Hi everyone, can you hear me?
Yes.
Hi, thank you so much for joining in.
So my name is Rashi, I'm from the Accessibility Lab.
And given the time we have, I'm going to do a little overview of accessibility.
I'm not sure if you'll have time for case studies,
but try to look at a few aspects of what can strengthen accessibility
and of course, I'm going to ask you, and you can also ask me some questions.
So we look at promoting the digital rights of accessibility
and people who have different disabilities,
which we think should be vital to anybody.
We look at accessibility as an ability to be able to function,
someone who can operate the different devices we have,
have access to the different versions of browsers,
and basically looking at the least part of resistance,
eliminating different obstacles when transmitting, receiving, or understanding information.
We also get, one of the things we also see in the open source conversation
and around is a lot of people like to interchange and look at accessibility
and usability as one and the same thing.
But they are very different. The way we operate is very different.
Although usability, we have a lot of allies in the usability space,
but accessibility in hand with usability does strengthen and provide an extra level of security
or privacy or any of those factors that people look at.
We also look at offering users and customers with a good user experience
because accessibility for people who have different abilities
fail to consider people with different disabilities,
whether you have a motor disability, you can have a visual disability,
you can have a physical disability, and you can also have a disability a lot later on.
I see my parents aging and a lot of them also have disabilities
with a lot of aspects in the visual world.
We also know someone in our open source space who was visually challenged for a very long time.
This is a slide we usually use based on who we are talking to.
So we talk to private sector, we talk about how it has competitive advantage
and how it can help with SEOs and positioning and compatibility.
Also depending on which region you are from, complying with legislation
because some of the legislations are pretty strong if implemented regionally.
Our accessibility, we look at increasing the number of users
in keeping the ones that we have, whether it's providing accessible online services,
providing a sense of autonomy.
This is a project that I worked with, carries around.
We are just going to show you some aspects of how people with different visions see it.
This is normal vision, this is someone with humanopoeia,
macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma,
tritinopia, protonopia, acronotoposia.
This is looking at an overview of the different lawsuits that we have seen.
This is data from 2022 on the lawsuits that have been sued,
plus action lawsuits, so it can be from e-commerce websites where companies
and services have failed to provide basic accessibility or adhere to basic accessibility guidelines.
You can also see food security, you can also see education somewhere
but education should also be somewhere here.
Basically people who are challenged, most of them like to enjoy a personal social
life to be able to access things they want given that they have so many challenges for mobility.
Websites have been the primary target.
I know that we live in an app culture but a lot of people with disabilities like using websites.
We also look at understanding different personas.
We work a lot on providing audits for websites or it can be applications.
One of the reasons we were not typically in the open source realm
but the reason why we got into the open source realm because we realized that a lot of open source teams,
although they care about a lot of the social conscious aspects of accessibility
but they might not have the resources.
For example, we have a long standing partnership with Open Technology Fund
where we provide pro bono services for applications that work on countering surveillance
or enhancing the privacy and security of these tools that look at censorship
and look at countering it in an effective way.
This is a simulator. How many fuel have you heard of?
Do any of you all use...
Is there anyone who has an experience with accessibility here or is there...
Maybe I'd love to kind of maybe get an on-site view of...
Some of the apps in Linux are really inconsistent.
NVDA for example and they use different...
I don't know, it's...
No, no, it's absolutely fine. Go ahead.
Is there anyone who uses the screen reader or analyze? Go ahead.
Yes.
Is there a day only in a terminal or just, you know, a situation to server?
And I know there are some current stuff work going on to fix some...
I know like an office doing...
Working on their...
It's not...
And such to make things...
To set standards and make that patient call like a...
Right, right, right.
But it's like still not...
I think a while.
Are you someone who also works with these tools regularly?
Is it something as a part of your employment?
Are you looking to get into it?
Well, I don't use the tools currently because they're not accessible.
But I definitely don't...
Okay, thanks so much.
Is there anyone else?
Just one, we have one last one.
Anyone who would like to chime in or I can just move on.
Okay, so these are assistive technologies.
We have Braille displays and switches.
I don't have any, but we also have a few keyboards that are Braille friendly.
And of course they're also catering to folks who...
People use different switches.
We might have a disability with the hand.
Just showing you a few visual examples.
There'll be eye tracking devices.
Can I show you a few more?
Yeah, screen readers.
Google Talkback and VDR Jaws.
There's anyone who's had experience with that.
And I'll also move to legislation.
I know I'm in a tech conference, but I think legislation is also an important aspect
when it comes to pushing ways in which...
And also improving everyone's information about what's out there and what's really happened.
Yes, we did have the convention, the UN convention on rights for persons with disabilities
that acknowledged it in 2005, 2006.
But again, it doesn't necessarily mention anything about web accessibility.
It talks about how people should uphold the rights of people with disabilities
by providing them with dignity, respect and livelihood.
But nothing specifically on the web.
But it was still an important aspect which was signed together by different UN countries
at the New York headquarters in 2007.
Yes, the US is...
I feel like it's an example where a lot of the aspects have happened in a very reactive measure.
Because there have been reactions of lawsuits and people just suing different people
which is what has led to the ADA Act being so strong when it comes to finding organizations.
And I'll perhaps go a bit...
I'm not going to go into the details of how it came about and what happened,
but I can go ahead and talk a little bit about lawsuits.
And there have been hundreds of them.
Target has been one which had a class action lawsuit damage of 6 million.
You can also see Bed Bath and Beyond, Home Depot, Domino's Pizza.
Surprisingly, a lot of educational institutions as well.
Harvard, Massachusetts and Netflix.
And for something very basic, for not providing close captioning.
Even when I fly now, I would still see a lot of the entertainment content.
Only 5 to 10% of them have close captioning or any sort of captioning that makes it disability-friendly.
What I do will know that I do have a local airline that I enjoy flying a lot
which finally had sign language interpretation and translation.
But yeah, there really is a long way to go there.
We've also had...
Oh, okay.
So I have 5 more minutes.
So yeah, in 2014 FedEx was also sued by a US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
And in 2005, you also had the National Association of Deaf that stepped in and supported it.
And FedEx actually came back and said that we're so sorry.
We don't actually have the money to be able to comply with these aspects.
But then anyways, they had to pay damages in perhaps a few millions.
But I mean the idea, what I'm also trying to get at is that a lot of these companies have the opportunity to be able to make amends but they don't.
And yeah, so a lot of...
And perhaps a lot of the culture also...
You have a lot of other governments that are following suit.
You have Canada.
You can see as an example of the Accessibility Act which they passed.
But it only complies with government or the public sector that has to comply with the basic level of accessibility.
You can also see that in the EU where you have a lot of the accessibility requirements for ICT products and services.
They specifically...
I do believe they have a provision where they mention certain aspects of accessibility.
I'm just reading the clause.
They do have access of accessibility where they talk about everyone adhering to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 level A for clarification.
They also talk about...
But again, it only applies to public sector bodies.
So anyone in the non-profit space, civil society or private sector gets by.
But then what are these content accessibility guidelines?
So they basically...
Again, when we talk to you, we're not doing anything new.
We're not reinventing the wheel.
We're just adhering to things that have always been there.
The World Wide Web Consortium has a Web Accessibility Initiative which anyone can join.
Anyone can sign up.
They create content.
They also create...
And they for a very long time...
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 was passed in October.
So they've been around a long time from the 1980s.
They build curriculum and they build directives and they will guidelines on how things across the world, Web interfaces can be more accessible, understandable.
So they have...
Currently the guidelines has four principles, 13 guidelines and three levels of accessibility.
And I can talk about...
We won't have time to talk going about into the principles and guidelines,
but then we can move a little bit into examples of what is A-level accessibility, AA accessibility, AAA accessibility.
Most of the public sector government websites across the world,
whether it's ADA or whether it's the Canadian legislation,
or even within the EU, they have to adhere to AA guidelines.
And in the US, I think with the ADA and with the implementation of the ADA,
the legislation is such that you will get fined until you're able to achieve that specific criteria.
So one of the...
I know this is...
I know it's a cheesy example, but this is one of my favorite examples.
This is the accessibility statement from the White House,
which talks about their ongoing accessibility efforts and the criteria that they follow.
And how people...
And they also mention the different disability aspects, whether it's sensory, cognitive, vision.
I think it's a great example.
So yeah, I'm going to talk a little bit about...
I'm sorry for rushing, but then I just want to ensure that I can also show you some examples.
But yeah, we talk about four tenants under the content accessibility guidelines,
a perceivable where we want our users to be able to perceive and are able to look...
Are able to sense, use one or more of their senses to be able to see the content,
whether it's...
And then you talk about operable where users should be able to also control the UI elements,
whether it's buttons or using a keyboard or a mouse.
And robust is the content must be well adopted to the current standards that we have,
whether it's functioning across different browsers and applications.
And understandable is, of course, the content must be comprehensible to its users.
So some examples.
This is alternative text.
It's a level A example where it's a textual substitute for a non-text in web pages.
It focuses on images, but it also applies to multimedia and other content.
So it also serves many functions.
It can also be seen with screen readers that announce alternative text in place of images,
helping users with visual cognitive disabilities.
And also in cases of places where you don't have a high quality of service or low bandwidth with internet.
If an image fails to load, then the browser will represent the alternative text visually in search of it.
Okay, I'm going to end.
So this is an example of alternative text, closed captioning examples.
I'm going to end with this.
Can I play a YouTube video?
I wanted to show them an example.
You cannot play audio through the system.
You can try and turn up my laptop audio as high as it will go.
Okay, can you mind playing this?
Because this is the example of audio descriptions.
Audio description is an example of...
Audio description, this is again level A.
Maybe you can hear.
There's no volume though.
Oh, give me a tissue. It's got my Bluetooth headphones.
Oh, no. It's fine.
I think it's because it's going through the HDMI.
I don't think you're going to get audio.
No, maybe through this one.
Yeah, you could maybe play and turn the volume all the way up.
Yeah, one second.
Because it's, you know, in the...
How do I...
Oh, no, I get it. I get it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right?
Okay, enough.
Wait, and this is...
Do I just play this and they can see this?
I can now, they can hear them.
I will... Okay, ready? Go.
Okay, go.
Can you hear?
Hello!
He takes a deep sniff.
The snowman smiles and moves to Walter.
The hatchet is running on the spot.
The wind up full-fledged his chin.
The snowman leaves his arms a clutch.
The reindeer puddles his front legs.
Head over heels, the snowman pulls the...
The reindeer does the breast drop.
The snowman rolls his body with flips onto his back.
The reindeer's tongue is just to the ice.
The snowman holds his head, twig on, the reindeer nips,
target the carrot.
The carrot flies off and lands on soft snow.
The reindeer goes after it with the snowman
at his body parts hanging on his tail.
The snowman puts himself back together again
and the only point of it is his nose, this state.
The reindeer jams the carrot back in place
at hands like a crowd of happy people.
The snowman plans if he sticks the other end
then goes to sneeze.
The carrot is nose with both hands.
His head shrinks off first.
That's my turn.
Okay, and with that, thank you so much.
I'm just gonna...
Yes, thank you so much for listening.
I'm sorry for being a bit rushed,
but if anyone has any questions...
APPLAUSE
Also, if you are an open source tool,
we'd be happy to do an assessment and audit.
We even do trainings where we go a little more deep dive
into success and fail criteria of what goes on.
Please do reach out to us.
You have my QR code here.
Hopefully it's easier for you.
But thank you so much for listening and joining.
And if there's anyone who has any questions,
maybe do we have three minutes?
Anyone at all?
Yes?
I just tried.
There is no access to the detract.
For the first time, maybe you or someone
in this room may want to organize one next year
because as someone said earlier,
I think we're presented.
We are all...
As we get older, we will all get more and more disabilities.
And actually, like most of them have already had one.
Which is pretty obvious.
I couldn't drive the night because of my glasses.
So I wonder if next year we could have an accessibility trial.
That would be really nice.
Yeah, if you have that.
Thank you for that.
Thank you for the recording.
Just what the question-asker said.
No, I said we'll be happy to look into it.
Can you hear that?
I said we'll be happy to look into that.
Thank you so much for the suggestion.
Our idea is that we want to build a culture of accessibility
throughout, especially in the open-source tool space
because it's free, it's easily available,
and also abiding by the principles of making it more accessible
for people with different disabilities.
Yes, please.
Well, this is not true just to your presentation.
Well, in general, since you mentioned that,
I want to make the open-source community more accessible.
One thing I noticed is that every single talk that I've been to today
is that I'm not sure, like, I can hear what's going on,
but then the slides and the presentations are not, like,
loaded ahead of time, so then there's no way I can follow along.
I've just played, someone just be like,
oh, yeah, you can look at this and that,
and I'm like, what is this?
One big issue there.
And I know that they saw the news out there after,
but I really don't go back to it to look at this one again.
We'll be less sloppy next time.
Thank you.