- Welcome to "The State of accessibility Podcast", episode 13, from TPGi on LinkedIn Live. I am David Sloan, Chief accessibility Officer for Vispero, and I'm joined this month by TPGi's Principal Accessible User Experience Consultant, Dave Swallow. Welcome, Dave. Would you like to share a bit about your accessibility journey as an introduction? - Sure. Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Dave. Thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here. I listen to plenty of podcasts, but I haven't been on that many, and certainly not a live podcast, so I'll try and do my best to remain coherent. Yeah, so I'm David Swallow. I'm Principal UX Consultant in the UX Practice. I lead on various UX services here, like usability testing, user flow testing, strategy work, design reviews, high-level reviews, kiosk work, as well as general consultancy. I've been with TPGi for just over nine years now, this month in fact. And I'm based in York, in the UK. As for my accessibility journey, it's quite a long one. I did my undergraduate degree in psychology where I specialized in human-computer interaction, which as the name suggests, is the study of how humans interact with computers and technology. I landed a master's degree in computer science, where again, I ended up specializing in human-computer interaction, this time more from the technology side of things. I then worked as a web developer for a few years, creating websites for estate agents and realtors, most of which have now fallen off the web. And then went back to academia to work as a researcher in human-computer interaction at the University of York in the UK. And that was where I really got into accessibility. And I worked on a range of research projects with partners across Europe, all with a focus on developing technologies to support disabled and older people. And it was during this time that I met you as you were also working in academia. And I achieved a PhD in computer science there, looking at how to integrate accessible web development practices into the workflows of professional web developers. And that a sort of an attempt to bring together my various strands of experience, really. And then after almost a decade of working in academia, I decided to make the leap to industry and joined what was The Paciello Group, now TPGi, in 2016. And yeah, never looked back. - Yeah, time flies. We have a remarkably similar kind of career pathway into accessibility, but I just want to emphasize, we are not the same person. - We have similar-- - Yes. - Similar backgrounds, but we're definitely not the same person, which sometimes- - Finally an opportunity to demonstrate that we're two different people. This isn't AI-generated. - Still, the one thing I kind of wish I'd done back in the day, if I could have my career over again, was do the undergrad course in psychology, 'cause I think it's so important that what we do is understanding how people think and behave and anticipating for that, including the diversity of the ways that people think and behave. And I know you've been involved in the W3C effort in cognitive accessibility, and we'll come back and talk about that later on in the podcast. But for now, you know, September, it's been a really big month for really high quality events on aspects of digital accessibility, like, especially virtual events. You know, last week was WebAIM's annual conference. Again, there were some really good speakers talking about all different aspects of accessibility. And this week is the latest annual edition of Inclusive Design 24. So we're gonna talk a little bit more about ID24 and some other and currently happening events in the accessibility space. So let's chat a bit more about ID24. And you're pretty heavily involved in ID24 this year. Could you tell us more about the conference, and especially for people who might not be aware of why it's unique, you know, it's history, and how it's different to other events? - Yeah, sure. Yeah, so Inclusive Design 24, #ID24, it's a free 24-hour online event for the global community. And it celebrates Inclusive Design and shares knowledge and ideas in their words, from analog to digital, from design to development, from planners to practitioners, and everything and everyone in between. So essentially an online conference really with expert speakers from across the globe sharing their knowledge for free to the community. I understand it was Leonie Watson who first came up with the idea and the name Inclusive Design 24. That was back in 2011. And it didn't really become a reality until 2014 when Karl Groves had a similar idea. He was also working with Leonie at The Paciello Group. And then Mike Paciello offered to support that first event, that first conference, which from what I gather was put together quite hastily. I don't if you were at TBG at the time, Dave. - Yeah, I think I was on a plane for most of the first one. But I definitely remember the second one. I was in a hotel room in Florence, Italy with terrible wifi. But yeah, it made it, you know, the first one happened successfully and happened successfully enough that everyone thought let's do it again and, you know, figure out ways to improve efficiency, troubleshoot, that kind of thing. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I don't know, something that I think not many people realize now is in those initial days, it was very much a TPG, you know, Paciello Group event. You know, looking at the lineup for the first few years, you know, it comprised many TBG engineers, along with, you know, various other industry experts. I know when I first joined TBG in 2016, it was always a big event on the company calendar. In fact, once I got the job at TPG, but before it actually start, I got the job in like the March and started in the September, I was asked if I'd like to speak at that year's event. I was still doing my PhD at the time, so I gave a talk about my research on supporting web developers. So yeah, so it was a bit of a baptism of fire really, being asked to speak at the company conference essentially before I'd even met any of my colleagues. But it went well, I think. Graeme Coleman and Ian Pouncey were the friendly faces hosting my session there. It is still available on YouTube, although I would caution that it's very dated now. It doesn't necessarily reflect what I believe or understand now, but yeah. Yeah, it was a great experience. - And that's a great observation that all the record, that the talks are all on on YouTube. I mean, I guess it's something that a lot of events do is, you know, you're there, you experience it in person, but if you're not, you can go back and check the archives and select anything you miss. And I think it's worth sort of exploring the 24. So we're talking about 24 consecutive sessions in a day. Talk through how that happens, you know? - Yeah, with a lot of a lot of organization, that's what it takes. A lot of stress. Yeah, so the intention is that they could share knowledge and ideas without the barriers of a traditional conference. So, you know, no travel, and the cost of a conference, and accessibility barriers as well. And so yeah, it takes a lot of doing, but I think that's one of its absolute strengths, that it brings together such a diverse audience, really, you know, in terms of accessibility, representation and geography, yeah, yeah. So because it takes place in that 24-hour continuous block, it needs to source speakers from across a range of time zones. You know, and it'll usually kick off with, you know, Australia and New Zealand at the start of it, and just, you know, work its way around the globe, really. Which yeah, it can be quite a challenge, I understand, in terms of scheduling all that, actually making sure people are available, and following, they use UTC. What's that? Universal Time? I don't know. Universal Time Constant? - I looked it up here. So yeah, I mean, it's kind of, it starts, I'm on Eastern Time, and it starts at 8:00 on Wednesday evening, evening of the 24th. So it's kind of a full day on Thursday the 25th if your time zone is UTC. So I think that means 1:00 a.m. UK time. - Yeah, yeah. That's right, yeah. So it's normally just starting as I'm going to go to bed. - I'm trying to think, maybe Iceland is UTC at the minute? It's a real UX challenge to do it, to see when the event starts and finishes and when each session starts. And I'm sure there's plenty of people who've showed up one hour late for the session that they're really interested in attending. As long as the speakers are there, that's okay, but again, they're on YouTube, so you can catch up afterwards. And I think if you go to the website inclusivedesign24.org, it localizes the times of each session to your time zone or the time zone your device is set to. So as long as that's accurate, then you don't have to convert the times. And again, that makes it more globally-friendly rather than, you've gotta figure out what time zone are they showing the times in, and then what does that mean for me? So yeah, definitely flexible. So what about some of the sessions upcoming later this week? Anything jumped out that's been particularly interesting to you? - Yeah. So... Well, I've hosted some of the sessions in previous years on a couple of occasions, which it's also a great experience. And this year, the team have kind of invited me back. So I'm gonna be hosting two sessions in the morning, 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. UTC, which will be the middle of the night for our U.S. audience, but of course, as I say, the sessions are available on YouTube to watch whenever. So I'll just promote my two sessions. So my, my first session is by Sergey, I think it's Krieger, Krieger, who describes himself as a front-end developer, web accessibility specialist and occasional public speaker. And he'll be speaking about what comes next after reporting an accessibility problem? Answering the question, found an accessibility issue, and now what? And I think it's looking into, you know, how you communicate that through to development and track the progress of those issues. So that should be interesting. And then my second hosting session is by Kaye Moors, who's the MD of DRUM Studios, and she'll be looking at how to get stakeholder buy-in to inclusive design, sharing some quick low budget accessibility fixes to make UX more inclusive and helping to avoid brain overload the silent barrier to inclusive design. So that definitely appeals to my interests with cognitive accessibility. So yeah, I'm looking forward to both of those. Beyond that, on a similar theme, I'm looking forward to a session by Piper Hudson on designing neuro-accessible interfaces for better user engagement. So Piper's gonna be exploring how cognitive load theory can inform the design of digital tools to support a wider range of users, and sharing some ways to reduce cognitive overload. I'm really interested in this one 'cause cognitive overload seems to be key to just so many issues in the cognitive space. I've done some of my own research on anxiety and panic disorders and also memory and that, it just keeps cropping up time and time again as a factor in those. So yeah, so I'm really keen to see what Piper recommends there. The BBC always has a lot of useful insights to share, so I'm gonna be tuning into Andy Ronksley's talk on embedding accessibility into the next generation of BBC apps. So I think the BBC's got quite a unique take on a lot of things when it comes to accessibility. So it'd be good to see how they've embedded accessibility at scale really on native apps. And then of course the European Accessibility Act is shaped and have a significant impact on our community. So I'm looking forward to Mark Walker, and I'm not sure if it's Lou or Louis Asquith on the European Accessibility Act and what it means for you. So Mark is from AbilityNet Consultancy, and Lou or Louie is a regulatory and public lawyer, so it'll be good to get, just get their take on things really, so. - Definitely. - So yeah, I plenty to look forward to, and plenty I'll be catching up on. Anything? - Yeah. - Caught your eye? - Well, I guess, I mean, it's really hard to pull out a few given this, like you say, the diversity of topic, the diversity of speaker, the diversity of background and geographical location, everything's of interest. So then it's like, how do you possibly pick something out? So I did it. I picked out three that I'm particularly interested in. One is by Jan Martin and Daniel Henderson-Ede on accessibility annotations around the world. And it was something you talked about earlier about communication and accessibility annotations as in providing information on a visual design to help developers implement that design accessibly in code. Is something that can be a challenge. I mean, if you don't do it, then the chances are then developers are gonna implement things in an inaccessible way. But even providing annotations, are you giving people information that they understand and know what to do with? So this talk is gonna talk about annotations as this kind of dialogue between design development in a shared language, if it's going, if annotations are gonna be successful. And I'd also just read a blog post by Craig Abbott from Tetra Logical that came out today or yesterday, maybe also talking about annotations as something that you need to be able to be speaking in the right language so that those annotations can communicate. So that sounds like a great session. Another one, Hannah Wagner, Design as Care, Building What Speed Alone Can't Deliver. This is kind of challenging the move fast and break things type approach to development and reframing design as something applying care. You know, thinking about how accessibility can drive design decision makings, decision making to create something that's resilient, usable and useful and has long-term value. So that's gonna be a really thought-provoking talk. I think there, and I'll just also give a shoutout to Nick Chan's talk on Audio Building inclusive maps as the token site to developer. I've been interested in audio as a product for a long time, sort of audio map technology, you know, as with my background as a cartographer. I'm kind always interested in figuring out ways to make maps more accessible. So talking about the audio as a product and in innovation is gonna be interesting. But also this added spin is somebody presenting on a project where they're the only sighted developer in the product team. So the tables are turned. Rather than having one person with a disability or one blind person in a team, here's somebody who's the only sighted person in the team. So it's like the situation has flipped and I'll be really interested to hear that experience. So looking forward to that. So yeah, this is all gonna happen later this week. Inclusivedesign24.org, check the website so wherever you are in the world, you get the times right. I know, you know, we talked about how ID24 was really born of, you know, from people who were at TPG, but it's much more of a community effort now and you know, I'm super grateful to all the organizers and the everyone else who makes it happen, and of course, obviously the speakers who, you know, pitch talks and are prepared to present maybe in some cases in slightly awkward times of the day, but in other cases, you know, the great time for them, even if I should be in bed sleeping at that time. So good luck to you and to everyone else involved in ID24 this year. I'm sure it's gonna be great. So yeah, we talked about ID24, but you and I were both at a webinar last Friday on European Accessibility Act, and we heard Susanna Laurin from Funka Foundation talking about a three months on. That was, we got some interesting stuff from that website. Do you wanna share a couple of highlights from-- - Yeah, yeah. It was an interesting session. It was took away as one of the Funko Foundation's free Friday where webinar series. Obviously Susanna's very well connected with the European Commission and all things EAA at the moment. So it was really good to get an insider perspective there. I was glad that she addressed the anti-climax or sense of anti-climax that after the June 28th implementation deadline this year, pointing out that, you know, nothing happened that weekend. I don't, I'm not sure what people were expecting to happen. You know, maybe suddenly everything would be be fixed and perfectly accessible, fireworks. I don't know. I don't know. But yeah, I think it was good to stress that this is only the start of the journey rather than, you know, the end Oh no, not the start, I don't know, the base camp or something. I don't don't know. Yeah, there's, you know, there's a lot more to come. That said, I do feel like a bit of momentum has been lost, but we'll perhaps come on to why that might be. So yeah, Susanna described emerging trends in a number of areas. People with disabilities, she said end users with disabilities are actively filing complaints in many member states. And there's been a much higher volume of individual complaints than the ones from organizations suggesting a stronger consumer awareness. Some countries are sharing-- - That's a really interesting point, that there has been in complaints. You know, we don't maybe hear so much about that. - It's great to hear-- - There have been complaints already, so you, this, that's evidence in and of its own that it's having an effect and people are asserting their rights to access to accessible consumer products and services. - Absolutely. Yeah. She also mentioned the competent authorities. So these are the national bodies in each EU member state that are responsible for enforcing the EAA's requirements. And I got the impression that this was very mixed and I've had this impression for a while actually. In many of the member states, it hasn't properly gotten off the ground yet, and the authorities are still hiring staff and developing process. And I think this is one of the things that's feeding that lack of momentum that I mentioned, that, you know, if the competent authorities are not in place and that's not already, and the surveillance authorities are not up and running, I fear it gives the impression that there's no urgency. You know, there's no compulsion to make things accessible yet. And I know the whole thing has been a huge undertaking, you know, no denying that, but I think you've really got a quite a small window of opportunity to manage expectations there. So I hope they make more progress with that. And then the accessibility industry, and that was where Susanna said they've seen the biggest area of change with a recognition that EAA goes beyond websites and apps and includes, you know, training and test procedures and just broader support in general. But it's where there's also a number of ongoing issues like missing technical standards, limited clarity on reporting obligations, variability in the national requirements, it's just feeding this constant sense of confusion and misinformation. And I think that was one of the sort of big takeaways for me. I mean, Susanna mentioned that I think some expensive consultancies were from outside the EU were pedaling incorrect information, not intentionally, but yeah. And her advice there was that organizations need to rely on trusted, respected sources and official organizations rather than guesswork essentially. I think you mentioned the same, didn't you? With you, that we've seen blog posts and social media posts. - Yeah. - Not quite. - Yeah. I guess it's the, when you're talking about the lack of progress from the competent authorities in clearly articulating and together articulating this is what needs to happen, you know, I think the fact that there is still no official definitive list of all of the competent authorities that do the enforcement across the EU, who do you go to in Germany? Who do you go to in Austria? Who do you go to in Portugal, like as a single page? And I think there are community efforts to try and fill that gap, but really that's something that the European Commission should be doing. So without that, then people start to fill in the gaps and as you say, there's a worry that people turn an interpretation into something, you must do this, and that becomes something that's inaccurate, but then it gets kind of amplified and you know, the worst case is when you must do this. And oh, by the way, we have a tool that helps you do that and you can, that's where things get more, more complicated. But yeah, you know, it's definitely-- - Yeah, people are just trying to fill that vacuum, aren't they? - Right, right. - You know, it's not with bad intent. - [David Sloan] Right. - Most of the time. But yeah, I mean the legal text of the EAA is complex. It's difficult to interpret. That's a barrier. The updated technical standards, like the new EN 301 549 still haven't been published, as Susanna mentioned, the reporting templates haven't been provided. And, yeah, the surveillance authorities aren't fully up and running yet. So, I don't know. It is easy to criticize people for spreading misinformation, but the European Commission itself hasn't provided enough clear, practical guidance to plug the gap. - And I guess the thing for us in, you know, providing accessibility information and support is just read things twice, three times before saying, this is what you need to do. And, you know, just be very careful about, you know, talking about what is required. You got clear accessibility requirements and then you've got the things that they apply to. So it's just been really careful about interpreting, not making leaps to say it applies to every website, for instance, or every company in this country or that country or whatever. I guess one good thing is that it seems like EN 301 549 has stabilized, so we don't, you know, the latest draft, we don't expect to see any changes in the requirements for meeting that standard. So, you know, even though it's not published, you can find the latest draft that should be stabilized and something that you can maybe start to reference and design and development work. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Point to, yeah, credible sources where, you know, wherever possible. - Yeah. - And hopefully like you say, the commission will provide that centralized list of the competent authorities so people have got something to turn to. But yeah, until then, it probably will still fall on the community to fill that. I know, noted Eric has compiled a list of live EAA accessibility statements from companies in Europe, which is a useful resource just to see how companies are doing it, you know, in lieu of some sort of template there. So. So yeah. Yeah, it's just choose your sources carefully. Yeah, I guess. It's, you know, it is gonna be, the EAA, is gonna be a huge step forward for accessibility in Europe and beyond I guess, but we're in just in this kind of messy transition period at the moment. Yep. So yeah, choose your sources carefully and ask for advice where it's not clear. - [David Swallow] Absolutely. - Yeah. And right now, there's an event going on commemorating the fifth anniversary of the web accessibility directive in-- - Yeah, it's his birthday or vacation date of something. I think that's, it's always around this time that they celebrate this. - Yeah. So even more information going on and more information for us to cover in future podcasts. So I know we're almost at time, but I just wanted to certainly you finish by sort of share or inviting you to share a little bit about your work with the W3C Cognitive and Learning Disabilities Accessibility Task Force, COGA for short. - Sure. - Could sort briefly talk a bit more about what the group is doing, what, how you've been involved? - Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so yeah. I'm a member of the W3C's COGA Task Force. So COGA is, yeah, Cognitive and Learning Disabilities Accessibility, and it's part of the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative and its whole mission is to make the web more usable for people with cognitive and learning disabilities. So the group looks at the gaps, the places where existing accessibility guidelines like light worker don't fully cover the needs of people with cognitive and learning differences. They produce resources and practical guidance for designers and developers and content creators. I've done a bit of research myself into anxiety and panic disorders and also memory issues and how that affects use of the web. So this, it was felt a natural fit for me to join COGA. One of their biggest contributions so far is a guide called Making Content Usable for People with Cognitive and Learning Disabilities. This is not a, it's not a standard like WCAG that you have to meet. It's a companion piece that, to WCAG that gives extra guidance, and it lays out various design goals, like help users understand what things are and how to use them, make navigation consistent and clear, reduce memory load, reduce cognitive load by, you know, not making people remember too many things. And there's various design patterns in there as well, and it just encourages teams to include and think about people with cognitive learning disabilities in their research and their testing. So, yeah, so if you are a designer, a developer, project manager, whatever, the COGA Task Force work, it is well worth exploring. I haven't been able to contribute too much to the task force as much this year just 'cause of work commitments, but I'm hoping that will change soon. Right now the group's working on the next version of making Content Usable, which will be published under a new name, I believe Cognitive Accessibility Guidance, which is a bit easier to say. They're developing white papers. There's one on voice systems and conversational interfaces, looking at a way finding and way finding and indoor navigation. And they're also making sure cognitive accessibility requirements are built into the upcoming WCAG three as well. So there's, you know, there's quite a few plates spinning there. So yeah, even though, yeah, I haven't been as active lately, I would like to encourage listeners to get involved. It's a very welcoming group. They're tackling an area of accessibility that I think often gets overlooked, but is more important than ever. So yeah, I'd really encourage people to look at that. - Yeah. And, you know, from my perspective, Making Content Usable, is it really valuable document. It kind of connects accessibility and especially standards compliance accessibility with usability and user experience. You know, again, with cognitive accessibility so often, you know, these are things that people might assume as, well, that's usability, but you know, these are things that are essential for some people and useful for all, you know, using that we sort of phrase on-- - Yeah, yeah. - On accessibility, so-- - It sort of embodies that. It's definitely, definitely a valuable resource, and, you know, hope, looking forward to seeing what the group produces with the next version. - Absolutely. - Well, I guess we should probably wrap up. So thank you again, Dave, for joining this month's podcast, and especially-- - Yeah, thank you for having me on. It's going very fast. - Good luck for ID24. I hope your coffee makers have been tested and it's working well. It's gonna be a long day, but definitely worthwhile. Next month's podcast is scheduled for October 16th, so we'll be back then. Now you know the state of accessibility. I'm David Sloan, thanking Dave Swallow and reminding you that the state of accessibility is always changing, so please help us affect change.