The Digital Accessibility Podcast – Ted Drake

In this episode of The Digital Accessibility Podcast, Joe is joined by Ted Drake, Global Head of Accessibility and Inclusive Design at Intuit, where he leads accessibility strategy across products used by millions of people worldwide.

Ted shares his journey into accessibility, from building websites in the early 2000s with no formal coding background to becoming one of the most respected accessibility leaders in the industry. He reflects on how curiosity, creativity, and a passion for inclusive experiences helped shape his career and approach to leadership.

Throughout the conversation, we explore what it really takes to embed accessibility at scale inside a global technology organisation, and how accessibility leaders can influence culture, product development, and long-term business strategy.

We also discuss the rapidly evolving role of AI in accessibility, including both the opportunities it creates and the risks the industry and its users needs to be aware of moving forward.

We discuss:

• A non-traditional path into accessibility: How Ted transitioned from a fine art background into digital accessibility and inclusive design.
• Accessibility at scale: What it takes to embed accessibility across product, engineering, design, and organisational culture.
• Inclusive design leadership: Why accessibility should be viewed as a business and human-centered strategy, not simply compliance.
• Driving organisational change: How to influence teams, build momentum, and sustain accessibility practices inside large companies.
• AI and accessibility: The opportunities artificial intelligence presents for improving accessibility, alongside the potential risks and ethical considerations.
• The future of accessibility: Ted’s perspective on where the industry is heading and the importance of continuing to evolve accessibility practices alongside technology.

Ted also shares valuable insight into the importance of persistence, collaboration, and maintaining a strong focus on the real people accessibility is designed to support.

Follow Ted Drake:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/draket/

Website: https://www.last-child.com/

Follow Joe James:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeajames/

Twitter (X): @A11yJoe

PCR Website: www.pcrdigital.com

Resource links:

Your undivided Attention Podcast:

https://open.spotify.com/show/4KI3PtZaWJbAWK89vgttoU?si=36e3beefc3ba49a9

Little, Yellow, Different, Ernie Hsiung:

https://www.littleyellowdifferent.com/

Speaker: Welcome back to the Digital Accessibility podcast.

Speaker: If you're looking to learn more about the field of

Speaker: accessibility, how to implement it within your role or your

Speaker: company, or to get advice on where to start or see how others

Speaker: have navigated complex issues that you may find along the way,

Speaker: then you're in the right place.

Speaker: I'm honored to be able to share these insightful chats with

Speaker: thought leaders, advocates, and practitioners of digital

Speaker: accessibility throughout this podcast, and I hope you'll find

Speaker: it a useful resource.

Speaker: As always, thank you so much for listening, and I hope you

Speaker: enjoyed the chat.

Speaker: Today's guest is someone who's

Speaker: been helping to shape the

Speaker: accessibility industry for many

Speaker: years, and is currently leading

Speaker: accessibility at one of the

Speaker: world's most influential

Speaker: technology companies.

Speaker: I'm joined by Ted Drake, global Head of accessibility and

Speaker: inclusive design at Intuit, where he leads the strategy for

Speaker: building inclusive products across platforms used by

Speaker: millions of people Worldwide.

Speaker: Ted spent his career driving

Speaker: accessibility forwards across

Speaker: major organisations, including

Speaker: Intuit, where he's worked to

Speaker: embed accessibility into product

Speaker: development, engineering,

Speaker: culture and design practices at

Speaker: scale.

Speaker: He's also a longtime advocate

Speaker: for inclusive design,

Speaker: accessibility, leadership and

Speaker: the role that technology can

Speaker: play in creating more equitable

Speaker: digital experiences.

Speaker: We're going to explore Ted's

Speaker: journey into accessibility, how

Speaker: Intuit approaches accessibility

Speaker: at scale, and importantly, how

Speaker: AI is beginning to influence the

Speaker: future of digital accessibility,

Speaker: both the opportunities and the

Speaker: risks.

Speaker: Ted, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker: Hey, thank you so much.

Speaker: So as we always do with our episodes, uh, like to try and

Speaker: start at the beginning.

Speaker: Um, so the question is always around what originally led you

Speaker: into accessibility or inclusive design and how that sort of

Speaker: journey has, has sort of ended up in you becoming global head

Speaker: of accessibility at Intuit.

Speaker: Yeah, sometimes I think my story is kind of boring because

Speaker: there's not a big aha moment, but it does go back to two

Speaker: thousand, year two thousand.

Speaker: Um, I had a degree in fine art, and so I was working for the art

Speaker: museum in San Diego, but on the side, I was building websites,

Speaker: uh, for friends and for other companies using a really simple

Speaker: Wysiwyg editor called my website builder or something like that.

Speaker: I didn't know how to code, but I knew the structure, purpose,

Speaker: things like that.

Speaker: So when the museum needed a new

Speaker: website manager, I raised my

Speaker: hand and said, hey, I could do

Speaker: this.

Speaker: And they gave me the opportunity.

Speaker: So as soon as I started doing that, I started to learn about,

Speaker: um, the Ada and I started to learn about accessibility was

Speaker: something that was required because the museum is a

Speaker: government funded entity.

Speaker: But if you think about two thousand, that's when everything

Speaker: was table based layouts.

Speaker: Everybody was really excited about a book called Creating

Speaker: Killer Websites, which essentially threw accessibility

Speaker: into the garbage dump.

Speaker: Um, I, wcaG one point zero, I

Speaker: think was at that time, uh, we

Speaker: were still having badges on our

Speaker: website that said works with

Speaker: Netscape Navigator four point

Speaker: seven.

Speaker: You know, instead of all of this

Speaker: stuff, it was a nightmare of

Speaker: times.

Speaker: So knowing that I had to be accessible, but actually doing

Speaker: it were two different things.

Speaker: And so by being the website

Speaker: manager, I started to learn more

Speaker: and more.

Speaker: And it was shortly after that

Speaker: that, uh, the standards based

Speaker: web development community

Speaker: started developing.

Speaker: And so I jumped into that pretty quickly and, uh, learning about

Speaker: like, how do we throw away all this junk that we've been doing

Speaker: and start over from scratch?

Speaker: Now, to give you an idea, our

Speaker: website had this really cool

Speaker: beveled edge to the left

Speaker: navigation.

Speaker: That really cool beveled edge

Speaker: was created with a table, and

Speaker: each of the those little

Speaker: gradations was a different

Speaker: spacer gif with a background

Speaker: color.

Speaker: So just to load that page, we probably had like five hundred

Speaker: spacer GIFs and each one had no alt text, no alt attribute

Speaker: because we didn't know anything about those things.

Speaker: So you can imagine like hearing

Speaker: spacer, spacer, spacer, spacer

Speaker: all day long with the standards

Speaker: based web development, I was

Speaker: able to say, hey, here's a

Speaker: background image, here's a list

Speaker: item.

Speaker: We now have a navigation, you

Speaker: know, it's went from thousands

Speaker: of line of codes down to quite

Speaker: small.

Speaker: We were learning like, let's do things correctly.

Speaker: Um, after the museum, I went to a couple other companies that

Speaker: were teaching, and I was teaching the other developers,

Speaker: and I was building the templates to be, uh, standards based and

Speaker: learning from all of our, all of our colleagues and mentors.

Speaker: It was a really, really great, uh, community of people that

Speaker: were standards based.

Speaker: So one day I got a call from

Speaker: yahoo and of course, you know,

Speaker: you take a call from yahoo back

Speaker: then.

Speaker: And, uh, I joined yahoo as a front end engineer.

Speaker: And then it's like being

Speaker: surrounded by the best

Speaker: developers everywhere.

Speaker: It was unbelievable.

Speaker: The people I was working with and learning from.

Speaker: And, um, you didn't even get an interview if you didn't know

Speaker: accessibility at that point.

Speaker: Uh, because the front end engineering community at yahoo

Speaker: was the core of front end engineering around the world.

Speaker: And you were expected to know certain things.

Speaker: Um, so getting into yahoo, um, I

Speaker: was able to co-found the

Speaker: accessibility stakeholders

Speaker: group, which taught like from a

Speaker: ground up how to get people

Speaker: involved.

Speaker: Um, one of the cool things we

Speaker: did was an alt campaign where we

Speaker: created the documentation and

Speaker: the cheat sheets and everything,

Speaker: and we passed it out to the

Speaker: entire yahoo!

Speaker: And in one week we solved about

Speaker: seventy five percent of image

Speaker: alt text across all of the alt

Speaker: yahoo properties.

Speaker: That was something that we did

Speaker: that became the Yahoo

Speaker: Accessibility Lab.

Speaker: And then from there, I moved on

Speaker: to into about fourteen years

Speaker: ago, um, and was kind of given,

Speaker: uh, I, my manager from yahoo was

Speaker: at Intuit and she knew and

Speaker: respected me.

Speaker: So she basically gave me carte blanche to say, do whatever

Speaker: needs to be done for accessibility it into it.

Speaker: And that was fourteen years ago.

Speaker: I mean, you'd clearly proven yourself by that point with, uh,

Speaker: everything you've been achieving at yahoo, right?

Speaker: So it's, uh, no, uh, incredible story.

Speaker: And, um, something that is very

Speaker: familiar, I suppose, with

Speaker: everyone I speak to in this

Speaker: space is that I don't think

Speaker: everyone goes, wakes up and

Speaker: goes, I'm going to be an

Speaker: accessibility professional.

Speaker: That's exactly what I want to do.

Speaker: It kind of feels like it's, um, something that you arrive at

Speaker: once you have when you start deeply thinking about users and

Speaker: about, you know, who it really affects rather than, um, yeah, I

Speaker: guess a lot of people might think, oh, do gooders, but no,

Speaker: it's, it's, you know, you're thinking really deeply and

Speaker: innovating, aren't you?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I've got a couple of things about that.

Speaker: When I first started accessibility and standards

Speaker: based web development, it was about having pride in your code.

Speaker: It was about, I'm going to handcraft these pages so that

Speaker: they are perfect.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But I never really worked with anybody that was disabled or met

Speaker: customers that were disabled until I got to yahoo.

Speaker: And when I got to yahoo, that's

Speaker: when theory and reality came

Speaker: together.

Speaker: And that's when I realized that the stuff we were doing actually

Speaker: mattered and and the kind of impact we could have.

Speaker: There was another thing that happened in my career, and this

Speaker: was in twenty sixteen.

Speaker: Um, Matt May.

Speaker: He was at Adobe at the time and

Speaker: he posted a tweet and it said,

Speaker: watching a blind advocate tell

Speaker: someone with another disability

Speaker: to center blind issues first and

Speaker: wait for the benefits to trickle

Speaker: down.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: That was the tweet that he shared.

Speaker: And that hit me like a brick wall.

Speaker: And so that started me on my

Speaker: journey of trickle down

Speaker: accessibility back in twenty

Speaker: sixteen, where I have been

Speaker: focusing on what are the

Speaker: elements, the edges of the

Speaker: disability community that are

Speaker: often ignored.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Um, and that's over the years.

Speaker: That's included things like

Speaker: brain fog, um, sickle cell

Speaker: disease, uh, we've been dealing

Speaker: with, um, cognitive load, uh,

Speaker: trauma informed principles, uh,

Speaker: neurodiversity, obsessive

Speaker: compulsive, uh, all of these

Speaker: things are not solved by making

Speaker: something work for a screen

Speaker: reader.

Speaker: And yet that's really what the community has done for the

Speaker: majority of the last twenty five years is like, how do we solve

Speaker: for a screen reader?

Speaker: And I'm not saying that we don't

Speaker: want to solve for a screen

Speaker: reader.

Speaker: I'm just saying that solving for

Speaker: a screen reader doesn't solve

Speaker: for everybody.

Speaker: I'm pleased you put the caveat in there.

Speaker: I would have done it for you anyway, because I know that's

Speaker: not what you're trying to get at, but, um, the, um, it's I

Speaker: hear that an awful lot.

Speaker: It's like if it works with a

Speaker: screen reader, you're pretty

Speaker: much there.

Speaker: It's like, huh.

Speaker: Yeah, maybe not, but amazing.

Speaker: It's, um, it's incredible journey.

Speaker: I'm going to have to move on to our second question because, um,

Speaker: I'm not going to get through half a day.

Speaker: Um, so, um, for those who aren't aware, and they will be into.

Speaker: It is obviously a huge, huge

Speaker: organization responsible for

Speaker: products used by millions of

Speaker: people globally.

Speaker: Could it be billions?

Speaker: I'll leave it at millions anyway because that could be the

Speaker: hundreds of millions.

Speaker: Um, there are financial tools,

Speaker: small business platforms, etc..

Speaker: Um, so I can imagine embedding

Speaker: accessibility.

Speaker: I mean, you've been at yahoo, but embedding accessibility at

Speaker: that scale is no small feat.

Speaker: Um, so how, how would you say

Speaker: that you're approaching building

Speaker: it into such a large product

Speaker: ecosystem?

Speaker: Are there any sort of key ingredients is required or, um,

Speaker: I guess moving it from just being compliance based and then

Speaker: something that's embedded in the way things are designed?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I came to into it because they had a reputation for being a

Speaker: customer centered, and I'm still at Intuit because they have a

Speaker: focus on customer centered.

Speaker: And what I mean by that is, as an accessibility leader at

Speaker: Intuit, I've never really done business justifications, uh,

Speaker: cost benefit analysis.

Speaker: It's always been about who's the customer.

Speaker: Um, how is this bug impacting the customer?

Speaker: Um, how do we solve it?

Speaker: Um, and how do we avoid doing this again in the future?

Speaker: It's, it's always been now we might have to prioritize.

Speaker: You know, there's something that's affecting a million users

Speaker: that might have to get done right away, but it's not about

Speaker: showing that if I solve this bug, that it increases the, uh,

Speaker: cost or the profit.

Speaker: That's never been a part of my work at Intuit.

Speaker: And that's why where we've gone

Speaker: from is the empathy route is

Speaker: we've always wanted to put the

Speaker: person in the discussions, and

Speaker: we've done hundreds of user

Speaker: research and interviews with

Speaker: customers that have

Speaker: disabilities.

Speaker: We've archived all of those.

Speaker: We've got notes and videos.

Speaker: We've done hundreds of accessibility lunch and learns

Speaker: over the years.

Speaker: Uh, we started our employee resource group.

Speaker: We have a huge accessibility champion network.

Speaker: These are all about how do we, how do we move beyond compliance

Speaker: and move to usability and delightful experiences and

Speaker: understanding those edge cases?

Speaker: And that's how we've been able to scale.

Speaker: And I think it just goes to show, it's kind of from your

Speaker: beginnings as well, where it's it was about standards based.

Speaker: It was about the pride and it's just something that's embedded.

Speaker: It is just it's the done thing.

Speaker: And it would be a breath of fresh air for a lot of people in

Speaker: accessibility if more companies had that viewpoint.

Speaker: I think there was one other

Speaker: thing that going back to the

Speaker: very beginning when I joined

Speaker: into it.

Speaker: I was the only person added into it by myself.

Speaker: I. I didn't start the accessibility program.

Speaker: It started before me.

Speaker: Laurie Samuels had started it, but when I came in, I was really

Speaker: like the only person.

Speaker: And I looked at every product I used, every product.

Speaker: I looked at everybody's code.

Speaker: I saw the problems we were

Speaker: having that nobody else at the

Speaker: company had seen, because nobody

Speaker: had ever used all of the

Speaker: products.

Speaker: And because I saw all of those

Speaker: issues, I created the Front End

Speaker: Engineering Summit, a node

Speaker: summit.

Speaker: I created programs that brought people together to start talking

Speaker: and to start collaborating.

Speaker: And that front end engineering community built up from there.

Speaker: And from there, we started building these cross business

Speaker: unit collaborations and such.

Speaker: We need to remember that the

Speaker: accessibility team is not a

Speaker: accessibility team.

Speaker: In many ways, we are the hub.

Speaker: We are the people that are the closest to customers.

Speaker: Um, and we're also the one that sees everybody else's products.

Speaker: So that's one of the things that we need to think about is we're

Speaker: not just a step in the, in the process of developing, we are

Speaker: actually an umbrella.

Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker: And I think that that, that kind

Speaker: of, uh, where you're at the crux

Speaker: of it, it can get confusing for

Speaker: companies sometimes when they're

Speaker: trying to inject it within

Speaker: something that has not been

Speaker: embedded.

Speaker: It's not really been, they're not on the front foot.

Speaker: So I see a lot of companies in

Speaker: the UK that have, um, customer

Speaker: experience teams.

Speaker: And that's where the

Speaker: accessibility lead will sit, but

Speaker: they need to be closer to the

Speaker: technical side to actually make

Speaker: implementations.

Speaker: If it's a technical product and it's trying to find that

Speaker: balance, I think of where it really should sit, but actually

Speaker: it should just be that umbrella.

Speaker: And there's maybe people like a champions network I think works

Speaker: really well, doesn't it, to have people from different

Speaker: backgrounds and viewpoints.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: We've got, uh, about three zero

Speaker: zero zero people at into it that

Speaker: have become accessibility

Speaker: champions.

Speaker: Oh, wow.

Speaker: And we've got a Slack channel of

Speaker: about two zero zero zero people

Speaker: that are getting information

Speaker: every day about accessibility

Speaker: and such.

Speaker: It's just amazing.

Speaker: Like an internal ecosystem of,

Speaker: of, uh, like a fountain of

Speaker: knowledge.

Speaker: Brilliant.

Speaker: It's about ten percent of the company.

Speaker: Oh, wow.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I mean, phenomenal.

Speaker: A huge, huge impact.

Speaker: And it's, it shows real scale.

Speaker: So thank you for that.

Speaker: Um, so then I was on a, uh, champions of accessibility

Speaker: network talk that where you were delivering a talk on what you

Speaker: were doing with, um, AI or coding and things like that.

Speaker: And, um, I won't spoil it

Speaker: because I'm sure that's recorded

Speaker: for people to go and watch, but

Speaker: I wondered if you could sort of

Speaker: explain a little bit more for

Speaker: our listeners, what you see as

Speaker: being the biggest shifts

Speaker: happening in technology right

Speaker: now, and obviously, the rise of

Speaker: the rapid rise of AI and and

Speaker: generative technologies.

Speaker: Um, I'm seeing it sort of everywhere at the moment.

Speaker: Um, automated testing tools,

Speaker: code generation, um, content

Speaker: generation and videos and

Speaker: things.

Speaker: And it's scarily getting a lot better.

Speaker: But then I think similarly to what you were saying about

Speaker: moving away from standards based coding or just sort of injecting

Speaker: all of this noise with frameworks and things and not

Speaker: using semantics, is that are we at risk of that happening with,

Speaker: with AI being injected as well?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And we need to note that this is April twenty first, twenty

Speaker: twenty six, because, you know, June, we're going to have a

Speaker: completely different mindset.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Um, right now, I think we're at a cusp.

Speaker: Um, and I think this is really important for everybody to know

Speaker: AI is getting better when it comes to developing code.

Speaker: But we still are at a point where the we're no longer

Speaker: developers building stuff.

Speaker: It's product managers that are designing prototypes and then

Speaker: having Claude create code and stuff like that.

Speaker: So the future is that we're going to have people that were

Speaker: not trained in semantics, trained in accessibility,

Speaker: trained in performance, trained in security, um, doing code

Speaker: that's going live and we're going to get a lot of slop.

Speaker: We're going to get a lot of bad stuff.

Speaker: And I've seen this go throughout the industry over the years

Speaker: where new technology comes in, everybody jumps on it.

Speaker: There is an enormous amount of really bad stuff comes out, and

Speaker: then we have to spend a lot of time cleaning it up, and then a

Speaker: new technology comes.

Speaker: I mean, we're still digging out from angular.

Speaker: When angular came out and said everything was a button.

Speaker: Um, right now add into it at least.

Speaker: And I hope other companies, we have accessibility at the core

Speaker: of our AI initiatives that are trying to say, well, how are we

Speaker: going to, you know, be five times, ten times faster?

Speaker: How are we going to be able to have Claude build stuff from a

Speaker: sketch to a product thing?

Speaker: We can't assume that the

Speaker: person's going to say to Claude,

Speaker: hey, I want you to make this

Speaker: accessible.

Speaker: Yeah, we want this to be semantic.

Speaker: We want this to work with the screen reader.

Speaker: What we need to do as accessibility leaders is make

Speaker: sure that our voice is in the development of those tools from

Speaker: the very beginning.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And if you are, your output is

Speaker: going to be substantially

Speaker: better.

Speaker: I'm looking forward to six months from now when we're going

Speaker: to be able to say, um, you know, run like an automated test, find

Speaker: out all of not of the products, but like of GitHub and stuff

Speaker: like that and be able to say, find all the bad images we have

Speaker: and fix them, you know?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: All of these legacy bugs that

Speaker: we've had for, you know,

Speaker: decades, it would be really nice

Speaker: if all of a sudden it can

Speaker: detect, here's a color contrast

Speaker: ratio.

Speaker: I'm going to replace that bad

Speaker: gray with, you know, our

Speaker: standard gray.

Speaker: And to be able to do these automated fixes, um, that's what

Speaker: I'm really looking forward to.

Speaker: I'm looking forward to someone creating a prototype.

Speaker: And when that prototype comes

Speaker: back, it has excellent keyboard

Speaker: accessibility.

Speaker: It's semantic, it has the right Aria roles.

Speaker: And they didn't know what they were doing.

Speaker: If we don't do that though, then

Speaker: our products are going to get

Speaker: exponentially worse.

Speaker: And so that's that's the cusp we're at.

Speaker: You're either going to be

Speaker: improving your products or

Speaker: you're going to be degrading

Speaker: your products.

Speaker: And it's all about is

Speaker: accessibility part of that core

Speaker: discussion?

Speaker: If it's not, I don't have much

Speaker: faith for the The product life

Speaker: cycle.

Speaker: And I think that part of that product life cycle is always

Speaker: like a three pronged, like a triangle, isn't it?

Speaker: You either have speed, so you have time, you have quality and

Speaker: you have cost.

Speaker: And if you're reducing, you're technically going to be reducing

Speaker: all three because the quality is still going to be bad.

Speaker: But yeah, the cost is down and the time is down.

Speaker: But you why, why should you, why

Speaker: should we be compromising on

Speaker: everything, you know, like it

Speaker: should, there should be a good

Speaker: balance.

Speaker: But yeah, maybe we need a square where accessibility is one of

Speaker: those as well.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And the other thing to think about in the future is that

Speaker: accessibility and web development is not a science,

Speaker: it's an art.

Speaker: And there are reasons why we

Speaker: choose to use one thing over the

Speaker: other.

Speaker: And AI is not going to make those decisions correctly.

Speaker: AI is going to make the scientific explanation.

Speaker: Here's something I want to.

Speaker: It needs an Aria label.

Speaker: So I'm going to put an Aria label on it.

Speaker: Well, then we look at and we're

Speaker: like, it really didn't need that

Speaker: Aria label.

Speaker: Or maybe you're trying to put an Aria label on the wrong element.

Speaker: So that's where we still need to be that person in the middle.

Speaker: That's making sure that as we're

Speaker: using AI to generate that, we're

Speaker: still putting the art into what

Speaker: we're doing.

Speaker: And the pride, I suppose.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Going back to that as well, I

Speaker: think it's, um, maybe there'll

Speaker: be an accessibility pride today

Speaker: as well.

Speaker: We'll have parades for making things accessible.

Speaker: I think the um the other thing that that was bringing me back

Speaker: to naturally my brain will go here as a recruiter.

Speaker: So my job is to find people roles in this space.

Speaker: And, um, if we are going to be

Speaker: automating everything, it's just

Speaker: making me think the future of

Speaker: accessibility professionals role

Speaker: will actually be, you know,

Speaker: prompt engineering to that

Speaker: level.

Speaker: And that's going to become into so many people's job roles, I

Speaker: think, in moving forward is ensuring that the prompt or what

Speaker: we're putting into for the output is including all of those

Speaker: things you've mentioned.

Speaker: You know, you have to be listing them so that one thing isn't

Speaker: removed from that process.

Speaker: Or we're just saying make it screen reader accessible and

Speaker: hoping we trickle down.

Speaker: So, um, I think that you did

Speaker: mention what you had put

Speaker: together, you put together

Speaker: something that will assist with

Speaker: those that, that sort of prompt

Speaker: engine.

Speaker: And is that something that we could share here, or is that

Speaker: something that people could find on, you know, online from you?

Speaker: Um, I do have a website called last hyphen child dot com.

Speaker: This goes back to, you know, when CSS three was released and

Speaker: it was one of the CSS rules.

Speaker: Um, and I do have an article on Corgi.

Speaker: Corgi bot is our internal knowledge base and we

Speaker: continually upgrade it.

Speaker: So Corgi bot is, uh, for the

Speaker: last fourteen years, we've had

Speaker: this mantra that document

Speaker: everything.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: We can't scale when we're a team

Speaker: of one, two, three or four

Speaker: people or five people, depending

Speaker: on the.

Speaker: Over the years, we've gone from one to five.

Speaker: The only way we're going to

Speaker: scale is if we can make that

Speaker: information available.

Speaker: So we have hundreds of hours of

Speaker: videos and presentations and

Speaker: articles and wiki pages and all

Speaker: this stuff.

Speaker: And it was always like, not a

Speaker: matter of can I find that

Speaker: information?

Speaker: But it's like, how am I going to find that information?

Speaker: So we trained Corgi bot on all that information.

Speaker: And now people can go to one place and they can say to ask it

Speaker: a question like create a design requirements for this Figma, uh,

Speaker: screenshot or, uh, how would someone with ADHD react to this,

Speaker: uh, onboarding screen?

Speaker: Um, where should focus be moved on this point?

Speaker: You know, these kind of questions you can actually ask

Speaker: corgi bot because it's trained on all of these things that

Speaker: we've done over the years.

Speaker: Yeah, I was doing something

Speaker: recently where we created forty

Speaker: personas.

Speaker: Intersectional personas.

Speaker: They go back to things like

Speaker: working in a bright screen or,

Speaker: um, having old phones to having

Speaker: a sickle cell disease or brain

Speaker: fog.

Speaker: Those were generated by Corgi bot on ChatGPT, but then I took

Speaker: it over to Corgi bot on Claude and I said, okay, now you know,

Speaker: review what ChatGPT said and now let's expand and go through it.

Speaker: And we went and we built it up and I just published it to

Speaker: GitHub this morning.

Speaker: Um, but that's going back to the artistic side.

Speaker: I was looking at the code that

Speaker: was generated by Claude, and I

Speaker: didn't like one section, so I

Speaker: kept updating it to the point

Speaker: where it's just, uh, it had

Speaker: extraneous Aria labels that

Speaker: weren't needed.

Speaker: Um, these are the things that creating forty persona cards and

Speaker: each of those persona cards has an AI prompt.

Speaker: So if you wanted to make sure that your product worked for

Speaker: someone, let's say with, um, endometriosis, which is a

Speaker: chronic pain condition.

Speaker: It's a not an acute pain condition.

Speaker: I could put that prompt into my builder.

Speaker: And when I'm doing this, you know, security check point, I

Speaker: can make sure that it works for someone with an acute or chronic

Speaker: pain situation kind of thing.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: And that's just, again, sometimes I love that you're

Speaker: including so many and this is your role, right?

Speaker: It's inclusive inclusivity, but including all of these things

Speaker: that aren't really mentioned on these types of podcasts.

Speaker: Like you say, endometriosis, my wife's been tested for that

Speaker: herself recently, and it's not something I have personally

Speaker: considered within accessibility, but naturally it is.

Speaker: It's a condition that should be.

Speaker: Um, and then it brings me back to the sort of, uh, temporary

Speaker: situational and permanent sort of, um, impairment or

Speaker: disabilities in design and um, yeah, I mean, plugging all of

Speaker: that information you're feeding is like, you're, you're giving

Speaker: it a good diet.

Speaker: I think it's a good balanced diet rather than, um, feeding it

Speaker: fast food and hoping it spits out more buttons.

Speaker: Um, wcaG, um, you know,

Speaker: accessible Canada act e e a all

Speaker: of these are great documents,

Speaker: but they're not telling the

Speaker: story.

Speaker: So if you're only training your

Speaker: AI on specifications and legal

Speaker: requirements, it's not getting

Speaker: the full story and it's not

Speaker: going to be able to embrace, you

Speaker: know, what people are

Speaker: experiencing.

Speaker: That's so true.

Speaker: Yeah, definitely goes a lot deeper.

Speaker: Um, and yeah, I guess we need to all remember that.

Speaker: Um, but amazing.

Speaker: And then I guess we have touched

Speaker: on this already, uh, which is

Speaker: great because we thought we

Speaker: weren't going to get through all

Speaker: of these questions, but, uh,

Speaker: responsible AI.

Speaker: I guess we've already kind of,

Speaker: uh, sort of covered this in a

Speaker: way.

Speaker: Um, do you see that, that, that melding of, of responsibility

Speaker: and AI development happening?

Speaker: And is this basically what we've just discussed, or is there

Speaker: anything else that you've seen out there, like how, um, certain

Speaker: products are being built and do you think people are going to be

Speaker: listened to, or is that going to be the proof's in the pudding

Speaker: with what you're building?

Speaker: There's a podcast I listen to called Your Undivided Attention.

Speaker: Uh, it's a great podcast and they've broken it down to.

Speaker: Social media was the engagement economy.

Speaker: They wanted you to engage.

Speaker: They wanted you to click.

Speaker: They wanted you to refresh.

Speaker: They wanted you to watch.

Speaker: They wanted you to thumbs up.

Speaker: AI is an attachment economy.

Speaker: They want you attached to your AI that you're required to use,

Speaker: your AI, that you can't live your life without AI.

Speaker: One of the.

Speaker: Every year I try to find new research, things to investigate.

Speaker: So one of the things I'm going to be looking into this year is

Speaker: that attachment economy.

Speaker: How does it impact it?

Speaker: We're already seeing like people that use BMIs era IRA, AI and

Speaker: some of these others.

Speaker: It's like, if you're so

Speaker: dependent on those apps, are you

Speaker: going to lose your navigation

Speaker: abilities?

Speaker: And I know that some people are already worried about that.

Speaker: If you're so used to AI writing your stories, um, are you going

Speaker: to continue writing on your own?

Speaker: Um, in the disability world, I believe that there's an even

Speaker: more extreme, uh, urgency to understand attachment and how

Speaker: attachment is good because attachment can be great.

Speaker: Um, being able to use, uh, real

Speaker: time captioning is great and

Speaker: being able to turn that on is

Speaker: great.

Speaker: But if attachment means that,

Speaker: um, your AI becomes your world

Speaker: becomes your, uh, coach and

Speaker: everything and you're excluding

Speaker: yourself from the rest of the

Speaker: society and the rest of and

Speaker: actually using your own innate

Speaker: abilities.

Speaker: That's where we need to be worrying.

Speaker: Worrying about.

Speaker: So that's one thing I look for,

Speaker: uh, in, I'm going to be looking

Speaker: more into over the years, the

Speaker: attachment economy and

Speaker: accessibility.

Speaker: Well, I'll be following that

Speaker: closely because I know that your

Speaker: research will be a lot more in

Speaker: depth than I'll be able to

Speaker: muster up.

Speaker: So, uh, very important point.

Speaker: And, um, it kind of, it's another realization that we are

Speaker: living in the future, you know, five, even five years ago, ten

Speaker: years ago, maybe.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: This was unthinkable really in the sort of in everyday life.

Speaker: But now that whole neurolink

Speaker: your brain or your consciousness

Speaker: will live forever is is here

Speaker: almost, you know, in a, in a

Speaker: way.

Speaker: Um, and that is down to that attachment economy.

Speaker: So yeah, be very interested to see what, where that goes.

Speaker: Um, it is quite scary though.

Speaker: Um, so would you have any advice for people?

Speaker: This isn't something I sent you before, so don't feel no, not

Speaker: pressured to answer, but any advice on how to avoid getting

Speaker: lost in that?

Speaker: Because I do think I've seen a

Speaker: lot of people there posting a

Speaker: lot of content online, and there

Speaker: are errors.

Speaker: It's very noticeably AI generated but not declared.

Speaker: Is there any way that you you'd suggest people sort of detach

Speaker: from that in a way?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know, I was thinking about this recently.

Speaker: I was in a writing group with a few other people.

Speaker: AI makes it so easy to publish articles, and I have to admit

Speaker: that I've done that myself.

Speaker: Um, at yahoo, we had a blog and we had social media and we had

Speaker: a, we had a, um, a rule and it was a three to one rule.

Speaker: And that three to one rule meant for every time you talk about

Speaker: yourself, you have to talk about three other people.

Speaker: So for every four tweets, three tweets are about someone else.

Speaker: And I think that that might be a rule that you can do with AI.

Speaker: Um, if I'm really using AI to

Speaker: write all my articles, then one

Speaker: out of four of them should be

Speaker: handwritten.

Speaker: If I'm using AI to generate all my recipes, then one of those

Speaker: recipes should be out of a book.

Speaker: Um, it's that kind of thing.

Speaker: If I'm using AI to create my

Speaker: daily schedule, then one day out

Speaker: of the week, I make my schedule

Speaker: myself.

Speaker: If you can create that kind of a

Speaker: rule, however it works for

Speaker: yourself, that's going to help

Speaker: keep you from becoming so

Speaker: dependent on AI, um, that you

Speaker: find yourself like, how do I do

Speaker: this again?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Because I think a lot of people

Speaker: will end up losing that sort of

Speaker: natural functionality.

Speaker: Um, I mean, I'm, I'm highly disorganized.

Speaker: I'm going through a, um, neurodivergence, um, assessment

Speaker: at the moment as well with my, my doctor and it's something

Speaker: that I'm trying to learn to live with and figure out.

Speaker: And I'm seeing the benefits absolutely of of an AI sort of

Speaker: assistant almost just to sort of keep me measured, know where I'm

Speaker: going, what I'm doing.

Speaker: But if I become entirely

Speaker: dependent on that, then am I

Speaker: ever going to be thinking for

Speaker: myself?

Speaker: Um, am I still human?

Speaker: I have a friend.

Speaker: Uh, I've known him since the, uh, yahoo days.

Speaker: Uh, Ernie Sung and he has a

Speaker: website called Little Yellow

Speaker: different.

Speaker: And what's interesting is that he's been blogging since two

Speaker: thousand, but the last five years is really or four years

Speaker: has been about his life with AI.

Speaker: And he's really transparent

Speaker: about how how AI is changed and

Speaker: how he uses it and how it's

Speaker: transformed his family, not

Speaker: necessarily in good ways or bad

Speaker: ways, and what it's telling him

Speaker: and stuff.

Speaker: And so it's kind of fascinating

Speaker: to read over the last two years,

Speaker: especially how, how someone that

Speaker: from the very core of yahoo and

Speaker: stuff.

Speaker: And he built the first social Media.

Speaker: Yahoo three hundred sixty and stuff like that.

Speaker: How, um, how AI can really

Speaker: become a part of your life

Speaker: whether you like it or not and

Speaker: benefit or not benefit because

Speaker: there's, there's not, it's not

Speaker: a, a clear, um, a clear win or

Speaker: lose.

Speaker: It's everything.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: There's so much else to consider.

Speaker: I mean, also, I've got to say,

Speaker: Ted, I half expected this, but I

Speaker: really appreciate all of the

Speaker: resources I've been making

Speaker: notes.

Speaker: So if you think I'm looking disinterested, I'm just writing

Speaker: them down so I can have a look at them later.

Speaker: Um, and I'll try and share some links as well with the, the

Speaker: episode when it goes live.

Speaker: Um, but brilliant.

Speaker: So, um, moving on to sort of building that culture again

Speaker: within those product teams.

Speaker: So like you mentioned, um, it

Speaker: is, I think I'm making

Speaker: assumptions now.

Speaker: I shouldn't do this when I'm asking you a question.

Speaker: Um, so I will stick to the question.

Speaker: So what strategies have worked

Speaker: best for you when it comes to

Speaker: building that awareness and

Speaker: capability?

Speaker: A lot, a large product teams.

Speaker: I mean, we've kind of covered this already.

Speaker: Like you say, with with sort of champions networks and things,

Speaker: but is there anything else to add to that to help sort of

Speaker: maybe smaller companies?

Speaker: Um, if you have any sort of

Speaker: suggestions, the first user

Speaker: research interview I did was

Speaker: with mozzarella.

Speaker: It was a pizza company in San Francisco that was owned and run

Speaker: by people that were deaf.

Speaker: And it was a great opportunity for me to that was I mean, I was

Speaker: fresh into it when I did that.

Speaker: One of the things they.

Speaker: I took several takeaways, but one of them was, you have to

Speaker: hire someone that's deaf if you really are going to be

Speaker: supporting the deaf community.

Speaker: And so that summer, I hired a

Speaker: deaf intern and she studied the

Speaker: barriers and opportunities for

Speaker: deaf entrepreneurs and

Speaker: accountants.

Speaker: This was I at least ten years ago.

Speaker: I can't remember exactly when she's now, you know, my co-lead

Speaker: within the accessibility team.

Speaker: But that was so true.

Speaker: She has done so much within our

Speaker: company because she's brought

Speaker: coming in with this different

Speaker: perspective.

Speaker: You've got to do customer

Speaker: research with people with

Speaker: disabilities from all aspects of

Speaker: life.

Speaker: And it's not just disabilities, it's intersectionality.

Speaker: So it's of all income levels and

Speaker: housing, um, um, education

Speaker: levels, languages.

Speaker: If you don't do that kind of user research and you're not

Speaker: sharing what you're finding, then, um, you're not going to

Speaker: grow because there's a lot of people that do accessibility,

Speaker: but they're kind of, it's more compliance driven and it's

Speaker: really about auditing and fixing and auditing and fixing and that

Speaker: kind of burns you out.

Speaker: But when you're able to have the bigger picture, I think that's

Speaker: where we excel.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it's more exciting, I think,

Speaker: because you're always going to

Speaker: be learning.

Speaker: I don't think there's ever going to be.

Speaker: I mean, I'm going to speak out

Speaker: of turn, but a lot of that

Speaker: burnout comes from that

Speaker: repetitive nature.

Speaker: You feel like you're getting

Speaker: nowhere or you can't get the buy

Speaker: in.

Speaker: But when you're in a culture or in a community like that,

Speaker: Intuit, where it's kind of the norm, you're exploring, you're

Speaker: researching and really ingrained with it, then, uh, I can't see

Speaker: that ever becoming boring.

Speaker: It's kind of, I feel like I'm going to start, um, no, I won't

Speaker: say that because it will annoy my boss, but it sounds like a

Speaker: great company to work at.

Speaker: Well, the think about it.

Speaker: Also, people get burned out

Speaker: because they try so hard to get

Speaker: something done and it doesn't

Speaker: get done.

Speaker: And that's because they have one big objective.

Speaker: And that one big objective might be that we become wcaG two point

Speaker: two AA compliant.

Speaker: If that is your push and you're concentrating all your

Speaker: information on that, you're going to get burned out.

Speaker: But if your goal is that.

Speaker: Plus, you're also doing a bunch of other things like trying to

Speaker: get your ERG set up or trying to, uh, have an accommodations

Speaker: panel or doing customer interviews that's going to

Speaker: reduce your burnout because you're not just focusing on one

Speaker: big goal, but rather you're pushing that goal forward, but

Speaker: you're also kind of doing a bunch of things on the side.

Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker: I think branching out in that way is really going to be quite

Speaker: healthy for the, uh, the world we're living in with AI as well,

Speaker: because of the amount of automation that's going to be

Speaker: injected in that.

Speaker: So therefore, the volume will

Speaker: increase of how many pages you

Speaker: need to audit because you'll be

Speaker: able to utilize tools more

Speaker: often.

Speaker: I think that having somewhere to go and take a breather, but

Speaker: still be doing something beneficial, um, it's like

Speaker: touching grass, as the kids will say these days, or like going

Speaker: outside and just getting some fresh air, you know, you're

Speaker: doing something that you feel that you're still contributing.

Speaker: Um, and not just part of a cog in the wheel.

Speaker: You asked about the champion program.

Speaker: Um, our champion program has been really successful.

Speaker: I've been really happy with it.

Speaker: But one of the things I tell people is the champion program

Speaker: did not save me any time.

Speaker: Um, I am still working the same amount of time and I'm putting a

Speaker: lot of effort into the accessibility Champion program.

Speaker: What it's done, though, is that I no longer have to do the the

Speaker: generic accessibility stuff.

Speaker: I no longer have to spend fifteen to twenty percent of my

Speaker: time focusing on things like headings and images and color

Speaker: contrast, and getting people to run lighthouse or acts that's

Speaker: taken care of and that's taken care of by all of our champions

Speaker: who are teaching other people on their teams to do these things.

Speaker: And so the questions we get now are things like, what is the

Speaker: keyboard interaction in this drop down menu?

Speaker: You know, it's the complex stuff.

Speaker: How should I be dealing with,

Speaker: you know, this component versus

Speaker: that component.

Speaker: It also means that we've had the

Speaker: luxury of doing more projects on

Speaker: the side where we're able to

Speaker: learn more.

Speaker: Um, and that's where I see AI coming in is that AI might be

Speaker: able to do a lot of that redundant, repetitive work.

Speaker: And once you're able to use like

Speaker: Claude work, co work, and you're

Speaker: able to say, hey, Claude, in

Speaker: fact, I just did this morning

Speaker: like clockwork, I want you to go

Speaker: through these hundreds of videos

Speaker: and I want you to create a

Speaker: timeline so I can see like going

Speaker: back fifteen years when we were

Speaker: auditing products.

Speaker: And over the last fifteen years,

Speaker: how when did we make those

Speaker: changes and what were those

Speaker: changes?

Speaker: I could have never done that

Speaker: myself, but I can push that to

Speaker: Claude, because it's really just

Speaker: going to be looking at a bunch

Speaker: of files once you're getting it

Speaker: to do the boring stuff, that

Speaker: gives you more time to do the

Speaker: interesting stuff like I was

Speaker: talking about with the

Speaker: attachment economy.

Speaker: I would never have time to do

Speaker: that because it's not really our

Speaker: core business, but it does

Speaker: impact our design and our

Speaker: customer engagement because

Speaker: we're if if I can find something

Speaker: where we could improve our

Speaker: interface design from that, from

Speaker: those lessons and make it less,

Speaker: uh, less anxiety, um, make it so

Speaker: we're not scaring people or not

Speaker: making, increasing their anxiety

Speaker: or making it feel warmer and

Speaker: more engaging, but in a safe

Speaker: way.

Speaker: That's the kind of stuff that we need to learn.

Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker: Um, it's, it just constantly

Speaker: feels like a battle of good and

Speaker: evil, the right intentions, you

Speaker: know?

Speaker: Um, but yeah, incredible stuff.

Speaker: And it's, yeah, using it for the right things, freeing up your

Speaker: time so you can use your brain for more healthy things.

Speaker: Right, right.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: Awesome.

Speaker: Um, so again, I'm going to touch on recruitment, and I apologize

Speaker: because I know it might not be one of your key focus areas, but

Speaker: it's obviously quite important for me and my role.

Speaker: Um, but do you have any sort of input in, you know, in your

Speaker: role, obviously leading a large organization like Intuit?

Speaker: Um, a lot of it is shifting.

Speaker: Um, so it is becoming much more

Speaker: important than ever, especially

Speaker: in the UK and the EU because of

Speaker: the e a and more regulations and

Speaker: awareness.

Speaker: But on the other hand, there are a lot of organizations that

Speaker: still just don't have that awareness or not sure how to

Speaker: build the right teams.

Speaker: Mhm.

Speaker: A lot of the time, and again, this is going back to when you

Speaker: joined Intuit, it's one person and then they're fighting and

Speaker: fighting for more resource.

Speaker: Um, how do you see roles within accessibility evolving over the

Speaker: next few years?

Speaker: And I guess it may stem back to

Speaker: the, the champions program, but

Speaker: that might not work in every

Speaker: company.

Speaker: Um, if it's adopted, you know,

Speaker: um, in a way that people leave,

Speaker: don't they?

Speaker: So they'll take that that knowledge with them.

Speaker: So do you see there being better sort of described roles for

Speaker: people within accessibility, or are we just going to get Claude

Speaker: to do it, I guess?

Speaker: Um, I don't have as rosy of an

Speaker: outlook for accessibility

Speaker: careers.

Speaker: I think in the short term, uh, we're going to see a loss of

Speaker: jobs in the entry level, uh, especially when it comes to

Speaker: things like, um, auditing.

Speaker: I think that those entry level auditing positions, which have

Speaker: been great for people with disabilities to start their

Speaker: careers, those are going to get taken away by AI.

Speaker: I just, I don't think that those are going to stick around much,

Speaker: at least in the short term.

Speaker: Um, in the short term, we're

Speaker: seeing job applications asking

Speaker: for five years of, of experience

Speaker: with ChatGPT.

Speaker: And of course, ChatGPT hasn't

Speaker: been around for five years, so

Speaker: we're seeing a lot of

Speaker: unreasonable expectations in our

Speaker: job applications.

Speaker: And I'm not talking about into

Speaker: I'm just talking about in

Speaker: general.

Speaker: Um, we're going to see, um, the

Speaker: short term I think is going to

Speaker: be difficult because I think

Speaker: that AI is going to replace a

Speaker: lot.

Speaker: But as I mentioned earlier, there's going to be a lot of bad

Speaker: work done by AI.

Speaker: So I think, uh, right now we have jobs because the United

Speaker: States had the, uh, section.

Speaker: Is it title nine or title

Speaker: eleven, the regulation that

Speaker: required universities to have

Speaker: accessible content that came

Speaker: this year.

Speaker: So that caused a lot of new jobs to come in to make sure that

Speaker: universities are good.

Speaker: We had job creation for EA.

Speaker: We have job creation.

Speaker: That'll probably happen with Canada Act.

Speaker: I think what we're going to see is that will hold us over for

Speaker: the short term, but then we'll probably end up having a new

Speaker: batch of jobs coming forward to fix the bad AI stuff.

Speaker: Um, for the experienced people

Speaker: that are in the job, we're going

Speaker: to have to focus on how are we

Speaker: going to shift from doing a

Speaker: accessibility?

Speaker: Seven twenty four to, uh, intersectionality, inclusive

Speaker: design to understanding the art of what we're doing to how, how

Speaker: do we wrangle AI to do what we need it to do?

Speaker: Um, the mid level that's going

Speaker: to be kind of questionable mid

Speaker: level, you know, as the senior

Speaker: ones like myself, our job is,

Speaker: has always been to get rid of

Speaker: ourselves.

Speaker: We may actually be able to do

Speaker: that with AI is get rid of the,

Speaker: you know, the twenty year old,

Speaker: uh, the twenty year experience,

Speaker: people like myself, because that

Speaker: that could easily be taken over

Speaker: by AI.

Speaker: And then the, the middle level will be coming up and they're

Speaker: going to be the seniors, but they're going to be seniors that

Speaker: are growing up with AI.

Speaker: So they have a better understanding of this.

Speaker: It's not going to be the same.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Um we're we're going to change.

Speaker: This is a revolutionary moment right now.

Speaker: And I've been in the web industry for twenty five years.

Speaker: I've seen revolutions come and go, but this is definitely

Speaker: changing our careers.

Speaker: Yeah for sure.

Speaker: And is that that interaction with it, the adoption of new

Speaker: tools and technologies, I suppose as well, we can't sort

Speaker: of stay rigid because you'll be forced out, I suppose, if you're

Speaker: not able to adopt.

Speaker: And I think, um, it's very interesting what you're saying.

Speaker: It made me sort of have this image of I can't remember the

Speaker: name of the the robot.

Speaker: Now that was in the home where it was like a red dot.

Speaker: And it's basically like looking up to an overlord that's like,

Speaker: okay, well, you're the senior because you have all of the

Speaker: knowledge, but I'll be a mid-level that, you know, asks

Speaker: you the questions for the.

Speaker: But yeah, hopefully not because, um, we could all use a lot more

Speaker: Ted Drake in our lives.

Speaker: And hopefully you're not going to make yourself redundant.

Speaker: Well, I also want to, I want to acknowledge my privilege and my

Speaker: privilege in that I'm able to work from home.

Speaker: Um, I've got expensive monitors.

Speaker: I don't have a disability.

Speaker: I, I can focus and work for hours at a time.

Speaker: I'm kind of a workaholic.

Speaker: I recognize that I have the time and the ability to be able to go

Speaker: off on these tangents and then wrap it up and then come back.

Speaker: So I have the ability to, you know, do some of this stuff.

Speaker: And I recognize that not everybody has that kind of

Speaker: focus, ability, that kind of, uh, long term cognitive, uh,

Speaker: strength and energy.

Speaker: They don't have, uh, you know, the freedom to spend an extra

Speaker: two hours working on something because they have deadlines that

Speaker: they have to hit.

Speaker: So, Oh, my perspectives of the careers are coming from an era,

Speaker: from a viewpoint of someone that does have those privileges.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: For sure.

Speaker: I mean, hopefully we can get some more flexibility going, but

Speaker: it looks like the Return to Office Act is all coming in at

Speaker: the UK at the moment, where it was quite delayed after Covid.

Speaker: But now a lot of companies are

Speaker: realising, you know, they need

Speaker: sort of people back in, in the

Speaker: office, which isn't necessarily

Speaker: the most accessible way to have

Speaker: people.

Speaker: No, no it's terrible.

Speaker: Um, which is why.

Speaker: Yeah, constant battle.

Speaker: I will say that one of the things we did at Intuit is we

Speaker: instituted a spoon policy and going back to office has a

Speaker: tremendous impact on people that use spoon theory because you may

Speaker: use up all your spoons just driving to the office.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And then when you get to the office, you're completely shot

Speaker: and you just have to put up.

Speaker: What we have is a Slack message.

Speaker: It says out of spoons and you

Speaker: may have to, um, let people know

Speaker: on your team that you're out of

Speaker: spoons and you're going to go

Speaker: use one of our quiet areas, uh,

Speaker: for a couple hours to sort of

Speaker: like, regain any strength you

Speaker: might have.

Speaker: Back to office has a lot of

Speaker: problems for people with

Speaker: disabilities.

Speaker: Um, you know, spending two hours on paratransit instead of

Speaker: working from home.

Speaker: That's a significant issue.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it's across the board.

Speaker: Um, I think a lot of people have sort of, um, just assumed it's

Speaker: the physical side of things and sort of motor ability.

Speaker: So it's like, oh, I can't make it into the office or the office

Speaker: itself isn't an accessible space for people with motor, um, sort

Speaker: of impairments or disabilities.

Speaker: But, um, that cognitive part

Speaker: that you've just mentioned, I

Speaker: think that I get huge social

Speaker: anxiety.

Speaker: So when I'm on a train, like you say, it's about an hour and a

Speaker: half to the office.

Speaker: And I'm very fortunate.

Speaker: I only go in once a week on a Wednesday to see the team, but

Speaker: it really does.

Speaker: It's my morning starts so

Speaker: differently because I'm already

Speaker: wiped out.

Speaker: So I'm not as not as, uh, active, I suppose, on a

Speaker: Wednesday morning, but that's one for everyone to now know.

Speaker: Um, but yeah, I mean, we need to

Speaker: make those considerations across

Speaker: the board.

Speaker: Definitely.

Speaker: Um, and just be more inclusive

Speaker: because the workplace is just as

Speaker: important as the products that

Speaker: those companies are, uh,

Speaker: building.

Speaker: So yeah.

Speaker: Um, for sure.

Speaker: Perfect.

Speaker: Well, Ted, I'm not going to keep you for too much longer.

Speaker: I just want to offer, um, a sort of part of the episode, as I do

Speaker: for everyone for any final thoughts, you have anything that

Speaker: you're looking forward to over the next couple of weeks,

Speaker: months, or even years or, um, what's exciting you about the

Speaker: future of digital accessibility at the moment?

Speaker: Um, one of the things I found that I, I tell people is that I

Speaker: come from the United States, I'm in California, and for most of

Speaker: the last twenty five years, when people talk about accessibility,

Speaker: it's from the United States.

Speaker: It's from California.

Speaker: That's gone.

Speaker: We need to forget about United

Speaker: States being the center of

Speaker: accessibility.

Speaker: It's, um, we are no longer driving the legal requirements.

Speaker: We're no longer driving the cultural requirements.

Speaker: Uh, that is coming from other countries.

Speaker: It's coming from Europe, Africa, India, Australia, Canada.

Speaker: Um, so that's one of the things I say is that we really need to

Speaker: double down on focusing on outside the United States.

Speaker: Um, and coming from someone from California, uh, I fully respect,

Speaker: uh, things like the inclusive Africa Summit, uh, barrier

Speaker: breaks work in India, the, uh, ability nets tech share pro, um,

Speaker: there's one coming up in Australia from, um, oh, they're

Speaker: going to kill me for not remembering the name off the top

Speaker: of my head.

Speaker: It's not in topia, is that an LP?

Speaker: I was going to say in Info Tamia or something like that.

Speaker: Yeah, that's what I'm saying is find your leaders outside the

Speaker: United States and start following them, because they're

Speaker: the ones that are going to be doing the future.

Speaker: And remember also areas that

Speaker: have less resources are going to

Speaker: come up with the most

Speaker: innovation.

Speaker: Uh, which is why I'm going to

Speaker: say, look at Africa because

Speaker: they're the ones that

Speaker: transformed our, uh, our, the

Speaker: way that we use phones to pay

Speaker: for, uh, services that all came

Speaker: from Africa.

Speaker: And they don't have the, you know, gigabit with, uh, you

Speaker: know, Wi-Fi and such to run these AI tools.

Speaker: So they're going to find ways of

Speaker: running AI faster, cheaper and

Speaker: better.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: And it's something that I've seen, um, about you online sound

Speaker: like a stalker.

Speaker: Sorry.

Speaker: Um, and that I just know from

Speaker: you and your persona, you are

Speaker: forever giving others their

Speaker: flowers and, you know, ensuring

Speaker: that, um, people know that you

Speaker: appreciate everything that's

Speaker: given, um, out there in the

Speaker: world and across the, across the

Speaker: globe.

Speaker: And I just hope that you feel

Speaker: that in return because you have

Speaker: done an awful lot for this space

Speaker: for accessibility.

Speaker: There's an awful lot of people that, you know, absolutely

Speaker: respect you, myself included.

Speaker: And I just think it's, uh, you know, you've had a phenomenal

Speaker: career this far.

Speaker: Can't wait to see what you're doing next.

Speaker: And, um, yeah, you're hugely appreciated.

Speaker: And global Accessibility

Speaker: Awareness Day is obviously

Speaker: coming up in a month's time, I

Speaker: believe.

Speaker: So, um, who knows this?

Speaker: I'm hoping this episode will be out by then, if not on Global

Speaker: Accessibility Awareness Day.

Speaker: So I appreciate you mentioning all those other countries

Speaker: because we've had listeners from Kyrgyzstan, from all sorts of

Speaker: countries that, um, I wouldn't have expected, but there's work

Speaker: to do everywhere.

Speaker: Thank you so much.

Speaker: Um, I always have a, uh.

Speaker: You know, I come from the world

Speaker: of punk rock where it is about

Speaker: the community.

Speaker: It's about pushing for those

Speaker: that don't get the attention

Speaker: they deserve.

Speaker: And so it's always been a wee

Speaker: before me kind of mentality for

Speaker: me.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well, I mean, the days of my of

Speaker: my dad going to the Sex Pistols

Speaker: concerts in Camden, in London

Speaker: and then spitting on him, I hope

Speaker: that we won't be spitting at

Speaker: each other.

Speaker: But the, the community aspect one hundred percent.

Speaker: Um, no, I appreciate you always.

Speaker: Ted, thank you so much for

Speaker: joining me, and I'm sure the

Speaker: listeners will absolutely adore

Speaker: this.

Speaker: Um, but yeah, I'll see you on the next one.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: Thank you so much.