Taking the initiative to build accessible and inclusive digital products and experiences has never been more important. In this panel discussion, we hear from industry experts on the importance and impact of building a design system that bakes accessibility into the foundations of the design and code you build with. Join Cintia Romero, Homer Gaines, Josh Mabry, and Richard Banfield for practical and strategic insights to help guide and inspire you.
Key topics:
- The current state and importance of accessibility
- The role of design systems in accessibility
- The need for organizational and self-guided education
- Best practices and resources
Speakers
Additional Resources
Article | Making A Strong Case For Accessibility
Article | A Designer’s Accessibility Advocacy Toolkit
Online Course | W3Cx: Introduction to Web Accessibility
Article | Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2
Transcript
Richard Banfield:
Today’s webinar is about crafting accessible experiences with design systems. So if you not here for that, maybe join one of the other ones. But if you're here for that, then you're in the right place.åç
We have a pretty incredible group of people joining us today, Santia Romeo, from Pinterest, Homer Gaines from Co. Forma and Josh. Maybe from here at knapsack. We're all going to be talking about the careful art of making things that everybody can see, even if it means those folks who are just temporarily inaccessible, or in, or incapable of seeing it. We're going to talk about that as well
Richard Banfield:
Upcoming events this month. We don't know. No sorry next month. I'm already in April. I'm I'm like time traveling
in April, April 24th in Chicago. We're having another patents event. This is an event where we get the practitioners, the leaders, the folks wåho are actually making the things, together with some of the industry experts to talk about the art of digital production, what it means to make things in a digital world. We've also got a New York event coming up. We do New York, probably most frequently as a city and also San Francisco. So watch this space and keep checking back at knapsack.cloud/events to find out if we're going to be in your neighborhood.
Let's see oops Q&A. We don't need to go. Q. And a. We jumped ahead there.
So why don't we get started? I want both Homer and Cynthia and Josh to introduce themselves. Maybe you guys can give us just like the the 2 second pitch on what it is that you guys do? Why, we've invited you here. Why, and what this conversation is going to be about. Cynthia. Let's start with you.
Cintia Romero:
Oh, thank you. Hello, everyone. My name is Cynthia Romero. She and her I work as a senior product designer, currently like at Pinterest. And I have been doing a lot of design systems work and also accessibility.
I also have an accessibility certification. So I'm passionate about accessibility. I'm always trying to to learn more in that field. We are always learning.
And yeah, so I'm from Brazil, and I have been living here on the Us. For over a decade now so nice to meet you all
Richard Banfield:
Awesome. Homer. How about you next
Homer Gaines:
Hey, everyone my name is Homer Gaines, and I am a accessibility specialist and front end engineer. Been in this field now in the accessibility field. Now, since 2,001, and just really enjoy working with different teams of different companies, helping them improve their applications so that they're accessible to people with disabilities.
During that time I've also led a few design system teams and help them. Craft, you know, uniform experiences. you know, through those systems so happy to be here, as well
Richard Banfield:
And Homer, you were at one of our most recent events in Atlanta. So we got to actually see you face to face, and hear some of the brilliant right out of the horse's mouth, so to speak.
Homer Gaines:
Yes, sir. Appreciate it.
Richard Banfield:
Josh, you're on our team on our knapsack team. Introduce yourself and tell us what you do here.
Josh Mabry:
Yeah, hey, everyone. I'm Josh Mabry. I'm a software engineer here at knapsack. I'm generally a full stack engineer, but I've spent a lot of my career working in design systems, building out component libraries and advocating for accessibility. So yeah, I'm really excited to join everyone today and have this conversation. It's a it's an important topic
Richard Banfield:
Right. I put it in the chat. But I'll remind everybody if you've got a question. This Zoom Webinar allows you to go directly into the Q&A feature right down at the bottom there. Just hit that Q&A button. Ask your question, and we'll filter through them as we go
You can also just use the chat if you wanna follow along and and chat with us. And then Kim, who is kind of the the brains behind the operation here. She's gonna drop in our linkedin profile. So if you guys need to follow up with any of us, or you wanna talk to us privately, please do that, I'm sure.
Homer and Cynthia, you guys are quite comfortable having your Linkedin profile shared. I should check before asking you actually check those
Homer Gaines:
Yeah, no problem at all.
Richard Banfield:
Okay, cool. Excellent. Thank you so much.
So why don't we start with a kind of big picture here I've got. I've got some specific questions. But Homer and and Cynthia, why don't you just tell us a little bit about the state of accessibility like, where are we? As a a group of designers and engineers and developers like, where are we in this thing? Because it feels a little bit like in the macro conversation that accessibility might go the same way that DEI has gone in terms of like, you know, just like it's people's feelings towards it like it's importance. But this seems like way more important than just like you know. A general conversation. This feels like a very specific conversation to the value of organizations and the value of products.
Homer, I know you want to start on this. This is like, I just, I just pulled right there.
Homer Gaines:
Yeah. Oh, great! I'm freezing up Current state of it. It seems like it's in a panic, obviously, for obvious reasons. But me, personally, I'm not trying to panic about it, even though I see a lot of chaos in this space and uncertainty. And the reason being is that accessibility is not just the focus here, domestically. it's not just the one concern that involves one particular state, company, country, or anything like that. This is a global thing.
People are all over the world. Technology is all over the world. There are companies who do business internationally. There are people all over the world with disabilities, whether those disabilities have been disclosed, or whether they have been kept private Whether those disabilities start with a lowercase d or a capital D. Doesn't matter. Even age will determine if someone has a disability or not. So as things are in flux.
Homer Gaines:
the one thing that remains constant is is the fact that humans still need to be able to access the tools to be able to entertain themselves. Shop live, you know, we're not getting rid of us anytime soon, I would hope So, taking the eye off of, Oh, my gosh! It's DEI and all of that We still need to make sure that people can access our tools to be able to do what they need to do. And if people can't use our tools.
Then, if you know what, let's just throw the money side out there. I hate leading with that. But let's throw it out there. People can't access your tools. You don't make money, you don't make money. Your company shuts down. You know. There are times where we want to lean in and appeal to someone's humanity and appeal to their empathetic side.
But a lot of times. People just don't lean into that. They don't think about that. So it's like, All right, cool. This is the reality of it. If your product, if people can't use your product, your product could cease to exist, or your product may not have the same type of market share as one that is accessible. You know. So I wouldn't say. What we need to start doing is thinking that accessibility is a global issue, not a localized domestic one, because this world is so much bigger than the ecosystems that we currently work in. And that's what we need to be concerned about. You know, it's like, we see that programs are disappearing. We see things are are going away. But we also see that there are countries and governments and companies that still value it and still recognize that it's an important part of their ethos, the way that they work, the way that they conduct themselves, and the way that they view the citizens of their country, or even this their demographics in general takes a point.
European Union. They recognize that having accessibility built in will benefit everyone from a socioeconomical perspective. You know, we do business there. We're no longer just siloed. Right? So getting out of that mindset, getting out of that siloed mindset helps you to look forward and still understand that this need. It's definitely necessary
Richard Banfield:
Yeah, Cynthia, let's hear what all Josh looks like. Josh, you you would quicker
Josh Mabry:
Oh, I definitely want to hear what Cynthia has to say, just to add to what Homer was saying. You know we every year we become more dependent on technology, too. Right? Like, it's just more of a core like fabric of our core, right? Like, it's just how we do everything. So it's just it's more important than ever to stay vigilant on this as as these new technology.
You know, these interface paradigms come, come into play. Whether it's through AI or just whatever new thing that we don't know about yet coming next. Right? It's just so. It's a. It's a constant battle. So it's definitely not going anywhere away anytime soon. But yeah, I'd love to hear what you have to say, Cynthia.
Cintia Romero:
Yeah, plus one what Josh and Homer said. But I also feel like even that. It feels that it's a macro conversation. Actually, I have noticed a lot of progress on accessibility conversations. When I started working with accessibility, I would say, like, eight years ago, like I didn't see a lot of thoughts on accessibility, like across design systems design in general. It was like being part of the conversation, and today I feel so happy when I go like check an event like knife event into the design systems, event like conference and figma. And I see the accessibility topic coming. It gives me like a very excitement to see that.
And also like, I would say, when you think about technology and social media like, it's a work that people some how you can feel isolated being behind the screen, and accessibility being this inclusiveness thought that it's not about a single person like your experience alone on the social media. But it brings people together like when you think on diversity, and even that we have the politics going on with Gi and things like that. It also brings awareness, because people there is speaking up
So I think we have the power to speak up and to make the difference, and I see that happen too. I know it. It's a little bit bad to see what it's going on like with the world right now, but it still like it gives opportunity to people to speak up and to be recognized on the accessibility sense o: and to reinforce about the technology. When you see, like AI, and we see like VR, and we see a bunch of other new technology emerging. We can see how it's bringing that accessibility sense, how it's including more people to the experience.
And we can see accessibility as innovation, too. We see a bunch of companies doing AI work for accessibility to increase accessibility on the website. And this is amazing. I think the technology it's bringing, like some innovation and some very good highlight for accessibility as well
Richard Banfield:
Yeah. And you know, to the points of why we're here convened here today, which is our accessibility and design systems work together. I think some of the things that you've mentioned, some of that individual experience, but also the the larger experiences. We, we kind of made our own bed in the sense that one of the problems with the initial way that we built and designed digital products is that a lot of this was done kind of hand rolled right. Were you doing a lot of work again and again in the canvas where we were trying to be creative, quote unquote right? We were trying to say, Hey, look, we want to be creative. We want to give the work. It's it's due.
But at the same time, every time an individual participates in a larger organizational product structure. They're also inputting their own biases, their own preferences, their own ideas into that. So talk to me about how design systems can help us see the bigger picture. How you know to Kimberly's stats here. We've got people with disabilities with about 1.9 trillion. That's about 2 trillion in annual disposal income. That's a lot of people with a lot of opportunity to touch your product. How are we avoiding the individual inputs that are creating those potential, you know, disruptive outputs and and disruptive. I mean, in the sense of a bad experience or a poor experience.
Cintia Romero:
Yeah, I can't start on that
I think, like when you think on design systems, I believe everybody thinks about the word foundations right? It's the base of everything. If we build a design system that cares about accessibility. For example, there are many ways that we can use the design system to break the barriers and to help like everybody like, if we think about tokens design tokens. Really, considering the spacing when we're thinking about adding design tokens for spacing, are we think about tap areas target areas. How can I make sure that this is accessible? And it's gonna spread across the product?
We are thinking about colors like, it's not only like passing the contrast, but really think about the combinations. What are like the color pairings that we can create online tokens that can help to spread the word and like to make sure that all the surveys are like matching some accessibility guidelines.
Cintia Romero:
Also one thing that it's part of the design systems, but also can help advocating for accessibility. It's content guidelines. How inclusive are we being on the our content guideline message that we wanted to to include on the systems. It's not only on accessibility, but also like thinking about inclusive design.
For example, like this example, it's so cliche, in a sense, but an example, I'm from Brazil. I had a huge last name, and every time I wanted to fill up a form like to travel, my last name wouldn't fit on the form, and I would get an error message. And the system didn't know how to handle error message because I couldn't change my name, and I needed to go to the Assistance like the customer service, to just be able to print a ticket because my name didn't fit on that form. And it has been so bad to me. Because I'm like, Okay, am I like an alien ? Like, why I'm treated so different? like everybody else can fly, and I can't because of my last name, and I felt terrible.
But then, like we as systems designers like, I am a design systems person. I can't think about that when I'm creating a component or an assistant. Okay, how do we handle like last names? And how do we handle error message in a way that people. They don't get stuck to it. And how can I be innovative from the design systems, like. as Microsoft say, like so for extend to me, how can I do that from the perspective of design systems?
Cintia Romero:
I think, like we can do a lot. Especially being part of the design systems, because we have the power to create this consistence. And if we build and we embed accessibility from like the beginning on the process of the component, like talking to engineers, making sure that people know how to use our components like thinking about documentation, like, the design system itself, could be like a shampoo way, you know, like to devote for accessibility. If we have that on the documentation we have guidelines, we have resource to help folks to learn more about accessibility. We are like creating a very good toolkit for people to learn more about accessibility outside of the design system.
This is what I think like from my perspective of design. Like, I think we have a lot of power, and we need to know how to better use that power
Richard Banfield:
Right on. Josh.
Josh Mabry:
Yeah, you know the the reason I've always, right, kind of fell in love with design systems and component based architectures is, you know you kind of think of them as these Lego pieces right? To build up these larger structures. And you know, that's where we can tie in accessibility.
There is, as long as each of those pieces are accessible and kind of building those together, you know, you basically don't leave any room for non-accessible. You know, construction or behaviors. Obviously more complex interactions and things require some additional forethought. But the whole basis of design systems around those, those modular pieces. Really, kind of sets up the framework for more accessible applications. As long as you're focused on, you know, incorporating the accessible practices at each stage. Tthis goes all the way to the top from just getting buy in from stakeholders, right? Down to the software engineer implementing these pieces.
So yeah, that's kind of how I see design systems enabling accessible interfaces. Just by that modularity.
Richard Banfield:
Josh, where does somebody start? So we got, you know, almost 100 people on this call. Some of them are gonna be at that early stage of the process. Others are going to be a little bit further down. Where would somebody start by bringing a design system and accessibility into the same conversation?
Josh Mabry:
You know. Well, like, I said at the beginning, it's really about getting the stakeholders, whoever is, you know. Whoever's giving you the money to build this thing, right? That's kind of step one, because if people don't want to pay for it, it's kind of hard to find the time for it, because it does take some some time and and planning so obviously, yeah, they're they're right at the top, you know, making sure that everybody is kind of on board building a culture of accessibility, right?
You don't want just a few advocates within your team, just having everybody on that same page is really important. And then, obviously, like down to the design. Making sure designers are familiar with best practices. Making sure you have any kind of tooling you can.
I know Figma has some plugins and such for, you know, checking accessibility.
Josh Mabry:
To that point, though, obviously automated testing, it only gets you so far gets low hanging fruit. It's very important to get user feedback. So I guess that's the next step, you know, if you can, if you have the capacity, try to find some people with you know, varied abilities to help test and help give you feedback in the early stages is really, really crucial.
But again, this kind of all goes back just kind of building that culture of accessibility, and making sure that you know everybody's on board to kind of have this all trickle down and just embed itself in your system and and your team
Richard Banfield: Homer! Any tricks to get the people that are writing the checks to giving you money, as Josh says? Get them to be more sensitive to these things, because I mean, I know, you know, just a couple of weeks ago I had a horrible eye infection, and I had a temporary disability. Right. So I was unable to do this thing which we do every single day, which is, look at a screen and make things happen. How do we get that kind of sensitivity surfaced for the decision makers when many of them are able. Many of them don't have to think about this stuff
Homer Gaines:
Yeah, that's when empathy sessions come into play.
And, you know, for the sake of not making you feel like it's cosplay. You really don't want it to come off as that like. Oh, I am pretending to be someone who is blind, or someone who is deaf, or someone with low vision.
The ways that I like to build that empathy to get. You know, the stakeholders attention, or even leadership's attention, is that I ask them to use their product without a mouse. Because now, what I've done is that I've taken the focus off of what disability should we pay attention to? No longer are they asking, Well, how many blind users do we have? How many screen reader users do we have?
We're focused on you. It is now about your experience. Can you get through the login process without using a mouse? And in many times they couldn't even get off the login page right there.
That's why it matters. That's why accessibility matters. And then I explained to them the curb cut theory about how curb cuts benefit everyone, not just people with disabilities, especially motor disabilities. But I explain how when you build technology correctly and when we're talking about design systems as you build these components correctly, you know, garbage in garbage out. If you build the component incorrectly, you're going to proliferate that those errors all throughout your application, therefore, causing the same issues throughout your application. But if you build it correctly from the start, that becomes a non issue.
Homer Gaines:
Now, granted, you do have to do the constant gardening where you're paying attention to how these components are being used over time, how they evolve, because, as we continue to build our applications, yes, things do evolve. So you still want to have the checks and balances in there, but when I can make it a personal experience for them to show them the different types of friction points just for doing basic functionality with inside their apps
That's usually the eye opener for them. Because if you bring it to leadership in a way that doesn't bother them, or I don't have that issue. So therefore why should I be concerned about it? You know, I hear that often when I'm speaking at conferences. There's always someone that comes up to me, and it's even I hear it so much. It's even a slide in one of my talks. People with disabilities. Don't use our applications.
That's a lie, because what you are picturing is someone with a physical disability. You're not thinking about someone with cognitive disabilities, and what the range of that even looks like
Right, and then even then,when we mention someone with a disability, that person usually thinks on the far extreme side. It's never the minimum side of that. But still, case in point. You had issues with your eyes. You are not blind. Now see the scale there?
Homer Gaines:
You still had problems, you still had low vision. There was still something wrong with your vision that could not be corrected by using glasses or anything like that which impacted the way that you use technology, just because, you know, you had an injury to your eye does not mean that you stopped or forgot how to use technology
You still need to be able to get through your day to day. So by bringing those stories forward and by putting those people in the hot seat, making them understand what it's like to actually, you know, have to deal with a keyboard, because not everybody is a mouse user. That has been successful for me to get them to understand. Okay, maybe we do need to invest in, you know, accessibility.
And then also including this in the design systems that either already exist or what we're currently building out
Richard Banfield:
Yeah, how do we? How do we bring this back to the design system creation process? So getting those stakeholders check writers chooses to go through these sessions. And Homer, I know you've got a a lot more information and articles on this particular type topic. So,please look up Homer’s enormous range of awesomeness there.
Some of the things that you revealed to us in the last time when we saw you in Atlanta was actually seeing the the accessibility tool testing tools in the browser alongside the design system.Talk to us a little bit about these tactical ways that we can both reveal to ourselves and to the people in the process just what kind of level of accessibility we're dealing with right in the browser, like literally opening up, saying, Look at what you're seeing. Well, this is not what somebody else is seeing. How can how can we reveal that?
Homer Gaines:
Yeah. So like Josh mentioned, we have automated testing. There are various plugins that you can use. That are browser based. Plug them in, open up your website. Hit, scan.
What that's gonna do is give you an initial pass of the accessibility support for your product, your application, your website, even if it's a portfolio site, you don't even have to be a company. You can just be an individual artist that's out there that's trying to sell your artwork. Well, you still want that to be accessible, right?
Or you're trying to show off your portfolio because you're a designer trying to get a job.
You still want that to be accessible because you don't know if the hiring manager has a disability or might be a power user. So that, doesn't. It doesn't just apply to businesses.
But there are those plugins. So you have waves. You have acts from Dq that you can use to do this quick, automated testing
But my go to which will reveal a lot about an application, is the tab key
Homer Gaines:
Just the tab key pressing. That will tell me a lot about how your application is built. Because, as I hit that tab key, if I can't find my way around your application. I know that the designers didn't think about focus states or focus rings focus indicators. I know that the engineers didn't think about using semantic markup, which natively receives focus. So now I have to hunt for where I might be.
So now, because I know those 2. That's what will allow me to start to inspect the code in the browser and look at the Dom to see what is actually being, you know, rendered. And then I can tell you exactly what is wrong, just by inspecting the Dom and what I'm expecting it to happen.
The other thing is using screen readers. You know, we have screen readers for every platform, even if you're a Linux user, Orca. Orca runs on Linux boxes. But if you windows. Narrator is built in. You have jaws, you have Nvda. If you are on Mac, Voiceover, it's all built in. If you're on Android. Android has talk back. If you're on IOS devices, it also has voiceover. We have screen readers at the ready for us. We can fire up a browser obviously and read our content that way. We can have the content spit out to us, read back to us, and we can also see where it actually breaks.
You know I was, I was testing some content a couple of days ago. And you know, there's kind of the discussion of, do we do web components versus components based on the technology stack that you're working with. And there's some limitations from an accessibility perspective with web components that should be taken into consideration when adding them to a design system. Because, for instance, Android was skipping over web components completely. It was reading back everything else just fine. The top act was like, I don't know what this is because it couldn't get into the shadow dome. So there are those problems there. But these are things that can be revealed to us in the browser without having to invest a whole lot into technology, just to be able to understand what we're looking at, or what we're experiencing.
So browser plugins to help with the automated. Then keyboard will show you really what's happening.
Richard Banfield:
It's like a gateway
Cintia. I know you can't tell us the deep, dark secrets of what's going on at pinterest. But tell us a little bit about how practically this is going to play out for a team. Who's responsible? You know, you often think of accessibility as a bolt on it can't be right. So like, how do we make sure that the team is doing what Homer is suggesting, which is changing the nature and the culture of how we work so that we're not just bolting it on at the end, like QA.
Cintia Romero:
Sure. So one thing that I always like to reinforce accessibility. It's everyone's job. That is, not one person who should be responsible for accessibility. It should be like a team effort. And it sounds contract like kind of a little bit odd, because I am an accessibility specialist. But I would say. You don't need to be an accessibility specialist to know accessibility.
Homer said. A very good point about the resources available. They are free. It's there like. There are so many plugins. There are so many tools you can go to figma and find, like figma, community files like plugins and things that you can use. It's available for anybody who wants to learn about accessibility and for design systems. I think, like, the empathy that Homer mentioned, it's a very good way to show people to get involved with on design systems.
For example, when you go through what are like the core functions of the product. You probably have CTAs, form fields, check boxes, and models popovers. There are so many components that are core to how a product functions. And if we can get people like, Hey, let's go through the screen reader, together. Let's test how it looks like on a screen reader, you're going to be very surprised. People. They're going to be shocked and they're going to be embarrassed like, Hey, I have no idea that it was so bad, and sometimes they don't realize, like testing, like playing with the tools helps you to get a sense.
But also, if you have the opportunity. I know that not everybody has the opportunity to do research, but testing your components, your design system with people with disabilities. It helps a lot because even that we know how to use the tools that we learn how to navigate through a screen. Reader, we are not regular users, like on the day to day, so we may not perceive nuances that they will perceive, like the users will perceive.
And it's not only screen readers like there are so many things like bar navigation, how people navigate with voice and like such small details on design systems, they make a huge difference, like one label that, you forget to add could destroy a whole experience for a user. So how? How are you addressing that? It seems so simple?
Sometimes, like we, we hear people saying conference and then on events, or even like, when you're shying with a colleague from the field, like, oh, but this is just like a small detail. It's not going to make any difference. You were saying that. But you are just you. You don't know about everybody else, and I think it's very important to think when we're designing like, think on accessibility. Since the start of the process. It's very important. Because when we talk about disability, I think you mentioned that research about your eye issue that you have. It's not like a permanent disability. It can be like anybody. I'm getting older, and I'm having more difficulty, like I need to resolve
Richard Banfield:
Hoping you wouldn't notice that I'm getting older.
Cintia Romero:
One thing that I do a lot like when I do presentations. I do a slide with a very tiny font size. And I can't see that. And I am like, Okay, I'm gonna make a point here. You're just not seeing that now. And I'm zooming out. But imagine screen magnification. I would need to do that all the time, you know, like you can do some tricks just to show people how it is.
And one thing that is very important. Also, I think it's more like not design systems only, but any company in general can. I think more when we go through like the recruiting process? Are we bringing more people with disabilities? Are we really considering diversity on the workforce? Because I think it helps us to learn a lot, and having more people to advocate as well helps you to improve accessibility in the product.
I don't mention that a lot. I'm colorblind and I like to use colors. And people are like, Oh, why are you using colors? If you don't see what they are? I'm like, why shouldn't I like use colors like it's the same thing, you know, like, it doesn't mean that if a person is blind they can't see a website. There are alternative ways that you can leverage them. So there are so many ways. And I think, like, when you share your personal side of the story, like talking a little about your experience and getting to know other people with disabilities. It could be permanent or temporary. It helps you to improve your product, because even I haven't think on that topic before.
Cintia Romero:
And I think, like, for design systems, the way that we can help the teammates to think about accessibility. It's providing tools and resources like checklists as much as you can help. If we're passionate about accessibility like, hey? Let me tell you what I know, like you can learn as well.
You don't need to be on a specialist. You can learn here for free I am a very firmly believer of education. I think education is a very important tool that we should have in any field, not only accessibility and I believe, like, if you can provide training workshops or like, make yourself available. Like, hey, do you want to learn about accessibility? Let's chat one-on-one, and then I can share what I know, like sharing. It's a very like a powerful tool that we have
Richard Banfield:
I love that.
One of the things that we should probably mention is the cost of not doing this work that we're describing. We recently were talking to a fortune, say fortune, 10 company. A very large company, and they are currently fending off several very large, very expensive multi-million dollar lawsuits specifically around accessibility.
I think there's a very knee jerk reaction to something like accessibility, which is like, how much is it gonna cost us? How much is it gonna delay the launch or the shipping of a particular feature or product? But yet there is a very real cost to not doing it.
So, Josh, maybe you can talk a little bit about how proactively designed systems help us not only understand what the particular problems might be, but actually deal with them upfront before we have to, you know, get to a point where we're in a courtroom.
Josh Mabry:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, it's it's it's pretty clear that it does, you know, tend to cost a lot more money to retroactively. You know. Get your app. Accessible. Obviously, that's gonna depend on how severe the violations are. Right. Maybe just color contrast. You just need it change a few token colors, or whatever, but it could be much more integrated into your system.
Perhaps you brought in a library they depend on, for you know, a main feature in your application. Well, turns out that library had no considerations for accessibility. So now, either a you find a new library that has that, or you spin up your own, or patch it, or whatever right? That's just it starts to become a bit of a can of worms.
But one important thing to remember in all this is that you don't have to start from scratch right? There are obviously tons of resources out to to learn about these things. But then, on top of that, there are, you know, component libraries and systems that are already kind of built with these accessible pieces in mind. So using those, extending those, or you know, however, you need to incorporate them into your system is definitely can be a good way to start
Josh Mabry:
But obviously, you know, it's it's the the education piece, as Cynthia mentioned, is really important in all of this, because you don't know what you don't know right? And so until you start getting out and learning about these these different kinds of violations. Different kinds of you, users that might be leveraging the system.
You know. We've talked about permanent disabilities. There's also, you know, temporary disability. So you broke your arm or just situational disabilities. You know you're holding a child right in one of your arms, these kinds of situations. But yeah, like I said, just breaking out and begin getting that education early on and reaching for tools that have already solved these problems, right?
Richard Banfield:
We’re deep into this. Right? We're, you know, 30 years into digital likes. But something Cynthia and Homer said, this is everybody's job and the tools are free. And it's really right there at our fingertips.
I'm going to go to the questions. We've got a question in the Q&A from Alexis. How can designers and content strategists collaborate to create more accessible design systems? Cynthia, I know you were just kind of at the beginning of this conversation, mentioning how content strategy affects the way that we lead design or go into these accessibility conversations, can you talk to the idea behind? How do we collaborate? What may be some practical tips for the audience that they can go and do that like this week, like what are the practical things that we can do day to day.
Cintia Romero:
Sure. So I think if we could have a content designer or any team, I highly suggest that. But if we can't, we can always reach out to content designer friends for help. On design systems, especially like, if you're creating a banner and you need to think about the language, about localization and how you wanted to pass that message, like, having a content designer reviewing your work. It's gonna set it for the success.
And we also need to think about cognitive disabilities like, how are we writing the message? Is that like clear enough, like the alignment? Is that complex for people in just lecture like, how how do we prevent creating troubles? Like, content should be to help. This isn't to help people not to create a barrier.
So, having somebody, like, with content expertise looking at your content, thinking about the principles that you wanted to share on that component. It's very helpful.
I see, like localization. It's something that comes a lot in the design systems team, because like, Oh, I don't want this line to wrap into lines, but it's in German. And if it's too big, what are all the type of words that you can use that you’ll universally recognize? How can we think on that together?
Cintia Romero:
Also, like thinking about your audience like content plays a very important role to. If we're talking to a global audience and you have different types of audience, different types of age. Well, how is your language? It's gonna speak to that person?
I can give myself, again, as an example.
When I moved to the Us. I didn't speak English, so I had the amazing idea to start my life in a different country without knowing the language. Cool! It gave me a challenge. And on the beginning I started a lot, like, reading materials because the words were too complex and they could make it simpler. And today, as a designer. I think I can make it simpler. And I think, like engaging with content folks and reaching out to people. If you don't have a content designer in your team try to reach out to them. And people, usually they appreciate when you reach out to them like, Hey, I'm working a project. I wanted to make it more inclusive. I wanted to make it accessible. I need to think about the labels. I wanted to make sure my labels. They make sense, and they read on the screen. Reader, people, they they usually they are very good on answering that question for you, and they are like happy to help
Richard Banfield:
Yeah, I think that's a really important point, Cynthia. So I came. I grew up in South Africa. I came to the States and believe not. I also had to speak. Learn to speak American. I don't know. They speak English, but I don't understand what version of. It took me a long time, but I think what was really surprising to me, and also continues to be something that's elevating is the willingness of other people to help.
Reaching out and just saying, whether it's on Linkedin or some other platform, just saying I need help. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm struggling here. I'm new at this job, or I've been given these tasks. Just asking for help,whether that's in your organization or externally in the broader context of community. I am always shocked and surprised in a, in a good way, how willing people are to help.
Richard Banfield:
And I think that's part of this, you know, this webinar is that. But I think it's just a generally good attitude to have, which is, you don't have to be the expert. You can allow people like yourselves, like Cynthia and Homer and Josh to be the experts and reach out to them and say: I don't know I need help. And whether that's a light casual interaction, or something more professional or engaging in terms of consultative work. I think that's really important. I think we need to get back to that.
Homer, you mentioned silos. Organizations tend to silo, countries tend to silo, individuals tend to silo as well. We think, wow! I'm, I'm in this hole and I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm just gonna keep staying in this hole, or maybe I'll wait till I get that certification or wait to let somebody gives me permission. But really, what we need to do is reach out. And I think that's part of accessibility is not only reaching out so that you can make your work accessible, but make yourself accessible. It feels like that's part of the story as well
Cintia Romero:
Yeah. And one thing I just wanted to add to that. I can't believe I'm gonna say that. But I will like AI helps, too, when you like, know the right prompts, like in asking for articles. I wanted to learn about this topic. Can you point me articles or a course. We're gonna have a lot of results. And you can learn yourself. Like, try to learn. And again, like most of the accessibility resources, they are free. So you can self learn.
And even like tips for content design, you can leverage technology as well like to try to get some tips and how to get started, and it's available, at least the basics that you can use. It's available for you. And I think it's not wrong to leverage from that
Richard Banfield:
Yeah. I just want to remind everybody. We've only got a few minutes left. So if you've got a question for this group, now is the best time to ask it.
Josh and Homer, I'm sure you guys are sitting on your hands desperate to talk about stuff. Is there a topic that we wished that you wished we had brought up. And I'm also thinking about in in terms of what Cynthia just said about AI. Are there trends, new technologies, new things that are happening, that we're seeing influence or change, or even redirect accessibility
Josh Mabry:
You know, I think we covered. I think we covered the basis pretty well. Just as thinking, thinking about like, you know other questions we could have covered. But yeah, around the kind of mention of AI and then, you know, there was kind of mentions around like. VR, you know, mixed rally things like that. yeah, I think it's just, it's important just to stay educated as these technologies evolve. Maybe thinking about how some of our current paradigms or accessibility guidelines can apply to these these medias.
Around AI, and assisting in the work. I think one of the important things to consider there is, you know, if if you are using AI to help build components, or you know, maybe design stuff. Kind of adding the accessibility piece as part of the prompting there. Right? You know, and it's the same with like, delegating work to an engineer or something like that. Unless they're really, you know, the biggest accessibility advocates, unless they've run into these issues many times in the past and had a correct course, they're not necessarily going to think about accessibility as the top confirmation for releasing that ticket. So just you know, yeah, adding that as part of the guidelines for humans and AI right? As you as you move forward.
But yeah, I don't know. It's kind of…a lot of it is, you know, time will tell which of these interfaces are gonna gain traction. Which we're gonna see, you know, in our day to day lives. Who knows? And you know, as it's as it is with web applications and accessibility. You know, things are always changing and moving. So, circling back to Cynthia's point. Just, you know, education is key just staying, staying knowledgeable, and and on top of things
Richard Banfield:
Homer. I've got a question based on something you said earlier. Andre asks that, or he says that he has been using the screen readers, and then he says it's been a little while since he tested out Joe's. But he asks, why isn't there a Google / Chrome Firefox extension that does screen reader, basic functionality? He says, I find this crazy and frustrating.
Homer Gaines:
Why isn't there a Google Chrome that does screen reader like by an extension?
Richard Banfield:
Or Firefox Extension
Homer Gaines:
Because there's already companies building screen readers. So screen readers are complex, you know. Much larger than what, much larger than anything that would be put into the code for an extension because it comes with customization. It also has to support the operating system itself, way more than the browser.
There was a, this was years ago. There was a plugin that tried to do it, and honestly I cannot remember the name of it, but it was only available for Chrome, and it was atrocious. You know it just it missed the mark on so many different levels.
Chromevox. Thank you.So yes, Chromevox. Oh, my gosh, yeah, it was… As as someone who uses screen readers. That thing was annoying to use, so much that I was I. It was a joke to even try to pull it up, you know, and it was because of my frustration with the browser based version of it that I actually found Nvda. So that's my screen reader of choice, I love Nvda, those guys do an amazing job with that. With that software. And Nvda is open source. So donate to them. Shout out to them, they do amazing work.
So but yeah, that's why we don't have the browser based versions. It's just too heavy to run in a browser
Josh Mabry:
Yeah. One of the well, one of the deals, too. Is that all the speech all these technologies work differently too. That was, I ran into doing like auditing and testing, because you have to go through and try to test on these different screen readers. Just cause I don't know I could speak for a while on this there should be a standard. I don't know why there's not, but that's the world we live in. And so yeah, it's it's maybe
Homer Gaines:
Call competitive edge
Homer Gaines:
That's what that is
Richard Banfield:
Capitalism, yeah, late stage
Josh Mabry:
So, yeah.
Richard Banfield:
There's also, sorry I was gonna say, Josh, there's also a question from Mariana here about what books or resources that you would recommend to learn more about accessibility. Seems like she's a researcher and she's looking to broaden her interest in other disciplines. So what do you guys say, you know? But all 3 of you have said education is important. But where are you getting that education? How are you educating yourselves? And how would you recommend somebody go and find ways to to find this information
Homer Gaines:
Let's start with the W3. W3C. Let's start at the WCAG. Let's start there, you know. Check from the source. Yeah. yeah, go directly. I want some water. Oh, look! There's water. Go there. Start with the WCAG. The latest version is out. Web content, accessibility, guidelines, 2.2 It's a riveting rate is really actionable, and everything like that now.
Let's start there because you will find a lot of answers to your questions. And the reason why things are done. In addition to that. There are a lot of user groups that are working to help advance accessibility on all the fronts. For example, there's Koga which focuses on the cognitive aspects of accessibility that aren't necessarily covered in the WCAG itself, but they provide 1st person accounts of how accessibility affects individuals with disabilities, and those use cases. They also provide personas that you could borrow to help leverage and steer. You know your product decisions. So there are all these different user groups. A friend of mine, Todd Libby. He's working with a user group where they are investigating deceptive patterns side usability. Because, yes, accessibility is being able to access and being able to use the application. But it is ultimately a usability issue where we have put those blockers in that prevented somebody from being able to use this. And so they're looking at all these different patterns that can negatively impact the user experience for the sake of trying to trick somebody into accidentally checking on something that they're not supposed to unsubscribe is notorious for that, you know. So start there, start with the W3 and start with the web content, accessibility, guidelines that has been linked in the chat
Richard Banfield:
Yeah. we're drawing to the close of this, and I literally have to go and catch an airplane. So I want to thank all of you, Josh, Cynthia, Homer, for joining us today. I want to also thank the audience for making time today to listen in on this really really important topic. We didn't get to answer all the questions. I apologize for that.
Kimberly, I think we'll probably do this again, right? This has been one of a topic that's come up again and again as a webinar priority for a lot of people. So Homer. They know where to find you, Cynthia. They know where to find you, Josh. They know where to find you. We put your Linkedin profiles in the chat.
If you need to reach out and talk to us directly about design systems, you can either reach out to me or go directly to sales sales@knapsack.cloud.
Thank you all. I really really appreciate your time and your interest and your knowledge, and I hope to see you all again soon.
Josh Mabry:
Perfect. Thank you.
Cintia Romero:
Thank you. Bye.
Homer Gaines:
It's been a pleasure
Richard Banfield:
Bye-bye.
