Author’s Notes
The community of volunteers at Better.sg are building a suite of digital tools (websites and/or applications) to help society. Examples include Call Home SG which helps migrant workers make free landline calls, the Long Term Care Costs Calculator that uses crowd-sourcing to estimate costs of caring for someone with a medical issue, and more context-driven tools like the GE Elections Results Visualizer.
As we continue on this mission, how do we create tools that help the most vulnerable? This includes biological impairments, but also other contextual barriers to access like language and literacy. Some spaces to explore include groups like migrant workers and the elderly but also specific contexts like, for example, people facing similar health challenges. To find out more, I asked a friend who is a veteran in the accessibility space, Yvonne Ellefson.
Yvonne is a good friend from my days at Microsoft. She works at Google, as a program manager for Android accessibility. Her work scope reaches beyond that, but this conversation is focused on accessibility. It’s a primer for noobs (specifically, me). We talk about what accessibility tech encompasses. And how an accessibility mindset can improve tech for everyone.
Tl;dr The challenge remains that we have to think about accessibility from the earliest stages of creating products. The good news is that most platforms have tools to enable accessibility and we don’t have to create solutions from scratch.
“…At any given time about 15% of the world population has some sort of impairment. It might be permanent, like a disability. Or it might be situational, like driving, or holding a baby.”
Yvonne Ellefsson
Qn: What is accessibility in tech?
Yvonne: Accessibility in tech is about making products and services available to people with impairments. The three main focus areas when it comes to accessibility are vision, hearing, and mobility. More recently there is an increasing focus on developing for cognitive impairments as well, but that is a more nascent field.
Sometimes my work is around shipping specific accessibility products for example, apps like screen readers and magnifiers. And other times it’s about making sure the platform makes it easy for developers to create apps that are inclusive to people with impairments.
Qn: How did you get started in this field?
Yvonne: Accessibility is a young but growing field. And, there are not enough people in the space to meet growing demands. So having any direct experience in this field is somewhat rare. There isn’t a traditional path to get into accessibility tech. My own path was a multi-step process.
I got started back when I was in Microsoft where I worked to make sure that our TV software products met accessibility standards like closed captioning. But there was a history of events through my life that led to this path.
Once at a concert, I sat next to a blind person and ended up essentially being the audio description feature for them, in real time. A few years later, I took an American Sign language class as I was curious to learn it. Later when I was working on Internet explorer for the Macintosh, it was not intended to be for accessibility, but we were debating a shortcut feature. It was a difficult discussion on prioritization as there is a limited number of shortcuts to allocate. But we received an email from a user who had cerebral palsy and he was just ecstatic. Our shortcut made it easy for him to use our product and he was so appreciative.
Moments like these have stuck with me. I love the idea that we helped somebody in that way. These events nudged me onto the path of accessibility tech.
Qn: You mentioned there aren’t enough people working in the accessibility space. Why is that? Is it because the area is too niche? And how come there is more demand now?
Yvonne: It’s only recently that accessibility has been getting a lot of attention. There is growing awareness through both intentional education and promotion. For example, Android recently launched a docuseries called Being Human Is, and it has a few accessibility stories. Allure magazine also has a series called The Beauty of Accessibility. We are also seeing a lot more diversity in media which has helped build awareness.
But on top of that, in the US, there have recently been some prominent lawsuits calling out websites that didn’t support accessibility, for example when a fan couldn’t buy tickets to a concert on a website or access specific products or services.
Additionally, if you want your product to be used by a US government agency, it needs to meet certain accessibility requirements. And there is an ecosystem of companies that exist to help test your app and ensure it meets accessibility standards. A lot of these companies use Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as the guidelines for their assessments.
All of these reasons are helping to raise awareness of the need for accessibility in tech.
Qn: For current or aspiring tech creators, how and when should we think about accessibility?
Yvonne: Ideally, people should think about accessibility when designing products. Because the later you start thinking about accessibility, the harder it is to incorporate it in your product.
In general, you always want your app to be accessible to all so that as many people as possible can use it. For example, if you are creating a rideshare app, it’s likely that in addition to being useful to a general audience, your product will also be particularly useful to mobility or vision-impaired users.
The good news is, today a lot of accessibility is built-in. You don’t have to do a lot to make it work for audiences with accessibility needs. But you still have to think about design and how the end product will be perceived. For example, avoiding using several similar shades of a color that would be difficult for users with vision impairments to distinguish. In that case, you would think about having more visual contrast.
Qn: That’s a great example. I know people who have difficulty with perceiving colors, and this would really impact their lives.
Yvonne: The number that we hear a lot is that at any given time about 15% of the world population has some sort of impairment. It might be something permanent. But it might be temporary like an injury or just situational, like driving, or holding a baby.
All of us, at some point, have had some kind of impairment. Even simple things like, “I’m in a noisy environment”. If you stop and think about it with that lens, accessibility becomes a lot more relevant to everyone.
Qn: If you’re thinking of developing a product, is there a checklist or something that you can use to assess if you are accessible enough?
There isn’t something as simple as a single checklist, but WCAG has a very comprehensive site. If you are doing something for Android, the developer site is a good starting point and has some code labs for those interested in exploring more.
“If you create an accessibility feature from a real need, and not as an add-on, it’s likely that a lot of other people will want to use it too.”
Yvonne Ellefsson
Qn: Are there lessons from accessibility that developers can apply back to the general use case?
The biggest thing is thinking about universal design. That is the concept of designing for all users. The common one that we talk about is curb cuts, which is where the sidewalk has a little area that ramps down so that if you are in a wheelchair you don’t have to navigate a steep edge. But if you are a traveller with a suitcase, or a parent with a stroller, you also benefit.
These innovations don’t have to just be for accessibility users. I mean, if you create a feature from a real need, and not as an add-on, it’s really likely that a lot of other people will want to use it too.
Qn: Any final thoughts on accessibility for better.sg?
My first thing is always to ask people to think about accessibility, whatever the product they are building. Think about it from the perspective of the people using your product.
How would this work if I had a hearing or vision or mobility impairment? The good news is usually, you don’t have to do a lot of extra work as most platforms provide a lot of the infrastructure.
