WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.450 --> 00:00:19.449 David Sloan: So, welcome to the State of Accessibility podcast from Vespero. I'm David Sloan, Chief Accessibility Officer for Vispero, and each month in the podcast, I'm joined by a guest or two to discuss a topic of interest and relevance to the practice and profession of digital accessibility. 2 00:00:19.460 --> 00:00:27.639 David Sloan: And for episode 17, for March, we're reviewing the 2026 CSUN Assistive Technology Conference. 3 00:00:27.710 --> 00:00:32.870 David Sloan: Which was held last week, in Anaheim, California. 4 00:00:33.180 --> 00:00:36.660 David Sloan: Hosted by California State University of Northridge. 5 00:00:36.810 --> 00:00:52.520 David Sloan: Which we abbreviate to CSUN to refer to the conference rather than the university. It's the digital accessibility and assistive technology field's largest annual gathering, and last week's conference was the 41st 6 00:00:52.590 --> 00:01:11.020 David Sloan: CSUN, and it's still going strong after all these years. So, joining me this month to review the conference are my coworkers Jan Williams, Audit Practice Manager, and Megan Griffith, Accessibility Engineer, who are both also in attendance at CSUN last week. So, welcome, Jan and Megan. 7 00:01:11.710 --> 00:01:12.350 Jan Williams: Thanks, Dave. 8 00:01:12.350 --> 00:01:12.850 Meagan Griffith: No. 9 00:01:12.850 --> 00:01:13.400 Jan Williams: Hi. 10 00:01:14.060 --> 00:01:15.230 Jan Williams: Good to be here. 11 00:01:16.180 --> 00:01:20.590 David Sloan: So, Jan, we'll start with you. You've been to CSUN before, so… 12 00:01:20.770 --> 00:01:27.360 David Sloan: How would you summarize your experience this year, and how it contrasted with previous conferences you attended? 13 00:01:28.040 --> 00:01:31.510 Jan Williams: Yeah, I've been twice before. The first time was… 14 00:01:31.850 --> 00:01:35.629 Jan Williams: 10 or more years ago, back when it was in San Diego. 15 00:01:35.730 --> 00:01:39.600 Jan Williams: And… and then the second time was 2 years ago. 16 00:01:40.010 --> 00:01:45.700 Jan Williams: And… I guess the biggest difference for me was… my own personal experience of it was… 17 00:01:45.870 --> 00:01:50.650 Jan Williams: This is my first time presenting. I had two presentations at this conference. 18 00:01:50.900 --> 00:02:03.419 Jan Williams: And so, it does put you in a slightly different headspace than I was in the other two times, where I was just a sponge, taking in as much as I could from all the sessions, especially the first time around, you know, 10 or 11 years ago. I was… 19 00:02:03.950 --> 00:02:17.829 Jan Williams: still newish to accessibility and trying to… trying to learn as much as I could from these sessions. Now I'm attending sessions, interested in what, you know, other accessibility consultancies are up to, and… 20 00:02:17.930 --> 00:02:25.630 Jan Williams: And… and doing more work supporting our… our marketing efforts. So, that was the… 21 00:02:25.730 --> 00:02:43.090 Jan Williams: the biggest difference for my personal experience, but also just, there's… there's a huge difference in the number of talks that are focused on AI these days, for good reason, and… and I certainly contributed to that with one of my talks, which was focused on… on machine learning, so… 22 00:02:43.170 --> 00:02:46.410 Jan Williams: Yeah, those are the two big differences I noticed. 23 00:02:47.250 --> 00:02:49.020 David Sloan: Yeah, and I always had that. 24 00:02:49.600 --> 00:03:02.159 David Sloan: second conference… second talk that you gave, and it seemed like it got a lot of engagement from the audience that were… that were there, a lot of questions afterwards. So, do you want to give a quick highlight of what you covered on that talk? 25 00:03:02.900 --> 00:03:08.220 Jan Williams: Yeah, the talk was called, I think, something like, enhancing… 26 00:03:08.370 --> 00:03:11.700 Jan Williams: Rules-based testing with machine learning inference. 27 00:03:12.140 --> 00:03:18.999 Jan Williams: And I was… I was… Trying to give kind of an inside-out look at 28 00:03:19.360 --> 00:03:24.279 Jan Williams: how AI works, because it's… people talk about it in… 29 00:03:24.390 --> 00:03:37.579 Jan Williams: abstract terms, it's like a black box for a lot of people, so I wanted to look at it, at what's actually going on under the hood, talk about how you can interrogate claims made about tools that integrate AI, 30 00:03:37.590 --> 00:03:48.329 Jan Williams: And, you know, a good chunk of my presentation was talking… illustrating by example with a little prototype demo web browser extension that I made that 31 00:03:48.530 --> 00:03:53.789 Jan Williams: Does visual analysis and structural analysis and integrates the predictions from 32 00:03:54.020 --> 00:04:04.589 Jan Williams: from both those models to… to predict what's happening on the page, visually. Like, what the… basically, it's… I kind of broke down a part of the… the problem 33 00:04:04.730 --> 00:04:09.269 Jan Williams: In automation, the big gap is… is a need for 34 00:04:09.950 --> 00:04:19.090 Jan Williams: semantic classification of user interface elements, and if we can get pretty good performance there from AI models, then we can 35 00:04:19.230 --> 00:04:21.820 Jan Williams: We can go a long way to bridging the gap. 36 00:04:22.010 --> 00:04:25.049 Jan Williams: With… that we currently have with automation. 37 00:04:26.290 --> 00:04:28.200 David Sloan: Yeah, I think that kind of… 38 00:04:29.310 --> 00:04:34.259 David Sloan: There was a little bit of a sort of theoretical framework that you presented that would help people 39 00:04:34.430 --> 00:04:37.569 David Sloan: Understand how others are talking about 40 00:04:38.440 --> 00:04:44.659 David Sloan: AI-powered solutions, and especially for accessibility evaluation, that might give people a 41 00:04:45.110 --> 00:04:53.110 David Sloan: You know, sort of stronger sense of how… how to… how to assess the promises or claims made by… by solutions. 42 00:04:54.080 --> 00:05:01.919 Jan Williams: Yeah, I talked about precision and recall, which are concepts common in discussions around machine learning models, AI models, and… 43 00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:07.289 Jan Williams: And what… what I have heard in claims made about 44 00:05:07.290 --> 00:05:24.149 Jan Williams: certain tools that people are promoting is that, you know, this… this tool has very high precision, or zero false positives, and one of the… one of the points I tried to make is it's… you can't just use a single metric for the performance of these models. You have to look at precision and another concept called recall. 45 00:05:24.250 --> 00:05:28.420 Jan Williams: Both are… you can look at in terms of a score. 46 00:05:28.580 --> 00:05:47.450 Jan Williams: or a percentage. And, you know, lower precision tends to mean you have more false positives. Lower recall score tends to mean you have more false negatives, and you need to look at both. And you can look at a harmonized score called an F1 score, but if somebody just refers to precision, then you should ask them about recall, because it's very easy to have… 47 00:05:47.830 --> 00:05:54.939 Jan Williams: really high precision and zero false positives if you never make… if you never detect anything, if you never detect any… 48 00:05:55.190 --> 00:05:58.139 Jan Williams: Any, any errors or make any predictions. 49 00:05:59.110 --> 00:06:03.339 David Sloan: Yeah, and that, you know, again, that's… that's helpful when Figuring out… 50 00:06:03.440 --> 00:06:08.100 David Sloan: A trade-off, what makes most sense to you and your needs from a tool? 51 00:06:08.460 --> 00:06:09.000 Jan Williams: Right. 52 00:06:10.040 --> 00:06:13.980 David Sloan: Speaking of tools, you also talked about another tool. 53 00:06:14.200 --> 00:06:16.580 David Sloan: In your other presentation. 54 00:06:17.060 --> 00:06:26.930 Jan Williams: Yes, JALS Inspect. That is the… that presentation was called, Using JALS Inspect as a Screen Reader User Experience 55 00:06:27.230 --> 00:06:28.839 Jan Williams: Tool. 56 00:06:29.200 --> 00:06:30.320 Jan Williams: Roughly that. 57 00:06:30.440 --> 00:06:31.580 Jan Williams: And… 58 00:06:31.820 --> 00:06:43.179 Jan Williams: That one went well, too. I was pleased to see the level of engagement with the folks in the audience. I'm interested in applying JAWS Inspect 59 00:06:43.310 --> 00:06:51.550 Jan Williams: to… Workflows that aren't just, You know, post-audit reviews, 60 00:06:51.720 --> 00:06:58.370 Jan Williams: QA reviews. It's really looking at using JAWS Inspect from the very beginning, and… 61 00:06:58.600 --> 00:07:09.460 Jan Williams: generating JAWS inspect reports for the purposes of, you know, refining your acceptance criteria, shifting left, obviously, and 62 00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:19.949 Jan Williams: incorporating the screen reader output without… into your testing workflow, without necessarily needing to know how to operate… to operate a screen reader like JALS. 63 00:07:21.310 --> 00:07:28.880 David Sloan: Yeah, I think that, sort of, helping people figure out how to make use of JAWS Inspect is always… 64 00:07:29.020 --> 00:07:34.109 David Sloan: Yeah, and in the design development process, it's definitely something that 65 00:07:34.750 --> 00:07:36.659 David Sloan: We've been trying to figure out 66 00:07:36.840 --> 00:07:43.819 David Sloan: how… how to convey it effectively, so… so I definitely appreciated the… Cases disappeared there. 67 00:07:44.880 --> 00:07:46.570 David Sloan: Yeah, there seemed to be a lot of interest. 68 00:07:46.570 --> 00:07:46.960 Jan Williams: Okay. 69 00:07:46.960 --> 00:07:47.919 David Sloan: Yeah, go ahead. 70 00:07:48.450 --> 00:07:52.799 Jan Williams: No, that was it, yeah, there seemed to be a lot of interest from the folks in the audience, so I was really happy to see that. 71 00:07:52.800 --> 00:07:53.300 David Sloan: Yeah. 72 00:07:53.960 --> 00:08:01.090 David Sloan: So yeah, Megan, you were a first-timer at CSUN. How was your conference experience? And you're the… 73 00:08:01.240 --> 00:08:03.489 David Sloan: Hawk as well. How did that go? 74 00:08:04.140 --> 00:08:15.839 Meagan Griffith: Yeah, it was great. I knew it was one of the biggest conferences, but I was blown away by the scale of the whole event. It was so cool to just see so many fun things in the exhibit room, and I learned a lot from the talks. 75 00:08:15.880 --> 00:08:26.570 Meagan Griffith: And my presentation went well. It was fun to talk about something a little less technical and more personal. So for context, the talk was about, accessibility and entertainment. 76 00:08:26.880 --> 00:08:48.880 Meagan Griffith: Which is near and dear to my heart. My mom is hard of hearing and will lose all of her hearing, shortly in the coming years. So growing up, it was always a challenge to find things that the whole family could do that included my mom and were accessible beyond mandatory technology use. So seeing all these things come out with sporting events and museums and concerts has been really cool. 77 00:08:48.880 --> 00:08:53.400 Meagan Griffith: And bringing that to the forefront in more of a lighthearted talk was very fun. 78 00:08:54.400 --> 00:08:58.350 David Sloan: Yeah, and I guess that… that… co-location of 79 00:08:58.510 --> 00:09:02.470 David Sloan: So CSUN takes place, what, 2 blocks from Disneyland? 80 00:09:03.570 --> 00:09:05.930 David Sloan: One of the things that any 81 00:09:06.070 --> 00:09:20.070 David Sloan: newcomer, or… whether you've been there once or five, or six times, the number of people in the environment walking around with Minnie Mouse ears on is always fun, so… 82 00:09:20.400 --> 00:09:27.709 David Sloan: from an accessibility perspective, that kind of… near this huge amusement park, we're not that far from Hollywood. 83 00:09:28.130 --> 00:09:30.920 David Sloan: Focus on entertainment is always there, and… 84 00:09:31.500 --> 00:09:34.039 David Sloan: And people in entertainment are really… 85 00:09:34.640 --> 00:09:38.949 David Sloan: Creative and thinking about enhancing the user experience and doing different… 86 00:09:39.180 --> 00:09:50.670 David Sloan: sensory capabilities to enhance the user experience, so entertainment in the sort of physical world and using digital. There's a nice crossover with accessibility, so… 87 00:09:50.990 --> 00:10:10.790 Meagan Griffith: Especially with just how common personal devices are now, and being able to create things to use personal devices, so then also there's no necessarily… there's not an obvious indicator, necessarily, that someone's using assistive technology, or it blends seamlessly with the environment, so it feels… 88 00:10:10.870 --> 00:10:25.060 Meagan Griffith: similar experience-wise is really important as well, and that was reflected in a lot of the new popular accessibility features in entertainment. The personalization and use of personal devices is growing to be increasingly more popular. 89 00:10:25.790 --> 00:10:27.720 David Sloan: Yeah, and you also touched on 90 00:10:28.190 --> 00:10:31.280 David Sloan: Accessible entertainment in the sport. 91 00:10:31.630 --> 00:10:32.140 David Sloan: area. 92 00:10:32.140 --> 00:10:32.500 Meagan Griffith: Absolutely. 93 00:10:32.500 --> 00:10:37.360 David Sloan: There's lots of stuff going on in sports, like… Baseball, basketball, whatever. 94 00:10:37.820 --> 00:10:44.409 Meagan Griffith: Yeah, there's a new device, the one-quart device, that's a lap-sized, almost tablet. 95 00:10:44.410 --> 00:11:04.929 Meagan Griffith: type of interface, and it has haptic feedback, so that in real time you can receive updates about the game in addition to commentary, so you're not necessarily having to take in both the audio description and hear real-time commentary. You can have the haptic feedback and hear the commentaries that's happening at the game, and then one of the attendees to the talk 96 00:11:04.930 --> 00:11:12.289 Meagan Griffith: Actually, the answer that they are having an at-home version coming out soon, so you'll be able to follow along with the game streaming on your TV. 97 00:11:13.090 --> 00:11:14.890 David Sloan: That… that sounds awesome, and… 98 00:11:15.140 --> 00:11:20.019 David Sloan: you know, we talk a lot about the value of accessibility. There's often a secondary beneficiary. 99 00:11:20.470 --> 00:11:21.980 David Sloan: As somebody who's… 100 00:11:22.190 --> 00:11:30.460 David Sloan: recently moved to the US and is clueless about baseball, but is kind of interested in the game. I've been to a couple of games at Fenway Park in Boston. 101 00:11:30.680 --> 00:11:46.519 David Sloan: I'm still… I still really have no idea what's going on, so anything that I can borrow to explain, you know, have people explaining to me what's going on and why it's going on, would help… would help me as a… as a… you know, as an additional audience of… of an assistive technology. 102 00:11:47.570 --> 00:11:52.130 David Sloan: So… so did you get to other… talks, Megan's… 103 00:11:52.830 --> 00:12:03.379 Meagan Griffith: Yeah, I went to quite a few. I went to… one that was really cool, I went to NASA, had a talk, and I didn't realize how much they've contributed to accessible technology. 104 00:12:03.410 --> 00:12:12.899 Meagan Griffith: I learned quite a bit about their technology sharing program and how they influenced alt text and cochlear implants, so that was one of my favorite talks that I went to. 105 00:12:13.980 --> 00:12:20.539 David Sloan: That sounds awesome, and it's often surprising where accessibility innovations come from. 106 00:12:20.800 --> 00:12:27.449 David Sloan: I remember, you know, Like it or not, there's a lot of innovations come from 107 00:12:27.720 --> 00:12:37.390 David Sloan: Defense research, military technology that is dealing with people operating in very high-stress environments with lots of 108 00:12:37.750 --> 00:12:41.799 David Sloan: Sensory and cognitive limitations, physical limitations. 109 00:12:42.010 --> 00:12:47.329 David Sloan: That translate into… Broader, human-computer interaction. 110 00:12:47.580 --> 00:12:54.940 David Sloan: Challenges, or addressing human-computer interaction challenges, and… You know, that kind of… Feeding through of innovation to… 111 00:12:55.160 --> 00:12:57.360 David Sloan: Broader consumer technologies. 112 00:12:57.630 --> 00:13:00.059 David Sloan: You know, we do benefit in the end, even if 113 00:13:00.290 --> 00:13:05.870 David Sloan: The original, goal was very different, so learning about some of the 114 00:13:05.970 --> 00:13:14.329 David Sloan: sort of national agencies that innovate is really, really cool. Any other highlights that… Mother talks. 115 00:13:14.330 --> 00:13:32.949 Meagan Griffith: a lot of… a lot of stuff having to do with, like, my little notepad next to me from the talks. Just a lot of talks about, AI and tau. Something that I thought was interesting, the way, I think it was audio I framed it, they framed it as the web has outpaced the model designed to fix it. 116 00:13:33.410 --> 00:13:45.229 Meagan Griffith: So, how can we use AI strategies and things like that to help make our testing and our fixes keep up better with how quickly the web is developing, so that 117 00:13:45.300 --> 00:13:55.369 Meagan Griffith: as we're spending this time trying to fix it, our solutions aren't outdated by the time the web's updated. So, I thought that was an interesting way to frame it. It made a lot of sense. 118 00:13:56.040 --> 00:14:02.420 David Sloan: Yeah, and it kind of speaks to… The… you know, sometimes… AI… 119 00:14:02.630 --> 00:14:08.750 David Sloan: Innovations are kind of posted as… Accessibility professionals are resistant to 120 00:14:09.280 --> 00:14:12.660 David Sloan: Using automation and tools to do work. 121 00:14:12.910 --> 00:14:17.100 David Sloan: And this is an alternative, when, actually, I feel like… 122 00:14:17.480 --> 00:14:23.619 David Sloan: working in this field, people are really keen to jump onto using any tool that makes your work. 123 00:14:23.730 --> 00:14:28.010 David Sloan: More efficient, cuts down on mistakes, allows you to do other things, so… 124 00:14:28.680 --> 00:14:31.369 David Sloan: So that kind of speaks to that notion that 125 00:14:31.670 --> 00:14:44.479 David Sloan: If we're all about advancing accessibility, then any tool that can speed up something or do it at scale is a good thing, as long as it does it well and doesn't create more work for us further down the line, or… 126 00:14:45.210 --> 00:14:56.350 Meagan Griffith: And within an organization, too, I think as long as you're balancing it still with the human perspective, and including people with disabilities and testing and feedback, then there can be a balance there to help 127 00:14:56.630 --> 00:15:06.570 Meagan Griffith: Accessibility professionals like ourselves keep up with the testing and solutions, so it's actually getting done, but we're not losing everything just to automated testing. 128 00:15:06.960 --> 00:15:07.630 David Sloan: Yeah. 129 00:15:08.340 --> 00:15:16.040 David Sloan: Jan, did you get to any other talks? I know you were buzzing about between our route, the Vespero Room and the exhibition hall a lot. 130 00:15:16.980 --> 00:15:21.169 Jan Williams: Not as many as I would have liked. I did… 131 00:15:21.200 --> 00:15:37.049 Jan Williams: really get a lot from your session on Title II, Dave and Megan, your session on accessible entertainment was great. Another one that I'd call out was eBay. Some folks from eBay did a session on how they're trying to integrate 132 00:15:37.130 --> 00:15:54.359 Jan Williams: AI into their testing workflows. So they're… they're using… it's… it's either Claude or one of the GPT models to generate unit tests, and… and really all the way up, the testing chains, the testing workflow, integration testing. 133 00:15:54.520 --> 00:16:05.889 Jan Williams: end-to-end testing. And it was just really cool to hear about… hear a big organization like, eBay, talk about… 134 00:16:06.510 --> 00:16:13.789 Jan Williams: The, you know, the… talk candidly about the successes and challenges that they're dealing with. 135 00:16:13.930 --> 00:16:24.090 Jan Williams: Working with emerging technologies and trying to automate testing, for their developers and their accessibility specialists. 136 00:16:25.420 --> 00:16:28.900 David Sloan: Yeah, and I… that kind of… Here's what we're doing. 137 00:16:29.480 --> 00:16:34.320 David Sloan: And talking candidly about achievements and challenges. 138 00:16:34.470 --> 00:16:35.799 David Sloan: I feel like that's a… 139 00:16:36.150 --> 00:16:51.139 David Sloan: that's always been something that CSUN's been able to offer as a space to share what you're doing, and compare it with others, and collaborate on making things better. So it's… it's not always you have to have an innovation, you have to show your way ahead of everyone else, it's more… 140 00:16:51.280 --> 00:16:53.280 David Sloan: Here's how we're approaching a problem. 141 00:16:53.400 --> 00:16:57.340 David Sloan: let's… let's share, solutions. There was a… 142 00:16:57.590 --> 00:17:06.739 David Sloan: a Birds of a Feather session on AI and supporting accessibility efforts, which I really wanted to get to, and I didn't. Did either of you go to that? 143 00:17:07.960 --> 00:17:09.010 Jan Williams: I don't think Megan did. 144 00:17:09.010 --> 00:17:16.689 Meagan Griffith: I went to one of the Birds of a Feather, but that one was more just for first-time attendees. It wasn't specific to a topic. 145 00:17:16.980 --> 00:17:22.199 David Sloan: Right. Yeah, I think, I think it was a Thursday lunchtime, so we'll need to do some… 146 00:17:22.390 --> 00:17:29.700 David Sloan: Digging on, on… the output of that. I think it was organized by Ted Drake at Intuit, so… 147 00:17:29.870 --> 00:17:34.380 David Sloan: I… I would imagine, knowing Ted, he's really good at… 148 00:17:34.530 --> 00:17:37.370 David Sloan: Providing output of events like that. 149 00:17:37.730 --> 00:17:43.579 David Sloan: Collaborating. Knowledge sharing. So, be worth… worth checking that out. 150 00:17:44.770 --> 00:17:48.180 David Sloan: So we talked a bit about talks. 151 00:17:48.480 --> 00:18:05.630 David Sloan: there was also… one of the things that I… it took me a long time as a… you know, I've been to CSUN a few times, and I always assumed it's a conference where there's lots of presentations, and you go and learn about things, not realizing just how significant the exhibition hall is, and the 152 00:18:05.810 --> 00:18:08.560 David Sloan: So many vendors that go there and show 153 00:18:08.700 --> 00:18:16.930 David Sloan: New tools, new assistive technologies, or there are large corporations talking about their accessibility efforts, or how they're 154 00:18:17.140 --> 00:18:20.800 David Sloan: Integrating accessibility into their products. 155 00:18:21.510 --> 00:18:23.459 David Sloan: Did you have time 156 00:18:23.670 --> 00:18:30.820 David Sloan: To go around the exhibition hall and see anything interesting. Jan, I'll start with you, and then we'll go to you, Megan. 157 00:18:32.500 --> 00:18:42.329 Jan Williams: Most of the time I spent in the exhibit hall was… was with the VSPERO booth, probably, trying to, you know, help… help out… 158 00:18:42.650 --> 00:18:58.180 Jan Williams: you know, people interested in our products, mostly trying to stay out of the way of other people who actually know what they're talking about with the hardware that we… the really amazing hardware that we have there on display. But really, when I did get to walk around a little bit, I am amazed by 159 00:18:58.450 --> 00:19:16.390 Jan Williams: the… the hardware innovation that is there on display, because we live in… we are… we are immersed in a digital accessibility world here, and it's just great to see what people are doing. I think there was a company, I think, called MIDI there, 160 00:19:16.410 --> 00:19:21.920 Jan Williams: Showcasing some devices that they have that are designed to help 161 00:19:22.510 --> 00:19:28.199 Jan Williams: people with disabilities make music, and I just love seeing the… 162 00:19:28.680 --> 00:19:34.989 Jan Williams: The tactile, experience represented there in… in the exhibit halls. 163 00:19:36.640 --> 00:19:40.499 David Sloan: That's cool. And, you know, I think that kind of helping people be creative 164 00:19:40.840 --> 00:19:44.760 David Sloan: Beyond the, sort of, more… more, sort of, functional… 165 00:19:45.090 --> 00:19:49.540 David Sloan: aspects of living, you know, navigating around and getting from A to B. 166 00:19:49.750 --> 00:19:54.220 David Sloan: I love that there's… there's a… there's a focus in helping people sort of really… 167 00:19:55.040 --> 00:20:00.640 David Sloan: Yeah, be creative and make music, make art, whatever, yeah. Megan, how about you? 168 00:20:01.570 --> 00:20:06.840 Meagan Griffith: Yeah, I got to walk around a little bit, and I have to say my favorite was the Sony Ivo dog. 169 00:20:07.170 --> 00:20:24.959 Meagan Griffith: just so cute, so cool. It's essentially like a robot companion dog, and it will develop its own little personality, and there's sensors on it, so if you rub along its back or stroke under its chin, it'll bark, and its tail will wag, and it had surprisingly expressive eyes. 170 00:20:25.160 --> 00:20:40.289 Meagan Griffith: So I just thought that was very, very cute, but other than… a less light-hearted one, and one that was more genuinely really cool, I'm always, blown away by the adaptable clothing, and Nike had some really cool ones, and I think it can get lost that… 171 00:20:40.290 --> 00:20:56.090 Meagan Griffith: assistive technology isn't just computers, it's other things like technology and clothing and things that just give folks with disabilities more agency and autonomy in their own lives, so I always really like seeing the adaptable fashion innovations in the field. 172 00:20:56.410 --> 00:21:08.589 David Sloan: Right, and that is… that's especially valuable, and it looks cool as well. You know, you don't have this kind of medically designed assistive technology that really has paid no attention to aesthetics. 173 00:21:08.750 --> 00:21:14.389 David Sloan: But instead, you've got a really, really cool-looking pair of Nike running shoes, and yeah, there's… 174 00:21:14.390 --> 00:21:14.730 Meagan Griffith: Yeah. 175 00:21:14.730 --> 00:21:18.719 David Sloan: Velcro, you know, on or off, or… or whatever, so… 176 00:21:18.720 --> 00:21:19.920 Meagan Griffith: celebrated, so… 177 00:21:19.920 --> 00:21:20.260 David Sloan: Yeah. 178 00:21:20.260 --> 00:21:28.489 Meagan Griffith: It's really cool. I'm glad that they're involved, and I missed the keynote, but it looked like they had an interesting keynote as well about some of the new releases they have this year. 179 00:21:28.670 --> 00:21:30.569 David Sloan: Yeah, and that's another thing about… 180 00:21:30.690 --> 00:21:45.219 David Sloan: CSUN is like… I know there's, you know, we're not the only podcast reflecting on the conference, and it's almost like a jigsaw puzzle. Listen to all the podcasts, and people will talk about different sessions, because there are so many sessions, it's just impossible. 181 00:21:45.240 --> 00:21:51.300 David Sloan: to go to the mall. I feel like there's probably about 7 or 8 parallel… 182 00:21:52.300 --> 00:21:59.000 David Sloan: things going on at the same time. You know, there are so many different conference rooms, there's the exhibition hall, that at any given 183 00:21:59.520 --> 00:22:13.910 David Sloan: point in the day, have a huge choice, and sometimes you don't, because there's a really popular session, maybe it's Feingold's legal update, or… or it's the keynote, or whatever, where that's the only thing going on. Sometimes there's popular sessions that 184 00:22:14.050 --> 00:22:15.130 David Sloan: We are the… 185 00:22:15.440 --> 00:22:19.749 David Sloan: They build up really quickly, and then you end up going somewhere else. But just kind of figuring out 186 00:22:20.060 --> 00:22:24.759 David Sloan: where do I go? Where do I focus my attention, and then how do I find out what I missed? 187 00:22:25.240 --> 00:22:29.800 David Sloan: That's… that's always the… the challenge in… in attending. 188 00:22:30.670 --> 00:22:36.899 David Sloan: I'd also have to give a hat to Megan to point out the raising the Floor booth. 189 00:22:37.440 --> 00:22:38.370 David Sloan: So that people… 190 00:22:38.370 --> 00:22:38.780 Meagan Griffith: people. 191 00:22:38.780 --> 00:22:49.899 David Sloan: But, you know, I ended up going in and had a chat with them, and Raising the Floor is this great, non-profit kind of coalition of accessibility researchers and designers. 192 00:22:50.090 --> 00:22:56.349 David Sloan: And they showed off a couple of interesting tools. There's, Morphic as a… 193 00:22:57.440 --> 00:23:07.279 David Sloan: a tool that sits on your desktop, you know, whether it's the Windows or OS X, or whatever, macOS, 194 00:23:07.430 --> 00:23:15.170 David Sloan: And it kind of exposes all of the accessibility features of that platform, and puts them in this single… 195 00:23:15.300 --> 00:23:21.500 David Sloan: their interface, so it… Basically, it tries to solve the problem of 196 00:23:22.170 --> 00:23:31.300 David Sloan: platforms have all sorts of accessibility features, but you've got to know where they are to go find them. And having this thing sitting right at the front, 197 00:23:31.700 --> 00:23:37.099 David Sloan: Just makes… makes them easier to find, and that can help solve a problem, especially 198 00:23:37.300 --> 00:23:43.660 David Sloan: For people who are maybe… Their accessibility needs are changing over time with age, whatever. 199 00:23:44.240 --> 00:23:50.609 David Sloan: just making it easier. And I'd heard about it, but I'd never seen it in practice, and I was really impressed with that. 200 00:23:51.040 --> 00:24:06.820 Meagan Griffith: Yeah, and that's so… I am biased, because I did help with the research and development of that one. Back in college, I worked really closely with, Greg and Baron, who were at the table when I was at the Trace Center. But the other feature of that that's just exceptional is that 201 00:24:06.820 --> 00:24:13.099 Meagan Griffith: If you have a profile with it and you log onto it on another device, it will sync all of your settings. 202 00:24:13.160 --> 00:24:24.619 Meagan Griffith: Which was especially important so that, for example, if you're in a rural area and you don't have access to internet and you use public libraries, it can be really difficult to 203 00:24:24.630 --> 00:24:39.540 Meagan Griffith: just get the access to the settings to make the computer accessible, so if they have Morphic on the computers and you log in, it syncs to your profile since it's using the system settings and changes all of them so that you can virtually access any computer. 204 00:24:40.290 --> 00:24:43.250 David Sloan: That… that's very cool, because that's… that's thinking about… 205 00:24:43.370 --> 00:24:54.239 David Sloan: the problem in its broadest sense, rather than just a sort of one person, one device. It's thinking about how people… where people use devices and when, so… 206 00:24:54.570 --> 00:24:57.949 Meagan Griffith: Or even on a home computer with multiple family members. 207 00:24:57.950 --> 00:24:58.450 David Sloan: Right. 208 00:24:58.450 --> 00:25:05.169 Meagan Griffith: And you're not constantly having to go back in and change your settings if someone else has changed your accessibility settings off. 209 00:25:05.320 --> 00:25:11.379 Meagan Griffith: So that is a… it's a really… it's a really cool product, and I was really glad to see it there, and still getting presented. 210 00:25:12.920 --> 00:25:17.050 David Sloan: Yeah, no, I… I… that… raising the floor has been… 211 00:25:17.390 --> 00:25:22.439 David Sloan: In… you know, they've been doing work for a long time, and it's… it's nice to see 212 00:25:23.260 --> 00:25:25.990 David Sloan: You know, just how useful and usable 213 00:25:26.110 --> 00:25:28.439 David Sloan: The output of that project has. 214 00:25:29.640 --> 00:25:34.349 David Sloan: The other thing, I don't know how you feel about this, is just how seeing people 215 00:25:35.330 --> 00:25:39.890 David Sloan: Using some of the technologies at the conference. 216 00:25:40.170 --> 00:25:46.120 David Sloan: you know, just sort of trying things out, so that the Glide… Mark came… did either of you… 217 00:25:46.280 --> 00:25:49.260 David Sloan: people using that I… That's… 218 00:25:49.260 --> 00:25:50.520 Meagan Griffith: think I saw that. 219 00:25:51.770 --> 00:25:58.019 David Sloan: This is a… it's a cane with… it's a cane with wheels, and it's… I think it may have cameras, sensors. 220 00:25:58.760 --> 00:26:06.389 David Sloan: And I… I asked around a bit more about this smart cane that's in development and was being presented, and… 221 00:26:06.790 --> 00:26:09.400 David Sloan: Seems like a couple of our co-workers are… 222 00:26:09.600 --> 00:26:16.739 David Sloan: you know, on the waiting list for when it comes out, it's still in development, but they have prototypes there, and it's kind of 223 00:26:16.970 --> 00:26:24.110 David Sloan: You know, using a load of different technologies to make To help make navigation Sure. 224 00:26:24.490 --> 00:26:31.600 David Sloan: but it made me realize that one of the great things about CSUN is that in people. 225 00:26:32.580 --> 00:26:42.430 David Sloan: assistive technology, and particularly innovations in this technology, and it's a way for Gold, or… non-disabled. 226 00:26:43.590 --> 00:26:44.630 David Sloan: in use. 227 00:26:44.850 --> 00:26:51.380 David Sloan: And maybe challenge some assumptions that they might have had. You know, at the conference, there is a… 228 00:26:51.790 --> 00:26:55.619 David Sloan: A very visible presence of people with disabilities, which you would… 229 00:26:55.760 --> 00:26:59.979 David Sloan: expect and hope for a conference like that. And… 230 00:27:00.390 --> 00:27:03.669 David Sloan: For a lot of people who maybe are new to accessibility. 231 00:27:04.410 --> 00:27:09.210 David Sloan: It's… it's a great place to go and talk to people. 232 00:27:09.650 --> 00:27:14.320 David Sloan: See, daily, who experience accessibility issues daily, and… 233 00:27:14.610 --> 00:27:16.840 David Sloan: And, and, and, and just… 234 00:27:17.260 --> 00:27:20.370 David Sloan: Clarify some assumptions, maybe correct some… 235 00:27:20.670 --> 00:27:29.140 David Sloan: some assumptions as well, so I feel like that's always… It's always something that's… positive. 236 00:27:29.290 --> 00:27:31.750 David Sloan: I think for me, even if I think I know it. 237 00:27:31.980 --> 00:27:37.669 David Sloan: It's always something I don't know, that I learn, every year I attend. 238 00:27:39.110 --> 00:27:52.470 Meagan Griffith: That was something that I thought was interesting with CSUN, and I didn't expect any less, but that I was never the smartest person in the room. Not that I am otherwise, but even presenting on a topic that I had prepared for. 239 00:27:52.470 --> 00:28:02.409 Meagan Griffith: I knew that there was going to be someone there who knew more than I did, or had a lived experience to contribute to it, and I think that's one of the really cool things about CSUN, is that it's just a bunch of people 240 00:28:02.410 --> 00:28:15.129 Meagan Griffith: really passionate about accessibility and the advancements of it, and I think it's a really good learning opportunity, especially if you're diving into perhaps a technical role and you're new to the field, and you are just… 241 00:28:15.130 --> 00:28:23.040 Meagan Griffith: buried in WCAG, and learning all of the rules to go and see some things, and get involved in the community and actually talk to some people. 242 00:28:24.450 --> 00:28:31.519 David Sloan: Yeah, so as we, kind of, come to the end of this conversation, that's probably a… a good, kind of. 243 00:28:32.730 --> 00:28:38.149 David Sloan: segue into thinking about takeaways. You know, what… what would you say was a sort of 244 00:28:38.480 --> 00:28:47.450 David Sloan: main, you know, key piece of knowledge that you took away, or a memory that you took away that would influence your work? I'll ask you that, Megan, and then we'll go to Dan. 245 00:28:49.760 --> 00:28:50.740 Meagan Griffith: Huh. 246 00:28:50.850 --> 00:29:00.730 Meagan Griffith: Well, I think I probably said the biggest one that I would have answered with. It was honestly just really nice to be back in an environment that was… 247 00:29:01.280 --> 00:29:25.829 Meagan Griffith: I guess I've been remote for the longest time in this field, since I moved from academia to industry, so being back in an environment where you can just talk to people and observe new things and have more organically flowing conversations outside of the typical workday schedule, in more of an academic-type sense, it was really refreshing and nice to just see all of the fun new things, and 248 00:29:25.830 --> 00:29:29.189 Meagan Griffith: Being around other people who genuinely care about it as well. 249 00:29:29.470 --> 00:29:31.850 David Sloan: Yeah, yeah, well said. 250 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:33.159 David Sloan: How about you, John? 251 00:29:34.880 --> 00:29:37.539 Jan Williams: There… I think there's still, despite the… 252 00:29:37.940 --> 00:29:57.300 Jan Williams: focus on automation with so many sessions. There still is something for everybody there, no matter where you are in your career. If you're new, there are some good, really good beginner sessions. There are at least… I saw at least two, one on a beginner's take on WCAG and a beginner's session on accessibility testing. 253 00:29:57.460 --> 00:30:11.130 Jan Williams: there are sessions for people who are the only accessibility representative or specialist at their organization, and there are many of those people like that out there, and I was at one session 254 00:30:11.460 --> 00:30:22.680 Jan Williams: That focused on building an accessibility program, getting buy-in, and setting, you know, long-term milestone goals for your organization. 255 00:30:22.980 --> 00:30:26.519 Jan Williams: And, you know, topics for developers. 256 00:30:26.760 --> 00:30:31.450 Jan Williams: it's… there's just… there still is something for everybody there. It was… it was… 257 00:30:31.640 --> 00:30:46.530 Jan Williams: true for me when I… when I was starting 10 plus years ago, and looking for those types of sessions that are, you know, about techniques, and… and true for me today, where I'm more curious about 258 00:30:46.840 --> 00:30:53.129 Jan Williams: Program building, automation techniques, emerging technologies. So, 259 00:30:53.560 --> 00:30:57.370 Jan Williams: Still, I think, great for anybody who's working in accessibility. 260 00:30:57.840 --> 00:30:59.130 David Sloan: Yeah, I think what you… 261 00:30:59.820 --> 00:31:10.270 David Sloan: sort of really highlighted there is just the way even one session, regardless of where you are in your accessibility journey, or the level of experience you have. 262 00:31:10.730 --> 00:31:16.689 David Sloan: you're probably going to get something valuable out of it. You know, either it's an introduction to a topic you don't know a lot about, or it's… 263 00:31:17.410 --> 00:31:26.570 David Sloan: somebody presenting it in a way that helps you clarify your own understanding, or compare how you've approached something with them, so… 264 00:31:27.820 --> 00:31:33.959 David Sloan: get this… As a speaker, you get to serve multiple audiences with the same talk. 265 00:31:34.190 --> 00:31:48.520 David Sloan: And I really like that. And then when you add in the questions, you know, it might be somebody asking for a clarification, or it might be someone giving an answer to another person's question. So in the talk, I gave a talk on 266 00:31:49.140 --> 00:32:06.179 David Sloan: documentation, and somebody asked a question about the Accessibility Act, and whether VPAT ACR would be appropriate evidence to show conformance, and then that led to someone else in the audience who worked for ITI, who produced the VPAT 267 00:32:06.240 --> 00:32:18.950 David Sloan: template, you know, sharing some updates on how they're going to be responding to the new version of EN301549 when it's published. So, you get conversations in the audience. 268 00:32:18.990 --> 00:32:27.520 David Sloan: And others look and learn, so, I always think that's… that's… those little serendipitous moments are great. 269 00:32:29.030 --> 00:32:41.849 Jan Williams: Yeah, and then they… if you have the opportunity to go there, the conversations that continue in the lobby, in the hotel bar, I mean, if you have the energy to stay up, that's where some of the best conversations happen. 270 00:32:42.540 --> 00:32:51.709 David Sloan: So, I was going to ask you both about a sort of final call and, you know, encouraging others to attend, and Jan, it sounds like, bring plenty of energy with you. 271 00:32:51.710 --> 00:32:52.390 Jan Williams: Yes. 272 00:32:52.550 --> 00:32:53.350 David Sloan: You can. 273 00:32:53.350 --> 00:33:01.520 Jan Williams: Especially if you're coming from the East Coast, you'll feel it around 7pm, probably, like I did, but… yeah, those… I… 274 00:33:02.060 --> 00:33:06.900 Jan Williams: I, I think… Being able to, be in… 275 00:33:07.610 --> 00:33:25.430 Jan Williams: in the same physical space as people in this community, and that's really what it is. It's not just people who work in the same field. They're all… they all have similar interests and are similarly invested in the same goal, and it's just great to hear different perspectives from people who are working, you know, from different angles at this same problem. 276 00:33:25.900 --> 00:33:27.109 David Sloan: Yeah, here, here. 277 00:33:27.430 --> 00:33:33.039 David Sloan: Megan, any final sort of encouragement that you would give to people thinking about attending who haven't been before? 278 00:33:33.800 --> 00:33:45.340 Meagan Griffith: I think definitely if you're… if you're able to attend, you should go. I think it's really cool for maybe people just starting their accessibility career, especially, you know, I started in academia, and I… 279 00:33:45.340 --> 00:34:01.770 Meagan Griffith: I didn't go to CSUN, and I was fortunate enough to find my way into industry and with a company like The Sparrow that genuinely cares about this stuff, but I think it's a really good spot to just find how people in the industry are contributing to this outside of academia, if you're not sure which way you want to go. 280 00:34:01.770 --> 00:34:04.859 Meagan Griffith: And something, too, like Jan was saying, you need… 281 00:34:04.860 --> 00:34:18.349 Meagan Griffith: bring plenty of energy to keep up after. It's not like, you know, work and afterwards, you go out for dinner or something. It's like, oh, let's not talk about work. If you like talking about this, it's the place to go, and where you find people where 282 00:34:18.350 --> 00:34:25.349 Meagan Griffith: sunup to sundown, you're just talking about this, real things, hypotheticals, so I think it's a great time. 283 00:34:25.699 --> 00:34:28.799 David Sloan: Yeah, no, that's… that's really well put. 284 00:34:29.169 --> 00:34:44.259 David Sloan: Well, thank you both for joining me and sharing your C's done experiences. You know, I'll just mention, we know that attending a conference in person isn't an option for many people for a range of reasons, so… 285 00:34:44.669 --> 00:34:54.229 David Sloan: A mix of in-person and online events is always going to be the best way forward for a community to share accessibility knowledge and experiences in an accessible way. 286 00:34:54.379 --> 00:35:11.379 David Sloan: But that all said, when we can get together, it really generates an energy that we take back and can use in our work going forward. So, thanks to everyone who attended CSUN as a speaker, as a person who attended, or asked questions, whatever. 287 00:35:11.379 --> 00:35:15.599 David Sloan: Thank you for making it such a great experience. 288 00:35:15.929 --> 00:35:24.649 David Sloan: Well, now you know the state of accessibility. I'm David Sloan, thanking Jan Williams and Megan Griffith, and reminding you all that the state of accessibility is always changing. 289 00:35:25.129 --> 00:35:27.409 David Sloan: Help us affect change.