Amanda Powell, Target, accessibility in user research

Amanda Powell works as a senior UX designer at Target. Her exposure to accessibility came from her own challenges of having an autoimmune disorder affecting her sight. She became an advocate for accessibility tools and processes internally at her organization. That expanded to helping research and design address the needs of disabled customers.

Mentioned in this episode:

Info about Accessibility at Blink

(dramatic music)

- Hello, this is "Digital Accessibility:

"The People Behind the Progress."

I'm Joe Welinske, the creator and host of this series,

and as an accessibility professional myself,

I find it very interesting as to how others

have found their way into this profession.

So let's meet one of those people right now

and hear about their journey.

(music continues)

All right, well, here we go with another episode

where I have the great opportunity

to speak with another accessibility practitioner.

And today, I am talking with Amanda Powell.

Hello, Amanda. How are you?

- I'm doing well, Joe. How are you?

- It's a pretty good day.

I'm in my home office on Vashon Island,

which is near Blink's headquarters in Seattle.

Where are you talking to us from?

- I am in Atlanta, Georgia on the East coast.

I guess- (indistinct) - All right.

Well, welcome.

It's always good to have visits

from people in different time zones.

I'm happy to be able to have the chance

to chat with you today.

You have an interesting background,

and one of the things that I think is interesting

is that accessibility was originally just one part

of what you're involved in, and more and more,

becomes something that you work with.

So maybe a good place to start is just tell us

a little bit about what you're working on right now.

- Yeah, so I'm a Senior UX Designer at Target at the moment.

So I do a lot of stuff where it's focused

on more of the experience design.

It'll rather be content strategy,

assisting research in any needs that they might have,

or designing capabilities right now.

So I've done the multicultural work

like Mas Que, Black Beyond Measure

and right now I'm transferring over

to more product visualization work.

- Well, it sounds like you cover

a lot of different parts of UX.

What is a day in the life or a week in the life for you

with respect to those things,

or is it always different every week?

- I feel like it's different every week.

I feel like our team operates like an agency.

So different campaigns come up to us like,

"Hey, we really need some XD support.

"Can you hop onto this campaign?"

And the campaigns, they can last for a couple months,

unless it's something longer like a holiday or Halloween.

And then I do a lot of initiatives at Target,

so like UGC stuff, that's what I work on,

and that's user generated content, for those who don't know.

And then also Innovation Week,

and that's kinda like a hackathon

that we're doing at Target.

So I help plan all the nitty gritty details

to help set that up.

- Well, I think I might wanna ask you a little bit more

about your current work, but one of the things

I always like to do is find out

how people learned about accessibility

and then started to make that a part of their profession,

so where did it start for you?

- So about nine years ago,

I was diagnosed with a autoimmune inflammatory disorder.

Basically, that just means that I have

chronic inflammation throughout my body,

and it shows up in random flares, and unfortunately...

Well, it depends on how you look at it,

but it affects my eyes.

So I have chronic uveitis,

which is just chronic inflammation,

and one treatment that I would do is steroid injections,

but that caused cataracts.

So I have a stigmatism, the inflammation,

and then the cataracts.

So my vision is very wonky, and I can't...

Some days, it's better than others,

depending on the steroids or the surgeries that I have.

So I had to find workarounds, 'cause I needed a job,

and continue working in my field.

So I started using assisted technology

like voiceover or the zoom-in function,

making all my backgrounds in dark mode

to help with that stigmatism.

And that's where I first got started, and then I was like,

"I am sure that I can't be the only person

"in my workplace who has this.

"How can I implement this in my team and in my designs?"

And it came really apparent to me

when we were having a design crit at my previous job,

and I was like, "Hey, I really can't read the text."

Like, "You have a light grade background

"and a dark grade text, it's very difficult."

And their response was, "Well, it's ADA compliant."

And I was like, "Well, that's not good enough.

"That shouldn't be the ceiling.

"You should try to go above the bar."

And that's what really pushed me to make

not only my designs more accessible,

but the workplace as well.

And I translate that over to my current role at Target

by hosting presentations on how to make

your presentations more accessible,

or making a guide sheet for my team about,

"Hey, can you send me a PDF version of the presentation

"or whatever you're gonna go over in the meeting,"

so I don't have to always interrupt and be like,

"Hey, can you zoom in,"

or, "Can you use a black background and white text?"

Because that contrast really helps with my vision,

or even recording the Zooms and sending over a transcript,

that really helps as well,

or not having too much text on each slide,

because when I zoom in, I only see half of the screen,

so if it's line by line, like filling up the whole slide,

it's really difficult.

So just those small things,

and then also partnering with our Accessibility Team,

and they've been teaching me their trainings

that they give out to the teams

to try to help me prepare for my CPACC exam.

I know that was a lot. (crosstalk)

- Yeah, no, you covered a lot of things there,

but I wanted to move backwards in time a little bit,

because well, first of all,

I appreciate you sharing your physical challenges,

and I'm sure that was a lot to take in in your lived life,

but just thinking about you yourself

as a person, an employee,

that suddenly encounters this situation

separate from being an accessibility professional,

I mean, what was that like, that experience?

I imagine that you already had some comfortable...

You were comfortable with technology,

and so that might have made it a little bit easier,

but I mean, what was it like just being a person

that had to figure out the workplace with this new reality?

- I would say in the beginning, it was very difficult.

I was worried about how I would be perceived at work,

or I thought it would hinder my chances of getting a job.

It wasn't until that incidents with the comment about like,

well, it being ADA compliant,

that's the final straw where I was like, "This is enough."

Like, I'm already voicing my needs, they're not being met,

about sending the PDF beforehand,

or making the presentations accessible.

So that's when I was like, "I'm just gonna do it myself.

"I'm gonna learn what I can,

"and I'm gonna speak out about my experience,"

'cause sometimes it just takes somebody

physically seeing somebody or knowing someone

to make that connection for them.

So that's what sparked it all.

- Well, yeah, I appreciate how hard that can be,

because you're just trying to get your work done,

yet you wanna have a equitable opportunity to do that,

so I imagine it was very frustrating early on.

- Yeah, thankfully, now, I think it's...

I think everything happens for a reason.

When it comes to my illness,

I've taken that one small incidents,

and it's inspired me to start giving talks

or speaking at colleges

on how they can get into accessibility,

or how can they incorporate that in their designs?

So I think, even though it was

a very frustrating experience,

it turned into something very impactful and beautiful.

- Well, yeah, and I think that's how I first encountered,

was from something that you had published or posted.

And so then you mentioned you were doing

more and more of this informally,

and then found your way into

the accessibility activities at your organization.

So what was that like?

Is that when you suddenly realized

that there was a profession there

of people that just do this, or what was your experience

as you started to get into it more deeply?

- Well, one big reason on why I even wanted to join Target,

because they have a Disability

and Mental Health Business Council.

So one, I didn't feel alone,

and then I got to meet other disabled employees,

and hearing their stories and their experiences,

and I feel like that really fueled me to continue the work,

or I would try to incorporate it in ways in my work.

Like for example, they're very strict

on their research protocols, which makes sense,

it's a large company, so it's like,

what are the protocols in place

for pooling our disabled guests?

And they're like, "Oh, we don't have anything,"

or, "We can't find anything.

"Our people just kind of..."

It was kind of ad hoc.

So that also was an opportunity for me to be like,

"Okay, how can I deep dive and talk to the right people,

"and how can we figure that out,"

like a best practice type of thing

so other people can incorporate in their work.

- And you mentioned you were working toward the CPACC,

which is one of the certifications by the IAAP,

and so good luck with that, but how has it been going

in terms of your own education

and training about accessibility?

Has it been resources at work,

or going out on your own online to find information,

or what's that been like?

- It's been a combination of everything.

Resources at work, one of consultants

I have a partnership with on my team,

he has his own individual trainings

that he runs through with me,

but also, I utilize DQ's course prep.

It's only like $25, so that was really affordable for me.

And it self pays too, which I liked,

and it lasts for about a year to help prep for the exam.

So that one has been my biggest resource.

Before I discovered DQ, though,

I was just finding any articles I could find,

any ally groups.

We have a meetup here in Atlanta.

Connecting with people who I saw

had the CPACC certification,

and so connecting with them on LinkedIn,

asking their advice.

They've included me in some study groups,

or shared their previous notes.

So definitely, LinkedIn's community has helped a lot too.

- And now, your work at Target, is it more formalized

in terms of the accessibility work that you do?

Is there a team that covers the whole organization,

or just individual parts of it,

or are you able to talk about how it's set up?

- I don't know all of the ins and out of it.

We definitely have a team,

and each team member works on different parts,

or they'll collaborate on certain projects,

and then we have one member on the team

who oversees my whole department of Target Creative,

and he'll just see...

Like, if we need any help, he'll tell us what to do.

But I've made my own connection when we meet biweekly,

and he just runs through things that I can learn,

or presentations that he's made,

or cheat sheets so I can practice on my own time,

and then we get together

and we talk about how I ran through it

and if there's anything like, "Oh, don't forget this,"

kind of like a... I don't know.

Kind of like a mentorship, I would say.

- Well, I mean, you have this experience already

with it being something from your lived life as a challenge,

and then you've also embraced

enjoying the accessibility work.

Do you have any thoughts about the future?

Are there any things that you're particularly

interested or excited in pursuing,

or things you wanna learn more about?

- Definitely the Web3 space, and having those conversation

on what accessibility looks like in Web3,

especially in the metaverse space.

So starting those conversations have been very exciting,

and trying to figure out,

"Okay, how can we make it as accessible as possible?"

Do we have the headset, like the control shake,

or do we have auditory cues in that experience?

Or in our designs, not having anything flashy,

or not having anything too distracting,

'cause if people have ADHD or brain fog or epilepsy,

any of those type of things.

So we're trying to work through all the possibilities

for the full spectrum of accessibility.

- Well, it sounds pretty exciting,

and it's been great to have this chance to talk to you.

Have you been to any conferences

related to accessibility yet?

- No, I feel like I haven't been

to a conference since pre-COVID,

and I kind of miss the space.

It's just hard, because it's usually

jam-packed during a workday,

but I would love if I can have a list

of the sessions beforehand, and I can pick and choose.

- All right, yeah.

Well, the CSUN conference in Anaheim in March

was the first one I went to

after two and a half years of COVID.

So maybe we'll meet up at a physical event at some point.

- Yeah, that'll be great.

I feel like I should start looking into that.

I need to go to- - All right.

- Accessibility focused conferences.

- Thanks a lot, Amanda.