Marie Van Driessche, Unc, UX Designer

Marie Van Driessche helps her organization's clients understand the importance of accessibility in their web sites and apps. She shared her own experience with the many accessibility issues specific to being deaf. 

Mentioned in this episode:

Info about Accessibility at Blink

(smooth 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

is 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.

(upbeat music)

All right, well, we are set to go for another episode

of this podcast, where I have the opportunity

to talk with an accessibility practitioner

about their life and work with accessibility.

And today, I am very pleased

to be speaking with Marie Vandriessche.

Hello, Marie, how are you today?

- [Interpreter] Hi, I'm okay today, I'm very hot.

Its very hot here in Amsterdam today.

It's about 30 degrees Celsius, maybe more.

I'm not sure what the Fahrenheit translation will be,

but you can Google it.

Otherwise, I'm doing great.

Summer's starting, life is nice and relaxed.

I hope you're doing great too.

- Well, it is good.

And I believe, well, I know it's not as hot

as it is in Europe right now,

but I am located on a place called Vashon Island,

which is near Seattle, Washington

where my company, Blink, has its headquarters.

And so it's good to make this international connection.

And I wanna thank you for participating today.

As always, a good place to start

is if you could tell us a little bit

about your current position

and the work that you're involved in.

- [Interpreter] So I'm here at the company that I'm,

and now it's called Unc Inc.

I've been here now for four months

and I'm doing, it's a development and design company for...

It's a nonprofit for nonprofit organizations.

That's their mission.

They work for charities, for social impact goals.

And I'm a UX designer.

I've been that for a while.

I used to work at other places,

so I made the change to this company.

I look at designs, we work on different projects.

I work with clients as well, so,

and I'm also very much invested in accessibility

and some things are going well, but it can always go better.

So from the UX-UI perspective, but also from coding,

so as a company, you can always improve.

So I'm trying to get that ball rolling.

- Well, what are some of the things that you often do

on a daily basis or a weekly basis?

What are some of the things

that make up the work that you do

for accessibility in your position?

- [Interpreter] So we have requests from clients.

This is about applications or websites

that they don't wanna use or they can't use anymore,

and they ask us to have a look and we give them advice.

They consult, we advice for design, UX and content.

And then we also work with our development team.

So from code base, we also look at,

yeah, what we can do to make it better.

And then we go back to the customer,

we give them advice,

but we also stress the urgency of accessibilities

because lots of clients don't know that yet.

So that is something that we take into account

for the MVP, the minimum viable product.

So we hope to affect change that way.

And we have an interesting situation,

where we had a refinement for one application or one app,

and they said, "What we wanna do is we want to take away

as a contact option, the email address.

So we want people to give them the opportunity

to only call."

And I said, "Well, phones are not very easy for me.

I wanna use email.

That would work very well for me."

So if I hadn't been here,

they would have changed to a telephone number

rather than an email address.

So that would have had a negative impact

on their accessibility.

So that is something that I try to do

to make people aware of what tools to use,

but also how the hierarchy works.

There is a disadvantage for websites of apps

when they're done,

when people develop them themselves, give the content,

and then it goes wrong.

So I'm hoping that we can go back to basics

and give them advice before they start

rather than after the fact.

- Well, I want to learn more about the work that you do,

but one of the important parts of this program

is to find out how people found their way

to being an accessibility practitioner.

And so for us, it's often a combination

of live-life, work-life experiences.

What would be, let's go back in time

and maybe you could talk about your first exposure

to the importance of accessibility

and then we can move forward in time

to get back to where we are today.

- [Interpreter] So there's two separate ways

that led to me being here right now.

So I started at a very small company in internet,

where they designed for the government.

They always said accessibility is important,

but there was also a focus

on making all the administration stuff more accessible,

not only the WCAG levels and requirements,

but also

to make everything accessible to all all participants,

all members of society,

and that is something that I didn't realize until then.

So I learned something about that, started learning to code,

but then focused more on design later on.

And so we had some standards,

standard issues that you need to take into account

when you develop a website.

So that is something that I learned.

And also someone asked me,

how do you experience accessibility as a deaf person,

as a designer?

What is your perspective on web accessibility?

And I never thought about that

before they asked me that question.

So I started to talk to people

and I realized that many, many people don't understand

how you can make internet accessible to deaf people.

So most people say, "Ah, text is text,

so people can read it.

And if we have a video, we can put subtitles on it

and captions," but that is not enough.

A lot of deaf people have issues

with the spoken language of their own country.

So for Dutch deaf people,

Dutch is more difficult than Dutch Sign Language.

It's because the grammar differs.

Same would go for America, I suppose.

So there are a lot of issues involved in that as well.

So I developed, I put together a talk

that I have delivered on a couple of occasions,

where I gave people some information

on designing for deaf people,

but that doesn't solve, that's not...

People, most of the time think one or two solutions help,

but no, there's an impact on lots and lots of domains.

There's an impact on hierarchy or impact from sound

and all kinds of other things that are present in websites

that exclude deaf people,

and that the outer world is not aware of.

So it's experiences from my own life, from my friends,

and I started to research that.

People told me about their issues.

And on the other hand, I have an aunt who is nearly 70

and she is a hearing person,

but still I see her experience trouble

with accessing internet as well.

So the most simple things, she doesn't understand.

She find it difficult to navigate

and she asks me to come and help her.

And then those are like the three things that led me here.

So that made me decide, I wanna do something with this,

and the fact that I'm deaf myself obviously,

I can kind of like point to where things go wrong.

I can tell that from my own experience,

but also from my own expertise.

And so that led to me being interested in accessibility.

And it's my conviction

that everybody should be able to use internet

regardless of what issues you may have.

It should be usable for everyone.

- Well, thank you for sharing that information

about your experience being deaf.

And I would like to ask a little bit more about that.

For your own education as a person who is deaf

what was your experience with accessibility

as it was at that time to be able to support you?

Different people grow up in different environments

with different support.

And so I was curious as to what your support was

in your learning and in your environment.

- [Interpreter] Well, I had conversations

with lots of people

and especially, the first company that I worked at,

they taught me, but I've done a lot of research myself.

I went to courses, but that was also very difficult

because most of that was based on coding or sound,

and that was also always an issue for me.

And I wanted to show that I was an expert,

but that meant that I should be able to work

or follow a course that was based on sound.

So the basic rules of the WCAG as an expert

were very difficult to fulfill.

So that was really difficult.

But luckily, I did, I did manage to succeed,

but also I hope to get more experience as well

and I get close to developers as well

and exchange information.

And the deaf community is very small, very diverse as well.

It's actually the same

as it's a very good representation of society in general.

So we have the...

You have friends that look like you,

but especially the people that are not in my own bubble,

those are the people that I learn the most from.

So in the communication that works on Facebook, for example,

that is something that I can learn a lot from.

And the way that people communicate is mostly via sign

and then via video, and not via writing.

So less chatting than video messages.

So I'm looking into that.

I'm doing some research, but I do that by myself.

So it's all based on my own personal experience.

- One of the reasons I want to ask you

about that in more detail is because it is a problem

that within organizations,

if the tools and the support isn't there

to people who maybe deaf or blind,

it it's difficult or impossible

to be able to be an equal partner in conducting the work.

And so I know that that's a problem

that I see among organizations in my field all the time,

where we may be doing accessibility

for users of our products, yet within many organizations,

we don't have the support built in

to be able to have people like yourself

involved in the process.

It sounds like you've been able to find your way

for a long time as a graphic designer

and in user experience.

Were you just fortunate in your experience

or you just find a lot of support at your organizations?

- [Interpreter] Yeah, they did give me the space

to go to course.

They gave me time and space

to invest in those courses, for example,

but it's a very interesting question, yeah.

I think that I always have to do

that extra little bit harder more work.

I have to work a little bit harder.

I have to go out actively and get the information.

The world is based on sound.

When you're hearing,

it's very easy to get access to information gossip,

the things that people talk to each other about at work.

So those are the things

that I don't incidentally learn that information.

So I need to actively go out and get that information,

and that is very tiring sometimes and it's also not fun.

It would be better.

Well, the fact is that because of these circumstances,

I have lesser opportunities to get a promotion

or to get another position, because those kinds of talks,

people have those at the coffee machines

and that's the information that I miss.

And that makes, yeah,

that causes me to have to work a little bit harder always.

And sometimes I have good days

and sometimes I have bad days.

But I've noticed

that I need to find an environment for myself

where I feel safe and connected and where I can make sure

that people are willing to develop some awareness,

but it is a constant hurdle, yeah.

And that is something that I have to accept in life.

It's part of my life.

I wish things were different, but they're not.

And that doesn't mean that I should change who I am.

I'm perfect the way I am.

I'm very happy with the person I am.

But I think that for people who are like me,

they should be able to have other positions,

higher positions as well,

to show, as a role model, that it's possible.

I mean that.

I mean, some people have to work twice as hard

to get to where they want to be.

And if you're a role model,

yeah, I think I'm aware of that.

I'm also a teacher.

I teach at the University of Applied Sciences

here in Amsterdam.

And I started teaching last year, this year,

and I am a supervisor for the BA thesis.

And that works really well,

because they see me as their teacher.

They see me as someone who is a good UX designer.

I'm not deaf person to them.

So that means that I am a role model to them as well

to show that it doesn't really matter if I'm deaf or not,

it's about the skills and the competencies that I have.

So I hope that when they go out into the world,

they also have this experience

that it's okay to work with deaf people, for example.

But it's something, that is information

that I need to keep informing people always.

So not only the deaf community or other deaf people

that is possible to get to where I've come,

but also for hearing people as well.

But yeah, the end of it all,

the summary of this whole story is the fact,

is that I work hard, yeah.

- Well, thank you for sharing your story

and experiences on that.

And let's now talk more about your work for accessibility.

And so what are some of the things that,

looking forward into the future,

that you are interested in working on

to create better accessibility?

Are there any particular areas

that you're interested in focusing on

for accessibility in your organization?

Are there certain things that you feel

maybe haven't been given enough attention so far

that you'd look forward to working on in the future?

So I'm putting out a lot of ideas there,

but just briefly, it's just about your idea

of what you're looking forward to working on moving forward.

- [Interpreter] What I've noticed

is if you talk about accessibility and inclusion,

those are very hot topics right now,

and that's good, that's very good.

But where I would like to go

is that we don't need these terms anymore, a world where,

why would we have to specifically label things

as being accessible or inclusive?

If that was a fact,

then we shouldn't have to label those things anymore.

So that would be my ideal and what I hope for the future.

It doesn't really matter where I am,

but that accessibility would be a standard requirement

for anything that you...

What your end product is,

and how to get there is through education

and to have people get that ingrained in their vision

and in their mission of their companies.

But I think we will get there, but it will take some time.

I think that people have an idea

that designs have to be beautiful

or that accessibility is not beautiful,

but it doesn't have to be ugly.

It can go hand-in-hand, beautiful and accessible.

And I think many people don't realize that yet.

I think it's good to show,

to give some representation of that,

so that lens, that awareness

and I wanna give some examples.

The thing that I can do is show, show, show, show,

well, how a grandmother uses internet, for example,

that the awareness grows.

And that is what I miss still, is attention to diversity.

Many design companies, they work in their own bubble.

They work together with people that look like themselves

so they don't meet other perspectives of other people.

They still keep going in their own world.

But I would say, get out of that world.

Friction isn't a bad thing, so look for that.

And as far as me personally goes,

what I would...

I'm very hopeful that I can grow in my career,

that I'd be, again, someone that leads a team, for example,

but I don't know how that works still

so I still have to develop and grow in that direction.

But I think I'm diverging a little bit.

Is this an answer to your question?

- That's exactly the type of response I was looking for

just to get your thoughts about the future.

- [Interpreter] Okay.

- And then one last area I wanted to talk about

is more about the practical way

that you work with accessibility at your organization

on a regular basis.

And for example,

when is accessibility brought into the design process

at your organization?

How is it talked about within members of your team?

For a lot of organizations,

it can be really difficult to identify the best way

to bring in accessibility and then do it in a way

that has measured effective results at the end.

- [Interpreter] Oh, that's a very good question.

So I've been here for three or four months.

I'm still finding my way.

I'm still trying to find out where to drop this topic.

I have, in my previous work,

I've met all kinds of ways to work with accessibility

from doing checks to working with a backlog

where accessibility can also be part of the plan.

So there's all kinds of different ways to approach this,

but what I wanna do is have it tested.

But when people test, they test within their own demography,

but I wanna encourage them to go outside

of their own bubble.

There are so many more people that will use your website

or your app,

but if you don't take them into account when you test,

then you lose all these potential clients.

But I see now, most of our clients now are aware

of the fact that accessibility is important,

but it's not high enough on the priority list yet.

So I hope that my expertise

and my experience will help to get it

on the agenda a bit more, and also with my colleagues.

So we're working now on organizing an accessibility event

internally within the community for clients as well.

And I hope, yeah...

I think that for clients,

it also has to do with money always.

There's money involved.

So I think we should approach it

or think from that perspective as well

and try to explain that

and give them some data on, if you don't do it now,

then you're missing out on this particular group of people

which will give you this amount of money loss,

which makes it interesting to invest the money earlier

rather than later.

But it's very difficult to work

with those kinds of prognosis,

'cause they're not real numbers.

So I'm trying to look to, yeah,

to find more ways to approach this.

And there are more ways leading to Rome obviously,

so I'm trying to see what works.

The flow is not really defined really so yet,

but if we have a good defined flow, workflow,

then I can identify also the moments

where we can start discussing accessibility.

But for me now,

it's still trying to find my way within the company,

but it's gonna be an exciting time in the coming months.

And I think we learn a lot from each other as well

and it's important to exchange experiences

and also share results and good practices,

but also bad practices.

So the only...

I gave you the example, like the one utterance that I had,

the one example that I had

of the company that wanted to skip the email address

and only wanted to have the phone number.

There was just one remark that I made

and that had such a huge impact

because they would've gone ahead with it

if I hadn't made that comment.

- Well, Marie, it has been a pleasure to meet you

and have this conversation with you.

I appreciate this opportunity

and I look forward to possibly,

may meet at a conference sometime in the physical world,

but good luck with all of your activities.

- [Interpreter] Thank you, thank you very much.

Same to you, thank you for your time.

- Bye bye.