well

Speaker:

and you can start measuring. Are you still seeing the same fails off the

Speaker:

back of it? But ultimately it's all about your users. And for me it

Speaker:

has to start with research. If we want research and before it even kicks

Speaker:

off, then you're almost setting yourself up to fail, you would have heard

Speaker:

this time and time again. But from my experience, accessibility is always

Speaker:

considered too late in the process. What's the earliest, the absolute earliest

Speaker:

opportunity you can get in that's usually like discovery, research, start from there

Speaker:

and build around that.

Speaker:

Absolutely.

Speaker:

But getting that sort of culture change, especially in somewhere like Government,

Speaker:

is really challenging, like trying to shift the needle. I hate to use

Speaker:

horrible terms of phrases like that, but trying to do that at that scale

Speaker:

know, Craig talked about this as well. It's very hard to change culture at

Speaker:

somewhere that big, and I've been extremely fortunate at Monzo that it's a

Speaker:

much smaller company. Like, I've nailed, we've got the culture absolutely down

Speaker:

there. I have no problems whatsoever.

Speaker:

Yeah, I think it's having that appetite, isn't it? I think it's tricky to

Speaker:

measure that with something as huge as government, but like you say, Monzo, you

Speaker:

can quite I'm not going to say it's easy because I'm not doing your

Speaker:

job, Shaun, but you probably start to see that appetite across the board

Speaker:

more clearly. And I think it's more of a I'd assume Monzo's got a

Speaker:

bit more of a startup feel. I mean, obviously government's been around

Speaker:

for God knows. So I think that the

Speaker:

appetites there in the sort of younger companies in the private* sector that are

Speaker:

sort of on the pulse, they can see that this is needed, they can

Speaker:

see that there's benefits to their business as well for implementing

Speaker:

accessibility and making sure that their products and services are usable by

Speaker:

everyone. But it's interesting because what you were saying on the role

Speaker:

based training and how you sort of try to implement it across teams, it

Speaker:

sounds like you're like the one-man-band

Speaker:

consultant that's like, right, I've

Speaker:

got the knowledge. I'm going to try and consult all of these different areas

Speaker:

and these different teams, less so taking it all on board, people emailing you

Speaker:

as the head of accessibility and fix this for me. I think that's where

Speaker:

it lies. It's got to be training, workshops, learning and development,

Speaker:

e-learning, even, and make it compulsory. But like you said, they'll learn that

Speaker:

and will they implement it?

Speaker:

I think you're right.

Speaker:

It has to be embedded in the practice and make it standard.

Speaker:

And this is it. And one of the first things that I did when

Speaker:

I joined Monzo is like, everybody needs training on accessibility. It's non-

Speaker:

negotiable. So when you join Monzo, if you join tomorrow, you would get mandatory

Speaker:

accessibility training. It would be within the context of your role, so you know, you

Speaker:

learn what you need to know. And I think one of the things about

Speaker:

accessibility and what can put people off is it's a big beast, oh, my

Speaker:

God, I'm going to have to know all this stuff. And actually, if you

Speaker:

do it within the context of somebody's work, it's like, well, actually, there's

Speaker:

not really that much that you have to know. It becomes big when you

Speaker:

get it wrong or you leave it too late. It was interesting as well,

Speaker:

because when I joined Know, the whole time I worked in the public sector,

Speaker:

I could count on one hand how many times I was approached about, like,

Speaker:

tell me more about what you do, like accessibility. I joined Monzo and

Speaker:

honestly, within the first, like, three days I was doing training myself, I

Speaker:

had, like, 45 messages from just people all over the bit. And this wasn't

Speaker:

just product people, this was like, trainers, managers, senior leaders, chief

Speaker:

this, director of this. And I couldn't believe it. I was like, Somebody's put

Speaker:

them up to this. Surely they can't be that invested in this already. But

Speaker:

I think they were just crying out for somebody to come in who knew

Speaker:

this stuff and who had experience of driving it to be like, right, well,

Speaker:

set us up in the right way, what do we need? I've used

Speaker:

Craig Abbott. I don't know whether you've read it, but he's got an article

Speaker:

around an accessibility strategy. I modelled the Monzo strategy around that

Speaker:

approach, and it works. You're getting your culture right, setting up some level

Speaker:

of compliance and educating people as well. So a huge part of what

Speaker:

I've done so far is just being around, like, culture and educating

Speaker:

people. And you would think that the compliance side of it takes care of

Speaker:

itself after that, but we'll see.

Speaker:

Time will tell, right?

Speaker:

Yeah, I hope.. Maybe I'm still a bit naive.

Speaker:

That's brilliant. And I think it is that, isn't it? You're planting the seeds

Speaker:

to then help people to grow themselves, rather than just standing over them with

Speaker:

a cane. You did that wrong, do it again. I think that might work,

Speaker:

but we'll try this way first, I think, and that's it.

Speaker:

But I think one of the things I've learned over time is that not

Speaker:

everyone's going to care about this stuff. You can do all the empathy labs,

Speaker:

you can show them stats. Some people just don't care

Speaker:

where you have to take a different angle, which I don't necessarily like

Speaker:

doing, is like talking about risk, like reputational damage. Are you happy to take

Speaker:

on that risk, then? And the chances are you start talking about risk and

Speaker:

reputational damage. Actually, no, I don't want to do that. So there are

Speaker:

ways around it and I think that it's just knowing when to use different

Speaker:

tactics. Like 90% of people, nobody builds something trying to make it inaccessible,

Speaker:

they just often lack the knowledge around how to actually do it. There's very

Speaker:

few people, or if anyone, will go out of their way to create something

Speaker:

that isn't accessible.

Speaker:

Definitely it's quite hard to fathom because I think there's a lot of

Speaker:

empathy in the accessibility space to think that there's people that wouldn't

Speaker:

give a damn nearly about it. It's hard to sort. Of get

Speaker:

your head around, I suppose. So I know that a huge part of your

Speaker:

role is centred around that strategy. Roadmap planning and implementation,

Speaker:

learning and development, training workshops. It's a long list, but as

Speaker:

Burnout has been discussed at length previously across the whole field of

Speaker:

accessibility, I just wanted to know, with your title, so obviously, access Lead at

Speaker:

HMRC, and then you're pretty much head of accessibility at Monzo with that

Speaker:

increased responsibility, that title, how have you managed to juggle that? I

Speaker:

guess you've kind of already answered this question, I suppose, just now with the

Speaker:

strategy.

Speaker:

Yeah, it's difficult and I won't say for me, I haven't spoken to

Speaker:

anybody who's got a silver bullet for this stuff. So I said to you,

Speaker:

I was talking to Bev about this and I've talked to many other

Speaker:

accessibility people who are burned out and I think we all find ourselves

Speaker:

in the same position. So what I've tried to do, we get into this

Speaker:

because we care. And I think that's half of the battle as well. When

Speaker:

you genuinely care about your work and you're passionate about it, it can be

Speaker:

very deflating. You're talking about the door getting slammed on your face and

Speaker:

how many times can you realistically do that before it starts to impact on

Speaker:

your confidence or your mental health? And that's like a huge part of this

Speaker:

as well. Right. But I think the way I've tried to do it at

Speaker:

Monzo is I've got a roadmap and I would encourage other people to do

Speaker:

this as well, because I think too many times we just take on too

Speaker:

much and can I just this, can I just that and everything's last minute.

Speaker:

So what I've tried to do is focus on, right, well, this is my

Speaker:

roadmap, I've got, let's say, two years worth of work. So understand what you're

Speaker:

meant to be working on versus what is business as usual, versus what is

Speaker:

just being thrown over the wall. And for me, it's been actually really quite

Speaker:

rigid and if I've got time, absolutely, I'll help with stuff. I

Speaker:

think Craig touched on this a little bit in his podcast as well, about

Speaker:

we just want to help people and you don't want to be seen to

Speaker:

be turning people away, but also we have to manage this and manage our

Speaker:

own workloads. And one of the things that I've struggled with in my current

Speaker:

role is working too many hours, and that's my fault. And that's because

Speaker:

often I'll be like, right, okay, yeah, I'll do the thing. But actually, the

Speaker:

last couple of months, I've just been saying no and it's hard and you

Speaker:

don't want to turn people away, but actually you need to for the benefit

Speaker:

of the work that you're actually meant to be doing. So I'll not explicitly

Speaker:

be like, no, I'm not going to talk, I'm not going to help you,

Speaker:

but if there's a quick something up and send them on Google or whatever.

Speaker:

I'll try and be as light touch as possible with things like that, but

Speaker:

for me as well, it's just learning a big part of avoiding Burnout is

Speaker:

sort of learning to accept that everything's not going to go my way.

Speaker:

So if you can get comfortable with that and celebrate the small wins,

Speaker:

take the small wins and celebrate them, shout about them. That's what this is

Speaker:

about. I think too many people look at the big picture, like, think big

Speaker:

and then start big. Well, for me, it's like, think big, start small and

Speaker:

try and do it that way because it is overwhelming. And so many times,

Speaker:

I mean, these teams, like, you've spoken to quite a few people. Now, accessibility

Speaker:

teams tend not to be big teams. There's like 1, 2, 3, 4, maybe it's five people.

Speaker:

Like, the one I had in government was the biggest one and it still

Speaker:

wasn't without its problems. There was all sorts going on. And I think

Speaker:

another way I've tried to do this is just, again, around the culture, do

Speaker:

people care about accessibility, make it their responsibility? So use things like

Speaker:

when I joined Monzo, I immediately knew, like, four or five people from these

Speaker:

DMs who were very interested in it. So it's like, right, well, how much

Speaker:

of my workload can I share with them? So that's where you have things

Speaker:

like Champions Networks, which they can go a bit stale, but I think if

Speaker:

they're done right, there can be a force multiplier for the work that you're

Speaker:

trying to do. But I think the biggest mistake I see people doing is

Speaker:

just taking too much on and then not being aware that you've took too

Speaker:

much on. I think it's very easy to keep saying yes and then before

Speaker:

you know it, it's like, oh, my God, this is, like, painfully bad. And

Speaker:

for me like, I lean a lot on people in this. Like, I've had phone

Speaker:

calls with Craig late at night before and I've been stressed and I'll text

Speaker:

them now and again saying, and I'll speak to other people, Jamie, I've got

Speaker:

friends who the thing is about this community accessibility is people

Speaker:

genuinely want to help each other try and solve similar problems. And I would

Speaker:

encourage anybody who's on. That sort of the line of burnout. If you do

Speaker:

want to chat, just drop me. Know, other people will try and help you

Speaker:

figure things. Know, speak to people, friends, peers, ask for help. One of

Speaker:

the things that we did at HMRC to try and avoid Burnout was like,

Speaker:

we had fire break weeks. So my team, the auditors, were front end developers,

Speaker:

so they weren't doing any development, they were just testing. And nobody wants

Speaker:

to do that. No developer wants to just be testing all day. So we

Speaker:

would have, like, once every five, six weeks, there was an entire week where

Speaker:

we would take no audits. It was non negotiable. The team just had a

Speaker:

full week to build cool stuff like the GitHub front end to see we

Speaker:

would work on passion projects or they could go and do some self learning

Speaker:

and all that stuff. And it really worked well, it was difficult when we

Speaker:

were grinding out audit after audit after audit, but everybody knew that the week

Speaker:

or two weeks sometimes it was that we would take a full two weeks

Speaker:

and we're all fortunate to do that. And I think it's hard, this line

Speaker:

of work. I'm not going to sit here and say that I'm always happy

Speaker:

about the work that I do. I'm frustrated a lot of the time and

Speaker:

I think that's very normal and acceptable and just be kind to yourself. If

Speaker:

you feel like you're burning out, take some time off. It is fine to

Speaker:

walk away from this for a little while. I've been off on the sick

Speaker:

because of this and that's okay. I think it's a

Speaker:

bigger problem. Well, not a bigger problem, it just is a problem because

Speaker:

we care so much and that we are passionate about this, that this

Speaker:

profession will ruin your mental health if you allow it to. But it's also

Speaker:

the most rewarding job I've ever done, but also the most frustrating.

Speaker:

It's a very strange balance of things, isn't it? That's the thing. And looking

Speaker:

from the outside in.

Speaker:

It's.. it's...

Speaker:

Is a bit mad. I think there are some people that will go and

Speaker:

it's not that they don't care or they just think how on earth am

Speaker:

I going to make a difference there? But another thing to remember is, like

Speaker:

you've said, celebrate the small wins. There's the quote that everyone sort of

Speaker:

uses in the community progress, not perfection. I don't think there's going to

Speaker:

be such thing as perfection because your product or your

Speaker:

tool might be accessible for some, but it might be by nature inaccessible for

Speaker:

another group of people. So it is just constantly thinking about that and

Speaker:

taking those steps and small wins.

Speaker:

And that's the mistake as well that some people would make and some people

Speaker:

being me. When I first started doing this, I wanted to fix everything for

Speaker:

everybody. I'm like, I can do this as a technical level, I can. And

Speaker:

we are always going to be excluding somebody. You can create what you think

Speaker:

is the most accessible thing, but we're always excluding somebody. And that is

Speaker:

just the facts around it. And I think again, if you just I would

Speaker:

talk about when I was at like it's tax, it's complex language. A lot

Speaker:

of it is like policy that can't be changed and rigid rules around. Like

Speaker:

you cannot change the wording and all this stuff and it creates barriers by

Speaker:

doing it that way. And it's like, well, start doing research with people.

Speaker:

Stop focusing on a token blind person to test with a screen reader who

Speaker:

is this particular service going to exclude and go and do your research

Speaker:

with those. So for tax, it might be people with Dyscalculia, people with

Speaker:

Dyslexia, people with ADHD. Those are where you're going to get the most

Speaker:

fruitful data around. Accessibility. I think it's just trying to shift focus

Speaker:

away from compliance and more around what are the actual barriers that people are

Speaker:

facing. Then how do we solve for that?

Speaker:

Yeah, absolutely. Like you say, you could have screen readers, switch

Speaker:

controls, anything that works with your product, but if it's written in complete

Speaker:

technical jargon, then again, you've just completely excluded such a huge portion of

Speaker:

people. Madness. But we'll touch on everything. I think

Speaker:

we've even discussed the recruitment within the space previously on the

Speaker:

podcast, and I think we've spoken about it before as well. Very mixed reviews

Speaker:

on how it's being done. I've spoken to some people, obviously, I'm speaking to

Speaker:

candidates, people that are looking to get into the space, people that are currently

Speaker:

interviewing. And obviously it'd be nice if you had someone that knew

Speaker:

accessibility, knew about what's needed rewriting job specs, like you said, that

Speaker:

was done for the DDaT and doing that for the private sector. So that's

Speaker:

what I'm hoping to be. So I'm trying to focus on all of that.

Speaker:

But do you have any pointers, do you have any advice for me on

Speaker:

how I can better serve the general community from a hirer, but also from

Speaker:

a candidate perspective? Have you had people that have supported you in those

Speaker:

sort of interview processes before?

Speaker:

Yeah, a lot of recruitment processes are just inaccessible and outdated just purely

Speaker:

because of the SaaS or the software as a service that they use. So

Speaker:

that is a massive barrier to entry to a lot of people because they

Speaker:

just can't actually apply because the thing isn't accessible to even get an

Speaker:

interview. So that's like the first part of it. But I think we talk

Speaker:

about reasonable adjustments and interviews and stuff like that. And like,

Speaker:

my position on it is like, they shouldn't be "reasonable adjustments", they

Speaker:

should just be like how it is. So I don't know, sending out interview

Speaker:

questions beforehand, like, why is extra time a reasonable

Speaker:

adjustment? It isn't, really. It should just be standard. Like, if you want

Speaker:

to get a good answer out of somebody, then give them time. A big

Speaker:

one for me is around disclosing the salary. Too many times I've had recruiters

Speaker:

like, oh, we've got this really good job, and we briefly thought about it

Speaker:

before we started this, but there's so much discrepancy in accessibility

Speaker:

salaries. Like, you might get one job that's paying like £70 grand, you might

Speaker:

get the same job description somewhere else is paying £20k. And it's like,

Speaker:

well, hang on a second. But the reason why I say disclose the salary

Speaker:

is because a lot of marginalised groups end up getting less pay. And

Speaker:

I think if we keep hiding salaries, then those marginalised groups remain

Speaker:

marginalised. So being transparent around that is something that I'll never apply

Speaker:

for a job where they don't do that. Because I just think, well, why

Speaker:

waste my time going through all that process just for you to potentially say,

Speaker:

oh, well, there's £25 grand.

Speaker:

Well, no, you've not worked all these years for that.

Speaker:

Well, exactly. And maybe that's just me being a little bit obnoxious, but

Speaker:

technical tests are a big one for me. I was a lead developer. I

Speaker:

would like to think I knew me stuff, but if you put me in

Speaker:

the interview situation and ask me to recall code, I'm going to look like

Speaker:

a junior developer who hasn't got a clue. I sort of understand why firms

Speaker:

ask for them, but some places are doing like three or four technical

Speaker:

interviews or go and spend 4 hours writing this full thing. Just think, well,

Speaker:

hang on, why, where do I have

Speaker:

time? The main one that

Speaker:

annoys me is just recruiters reaching out and asking, oh, Sean, do you want

Speaker:

to go and be the head of HR? Where'd you get that from? It

Speaker:

just seems, especially on LinkedIn, it's really bad. But yeah, there's just so

Speaker:

much improvement to be made across the board, I think, around recruitment. Not

Speaker:

necessarily from a recruiter's perspective, but just like all of those

Speaker:

systems and stuff are just like a big one that I see as well

Speaker:

is around. Like so let's say you have a blind person, they go all

Speaker:

the way through, they get offered the job and then we can't offer or

Speaker:

you can't offer them the job because your internal software just won't work

Speaker:

with the screen reader. You've just wasted their time all the way through. That

Speaker:

process known, fine, well, you can't do it, but in the view of diversity,

Speaker:

inclusion, you've let them go through it and only to let them down because

Speaker:

of this thing doesn't work. So I think there's a much bigger conversation

Speaker:

around setting up internally. I spoke a little bit about this on LinkedIn the

Speaker:

other day. Firms need to start taking internal accessibility a little bit more

Speaker:

seriously. The stats remain the same within your organisation and it's never

Speaker:

going to change. If you don't fix it, then you can't hire disabled people,

Speaker:

then it's a vicious circle, isn't it?

Speaker:

And you're missing out on an incredible,

Speaker:

incredible resource there.

Speaker:

People with disabilities or those that may have additional needs are still some of

Speaker:

the most fantastic and most amazing minds on the planet, regardless of, like you

Speaker:

said, not just your user base and the people that are going to spend

Speaker:

money on your platform or your service or your tool or product or whatever

Speaker:

it is. It's also, like you say, you can build better with nothing, with

Speaker:

us, without us, sort of another quote out there. But it has to be

Speaker:

that representation.

Speaker:

And what you have to remember as well is like a lot of people

Speaker:

who go for accessibility jobs are disabled, new divergent. There's a lot of

Speaker:

people in this space who meet that criteria and if they're not getting the

Speaker:

reasonable adjustments, well, that doesn't really set the tone for how it's

Speaker:

going to go for the rest of their employment if you're treating them

Speaker:

like crap on day one. I just think firms are getting better at it,

Speaker:

definitely, but, like, everything, I mean, we could talk about this all day,

Speaker:

we just still could always be improving on this stuff. Yeah, and I think

Speaker:

it is.

Speaker:

It's like standard practise. It's my responsibility. Obviously, if I'm saying

Speaker:

I'm going to focus in this space, I need to make sure that I'm

Speaker:

getting that right and try and lead by example. And hopefully it will create

Speaker:

competition, it will make sure that there's other recruiters in the space that

Speaker:

are seeing that this is a viable area to make sure that we can

Speaker:

help people find work, but also find the right talent and resources for their

Speaker:

teams to grow this out. But hopefully, yeah, if I can set an example,

Speaker:

then that would be great. So that's why I'm asking for that advice from

Speaker:

the likes of yourself, which is good. So you mentioned earlier that you

Speaker:

travelled to Sweden recently to deliver a talk at Nexus Accessibility event. Was it

Speaker:

just accessibility or was it just one of their sort of Digital/UX events?

Speaker:

Yeah, so it was just focused on accessibility. So it was

Speaker:

people from the Swedish public sector. There was some people there from Swedish

Speaker:

banks. Obviously, I've done both, so they were like, come and could talk about

Speaker:

how it's been approached in different ways. It was really good, actually, and

Speaker:

it was the first. I do a lot of talks internally and stuff, but

Speaker:

I always feel a bit like an imposter sometimes when I'm talking,

Speaker:

because a lot of this stuff, everybody else talks about it. So if I'm

Speaker:

going to talk about something, I want to be able to bring something new

Speaker:

to this. I don't just want to regurgitate what everybody else is saying,

Speaker:

because it can become a little bit like that. And I read the same

Speaker:

articles over and over again, so I've always sort of just put myself off

Speaker:

doing stuff like that. But I just think, if it's not for people like

Speaker:

me and lead roles and you are driving this stuff, if I'm not going

Speaker:

to talk about it, then why not? Exactly. So

Speaker:

I was nervous for it, but it actually went down really well. I just

Speaker:

think it's made us think, well, I'll do more this stuff now, it landed

Speaker:

really well.

Speaker:

Those types of events. And obviously I've mentioned that I went to Accessibility

Speaker:

Scotland and thankfully my boss helped to sponsor the event, which was an absolute

Speaker:

honour. And it's obviously, like you say, there might be some regurgitation, there

Speaker:

might be some repetitiveness with these events, but it's raising that awareness.

Speaker:

You're trying to let people know the work you're currently doing what's being

Speaker:

done, what they can do differently. I think there's a quote unquote problem. I

Speaker:

mean, it's the same with this podcast I've got you coming on here and

Speaker:

you might be saying some of the stuff, but the people that weren't at

Speaker:

Nexus event or won't be able to see that content, hopefully will be able

Speaker:

to hear you speak here. So I think it is just churning it out

Speaker:

and keeping it going. But the problem, quote unquote or air quotes,

Speaker:

is that a lot of the audience or the listeners of this are people

Speaker:

that are already aware or interested in or focused on working in the space.

Speaker:

So it's trying to find that market. How do we grow that out? Do

Speaker:

we need to partner with more design and product focused conferences and have

Speaker:

an accessibility piece there? Or we need to just grow that presence, I suppose,

Speaker:

everywhere? Because like you said, we need people in every team, really. Don't.

Speaker:

I mean, do you agree?

Speaker:

What's your view on.

Speaker:

I do. So, you know, if I refer back to the start of this

Speaker:

conversation like, you know, Kat McCauley was at something that was nothing to

Speaker:

do with accessibility and it got me hooked, so it definitely works by doing

Speaker:

that. I think the problem about this is that there aren't enough of us

Speaker:

to go to the 200 conferences every year or whatever, so

Speaker:

it's hard to do, but I think we're seeing more of it and I

Speaker:

think when people learn my friend Laura Parker, so you might know Laura, she

Speaker:

does a talk around Dyscalculia. She was one of the people behind the posters

Speaker:

around designing for Dyscalculia. She does a lot of talks, she's a content

Speaker:

designer by she has been talking about accessibility within the context of

Speaker:

content design and particularly around numbers and stuff. Does a brilliant job,

Speaker:

has been doing lots of talks at those events. So when people realise

Speaker:

actually this applies to what I do, we're seeing more people popping up at

Speaker:

these events going, oh, by the way, accessibility. And most people I would

Speaker:

like to think that most of tech is quite left leaning, so it's not

Speaker:

a hard sell usually. I suppose it's back on my previous point,

Speaker:

I should probably be doing more. I've got a lot of experience in this,

Speaker:

I've pretty much done it all now and I think even if it is

Speaker:

regurgitating some of the stuff that people might have already said, it still

Speaker:

goes a long way, I think, on an audience that's never heard it before

Speaker:

and we've all got different experiences as well. And I think one of the

Speaker:

things that always comes out in conversations I have with other people

Speaker:

doing this is we're all still doing it differently and that's fine. I love

Speaker:

to learn what other people are doing, what's working, what didn't work. And I

Speaker:

think we're good as a community at trying to sort of come up with

Speaker:

some standards for this because the Wakag and all that stuff, it's very hard

Speaker:

and complex. I think we'll definitely see more of it, but definitely

Speaker:

I would love to see more around training. I would love to see a

Speaker:

training conference where they talk about disabled staff and how to do training

Speaker:

for that. So there's so much opportunity in that space. It's just I don't

Speaker:

think there's enough people to actually go and continuously talk about this like all

Speaker:

summer or whenever the conference season is.

Speaker:

Yeah, no, absolutely, it's tricky. I think it's opening up a lot more because

Speaker:

we can do some more fully remote conferences, things like this as well. I

Speaker:

guess if we can get some more podcasts going, I would love to see

Speaker:

that. I know there are quite a few out there as well. And this

Speaker:

isn't the only one about accessibility. I'm going to do a piece on

Speaker:

that as well because I want to do that cross promotion. I don't want

Speaker:

people to just think, oh, it's just this one guy doing a podcast, but

Speaker:

I think it is just constantly talking about it. I think that helps with

Speaker:

the mindset shift, I think it helps with the culture, it helps just people

Speaker:

just to spark that idea. Like, what could I be doing differently? Which brings

Speaker:

me to the last question, which I've tried to ask on every episode of

Speaker:

the podcast, and it is what are the simplest, most cost effective and

Speaker:

convenient ways that someone can implement more digital accessibility within their

Speaker:

line of work? And don't worry, I know that we've spoken about all the

Speaker:

different teams that need to be focusing on it, but yeah, just in general.

Speaker:

So interestingly, actually, when I was in Sweden, there was like a break in

Speaker:

between and they put this poll thing on the screen and it was like,

Speaker:

what are the problems that the audience were facing? So it was things like

Speaker:

getting buy in, going beyond compliance, developing capability and budget. And

Speaker:

interestingly, when we came back, I was very surprised to see this, but getting

Speaker:

budget was the one that sort of peaked that list, and I thought it

Speaker:

was going to be like getting buy in or even development capability. And

Speaker:

this was like a winner by countrymel and I think

Speaker:

do you want to know how much I've spent this year on accessibility?

Speaker:

I would love to.

Speaker:

Less than 1000 pound. By the way, I'm not saying

Speaker:

that you don't need budget because you do. Like, I'm about to spend four

Speaker:

grand on an audit. But I think if you're just starting out and you're

Speaker:

trying to make a case for accessibility particularly, or even get to a strategy,

Speaker:

let's say you should be going out doing a gap analysis. What are the

Speaker:

problems? What are the problems that we intend to solve? Write your strategy. How

Speaker:

are you going to do this? Create some project plans. There's a lot of

Speaker:

this stuff that you can do without ever getting budget from anyone. And if

Speaker:

you're interested, the less than 1000 pounds was for Kit, for our Accessibility

Speaker:

Empathy Lab. So it was just buying some equipment for that. Of course you

Speaker:

are going to need budget if you need to fix things and bring more

Speaker:

people in and all that stuff. But I think what I'm trying to say

Speaker:

is it's not going to stop you starting almost so you can get

Speaker:

a long way with this stuff and launch a Champions Network. There are so

Speaker:

many different things that you can get going and do a good job at

Speaker:

before you need that. But I think if you are going to do this,

Speaker:

to answer your question again, think big, start small with this stuff. What are

Speaker:

the real problems that your customers or your people who use your service are

Speaker:

facing and try and get involved at the right time. The earlier the better.

Speaker:

We all know this. If you are start embedded into as many meetings as

Speaker:

you can. When I joined Monzo, if there was a meeting I was in

Speaker:

know, I was just there talking about this stuff unapologetically, just waffling

Speaker:

on about accessibility wherever. Like you will be surprised at how much buy

Speaker:

in you can get just by doing that and getting in front of the

Speaker:

right people, champions Networks in this community as well. Lean on me,

Speaker:

lean on other people. I've had so much help from people who work in

Speaker:

this line of work. I don't think I would have been in the roles

Speaker:

I'm in now if it wasn't for the likes of Craig. Craig's helped me

Speaker:

with loads of stuff like amazing. Like I'll always try and get back as

Speaker:

well. I do mentoring with people every now and again. I'll put something out

Speaker:

on Twitter. I'll mentor some people. I've got a few going now. I'll do

Speaker:

catch ups with other people who work in the line of work and I

Speaker:

just think we can solve things together. Don't feel like you need to do

Speaker:

this by yourself because this community is brilliant and you can get a long

Speaker:

way without having to worry about, oh my God, I need like 3 million

Speaker:

pounds to do this amazing stuff. If it's done at the right time, you

Speaker:

technically don't really need any money. It's only when they do it at

Speaker:

the end and it's all broken, then you need to go and fix it.

Speaker:

All right, okay. That'll be like 6 million.

Speaker:

And you're so right. I think it's such a friendly and welcoming environment.

Speaker:

And I feel that like you say, doing that gap analysis at the beginning,

Speaker:

just sort of understanding what the problems might actually be that people

Speaker:

encounter. Or if you've got problems yourself, it might even help to gain

Speaker:

that buy in because you're like, well, I can't actually access this system that

Speaker:

we work with because it doesn't work for me.

Speaker:

Exactly. And there's like, one question as well. If you are implementing anything

Speaker:

into your work, whatever it is you're doing, just think while you're doing it.

Speaker:

Who might I be excluding by doing this thing? That one question will make

Speaker:

you think. Right, okay, well, I've just written this 70 paragraph thing, that's

Speaker:

immediately going to be people with Dyslexia ADHD. Just by thinking in that

Speaker:

way, you will notice that you improve your work and make it more accessible

Speaker:

by default. Just by thinking, actually, this might not work for this person.

Speaker:

Yeah, absolutely. And it's just alt text, all sorts of stuff. And I know

Speaker:

that in this podcast series I've not introduced myself and described

Speaker:

myself or our guests and things which I should really be doing. But I

Speaker:

suppose because it is such an audio only I know we have the YouTube

Speaker:

for the visual and the transcript as well. But I feel like if people

Speaker:

are just listening to this on audio, they don't really necessarily need to know

Speaker:

what we look like. However, if people are interested, then I'm more than happy

Speaker:

to start doing that. So I guess that'll be something I'll put out there

Speaker:

if people would like descriptions of people that are joining us on the

Speaker:

podcast, but cool. So I guess we've come to the end of the sort

Speaker:

of formal questions. So if there's anything that's of real importance to you

Speaker:

at the moment, are there any talks coming up or what you're doing at

Speaker:

the moment at Monzo? If you'd like to share that with everyone, then that

Speaker:

would be great.

Speaker:

Yeah. So I'm going to be going back to Sweden in November. Nexer have

Speaker:

kindly asked me to go back, so I'm like, really buzzing about that. Get

Speaker:

to go to Gothenburg, which should be good. I've managed to get a really

Speaker:

big gig next year that I can't really talk about yet, but that'll be

Speaker:

coming soon. I'm always doing mentoring, trying to help people where I can.

Speaker:

If you're on LinkedIn, Twitter, any of that stuff and you need help with

Speaker:

this, or you just want to sound off, drop a message. And the last

Speaker:

thing that I'm working on as well is we've just started recording a podcast

Speaker:

with Jamie and Lion. Jamie Knight. Which is going to be really fun. Cool.

Speaker:

Jamie is a brilliant character, I love spending time with him and that's going

Speaker:

to be around, like, monotropism and tunnels and not tasks. So want to

Speaker:

look out for if you're interested in the new divergent content.

Speaker:

Yeah, absolutely. I think that just sounds incredible and Jamie is such an incredible

Speaker:

person to speak to. There's been on and off talks with Jamie over the

Speaker:

years of asking him to come on this, but I kind of felt like

Speaker:

I felt that impostor syndrome, because he's got is it 1800 seconds of

Speaker:

autism. There was something he'd done with

Speaker:

BBC Sounds? I just thought, I can't compete,

Speaker:

I'm not going to ask him again. I'm just going to sort of leave

Speaker:

it, but we'll maybe approach that another time, maybe we could get a panel.

Speaker:

Honestly. Do it. Jamie is a lovely human and he's just amazing to spend

Speaker:

time with, so I'm almost certain that he would come and talk to you

Speaker:

on this.

Speaker:

He's a lovely, lovely man. Yeah, I'll definitely get back in touch, but that's

Speaker:

brilliant. So cool. So to finish each episode with a quote centred around

Speaker:

accessibility, which is what I like to do, and it's actually something that I

Speaker:

heard on ID24. The 2023 Conference has just finished

Speaker:

and Neil Jarvis said; "Depending on which measure you use and which country you're

Speaker:

considering, anything between one in four, one in five or one in six

Speaker:

people would count themselves as having a disability. That's a lot of people to

Speaker:

close the door on. There's a strong economic reason for not blocking access to

Speaker:

potentially a quarter of your users!" and it just sort of, in a nutshell,

Speaker:

tells you from that perspective, if it's not the empathy side, if it's from

Speaker:

a business perspective, think of your users. You could be increasing by 25%

Speaker:

by doing this stuff. But thank you again so much for joining me, Shaun,

Speaker:

and it's been an absolute pleasure. It's always a pleasure speaking to you and,

Speaker:

yeah, really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to spend

Speaker:

this last hour with me and hope you've enjoyed the chat as much as

Speaker:

I have!

Speaker:

Yeah, it's been good. Thank you very much for having us. No problem.

Speaker:

And I'm sure we'll stay in touch. I'll get all of your LinkedIn and

Speaker:

your Twitter and stuff posted as links alongside the podcast, so if anyone wants

Speaker:

to get in touch with you, I'll direct them there, but I'll double check

Speaker:

which ones you want me to use first before posting them, in case people

Speaker:

start calling you at lunchtime every day.

Speaker:

That's all right.

Speaker:

Brilliant. Thank you again so much, Sean, and, yeah, take care.

Speaker:

No worries.

Speaker:

Another huge thank you to Sean for joining me on this episode. Hope you

Speaker:

found that as insightful as I did. As mentioned, I'll make sure that links

Speaker:

are provided for our LinkedIn and Twitter profiles for you to reach out with

Speaker:

any comments or feedback. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you on the

Speaker:

next one!

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube