Zack Klein, iSoftStone, Software Test Engineer II

Zack talks about his work as an accessibility tester and his unique perspective as a person who is totally blind. His love of technology helps him solve issues with the accessible content he relies on. He describes the tools he prefers including his Mac, iPhone and refreshable braille display.

Mentioned in this episode:

Info about Accessibility at Blink

(upbeat 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 who 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 back for another episode

of this podcast about accessibility practitioners.

And today I am pleased

to be talking with Zack Kline.

How are you Zack?

- I'm doing well, thank you.

How are you?

- Oh, I'm doing really well

and I've known you for a while now.

I'm talking from my Vashon Island office

which is near Blink Seattle headquarters.

So where are you talking to us from?

- Sammamish, Washington which is kinda east of Seattle, so.

- Well it's good to have a chance to chat with you

for the purpose of this podcast.

And of course as I mentioned

we've worked together at Blink

with you assisting us

with a number of projects as a consultant.

And we come back to talk about that

but what other activity are you involved with

for work right now?

- I'm a software test engineer.

I work with a company called iSoftStone.

I basically do lots and lots of testing

for accessibility testing primarily

for Microsoft in different,

doing different, testing basically

whatever they assign to us

which can vary wildly.

- Well yeah we could come back

and dig into your contemporary work a little bit more

but this is all about people

who maybe just finding their way now

into accessibility professionally.

To find the journeys of others

so maybe talk a little bit about

your life experience with that.

And we'll kind of move up to

how you're working in that space now.

- Sure, I guess I can say

I started seriously looking at accessibility.

I kinda fell into it by accident.

I was kind of not sure

what I was gonna do with myself

and I, don't know where

the original tip came from

but I was invited to do some testing

with a company called Mobility

which is a very big accessibility vendor.

It was kind of piecemeal sort of similar

to the sort of work I've done with Blink.

I just kind of started doing that one

like back in 2015 or so.

And then it kinda just spiraled from there.

I've been slowly doing more accessibility work

and educating myself.

I took a couple certifications

and have gotten a little more knowledgeable specifically

around the web accessibility area.

But, it's kinda been organic.

There's not really been any plan per se.

I just did it because

as a totally blind person accessibility

is very important to me

because without accessible content

nothing else is usable really so.

- Well yeah, you're certainly one of the,

benefits that Blink gets from

our working relationship

is you're able to provide that unique perspective

that you have

from being blind.

And it's, you certainly you know that

you must have informed

a lot of your thinking

and experience in this space

just having to work with assistive technologies

in your own life

as you kinda move through school and things.

So - Yeah.

- What was that experience like

and how did that kinda prepare you

for the work that you're doing today?

- Well, I mean I've always been a geek

kinda of a tech geek in general.

I love learning about technology

and I guess technology is one more area

that is kind of interesting to me

because there's a lot of obviously great steps forward

in the past few years.

I think that, like the Apple iPhone for example

is one of those things

that on the face of it

if you didn't know anything about it

you wouldn't assume it's not accessible

to the totally blind at all.

Because it's a touch screen

and because it,

but Apple figured out a way

to make it talk

and to turn it in the past decade

into one of the most popular devices

blind people ever seen.

So, the thing which interests me I guess

about this field is that (indistinct)

while in some ways it's kind of static

is moving always moving forward

and there's always something new coming up

or new potential.

And I remember back when I was

in middle school, high school

I had a device called a Braille `n Speak

which was basically a portable note taker

which ran some custom operating system

they wrote themselves.

But it in some ways was more advanced

than the stuff this type of people had at the time.

Because it could turn on

that thing could turn on in seconds

and be ready to take notes.

And, that I have a soft spot for that thing

even though I touched one of those in years.

- Well, you mentioned being a geek

with respect to tech

and one of the things that you do

is you work with a lot of different devices.

So I know just on the projects we've worked on

you have your different tools

that you work with.

Maybe you could kinda run through

some of the assistive devices and technologies

that you work with

well for your personal life

and then also lead your work life.

- Sure, I have obviously a laptop here.

I prefer, I have Mac Book Air here in front of me.

I use pretty much every day.

I like it,

I like Apple generally.

Just because it's been,

it's nice and they seem

to have a very strong commitment to accessibility.

Not without misstep

but most companies seem

to have had those.

I have a refreshable braille display

which is basically a 40 character long braille line

that you can read

and that will change

as the computer

or whatever talks to it.

It's expensive as heck

but I've been told that

they're working on

and have come up with ways

to reduce the price of those things.

But they are much more, I guess common

for people who are deaf blind

but I get a lot out of it anyway

because I like braille

and braille is one of those things

that I have come to appreciate more

as I've gotten older.

As a kid I didn't really

get the point of it, I admit.

- And - And you also, oh go ahead.

- Oh, you go on.

- And you work with your iPhone a lot.

- I do, I do.

I have that

and iOS like I said earlier

is pretty much one of the best things to happen

to blind people in many years

because Apple took a lot of their

took a lot of pain

to make accessibility pretty simple on iOS

and make not only their own apps

but third party apps playable.

No it's not playable, excuse me accessible.

Playable was a no.

I do a lot gaming on the phone

so that's where that came from accessible.

- Well so, we've been working together

on some projects over the past couple of years

and when I connect with you about things

it seems like you're always really busy.

You always have a lot

of things going on including work projects.

You've obviously curved out

a good niche for yourself work-wise

but I know generally that

it can be difficult

to have busy work lives

for people who are blind because of limitations

with just technologies in the workplace.

So, how has it worked out for you

where you seem to be really busy all the time?

- Well my current job is literally

well suited to me because

it is about accessibility testing.

So, it's something that I can talk about

and that's something that I write a book report about.

I haven't had any major issues

with technology on my own

with these tech assist technology for a while.

I do tend to,

I mean I like to solve problems

or if I can't solve them

at least understand why things are the way they are.

So if I run into a problem

I'm likely to try

and figure out what's going on.

I'm a QA person

I'm a quality assurance person.

So I try to run through

steps and figure out

okay, it's not working

if not what's going on

and what can I do to fix it then, yeah.

- Well I mean

that's one of the things

that I've enjoyed about

our working relationship

is just your approach to the work.

I obviously there's uniquely

what you're able to contribute

with your knowledge about working

with assistive devices.

But beyond that

you're able to put a lot of thoughtful

well just a lot of thinking time into

what you're reviewing

what the opportunities are

and what the challenges are.

And then pulling that all together

for reports and documents related to that.

I mean that's really

a special skill of itself.

So kinda how did you develop that?

Where you're able to,

you have good business communication

as part of your activities?

- I didn't I wasn't taught it.

I just kind of

it came out of

it grew out of

I think I did all lot of beta testing for things.

And a couple a few years ago

I did some testing work

for an iOS game

which took up a lot of my mental energy,

but it also taught me how to write a good bug report

and how to explain issues

in a way that was comprehensible to somebody else.

And then the work that I'm doing now

just kind of amplified that

because we have a format we have to follow

and it's all very structured.

So the structure of

the reports and issues that I work on

helped structure my thought process, I suppose.

And also I mean

I just have a tendency

to like the details of things.

So, I go into a lot of mental depth about things

that I'm passionate about

and that accessibility just happens to be one of those.

- Well you've also

you've done quite a bit of work

in showing off your experience

through your credentials

through the IAAP.

So in terms of the certifications

you've been able to work through the CPAC

which is the certified practitioner in accessibility

and also the web accessibility specialist certifications.

So, those are pretty rigorous tasks

that you have to take

to be able to get that.

So what was that experience like in terms

of preparing for those tasks

and taking them and that type of thing?

- I enjoyed that.

I liked I have stronger

or more powerful memories of the CPWA.

I think than of the other one because

I felt like I got a lot more knowledge

when preparing for the CPWA.

'Cause you had to learn

not only like

the very basics of HTML, JavaScript

and all the rest of it.

But you had to learn how

they interact with the screen reader

or other technologies

and what happens.

Things like how little things like

how you manage focus in a web app, for example.

Things that you don't think about

unless you're an accessibility person

and are paid to think about them.

And I really enjoyed learning not just

how things work

but why they work the way did then, yeah.

- You mentioned in there that you had a,

you have a good memory

and one of the projects we were working on together

was NASA for

their new comprehensive website design rollout

that they're working on.

One of the areas we're looking at was navigation

and I mean it's always amazing to me

when you talk through your mental model

that you're building

just from what you're able

to experience with the,

through the screen reader

and keyboard only access.

And you're certainly skilled in that area

but I mean it, navigation is

just must be hugely challenging for yourself.

And obviously your memory helps in that area

but how do you approach that part of navigation

with respect to your work?

It seems like maybe not everybody

has that ability to build

the mental model that you do.

- Well just, I mean take it one step at a time

and don't try and think.

I can't think too hard about the big picture.

I don't think about the mental model

I just kind of take it one or two steps at a time

and try to think

okay, how does it fit into the grander scheme

of whatever I'm looking at?

And, it's sometimes very tricky

if the site, some of the NASA sites

in particular the ones

that displayed graphical information

were kind of strange

and a little hard to come grips with.

But I've had that same experience

across other places.

But, a lot of times

it's a matter of it slowly

and not worrying too much

about getting the same information

as quickly as other people

as long as I'm able to process it

then come to an understanding

of what I'm seeing

or hearing as the case maybe.

And depending on obviously web offers

or others to get their coding right

which is not always something

that is guaranteed.

- Yeah well another thing

that clearly comes out that

when we will work together on things is that

it's easier to see where

if a process working through

a digital product or service

can be made more efficient and simpler

that helps everybody

but it certainly speeds up your time

with not having to hit dead ends

and things like that

as you mentioned with code issues and so on.

- Yeah, if there's a weakness

I think I tend to,

like I said, I want to solve problems.

And sometimes it's a little weird being

in this situation where I'm not supposed to do that.

I'm not supposed to speculate

as to why things are the way they are.

I really want to know

and to be able to talk to developers

and ask them, "Okay, what were you doing here?"

What was it supposed to do

because it didn't work in the way it's supposed?"

Whereas if I'm a tester

my job is to just go in and say,

"Okay, this is experience."

And they're not supposed to reach beyond

what I'm actually encountering

to speculate as to the why's and (indistinct)

But yeah - Well you have

speculation definitely works out

in the types of projects that I work on

because we like to start with foundational research

that then drives the design

that then drives the specification

for the developers.

So, now maybe thinking

a little bit looking toward the future

are there any certain areas

that you're interested in getting involved in?

Areas you wanna have more experience

anything that you're looking forward to

in your career?

- Yeah, I'd like to do more tests

more kind of liaison work I guess with developers,

like as in, less route testing going through a process

and more consultancy in the sense of

okay, this is how we

this is an issue.

these are different ways we could solve it.

Let's fix something

and brainstorm and figure out what the issues are

or what a good solution is.

And if I'm,

in terms of like bigger picture accessibility things

that I think are worth,

that I think are interesting.

I'd like to do work in game accessibility.

Gaming is a big passion of mine and accessibility.

I think there's a lot of room

for the intersection of those two interests

but until fairly recently game accessibility

was just kind of not really considered seriously by anybody.

And to a certain extent

I don't think it is still

at least not for blind people.

For sighted people

and for people with other disabilities, yeah.

But, totally blind people

they've gotten a proverbial short end of the stick

in that regard for quite a while

I think and stuff.

- There's certainly no shortage

of things for us to be working on in

as accessibility practitioners

and we all wanna be striving

to have a better future.

But as you look at

kind of the things

that you experience

in your work today

are there certain areas

where maybe you wish that

more websites or applications

were doing better?

I mean what are some of your own

kind of hot button items that

you wish would be in better shape

than they are today?

- Well, it depends.

I think that a lot of times

like the very basics

of accessible design

aren't taught as well

as they should be.

Like, even something as simple as good alt text

it's hard to write

and is knowledge written

or is sometimes just ignored completely.

And something like

even teaching people to use,

to go through and run a keyboard test.

Keyboard only tests on their content

before they release it

is a big thing that I think could be done

or should be encouraged more

because it's not something that I,

for one thing I don't always enjoy it because

as a screen reader user

I don't have a way of knowing

if something is missed or

if I'm not seeing so something

because it isn't there.

Or if I'm not seeing something

because the screen reader

just doesn't recognize it's there.

Now I can go into like the DOM model

and inspect things

and be like,

oh this thing just wasn't showing up

because it was marked as hidden or whatever

but it shouldn't have to do that.

The designer should know

the basics of how to present information

or so that kinda thing.

Designers and developers both of them.

- Well, Zack it's good

to talk with you again

for the purpose of this podcast.

And I wanna thank you

for sharing your experiences

and look forward to working with you

on more projects in the future.