Conversations #87: Web Accessibility in Technology

[Music] hi my name is and I'm senior Android developer and accessibility specialist and I work at aura hello my name is Carolina Pinto I'm USS experience designer and I have a cross background in Industry right now working for candy crystal so yeah I could tell a bit more about myself and um as I mentioned I'm now Android developer but I actually have a background in web development so I used to work as a web developer for about six years before I switched to Android development other than like being being a developer I also love to learn new things and I love to share what I've learned so I actually speak at different events and I've read a Blog so I'm sharing uh things in written format as well I usually write about accessibility and also well Android development other things as well but like accessibility is the main topic and um when I'm not doing something that's related to work I could say or or coding I actually explore the beautiful nature around where I live I actually live in Finland which is something I forgot to mention and um yeah this like nature here it's just amazing and I either usually hike or explore the archipelaco in uh by kayak so that's like if you ever come to Finland I highly recommend trying this outdoor activities and other than that I'm a disabled person I have a cognitive disability I've hit my head a couple of years ago and that has caused well some things mostly about memory and concentration and other than that I also um have problems with animations but I can tell about that a bit more later so how about you wanna tell more about yourself thank you so much for introduce yourself you are such an interesting background um yeah so from my side I start as a graphic designer I'm from Caracas Venezuela and then I moved to Barcelona to study so I study art Direction and then I study research for Innovation and that was the moment when I fell in love with this user experience so as a designer was really simple for me going in that direction and from the previous studies yeah I have been going through different kind of industry I started in the banking industry then I jumped to the touch and now in gaming so yeah I have been enjoying a lot this journey with a different kind of backgrounds and learning much more and having fun with all these new learnings more from my side when I'm not improving experience in digital life I we have something in common I really love nature as well I love horse riding I mean I have to spend much more time of my life in our in a horse so yeah it's something that I really enjoy so I'm looking forward visiting Finland to being able to see these beautiful landscapes um one thing more um part of we make code organization I'm a lead volunteer in the Barcelona Network we are happy to enjoy into the team by such a wonderful experience being able to share with other women um looking for improved attach um the touch paths to be able to improve their life um yeah so much more that's a little part of myself um yeah so maybe we can start talking about how you got into web accessibility yeah thanks for the intro it was also super interesting to hear and so cool things um so yeah I got into web accessibility some years ago it's like especially the cost about three years they are like really hard to count like they are just a blur so I'm just gonna say a couple of years ago and um my first experience with accessibility was when um at the company where I was working at that time we had this short introduction to accessibility because because of uh the new requirements or well not that new but requirements and the law changed so that like public sector websites and and well Digital Services needed to be accessible so we had this like short intro to accessibility and the instructor on that course or or like it was basically two hours uh they were blind and um they were using a screen reader and and the like the the whole like uh lecture it was really interesting but the thing that I remember the most or or like the best was when uh they were demonstrating how they use a screen reader and they asked for an example site uh from us and then somebody said that okay uh try hsl which is the like Helsinki um city I can't remember the name in English but like the uh public transportation and and like the site where you can search for routes and and buses and and like how you can basically get from one place to another and um they were trying it out they started navigating on it they were listening to it and I just remember there like expression when when they were so like what is this like what is this silent I have no idea what's going on here what is it and that really got to me and and like that that was the moment when I started that I want to start learning more about accessibility and and like what it means and how I can make actually websites that are um usable for uh like anybody basically So like um if they are or are not using any assistive Technologies or or like other things that was the moment when I started learning so yeah um I have to admit that before that I was the person who who was building websites using HTML well I could say wrong so for example um I was building buttons out of divs and and if you build a button from a div then uh by adding on click Handler it works for a mouse user but it doesn't work for keyboard user it doesn't like the screen screen reader users they don't even know that there is a button for instance and I felt like okay yeah this is fine like it works for me so it works for everyone but after that instruction or like seeing that expression I decided to start learning more and and the first topic I picked up was actually semantic HTML yeah that's and I'm really ashamed of like how I did before that but now I'm happy that I've been learning a lot about that so yeah how about you how did you get into web accessibility it's such an interesting experience that you could think back in the time but yeah the important points that you learn new things and you are able now to do it in the best way um yeah so from my side I think that the fears content that I have with accessibility and including um all kind of users in my job was the really first job that I had after finishing my studies in research for Innovation I remember I work for a company that it was much more related with Healthcare um this company was in charge to develop technology solution for a specific kind of user with some kind of disability or maybe a lot of users in elderly ages so yeah it was pretty interesting like trying to improve their daily life and in that moment I sounds like more concessions and I learned a lot of things about how we can improve the the daily life of these people make it feel more comfortable in their own house so this is something really important so to improve the quality of life um the self-awareness about how what can you do about yourself and recover the independency so it was a such a great experience to for experience um to experiment new things try some kind of tests with the users I think it was the point on inflection from my side to start thinking about browser and be able to include all kind of users in my daily work so basically this company uh relates directly with tele assistance and telemonitorization and what's interesting going on some kind of data how to improve the hardware for example how we can create new kind of devices so they can go through the house and being able to for example they have some situation they could call to emergency or maybe you know they are ashamed about needed to call to emergency so that was a point where maybe you can talk with someone from the company or some kind of a close family or friend that can give you that extra a point of help to this kind of users so yeah that was my introduction to accessibility and I think everybody have different way to going into this topic because at the end is so much interesting and you're helping other people so it's difficult to go outside from the topic after surgery yeah I totally agree that's definitely something like once you get into into uh web accessibility it's usually just going deeper and deeper and deeper so yeah and I think like well that's been like wonderful to learn more but then like at least I've felt that like right now after years of learning about these topics and and I feel like I know just enough to know that how little I know do you have that feeling yeah when you're start learning the moment that you know that you don't know anything is moment that you are starting learning in the reality yep but it's also great to like when I have um discussions with my colleagues and Friends uh to say that I actually know look a lot already so like even though like the feeling for myself is that I don't know anything course yeah um yeah so yeah so maybe we can talk a little bit about a considering physical and other their virginity disabilities thinking about your experience have you been in this situation where you can relate some kind of focus experience to accessibility around this yeah I think like one thing uh that's related to these themes and and my work has been like the understanding of of like how um different types of disabilities there are and how like different considerations there are I'm actually right now writing my Master's thesis I'm like one hobby I didn't mention is that I'm collecting master's degrees I'm right now studying my second master's degree and that will not be the last oh my God that's impressive yes yeah I don't know like I love learning new things so yeah I'm writing my Master's thesis and and that topic is actually like um Android developers and accessibility and how to like increase the knowledge and and how how to make it easier for them for us to develop more accessible apps and um I'm like I've been going deep into the theory and yeah so I've been writing about Android developers and and challenges on like accessibility and and why like um what why Android apps are not so accessible in general and one challenge is that um accessibility is often about screen reader accessibility and it's really important topic it's it indeed is but um usually like there are often like well for example cognitive disabilities or um physical disabilities that are real not related to for example site are not that often considered because it's usually about um screen reader accessibility so I think like that's something that I've been thinking about a lot and how to actually think about for example keyboard accessibility like how to make websites and apps possible to use with keyboard and also uh with well switch devices another type of device for for like like in a sort of like input method for when in that Mobile World so these things are super interesting and also from like cognitive accessibility perspective because actually cognitive accessibility is or like cognitive disabilities are actually the biggest group of disabilities out there and and they consist of for example um like things like autism ADHD but also like brain injuries can cause different things that's that that's me for example and um other such things and also like in some considerations it's also about like mental health uh but some like categorizations actually Define mental health as a like separate topic anyway um thinking about those like how how to make apps and and websites more accessible for for people with cognitive disabilities that that's like super interesting topic and and there are so many considerations so yeah I think like I could be just speaking about this and going on with this but I'm now going to ask like uh what are your um experiences and and how have you like about the um like the differences of different disabilities and and like access needs no so absolutely like trying to address all kind of accessibility could be a hard challenge because it's so much different kinds being able to include everybody in the same solution is so much too difficult so at the end personalization could really work in addressing special needs I'm thinking about one team because much more experience is there um for many people with disabilities is usually that they could have a lot of financial insecurity and it's pretty important to be able to give an experience that can exceed and they with their limitations so at the end it's it's uh right for being able to manage our own money in the way that we could understand and being able to address uh what we need in the specific moment that we needed so thinking about banking is pretty complex and important so to be able to develop an accessible experience so for example for physical um accessibility working in a pretty interesting project about improving credit cards that we had like some kind of improvement to the car to be able to be accessible for blind people and can be more easy to understand how to use it at the end you can just think that a car is pretty simple but but you need to put it in the ATM machine could be tricky depending on your limitations or any kind of physical accessibility as well so maybe the ATM screen is not as well as accessible or thinking about browser like self-service kiosk or video conferences and screens so it's not really designer for everybody so it's a pain but uh what's interesting working on the Improvement of these cards for example uh we add some kind of Mark in the car that they could communicate what is the right side of the car to be able to put it in the ATM in machines or putting bigger numbers in the car so when you can put your fingers you can easily read not as simple and smaller numbers there so it's a little thing that you can add to products to really improve and share life and make it easy for everybody yeah that's super interesting like for somebody who doesn't think when using a credit card because like I can see it I like I work with it because like it it's a like there's a good word for that in English but I can't remember it but still like it's so easy to forget that it's not that easy for everybody no it's like something automatic because we we use it every day and it's so interiorized and we know what we're doing in that moment but yeah we're having considered all the situation yeah um you mentioned personalization have you experience with that and accessibility and how to like like use personalization for for making more accessible products um thank you morning service design that we was looking for how is the best way in this company that I took before the best way to improve service design because some people don't like to have lovers uh because of the disability it's always difficult to give that service personalized if the user don't want to identify themselves as a person with any specific disability so we was in in the test that we was doing and how to improve the experience we was looking for the best way to improve the way that they could identify themselves because that was the Baseline to be able to improve the service maybe adding some kind of extra service where we can address special needs so we was working on in a flow where we was changing the way we relate with the user and not trying to put a level much more we had some kind of forms we much more broader Wars and the way we Define the specific disability was browser um like a plain text to be able to everybody can understand it but feel like okay I can be related with this kind of disability but that doesn't Define me that that's not what I'm you um I am that doesn't Define me so it's like how the user would like to be helped more more than okay um I um have this kind of visibility so everything is going to be around this topic I bet that that has made a difference uh we think that it's not too much more important but the people that is living with some kind of disability they live with that every day every single day so it's not in our house remember what you are or when you are not because of disability so talking browser and try to not put in lovely in people with disabilities very important and experience I think so yeah I totally agree I think like personalization is actually like one of the topics that I well when thinking about accessibility uh I think about it a lot like from also from like technical perspective and I think like if we want to build truly accessible products for example it will be all about personalization which is like if we build one solution that is accessible it's accessible for some but it probably is not for all so it's a like I think it's the only way to like be able to actually create accessible uh products or more accessible products for all so yeah I can say that my personal thing is like what I hope that one day I will find from all the apps and and like Services I'm using is this one setting where I can toggle on that I want to see labels with like when there are icons what So like um well yeah there's an icon and then there would be a label that tells what that icon is so like because for myself um I've been fighting this fight in many workplaces and and companies where I've worked and I've been trying to tell to designers that hey I don't understand this like UI if you don't give me labels okay I I will learn it once I use it for like long time I'm like it will take longer time for me than than for an average person to learn what some like uh icons mean if gestar like hardly any universal icons actually but like then there is always this um like counter argument that hey like if I add labels to each like every icon then it means there is so much clutter and it makes the the UI really hard to understand and we usually end up somewhere in between but like I would love to have this setting that I can toggle the labels on that I can see them for like well the labels for every icon and then like those who don't need it or for who they uh whom that would make like uh the UI even more like harder to understand than they wouldn't need to use those so that that's something that I I really want to hear and if somebody is listening to this podcast and and thinking about this please implement it I'm really like asking for that but yeah but yeah I think like personalization is is like the answer for making more accessible products and also as you you told um about not not having labels in in other meaning uh having like more inclusive uh products as well yeah of course so at the end it's on us to to push for adding accessibility to the pros that we create right so it could be much more related the way we work the Contour we have in companies or the corporations so that's it's not in line with that responsibility what kind of product would you like to address to your users what what are you looking for at the end is much more responsibility for everybody related with product or in the company that can create this awareness so everybody can have up the space to be able to develop the best way to do this product uh to be accessible yeah I definitely agree and I think like what I've seen in in different uh workplaces if the uh that like the company prioritizes accessibility kind of like from the top then there is always like well well the product is better because there is always more time for for making uh the product or like the app service whatever more accessible because well the push is coming from the top and not from from like for example from from a single developer or something like that so that's why I I think it's it's definitely like well companies can do so much yeah like adding the accessibility role as a priority so yeah everybody can be aligning into that direction or maybe it's not really needed a big F for for us to try to push back into hey let's take this feature to to develop because we need much more accessibility or let's try to I don't know change something that could be really simple for example as you say the UI side don't so is everybody's aware of what we're doing uh how to include everybody into into the solution is much more easy to push back for accessibility inclusion I definitely agree by the way do you have any ideas on on like how uh all technologists could incorporate accessibility into their or I'm I'm implied to say our work I think it depends a lot of the product and the kind of industry you are sometimes you are forced to to add it to be able to reach with the law or maybe not so it depends a lot thinking about banking so it's it's pretty important to be able to access it also yeah basically maybe working with three parties companies that can help you to address the accessibility to the products pretty useful because sometimes you don't have the team I can access a team that is only dedicated to make the product accessible or maybe you don't have an expert in accessibility in your team so design and a developers and the team is working by themselves um not have all the answer that is the the usual thing what happened you're not you don't need to be an accessible expert in accessibility but it's important to have like a baseline where you know what we can do we can't and then from there is think that the most more easy solution is trying to be putting in your team someone that can give you that kind of answer or maybe other companies that they are really expert on that so it's the easy way if you don't have any routine just trying to put someone that can help you um and if it's not because you are looking for improvement only for the product it's for legal reasons so that's a really first step to be able to improve in that way and as we say at the beginning if when you are in that inaccessibility topic and you really understand the needs and why we are doing that is really to continue on trying to develop out yourself whatever you need to do to create an accessible product what about you what what kind of um background you have with with this any other kind of experience yeah I think like well in addition to like what companies can do but I think like we all can learn more like and and kind of like start somewhere we don't need to build everything accessible right away like it's okay to start small in a way and I think like every like um Improvement it's like it's better than not doing anything at all so yeah I I think like stop just starting is the the kind of the key and um I like this progress over Perfection thinking so that like well doing some progress that's the like important thing and um I also like think that every role can have some like influence like of course like I'm thinking a lot from developers perspective and I'm thinking about the like Technical implementations and stuff like that and that's like that's somewhere where we like we all developers can do something but then like designers have so much control over well a bit different things than developers and also like um project managers can like um prioritize accessibility more and and like require accessibility and then like um I could go on with different roles having like uh different impacts so so I think that's that's like it's good to remember that we all can do something and so that we can do something we need to learn like what uh to do in a way what what to do in our roles for example so yeah no everybody have something to do related with accessibility from their own roles and again the whole Corporation so yeah it's it's our work for everybody yeah that's true and like we all can actually start with we don't need to even go into like the work context to start with accessibility we can start by adding like in social media for example we can add uh all texts for like text alternatives for images or we can use like camel case for hashtags if there are multiple World words so I mean that uh if there are like more than one word each uh first letter is capitalized it's easier to read for like anybody because and it actually like um you can create confusion without using those like capitalizing the first um letters of the words that's what I meant actually and um but also like it makes it easier for screen readers to read what staircase then screen readers will know that okay this is a word but yeah so there are also these kind of things that we can start doing on our like daily life even outside the work so that's I think that's a great thing about accessibility we don't need to like well we can start small actually no yeah it's a word for everybody and you can start using and implementing in your daily life as well so it's impressive that Paulo accessibility um when you are looking for for example when a job description or do you usually just make some kind of questions or you're looking for something that you can have a better idea what is the culture in the company about accessibility or what are they are looking for about it is something that your worries or when you are there you start looking for how to they usually manage the accessibility point I usually like ask about two things or two themes I usually ask about like what they are doing to like to create the uh work environment accessible so what they are thinking and and like what procedures they have or or like what um procedure is not the right word here but like uh what kind of things they they have and plans and and everything because that actually tells a lot because like if somebody if the person I'm asking is just starting to think that yeah I think our office is not accessible for somebody who is using a wheelchair then like and and that's all then I know that uh this topic has not been considered much but yeah but I've I've discussed with uh some companies that have like lots of different examples how they have like improved accessibility how they have renovated their office to to uh be physically more accessible how they've considered cognitive accessibility and and other things so that that's been really awesome to hear that like the culture inside the company has been like towards accessibility and the other thing that I usually keep asking is that how like the companies are considering accessibility in their products or uh if it's a consultancy then uh in projects and here again there are different answers if I'm talking in Finnish the word accessibility is and okay it's it's understood as sometimes as like is our office located in a way that it's easy to come to the office by different means of transportation so that's like that sort of accessibility and then like if if that's all they say then I'm like okay yeah so you don't think about people with disabilities at all because like in these conversations it's it's not about like people with disabilities it's it's about like just arriving to the office from different locations and um well those conversations have been interesting but like then there have been also like uh really good answers that okay like we have customers who are like from public sector and the law requires the projects to be accessible and we are ensuring accessibility in these projects in in these like different ways so like again it's there are a variety of different answers there but these are basically the three things that I I usually like ask and and where I'm starting to kind of feel like What's the culture and how they see accessibility how about you do you have some questions I don't really practice any kind of question but it's something really important to consider but I feel like I have been having some kind of growth because in thinking about Latin American context it's not really usual that you take so much into consideration accessibility in any kind of sense thinking about products thinking about the physical areas and thinking about office or whatever could include accessibilities like something that we could have but it's not a baseline for us at all so having the opportunity to go there stayed there and then came here into Europe and see how things work really made you open your eyes and put it in in the center so it's more closer to me to be able to understand when accessibility is pretty pretty needed in it's much more time in every time so at the end it's like taking consideration that and working with with accessibility every day make you be more conscious and start worrying about where I'm working in what kind of culture will I would like to develop my skills what kind of mates I would like to have around me and to be able to develop together accessibility is a it's a something that really cares to the product that I'm developing or not so yeah it's a good practice what you are doing about asking this kind of things well how about like when building things I want to just use the word things here but um well different things like apps and and well basically Digital Services uh are there some some things that you kind of like consider first or or like some well things that you consider yeah so thinking about getting you for example we don't have any kind of restriction or law that can give you that Lies by playing by to to put us in a situation that we really need to address for accessibility but it's a lot of things that we can do as in the industry we don't really have this kind of law that make us uh make any kind of a solution to be able to to add accessibility but at the end is is a baseline to be able to make the game more fun and accessible for everybody and it's a lot of things that we can do starting for putting captions or being able to make some kind of any kind of feature that can give you better readability or um I don't know it's many things that you can do and then and I think gaming industry is pretty far from what we would like to have as an accessible industry because other are priority other industry previously in accessibility because laws but the gaming industry is like in a place where I could do it but I anybody tell me what I need to do or anybody make me do what is needed to do to create accessible product so yeah it's like much more for any kind of study that can decide what to do but it's a lot of things to do what is uh is much more for for the studies to be able to create accessible products what do you think about yeah I think like when uh building especially mobile apps or or like I could actually um like again there is this word that I'm looking for compare that's the word When comparing especially like web and and like mobile um I think like in Mobile development and building mobile apps accessibility or or like building more accessible apps it's easier than on the web because of of like in the web like and and with JavaScript for example you can do lots of things you can do lots of good things but you can also do lots of bad things and and um there is also like lots of responsibility for a developer so if I give an example of of animations so uh I mentioned in the beginning that I have problems uh with animations and and basically like if I see certain types of animations um like on on digital uh screens so so like honest like laptop or or like uh external screen phone screen anywhere um I start feeling dizzy I might feel disoriented I I might start feeling like throwing up and it's not fun if that happens during a work day and it usually takes like half an hour for me to recover from such events so I I can't really like work for example during that time and um there is actually this um operating system level setting called produced motion that I use and and if uh the apps uh the websites respect that setting then I'm fine because there is a version that doesn't include um animations and on the web it's like the developer needs to implement that they need to know about it they need to implement that and then like it's there but for mobile it's actually like respected automatically or well there there are cases at least on Android when it's not respected but like I'm not going to go deeper into that one but like what I really love is that it's like many of this accessibility services and and settings are actually like respected out of the box for at least on Android I haven't been developing iOS so I don't know much about that one but for Android but then there are things that um developers need to consider like well adding for example text Alternatives they are not automatically added for for images and then graphical elements or or like of course um like uh captions closed captions for videos and and also like um setting roles for different elements on screen checking that it's actually operable with um physical like keyboard or switch device and and other things that need to be kinda considered but I have to say that I really love how howling um at least on Android things like work more smoothly and and I don't need to consider that much of course I need to remember lots of things but lots of things work out of the box so that's it like really nice thing thinking about what you mentioned about the animations I remember one time in how animation can affect because it depends a lot of the sensitivity as well so I remember one time when I was in uh Disney park I was with my couple and I was crazy to go to the attraction about Harry Potter Journey so I was pretty happy making in the queue a lot of hours there and then as like suddenly maybe 10 people before going to the ride someone told you that is all about big screens where you move through the screens and it could be you can feel dizzy maybe it could be confusing I don't know and then my couple say okay I'm not coming it's like what no it was like three hours here in the queue so he would have had a previous experience about this kind of of roller coaster with the screen and make him him feel really bad ads about hardly bad so at the end you are not creating an accessible experience or maybe you are looking for that please let people know before doing the queue so we're thinking about in general at the end it's pretty cool um you're excluding a lot of users or maybe you are not really uh making your user understands what it's the meaning of this so yeah it's really interesting with animations of this topic screen or this kind of experience that maybe you are not aware that you are sensitive to this maybe you put yourself in a situation that could be pretty uncomfortable thinking about mobiles um digital experience so um it's a lot of things that we can do so from disabling camera scrolling or I don't know reducing the screen shake or thinking about games we could even reduce the game speed so it's it's a lot of things to consider and being able to give the user the agency to be able to control and have it the control of the experience is pretty important from my point of view yeah I totally agree I think we are uh kind of coming to the end of this discussion do you have any any like final tips for creating more accessible products I think it's a lot of things that we can do to address accessibility I think that the most important at the end is like think about your user on your browser user not only what they find your specific User it's like try to think people first try to be inclusive in your design that you do and consider the full range of human diversity because at the end we have a lot of different kind of be an understanding and process information so it's it's really important to be able you can be able to think for your users what about you do you have any kind of tip to improve accessibility yeah I could continue from that one that like uh learn more about accessibility different like people with different disabilities and I think the best way to do that is to actually listen to and and read and and like well anyway that you want to consume this uh stories but like listen to um stories from people with disabilities and and how we actually like um well how we use use digital products and and what are kind of the pain points there and and what are like good things as well so I think like learning more about people with disabilities and listening to us that's maybe the the like the final tip I want to give maybe like Essa final final question where can people find you after this and connect with you Dan thanks for asking so basically I'm much more active in Linden you can find me by my name Carolina Pinto so I would like to find it there and connect and still talking about accessibility um maybe you can share your networks so people can connect with you as well yeah I'm also on LinkedIn and um we will share the link uh on the I think show notes is the right word here and uh you can also find me and and my blog and basically links to anything that I do from my website which is elvis.coach so e-e-b-i-s dot c-o-d-e-s all right hey it's been really nice to uh have this conversation with you and talk about accessibility so thank you so much and thank you for listening like anyone who is listening yeah but thank you so much I enjoy the conversation as well so thanks everybody for Heroes [Music]

2023-09-13 09:41

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