Igniting Accessibility for Ignite Denmark

Giving a 5-minute Ignite presentation is such an amazing learning experience. The expression mind-blowing is suitable to use.

What’s Ignite?

It’s an inspiration network. You have 5 minutes and 20 slides to “ignite” the audience with your passion. O’Reilly has the Ignite story for you. I think anyone who carries the label “communicator” ought to try an Ignite presentation at least once in their life.

Ignite Denmark manages the Danish sparks. I attended the World Usability Day / Ignite Denmark joint event in November 2010 and got so inspired that I foolishly promised to give a talk on accessibility at the next Ignite Denmark event, which was 1 March 2011. 🙂

This is the result of that promise.

My Ignite Presentation

I gave the presentation in Danish. The transcripts – in English and in Danish – are further along in this blog post.

I posted my slides to SlideShare.

Ignite karen mardahl_1_marts_2011

View more presentations from kmardahl

The Credits and Thank Yous

I am very grateful to the following people:

Shawn Lawton Henry of the W3C’s WAI for her very kind permission to use the photo in slide 6 and two photos in slide 7 that are part of the material from the Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) of the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). I also reference her excellent book, Just Ask, in slide 11.
Lisa Herrod for the use of the photo in slide 5. I also quoted Lisa in slide 8 because she’s very smart.
All the people on Flickr who use Creative Commons with their excellent photos so I can use their work in my presentation. I included the URL to the photograph on each slide. (The two photos with no URL are personal photos.)
Kai Weber for sharing Olivia Mitchell’s great resource for preparing for an Ignite presentation. Along with comments from Mark Wubben who recently gave his first Ignite presentation in London, I learned that you really must practice. (I ran through a planned script about 15 times, but I had so much I wanted to say so I kept tweaking things!)
The Ignite Denmark teams – Jimmy Holm Olsen and more – who made this experience possible and who do an incredible job with the Ignite program in Denmark.
The people listed by Twitter name on slide 19. They are my inspiration along with many more people who could not be crammed into the slide. You find them all in the lists for @stcaccess.
William Loughborough’s curse list.
The US figures and the UK figures (http://www.uknetguide.co.uk/Latest-News/Disability-market-worth-80-billion-annually-800342755.html) for the “disability” market share. (Note: my original UK URL no longer has the article, but I found the original resource for the UK figures.)

I was nervous, but I had a great time doing this. Ignite is the perfect setup for talking about accessibility to the general public. This is what is discussed in accessibility circles on Twitter – raising awareness about accessibility in the general public so that everyone can get involved in making the world more inclusive.

The Transcript in English

The numbers here correspond roughly to the slide numbers. I include them for navigation purposes. I had some garbled sentences in the Danish (nerves!), so I tidied things up a bit in the English while keeping the original spontaneous flow. In fact, dissecting my speech in a transcript is kind of embarrassing, but the written word is completely different and more merciless than that spoken word. 🙂

Hi. I am a technical communicator, writing manuals, user guides, and that sort of thing. I am passionate about accessibility. You can’t see that on the title slide because it is written in Braille: “Ignite Accessibility”. That was to tease you about communication.
Accessibility, it’s about doing something so people with any type of disability can “get at” some thing – information or whatever. People with a disability – that’s us. It is all of us. The World Health Organization actually says that [quoted in the slide].
They say it is a universal experience. I am passionate about accessibility thanks to my mom. She ignited this passion in me. She was a special education teacher, and I have known about this topic since I was 7 years old and
I just think it is natural. In fact, I am so passionate about accessibility that I see it everywhere, even in a picture of ducks [where one duck is seemingly excluded by the others]. I think it’s kind of funny that someone else [at the evening’s Ignite presentations] included pictures of ducks. So being excluded, not being a part of the community,
Not being able to hear a joke because you cannot hear, not being able to attend an event because there are stairs and you have someone saying “oh, couldn’t you come up the stairs? What’s the problem? Why can’t you participate”. But there are barriers. So
… it’s about seeing these situations and being more open to them. There was a lovely old man – he wasn’t afraid to stick out his neck [making a reference to an earlier presentation about daring to dare]. William Loughborough, who died last year, was very involved with web accessibility, and he cursed all those who didn’t think about it
in the year 2010, now 2011, because there are so many things you can do with it. There’s assistive technology, which lets you use computers and other things like a bike, a racing bike, which, despite your not having legs, lets you live out your potential, live your dream – something we’ve talked quite a bit about tonight.
And we who design things, whether you design words, develop, or whatever – when we do not listen to users with needs who say “make room for us”, then we fail. We fail as designers if we don’t think of these things.
And it takes so little. A simple little sign that shows the way. You don’t have to worry “gasp! Can I do this? Where is my destination?” A simple little sign, just from listening to users.
And there is also potential. Maybe there is a little boy who is passionate – again with all those dreams we’ve discussed – passionate about being a chemist, a great inventor, and he can – because there is technology that makes it possible for him to live out his dreams, live his passion.
And if you don’t have compassion/understanding, there’s money in all this. People with disabilities is the third largest consumer market in the US – people who use products related to their disability. A million, a trillion dollars. 80 million pounds in the UK. [I speak numbers that don’t match the slides. The slides are correct.] There is money in all this.
And there is the law. Plus that, if you plan things well from the beginning and integrate things from Day 1, things are more harmonic, they fit together, you have something for everyone and not just something that you add on as an afterthought,
But something that everyone can enjoy from Day 1. So if you think, OK, this sounds interesting, but where do I get – I’m confused – where can I find guidelines or information? Well, for people who work with the Web, the World Wide Web Consortium has made something called
the Web Accessibility Initiative, and they have a ton of resources. Really good stuff. They have business cases, for example, so if you need to discuss with someone yada yada yada, they have the information that you can use to convince others that they need something that is more accessible.
There is also a book [Just Ask], written by the person [Shawn Lawton Henry] running the Web Accessibility Initiative. It describes how you can integrate accessibility into your design. And even though I talk about the web, I think this can be applied completely to all other professions.
For example, there is a book called “Seeing Voices”, which I have fallen in love with because it is about Deaf culture, and I learned that deafness, in my opinion after reading this, is not a disability, but a culture. Your eyes and your mind are opened to the perspectives of completely different worlds, so to speak.
And you find so much – the sign in American Sign Language [ASL] for love [with reference to what is on the slide behind me] – you win so much, you get new communication opportunities that open up. All the problems, all the challenges that you come with,
They can be solved by involving the entire world. So we can be more inclusive with all these things. And we have to work fast. In 2050, 30% of Europe’s population will be over 65. We must make things possible to use, so we can sit here and come to Ignite or whatever when we are 90 years old.
There are loads of people working on this. This [refering to slide behind me with Twitter names] is just a fraction of those people I follow on Twitter who are super clever. They live out their dream, that’s for sure, and that is fantastic.
And I can only encourage you to join the ranks. Think accessibility in your lives and then we can have that “over the rainbow” experience. Thanks for listening [I make a quick ASL sign for love].

The Transcript in Danish

Hej. Jeg er en teknisk kommunikatør, skriver manualer, brugervejledninger og den slags ting, og jeg brænder for tilgængelighed. Det kaldes “accessibility”. Det kan I ikke læse deroppe fordi det er skrevet på Braille: “Ignite Accessibility”. Det var lige for at drille jer om kommunikation.
Fordi accessibility, det handler om noget for at gøre at folk med enhver handikap kan “komme til” nogen ting, information eller hvad det nu er. Fordi folkene med handikap, det er os. Det er os allesammen. Det siger World Health Organization faktisk.
Så de siger det er en universal oplevelse. Og jeg brænder for tilgængelighed fordi det’ min mor. Det er min mor der har tændt mig for den her passion. Hun var specielundervisningslærer og jeg har kendt til det siden jeg var 7 år gammel og
Jeg synes bare det var naturligt. Altså jeg brænder faktisk så meget for tilgængelighed at jeg ser det allevegne, selv i nogle ænder, hvilke jeg synes var meget pudsig at vi har lige haft nogle andre ænder [tidligere på aftenen], men at det at være ekskluderet, at ikke kunne være en del af fælleskabet,
at ikke kunne høre en vittighed fordi man ikke kan høre, at ikke komme til et arrangement fordi der er nogle trapper og så nogen der ikke tænker på “hov, kunne vi ikke komme op ad trappen?” Hvad er problemet? Hvorfor kan du ikke være med? Men der er nogle forhindringer. Så
… det gælder om at se de her ting, at være mere åben til det. Der var en dejlig gammel mand som – han kunne nikke en giraf en skalle [reference til en tidligere presentation om at turde]. William Loughborough, der døde sidste år, var meget aktiv indenfor web tilgængelighed, og han forbandede allesammen der ikke tænkte på det
i år 2010, 2011, fordi der er så mange ting man kan gør med det. Det er det man kalder assistive technology, altså mulighed for at bruge computere og andre ting. Også en cykel, en racer, på trods af at man ikke har nogle ben for at udleve sin potential, at leve sin drøm – det man har snakket om her til aften.
Og vi der designer ting, om du er designer af ord, af udvikling, af hvad det nu er for noget, når vi ikke lytter til brugere der har et behov og siger “kan du godt lade os komme til”, så fejler vi. Vi fejler som designere hvis vi ikke tænker på de her ting.
Og der er så lidt der skal til. Fordi det er bare en enkelt lille skilt hvor du får en vej – du får vist vejen frem. Du skal ikke bekymrer dig, “gisp, kan jeg klare det her? Hvor er min destination?” Lille simpel skilt, bare ved at lytte til sine brugere.
Og der også noget potentiel. Måske er der en lille knægt der brænder – ligesom alle de her drømme igen – brænder om at være kemiker og stor opfinder, og det kan han godt, fordi der findes noget teknologi der gør at han kan bruge sin, at han kan leve sine drømme ud. Lev sin passion.
Og hvis du ikke har medlidenhed, så er der altså penge i det. Det skulle være det 3. største forbruger marked i USA – det er folk der bruger produkter der har noget at gøre med handikap. En million – en trillion dollar, 80 millioner pund i UK [ord stemmer ikke helt med tallene på skærmen]. Der er altså penge i det der.
Og så er der lovgivning. Og plus det, at hvis du planlægger godt fra grunden af, og integrere ting fra Dag 1, så bliver ting mere harmoniske, de hænger sammen, du har noget for alle. Ikke bare noget der bliver klappet på bagefter
men noget som alle kan nyde fra Dag 1. Og hvis du tænker, ja, OK, det lyder interessant, men hvor skal jeg hente – jeg er forvirret, altså hvor er der nogle vejledninger? Jamen. det har – for web folk – det har World Wide Web consortiet, de har lavet noget der hedder
Web Accessibility Initiative, og de har et hav af ressourcer. Virkelig gode ting. De har business cases, fx så hvis du skal argumentere overfor nogen at “hallo bum bum bum bum” de har informationer som du kan overvinde andre om at de skal have nogle ting der er mere tilgængelig
Der er også en bog, skrevet af hende der styrer det der web accessibility initiative. Det beskriver hvordan du skal integrere tilgængelighed i din design. Og selvom jeg snakker om web, jeg synes det kan overføres til alle andre fag fuldstændigt
For eksempel der er en bog der hedder “Seeing Voices” som jeg er blevet helt forelsket i, fordi det handler om Døv kultur, og jeg lærte at døvhed, efter min mening efter at have læst det her, det er ikke en handikap, det er et kultur. Du får åbnet dine øjne og dit sind op for nogle helt andre verdeners anskuelser, om man så må sige,
Og du finder så meget – det tegn i Amerikansk Tegnesprog for kærlighed – du vinder så meget, du får nye kommunikationsmuligheder, åbner op. Alle de problemer, alle de udfordringer du er kommet med,
de kan løses med at inddrage HELE verden. At vi bliver mere inklusive med alle de her ting. Og vi skal arbejde hurtigt fordi i år 2050, bliver 30% af Europas befolkning over 65. Vi skal gøre tingene mulig for os at bruge, så vi kan sidde her og komme til Ignite og hvad ved jeg når vi er 90 år gammel.
Der er en masse folk der arbejder på det. Det her er bare en brøkdel af de folk jeg følger på Twitter som er knalddygtig. De lever deres drømme ud, det gør de helt sikkert og det er helt fantastisk.
Og jeg kan kun opfordrer jer til at melde jer til fanerne. Tænk tilgængelighed i jeres liv og så kan vi have det der “over the rainbow” oplevelse. Tak for i aften [lavet tegn for kærlighed].