Transcript
Younus Poonawala: Hi, This is Younus. And today we are on the podcast. For accessibility testers. Today, we have with us Hiral Bhatt. Hiral is a skilled professional, you know. who has.
Younus Poonawala: who is well, worse in the space of digital accessibility and user experience with over a decade of experience as a journalist and a marketer.
Younus Poonawala: Here is an astute designer with love for accessibility with the cpaac and deep understanding of accessibility. Principles here is committed to ensuring digital content is inclusive and user friendly for all individuals regardless of their abilities and accessibility tests. Today she’s going to share with us her experiences. And we are going to understand how she contributes to a digital flexibility. We really thankful we are thankful to you.
And we are grateful for this session, hero, and we are deeply grateful for this time. that. Will, you know. take it from you.
Dhara Pattani: Hi! Here! First of all, let me thank you for your time and consideration for this. And let us start with our questions here. And all
Dhara Pattani: this is the first one for you. So, hero, 10 is about your experience in exitability testing that you can share with us an audience.
Hiral B: okay, Hi, guys, thank you. First of all, for having me on board. accessibility testing. I have been doing this for the last 8 months. And currently, I’ve been testing websites and
Hiral B: web-based chat forums and media players. mobile has not exactly come up at this point because it’s a slow process. So my entire focus has been on making sure the web part for my company is accessible, including our websites. And you been doing that for for for some time now?
Dhara Pattani: Excellent! So you know, would you be able to tell us about the methodologies that and tools that you use while doing your performing your accessibility? Testing on web?
Hiral B: yeah, I actually use the plugins like the axe tool and wave to kind of get an initial head start it allows me to share. I’m I’m not a coder.
So it allows me to share, really pinpoint the issues with my developers, and it gives them a head start as well. because they’re not into accessibility at all. so it gives us a middle ground to talk about it, and I use the plugin called visual aria to also understand the code a little bit better.
Hiral B: And obviously, we do a lot of manual testing, using V over using Mvda and keyboard and did it against the wcag double a compliance for now to make sure it’s setting all those points. and I use the the checklist by Dq. DQUniversity to make sure. On the content side, is accessible as well.
Dhara Pattani: What’s your favorite tool?
Hiral B: Honestly, the voice over it just helps me.
Hiral B: It’s just pretty straightforward. I like acts a lot. Because again it lets me look at the code wave.
Hiral B: It gives you the why. But it doesn’t really help you understand the code. But axe and definitely testing over a voice over really solves most of my problems. A Deep Dive into Digital Accessibility With Laura Gould
Dhara Pattani: We can agree with that. Yes.
Dhara Pattani: yes. you know. Can you also share an example of any challenging situation? In your project that you have faced and then overcame.
Hiral B: in fact, I’m working with a very challenging problem right now, which we are struggling to find a solution to. we have a platform which is based off of another third party live chat feature.
Hiral B: And whatever was coded from our end, we’re definitely able to make that accessible. But whatever was built from the chat platform that has been very difficult to make it compliant to wcad and to find alternatives in the market. you know, that have their Apis out, that we can build our software on, on our websites, on and having them accessible is very hard.
Hiral B: they don’t allow you to customize as such. of course, if we were building our custom solution it was easy. But then we are also on a on a time, constraint on a budget constraint. So my company is finding it very difficult to find a little turnaround at that time, because not everybody is
Hiral B: on board with the whole accessibility feature. So even simple ui changes like even changing the contrast
Hiral B: isn’t possible. If you’re using a third party to it. So that has been a struggle for us.
Dhara Pattani: Yeah, that is pretty understandable. Yes.
Dhara Pattani: And here, how do you stay? Updated?
Or with the latest accessibility standards and guidelines. Is there any?
Dhara Pattani: a, I mean, are you following any website? What do you do to stay updated?
Hiral B: I mostly I am an iap member. So going through their forums. going
through that Linkedin page that is being extremely helpful. I would say, my Linkedin feed it now is is
Hiral B: one of my largest source of learning. People who work in the companies like Google or people who are accessibility.
Specialists on Linkedin itself are working there. I think they are one of my greatest source of information as well as A little helpful hint.
Everybody working with IP is also pretty proactive when it comes to sharing information.
Dhara Pattani: Yes, because, like, you know.
Dhara Pattani: things keep changing rapidly in this one. So yes, it is necessary to see updated.
And this is a great source to get the latest and most updated news about it.
Dhara Pattani: Thank you for sharing that. And can you share a success story where your accessibility testing efforts had a significant impact on the user experience.
Hiral B: sure. we have, I think, one of my
Hiral B: favorite projects that has been the media player that my company build,
which used to be in general very chaotic like you landed there. There was just an information overload. There wasn’t exactly Qx
Hiral B: consideration. It was just a feature infused player.
And while we were trying to, you know clean it up or fix it for accessibility, this kind,
the whole experience started getting even more straightforward and seamless for even other users.
So then, while just trying to fix accessibility points, we actually made sure that it was much more usable, much more clean, much more
Hiral B: intuitive
Hiral B: compared to you. You needed to have a little handholding on how to use that product. So that’s something I’m pretty. Yeah, pretty kind of.
Dhara Pattani: And and then you perform frequent uads to make sure that what changes you have made on the sign working in the favor of
Hiral B: special needs. Absolutely. we have not been able to really go down and test it with users of various abilities because we want to make,
because I don’t think we’re there yet. We want to make sure it’s completely compliant.
First, before we actually give it out there to the users to play around with it.
Dhara Pattani: 9.
Okay.
Younus Poonawala: that’s interesting, you know, with the advent of so many media players, so many websites, you know, adding. adding layers of accessibility to it. definitely adds a lot of value, and it makes. It makes it easier for people to, you know. absorb or utilize the resources that the company is offering. Yep, I appreciate that. Thank you.
Dhara Pattani: Yeah. And let’s talk about
Dhara Pattani: a little bit of the roadmap within the organizations, because our audience would also like to know that, like,
you know, what strategies do you use to cooperate with designers and developers to address accessibility issues effectively.
And if you can also share at what phase you would start involving yourself. And
Dhara Pattani: that process.
Hiral B: with my designers and developers. While all these I I would. You know, the day I joined my company a lot of stuff was already developed.
I wish I would have gotten sooner while they were still designing and defining this.
But it was a lot of it was already developed, and you know, for the company move towards making this accessible.
Hiral B: But what I started doing was, there was a lot of hesitation at first, saying, Why are we doing this or no, we just have it that way.
Why not just go with it? You know. Why? Why are we changing so much? And things are breaking?
Hiral B: so what I actually started doing with. I had weekly sessions with almost every department in the company and accessibility 101,
taking them through the wise like, why are we doing this? Who is it really impacting which is 3 or 4 personas that you have to target?
Hiral B: I started doing? We think they understood nobody wanted to use and meeting it on their, and nobody wanted to use voice over.
So I would actually use why, so were recorded through my phone and share it with the guys.
So they got to have a first time experience of what a voice over sounds like.
Hiral B: And that was I think now, at this point even a new feature that gets developed,
the development team is so on board and so proactive that they understand, they completely just think about the nurse,
and that, like, you know, how are we going to do this? Now? How is the blind person going to understand this or how it is.
How is somebody who’s deaf? Gonna understand this? That’s what I realized that even though they don’t understand the mechanics.
Hiral B: Yeah, they’ve really got the why is seated in their head?
Dhara Pattani: Yeah. So like, you know, we are also seeing this happening most of the time, like with most of the organizations that, like, you know, once it starts with the question,
What what is acceptable testing? And then why you would want to implement it. And then, when when we should be like involving that in our process, and then how we can implement it. And then who should be involved?
Dhara Pattani: So yeah, thanks thanks, for, like, you know, sharing that this is pretty useful for any organization who is planning on a roadmap towards accessibility testing.
Absolutely. I think it’s great if everybody can get involved. Not that’s the design. As we had meetings with the content team to marketing team I even, I mean,
I know we had some boring sessions where I took them through. Laws as well. I’m like, you know. Let’s just understand the laws a little bit more deeper.
Hiral B: but I think that just helped cemented in their head. Of, why are we doing this?
Hiral B: Yeah. And that builds a culture of access pretty in the organization, you know once
Younus Poonawala: that is weaved into the DNA of the organization, it makes it more viable and more
Younus Poonawala: economic, then pushing it after you know.
So in the entire comics of building a software in accessibility has to be weaved right in the beginning and right in
Younus Poonawala: the mindset of the entire team. It has to be a whole team of approach rather than you know
someone pushing it from top down, you know. So that’s that’s that’s really interesting. Yeah.
Dhara Pattani: yeah. And it is just not the nice thing to do, but it is the right thing to do and at the right time.
So yes, we agree. I can’t
Dhara Pattani: deny that. And so let’s
Dhara Pattani: move towards our next question.
Dhara Pattani: how do you test for accessibility in different platform and devices, like mobile apps or responsive web design.
Hiral B: and I believe that you focus more on the web design and not on the mobile apps.
Is that right? Yes, as of now? Yes, definitely. my main focus is on websites.
we are a smaller organization. So moving to mobile yet is going to take time and web is primarily what our clients use.
so, yeah, that has been my more focus.
Dhara Pattani: So
Dhara Pattani: sorry units. Go ahead.
Younus Poonawala: Yeah. So the landscape on the web is also huge, I think. there’s a lot of scope, and there’s a lot of
Younus Poonawala: you know, requirement on the web space, you know, to be accessible. So I think. there’s a lot that we can talk about here.
Dhara Pattani: So here I can. Here is one more question related to web design accessibility testing.
Let’s, for example, it is a different scenario. When you are revamping the entire website, then you would start accessibility testing right from the first phase where
Dhara Pattani: development developers have started coding, and Marframe is in high. But what would you do and prefer to do? like?
Let’s say you are just making some enhancement changes on the existing website.
Rarely. If you try to improve website from accessibility point of view, it will take a huge amount of time and effort.
Then what would be your opinion to deal with that?
Hiral B: yeah, it is. In fact, I’m facing that right now. We’re making a web based analytical portal, and
we’ve been involved accessibility from start. And it is so much easier to just go ahead and make those changes. And there’s no code break it. So there is no even the time turned around as fast. And then on a website.
Hiral B: I mean, I think the developers who need to push the changes. And you know, when you’re trying to do that, one thing breaks, the developers would know this more,
that when you’re trying to fix one thing, and you try to push that change. Something else breaks in between,
and something even very simple, like changing the information on a foot, or how it’s displayed is so much more time consuming.
Hiral B: Then the accessibility efforts taken, you know, on the design phase, or even the planning phase. So that’s something I call it in my company, and go to to test that first time.
Hiral B: that that again, people I think I I commonly struggle with with everybody. Where people think accessibility.
The job is to like an overlay like you’re done. And then you just kinda you know, do a final week. And it it. That’s not the case.
It’s got to be built in from the start from the planning phase.
Hiral B: and it’s been hard for me to make people understand that accessibility doesn’t just mean for people who are disabled.
But we are trying to make it easy to use for everybody.
Hiral B: Absolutely
Hiral B: it. It has been difficult. Yeah.
Younus Poonawala: yeah, it’s true. So yeah, I think
Younus Poonawala: it’s more more of realization. That is something that
Younus Poonawala: needs to be educated to people. And that’s that’s how we can advocate about accessibility.
And that’s how we can reach out to more people.
This is where accessibility testers as a community comes into picture where
we are trying to do the same, you know. across organizations, through platforms like Linkedin
Younus Poonawala: and Twitter dynamics. That’s what we are doing. Yeah.
Hiral B: yep.
yeah.
Dhara Pattani: And can you also provide as some examples of assistive
technologies screen readers do you have experience with and how you would incorporate them in your testing?
Hiral B: so primarily to use the voice over. I don’t work with windows much. So my testing really just involves using my silver and
Hiral B: yeah, I kind of switch off my screen and try to accomplish task, to try to just use the audio version of it. And that has to be it.
It also does get a little confusing like, is the problem with the website, or is it with the voice over technology?
So I wish there was more literature on the versions coming out, or you know what what issues are they facing or what issues?
This is been pointed to us, voice over rather than actually on the code.
Dhara Pattani: and at what phase of testing you would introduce that once everything is done,
or still in the process, or towards the last phase of testing. How does that work?
Hiral B: If it was up to me, I would definitely want to do it from the start, from the get go
But unfortunately it doesn’t happen that way in the real world, especially with small to middle sized organizations.
Hiral B: And it does happen towards the end. And then there is the clean up crew who is constantly doing all of that.
Dhara Pattani: Exactly, because sometimes you will see that resistance coming from other team members that, like, you know.
Wait till everything is done and ready, and Then you can start testing on assistive tools.
So absolutely, I mean, I I find the issue with something as simple as I frames. It’s a very big resistance, because everything
Hiral B: you know something that was about 3, 4 years ago is pretty much on iframe, and then they are hard. Then you can’t go into the the the code completely, or you to change how this stuff was built.
And then it’s like, yeah. And then it’s like, Okay, we can’t fix this. Why? Because it was built on an iframe and we gone.
And I’m okay. Then then it’s not accessible right? so I wish I knew a little bit more about how these things were programmed. But I’m not a programmer.
Hiral B: so. But I do here, this coming out a lot that we can’t fix this because it was built an I-frame.
We can’t go back and change the technology. Our product was based on whether it
was on a third-party Api or or whether it was built on an iphone or something
Dhara Pattani: okay.
Younus Poonawala: interesting.
Younus Poonawala: So I have a small question, you know. Given
Younus Poonawala: that we live in today. What is your take on, AI, and how is it going to help
Younus Poonawala: in accessibility, or how? What kind of tools can we use that can, you know, make life easier
Younus Poonawala: in this space?
Hiral B: I I don’t have much up in anybody. I I can. Honestly, I use it more for content.
and I definitely be. It’s a great assistant. It is great. It’s something, or I wish I can use it more as a tool to brainstorm with
Hiral B: rather than a tool that’s going to be of a replacement or something. You can. 100% rely on.
Hiral B: You do need, I think, especially with all of us working independently.
This could be that actually 1 one partner that we actually need to perform until what?
To make sure, we streamline and a little bit more we can. Definitely, I’ve been reading about AI tools that solve accessibility problems.
But again, they’re not. Nothing beats manual testing. Nothing beats or users real experience. So I think by the time we actually
Hiral B: come to a point where I can completely mimic, and we’re all so differently able that it’s not about just crossing of personas or somebody’s blind or deaf,
or has a learning disability. Even the learning disability is so complex that I don’t think something like AI is going to is right now,
at least not sophisticated enough to pinpoint what those issues are.
Hiral B: Their cultural barriers. Even in something like content. I see there’s only cultural barriers.
So there’s so many understanding that yeah, a lot of biases. Yeah, it’s very hard to build that person on and teach it with the AI.
It’s still going to be much more up to the user whether they like your stuff. They can use your stuff period
Younus Poonawala: absolutely. I think that is brilliantly
Younus Poonawala: handled, you know, or answered, so to say, he’ll appreciate that.
Dhara Pattani: and like no, just a small related question to that. So
Dhara Pattani: here, like, you know, many organization. Also, along with manual testing,
they use some kind of automation tool for testing. So is it possible to train those automation tools
Dhara Pattani: in terms of including accessibility testing as a part of regular testing?
Hiral B: yeah, I mean, it’ll be good so that you again get a head start.
But I I even any testing does only last only 50 of the issues. You know, no matter how sophisticated a testing tool is they don’t catch one of the issues.
Hiral B: even though I use acts for accessibility. I can visibly see arrows on the site which acts doesn’t catch. All this wave is not gonna catch. So again, it gives you a head start.
It gives you what you know, mechanics are not working, but yet on the overall part, it doesn’t really help
Hiral B: you need both. You need both you need.
Hiral B: That’s a good tool as well as you need humans. So I have an understanding of how the ship function.
Younus Poonawala: Absolutely. Yeah.
Younus Poonawala: I agree to that. Because,
Younus Poonawala: what the automated tools mostly do is, you know, understanding of the code behind. And
Younus Poonawala: it’s more built on a checklist rather than an experiential you know development.
So of course, they are moving each passing day so that they, the tools, are not improving. But
Younus Poonawala: experience is something totally different, and that that can only be felt and not measured against a checklist.
So that’s that’s true. I I agree to that.
Dhara Pattani: And just one of the scenarios. Let’s say that you worked on any website for accessibility testing 6 months back.
And you found few new updates on the guidelines on the standards. And then you want to incorporate those changes.
Dhara Pattani: And that website. Would you rather wait for few more months and get more updates? Or you will want to do it right away.
Hiral B: I definitely want to alert the teams right away, and they I would leave it up to the developers as well. Or you know,
people who are working in our to our Ctos, and how they want to proceed with this,
because at the end of the day we don’t want to break something that’s already working.
Hiral B: and yet kind of give them a head start because they’re also working on different versions of their product.
So wanna make sure they’ve they’ve they know what’s what to expect. when I started reading up about.
Now, what new changes W. Kak is going to do. I started telling my team about it as well that. Okay, this is what’s expected.
Don’t go by just what W. Cap, 2.0 8. Compliance used to be. Just expect that this is me. This is also what’s gonna come up.
Hiral B: And I think slowly, we started moving away from just compliance and just started using logic.
Hiral B: That would this make sense what this flow makes sense. And what I can see is, I don’t even half the time these guys even check compliance.
They just by default, you know, like, okay, is this gonna be something that somebody who can’t see or is having a blurry vision?
Will they be able to even understand what we’re saying, and that’s beautiful, that they’re not just sticking to the compliance.
But they’re actually going well, right? Logic driven approach
Dhara Pattani: and like.
Dhara Pattani: There will be, of course, a decision making part from the upper management and time, money and efforts also involved in the process.
So I would assume that, like, we will have to consider and balance all the factors before moving ahead. Right?
Hiral B: So that does come. I mean, you know, sometimes there is a lot of issues that we want to change something because there’s no work around it.
And it’s like, no, this was a management decision, and the flow makes sense. And this is true, with any company.
I think not this accessibility, but if you you know, no matter where you work or what you do, it’s it’s kind of an issue there.
Dhara Pattani: Yes, right?
Dhara Pattani: Have you ever worked on any international project?
Considering accessibility for multiple languages or cultural contexts?
Hiral B: I’ve mostly stopped to. worked with us lines. And you know, worried about the Ea compliance.
But what I do also do like we have mal dealing with captions on our media player.
Hiral B: And that’s something that does help us work with people from various cultures.
To me to understand whether it’s grammatically correct, whether it’s represented correctly.
And yes, it’s a start. But definitely, I work within the boundaries of people with 80 and working with the section 508 right now.
Dhara Pattani: Have you ever, like, you know, face a situation, for example, us has, like, you know, different guidelines.
Canada must be having different guidelines for a particular thing, or like, you know, let’s say, India must be having different perspective about this,
that same thing. And your website is global. And you have clients and users and multiple locations of the whole.
Dhara Pattani: So how do you deal with that situation?
Hiral B: as I said, I don’t actually deal with a lot of international science or audience.
my real focus is dealing with people in in the Us. Most of my clients are, or the people even using our product they are within the Us.
So thankfully. It’s not. I’ve not been able to really branch out
Hiral B: and understand. You know how multi-country even websites for that. But I haven’t really worked with the
Hiral B: but I’d love to. Someday that would be my next step to work with people to work, to make one product workable everywhere,
because somebody would wonder that, like, you know, the legal requirements would be different for each country,
and, like, you know, when or dealing with that like. And of course you must
Hiral B: educate yourself first, I guess. Yeah. My, my cpot allows me to do that because it was.
That’s why I didn’t do, I was yet I went back, and I first started with C back, because it kind of gave me a very
Hiral B: global outlook on accessibility. which is now caused a problem, because now I’d look at even You know, the built environments.
And I start thinking about accessibility. Not just the web part. But yeah, it does give you an insight.
So I know that an opportunity ever came where is actually working with people of different countries
Hiral B: it would be easier to know where to start from. That’s why I do in God is that even though you’re just into web accessibility,
doing a C back would would help so that you know you don’t face this problem when you actually run into it.
Younus Poonawala: Yep.
Dhara Pattani: that’s a wonderful situation. Definitely.
Dhara Pattani: so like one more thing here, how do you conduct usability testing with
individuals with disabilities to gather feedback on accessibility improvements?
Hiral B: as I said right now, I’m I have not directly worked with people. I got them to use our products,
because first we’re making sure we had we. It’s it’s working for us internally before we really branch out and start getting users to actually come and test it.
But it is on the in the pipeline that once we’ve hit all our compliance, or once we’ve been able to get our products to a point that they’re usable,
at least from our point of view, we do plan to test it out to people of your disabilities. Younus Poonawala: Yeah.
Younus Poonawala: wow, that’s it.
Okay.
Dhara Pattani: And
Dhara Pattani: what are your thoughts on? How everyone can contribute towards digital accessibility.
not only your organization, but
Dhara Pattani: this would be a general question.
Dhara Pattani: for, like you know, let’s say, right from Linkedin community to
your network, to your colleagues, and whoever can bring the change.
Hiral B: I think the one of the roadblocks. I do see everybody within
the accessibility community just talking to each other rather than this.
Hiral B: finding a way of how to reach a broader audience. Those people who may not be into accessible.
That’s not the speciality, and that’s something I’ve noticed from the get go,
that unless I happen to get into accessibility because of a course that I did on Linkedin for Ux.
Hiral B: and I got to know about it, and that kind of I went down that rabbit hole and you know one thing after the other,
and I finished my see back. But what I do see is when you. We really need to start conversations,
not among each other, but people who are writers who are us designers, where you why designers and we need to simplify it.
Hiral B: We all speak a language that we understand, but somehow we need to speak in in their language,
making them understand, probably giving checklist, which is not so technical that
Hiral B: they help understand what they need to do.
Hiral B: and more than the development team, I think, designers and project managers, stakeholders.
They are the people who need to be approached first.
Dhara Pattani: Yeah.
Younus Poonawala: from the get go. That’s that’s where it is, you know,
if if the designers and the stakeholders are
Younus Poonawala: in line with the needs and they understand the requirement for this
Younus Poonawala: definitely, it gives a boost. So we we we were in talks with access to bay the other day, and they
Younus Poonawala: said that roughly, 20%
Younus Poonawala: they’ve they’ve experienced 20% high in e-commerce sales, you know, if you have an e-commerce portal, if you just make you know.
So from a business point of view. Also, it makes a lot of sense, because one out of 5 people are, you know, using these features and are making use of your portals,
you know, in much in a much more easier way than you, you know. Otherwise they will have have to, you know, work around, or you know,
it makes their life difficult. So they eventually drop off.
Younus Poonawala: So I think that helps in improving your rob of rate to upgrade. And you know.
I think it’s something that can be discussed and prioritized right from the get. Go.
Hiral B: I have met clients. I’m not doing my current job in in general, and last past year or so
I have been meeting clients, and whenever we do talk about designing stuff for them and begin talking about accessibility.
Hiral B: They, I think, do not understand the magnitude of people who will benefit if things are made accessible. They think it’s a one off
Hiral B: that. Okay, there is this person, you know, one of person might come to our site or come use order stuff from our site.
And we can’t spend Xyz amount for one person compared to the 1 million. Other people are coming,
and I think they just don’t understand that.
Hiral B: So the statistics that we get to learn within this community. That’s something that they don’t have.
Hiral B: or they’re not even understanding how much business they’re losing, or they still look at it as a as a charity
Hiral B: model rather than actually something that’s a business model that.
No, you, you know you’re going to get help, you know. You’re going to get more money or
but I don’t think they they understand that part.
Younus Poonawala: Yeah. it comes the hard way. That’s how it is, you know.
Hiral B: I guess the once they realize the losses. It’s when
Younus Poonawala: they jump in it. It the losses could come from, you know. drop off,
drop off of the users will come into their website or the law. You know the law comes to your door. You don’t have a choice.
And then the laws, unfortunately, even in the United States are still focused towards government rather than the private sector. So people aren’t afraid yet.
Hiral B: and they’re not. They’re just like, okay, if unless you’re working for a government client.
Why would they care about being accessible? And that’s been something I I’m telling you.
I’ve worked. I’ve spoken to people of very large organizations
Hiral B: cool. have been very cold about their approach towards accessibility, saying they don’t want to spend that effort
Hiral B: because they are not a government entity, and that’s what surprises me the most. Yeah.
Younus Poonawala: And that’s where you know, organizations are these.
Younus Poonawala: you know, super top 5, and of 10. They face so many lawsuits every single month, you know, and it’s it.
And and they have a way around it. That’s a fun part, you know. you know, people are finding ways around the law rather than if they,
even if they don’t worry about the, they just make the products accessible. It’d be so much more easier.
And I think that makes so much sense, you know.
Hiral B: absolutely, absolutely.
Hiral B: And I think that’s what the fees not even use the word accessible. But what I loved about from learning from cpac was the word universal design.
Hiral B: and that’s something I hold very daily from my entire feedback experience.
I don’t really talk about accessible design, like, I don’t say that our product is accessible at work we’re like. Is that what is the are we designing
Hiral B: for everyone? Or are we designing or already making this feature work for everyone?
And they ask, whoever you want, then I start getting into personas. But then this divide between.
Let’s have personas that are accessible, or let’s have this one button.
That’s that that’s got the accessibility overlay, and that kind of
Hiral B: is become my new pet peeve. And I know. Why are we just not calling it universal design?
Or we’ve, you know, made sure we’re designing for everybody with every combination of ability or disability that they may have.
Younus Poonawala: I love this point of view here, and I would really love, if you can take up
Younus Poonawala: small webinar for our users that will be really useful for them,
and they’ll be able to learn about personnel. And how can we embed, you know, a universal design while building, you know any? Ux.
So I think I think this is your core area. And I think that can be
Hiral B: that can come out. Well, if that’s okay, absolutely. I love talking about that a lot because it’s so. It’s personally very important.
Now, more than just yeah, it has nothing to do with compliance.
But that’s something that has struck, struck or stayed with me through my whole feedback experience.
Younus Poonawala: I think I think we have bombarded you with a lot of questions today.
I think it’s time now. I don’t know how much time I’ll be on right now, but I think this is something.
If we can schedule somewhere, maybe a week down the line or the next week, anyway, or schedule allows you, you know.
Yeah, you let us know. Maybe I’ll send you some slots and you can pick up one.
And from there we can. continue. And if you yeah, and we can definitely plan to invite more people on the call, and maybe they will learn from it, you know.
Younus Poonawala: Okay, that’ll be. That’ll be great. I’ll I’ll I’ll look out for designers.
And you guys, you can, you know, definitely benefit from this. You know, I can go out to a few people and get in.
Hiral B: Okay, definitely, that sounds awesome. And even I can probably spread the word in my network as well.
And yeah, we’d love to have a nice, even paint. I would love to hear what everybody else has to say as well like
To have different opinions on them, on, how do we fix this, or how do we go about it? Love to have that.
Dhara Pattani: Thank you. Yes.
Dhara Pattani: you know, I think that we have learned a lot today from here, and thanks for getting all your experiences,
your knowledge, the blogs, the one last thing I would like to ask is like, you know, I know you like to follow Linkedin, and
Dhara Pattani: also
Dhara Pattani: you suggested first Cpac. Exam. What other suggestions do you have today for us? And
Hiral B: it’s for somebody to learn accessibility?
Hiral B: I, honestly, it’s nowhere beyond Iap and and and my linkedin community for it,
because I wouldn’t say the blogs are there yet, and I’m not much of a reader. I’m not somebody who can spend time reading long phone blogs.
So I I definitely say, start small. if somebody wants to even learn accessibility there enough.
A small little horses like what changed me was a 1 h course in England that just spoke about the 7 types of visual impairments.
Hiral B: another design for them, and that that was it. I remember feeding very passionately the next morning, saying, Why aren’t we fixing this? And this is changed. How I look at web design! So this was a journey 2 years ago. So somebody really wants to learn. I’m like, you don’t even have to do a cpac, just just be a part of these communities. Start start seeing what even
Hiral B: people outside the websites are doing like, for example, the piece in use of how United Airlines is,
including braves on their seats and stuff like that, even if you’ll see that it’s everywhere.
It’s not just restricted to digital accessibility. It’s starting everywhere. And that would help.
Younus Poonawala: Yeah. The the little amount of awareness that it brings, you know. And once you are aware about it, you know,
I see. So it’s not that limited to digital. You know, it’s it’s digital, it’s physical as well. So
Younus Poonawala: once you’re once you’re activated, you know, once you are activated on this topic,
I think the universal design applies everywhere, right from staircases to buses to aeroplanes everything.
So I think, yeah, it’s it’s it’s a universal thing, you know.
So to say, I think that is, we accepted, first understood, and then
Hiral B: that’s how it is. It’s everywhere, I mean, even in my, the the community. I stay, and I actually walk around it.
I take the stairs. And I’m like, Okay, how about somebody who’s on a wheelchair?
How about they going to use it as a fire alarm? Or how can the fire alarms? And not that right?
And I started looking at flaws everywhere, that if I had this and that’s what it it starts becoming a very logic driven approach
right rather than a compliance. Different approach that you start thinking. Okay, if I
Hiral B: if I couldn’t see if I couldn’t walk if I couldn’t ask for help.
What am I going to do in such a situation?
If a fire breaks out, and just in the basic community there that I’m living in.
Hiral B: So imagine just going out there in the world and trying to find all of these issues there,
putting yourself in those situations would really help. You understand the pain points.
Hiral B: Well, thank you guys, I was wonderful talking to you, and I hope to catch you guys next time.
Hiral B: you for inviting me to this podcast, I’d actually no idea. This was going to be a podcast,
I’d actually no idea. This was going to be a podcast I thought we were all just going to talk about it.
But I was like, okay. This is the podcast I had no idea, but that’s wonderful.
Dhara Pattani: No, since you have so much knowledge, and you are willing to share with other people, do so.
That is a very good thing from our side to, and I know for sure many, many people will benefit from this.
Hiral B: hope so. Thank you. Thanks. Guys. Have a great day bye. Thank you.
Summary
Hiral, Dhara, and Younus discuss digital accessibility and user experience, focusing on web-based chat forums, media players, and mobile apps. They emphasize the importance of staying up-to-date with accessibility standards and guidelines and the need for proactive communication between marketing and development teams to address accessibility issues. Hiral shares his experience with an accessibility-compliant media player that has become more user-friendly and usable. Dhara shares her company’s approach to addressing accessibility issues, which involves weekly sessions with designers and developers to address them effectively. The team emphasizes the need to include accessibility testing as part of regular testing to get a head start and the benefits of using manual and automation tools for testing. They also address the challenges of using assistive technologies like voice over and screen readers in testing.
