Jonathan de Armas: Hello and
welcome to Diamond Webinars
We just open the attendee doors
and people are starting to gather
will be with you in just a moment.
And we'll get started.
As a note we have closed captioning
available and an ASL interpreter.
So please, configure your own
zoom settings to pin Kate, the
interpreter Or enable closed
captioning from the bottom bar.
We'll see you in just a moment.
Welcome to Diamond Webinars
We're here on the ninth annual
Global Accessibility Awareness Day.
Diamond has once again put together
our State of Accessibility Report
which will be reviewing soon.
But first a little bit about
myself a little bit about Diamond.
I'm Jonathan de Armas
partner here at Diamond.
Diamond is a digital agency built by
developers with a commitment to well
crafted software built on best practices.
We support media companies and brand
names, who rely on us every single day
for Product Strategy experience design
and full stack development services.
Everything we do has inclusive
design and its core and accessibility
from the beginning If we start it
with the DNA from the start we can
have applications for everyone.
Diamond proudly sponsors Global
Accessibility Awareness Day, founded
in 2012 and occurring on the third
Thursday each May the purpose of GAAD
is to get everyone talking thinking and
learning about digital access inclusion
for people with different disabilities.
GAAD has turned into a global event.
Ninth year now heading into the tenth.
I know that some of the panelists on
the show today will be coming from
various events and going to others.
It's quite exciting to
see how GAAD has grown.
Diamond launched our accessibility
practice to marry our love of buildings
great software with our commitment
to the accessibility community.
We offer assessments audits
general consulting also development
for remediation efforts.
With all of that in mind, we
have a lot to cover today.
A lot of amazing panelists
from across the industry.
I would like to introduce Joe Devon.
Who's the co-founder of Global
Accessibility Awareness Day and
also the co-founder of Diamond.
Joe, Welcome.
Joe Devon: Thank you, Jonathan.
Trying to turn on the
video, but it's not working.
I think I need that to be
done from you, Jonathan.
Oh, there we go.
Oh hello there I am.
Can we turn on the slide deck, please.
So to start, I just want to say thank
you to everyone for joining us for the
ninth Global Accessibility Awareness Day.
Next slide please.
The agenda here is Jonathan
who just started and then I'm
going to welcome the panelists.
We're going to talk about
the state of accessibility.
We're going to get a special guests in
Genesis and my co founder at Diamond
sorry at Global Accessibility Awareness
Day and then Matt King from Facebook and
I will end off with some final thoughts.
Next slide please.
GAAD has taken off far beyond
anything that Genesis and
I could have ever expected.
Last year, we've hit a Twitter reach
of 195 million unique users and just
scanning the the GAAD hashtag today.
It feels like it's going
to be bigger this year.
And every year we think it can't
get any bigger and it always does.
And we've had, I think 175 or 180
events posted on the GAAD website.
So it's incredible to see that this year.
Everybody is able from just about anywhere
to access most of those events and yet
I always like to keep my eye on the
ball and It, it always strikes me as
GAAD rolls around, I always come back
to this tweet that I saw in 2015 you
have most of the folks that that know
anything about GAAD are just posting
all this celebration and positive things
and and it's really a joy to watch.
However, there was one tweet by the
Blind Onion, which is a satirical
Twitter account and and they tweeted
out the world eagerly anticipates
participating in the next 364 days of
global accessibility oblivion hashtag
GAAD and it didn't hurt when I first saw
it, but I always mention it when I talk
about GAAD, because the goal of GAAD
was to get awareness among originally
was among the developer culture because
that's where I came from, but we've
kind of grown that to designers and
product people as well and if it's if
you get a tweet like this coming out
of pain, where the rest of the year is
inaccessible where you have all these
folks talking about accessibility.
But we're not changing the state of
the Internet and the state of the
web and apps as well, then we're not
really achieving the goal and it, it
just made me think we need to create
a state of accessibility report.
Next slide please.
So that in last year we did the
first state of accessibility report,
you're going to hear from some folks
that collaborated with us on the
second year, Jared Smith has been
with us both years and and he does an
analysis of the top million websites
and the numbers are not great.
And I'll let him speak to that.
But on the Diamond side we have
internally done some research and please.
The next slide or the
actually the infographic.
On the top left there you see a little
blurb from the Diamond part of the
report of the Alexa top 100 websites.
And this has come from speaking to
people that use assistive technology
that have a common issue, which is
You might have some sites that actually
tried to do their best with accessibility.
But if you don't think about the
user journey you're missing something
big and and something that happens
frequently is right at the gate.
What is a service worth if you're
not able to register, if you're
not able to then login and logout.
Imagine you you can log in and then you
can't log out and then you're tracked
every time you go there and you can't
switch accounts to another user account.
This is obviously problematic.
So what we've done is we created.
We did a manual test of the Alexa top 100
websites for their accessibility and their
ability to register login and logout.
And what we found is that 40% of
the top 100 websites are fully
accessible on all platforms tested.
Now, I wouldn't call this a good
score, but my whole goal with this
with a state of accessibility report,
otherwise known as SOAR, is that it
should improve every single year.
And this is one of the few bright spots,
is that we've seen some improvement in
the Alexa Top 100 because if if this year
40% of the sites are fully accessible.
Last year that number was 29%
so excuse me, it went up 11%
So that's, that's a good number.
And then in terms of the
sites that were inaccessible.
This year we found 39% of the
top hundred websites are fully
inaccessible on all platforms tested
and although that number is too high.
It is better than last year.
Last year it was 43% and we actually,
you can see that the 40% bubble is
bigger than the 39% bubble and we've
at least cross the chasm, where
there are more sites fully accessible
than sites fully inaccessible.
Now again, this is the
top hundred websites.
It's not, this is not wonderful news,
but at least if we're going in the
right direction, then, personally, I
can feel better about it because I'm
people constantly say thank you for doing
Global Accessibility Awareness Day, but
I can't accept that thank you, until I
see that the numbers are improving and
that we've actually made a difference.
So I don't want to see that that blind
onion tweet again because I'd like to see
that we've actually changed and changed
the culture, the developer culture and
and digital product creation culture.
To make things better, I'll end
off by just also saying that in
addition to that 40% we have 21% that
are accessible with difficulties.
So last year rate is at 21%
Yeah, I think that's the right number.
And I think last year was 28%
So there's, there are less
sites that are accessible with
difficulty and the improvement
went to becoming fully accessible.
So we've definitely had a decent
degree of improvement in the last year
when it came to the top manual sites.
Now I'm going to pass it on to Jared.
So I'd like to invite you
Jared To turn on your video.
And please introduce yourself
and speak through your numbers.
Jared Smith: Sure.
Um, thank you for the invitation
to be here and opportunity to
speak a little bit about WebAIM's
work on accessibility and some of
the research that we've done happy
Global Accessibility Awareness Day to
everyone and thank you Jemison and Joe
for your vision and and really your
efforts to try to change the culture
and the environment of accessibility.
So I'm from Webaim, which is the
web accessibility in mind project
we're a nonprofit consultancy
that does web accessibility.
One of our missions at Webaim is to
provide research on web accessibility to
help inform the state of accessibility
where we're at and help effect change.
One of those efforts that we started
a about a year and a half ago
was an analysis of the homepages
for the top 1 million websites.
So we had a pretty good sense of
accessibility and what some of the some
of the difficulties were the route there,
but we didn't have really good data
and generally the accessibility field.
Needs more data.
So we conducted this analysis, it
used automated processes to check
these 1 million homepages, our first
analysis was in February of year.
This year, we also added 130,000
other pages deeper pages, within
the top 1300 websites so over
the course of just over a year.
We now have about a billion data points
of accessibility for web pages we collect
lots of information about accessibility.
About technology usage site metadata
language and just a lot of things
that we then analyze to see what's
happening when it comes to accessibility.
The result we have an overview report
available on the webaim.org website and
they encourage you to go check that out.
So this year is we conducted our
analysis of these 1 million homepages
we found about 61 million errors.
So these are detectable errors
via an automated process using our
wave accessibility evaluation tool.
So that's about 61 errors per homepage,
on average, so if you think about that
on an average homepage user with a
disability might expect to encounter
61 barriers, on average, that was
an increase of about 2% from 2019.
Now that does bring up an interesting
question of, does that mean that
accessibility is getting worse.
I don't know.
There were more detectable errors.
Joe and his team their research on
functional accessibility for some
of the top websites for registration
log in and log out found that things
had improved which is wonderful.
Our analysis was primarily
automated accessibility data.
We found 98% of those homepages had
detectable failures with the Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines
that was an increase of little
increase from the year before.
So, because these are automatically
detectable issues, I would suggest
that the overall compliance or
conformance rate of homepages
with the Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines is Probably very, very low.
I think certainly under 1%
But, you know, we have guidelines as
a foundation is a good measure for at
least some aspects of accessibility.
So we have even though the
conformance rate is very low.
It's great that we have guidelines
out there to help us move that
needle, a little, little bit
closer towards accessibility.
One thing we did find this year was
pretty alarming very interesting was a 10%
increase in the number of page elements.
Over the course of one year.
That's a big big increase 10% in one year,
10% more paragraphs div spans buttons,
whatever, you know those page elements
might be as suggests, I think a real
increase in the complexity and weight of
homepages and I think begs the question
as to whether accessibility can keep up
with that level of increase in complexity.
It's an interesting question.
As we analyze the types of issues
that were detected 86% that's So text
that did not have sufficient contrast
with the background as defined by the
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
On average, there were 36 instances of
low contrast text per homepage, 66% of
pages were missing alternative text.
So they had images that did not
have appropriate alternative text.
66% of pages had empty links or buttons.
So these are things that say a screen
reader user could navigate to but
there would be no presentational
text to identify the function
of those links are buttons.
54% of homepages had inputs form
inputs that we're missing label.
So, over half of all inputs
on homepages are missing.
Property associated labels that
would describe the functionality of
those inputs 28% of pages did not
have a document language identified.
Little tiny snippet of code, you can
add to a page that would ensure that
the language that a screen reader reads
that page in is correct for the content.
These are all pretty impactful
accessibility issues they're
all readily detectable.
And they're all readily fixable.
That is one thing that gives me some
optimism, even though there are a lot of
accessibility issues that are present.
The vast majority fit into
these five categories.
In other words, if we were to
systematically address just these five
issues the positive impact for users
with disabilities would be just
enormous we're talking about millions
and millions of potential barriers
removed on these these top homepages.
We also this year aligned accessibility
information with site categories.
So there are a lot of different
categories that we analyze and we
noticed we found that there were
pretty significant differences.
In accessibility issues, based on the
type of content that those pages were
presenting for instance news websites
had over twice as many detectable errors
as government sites, so news sites where
the absolute worst category which is a
little alarming, especially in the age of
Covid and all of these other things that
there are so many barriers to getting
news information government websites fair,
the best, but there's a big disparity.
Between those, now knowing that
information might allow us to better
target particular categories or
to see what models that are who's
what types of sites are doing a
good job that we can maybe generate
models and patterns that can best
address accessibility more globally.
And we also analyze technologies
that are present on home pages.
So there were just hundreds of
technologies that were detectable on
homepages things like PHP WordPress react
doodle Maps, Google ads, things like that.
And if those technologies were president,
we then did comparisons to see you
how things were different with those
pages we found some interesting things
there were certain technologies that
align with a lot more accessibility
errors, some technologies that align
with fewer errors and that's really
an increased focus for us for Joe and
the the Diamond team is to see what
technologies are doing well, which ones
need appear to need some some work.
So we can start to effect change.
We know that addressing accessibility
in those frameworks and building
a culture and environment of
accessibility around those tools
can have a really really big impact.
So there's a whole lot more available at
webaim.org we have our full report there.
Our intent with this is to help set a
benchmark for where we're at and a metric
for where we're going with accessibility.
And does start to affect change.
Even though this can be a
little discouraging seeing the
prevalence of accessibility issues.
If we focus on just those primary
issues and those technologies and
frameworks we can make a difference.
And that's part of Global Accessibility
Awareness Day and the pledge
And for those of us that have taken the
pledge that are committed to this maybe
today could be global accessibility
action day we can go out and start to do
something about this to make a difference.
Joe Devon: Oh my god, I love that
Jared hang hang tight for a second.
I'm going to ask you a question, but
first I'd like to tell the audience that
if you see below, there's a Q A button
and if you ask the Q A, we are going
to call on some questions later on.
Now, Jared I...
first of all, I love that
global accessibility action day.
Oh my god, that's fantastic.
I don't know how, but
we got to use that one.
Could you speak for a second to the
comparison between last year and this
year, you're still on mute, by the way.
Jared Smith: Um, yeah.
Like I said, we saw some shifts in
accessibility data itself, not only
overall errors and conformance rates
with the accessibility guidelines.
But also in particular areas and
categories we did see some fairly
notable shifts in the technology
correlations are correspondences of
technologies to accessibility issues.
What was most interesting is,
is that we saw more a broader
disparity of those issues.
In other words, some technologies are
getting much worse more detectable
errors other technologies are
neutral or are getting better.
And again, I think that serves
as a bit of a framework.
What I just want to highlight
a little bit is Gatsby, Gatsby
has a you know framework.
Based on react and and if they're better
than any of others of the frameworks and
technologies that we that we analyzed.
It's a technology I think that has
helped build a culture and an environment
of accessibility and inclusion.
And that is being reflected in the
actual accessibility to the pages
that use that technology and if more
work to embrace that type of thing.
I think we could really make a difference.
Joe Devon: That's, that's awesome.
Do you, I took the results that you had
and I use that as a springboard to start
reaching out to different folks and try
and get them to take the GAAD pledge,
which we'll talk about a little bit later.
Just one more quick question.
How do you think is the best approach to
change developer culture because I feel
like the the frameworks are good place
to start and coding boot camps, though I
don't know quite how to influence them.
Are there any others or any
approach to the bootcamps
that that you could think of.
Jared Smith: Well, that's a big question.
I'll try to answer it quickly.
I think our experience, you know,
and doing this work for now 20
years at Webaim has been that
when accessibility becomes real.
When it becomes personal for somebody
that's designing, developing and building
things then it, that's when we start to
see better change more positive influences
for that accessibility change and you
know, we spent a lot of time focusing
on guidelines and techniques and numbers
and precents that I've talked about.
I think it's important that we
not lose vision that we're talking
about people, about individuals
that are significantly impacted.
And I think when our, when our, you know,
our frameworks are tools, the environments
that communities that we're building
when they really become human focused.
That's when we start to
see that better changing.
Well, I think we can do a better part
of that in these communities, in the
documentation, you know, things like
that to help build that type of human
awareness as opposed to just technical
Joe Devon: Great.
Thank you so much.
Jared for all of your work over
the years and your vision as well.
Really appreciate you joining
Now I'd like to introduce Sharon
Rush, who is another legend
in the accessibility space.
Sharon just came out of running a
two week conference that that she
turned to be virtual in a very short
period of time turned on a dime
basically and she collaborated with
us on talking about accessibility
in ED tech specifically K to 12.
So Sharon please introduce yourself.
Speak through to the report and also give
us a bit of a report on how access U went
Sharron Rush: Well, as you know, Joe.
We just had to two days and two
days last week of access, you were.
We had to move our
conference completely online.
And I'm getting ready to write a
book about what to do when all your
connectivity explodes and you, you
want to go forward and talk about
accessibility and they're just so many
aspects of it that we learned over
this time and I well I wanted first
of all to thank you and the team.
I was really, really pleased to be
asked to contribute to this report, I
was honored and really grateful To talk
about this particular aspect of the
state of accessibility, because I think
it's one that's that's been overlooked
as I was listening to Jared talk about
all the you know the different tools
and the frustrations that people have.
And when you think about kids in school
and what's at stake in that environment,
it becomes really even more important,
and I, I don't know if you've already
introduced me, but I'll just tell people
that Sharron Rush: I'm Sharron Rush.
I'm the executive director of Nobility.
We are a nonprofit advocacy training and
consultancy organization based in Austin,
Texas and working all over the country.
In some parts of the world.
As I said, I'm really grateful
to be talking about this
particular aspect of the state of
accessibility and I'm with you.
Jared about, you know, let's let's do
global accessibility action day from this
One of the things we do, we do more
community based research, I would say,
then then Webaim and we certainly have
nowhere near a billion points of data, but
we have been looking at the K 12 space for
many years in our communities and found
that the accessibility of web based tools
in K 12 has really been a neglected topic.
And when you think about what happens
the that oversight has really profound
results on learning outcomes and as a
result of that, the lives of students
with disabilities and there are from
the, the closest estimates from the UN is
that there are around 93 million children
with disabilities who were at school age,
not all of them make it into school and
certainly many of them don't graduate.
So this chart shows a few of the examples
of the outcomes by selected countries.
But nowhere in the world.
I mean I we we show these these few
countries, but there was nowhere in the
world where we found anything close to
the equity, the educational equity that's
promised to kids with disabilities and
we'd hope and expect improved outcomes
and improved access as learning tools
are delivered digitally, we have this
flexible, adaptable medium of the web
We have laws in place all over the world
that say students with disabilities
get full access to opportunities
and to educational supports.
We have these digital tools that can make
learning experiences fully accessible.
We have laws we have
guidelines as Jared pointed to
So with all these standards and
laws and promises that we make
to students with disabilities,
what's happened, what's missing.
And so we did a lot of literature
research we we read quite a bit.
We interviewed some educators
and administrators from different
districts from educational agencies
from state educational agencies
and a lot of that research.
I think it ended up in the annotated
bibliography here of the SOAR and what
we found was that there's a basic lack of
understanding of what accessibility means.
And there's a almost I shouldn't say
complete there's an almost complete lack
of systematic support for accessibility.
So we have the stated commitments we
have legal requirements that all students
will have educational equity but almost
no scaffolding in place to support
those commitments in a digital world.
So what we see is that teachers
aren't trained, you know, they
give these assignments and tell
kids to use these digital tools.
They're not trained about accessibility,
we educate according to law.
I mean, the law requires that kids with
disabilities students with learning
disabilities visual impairments,
emotional and behavioral disorders.
They're all to be educated in the
most inclusive environments possible
so that means they're for the most
part, in general education classes.
With educators who are not trained
in any of the accessibility aspects
of the digital tools that they
use in the classroom every day.
Instructional designers aren't
trained, they don't they don't
they make these curriculum
products lessons math exercises.
They're not taught about accessibility.
They don't know how to
prompt for alt text.
Students are asked to do their homework
and turn in, you know, make a web page
for this or use these various frameworks,
open source frameworks, as you mentioned,
and create digital examples of the of
what you're learning but nowhere are
the accessibility aspects or features of
those tools taught because the teachers
themselves instructional designers
themselves aren't aware of them.
So the result is that we
have in the classrooms.
We have these learning management
systems curriculum content.
They're all put in place schools
increasingly gratefully receive
tablet and software donations
from large tech companies.
But nowhere along that the training
that they get are or is there any
consideration of how these required
classroom materials can be equally
used by students with disabilities.
So it's not surprising that the
outcomes are so dismal for students
with disabilities and that we have
the the outcomes that you see in that
chart the dropout rates are you know,
is far, far in excess of what you
see among their non disabled peers.
And that's not because of intellectual
disabilities because more than 80%
of students with disabilities have no
intellectual disabilities and there's
no reason why they should not succeed.
So You know I was really envious that
Jared was able to say, but we do see
these improvements and we do see these
improvements and I'm trying to think
of what can I say that's hopeful.
And I think the hope is that as we do
integrate accessibility into the the open
source frameworks, as it becomes more
generally integrated into the tools that
that will make its way into the classroom.
But we had some specific recommendations
as well that we put into that we
put into the report and it starts
with planning with, you know, our US
Department of Education, almost every
country's Department of Education
has planning for how they're going
to use technology in the classroom.
And so, as those technology plans are
developed, we need to through advocacy
through more legal actions through
legislation, we need to require those
technology plans explicitly include
ideas and mandates for accessibility.
They need to have requirements
procurement requirements.
They need to include training
for instructional tools.
So, for if I'm going to buy
if I work for a district that
I'm going to purchase tools.
Then I need to have guidelines for
how do I how do I decide if these
meet accessibility requirements
all schools have requirements.
Now for security.
They need to have equally supported
requirements for accessibility.
We also need to think as we train
instructional designers, the people
who are making the curriculum products
that end up in our classrooms.
Those designers also must be
trained to understand accessibility.
What the requirements are and and
how to implement them properly,
so that the materials that end
up in the classroom are, in fact,
at least meet basic requirements.
And I think when sorry.
No.
Joe Devon: This is great stuff.
Sharon and I'm so glad
that you spoke about this.
It's that Ed Tech is not my specialty.
And as as we're watching the entire
world and all the schools move
online within a period of two weeks.
Everything is is now about accessibility.
So there's an opportunity here, you
were looking for something positive,
there's an opportunity here where
we can we can see that if things are
fixed for the different platforms that
impact all of these students at once.
So that's the only hopeful thing is
that maybe we can come out of this
with with some improved Accessibility
if if we, you know, basically approach
these these these vendors that are
that are providing these virtual tools.
So thank you so much for for joining
and for providing this report and
I recommend everybody read it, it
was, it was really eye opening.
So, so thank you.
Sharron Rush: You bet.
Joe Devon: Thanks.
And now we have Jennison who joined us.
The co founder of Global
Accessibility Awareness Day Jennison,
can you turn on your camera.
Happy GAAD my friend.
Jennison Asuncion: Good morning somewhere.
Joe Devon: How are you doing,
Jennison Asuncion: Uh, this is
the first year because we're in
this virtual world, by the way.
Happy GAAD everyone because
we're doing everything virtually
People have been asking us to
to attend different sessions and
the the unintended consequences.
Lack of sleep and stuff.
But see I was in Azerbaijan and then
I was across the continent of Africa.
And then I'm here with you all that
Genesis people from around the world.
And then we've got two more things,
including wrapping up here in the
Bay Area tonight for an event, but
How are you?
Joe Devon: I'm doing
okay I'm doing all right.
Jennison Asuncion: It wasn't sure if
we were just going to riff here, what
Joe Devon: Yeah I we have
a couple of minutes more.
I really just wanted to
know if you've had a chance to
check out what's going on today.
Jennison Asuncion: Twitter's
gone crazy as usual, yeah.
Hashtag GAAD hashtag has been going
nuts and I still see Joe and I get
copied on when the forms are submitted
for people are still up until now,
submitting events for GAAD this is, I
don't know if you already mentioned,
Joe, when you kick things off for
your for the session year but we are
amazed every year at how big this is
gotten and we neither of us, for sure.
This year, what was going to happen with
with COVID and like what was all going
to happen, but everyone flipped the
virtual, the advantage of course being
that we can all kind of travel around
the world and and and and join these
zoom or other conferencing software
means, you know, but this just have more
access right in a capital A for access
So, yeah.
Now that it's been it's been it's
been different this year, but
it's been different, but the same
Joe Devon: Yeah I agree 100% and
this is really the moment for
accessibility to shine because either
you're making it accessible for the
billion people with disabilities,
though, I think that number really
Jennison Asuncion: Should be higher
Joe Devon: Yeah, it's really
higher one of the, the new numbers.
And I don't know if I can say his
name, but yeah, maybe I won't say it.
But basically, a friend of mine, a friend
of ours highlighted that that there's some
new research out that the number of folks
with a disability is pretty pretty high.
So
Jennison Asuncion: It's a lot
of Visually impaired people
Joe Devon: Yeah, it sure is.
It sure is so Jennison and I'm going to
ask you to stay on as I introduce Matt.
Joe Devon: So let's talk about
the GAAD pledge, a little bit.
So we've taken the numbers that we
gotten from Jared and We were we're just
a little bit shocked to see 98% of the
web being inaccessible and 60 errors
per page and seeing those numbers go up.
So really like we came back and
said, All right, how, how can we
affect and change those numbers.
And as I said earlier coding
schools was one of them.
And another one of them is is open
source projects, we really wanted to
focus on the open source projects.
Joe Devon: Okay, so the GAAD pledge the
concept here is that organizations and
developers can make a commitment that
they will make accessibility a core value
in all of their digital products and
You know, in a sense, we're opening it up
to everyone that anyone can take the GAAD
pledge, but we decided that we were trying
to kind of focus it a little bit and try
and get actual strong results, rather than
then making it too wide of an approach.
And so what we've done is we've gone
out and spoken to a lot of different
organizations and I'm super excited
about what's coming down the pike.
But one of the big targets for me
personally that I wanted to see was
seeing React Native take the pledge.
So I called 1-800 Facebook
and said, hey, guys.
How would you guys like to take
the pledge and was so excited and
happy to see that they said yes.
Joe Devon: So Facebook does take
the pledge and to that end, they are
committing to making React Native
accessible and they have brought us
Matt King from Facebook has joined us.
And I'm gonna ask you, Matt.
If you can turn on your video.
Joe Devon: We're gonna do the
the proper intro, so can you
please introduce yourself and
describe your role at Facebook.
Matt King: Yeah.
So my name is Matt King I am an
accessibility technical program manager
at Facebook and what that really
means is I spend my time helping our
teams build up their capabilities
to deliver accessible products.
And I also spent a lot of time working
on what I refer to as the accessibility
ecosystem infrastructure of the world.
And things like React Native are
part of the bedrock of the ecosystem
as well as all the accessibility
standards like Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines ARIA Rich Internet
Applications standard and so forth.
Joe Devon: Thank you.
So you guys have taken the the GAAD
pledge and React Native is going
to have some serious effort behind
it to make it more accessible.
So, so what do you think React Native
will look like a year from now.
Matt King: That is a pretty interesting
question because I think part of
the problem is that we don't know
if what it looks like right now.
We do know there's a lot of accessibility
and React Native already there.
If you go to the GitHub repo and just
search on accessibility, you find
there's been more than 100 issues
related to accessibility closed.
There's currently about 10 that are tagged
with the accessibility API info label
in there and only two of them are open.
So a lot of work has been done but
what we really haven't done yet is
like fully understand where the gaps
are and that's one of the reasons why
there will be an accessibility Bug Hunt
coming up for React Native and so what
I hope is that we'll have a much more
solid picture of what needs to change
and React Native to create truly robust
accessibility and we will see a positive
trend toward getting those gaps closed.
Joe Devon: But that's very cool and you
know I think people would be surprised
at how quickly this came together
because there is so much that so much
work that goes into just making an
announcement of this type, and kudos to
the accessibility team over at Facebook
for without hesitation going in and
saying, yes, we, we are committing
to to make React Native accessible.
And and it's really important because
I believe this can provide some
leadership to the other frameworks
to say, you know what, we'll have the
courage to say this as well and and
having spoken at different frameworks.
I sent, they won't say it out loud,
but I sense that there's some fear.
About coming out there and saying,
yes, we take the pledge because what
if what if they don't quite get there,
or are they going to get criticism from
the community and that type of thing.
So I'd love to hear from you.
How do you feel would be would
be a way for us to approach other
frameworks and can you address that,
that fear and and and how to bridge
that gap because I believe there is
a desire by most developers to to
actually make their work accessible.
Matt King: Well, I think
an important part of this.
First of all, is we have to
help people understand there
really isn't that much to fear.
I mean, the the only way we can make
progress in these important initiatives is
just by taking one little step at a time.
And often the first
step is in any project.
The scariest step when you're
stepping into an unknown space.
You don't know what you're doing.
You don't know what kind of
troubles are ahead of you.
And so I think letting
people know that one.
We have some experience to
build on with projects like
what's happening in React Native
So there's a model to follow and you
can learn from that we can help and
support other projects in following
along in the journey and it's going to
be different journey for every project.
But there's going to be a lot of
common lessons and things that we
can learn from all of them that
will elevate the whole industry.
Joe Devon: Thank you.
Now, do you think there's anything
else that we can do like it
really has to be the developer
culture, the maker culture that
That that changes that makes this a
stronger focus, do you, what do you feel
needs to happen or do you have any other
ideas of how to improve the numbers
because 98% inaccessible is just it's
just a horrifying number and it got worse,
not by much because there isn't much room
to get worse, but you know what I mean.
Matt King: Yeah, I mean, you can.
I mean we should cry, but
sometimes you just gotta be honest.
It's so awful at times.
That is ridiculous.
I think we're gonna check a lot
of our assumptions at the door.
So I have this feeling that a
lot of people think Accessibility
is solved in the sense that
we really know how to do it.
And there is a big difference
between knowing how to make an image
accessible by putting Alt text on it.
That's great.
Do that for one image.
Now do it through a trillion images like
there's a difference between knowing
how to do it and then knowing how to
make something work at scale in large
companies across entire industries and
people also assume that just because we
have technologies like screen readers
and screen magnifier, and all kinds of
other assistive technologies like that
we know you know how to make things
accessible to people who are blind.
This is just simply not the case.
Like, fundamentally, I still see
Accessibility in a lot of ways, as
is super complicated for engineers is
super complicated for end users is super
complicated for everybody still and
this is where number one, starting with
awareness, we had to get not thousands
not 10s of thousands not hundreds of
thousands, but millions of people thinking
about how to solve these problems.
The only way it became feasible to
create software on the web is because
hundreds of thousands of developers
started doing things like building react
and all the other toolkits that are
out there that speed up development.
We have to do that same kind
of work in the accessibility
space starts with awareness.
Number one, commitment, number two.
And then, you know, kind of just
broad based support like deep levels
of support across organizations.
And so we just need to
keep building the up.
Keep checking our assumptions at the
door and keep our eyes on the goal.
Joe Devon: Yeah, I love how you're saying
that because we're reaching apparently
195 million users on on the hashtag
and somebody is going to have an idea
that's gonna that's going to change
somebody's going to take an action.
And one of the biggest lessons
I've learned from GAAD, is that
if you attach vision to community.
You can affect change.
I wrote a blog post on my SQL talk .com
Which had maybe 10 users and
today we're reaching about 200
million users for just an idea.
So let's not let's not be fatalistic
and say, well, what can we do to
approach the developers that are
are basically that are leading the
industry that that people learn from
and start to change the culture.
Let's, let's be positive about it.
Let's give everybody a chance to improve
things but you are the change, whoever
can hear what I'm saying, You are
the change, think about this problem.
Look at that report and and think
about how can we solve this and so now,
without, I would like to invite all of the
presenters to turn their cameras and and
come back on and we're going to do some Q
A and I want to get to as many questions
as possible so if we can kind of keep the
answer brief and whoever has the answer.
Go for it.
And let's keep it brief.
So Jamison and Sharon and
Jared, please come back in.
And the first question is from Melissa,
Del Rio, what kind of tools are out
there for testing if our website is
fully accessible are there Google
Chrome extensions for this or something.
Jared Smith: And take a
stab at that one because I
Joe Devon: Thought so
Jared Smith: A little self promotional,
we do have the Wave that's W A V
E accessibility tool that's one
of many tools that are out there.
We have an online version
of Chrome extension.
Axe there's a lot of tools out there.
The I do want to address one part
of the question, and that is that
no tool can tell you if you're a
web page or website is accessible.
It can identify accessibility or
compliance issues manual testing you know,
functional testing is always going to be
necessary, but we have good accessibility
guidelines that that can help inform
and drive that type of testing.
Joe Devon: Thanks, Jared.
Next up from Kristin Chasm Mackey
hope I pronounced that correctly.
Love the GAAD action day idea
as a UX researcher and designer.
I can have influence with within
a web development teams our
community could be well I lost it.
There are community, whereas could
be a good place to do more outreach.
I'm looking to get more training to
be able to communicate human user
customer accessibility needs and connect
with others who have the same desire.
So I guess this is a training question.
Sharron Rush: Well, I can
take a stab at that one.
We just finished four days of AccessU,
which is our annual conference to provide
training across all kinds of roles.
And we have regular webinars
every month we do quite a bit
of training here at nobility.
And in fact, that's kind of how we
started was as a community training and
awareness organization so that said,
there are also online DQ University has
a number of courses I double AP also is a
great place to find training and WebAIM.
Webaim website is is a great place to
start with a lot of free resources as well
as The Web Accessibility Initiative at
the W3C see they have a course that they
just released a video course that's just
really terrific and it's completely free.
Joe Devon: Thank you.
Next up, Christopher Dobson.
Has there been recommendations
for authoring OER content.
OER comments, open author, merlo
content builder, press books.
I have no idea what all this
means, but I'm sure one of you do.
Or maybe you don't.
All right.
There, there are no recommendations.
I know, I'm sorry, Chris.
Brian Sletten.
Do you see, good to see
your, your face here.
So do you see the potential for extended
or periodic schooling from home in the
pandemic putting pressure on the tool
developers to improve accessibility.
Sharron Rush: I would
hope that that's the case.
I mean, the whole thing about school
about schools was that directed to Brian
Joe Devon: Know, Brian is the
question or he's a World class
speaker, but I would like you.
Sharron Rush: Yes.
And I do, I do think that the the
the Covid crisis has really brought
a lot of attention to this problem
because kids with disabilities
when they're in the classroom, they
have more support than they do at home.
And so the fact that we're so
reliant now on the on the web
and the digital tools has brought
that to to a greater awareness.
But again, there's a difference
between awareness and action.
So I'm taking that away.
We've got to make that
into a plan of action.
Jared Smith: I would say that.
Also, many of the frustrations that
many of us, especially our kids
have experienced in transitioning
to a digital environment.
Are the types of frustrations that those
with disabilities experience every day.
And so I hope it's bringing more
light to this, what we need to do
is, it's more pressure on those
vendors to to change improve
Joe Devon: Thank you Chadwick
Turner VR guy asks, Sharon, Joe.
Are you aware of XR experiences that
can help teachers and or legislators
And or tech executives understand
what an inaccessible world is like,
I guess it's open to everyone.
Matt might want to take that one.
Matt King: Yeah, um, I have heard
of some people working in the space.
There's a lot of work going on in an
organization called XR access on the
Facebook and the Oculus team are are
part of In terms of, you know, what's
immediately available right now.
I am not on that up for
this specific use case.
But I believe if you just go to XR access.
I think I'm pretty sure sector
access.org that you, you can find
the resource or for that matter.
Follow up with me directly afterwards.
Jennison Asuncion: There's also a meeting.
There's also a Meetup group recently
started by Thomas Logan who's now out in
Tokyo, you might want to tweet @TechThomas
to ask him the question because he's also
he's also involved with the XR access
but he's just another resource, but
there is this a11y VR meetup group that's
sup up that might be useful as well.
Sharron Rush: I would also really
highly recommend our keynote, one of
our keynotes at access to this year
was Jamie Knight from the BBC and the
research that he's done and the VR
experimentation that they've done.
There is also really fascinating.
So I would look up Jamie Knight
and at the BBC and look into the
work that he's doing because it's
it's exciting and fascinating.
Joe Devon: Thank you Sharon.
Somebody asked about the web.
Sorry about the the SOAR report.
That the was asking about the statistics
there that that it only went from 2015 but
what we've got here is I think you were
probably looking at the old school report.
The actual numbers are.
It went all the way up to 2258 lawsuits
and 2018 and 2019 at went down a little
bit by two to 2256 website lawsuits
but 2020 look very different because
a lot of people are affected by Covid
So the last question that we have time
to take is and we're probably too late
already linked to Sharon's report so
Sharon's report was actually part of the
entire state of accessibility report.
And that will be available at
diamond.la/soar S O A R and I think we
have a slide that mentions it as well.
So thank you to the
panelists for joining us.
It was really an honor to
have you share your insights.
Now let's go up one and I'm going to
try and get through the next section.
So for me, GAAD is really about
my father, his inability to bank
independently led to the creation of GAAD.
My dad survived Auschwitz and Dachau
and and saw the first GAAD but
did not survive to the second one.
His very last wish as he was
dying of cancer was to make
sure we took care of our mom.
Who suffer from dementia.
I can proudly say my brother and
I gave every last drop to honor
that wish and on the eve of Global
Accessibility Awareness Day, yesterday,
we needed to put my mom on hospice
Accessibility is personal.
It's personal for me and it's personal
for billions, and sooner or later it
will hit everyone please learn about
accessibility for your future self for
your loved ones and for your fellow human.
I love you mom and happy Global
Accessibility Awareness Day to everyone.
Thanks.
