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The Learning with Accessibility Never Ends
Episode 1022nd January 2023 • Digital Accessibility • Joe Welinske
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Ross Mullen, CANAXESS, Director

Ross Mullen talks about his extensive experience in working with standards organizations for accessibility. He spent many years working with accessibility for government agencies. Now, Ross has his own consulting practice.

Mentioned in this episode:

Info about Accessibility at Blink

Transcripts

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(upbeat music)

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- Hello, this is Digital Accessibility,

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the people behind the progress.

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

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and as an accessibility professional myself,

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I find it very interesting

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as to how others have found their way

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into this profession,

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so, let's meet one of those people right now

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and hear about their journey.

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(upbeat music)

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- All right, well, here we go

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with another episode where I have the opportunity

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to speak with another accessibility practitioner.

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Today, I'm speaking with Ross Mullen.

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Hello, Ross, how are you doing today?

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- Hi there, how are you going, Joe?

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How's things?

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- Everything's going really well.

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I am located right now in my home office

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on Vashon Island, which is a true island

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with no bridges

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near Blink's Seattle, Washington headquarters.

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Where are you talking to us from today?

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- I'm from Canberra, Australia,

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so, if one's unfamiliar,

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it's about 320 kilometers of southwest of the Sydney,

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slipped back in the middle of nowhere,

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so, Fremont just surrounded by bush.

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So, we have no beach, no sea,

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but we have a lot of beautiful countryside around here.

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- And I have been there.

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I went to a conference there one time

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and got to see the interesting architecture

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that was developed.

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I believe your city was a design capital city for Australia.

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Isn't that or originally how it was set up?

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- It was, yes.

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Yeah, and one of your fellow residents won the competition,

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Walter Burley Griffin,

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so, I believe, if my memory serves me correctly,

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it was the early 20th century.

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There was a competition

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for designing the federal capital here.

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A camera was chosen, and the Griffins designed it all

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without ever having visited here,

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so, our largest lake

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is Lake Burley Griffin, named after Walter,

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so, there's a lot of interesting background history

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of how this American Couple laid the foundations

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for what is Canberra now.

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- Well, it's good to have you join here.

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I appreciate it.

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We were able to get the time zones to work out,

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but a good place to start

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is talk a little bit about yourself

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in the work that you're doing right now,

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and then we can explore how you got there.

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- Lovely, well, I work

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under my company name at the moment, CANAXESS.

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We've been working in web accessibility now

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for about 12 years plus.

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At the moment, I'm working

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with a large Australian supermarket,

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helping them meet accessibility guidelines

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increasing the user experience.

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Before that, I was working in a government,

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so, previously my role was

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that I'm a background developer, a backend.

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I moved into front end,

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and then, over time,

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I moved into a dedicated web accessibility roles,

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so, originally my background

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was very much focused on compliance,

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but more, and more, and more I was reading more

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into work accessibility and understanding the nuances more,

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so more and more now I find

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when I have any questions related

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to web accessibility, it's more that it depends,

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it's that it's recognizing more

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of the nuances in accessibility,

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so, that's where I am the moment.

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We're working with a large supermarket

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and they've done ever so well meeting all

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of their accessibility obligations,

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but they're at a point now

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of wanting to radically improve the use experience,

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so, once you've met all

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your minimum accessibility guidelines

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and compliance aspects,

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then it's recognizing that we can do much, much more,

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and that's what's really interesting me at the moment,

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the sort of, "What next in accessibility?"

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- Well, as we were talking a little bit

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before we started the recording.

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We were talking a little bit about the differences

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between the importance of compliance

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for companies getting involved

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in accessibility versus return on investment,

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versus it being a socially progressive thing to do,

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and so, you had some thoughts about

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how things were in Australia.

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I think that would be of interest

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to people that aren't in it, that area,

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in terms of how importance the compliance aspect

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is for companies coming to you to work on things

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versus other reasons

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that they might wanna get involved with it.

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- Very much so, yeah.

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One of my early roles was within the government,

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and even 15 years ago, there was this recognition

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that due to the disability laws here,

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we would need to make all

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of our government digital services accessible,

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so, it was very much focused on compliance,

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but then, also, there were pockets of innovation,

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individual for teams,

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so, this is our minimum, but let's do more than that,

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and for several years that was how it was moving

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along pockets of individual expertise,

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driving accessibility, but not necessarily making

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a massive impact, but doing enough

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to try and make a government to digital services accessible,

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and then, with the work with the UK government,

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a similar agency over here

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was created, the Digital Transformation Agency,

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and so, they brought over a lot of their expertise

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with what they had accomplished in the UK government.

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One of the things was introducing

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a digital service standard.

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This was basically a guideline

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or a blueprint of how to make the government,

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the services which served the needs of the user,

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so, moving away from that compliance aspect

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into making it truly user-centric,

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so, this document had several criteria

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for how to improve a government online,

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the online services.

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One of those points was accessibility.

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It was this, individual items are called out,

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and that was really, I guess,

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the catalyst within a government,

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which moved us from only doing a bare minimum

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to recognizing what can we do better,

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and that's when we could really see those innovations

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in accessibility more, and more, and more,

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and then, based on the back of that work,

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there was the creation of the design system,

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which had a lot of those accessibility principles baked in,

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and so, the bold aim with this, the design system,

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was there any federal and state or government agency

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could deploy a website quickly

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which had all of those core fundamentals,

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so, all of those, accessibility,

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the principles baked in,

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and then under re-pinning that,

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it was this documentation

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of how to do more, and more, and more,

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so that's been one of the main motivators

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in the government space in recent years.

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The digital transformation agencies bold aims of doing more

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where, rather than just making up

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a digital digital service

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and having users fit in to working with it,

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was recognizing what can we do better?

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And that's where we really saw renovations in accessibility,

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so bigger and better things

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where one of the main things was that consistency,

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so, if you had a design system

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whilst government websites using it would work consistently.

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It was baking in a lot of that accessibility,

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so, before that, it was very much accessibility

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was open to a different levels of interpretation,

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so, one team in one department might think you

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would achieve accessibility in this way.

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Another team would say, "No, this is the right way,"

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so, with the DTA's approach,

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it was focusing all of our collective accessibility efforts

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into, what's the best way?

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Let's do things one way and the right way,

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and it's been very, very well adopted,

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but as I'm sure you experience a government's change,

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and so, over time that a passion

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for accessibility is often there,

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but it's a bit more fragmented,

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and that's what we are noticing again,

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so, as governments change, as elections happen,

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the focus of where and how digital services ought

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to be made is wandering a bit at times,

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so, from my experience,

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there's always better ways to do things

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and there's, lots of individuals within a government

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are contributing to improving accessibility,

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but from where it was five years ago to now,

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we are noticing it drop off again.

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- Well, let's find a little bit more out

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about your background.

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Most of us come into accessibility

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in a lot of different ways, a lot of different paths

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of both our lived life and opportunities

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in our work life,

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and where did it start for you

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where accessibility was something

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that you recognized as important and valuable,

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and then, how did you decide

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that would also be something you'd wanna do

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or become involved in as a profession?

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- Yeah, my background in accessibility began

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where I had recently joined a new team within government,

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so my background is that of a backend developer,

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so, writing .NET and C#.

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One of the expectations of this new team

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was that they were making

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a brand new digital service,

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and as part of that,

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it needed to be accessible.

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As I joined the team,

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I recognized no one really wanted to read through a WCAG.

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At most, optimistic, it's a very dry document

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with lots of contradictory information,

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so, I found, well, as I'm new,

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I would read it, and I would extract out

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things which we as a team would need to do,

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and so, either many, many months of reading it

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and familiarizing myself with it more, and more, and more,

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I recognized I was enjoying it

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where I could understand that my work

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as a backend developer could really,

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significantly improve the end user's experience

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if we understood accessibility more,

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and I was pulling out

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those themes, things which made sense,

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and more, and more, and more,

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I was becoming more familiar,

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and as is always the case,

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anyone who is showing a depthness,

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understanding everything is someone labeled the expert.

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Well, I never viewed myself as that.

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I was just reading more, and more, and more,

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and then understanding it more,

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and then through my initial work,

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in my initial work in accessibility,

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I recognized I was liking it more.

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I could understand it more,

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I could drill down deeper and further,

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so, as my background of a software engineer,

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I was always wanting to really understand concepts more

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than just the superficial level,

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and I found with accessibility,

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it was something which was hooking me more and more,

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so that I moved to other teams

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where, ultimately, I moved

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into a dedicated web accessibility role.

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Our regular work was auditing government applications

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and working closely with a colleague.

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We were a very good combination of moving past

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that level of compliance,

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things which are the minimum level

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to making recommendations

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of how to radically improve

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a user's experience regardless of their disabilities,

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and then I found working in accessibility,

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I would be exposed to the work

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of other agencies and other companies,

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and I found there was a real,

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not necessarily lacking of expertise,

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but through my engineers background,

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I was recognizing that the information being provided

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isn't necessarily helpful,

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so, I identified that I was doing better work

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than many of the incumbents,

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and thought, well, I think there's a gap

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in the market for another company,

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and that's when I took the step

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and launched CANAXESS,

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because I recognized,

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while all of the incumbent's work

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was very, very good,

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I felt I could do it better,

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and I could just use another angle,

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so, ultimately, I feel accessibility

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is that a technical discipline at times

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where understanding how things work in HTML in code

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within JavaScript can really affect the end user experience

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if they're using assisted technology,

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so, I guess my grounding

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in software development made me appreciate more

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that how things which are written

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can vastly affect the end user's experience

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if they're using assisted technology,

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and through that, I launched my own company,

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and it's been a wonderful journey.

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I've met lots of interesting individuals,

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worked with lots of different people,

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and then recognize more

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that the learning with accessibility never ends,

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so, I always initially had this optimistic point

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of, once I reached year X,

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I would know about accessibility

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and I'd be that knowledgeable individual,

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but I found the more I learn

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and the more I understand,

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the more I feel that I don't know enough,

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and that's driven me more and more,

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and more to consume more blogs to reach out to more people,

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and, overwhelmingly, just look past my own biases

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of, I think this is absolutely right,

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I would do it this way,

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but to recognize more

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that, with accessibility, it's the test,

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the testing, again, testing it in multiple browsers,

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in multiple assisted technology tools,

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recognizing that just because something works

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in one browser, in one screen reader,

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that might not, necessarily,

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be right for everyone's experience,

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and I feel that, over time,

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that uncertainty now has made me a bit more humble

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with recognizing that my experience is just one voice.

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It's recognizing many others have an equally valid voice,

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and take all that on board as much as I can.

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- Well, you've had a lot of experience

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in working with government agencies,

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so, you had all of those experiences,

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and then you've had your experiences working

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as a consultant.

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As you kind of look at where accessibility is today,

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is there one area where you think maybe

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the accessibility community needs to put in more effort,

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maybe an area that you think is particularly important

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for us to be aware of looking forward?

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Is there any certain place that maybe you're most excited

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about developments that are coming along?

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So, just if you have an idea

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about maybe one of those future items.

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- One of my major, major pet peeves,

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and I found there's a real appetite

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for understanding accessibility

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in this area is with complex UI controls,

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so, when you are making up a complex digital service,

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there might be lots of interactivity there,

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so, the teams would leverage the third party tools,

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which have dialogue boxes, and dropdowns,

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and auto suggest a control,

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so, rather than a team having to build that,

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they just use an existing component library.

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Now these vendors may make bold accessibility claims

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of, "We are 100% accessible to WCAG 2.2, 2.1,

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we've got AA, we have VPAT,

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we write about accessibility regularly,

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and that often makes software teams building

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a digital services complacent,

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where, if a vendor has made these bold accessibility claims,

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there's all this evidence indicating

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that they value accessibility,

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and they built it well,

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and then these software teams adopt it,

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because part of the procurement process

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is making sure that the tool which you are using

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is fit for a purpose,

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but then, one of the most challenging times

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was several years ago with a large government application

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where they followed all of that material,

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this accompanying out

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a written blog post mentioning about accessibility,

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and this team had readily adopted everything,

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so, every single screen had UI controls from this vendor.

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What we then found

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is when we were auditing it towards the end,

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just that final tick

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of, is this application accessible

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and ready for the general public?

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What we noticed was every single workflow

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was flawed where we had a testing

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with people with vision impairments,

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and they weren't able to get past the first screen,

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and that was really disappointing,

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because at that point the application had been written

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and there was many, many months

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and significant amounts of resources

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would have to be dedicated to fix it,

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so, in many ways,

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that experience of my past has jaded me a little

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with recognizing what a vendor says

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isn't necessarily correct,

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where I wouldn't say they're lying,

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but there's being a little bit optimistic

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with their claims

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where we as accessibility individuals need

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to treat cautiously any bold claim

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of accessibility compliance

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where we can recognize all of a vendor's efforts

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with writing blog posts,

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having a dedicated accessibility issue tracking,

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and even making claims about it all look promising,

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but unless we do our due diligence

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of confirming that,

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it's ultimately meaningless,

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where, yes, we can tackle that information on board,

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but, ultimately, we and other software teams,

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and other individuals

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who are commissioning large projects need

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to really hold to account the companies

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who have made bold claims about accessibility,

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because often they might not be entirely accurate,

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and, I guess, that us as a community as well,

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it needs to move away at times of this...

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How best can I say it?

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It's recognizing that accessibility

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is often with some voices treated

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as a theoretical exercise

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that the best approach is to use native HML elements

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where they're possible, which is valid,

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but then it's recognizing

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that other teams also have as equal input,

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so, we, I guess, need to do a better

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where accessibility is vitally important

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but as part of delivering a project

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and the digital services,

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we also need to recognize at times

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that sometimes we need to make the compromises

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where one approach is might be the best approach,

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but we also need to understand

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that sometimes that best approach isn't workable

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and we might need to use the tool set

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which is inaccessible,

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so, rather than being that loud voice,

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which is making dismissive remarks

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about the accessory efforts of a vendor,

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we need to say this is working,

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but you could do this, this, and this,

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so, I guess, us as an accessibility,

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your community as a whole,

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adopting an approach of humility more

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where I don't necessarily think anyone

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is going out of the way to deliberately make

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a service inaccessible or poor for a blind user.

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I think more it's the expectations

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are much more increased now with the soccer teams.

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There's less resourcing, and less time,

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and so, often people make poor judgment calls,

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which mean that the end user experience is effective,

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so, overwhelmingly, it's recognizing

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that it's not often a black and white approach.

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It's recognizing those new nuances

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and having to compromise,

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and often lose the battle, but win a greater war,

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so, if our aim is to make things accessible,

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we often have to recognize

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that we might have to allow compromises

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with images which have poor descriptions or controls,

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which have poor accessibility,

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but if there's a roadmap of remedying it,

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then that's a good compromise.

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- Thanks for that case study example.

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That was very helpful to get that

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and to get your insights on that,

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and I wanna thank you for participating in this, Ross.

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I appreciate you taking the time

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to be with me today,

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and hopefully we can meet

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in person sometime at a physical event,

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maybe either on this side, or on your side,

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but it was good to chat with you.

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- I hope so too, Joe.

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Thanks so much, and really good to talk

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with another accessibility professional.

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Thank you. - All right, thanks a lot.

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Bye-bye.

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