Welcome to the World of A11yvoices
Younus P: Alright. So
Younus P: just a quick intro about Jess.
Younus P: you know, I as far as I,
Younus P: I’ve studied about you on the Internet. I think you’re currently working with unem insurance? Yeah, yeah. And the digital learning
Younus P: creator. So we would like to learn more about what you do. You know from your own words. Would you like to let us know? What exactly are you doing, and a little bit about your past.
Younus P: and the different experiences that you’ve gathered.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Sure.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): So right now, I’m a digital learning developer at unim. So that means that I’m authoring e-learnings. I’m creating videos.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I actually just developed a tool for my team. Just
Jess Labbe (She/Her): it’s our own branded color contrast analyzer, using our brand colors just to be like, Hey, based on the Wcag standards. These are the colors that you should use to meet like these levels of accessibility for a team that’s not necessarily super familiar with that.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): And prior to this role I was an instructional designer at Southern New Hampshire University, doing some very similar work.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): was also part of their accessibility council, so that was cool, because throughout the university. They were tying people from all different parts, both on campus and digitally, to kind of talk about creating that culture of accessibility at southern New Hampshire.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): and prior to that I was the accommodations coordinator at the University of Southern Maine.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): So I implemented a bunch of different accommodations for students ranging from tests.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): you know, bringing adaptive furniture to the different classrooms, and even sometimes remediating digital materials, including things like breaking apart Pdfs and manually enlarging them. So
Jess Labbe (She/Her): kind of have run the gamet there.
Younus P: Oh, wow! That’s that’s impressive, I think. A lot of a lot of your experience has been a part of physical, you know, getting things accessible to people with have you worked with children, with disabilities and with special needs
Jess Labbe (She/Her): a bit? That’s more wearing like a social work hat, but not so much necessarily in the realm of doing accommodations and whatnot.
Younus P: Okay.
Younus P: okay? And how’s your current engagement going on? So are you designing interfaces for you know.
Younus P: all the content that you’re creating.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Mostly just online trainings.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): so
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Jess Labbe (She/Her): a lot of it has just been talking with team members about. Okay, what are some things we can do from a user experience perspective. just to make sure that it’s not only accessible, but also allows people to engage with the materials in multiple ways.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): So something that I’m currently trying to get more traction on and something that I’ve done at Southern New Hampshire is
Jess Labbe (She/Her): videos, including both captions accurately done. Captions, of course.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): as well as a transcript. And some people are like, then why am I making a video? If some people are just gonna read it.
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Jess Labbe (She/Her): I’m like, it’s not about that. Let people choose how they want to engage. Because yes, it’s successful. But it’s also going to be something that people get to choose their own adventure for what works best for them?
Younus P: Absolutely.
Younus P: Yeah. So
Younus P: how how do you plan a given activity, you know. Do you have a roadmap for accessibility? Because you work from the accessibility point of view? If I understand or do you? Do you look at it from a universal design point of view
Jess Labbe (She/Her): most of the time these days. It’s it’s interesting, because it’s switched at it back and forth.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I would say.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): with my current role, it’s definitely more of a universal design. But of course, accessibility has a huge part there.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): and of course, if you’re allowing people to engage with multiple ways the same information. Of course, accessibility has to be baked in there. But my former boss had a really good point about this. And she’s like, listen.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): universal design isn’t going to take away the need for one on one accommodation like you can try to meet everyone’s needs. But on the same hand, what if you get something where
Jess Labbe (She/Her): you know? Maybe it doesn’t fit within the standard mold? You have to know how to make it accessible for that particular person, and a few good examples I have are of trying to remediate a training for someone who is blind and using a screen. Reader.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Umhm. Technically, you know, in some of our offering tools we can set the right focus order and storyline. We can make sure that we’re tabbing through everything. And it’s picking things up.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): But of course, because we don’t have the exact same computer setup, we don’t have the exact same software. It wasn’t working. So
Jess Labbe (She/Her): at that point, what we decided to do was simply put the information into a word document.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): and it’s like, Is it great? No, I would love to figure out a better way to do it for this really complex interaction. But we can’t use some of the more sophisticated testing tools.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): But on the same hand in that moment for something that was really pressing and time sensitive. That person got the information that they needed
Jess Labbe (She/Her): in a way that would actually work for them. So
Jess Labbe (She/Her): always a balance.
Dhara: Yeah, that’s true.
Younus P: Yeah. So, what have have you worked with any tools specific? Have you used any tools?
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Mostly a lot of them have been honestly web-based.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): simply because with a lot of the authoring tools that I use, you know, we’re not necessarily coding from scratch. So it’s well, things like wave aren’t necessarily going to be accessible.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): But definitely, you know, the webinar con contrast analyzer as well as their alt text tools. When I use a lot of different trainings to faculty members at the university was like, look at this great webin thing on why effective alt text is useful, and also why blank alt text tag might be the best thing, instead of just having it the same thing over and over again.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): And
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I mean definitely in terms of what I do now. Another good resource is definitely grammarly as well as Hemingway, because it’s technical writing.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): So we’re really aiming for that eighth grade level of literacy.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Just make sure. You know, we’re not overwhelming people as well as breaking it down into bullets again. It’s keeping in mind things for people where reading isn’t necessarily like visual information isn’t necessarily their preferred method of reading, or what works best for them.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): But also it’s just easier to scan for everyone. So
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I like to think that those things often play hand in hand like what is going to be good for people with disabilities. Thinking about accessibility is often going to benefit everyone else as well.
Younus P: Oh, that’s interesting. That’s really true. For for all the applications that we have today. So is is your experience
Younus P: based on web more of building content on the web? Or do you do mobile apps as well?
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I would say more web
Jess Labbe (She/Her): and a lot of it stuff where necessarily, I’m not getting to go behind the scenes
Jess Labbe (She/Her): and of creating the end product, using the tools that are available.
Dhara: And these are, yeah.
Younus P: No, go ahead today.
Dhara: Okay, just wanted to ask, just how do you address your accessibility testing issues with your designers, or whoever is setting the curriculum
Jess Labbe (She/Her): right. So this has kind of been an ongoing process everywhere that I’ve worked
Jess Labbe (She/Her): so a lot of it.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): you know, kind of in the instructional designer. Hab a lot of it is just doing the simple things like having different people tap through it and make sure that it’s actually reading the way that we want it to.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): you know, going through and part of every single part of design work that I’ve ever done has been doing reviews on different people’s materials. So a lot of it is just saying, Hey, just so, you know, having this magic interaction here, because, for example, with
Jess Labbe (She/Her): program called like articulate rise or storyline.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Their dragon drops simply aren’t accessible. Now they know it’s a problem working on it. So we’re like, Okay, here’s a way to do something similar.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): you know, but where you don’t have to worry about someone’s hand movements
Jess Labbe (She/Her): so you can do the same sort of activity without worrying about that and a lot of it is also like manually leaving people comments on it.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): And whenever I have a question, simply because at some of the organizations I’ve worked at. We’re not really allowed to download our own tools, due to security concerns.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Lot of us is using things like even adobe’s colored contrast checker. Are my ratios right? Is this actually going to be accessible at the font size that it’s going to be at?
Jess Labbe (She/Her): So it’s been interesting for sure.
Dhara: definitely. And how do you receive your feedback? Usually, is it from the end users? Or you have the set of testers who test it?
Dhara: Improvements or changes that’s been made with your recommendations.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Right? So a lot of it is just honestly peer feedback from my teams, and that’s been consistent
Jess Labbe (She/Her): both of the instructional design roles that I’ve had.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): But what’s interesting is that when I was the accommodations coordinator, a lot of it was absolutely end user feedback.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): So an example I like to give with that is, I had a student who was low vision.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): She had a screen here, didn’t use it, didn’t like it. And of course everyone was like, Oh, well, you’re low vision. That means that you’re going to automatically be someone who likes to listen to things right. And she she’s like, listen, I’m low vision. I’m a visual learner.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): And she also had some issues with color contrast. But they weren’t kind of the ones that a lot of the simulators will have you test, for so a lot of it was simply being like, Hey, I’m going to manually go into adobe acrobat change. Some of the colors, rip out some of the illustrations, and
Jess Labbe (She/Her): based on what I knew about her, I would say, does this work for you? And kind of engaging in that interact process to be like, I’m not gonna be like, okay, one size fits. All this should work for you
Jess Labbe (She/Her): was a lot of going back and forth.
Dhara: Interesting. Yeah.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): So is this something that you know? You, you work with the team or you are an independent consultant, where you know you do it individually and then pass it on to the development team. How how does it work at your end? Yeah, so kind of for both instructional design roles I’ve had. It’s been usually a team. So anywhere from a team like 5 to my current team, I want to say, has 12 people on it.
Younus P: and and is accessibility something that comes top down pro? Or is it like from the team to the management? Or is is it a part of the roadmap, or is it something that you have to add towards the end?
Jess Labbe (She/Her): It’s it’s a part of the roadmap. I think we’re working to include it more. And certainly as part of our design process.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): we have it so that it’s like, Hey, as you’re doing your different levels of room. Because we’ll do.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): The Ui Ux review will do a content management review. And in between those is an accessibility review, and beyond some processes on that just on what? Exactly you should be looking for, because designers I found, at least on the that I’ve worked on.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): It’s not that people want to design something that’s inaccessible from the start. They simply just don’t know.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): And you know, it’s like, Okay, here are the checklists of some of the big ones that you need to keep in mind as we go through this.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): so that’s that’s kind of
Jess Labbe (She/Her): the big stuff. But for some of these teams it’s like, hey? If you have questions reach out to these 2 people?
Jess Labbe (She/Her): And I can. I really like that idea earlier the better.
Dhara: The sooner we realize that this is not going to work. That is definitely going to be more cost, effective and of course more user friendly to
Younus P: yep.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): absolutely.
Younus P: And and when you mentioned checklist
Younus P: is that derived from the Vc. Checklist are.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I didn’t
Jess Labbe (She/Her): definitely a work in progress. But yeah, I mean, a lot of it would be derived from wicca and kind of cherry pick to be like, okay, here’s what’s most applicable with what we do, considering that like actually get into the coding guts of the different software we’re using.
Younus P: And what motivated you to do the Cpac exam. When did you give it? Give me something about it as an what? What drove you into Cpac? And how did? How was the experience with the exam and the learnings?
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Absolutely so I took that
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I want to say in 20
Jess Labbe (She/Her): 22 April. So it’s been a little bit over a year, and I took it because, you know, kind of building on my experience as the accommodations. Coordinator. You know a lot of this super personal to me. I have multiple family members with disabilities. My mom has cochlear implants so seen kind of firsthand how hard that can be sometimes.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): And I had some downtime, my instructional design job, and I knew I wanted to further my knowledge of accessibility.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): So I brought it up to my boss thankfully at Southern New Hampshire University. We also had a lot of other people certified in Cpac at professional Development funds. A lot of.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): So I talked to my boss.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): He was cool with it, and they purchased both the exam as well as some of the study materials, and I want to say de Q. University was the one that I usually relied on, of course.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): And yeah spent about. I want to say about a month.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): even things that I was like. I’m pretty familiar with this. I still took notes on it, because you can always learn more, and it also helps you.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): and
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I don’t think the exam itself was really that bad, but some experience with physical accessibility. There were some questions on there where I’m like, I’ve just simply never thought about this.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): because wouldn’t have been applicable at a university setting. And I’m like, I’m never necessarily going to have to do anything that is strictly universal design
Jess Labbe (She/Her): building, etc., other than maybe you know. One time I think I helped my boss change out the door handles at a lot building. Yeah, simply because we attach like some plastic things that would allow you to turn it rather than
Jess Labbe (She/Her): twist the entire knob, just because the building old. And we had someone who’s like this is the accommodation I need other than that no universal design
Jess Labbe (She/Her): experience with the physical stuff, really. But
Jess Labbe (She/Her): so that was probably the most challenging part of the exam. I did enjoy learning as well about different country standards for accessibility.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): so it was very cool.
Dhara: That’s true. That’s just when we are talking about different country standards and all. Have you ever had an opportunity to work on the curriculum which was set on
Dhara: multiple languages.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I have not, and then that is honestly something I would love to do. Not not yet, but definitely super interested in that. And a good example I have is in 2,017. So right when I finish my social work degree
Jess Labbe (She/Her): and right before I started the job, it’s the accommodations. Coordinator. I lived in Armenia for 2 and a half months.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Yeah.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): yeah. So that was really cool. But even things like, okay, these sidewalks are a complete
Jess Labbe (She/Her): mess when it comes to, you know, any sort of like even footing, etc. It was like this would be so bad if you were in a wheelchair or used any sort of, you know assistive device to help you move around to the point where, even walking around in some of the biggest cities, you wouldn’t necessarily see disabilities, or at least physical disabilities
Jess Labbe (She/Her): out and about. So that is something where I’m like, I know it’s needed. I know that they have. Some centers would love to help
Jess Labbe (She/Her): with stuff like that. So
Dhara: that’s so amazing. That’s very interesting, Armenia. And you know
Younus P: so so you were studying over there, or did you work over there?
Jess Labbe (She/Her): So it was an internship. I was interning at a bunch of different places, mostly working with kids.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): yeah, teaching English all of that good stuff. But
Jess Labbe (She/Her): you know, definitely, too, it was eye opening.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): And this isn’t necessarily accessibility. But I think it ties into the family of it. For me it was the first time where I was living in a country where, you know, the first 2 languages are Armenian, Russian, then, maybe English, definitely in the capital city, not so much in city where I was living in, even though it was the second biggest. So it’s really eye opening to be living in a country where not everyone speaks the same language that I do sometimes are getting a little frustrated with me, because my knowledge of the local language
Jess Labbe (She/Her): and the local culture isn’t necessarily where it should be. So I hope it’s super helpful, and something I definitely try to keep in mind. And I also saw that play out a lot as an accommodations coordinator. So it had. Professors refer people who are learning English to my department, or people who are maybe had like passed all of like the
Jess Labbe (She/Her): the like English, as you know.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): like teaching English to like language learners, classes. They passed all of those they were in English classes. But you know, the professors were like, okay, this person might need more support with their writing. Then I’m like, that’s not a disability. We need more resources to help these students without just being like, Oh, yeah, disability services.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): So
Dhara: if we are using screen reader or voiceover. Does that interfere with different languages?
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Hmm!
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I mean, I definitely seen that pop up on different accessibility forums throughout the years that it can. You have to be really intentional about what language given materialism.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): But I’ve never experienced that myself.
Younus P: Kind of
Dhara: nice.
Younus P: So
Younus P: so when you, when you mentioned yourself as a design design. So what tools do you use to build interfaces, or are are you majorly into content?
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Mostly content? Honestly, at this point
Younus P: and this final disconnect, okay, cool.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Yup, I do know that a lot of the tools that we use are based off of Javascript. So, for example, speaking as a learning designer kind of one of the big tools in our industry is articulate storyline.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): and that is based on Javascript. So if you know Javascript. You can go in there and do a lot of really cool things. What are the more advanced features?
Jess Labbe (She/Her): But the other tool that we use is articulate rise. And these are just big industry standard things. And that is completely web based, which is great.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): You don’t have to worry about. Okay, like, is this going to appro load for the appropriate size for a given user. And I’m like, I love things that are web based. Because then it’s like, if someone has style sheets or something involved. Boom like, you know, it’s going to load for in a way that’s going to work
Jess Labbe (She/Her): so
Younus P: and you can swing it the way you want it, you know. So that way it becomes more flexible.
Younus P: It makes it allows you to scale it. We make it more bigger, you know as you want it. Yeah.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): exactly.
Younus P: So.
Younus P: any any experiences apart from the Armenian experience that. You recall where you had, you know, tough time explaining accessibility to someone or getting things accessible. Any experiences in the past
Jess Labbe (She/Her): so definitely, I would say
Jess Labbe (She/Her): it was an uphill battle, even at the university itself. Sometimes, speaking very candidly, so
Jess Labbe (She/Her): many professors would, of course, be on board. They were like, Hey, whatever you need to do
Jess Labbe (She/Her): to actually, students, I’m fine with like, they need to take the exam at a different time. Because you have a testing center. Okay, that’s fine. We know that you’re doing this as a service to both us and the students, so that they can get their proper exam accommodations. So that’s kind of a lot of what we did.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Or, you know, meeting with professors kind of before the semester would start and be like, Hey, there’s a student in class who’s hard of hearing, or there’s a student in your class who’s low vision. But I have. Please have access to both your bright space course. So that was our Lms platform learning management
Jess Labbe (She/Her): and your syllabus ahead of time. So we can request the materials in an accessible form, just because there’s a lot of repositories of books.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): and also
Jess Labbe (She/Her): make sure that if it’s a resource through a library that it has captions, and if it doesn’t, we can get that done
Jess Labbe (She/Her): so like I said most professors were totally on board with that.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): but there were some who really saw us asking for both the syllabus as well as their materials ahead of time, as kind of us trying to control what they were teaching in classes.
Younus P: So that was very
Jess Labbe (She/Her): ality. And I think that had to do with some campus politics.
bye.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): you know, and they were like, no, you don’t need to look at it. It’s fine. I’ve checked it out myself.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): and that was often the approach, whereas, you know, it’s like it’s a partnership. I want to work with you and the students, so that this is the best experience for the student
Jess Labbe (She/Her): before we’re running into some of these issues.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): And like, I said, a lot of that was totally
Jess Labbe (She/Her): cultural and based on like a lot of old, old stuff. But often that would get in the way of making sure that we were providing the best experience for our students, who already felt like they had so much on their plates
Jess Labbe (She/Her): in terms of accessibility. They’re like, I have to do so much more just to get my needs met than a lot of other students, just because it’s not baked in the start.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): And you know, that’s why, in the design world, where I can actually influence things
Jess Labbe (She/Her): before they’re fully baked, I really try to be like, let’s think about this. So we don’t have to fix it later, and then have everyone be frustrated with the process, you know.
Dhara: Absolutely true.
And how many years did you do this with the University? How how long were you with them?
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Yes, I was there for almost 5 years.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Yeah, about 4, actually.
Younus P: okay.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): But while I was there, too, I also had the chance to operate to work on like, Oh, web Internet rollout, right. So
Jess Labbe (She/Her): we were redesigning all of the web pages for my part of the university, and I was one of the leads. So of course that was great, because I got to talk about web accessibility from the start with a bunch of these different places and make sure that we were at least having those conversations while we were also scaling things up.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Which was a really opportunity, and like, I said, so, very different from
Jess Labbe (She/Her): how it was operating in the moment, especially at the start of the semester, like right now. this school year literally started this week for my old universities. So I’m just like remembering just how stressful that was
Jess Labbe (She/Her): for me as the accommodations coordinator, let alone all of the students who are also trying to be
Jess Labbe (She/Her): looking for like accessible textbooks, or, you know, trying to make sure that they have their accommodations, letters, and their accommodations in place for the upcoming year. So.
Dhara: yeah, how do you stay updated with current accessibility standards and guidelines because it it keeps changing
Jess Labbe (She/Her): exactly. I often refer to it as the Wild West. Honestly, just because I feel like. Oftentimes
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I feel like there’s a lot of really good accessibility content out there. But you often have to look.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): And then sometimes I’ve noticed at conferences right, like my introduction to this. All was accessing higher ground. Have you heard of that conference?
Younus P: No, I didn’t.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): So that is, particularly for higher education. So it’s
Jess Labbe (She/Her): group called ahead.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): It was all these different professionals from every layer of different universities, like even vendors, learning management system, vendors like black or bright space, etc. They all go there, and they talk about different accessibility features.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): What was top that sometimes you’d walk in and you’d be like, oh, great! I’m going to learn how to do this really technical thing. And it would actually be a product demonstration. And you’re like, I don’t want to know how to use your product. I want to know how to do this in general. That was, that’s what I found to be kind of tricky about accessibility in general, although going there was really helpful, because I actually attended an accessibility testing workshop with some of the folks from accessibility. Oz
Jess Labbe (She/Her): like, I love them. I also like keeping tabs on people like Lydia, exe brown, etc. You know. Certainly
Jess Labbe (She/Her): web aim as well just keeping tabs on things. But
Jess Labbe (She/Her): yeah, II think there’s definitely more of a need for all of us to be talking about
Jess Labbe (She/Her): what has actually worked in different organizations and how we’re all going about it, because there’s so much out there, there’s a lot of duplicative information. And then it’s like, Okay, what does this actually look like in the real world.
Dhara: Yeah. And if you have to incorporate those changes in your current curriculum, you would wait
Dhara: the next event, or you would want to introduce it right away.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Oh, that’s that’s tough. So kind of at both places I worked at. There have been 2 different approaches. So at one
Jess Labbe (She/Her): it was very much. Hey! It’s the summer things are slower.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): We’re going to revamp everything during the summer and make sure that they are actually up to accessibility guidelines. And that’s one of the first things that I was tasked with when I started there.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): So that was cool, because we were actually going into our content without being asked to make sure that it was meeting our standards.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): And part of that, too, was just that we had less content overall to really be managing.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): whereas in other organizations it’s a lot faster, and it’s more on an as the basis, simply because of bandwidth.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I will say for everything new that we’re designing, you know. Accessibility is baked into the process. But you know, kind of the thought is as you touch stuff. If there’s not a request, make sure it’s passing accessibility.
Dhara: Yeah, because sometimes it is pretty in detail. And like, know, you want to have it. You want to use it for your end users. So yeah, I can imagine
Jess Labbe (She/Her): absolutely. And I mean, it’s been great. At my current company. You know, everyone is very much invested and wants to do the right thing. And we’re having a lot of great conversations about what that looks like for us.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): And some exciting things is that we have, for example, a group that is simply for people with disabilities at our organization. And I’ve met with some people, specifically, someone who is low vision and someone who is hard of hearing to talk about what their experiences were like, going through our e-learning and just starting that conversation.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): and especially within a bigger organization. We can also partner with people like the uxui people who are actually hard coding our products.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): looking for connecting with them more as well as marketing, for example. So it’s it’s cool to see where that is.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): There’s some online groups starting to have some of those conversations. Not at the level necessarily, yet of everyone getting together and like chatting about best practices, and how we want that to go throughout the company
Jess Labbe (She/Her): at other places. And it’s been exciting when it does so.
Younus P: Yep
Younus P: so. How? What shift do you see in these years, from the last
Younus P: 5 to 7 years.
Younus P: in terms of you know, people accepting this as a change, or accepting this as an improvement in their products?
Younus P: Have you seen any shift, or is it the same, or has it improved.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I think overall. I think it’s improved. And I think.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): unfortunately, you know, I think Covid really made a lot of people think about that
Younus P: simply.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): you know even things like, I know people. Some people have been asking for remote classes forever. Right?
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Of course, in 2,020 we all had to figure out how to do that really quickly and obviously super imperfect, like everyone was kind of learning as they were going with that. But that’s really changed. A lot of things, and I think people are just more open minded and receptive. There’s not just one way to do it. There’s a lot of different ways. And again, it’s kind of like, okay, what’s going to be helpful for some people
Jess Labbe (She/Her): will probably be helpful for a lot more people than you might realize kind of like curve cuts.
Younus P: Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s true. It’s it’s Covid actually
Younus P: worked as a catalyst to get a lot of things accessible because there were
Younus P: a lot of users who were not able to access basic content. And now. you know, you can say, thanks to Covid, we have so much content that is accessible.
Younus P: you know.
Younus P: and a lot of things have changed. People. See?
Younus P: Generation of ux ui. Now from a different perspective altogether. So yeah, so that’s that’s improving. And I feel so. Do you see the role of AI coming in into this? Have you used any AI tools apart from Gpd of force to to to to build anything that is accessible? Or does Gpd help you in
Younus P: creating any accessible content? You know, for that matter.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I mean, I think not yet. I know that a lot of things are kind of in the works.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): but I do know that
Jess Labbe (She/Her): a lot of people, including what I’ve seen, too, are interested in this. And I think from an accessibility perspective, right? Like, I’m thinking about people who might have, you know, I know, sometimes, like I get really anxious when I have to write like a really intense email, right? What a great way to kind of at least
Jess Labbe (She/Her): have my email be read by something, even if it’s not another person, and make sure that I’m hitting the top that I want to hit, or even give me ideas of where to start with a tricky email.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): you know, again, I don’t think that’s what
Jess Labbe (She/Her): you know AI is necessarily meant for, but it’s helpful. It’s an extra support. I’m also thinking about like different AI tools, like all the different mental health apps that have popped up over the past few years as well. You know what a good way to have AI tell you like, hey? It sounds like, maybe things are hard right now
Jess Labbe (She/Her): rather than you keeping tabs on it yourself. I know that’s really helpful, too. I think it’s
Younus P: II forgot the name. And is it Hive? Or
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I mean, yeah, there’s definitely hive. I know there’s been one with penguin that you talk to. You know, just to kind of keep tabs on how you’re doing, and you know or offer, like, you know, different meditations and whatnot.
Younus P: I’ve used one of them, and they they turn out to be pretty interesting, you know. They actually talk to you, and, you know, help you out at times, you know, in in their own way, you know, it’s interesting. It’s nice. It’s small little effort that
Younus P: the app does. But it’s needed the need of the art, you know.
Younus P: That’s how it’s yeah.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): absolutely. And I think, at least from my perspective, you know, like accessibility is often like an overarching thing. But I’m like, No, I think it really plays into, you know.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): talking about like mental health, talking about things like cognitive load. Right? So it’s like, okay, let’s think about this. And let’s think about all aspects of who our users are, and making sure that they’re not totally frustrated by whatever it is that they’re experiencing, you know.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Very good point. Yeah.
Dhara: So, Jessica, tell me one thing. If any organization who is in the early stage of incorporating accessibility, what points they should consider while building their strategic plan?
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Yeah. So I think
Jess Labbe (She/Her): from the start, I think it’s trying to make sure and get some buy in that accessibility needs to be a pretty important early part of the design process. It can’t just be tagged on later.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): and I think as well, making sure that people have enough time to test and iterate as they go along. You know again.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Yes.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): having a product, or, you know, having an end. Goal is important. And I know that a lot of times people are like, we gotta get this out now without necessarily thinking about the other concerns. But it’s like, Okay.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): do you want to do this at first and have it take less time, less bandwidth? Or do you want to fix it after and have it be way more stressful for all parties involved? You’re thinking about it at first.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): You can at least bake that into the process, so it’ll be smoother.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I think those are some big things as well as making sure as much as you can that you know you have buy-in from leadership, and if not from leadership, that you have some like minded peers to at least hash things out with.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I know that that’s been helpful for me at both organizations is to be like, hey? This is what I think is going to be most accessible.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): What are your thoughts, you know. Am I coming at this the right way, or is there something else that I should be considering just having those thought partners is so important, because
Younus P: you never want to be like, well, I think it’s accessible. So therefore it is, or it passes this tool. So therefore it’s going to work for everyone like. No, it’s way more complicated than that automated accessibility is no accessibility, you know. It’s it’s it’s a it’s a myth. It’s a legend, you know, to have
Younus P: everything automatically. Will that for accessibility? So yeah, automated tools do help. I don’t deny that. But then, yeah, you can’t completely and totally rely on the automated
Dhara: Jessica. Did you ever feel any kind of resistance when you wanted to introduce any kind of changes for accessibility?
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I would say, the big ones honestly kind of in all different spheres are mostly that people think it’s automatically going to be a lot more work.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): and I mean, you know. To be honest, if it wasn’t part of the
Jess Labbe (She/Her): you’re gonna have to do a lot of remediation, and it’s sometimes going to be
Jess Labbe (She/Her): labor intensive might be frustrating because things don’t work the way that you want them to work, because you weren’t having that conversation at the start.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): But then, you know when I actually show them like, hey making, let’s say a digital training accessible doesn’t mean you only have to use black and white. You can, in fact use color. And here are some, you know, kind of like ones within our color palette different.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I think people really warm up to the idea, because I think sometimes
Jess Labbe (She/Her): there’s a thought that accessibility also limits creativity, or it’s like, no.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): it’s just different. There are different constraints like, let’s play within the tools to make it so that we’re creating a product we should be creating rather than you know, just ignoring it.
Dhara: Yes, because eventually, for sure, it is going to elevate the digital experience
Dhara: overall
Younus P: and yep.
Younus P: And and we also use a lot of accessibility features which
Younus P: you know, like, for example, captions on videos, we usually use it. We don’t even realize that this was.
Younus P: This is built for a wider audience. But now a lot of people, let’s say, with normal vision also they are glued to captions they have glued to features which are which are actually built for accessibility. So that makes you know now, a good thing for every designer, every developer that. Okay, you got to build this because this is not only used by people with disabilities, but also with people without them. So so yeah, it it is being imbibed into each and every software development process.
Younus P: And yeah, that that helps equally everyone, you know. That’s that’s how it is.
Dhara: Yes, and that definitely helps the people with temporary disability. Also, like, you know, if somebody has just gone through eye surgery or having
Dhara: trouble in hearing. Yeah, they. I mean, this is kind of an ultimate solution for each problem that we face, yeah.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): or the number of times with like smartphones where
Jess Labbe (She/Her): you know I was telling people about
Jess Labbe (She/Her): might be called read aloud on different like apple devices. And I was like, actually, really easy. If you have a remediated. Pdf, to have that loud to that you people are like, oh, this is great, so I can listen to my textbook. One dishes are doing something else. And it’s like, yeah, things like audio books aren’t necessarily just for accessibility. It’s like there’s many different ways that you can use them. And it’s great to have that option for a wider audience.
Younus P: Absolutely.
Younus P: So do you guys work in the Agl setting, you huddle together as a team and do all of that you do that. That’s great. That’s interesting.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Yeah. And I mean, we. We have chats, too, where people post different questions, you know, sometimes like, Hey, simply, do you like the look of this like, what do I need to consider about design in general? But yeah, it’s it’s pretty collaborative. It’s it’s been fun.
Dhara: It’s so good to hear.
Dhara: Yeah, I think so. Lot of people and many organizations are moving in that direction. And
Dhara: they they they are open to talk about it. That is a big change that I’m seeing in the last 5 to 7 years.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Compliances.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): What’d you say?
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I said, apart from the compliances and the need to comply. Oh, my gosh, yes.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): yeah, I’m so happy that the needle is changing on that somebody, because, you know, II know I’m speaking to people who already know this. But you know, it’s like, Okay, if we’re just aiming for compliance like that’s not gonna be an enjoyable experience like it is the bare minimum.
Younus P: But that shift is coming. Yeah, like you said, that needle is shifting, and that’s that’s the approach that people have to take. It’s not
Jess Labbe (She/Her): to be done because we need to comply, but it has to be done because it is the right thing to do. And II will say, that’s what’s been really cool about kind of both. Organize. Well, all of the organizations I’ve worked for recently, but things that I was not necessarily expecting in the corporate world
Jess Labbe (She/Her): where, you know I was like, Okay, you know.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): are are we going to be like pushed to be like, get this out as fast as possible, and no like, at least for me, at my current role, like one of the big things that’s baked in is simply like we want to do things because it’s the right thing to do. It’s ethical thing to do.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): And you know it’s going to bring us value in the future. So that’s been a really cool to see that common thread throughout the nonprofit and the for-profit sector that I wasn’t necessarily expecting.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): But it’s been great to see?
Dhara: Yeah. And when you know that each and every person has a right to get educated, I just feel very good that it is working so well in education domain. And people are willing and
Dhara: well, they are accepting changes. Yeah.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): absolutely. Yeah. I think I think, especially, you know, just because everyone on my team has a passion for learning, you know, that’s kind of
Jess Labbe (She/Her): where we fall within the organization, is it within, like the larger learning and development chain, like we’re all passionate about learning. We all know it’s important. We’ve all been in settings where, you know, getting talked out for 8 h, like, you know, doesn’t work for us. I don’t know who that works for not many people, but you know. So we’re always kind of thirsty to kind of make things better and more efficient, too.
Younus P: Yeah, and that’s how you you know, to retain your customer base. That’s how you retain your visitors. That’s how you build a stronger foundation to build. Bring in more users. That’s that’s that’s what you said. You know, you’re like you. You’re building it for the future. You you can’t build it for today. You can’t build it tomorrow. You need to understand what our users are looking for. And how can we?
Younus P: How can we make
Younus P: the experience better and better and better than that’s how you scale. That’s how it is. Yeah.
absolutely
Younus P: alright. So II think we have asked you a lot of questions. It’s almost 40 min that you have been answering. Do you have any questions for us?
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I don’t really think I have a ton of buttons at this time. I know I owe you both feedback on the paper cause I was like letting things percolate. So I’ll send that.
Younus P: Okay. We have actually revised it. And I think there are a few input from Dr. Newman. He is the head of accessibility from the University of Texas.
Younus P: and he. He gave us some real good inputs and we’ll show you the revised paper. With that you’ve not. You brought it up so we’ll say with you the revised paper. Maybe you can have a look at that, you know, and see if that helps, or if if there are anything that you can perhaps implement where you work or what you do, you know. So that’s
Younus P: that will be really helpful.
Younus P: And I think from my experience, talking to you Jess, I feel that you have tremendous experience in this space, so would you be open to take a webinar for our audience. Maybe you can jot down a topic. You. You tell us a topic of your choice, and you are a teacher. So I think teaching is something that comes to you naturally. So would you take a topic, maybe for 30 min or 45 min.
Younus P: whenever it is convenient for you
Younus P: in the next few weeks, you know, so we can publish it to our audience and get
Younus P: people visiting or listening to you. I mean.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): absolutely.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Yeah. I’m actually going to be moving during the month of September, so probably October would be realistic for me.
Younus P: Looks for me. Yeah. So you can tell us a topic whichever works for you. And maybe we can set up a time and a date, and perhaps if you could do a webinar we’ll be re really grateful for that.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Absolutely. No, I wouldn’t. I would love to do that.
Dhara: Okay, that would be amazing. You have so many stories to tell, and I think so. People will learn a lot from you. You do have tremendous amount of knowledge, and
Dhara: that would be a good time to like, you know. Listen
Dhara: more in depth.
absolutely. And are there webinars that I could listen to, too, to see. Kind of like what’s been explored already.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Sure, we’ll send you some links.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Great. Yeah, I mean, definitely like, I said. I think that this is a really important mission. I’m so excited that there are people who are out there and want to share their knowledge kind of across different sectors organizations, because that’s so important, and especially in such a big audience. Just to be like, okay, what’s been working for you?
Jess Labbe (She/Her): I love it. Spaces like this are so important to me, so.
Younus P: so thank you so much, Jess. Thank you for your time today.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Thank you. And all the best with your move.
Younus P: Thank you so much. You’re moving out of Maine, or you’re still in Maine.
Younus P: still still in Maine, literally moving just a mile down the road. But
Jess Labbe (She/Her): what is the weather there, Jessica? Right now it’s
Jess Labbe (She/Her): probably about 60°F and cloudy, but you know it’s there will be days still very, very warm.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): but you know you can definitely tell that it’s almost autumn here, like, so
Dhara: the 60 is good, you know.
Younus P: I think.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): yeah, I think that that is a good good temperature to live in, you know. Exactly. Yeah. And I mean, there have been times, where like it’s been 100 here.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): and of course, you know, it’s it’s mean we don’t have like air conditioners everywhere, you know, most of the time. So you know, we’re all like
Jess Labbe (She/Her): having fans or having like a tiny little A/C, that’s not doing anything that don’t have something that we are facing here in Kansas, Jez. I wouldn’t mind coming there. I think I have not been to Kansas, but I have been to Nebraska, and I think the one time I was there, it was also so hot, and you know I’m I’ve been lucky to live by the ocean for most of my life.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): so you know, it’s kind of like, oh, my goodness, what do we do? It’s so hot. So I think we just ended up going to a pool because they would go right. That’s how we dealt with.
Dhara: Yes, yes.
Younus P: that’s nice. Alright, this
Younus P: I love it for the time of yours. Thank you so much, and have a great day ahead. Yeah. again. Yeah, we really appreciate all the time that he gave us.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Of course. Thanks so much, Jess.
Jess Labbe (She/Her): Thank you. Take care, bye, bye.
Summary
Jess, a digital learning developer at UNIM, discussed her work in designing interfaces for online trainings, emphasizing the value of universal design and the importance of allowing people to engage with materials in multiple ways. She also talked about the challenges in creating information for individuals with disabilities, noting that while striving for accessibility benefits everyone, it often poses challenges. Jess also shared her experience with the CPAAC exam, which she took and passed, and her work as an accommodations coordinator. The team also touched on the use of tools like Articulate Storyline and Articulate Rise in content design, with Younus highlighting the flexibility of web-based tools. Furthermore, Jess and Younus discussed their experiences in explaining and implementing accessibility measures at a university, facing challenges particularly with professors who saw their requests for accessible materials as controlling. Jess emphasized the importance of proactively addressing accessibility issues rather than fixing them later, and mentioned her role in redesigning the university’s web pages with accessibility in mind. Finally, the team discussed the importance of considering mental health and cognitive load in design processes and the potential role of AI in creating accessible content.
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