Organizational Scaffolding for Accessible Design and Content - Rob Carr (A11yTalks - Apr 2025)

00:45:51
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M2cMLDU4u4

Ringkasan

TLDRAubrey Sambor hosts A11y Talks, a monthly virtual meetup focused on digital accessibility. The session features Rob Carr, who discusses the importance of organizational scaffolding in accessible design and content. He emphasizes the need for collaboration among various roles in a project, including leadership, to ensure accessibility is integrated throughout the design process. The talk highlights the significance of making accessibility a norm within organizations and provides practical strategies for incorporating accessibility into existing workflows and resources.

Takeaways

  • 👩‍💻 A11y Talks promotes digital accessibility and inclusivity.
  • 🤝 Collaboration among various roles is essential for accessibility.
  • 📈 Leadership commitment is crucial for integrating accessibility.
  • 🛠️ Accessibility should be part of the design process from the start.
  • 📚 Resources like WebAIM provide valuable information on accessibility.
  • 🗣️ Community engagement is encouraged through questions and discussions.
  • 📝 Organizations should make time for accessibility training and practices.
  • 🌍 Accessibility should be a norm within organizations.
  • 🔍 Early wins include shifting accessibility considerations earlier in projects.
  • 💡 Teams can integrate accessibility into existing resources and workflows.

Garis waktu

  • 00:00:00 - 00:05:00

    Aubrey Sambor introduces the A11y Talks, a monthly virtual meetup focused on digital accessibility, inclusivity, and usability. She emphasizes the importance of a friendly and safe environment, encouraging participants to follow the code of conduct and engage in discussions.

  • 00:05:00 - 00:10:00

    Aubrey explains the new format for the event, inviting viewers to submit questions ahead of time. She provides instructions on how to ask questions during the live stream or through social media, and acknowledges the support from sponsors and donors.

  • 00:10:00 - 00:15:00

    Rob Carr, the speaker, shares a fun fact about the commonality of his name and introduces his topic on organizational scaffolding for accessible design and content, highlighting the importance of various stakeholders in the web design process.

  • 00:15:00 - 00:20:00

    Rob discusses the need for scaffolding in accessibility work, emphasizing that many people influence technology and design decisions. He stresses the importance of taking time to integrate accessibility into projects and the need for support from organizational leadership.

  • 00:20:00 - 00:25:00

    Rob highlights the challenges organizations face in prioritizing accessibility, noting that it often lacks the necessary time and resources. He advocates for making time for accessibility training and skill development within teams.

  • 00:25:00 - 00:30:00

    Rob explains the importance of integrating accessibility into various roles and stages of the design process, advocating for a shift left approach where accessibility is considered early in the project lifecycle.

  • 00:30:00 - 00:35:00

    Rob discusses the benefits of inclusive UX and UI research, emphasizing the need for diverse input to inform design decisions. He suggests creating inclusive personas to better understand the needs of users with disabilities.

  • 00:35:00 - 00:40:00

    Rob provides examples of how organizations can incorporate accessibility into their design systems and documentation, stressing the importance of having accessible components and guidelines for developers and content creators.

  • 00:40:00 - 00:45:51

    Rob concludes by emphasizing the need for an inclusive mindset within organizations, advocating for accessibility to be normalized in job descriptions and performance evaluations, ultimately leading to better products for users with disabilities.

Tampilkan lebih banyak

Peta Pikiran

Video Tanya Jawab

  • What is A11y Talks?

    A11y Talks is a monthly virtual meetup focused on digital accessibility, inclusivity, and usability.

  • Who is the host of the session?

    The host is Aubrey Sambor, a lead front-end developer.

  • What is the main topic of Rob Carr's presentation?

    Rob Carr discusses organizational scaffolding for accessible design and content.

  • How can participants ask questions during the talk?

    Participants can submit questions via the YouTube chat during the live stream or in the comments afterward.

  • What is the goal of A11y Talks?

    The goal is to foster productive dialogue where participants can share and learn from one another in an atmosphere of mutual respect.

  • How can organizations support accessibility efforts?

    Organizations can support accessibility by providing time, resources, and leadership commitment to integrate accessibility into their processes.

  • What is the significance of leadership in accessibility?

    Leadership is crucial for facilitating accessibility work and ensuring it becomes a norm within the organization.

  • What are some early wins in adopting accessibility scaffolding?

    Early wins include shifting accessibility considerations earlier in the design process to reduce tension and improve outcomes.

  • How can teams start building inclusive scaffolding practices?

    Teams can identify existing resources and integrate accessibility information into them.

  • What resources are available for learning about accessibility?

    WebAIM offers a wealth of information, including tutorials, newsletters, and a discussion list.

Lihat lebih banyak ringkasan video

Dapatkan akses instan ke ringkasan video YouTube gratis yang didukung oleh AI!
Teks
en
Gulir Otomatis:
  • 00:00:00
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Hi, everybody,
  • 00:00:01
    and welcome to another accessibility  talks or A11y talks, the monthly
  • 00:00:05
    virtual meetup where we chat about digital  accessibility, inclusivity, and usability.
  • 00:00:11
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Each month  we invite a speaker to present a topic
  • 00:00:13
    and afterward we invite the community to ask  questions and participate in the discussion.
  • 00:00:19
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): I'm your  host today. My name is Aubrey Sambor.
  • 00:00:22
    I am a lead front end developer,  and I use the pronouns she/her.
  • 00:00:26
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): I am a  white female with pink glasses
  • 00:00:29
    and long blue hair, and I am wearing  a black shirt and a gray cardigan.
  • 00:00:36
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Before we dive into  the talk, let's take a moment to remind everyone
  • 00:00:40
    that our group is committed to creating  a friendly and safe environment for all.
  • 00:00:44
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): We expect  all participants, speakers, hosts,
  • 00:00:48
    viewers on YouTube and those  commenting on social media,
  • 00:00:51
    to follow the accessibility talks code of conduct.  This applies to all community interactions,
  • 00:00:57
    including events, verbal questions,  and text in chat and text channels.
  • 00:01:02
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): You  can review the full code of
  • 00:01:04
    conduct on our website at a11ytalks.com/conduct.
  • 00:01:08
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Our goal is  to foster productive dialogue where
  • 00:01:11
    participants can share and learn from one  another in an atmosphere of mutual respect.
  • 00:01:16
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Got questions?  Great. We love questions. This year,
  • 00:01:20
    we're shaking things up and trying a new  format. We're now inviting viewers to submit
  • 00:01:25
    their questions ahead of each talk, so we can  incorporate them into the recording session.
  • 00:01:30
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): If you have a question  for our speaker, here's how you can ask.
  • 00:01:34
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her):  During our live streamed video,
  • 00:01:35
    type your question directly  into the YouTube chat window.
  • 00:01:39
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): If you're not watching  live, you can still post your questions.
  • 00:01:43
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Add them  to the comment section on YouTube,
  • 00:01:45
    or share them on Linkedin,  Mastodon or BlueSky. Just make
  • 00:01:49
    sure to @ us or include the hashtag  #a11ytalks. That's a 1 1 Y t a l k s
  • 00:01:56
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Direct  links to all of our social media
  • 00:01:58
    platforms are listed on our website.  We look forward to hearing from you.
  • 00:02:04
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Huge shout out  to our bronze sponsors, Agile Collective,
  • 00:02:07
    and Principal Financial Group.  We appreciate your support.
  • 00:02:13
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): I want to give  a shout out to our A11y Cat Club members
  • 00:02:16
    who donate monthly to a11ytalks,  and our one time donors as well.
  • 00:02:20
    Thank you so much for your  financial contributions.
  • 00:02:23
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Want  to see your organization,
  • 00:02:25
    or you recognized as a sponsor  of a11ytalks and help fund these
  • 00:02:29
    amazing monthly meetups? Visit our sponsorship  page a11ytalks.com/sponsorship to learn more.
  • 00:02:36
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): We need your  financial support to compensate our
  • 00:02:39
    amazing speakers and improve  our live stream productions,
  • 00:02:41
    to provide the best host best  content possible for our community.
  • 00:02:46
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): If your  company uses Benevity for matching
  • 00:02:49
    donations or gifts, you can double your  contribution. Just search for a11ytalks,
  • 00:02:54
    and we should appear as a11ytalks  by Midwest Open Source Alliance.
  • 00:03:01
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): All  right, today we have Rob Carr,
  • 00:03:04
    strategic accessibility coordinator at Webaim.
  • 00:03:06
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Before we get started,
  • 00:03:09
    Rob has a fun fact. There are at least 3 Rob Carrs  out there on the Internet. I mean, obviously,
  • 00:03:14
    there's probably more, but can you tell me more  about your run-ins with other Rob Carrs online?
  • 00:03:20
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So there's  a Robert Carr who actually ran into in
  • 00:03:24
    person because I accidentally picked up his  name badge at a conference several years ago.
  • 00:03:29
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): and we get mistaken  for each other, too, because we do talk on a
  • 00:03:32
    lot of the same kinds of things kind of more  strategic or procurement stuff like that. And
  • 00:03:37
    then in the lead up to this, there's another Rob  Carr, who's not an accessibility person, but he
  • 00:03:43
    was credited not by you all, but by somebody else  as giving the next A11ytalks talk so there! There
  • 00:03:50
    are a lot of us out there. Apparently. There's  probably Rob Carrs we haven't yet identified.
  • 00:03:55
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Yeah, it's funny that  there were 2 of you at the same conference and
  • 00:03:57
    had the same name badge obviously with  the same name. That's pretty funny.
  • 00:04:02
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Yeah. Well,  it's a good icebreaker when we met,
  • 00:04:03
    because he actually goes by Robert, I go.
  • 00:04:05
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And so I was like, I  accidentally picked up your name Badge. I'm sorry,
  • 00:04:09
    but it's really nice to meet you. So it was a  really good just get that out of the way. And
  • 00:04:14
    you know your your old friends immediately.
  • 00:04:16
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Oh, that's  awesome. Well, I'm glad it worked out.
  • 00:04:19
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Anyway, you're  gonna present organizational scaffolding
  • 00:04:23
    for accessible design and content, so  whenever you're ready, the floor is yours.
  • 00:04:28
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): All right. Thanks so  much, and thank you so much to you all on the
  • 00:04:32
    A11ytalks team for having me. I'm really thrilled  to have the chance to come in. Talk a little bit
  • 00:04:37
    about something that I think is really important,  and that's supporting people doing accessibility
  • 00:04:42
    work not strictly accessibility, but supporting  a whole bunch of people in folding accessibility
  • 00:04:48
    into what they do. So my name is Rob Carr, and  I've been with Webaim now for just over 3 years.
  • 00:04:53
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): I've been doing  accessibility work since 2010. So a little
  • 00:04:57
    while in the space, and I'm thrilled again  to to be here with y'all for a little bit.
  • 00:05:02
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So when we think about  this, I want to start by discussing a little bit
  • 00:05:07
    how many people are involved in  something like putting together a
  • 00:05:11
    website design or redesign folding a site  out right? Just to start to build a case
  • 00:05:17
    for the the need for this scaffolding  that I'll talk about a little bit later
  • 00:05:20
    on. We've got internal clients. We've  got our marketing and brand management.
  • 00:05:26
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): We've got our  designers who are contributing to the design.
  • 00:05:29
    More than likely, if you have an IT  group, they're going to be involved.
  • 00:05:33
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him):  your content contributors,
  • 00:05:35
    your target audience is a really massive  part of this conversation that a lot of
  • 00:05:40
    time we don't take enough time to address, and  then a big one that I'm going to talk about
  • 00:05:45
    as well is our organizational leadership.  So for the first few minutes of the talk,
  • 00:05:50
    I want to focus on some of these bigger  picture things because I think they're really,
  • 00:05:53
    really important. And I don't think we slow  down enough to consider some of this stuff.
  • 00:05:58
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So on screen. Now, I've  got a picture since scaffolding is in the name of
  • 00:06:01
    the talk. I had to have a picture of scaffolding  just to make the point that I think it's critical
  • 00:06:06
    that we have a lot of scaffolding around folks  at all different levels at the project level.
  • 00:06:11
    That's really where I'm gonna focus in terms  of showing some things that are out there,
  • 00:06:15
    that other organizations have done  that are really helpful. But then,
  • 00:06:19
    at the product level, we need another layer  of support. We need a layer of support,
  • 00:06:23
    really, multiple layers all  through our organization.
  • 00:06:27
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And it's  because if you think about that list
  • 00:06:29
    that I went through real quick of folks  who are involved in a website redesign,
  • 00:06:34
    there are a lot of people influencing our  technology, and we'll have influence from
  • 00:06:38
    policy, if not directly. We'll have  direct influence in terms of design
  • 00:06:41
    decisions, product decisions without having a  scaffolding that goes across the organization.
  • 00:06:48
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): The  ceiling is a lot lower. So you know,
  • 00:06:51
    big picture something to keep in mind.  This is a lot bigger conversation,
  • 00:06:56
    in my view, than just what can we bring  to the people who are doing the work.
  • 00:07:01
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And I  think with accessibility, well,
  • 00:07:04
    we know there are challenges with  accessibility in a lot of ways,
  • 00:07:07
    especially right now. But one of the challenges  that I've seen organizations struggle with
  • 00:07:12
    is not understanding that accessibility is  something that deserves a little bit more time.
  • 00:07:17
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): I want to talk  about scaffolding. I think that time is one
  • 00:07:20
    of the most important pieces to to bring into  this conversation, because it's necessary for
  • 00:07:26
    everything that I'm going to talk about. So if  you think about, or if you've ever been through
  • 00:07:30
    that new website that I talked about before with  all the different players from the organization.
  • 00:07:35
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Generally, it's okay,  even up to the senior leadership level for us to
  • 00:07:40
    slow down a little bit. People realize that. You  know, a few weeks out from rolling out a new site,
  • 00:07:45
    especially if we're gonna have  a new content management system.
  • 00:07:48
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): It doesn't  make sense to keep putting content
  • 00:07:50
    on the the existing site. So we start to  ease the pace and turn our attention to
  • 00:07:54
    the next new thing. Some of that might be  training and getting some practice in on
  • 00:07:59
    the new content management system. If it's  coming into to play in the conversation.
  • 00:08:04
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And  then, when the site goes up,
  • 00:08:05
    you have the new technology. The expectation  usually isn't to just get right back up to
  • 00:08:09
    speed. There's an understanding again,  even at the senior leadership level,
  • 00:08:13
    that it's gonna take a minute for people to  actually use the thing. Practicing is one thing,
  • 00:08:18
    but actually getting stuff into production  and using it is very different. So that
  • 00:08:22
    means that this disruption is something that  everyone, even if it's reluctantly accepts
  • 00:08:28
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Implementing  accessibility, is very, very different,
  • 00:08:30
    unfortunately. And while we need a lot of the
  • 00:08:33
    same pauses in work to really  get accessibility folded in.
  • 00:08:37
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): it  doesn't often happen. Ultimately,
  • 00:08:40
    accessibility skills are just new skills,  right? It. So that skill set that somebody
  • 00:08:44
    has to build to learn how to use  a new content management platform.
  • 00:08:48
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): The same idea applies  to folding accessibility into their work.
  • 00:08:52
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So, for example, you  think about alternative text. If you've been in
  • 00:08:56
    the accessibility space for a while,  then it's probably almost reflexive,
  • 00:09:00
    and most of the images in my slides are  really decorative. But I think everybody
  • 00:09:05
    deserves to know that on screen, right now  I've got a picture of like a light golden
  • 00:09:09
    lab with a Labrador retriever dog with a  little gray striped cat, and the cat is
  • 00:09:15
    laying across the dog's outstretched legs,  front legs, and the dog has its muzzle on
  • 00:09:20
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): the kitty, and the  kitty's looking at the dog, and it's just the
  • 00:09:23
    best. So I wanted to share some of that joy  with everybody. But with alternative text.
  • 00:09:28
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): We've got  several things to learn. We need to
  • 00:09:29
    learn and understand what it is and why  it's critical which may involve learning
  • 00:09:34
    that screen readers exist for a lot of people.  Right? We need to then figure out the mechanics
  • 00:09:40
    and practice actually putting alternative text  into the different pieces of content we create.
  • 00:09:45
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): This. All takes a little  bit of time when it's new. You have to learn the
  • 00:09:48
    concept, practice the skill, and then put the  skill into practice in your day to day workflow.
  • 00:09:54
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him):  All of that leads to this.
  • 00:09:56
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): We have to make time as  organizations. I'm a very, very strong advocate
  • 00:10:01
    for accounting for time and making time to bring  accessibility skills up to where they need to
  • 00:10:07
    be. We need more skills or more time when things  are brand new, when we're just learning with the
  • 00:10:12
    learning curve is a little bit steeper, so we  need a bit more time. There. That means that
  • 00:10:16
    whoever manages your project work needs to support  the teams. They need to support you in doing the
  • 00:10:21
    work and getting up to speed. That means their  product managers. Whatever that role is called in
  • 00:10:26
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): organization, they need
  • 00:10:27
    to support the project managers and make sure  that if the project manager slows things down.
  • 00:10:32
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Product isn't  leaning on them to keep the pace going as
  • 00:10:35
    high as it was before. And all this boils  up to senior leadership. You have to have
  • 00:10:39
    the support of senior leadership, and I'll  wrap up with a couple of words about that.
  • 00:10:45
    Having vice president or higher level  leadership on accessibility is really
  • 00:10:49
    critical for all the rest of the stuff that  I'm going to talk through to really work.
  • 00:10:54
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): You can do  a fair amount grassroots. It's usually
  • 00:10:58
    more difficult. It's usually not as easy to  scale, or it doesn't scale the way we'd like
  • 00:11:03
    for it to. If it's purely coming from  the bottom to the top and and pushing,
  • 00:11:07
    and many of you probably are living, that  every day, and really struggling to make
  • 00:11:13
    the kinds of of inroads within other parts of the  organization, or even outside of your desk. Right?
  • 00:11:21
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And I think that what  we aim for when we have these conversations,
  • 00:11:24
    a lot of the time is we talk about  getting buy in, and we talk about
  • 00:11:29
    getting support from leadership, and  I think in the accessibility space,
  • 00:11:32
    it would do us good to consider more nudging  toward using more active language with what we
  • 00:11:39
    ask for from our leadership. We need  leadership to facilitate this work.
  • 00:11:44
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): A lot of the  things that I'm going to demonstrate
  • 00:11:46
    are maybe easy to to fold into some of the  resources that you already have. But when
  • 00:11:51
    it comes to really getting this to work  and really getting this to take root,
  • 00:11:56
    we need people facilitating the work at a high  level. We need champions in senior leadership.
  • 00:12:01
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): How to build. That  is a completely different conversation. But
  • 00:12:05
    I feel like I'm kind of taking some of the advice  I've started giving lately, which is when we have
  • 00:12:09
    conversations about accessibility. A lot of the  time we don't. We don't give enough attention to
  • 00:12:16
    this facet of it, because while you can't look at  a web content, accessibility, guideline fail and
  • 00:12:25
    trace it directly back to a lack of leadership.  There's definitely a connection to inaccessible
  • 00:12:31
    products, shipping and getting published  and leadership not actively leading on it.
  • 00:12:37
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And what we're really  aiming for is to make accessibility a part of
  • 00:12:40
    the norm for the organization. I'm going  to use the word norm like this a few times,
  • 00:12:44
    because I think that a lot of these  things I want to to see happen more often,
  • 00:12:49
    do help to make accessibility  an expectation. Just make it a
  • 00:12:53
    baseline expectation in the different  audiences that these things aim for.
  • 00:12:58
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Okay? So there's  the big picture stuff. Let's get to what
  • 00:13:01
    you're probably tuned in, for. There are a ton of  points where accessibility can, and and I think,
  • 00:13:08
    should integrate with different roles. And  then there are tools that we'll talk about,
  • 00:13:12
    and I'll talk through and show a few that  can really help to do that. I'm gonna focus,
  • 00:13:17
    not on all of these, but I will go  through and just kind of spell out.
  • 00:13:22
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): This is kind  of a baseline. I just got done talking
  • 00:13:25
    about senior leadership. I feel like I've  covered that well enough for this talk,
  • 00:13:29
    for sure. But we have integration points  for accessibility just about everywhere,
  • 00:13:33
    in product and project management, in UX and UI  research and design in web design and in content,
  • 00:13:41
    authoring web development and quality assurance.
  • 00:13:44
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And for a lot of  organizations their accessibility journey
  • 00:13:48
    begins really at the end. I've worked with  a bunch of organizations over the years
  • 00:13:51
    that accounted for accessibility in quality,  assurance, and QA but not really anywhere else.
  • 00:13:58
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And what we've  started to see emerge over the last few years
  • 00:14:01
    as a conversation about working accessibility  further upstream. So, instead of addressing it
  • 00:14:07
    just at the end, working back into these other  pieces, working back to UX and UI research and
  • 00:14:14
    then seeing accessibility kind of move from there  into design and authoring development and QA.
  • 00:14:21
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And the idea is really  important. And it's not a new idea. It's just
  • 00:14:25
    one that I feel like has started to come up  more often in the context of accessibility.
  • 00:14:32
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): But what  we are thinking about doing here in
  • 00:14:34
    moving accessibility into these different  project stages is accounting for it much,
  • 00:14:39
    much earlier. There are a lot of benefits too.  I'll go back to the the previous slide. There
  • 00:14:45
    are a lot of benefits to having all of  these different brains with all of these
  • 00:14:48
    different skills consider accessibility at  all of these different phases of a project.
  • 00:14:54
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): If you think about  having more inclusive UX and UI research that's
  • 00:15:00
    going to lend itself to a lot of positive  ripple effects throughout the course of
  • 00:15:05
    a project or the ongoing life of a product.  Because that's going to inform our practice
  • 00:15:10
    from that point on. So if it's a part of your  existing UX or UI research, you're casting much
  • 00:15:16
    wider net. And you're getting a lot more input.  And you have UX and UI researchers who approach
  • 00:15:23
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): The question of  how the web needs to work differently. Same
  • 00:15:28
    with designers. Right? If we shift left  far enough to reach at least our UX and
  • 00:15:32
    UI designers. Or if you don't have UX or UI  research, well, then, your designers approach
  • 00:15:37
    these challenges. Design challenges not just  accessibility, but design challenges in general
  • 00:15:43
    with a very different perspective than a  web designer might then a developer might.
  • 00:15:49
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So as we,
  • 00:15:50
    as we start to really see the the positive  impact of shifting accessibility left.
  • 00:15:56
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): I think one of  them, that one of the things we can trace
  • 00:15:58
    that positivity back to is just that  we have now many more skill sets who
  • 00:16:03
    are contributing to the final work. If we get  accessibility into at least our design work,
  • 00:16:09
    then we have an opportunity to  identify difficult or troublesome
  • 00:16:13
    or impossible interactions from an accessibility  perspective before they're loved by everybody.
  • 00:16:20
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): You know, with visual  design in particular, if a visual design element
  • 00:16:24
    goes all the way through approval and  gets shipped to get built. And then,
  • 00:16:29
    as it's being built, we account for accessibility  that can be tricky. There can be a lot of tension
  • 00:16:34
    because people fell in love with the visual  design, but it's not accessible because of
  • 00:16:38
    color contrast is probably one of the  more common areas that this happens.
  • 00:16:43
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And  more so than than trying to
  • 00:16:46
    identify those difficult interactions before  they are loved. We're trying to identify them
  • 00:16:51
    and and reduce the chance that they ship that  the troublesome design actually does go live.
  • 00:16:58
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So think  about inclusive personas. If you use
  • 00:17:02
    personas. And then I'll say this with any  of these things I'm going to talk through.
  • 00:17:06
    I'm not necessarily suggesting that you build  something new just because of accessibility.
  • 00:17:12
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): There  might be times when you need to.
  • 00:17:14
    But what I'm trying to tease  out in this conversation is,
  • 00:17:17
    where are some places that we can look to add  accessibility to what you're already doing.
  • 00:17:22
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So back to the  conversation. If we are creating inclusive
  • 00:17:27
    personas hopefully, if you're creating personas,  you have the opportunity to do some research to
  • 00:17:32
    inform them. Not every shop has that. But if  we again begin with the inclusive research that
  • 00:17:39
    drives how we form our personas, we have a much  more complete view of what these might look like.
  • 00:17:45
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): With personas just in  general and certainly with accessibility. I think
  • 00:17:49
    it helps teams to really focus on the humans focus  on the people who are going to use our stuff.
  • 00:17:55
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And with inclusive  personas that include those with disabilities,
  • 00:17:58
    we have an opportunity to put in  front of our project teams a way
  • 00:18:03
    to increase the awareness of what's needed  by people with disabilities who are going
  • 00:18:08
    to use whatever product we're creating and  what's possible with assistive technologies.
  • 00:18:14
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): For example. If you  have, you know, personas that include speech to
  • 00:18:18
    text users or switch interface users. Then it's  a way to help to inform the people who reflect
  • 00:18:26
    on those and rely on those for their design work,  that there are these assistive technologies out
  • 00:18:31
    there, and that there are a lot of different ways  that people perceive and interact with the web.
  • 00:18:37
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So I'm gonna show  an example. This is from Stanford University.
  • 00:18:42
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And this is just a  part of it. I don't want to scroll too much
  • 00:18:45
    on the screen, so this is just a part of one of  their personas that focuses on the WCAG guidelines
  • 00:18:51
    of understandable. And what this states is that  for Camilla to consume digital content easily,
  • 00:18:56
    the content needs to be kept simple. Her challenge  is digesting, the level of information presented.
  • 00:19:02
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Camilla feels  pressure from unexpected context changes,
  • 00:19:05
    and when fast decisions are required,
  • 00:19:07
    she should also represent a new or inexperienced  technology user who doesn't know where to begin.
  • 00:19:13
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): When too  much information is presented. All
  • 00:19:15
    at once they go on to give some demographic  information. 23 year old graduate student
  • 00:19:20
    on the autism spectrum often turns off  images to focus on content sessions,
  • 00:19:25
    timing out causes frustration. And then there's  a quote from this fictional character that says,
  • 00:19:29
    everything seems complicated when  too much is happening at once.
  • 00:19:33
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So this does very much  put the human element into a bunch of web content,
  • 00:19:38
    accessibility guidelines. They mentioned  specifically turning off images. There's
  • 00:19:43
    an accessibility implication there for really  reinforcing the need for alternative text,
  • 00:19:49
    because if images are disabled, Alt text  is gonna show up sessions timing out,
  • 00:19:54
    there are WCAG success criteria related  to that. So from here we can use that
  • 00:19:58
    as a jumping off point to move into the  functional accessibility of the end product.
  • 00:20:04
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Again, I'm  not suggesting that you need to make
  • 00:20:09
    that you need to fold personas into your work  if you haven't already. If they're there, then
  • 00:20:14
    look for opportunities to inject accessibility  into them. And this is another one. I said I was
  • 00:20:20
    going to say this several times. This is the first  in in this more specific part of the conversation
  • 00:20:27
    of many ways that I think it helps to reinforce  accessibility as a norm for the organization.
  • 00:20:34
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So after we do  research, we think about our designers.
  • 00:20:38
    And this, I think, is where a lot of  the shift left. Conversation is going,
  • 00:20:43
    and it might not go much farther right now.  There are more folks who are stressing that
  • 00:20:48
    we really need to shift accessibility all the  way to our research if we do UX and UI research.
  • 00:20:53
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): But a lot of the  conversations at least get to this point,
  • 00:20:57
    accessibility and design artifacts.  So wireframes, mockups, prototypes,
  • 00:21:02
    you can put different levels of detail in  these different design artifacts based on
  • 00:21:07
    what the artifact actually shows. If it's a  really bare bones wireframe that just shows
  • 00:21:12
    interaction and layout, then you're  not going to be able to add as much
  • 00:21:15
    as you can in something that's more of a  mock up that brings our color scheme in.
  • 00:21:20
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So when  this conversation about shifting
  • 00:21:22
    accessibility left at least for  most organizations, I think,
  • 00:21:25
    has got into where they're considering  accessibility for designers. So you do
  • 00:21:30
    the the user research, whatever you can  do again, hopefully, that's inclusive
  • 00:21:35
    and includes those with disabilities that  informs what you're doing in your design work.
  • 00:21:40
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Well, you can  do a lot during the design process to
  • 00:21:43
    annotate and make note about accessibility.  It doesn't matter if you're using wireframes
  • 00:21:48
    that might be more bare bones and  really just show interaction and
  • 00:21:52
    layout. Maybe you have mockups that bring  in your color scheme and let you intercept
  • 00:21:56
    some trouble with accessibility in  in the the color that you might use.
  • 00:22:02
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): You have a more  functional prototype where you can really dig
  • 00:22:05
    in and emphasize that. Okay, these things need  to work in this way. There are a lot of really
  • 00:22:10
    good plugins for Figma, one that I have seen used.  And I think it's one of the the older that is as
  • 00:22:16
    comprehensive as it is. It's called Include, and  it's just a plugin for Figma, and it lets you go
  • 00:22:22
    through and annotate the Figma design. It does  a little bit of kind of guided manual testing.
  • 00:22:28
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): It'll also test  for color contrast in text on background.
  • 00:22:33
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): I think, more  than anything, it's like any other guided
  • 00:22:36
    manual testing tool. It helps you to not overlook  something to, not miss something during design.
  • 00:22:42
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Again, if we're  including annotations in our designs,
  • 00:22:46
    then we have an opportunity to reinforce  that. It is a norm to give you an example
  • 00:22:51
    of things that you might mark up. Maybe  you have a really traditional web page
  • 00:22:55
    layout. So you have a header with navigation.  You have your main content with a sidebar of
  • 00:23:01
    content you have your footer with include  and with others that are similar to it.
  • 00:23:05
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): You can pretty  quickly just basically wrap those regions
  • 00:23:09
    up and annotate those, and note that though  they are heading that they are header, page,
  • 00:23:16
    header, main content footer. You have  a search. You can mark a bunch of that
  • 00:23:20
    stuff up in your design artifacts. If you  don't use Figma, if you're using a tool
  • 00:23:24
    that doesn't have anything like that, you  can annotate this in a PDF. If it'll spit
  • 00:23:29
    one out. There are all kinds of ways  that you can make these annotations.
  • 00:23:33
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): There was  a really good talk at a conference a
  • 00:23:35
    couple of months ago, by a guy called Sam Hobson,
  • 00:23:38
    and he brought up a really good point that  in these annotations from the design team.
  • 00:23:43
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): We really might not want  to worry too much about technical implementation
  • 00:23:47
    guidance. He showed several examples from  some of his work with clients that that
  • 00:23:51
    his group works with that showed on a design  artifact specifics about how to implement ARIA.
  • 00:23:59
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And  they weren't correct. Now,
  • 00:24:01
    I'm not at all bashing designers. We see  a ton of ARIA implementation that is not
  • 00:24:06
    good. And I'm not at all going to suggest that  it's coming from designers. It's coming from.
  • 00:24:11
    You know, developers. And it's coming  from folks who are very well intentioned,
  • 00:24:14
    regardless of their role. And they're just  missing out on what ARIA does and how it works.
  • 00:24:19
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So with  that disclaimer, it can still happen
  • 00:24:22
    with these tools. From what I've seen a lot of  these that will help you with the annotation.
  • 00:24:27
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): They stick  more with the design elements and
  • 00:24:30
    the things that makes sense for a  designer and and their brain and
  • 00:24:34
    their experience to focus on and then the  implementation piece goes on to the Devs.
  • 00:24:39
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So we think  about what can we spin up for developers,
  • 00:24:44
    folding accessibility into design systems or  anything like it. You have a pattern library,
  • 00:24:49
    of course. Try to make our component  library, try to make your components
  • 00:24:53
    accessible. Any documentation that you  can build up to explain the accessibility,
  • 00:24:58
    I think is just helpful. You're going to have  new people join the team. You're going to have
  • 00:25:02
    people that are new to accessibility. That end  up on a project where it's really critical.
  • 00:25:07
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And if you have
  • 00:25:09
    documentation and examples, it can  be really, really, really helpful. So
  • 00:25:14
    this is also a good way to cross reference  from some annotations that might be on your
  • 00:25:19
    design artifacts into documentation in  a design system or a pattern library.
  • 00:25:25
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And  again, it makes helps to make
  • 00:25:27
    accessibility more of a norm. A couple  of examples that I will show real quick.
  • 00:25:33
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): The US web design
  • 00:25:38
    system has a lot of really good information  about accessibility. I've drilled down to
  • 00:25:43
    a couple of levels. This is the accordion  panel component that they have. And these,
  • 00:25:51
    this is a little bit of documentation about  the accessibility test that they've done.
  • 00:25:55
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): I think this is  fantastic. I think it's great to do what
  • 00:25:59
    they did a level up, which is just explain a  little bit about accessibility and how it's
  • 00:26:04
    supported. But this talks specifically  about when you implement this pattern,
  • 00:26:08
    when you drop this component into your web  property? How do you verify that it's working
  • 00:26:13
    when it gets into the container that you  have? Is there anything in yours that might
  • 00:26:17
    break the functionality. So they go through and  explain how to test with zoom magnification.
  • 00:26:23
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): They show that  they've got three checkpoints here. No
  • 00:26:27
    need to scroll horizontally when the screen is  magnified, you have a clear focus indicator.
  • 00:26:32
    Content doesn't get cut off when the screen  is magnified. I think this is really really
  • 00:26:37
    great. The level up from this is pretty helpful  as well because they do. This is back up now to
  • 00:26:43
    just the accordion component page, and they  they give the test status for accessibility.
  • 00:26:49
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): They're very clear about  that, and then you fold on into all the page,
  • 00:26:54
    the pardon me, fold into the move into this  accordion test page that I was just on.
  • 00:27:00
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And this is  one piece I just checked this today.
  • 00:27:04
    So as of early to mid April. This is still  published within the Federal design system.
  • 00:27:10
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): One that we use and a  lot of you all might use really frequently is the
  • 00:27:16
    the authoring practices guide for ARIA  that the World Wide Web consortium has
  • 00:27:20
    created. The intent of this is to provide examples
  • 00:27:23
    of highly accessible components. So  you would expect this to be really,
  • 00:27:27
    really well documented. And it is I'm using an  accordion example here as well from the APG.
  • 00:27:34
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): One of the things  that I like about this in particular.
  • 00:27:37
    And this is true in all the patterns  within the APG is, they give you very
  • 00:27:41
    specific guidance about the expected keyboard  interactions that these patterns should have,
  • 00:27:46
    which is really really helpful, particularly if  you're extending something. And you need to do
  • 00:27:50
    some customization. Or you want to be sure that  some customization hasn't broken something or
  • 00:27:55
    shipped something out that doesn't interact  with the keyboard, as somebody would expect.
  • 00:28:02
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Another  audience. That is, of course,
  • 00:28:07
    really, really critical is our content creators.
  • 00:28:10
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): From the design  and dev side. There are a lot more resources,
  • 00:28:14
    you know, and I said this earlier, at least at  a high level, trying to really just introduce
  • 00:28:18
    some ideas and show you a few real life  examples of some things that have proven
  • 00:28:23
    to be helpful to folks I've worked with  over the years, and I think we need to to
  • 00:28:29
    consider our content creators as well  as part of part of this conversation.
  • 00:28:34
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): The idea with  all of these and it's true. Here is we're
  • 00:28:38
    putting accessibility where people are already  trying to find information. Right? So if we
  • 00:28:42
    think about a style guide. That's a really  common tool that in a lot of organizations
  • 00:28:47
    does get quite a bit of use. Any kind of  brand management that you put out where
  • 00:28:51
    you can fold accessibility, information  in, I would suggest, do it, you know,
  • 00:28:56
    it's often an easy thing to do. It might not  require real high up leadership, approval to do.
  • 00:29:02
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And it's  it's a good way to get the information,
  • 00:29:05
    as I said, where people seek it  out a couple of quick examples.
  • 00:29:09
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Here one is Mailchimp.
  • 00:29:13
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So they have  an entire piece within their content
  • 00:29:16
    style guide about accessibility, and they  say, to make sure that you label forms,
  • 00:29:22
    use descriptive links, use plain language,  and there's just a paragraph of a couple of
  • 00:29:28
    sentences each. So it's really high level  information which is in keeping with the
  • 00:29:32
    way that they present other information  in the style guide. It's not meant to be
  • 00:29:36
    conclusive and all inclusive. Excuse me,  but it's really helpful to get reminders.
  • 00:29:42
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And then maybe you  need to dig in a little bit and find out. Okay,
  • 00:29:45
    well, where do I go to put alt  text in an image that I put in.
  • 00:29:49
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Another one that I want  to show, this is a style guide from the University
  • 00:29:58
    of Michigan. This is their overall university  design resources, and they've got in their set
  • 00:30:05
    of design, resource information, good information  on colors, topography, accessibility, photography
  • 00:30:10
    templates, special initiative toolkits. And then  there's a downloadable version of this style guide
  • 00:30:16
    that's online. So accessibility, literally in  that list, it's a part of the conversation.
  • 00:30:21
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): We click on  into that. We get some some guidance,
  • 00:30:25
    some quick tips that you can  link or that are linked out to
  • 00:30:28
    information about digital accessibility,  a link to their accessibility website.
  • 00:30:33
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So keeping it in the  conversation, not maybe as much detail as what
  • 00:30:37
    you'll see in some, but it. It shows again that,  including accessibility in these conversations
  • 00:30:44
    from the very beginning, and in a case like  this, it's making sure that it's included in this
  • 00:30:49
    content will at least help to keep people from not  thinking about it at all or forgetting about it.
  • 00:30:56
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Another way, as I've  been saying, to make accessibility a norm.
  • 00:31:01
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So big  picture kind of closing thought here,
  • 00:31:07
    if we can get this inclusive mindset ingrained.  I think there are some real positive ripples
  • 00:31:14
    that we could see. It's not going to be  the case everywhere. But if we get to
  • 00:31:17
    a place where inclusivity and accessibility  is indeed a norm with design and developers,
  • 00:31:24
    QA. With the skilled people who  contribute to our digital products.
  • 00:31:29
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Then what the  organization is gonna realize is that
  • 00:31:32
    that's an accessible skill. We need people  who know accessibility. We need to support
  • 00:31:36
    people. We need training. We need, maybe some  of this scaffolding that I've talked about.
  • 00:31:41
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And that can lead  to then creating incentives and putting
  • 00:31:45
    accessibility into job descriptions again,  normalizing accessibility and understanding
  • 00:31:49
    that the skill set is somewhat unique.  At least now we want it to be much more
  • 00:31:55
    widespread. But for now there aren't a ton of  people who are highly skilled practitioners.
  • 00:32:01
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): But we can  build that right even if we see that
  • 00:32:04
    job descriptions indicate that accessibility  is a preferred skill and not a required skill.
  • 00:32:09
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): If we get to  a place where it is a norm, and it's
  • 00:32:12
    included in the the hiring process. And it's  really something that organizations emphasize,
  • 00:32:18
    then we can. We can find incentives that  pop up just naturally with performance,
  • 00:32:23
    evaluation and things like that.  If it's in the job description,
  • 00:32:27
    we're going to create this infrastructure.  We're going to provide training ideally.
  • 00:32:32
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): We're going to  realize that we do need some time like I
  • 00:32:35
    said earlier on. And ultimately, of  course, we have better products. We
  • 00:32:38
    have products that do less harm to those that have  disabilities who are trying to interact with us.
  • 00:32:44
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So ideally, this will  have, some really positive ripple effects out
  • 00:32:49
    from the the several things that I've talked  about, the handful of things I've talked about
  • 00:32:53
    thinking about making inclusivity. Just a part  of the organization's definition of done right.
  • 00:33:00
    We talk about that from time to time. That  accessibility is just part of what we do.
  • 00:33:05
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So if we can  successfully ingrain accessibility into
  • 00:33:09
    our organization, and we have  an inclusive mindset across
  • 00:33:13
    design which leads into to  Dev which feeds into QA.
  • 00:33:16
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Then what we see bigger  picture hopefully is that accessibility becomes a
  • 00:33:21
    desired skill, a skill that the organization seeks  when it recruits and hires people. So you see,
  • 00:33:28
    accessibility and job descriptions. Well, that  kind of creates its own set of incentives. If
  • 00:33:32
    something's in a job description, the organization  is probably going to measure people's progress,
  • 00:33:37
    and the organization is hopefully going  to support them in doing the work.
  • 00:33:42
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Ultimately, we see  better products. We see products that do less
  • 00:33:46
    harm to those with disabilities on the web.  And that's the goal. So hopefully, a few of
  • 00:33:51
    these ideas, even if it's stuff that you're  already doing. Maybe there's some validation,
  • 00:33:57
    and if it's not something you're already doing,  hopefully, you've been able to come out with
  • 00:34:01
    a few ideas about some possible ways forward  that that might help to improve your practice.
  • 00:34:09
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): so I just want to say  thank you again to the A11y talks crew and team
  • 00:34:15
    for hosting these just in general, and for  letting me come in and spend a little bit of
  • 00:34:19
    time with y'all. If if you wanna find out a  little bit more about what we do. And and if
  • 00:34:24
    you want to learn a lot about accessibility.  Go to webaim.org when I started doing this
  • 00:34:29
    work back in 2009, 2010 it was about the most  human readable website about accessibility.
  • 00:34:36
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And there's just a  ton of information. We add stuff just about
  • 00:34:39
    every month. We add at least 2 new pieces  that cover different topics. There's an
  • 00:34:43
    email discussion list that's actually  still pretty active. We have a monthly
  • 00:34:47
    newsletter where we send out whatever we have  published recently, but we also grab bits and
  • 00:34:52
    pieces from other people who have written  about other parts of accessibility on web.
  • 00:34:57
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): There's a blog that we  publish to. We've got tutorials and resources,
  • 00:35:02
    and then we will have our free online  conference coming up in the Fall. We
  • 00:35:06
    haven't settled on dates yet, but you can  find us on Linkedin. We still exist on X. And
  • 00:35:13
    if you want to connect, I invite you  to connect with me. I'm Rob Carr,
  • 00:35:18
    A 1 1 y. That's R O B C A R R A 1 1 y on  Linkedin. I don't exist on other socials.
  • 00:35:24
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And going back  to the fun. Fact, if you use that handle,
  • 00:35:28
    you'll find me if that's who you're seeking  out. So I invite that connection. I think it's
  • 00:35:33
    really important right now, not just connecting  with me, but just connecting in general with
  • 00:35:37
    the community. This is a great professional  community, and really highly encourage you.
  • 00:35:42
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Now, when we do  have a lot of headwinds as a professional
  • 00:35:46
    space and as human beings trying to  advance accessibility. We're going
  • 00:35:50
    to need each other so, highly encourage  you to connect any way that you can. And
  • 00:35:54
    yeah, thanks so much. I think  we might have a few questions.
  • 00:35:57
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Yeah, thank you very  much for this. This was this was awesome. I
  • 00:36:01
    was so happy you brought up the United  States Web design system, accessibility,
  • 00:36:06
    documentation. I have found that to be super  awesome. So thank you for bringing that up
  • 00:36:10
    and sharing it with everybody else who's going  to be watching this. So thank you very much.
  • 00:36:14
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): So, yeah,  we have a couple questions for you,
  • 00:36:17
    and the first one is on the  screen. It's how do you ensure
  • 00:36:20
    accessibility. Scaffolding keeps up  with evolving tech and standards.
  • 00:36:25
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): I mean,  we were talking before we started,
  • 00:36:27
    just about how frequently zoom changes and how  much of a challenge it is to keep up right? I
  • 00:36:33
    think that if this becomes kind of a resource  issue right? I think the way that organizations
  • 00:36:37
    keep up with technology in general is they  have a a at least close to an appropriate
  • 00:36:42
    number of human beings who are dedicated  to these technologies. And unfortunately,
  • 00:36:48
    in most organizations, even very large tech  organizations. You've got an accessibility team
  • 00:36:53
    of like 3, right? And so I think the challenge  here is just that the scale of the work isn't
  • 00:37:00
    matched by the scale of the workforce that most  organizations hire on. So I think this is another.
  • 00:37:06
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Almost any question  that I get I scale up to. It's an organizational
  • 00:37:09
    problem. But I think it is. I think it's that we  need more people who know accessibility around
  • 00:37:15
    different parts of the organization and people  that have accessibility as a specific set of
  • 00:37:21
    expertise as well. Who are charged with making  sure that we're keeping up with the different
  • 00:37:28
    changes that come. You know, I also think people  say that accessibility changes all the time.
  • 00:37:33
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him):  I think this question is,
  • 00:37:34
    I like the way this is worded. It's that  the technology changes all the time. And
  • 00:37:38
    what are the implications from that? But  I think it's an organizational issue where
  • 00:37:42
    we need more. We need more experts, and we  need more expertise, distributed more widely.
  • 00:37:47
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Yeah, I totally  agree with that. And I totally agree
  • 00:37:50
    should start from the top. So yeah, I  totally agree. So thank you for answering
  • 00:37:55
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): All right. Next  question is, how do you balance flexibility
  • 00:37:59
    and consistency when building accessibility,  scaffolding into design systems or code bases.
  • 00:38:05
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): I mean willful  management. It's another big gap,
  • 00:38:08
    right? I feel like almost every other aspect of  building out a design system and and managing a
  • 00:38:13
    code base. We have governance in place.  Whether that's formal governance that's
  • 00:38:18
    written into policy or it's you know, not  policy driven. But it's still enforced.
  • 00:38:24
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): I think it's a  very similar thing, if not the the same.
  • 00:38:28
    And again it goes back to then the challenge  is that there aren't enough experts who are
  • 00:38:33
    involved in building the the guardrails for  the design system or the code base. So I
  • 00:38:40
    think it's not any different than what we do  with other pieces, you know, for accounting,
  • 00:38:44
    for information security and making sure  that we're building that into our code.
  • 00:38:50
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Well, that's  managed. And you have. People who know INFOSEC,
  • 00:38:53
    and someone's role is to come in and do that. So  I think it's I don't want to say almost the same
  • 00:38:59
    thing as I did in the last question, but I think  I think fundamentally it does come back to. We
  • 00:39:03
    have to have the expertise involved in those  steps of building this up and maintaining it.
  • 00:39:10
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Yeah, that  makes sense. I have a feeling. That
  • 00:39:11
    answer is probably gonna come across all these  questions. But it's good to repeat it. Yeah,
  • 00:39:16
    because it's very important. So I agree.
  • 00:39:19
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Next question, how  do you introduce the concept of scaffolding
  • 00:39:22
    to designers or developers who may  not prioritize accessibility? Yet.
  • 00:39:26
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): I think that is  where, so it's not the exact same answer.
  • 00:39:30
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): But I think that  when you're hearing about accessibility as
  • 00:39:35
    a requirement from your leadership. So even if  we can get to a product manager, if that product
  • 00:39:40
    manager is emphasizing accessibility to their  project teams, this gets to be a lot easier to
  • 00:39:46
    to. The adoption is a lot easier to get at the  the dev or any other level, right? But I think
  • 00:39:53
    that that's why I led, didn't really lead the  talk, but mostly started the talk, thinking
  • 00:39:58
    about leadership and making sure that this is  not just a grassroots thing because it's hard.
  • 00:40:02
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Even if you're a  project manager, you really want accessibility
  • 00:40:05
    to be a part of everything you do. You  don't have maybe a ton of clout right
  • 00:40:11
    in terms of making sure it happens. And you have  to build that case. If you're in that situation,
  • 00:40:17
    you're trying to build the business case at a more  local level. Then I think there are a lot of great
  • 00:40:21
    things. The W 3 C, World Wide Web Consortium.  They have their perspectives videos. You can
  • 00:40:27
    Google that can help to from people's lived  experience kind of share with the developer.
  • 00:40:33
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): What this means,
  • 00:40:35
    you know, if it's like the stereotypical developer  who just wants to build stuff that they like,
  • 00:40:39
    then that's a bigger issue. But in my  experience there aren't a ton of those
  • 00:40:44
    out there anymore. And developers are thinking  more about the humans that use their stuff.
  • 00:40:48
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): And a lot of  the time they just don't know. I think,
  • 00:40:51
    I said, that earlier, if somebody doesn't  know that screen reading software exists,
  • 00:40:55
    then introducing just the fact  that there are these assistive
  • 00:40:58
    technologies and people interact with  their devices in a lot of different ways.
  • 00:41:03
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): That can  be enough with a lot of developers,
  • 00:41:06
    just because they don't know that these  interactions are possible. So you know,
  • 00:41:10
    to me the question is about as much as anything,  building the the case to a dev and kind of showing
  • 00:41:16
    a developer evidence that the work that they do  can do harm to people who are trying to use it.
  • 00:41:23
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Yeah,  I definitely agree. And I'm a
  • 00:41:25
    developer. So I've definitely seen that  shift over the years of my career for
  • 00:41:30
    developers who are more interested in  making sure what they're building is
  • 00:41:33
    accessible to everybody. So I think it's  good to have. I think that's good to have.
  • 00:41:37
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): So,  thank you. Next question,
  • 00:41:41
    what are some early wins you've seen from  teams adopting accessibility, scaffolding.
  • 00:41:46
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Early wins, I think I  mean, my mind immediately goes to the shift left
  • 00:41:53
    piece in particular. So maybe this, maybe  this will jog a thought about this broader
  • 00:41:58
    question. But I worked with a team once where  accessibility only lived in QA. And of course,
  • 00:42:04
    then the Devs, you know they're getting pulled  over without a posted speed limit. Right?
  • 00:42:08
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): They're getting graded  on a test that they haven't been taught anything
  • 00:42:11
    about and so, in terms of an early, and it wasn't  an easy win, because it took a little bit to get
  • 00:42:16
    accessibility to at least move to where the Devs  are familiar with it just lowered the tension.
  • 00:42:22
    I think that's one of the things with a lot of  the conversation about building, scaffolding up
  • 00:42:28
    and helping to provide more, more resources and  more more guidance, more reference for teams.
  • 00:42:35
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): You know it. It tends to
  • 00:42:38
    beyond just the shift left piece that I  just talked about. I think that it helps.
  • 00:42:43
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): It helps normalize it  right? It helps to set that expectation. And I
  • 00:42:47
    can't think of anything specific, really,  with this, so I don't know we may. I don't
  • 00:42:50
    know if we're gonna want to keep this one in or  not, but because I don't have a great example.
  • 00:42:56
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): No, I think I  think you answered it pretty well again.
  • 00:42:58
    It's the shifting left early on I think  that's really beneficial to help with
  • 00:43:03
    scaffolding early on. So yeah,  I think it was a good answer.
  • 00:43:07
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Next question  is, what's one thing every team could do
  • 00:43:10
    tomorrow to start building, more  inclusive scaffolding practices.
  • 00:43:14
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): I think, step one is  identify stuff that you already have where you
  • 00:43:18
    think accessibility could fit right? I think it's  not quite a matter of of saying, we'll go and do
  • 00:43:25
    this. It's consider who's using what? You know, I  talked about style guides in some organizations.
  • 00:43:32
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): They're not  widely used if used at all. Right,
  • 00:43:34
    people go to a lot of trouble to build a style  guide up, and no one refers to it, and it just
  • 00:43:40
    lives on a website somewhere. So I think, taking a  good and honest look at, where could we integrate
  • 00:43:46
    some accessibility? Especially if it's stuff that  you own. If you own the content. If you're in
  • 00:43:50
    marketing or comms, you create the style guide,  we'll just start putting stuff in there. Right?
  • 00:43:55
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): So I think that's  the first thing that I would suggest teams
  • 00:43:59
    do if they haven't already, is to just  begin to identify the resources people
  • 00:44:03
    use the existing scaffolding that's  there, and then start thinking about,
  • 00:44:07
    can we directly add accessibility into it?  Or is there someone we can ask to do that.
  • 00:44:14
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Yeah, that makes  sense to me. And that was actually the
  • 00:44:17
    last question we had. So thank you very  much for the presentation. Thank you for
  • 00:44:22
    so much for all the questions you answered  for us. So yeah, this was amazing. This was
  • 00:44:27
    such a good presentation. So thank you for  coming and sharing your knowledge with us.
  • 00:44:32
    Rob Carr Junior (he/him): Thanks  again. Y'all, I really appreciate it.
  • 00:44:34
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Yeah, alright.  So I'm we're just about done. We're gonna
  • 00:44:37
    wrap it up with a couple little kind  of housekeeping news. We're always
  • 00:44:43
    looking for speakers and new voices in  the accessibility community. We make a
  • 00:44:47
    conscious effort to include marginalized  groups in tech in our speaker lineup.
  • 00:44:51
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): If you are interested.  Please reach out to us at team@a11ytalks.com
  • 00:44:57
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): For those  with IAAP certifications. A11yTalk
  • 00:45:01
    speakers and attendees receive  professional development credits
  • 00:45:05
    also known as CAECs through IAAP  for your continuing education.
  • 00:45:12
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): We'd love your  feedback on what we are doing well,
  • 00:45:14
    and what we can do. Better  go to a11ytalks.com/feedback
  • 00:45:19
    to share your positive and or less than  positive feedback. We value your input.
  • 00:45:24
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Subscribe to  our Youtube channel to never miss a talk.
  • 00:45:28
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Consider  contributing to A11y Talks through
  • 00:45:31
    Benevity, or our Open Collective page,  which is at opencollective.com/a11ytalks
  • 00:45:37
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Follow us on Linkedin.
  • 00:45:39
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Also  follow us on BlueSky, Mastodon,
  • 00:45:42
    and any other social media that you that you have.
  • 00:45:46
    Aubrey Sambor (she/her): Thank you for  attending. We'll see you next time.
Tags
  • accessibility
  • A11y Talks
  • digital inclusivity
  • Rob Carr
  • organizational scaffolding
  • design
  • content
  • leadership
  • community
  • web accessibility