Ricardo Rodriguez, independent Accessibility Consultant

Ricardo Rodriguez talks about the challenges of growing up with extreme visual, mobility and cognitive challenges. He describes how a support system helped him adjust to those challenges and made it possible to become a professional accessibility practitioner. 

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

have found their way into this profession.

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

and hear about their journey.

All right, well,

it's time to get started with our next episode

as we meet practitioners

working in the Accessibility area,

and today I'm talking with Ricardo Rodriguez.

Hello Ricardo.

- Hello.

- Hey, it's good to be having this conversation with you.

I'm talking from my home office in Vashon Island,

near Seattle.

Where are you talking to us from?

- Beautiful San Diego, California.

- Well, it's like good to be able to work with you again.

We've worked together in project activities at Blink.

You've also attended the Convey UX conference in Seattle,

and helped out with that,

so I'm happy to have you as part of this activity.

- I'm always happy to help.

- Well, just to kinda recap some of the things

that we've been involved with together,

so there have been some projects that,

that we've had including our work with NASA,

where you've helped out by providing feedback

in some of the things that we are doing in research design

based on your own familiarity with accessibility.

Do you wanna talk a little bit about that kind of work

and how you approach it

in your work as a freelance accessibility consultant?

- Sure, I'd be happy to.

So, for me, the main project is always

trying to figure out what are the needs

that the project is trying to accomplish,

and what are areas that need to be improved upon

when it comes to accessibility?

'Cause one of the things that I've always noticed myself,

whether it's in projects,

or just learning about things,

is that when things are designed,

or projects are designed,

they're not always designed with accessibility in mind.

And that's not really the issue

of the designers or developers,

it's mainly that they don't have the experience

in that field.

So a lot of things that are issues

don't really register right away.

So looking at it from the perspective of someone

who has specific challenges or specific needs,

you're able to see what are some areas of improvement

that other parties may not be able to,

and you can help them on improving those areas.

- Yeah.

And your work's been really helpful

and as some one that had physical challenges,

that gives us remarkably useful insights into the,

as we design and build out new products.

Maybe we could kind of go back in time,

and you could share with us a little bit

about your story of how you've gotten to this point.

- Sure.

So, for me, I was always a bit of a challenge.

I grew up in the late 90's,

limited access to the internet

until the early 2000s,

so it wasn't easy finding resources

to be able to get help for certain challenges

that you may have compared to,

compared to the ease of access we have now.

So for me it was always a challenge

finding the resources to do well in school

with my mobility impairments

or my vision or my motor skills,

especially my cognitive challenges

were always difficult to find resources,

'cause you weren't as connected back then

as you are now.

So for me it always strove to instill a need

of what are the resources that I can get locally?

What can I find that's gonna be able

to make this easy for me as opposed to struggle

because I don't have access to the resources,

or the knowledge on where to go.

Nowadays it's a lot more complex

just because of the fact that you have

a lot of products that are being developed,

but without the understanding of certain challenges, right?

But there is still a move to be able to learn

what are the gaps that a product is needing,

and who can we reach out to

to kind of fill in those gaps?

And doing that sort of work has always

been something that I've always enjoyed,

just because it helps create an awareness

of what the issue is,

and it makes things more inclusive.

- Well, I, working you with you today,

it's almost hard for me to understand

how you were able to overcome so much

because you really had those multiple challenges

that you had to deal with,

and you mentioned them with the visual impairment,

also mobility,

and then some cognitive challenges.

Maybe you could talk a little bit more about that

and what types of things you worked through in your own life

to be able to adjust to it,

and get to where you are today?

- Sure.

So, as I mentioned,

I was born in the late 90's,

with limited access to resources.

Basically I was born essentially five months premature,

so I didn't develop as well as one normally does.

So the diagnosis at the time was

I had cereal palsy, ADHD, limited vision,

and I was also slightly retarded,

as the term used to be called.

So because of that I was always severely delayed.

I couldn't do things that a normal three year old do, right?

I wasn't cognitive of what was happening around me

because of my severe delays.

I was just aware that I was looking at things,

but I didn't actively register

what it was that I was looking at,

or what it was that was happening to me.

Once I got older, I was still 11 years old

with the mentality of a three year old.

So my brain hadn't caught up yet with the fact that

hey, I'm 11 now,

I can now register what's happening.

It wasn't until I started getting some support

that slowly but surely,

as technology and access to resources

and knowledge started coming out,

I started to develop little by little

with a good support system,

I started to be able to, for example,

learn how to read,

learn how to pronunciate my letters,

which you do at a very early age.

By the time you're four

most children are already able to speak,

and have somewhat understandable conversations.

And here I was starting to just barely do my ABCs.

So it was a lot of work

to be able to kind of get to the point of where I'm at now,

where I can go ahead,

and I can travel

and attend events and do community sponsored things.

There are some challenges that remain, obviously,

some things that I'll never be able to do.

I'll never be able to drive, for example, given my vision,

but getting from point A to point B

isn't necessarily a challenge anymore

as long as I do it with safety in mind,

I can't be going out

and traveling at like nine p.m. at night

because of my vision,

but everything else we've developed as a society

to a point where I can do a lot of the things

that I need to now

because of the level of technology

and access we have now

that just really wouldn't be possible

in the early 90's when I was growing up.

- Well, I wanna come back

and dig into how we work to improve our digital products

and services with respect to those physical challenges.

But maybe for the next piece

you could talk a little bit about

how you started to become interested in accessibility

as a professional practice.

When did you start thinking about it as something

that you might want to commit more of

your regular work life to?

- So for me, one of the things that,

one of the very first projects that I actually took on

before my current job is

I was working for a nonprofit called

The San Diego Futures Foundation,

and they doing a training program

specifically for disabled youth.

And it's something that I had never actually considered

just being of a disabled background myself.

What are the challenges that people with disabilities

have with gaining employment?

So one of the things that I had to do from that perspective

is how do we make the hiring process

or the interview process more accessible to these youth?

How do we make the curriculum

that they're gonna be going through,

and the interview process more accessible to them?

And it's something that really got me into looking at

these are the things that we have to ask.

What accommodations do they need?

How can we make it easier for them

to be able to integrate into the workforce?

And it's something that at the time

I never really expected I'd be doing later on,

as I got older,

and developed more into a consultant,

because the lessons I learned there

really branched out and helped me look at it

from a wider perspective of this,

how it affects this particular field,

but what about other products and services?

How does it affect kiosks, for example?

How does it affect people that are designing buildings?

Do they design things that are wide enough

for a wheelchair to fit through?

Or do they not really think of that

from an accessible standpoint,

because they only think about a regular person

when they're designing these living quarters?

- Well, one of the reasons

that I've been doing these interviews

is to help people who are new

to learning about accessibility realize that

we all have different journeys that take us

into specializing in that.

Was there a time when you realized that

there are actually people working in accessibility,

where it was their regular full-time job

to be trying to improve things?

- For me, one of the first times

I actually learned about that

was actually at the Blink UX concert, conference,

that I went to, what was it, two years ago?

Basically, because it was something that

I had never been to a conference like that before.

I've been to other conferences for other things,

but never for one that was specifically geared

towards accessibility,

and just creating that awareness of it.

And it was the first time

where I'd been in a location

surrounded by other people

with similar interests where it's like

hey, we're all here talking about the same thing,

we're covering different aspects of it,

and we just wanna share ideas

and share resources on how to make products

across a wide variety of areas

more inclusive in their design,

and we're doing that by including people

who are subject matter experts

because they are familiar with accessibility,

whether it's from a lived perspective like my own,

or whether it's because they learned about accessibility

and now they are doing it professionally,

and they are really, really interested in doing it

not just because it looks good,

but because it creates a more inclusive product

that everyone can access.

- Well, your lived experience

is certainly something that is valuable

as we look to designing new products and services.

Maybe let's dig into the specific physical challenges,

and kind of go one by one,

and you could talk about

what issues that you've encountered in your own life,

and then what types of things

you carry over into your analysis.

And so one of those would be your visual impairment.

So, kind of what's your lived experience for that,

and how do you approach it

when you're helping out as a consultant?

- So for me, with my visual impairment,

my thing basically is I am extremely nearsighted.

It also just limits my ability to be able to see things.

So for me, anything that I do,

any document that I have to read

has to either have the ability to be zoomed in

so I can read it bigger,

or I have to have the ability to just change the font

so I can read it without straining myself.

So the first thing that I look at

when I'm looking at a product,

it doesn't really matter if it's software

or a game or anything like that,

anything that has basically written dialogue is for me,

font size.

Is the font size something that I can change

or that I can look at?

The second aspect of it is

does it have a good color contrast?

Am I able to read it properly,

or do I have to take great pains,

like copying it into something else

to be able to legibly read it

because the background and the font

really just don't match,

and I have to strain my vision

to be able to read it.

Anything like that is just a big challenge for me.

Virtually, nowadays, most locations,

or most avenues have really good color contrast.

You do run into the one off product that

may have the terrible color contrast

that just needs improvement,

but most of the time I've seen,

at least the color contrast is good.

The main thing that I usually have to worry about

is the really small font

that they decided to implement,

or when they try to be fancy,

like oh we're gonna use this cursive font

that most people can't read anymore,

'cause they don't teach it,

that's very difficult for people like me to be able to read

because not only in some cases

have you just forgotten it,

in most cases it's just so small

that even if you tried to actually

increase the font size it really wouldn't help.

- Well, one of the things that we do

as accessibility professionals is try to

make our team members understand that there,

there are so many assistive devices that are out there

that can help physical challenges,

but it requires that,

that you're not doing things that in the,

in the software that prevents you

from being able to make the necessary adjustments

with your assistive devices.

- Yep.

No that's,

and that's always something that

it goes back to being able to design things in a way

where it's open for other people.

One thing that I've noticed

is just the fact that in certain cases, basically,

just that lack of knowledge

can inadvertently create barriers,

but the willingness to learn

how to design things better

is always gonna be an asset,

because then you understand,

okay, instead of implementing

this nice looking cursive font,

instead I'll do something else

that's more easy to read for everyone else.

It might not look as fancy,

but ultimately if it improves the people's ability

to be able to use it and read it,

that should be the end goal,

as opposed to let's make this look all nice and fancy

even if some people are not able to read it.

- And another physical challenge is mobility.

So maybe talk a little bit about your experience with that,

with digital products

and how you comment on that as a consultant.

- So, for me, the main mobility aspect that I have

is mainly just essentially motor skills.

When I was growing up,

I did have significantly more,

but now it's limited to motor skills.

So if I'm going ahead

and I'm a KIOS for example,

or a machine, one of those regular ATMs,

or just a regular machine,

the main thing for me has always been an issue

of not requiring you to do rapid movements

essentially right away,

because for me it takes time for me

to be able to grab something

and orient things a certain way.

Video games are basically a good example,

where they have certain actions you have to take,

and you have to do them very, very rapidly.

For me, those are very difficult to do,

just because the fact that it takes me awhile

to be able to do things using a controller

or a handheld or anything like that.

So really rapid responses are something where

it's just exceedingly difficult to perform,

because of how the product was designed,

where they're asking you to do a specific move set

in a very rapid fire method.

And it's, for me it's just creates a toll on me.

- And then that kind of brings us

to the third one I wanted to talk about,

which is cognitive challenges,

which for me is the area of accessibility

where there's been the least amount of improvement overall.

I think we pay a lot of attention to sight, mobility,

and sound with closed captions,

but with cognitive challenges

I think that's an area that just a lot of organizations,

even if they're involved in accessibility,

aren't really sure how to, how to approach it.

So maybe talk a little bit about

your experiences in that area,

and the challenges you encounter.

- So for, me, one of the main challenges

that I've always seen

is that as a society as a whole

we always wanna be able to see that we're smart, right?

When we're designing products and service,

we wanna be able to see

that we are very smart,

and there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

The main challenge when designing product

or services though,

specifically with cognitive challenges in mind,

is the fact that it goes over so many heads

that designing simple is best.

Designing things in a way

where you're describing things one step at a time,

without using any excessive words,

or terms that regular people who,

or people who, for example,

may not have gone to college are not gonna understand,

is something that it's a simple concept,

but it's not really implemented that often.

And it's something that I've always seen,

'cause people like myself who have cognitive challenges,

and it's unusual because I work in tech,

but it's because I have cognitive challenges

that even working in tech

I still design

okay, we're gonna do this one step at a time.

First we're gonna do this,

and then this next step,

and then this third step

to finish up the project or whatever activity we're doing.

And it's something that,

what I've seen using certain products

or services or websites, it's not done that way.

They have an expectation where people

are automatically gonna understand a certain set

of complicated instructions without being told

exactly what to do for step one

or for step two or for step three.

And the challenge with that is

not only is it ignoring the fact that

not everyone using that same product

or service is gonna be at the same educational level,

it's ignoring the fact that not everyone

is gonna be at the same cognitive level as well.

There are some people like myself would,

can still be very high functioning,

but we still need some sort of breakdown

in terms of the steps to do a certain thing.

Like a good example that I've always referenced basically

is those Ikea catalogs,

when you have to actually build something.

All it is is just pictures.

That doesn't tell me what I'm doing.

Using that one as a good example,

just looking at a reference point.

Me being visually impaired,

and just looking at this

and not having any actual instructions,

it is like the most challenging thing to do,

because I'm not being told specifically what to do

in step by step instruction.

- And we're working on an article together related to this,

and one of the things that you brought out in that

is, for example, if you are filling out a form

or working through a procedure

is that your short term memory,

it doesn't necessarily carry over too long so that

even within individual steps

it's useful for you to have,

continue to have detail about what to do,

and then what the next step is.

- Exactly.

Using just some forms that I've seen on the internet,

for example, they'll have like, oh,

please put in this information,

and then at the bottom,

when you're done with the information,

it'll say this information will be used for this or that.

And, for me, with my brain thinking

is if you tell me why I need to put in this information

at the very beginning,

before I get to that information,

as opposed to at the very end,

because then if I'm forgetting why I'm putting it,

I can just reference it at the very top,

oh, this is why I'm doing it,

and then just fill it out.

And if I need to it's at the very top of the form,

and it flows just a lot better.

Whereas if the information's at the bottom,

I would've forgotten why I'm putting it in.

Oh, why is my name up here?

I don't remember anymore,

'cause I'm not being told

exactly why I need to put it in in some cases.

- Yeah.

And in the article we get into hit lines that disappear

and popups that may not persist.

One of the other areas that you brought up

was when, I think you referred to it as

just too many things going on

or a really busy screen,

and that focus can be an issue.

- Yep, definitely.

'Cause for me, nowadays it's not as bad

as when I was younger,

but I still suffer somewhat from my ADHD challenges

where it's like

if I'm reading an article where if there's too much

I kind of have to break it down into sections,

but if I see an ad or something,

or a banner just pops up,

my intention is immediately diverted to that.

And I'll forget where I was.

What was I reading?

What column was I on?

What was I trying to do?

Because it just diverts so much from what I was doing,

and it just creates a challenge

in being able to finish whatever article

or activity I was trying to do.

- Well, I think everyone

will find this information very helpful,

and I think our article have a lot of good info as well.

For you, just looking ahead,

what types of things are you working on?

What are you looking forward to

in the next part of your career?

- So for right now I'm still freelancing basically.

I am currently gonna be in the process of mentoring

some people on accessibility with a new volunteer group

that just opened up.

In the long term I do plan on

being able to land an official accessibility job

down the line,

just because that is something that for me

is always near dear to my heart.

It's not something where it would just be a job,

but something where I can help make products more accessible

for a wide variety of people

would be just the end goal for me long term.

- All right, well great.

Ricardo, it's been great talking with you,

thank you for sharing your ideas.

It's also been good to work with you,

and I look forward to doing that some more,

and I hope we can get together at some point

at a physical event again in the future.

- Yeah, definitely.

It's always happy to.

I was hopeful to lend a hand,

so we'll have to see when that is.

- All right, thanks a lot.