E094 – Interview with Devon Persing – Part 1

Devon Persing tells us that the compliance model doesn't capture the whole picture of accessibility. And it feels like a separate thing from design/dev work.
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Transcript
Nic:
Welcome to the accessibility rules podcast. This is episode 94. I'm Nic Steenhout and I talk with people involved in one way or another with web accessibility. If you're interested in accessibility, hey, this show's for you. To get today's transcript, head out to the podcast website, https://a11yrules.com. Thanks to Gatsby for sponsoring this episode. Gatsby is a modern website framework that builds performance into every website by leveraging the latest web technologies. Create blazing fast compelling apps and websites without needing to become a performance expert.
Nic:
This week I'm speaking with Devon Persing. Devon, thanks for joining me in this conversation around web accessibility.
Devon:
Absolutely. Thank you for having me. It's good to chat. It's been a while.
Nic:
You may know this by now, but I like to let guests introduce themselves. So in a brief elevator style pitch introduction, who's Devin Persing?
Devon:
Good question. Mostly I do accessibility work at Shopify. I also help run the accessibility meetup community in Seattle. And I also teach a workshop, at a place called the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle to, mostly UX certificate students but also members of the public, whoever comes in. So I do like teaching and a lot of training and a real lot of documentation these days.
Nic:
Documentation. Documentation about what?
Devon:
Well, something I've been trying to dig into more is trying to teach teams having to do with accessibility work. And I think a lot of accessibility education has focused around roles. What are designers supposed to do, what are devs supposed to do? And I think what then happens is we teach people stuff and then they don't know what to do with it in relation to their teammates and their projects. So one of the things I've been trying to focus on this year is just trying to bridge that gap, which is tricky because teams all work differently. But figuring out ways to kind of fit best practices or accessibility into teams, workflows, their rituals, their processes so it feels less like a discipline specific thing and more of a thing that everyone on a team is responsible for.
Nic:
Cool.
Devon:
So I ended up writing a lot of like Wiki type documentation or articles that I have been working on are more about doing daily work versus getting people on board.
Nic:
That sounds really cool, actually. It's funny, I'm a bit of a documentation geek. I love good documentation. And it sounds like you're doing that. Is it going to be something that's portable or really more Shopify oriented?
Devon:
I think portable. So a lot of it comes from work that has come from years of consulting. My colleague Scott Vinkle and I, who you also know, we do a lot of collaboration on training and teaching. And so a lot of the documentation we have has either been things we've made internally or things that have come from other workshops or programs we've done. So the information isn't new. It's more about just kind of packaging it in different ways for teams to learn about it when it makes sense, but also to try to adapt to different learning styles. A lot of it's written at this point, but we're also working on doing more video and doing other things that are more interactive, which is also nice teaching at SVC because I get to sort of try new material on people a few times a year and then bring it back into other teaching I do internally.
Devon:
So it's nice to have a few different venues for doing different types of teaching activities or writing. I do like writing. I have a background in writing as well, but it's also really nice to just actually interact with people. I also work remote, so it's also a been a consideration for us to figure out ways to do teaching and training that don't require people to be in the same space together. That's often ideal for some activities, but for a very large, increasingly distributed company and also just for learning online in general, I think it's helpful to think about ways to do teaching that aren't in a physical classroom.
Nic:
Switching a little bit topic, tell us something that most people would not know about yourself.
Devon:
My go to for that question, I come from a family that runs an amusement park. I grew up in central Pennsylvania and it's currently run by my dad's cousins. But my great grandfather founded an amusement park. It's called Knoebels. It's still there. It's still open. It's open seasonally. So I grew up working at the park.
Nic:
So you're a carny at heart?
Devon:
I am.
Nic:
That's so cool. Obviously the main topic of conversation today is web accessibility. Everybody I speak to seems to define it slightly differently. So what's your take on what web accessibility is?
Devon:
The version I usually teach and, kind of the elevator pitch version, it really depends on who I'm talking to. But in general, I think it's about making digital spaces inclusive to everyone. And it's been interesting reading material about inclusive versus universal design or design thinking because they're kind of the same, but most of the material I've read has universal design being kind of like a giant bucket or a giant or a mountain or something very large. Versus inclusive thinking tends to start with the people doing the activities. So I've been leaning more towards that framework and being inclusive and kind of centering people in that discussion, which is also a little weird because I come from an information school background. When HCI was still, what we would call UX now I guess human computer interaction. It was very much about teaching humans how to interact with computers versus trying to create digital spaces that are good for people. So I think things have shifted in that direction. So I usually talk about it as being inclusive, creating digital inclusive experiences because I also includes other things like cultural background and other things that impact how people use technology.
Nic:
What would you say to people who believe quite strongly that when we're talking about accessibility, we need to really center people with disabilities and it's so, talking about accessibility is good for everyone is actually erasing the presence of people with disabilities? Because that might be something that might be concerning of people when we're starting to look about inclusive design in term relations to accessibility and looking at all the other factors of inclusion when we're thinking about accessibility.
Devon:
Yeah. And that's something I definitely go back and forth about. And I think it depends on who I'm talking to. Again, like who am I trying to convince? I really prefer the model of thinking of talking about like this is a deal breaker for people with disabilities. And it also as a side effect is typically good for everyone else. And like I said, I think it depends on the audience. I think I also have been steering more especially talking to people doing digital work. So designers, devs, versus people in management. Talking about that deal breakerness and showing examples of that and demonstrating that and through usability studies or through other ways of collaboration with people with disabilities demonstrating, yeah, you might think that that color is a little weird or this is a pain to fix, but a person literally cannot complete a task, for example.
Nic:
Yeah.
Devon:
And that means that they can't use it. And that's the thing that needs to be addressed. I think it's also been helpful in that discussion to help people expand their idea of what disability is. And so that's something I always include when I'm teaching, is just talking about what disability can entail and how varied it is and how it's different for everyone and how things that people don't necessarily think of as disabilities are and that they affect how people can interact with the world around them. So I think that, part of it is sort of like centering people with disabilities, but also trying to expand the concept of what disability can actually be.
Nic:
Yeah, yeah. Give me, for instance of a disability that people don't necessarily think of as a disability immediately, but that is a good illustration of it.
Devon:
I have depression and anxiety and I have days when I have serious brain fog and I've found the last few years I have to be really careful about how I manage my energy for work. If I have a really intensive day and then have to like have a chiller day just because I can't sort of keep up. So there's some days when I just am not functioning super well and I have to kind of like take care of myself. And those are days when I'm doing things like paying bills online or other types of activities that require certain types of attention can be really, really difficult. And I think that's a case where I definitely, depending on my energy level or the things are going on, how noisy and environment is sometimes. I'll have issues with arbitrary processing or other things that make it difficult to receive information.
Devon:
And it's been interesting that doing disability research and working accessibility, I've been able to learn more about cognitive disabilities in particular and identifying more things. And I'm like, oh yeah, that's a good idea. I started wearing earplugs when I'm in loud spaces and that's a lifesaver. It just never occurred to me. I have to give a shout out to Shelle Little for that because she really turned me on to earplugs, and I'm like, yes, earplugs all the time. So, yeah, things like that, that I think people don't think of as that might be situational or periodic that they don't necessarily think of as has having a big impact on how people can use technology or just interact with the world around them. And I think going back and forth about being open about that and talking about it. But I've gotten really good feedback from people when I mention it, like when I give talks and that sort of thing. So it's something I'm trying to talk about more.
Nic:
Disclosure, especially around depression and general mental illness is such a tricky topic because it's better received, but I think perhaps people out there don't really get it unless they've experienced it themselves because you can't touch it. You can't see it. It's not like, this guy's in a wheelchair, yes, so he's got a problem walking or, oh yeah, this person doesn't have any arms so probably a keyboard is not going to be really useful for them. Depression, I think is another beast. So thank you for coming out and sharing that and helping people understand a little bit better.
Devon:
Yeah. Yeah. I like what you said about "invisible disability", which even definitely extends to people with physical disabilities as well because people get judged for using all sorts of devices. The, you're not actually disabled, you don't need that type of view, I guess. So and also I tried to be careful about disclosure in general and it's one of those things that doesn't work for everyone and there's no reason why people should feel like they have to disclose a disability to get the things they need. And so it's something where like I feel privileged and that I feel comfortable doing that and I feel like I'm in a situation in my life where I can do that. But also, it shouldn't be that way. We shouldn't have to tell strangers or friends on the internet what our deal is. It shouldn't matter.
Nic:
Yeah. How did you become aware of Web Accessibility and its importance? Was it related to having depression and dealing with that or was it something completely unrelated?
Devon:
I don't think I started putting that together until embarrassingly recently, but I do think a lot of it came out of my former life as a librarian. So before I got into web work in general, I went to an information science school and I thought I was going to be a librarian. I worked in libraries for a few years. I ended up kind of transitioning into a role where I was doing front end dev and UX and IAA work for projects in libraries. So I worked in my local public library growing up. I worked in my college library. I've worked in public libraries and research libraries and academic libraries. And I think centered in that work is getting people access to the information they need. So I think that was kind of the seed. There was never a moment where I was like, ah, I'm going to be a web accessibility specialist.
Devon:
It just kind of happened gradually and I think because I worked in a place and was doing web work and environment that was specifically geared toward making sure people could access stuff. That just kind of came naturally when I transitioned into doing web work full time. After I left libraries I moved to Seattle and worked at a startup for a little while. Was kind of surprised at how, like we were talking about, when CAG existed, we were talking about web accessibility in work at the library. And I get sort of fog that was normal. It was just part of making teachable resources. So then moving out into these sort of more mainstream tech space and it not being really a discussion, I was a little surprised. And then I ended up leaving that job and going to work for an agency, a general tech agency and expressed interest in accessibility as sort of part of my interview process.
Devon:
And basically was given the opportunity to specialize in that and can focus on that and be kind of the accessibility person at that agency. So it happened very gradually and I was very lucky I had some great mentors along the way to help me through that process. It's really only been the last, I don't know, eight or so years and I'm like, oh yeah, this is my job. I'm an accessibility specialist. I don't like to say expert because I think that's a very loaded word.
Nic:
Yeah.
Devon:
But yeah, I've been doing this work, I would say definitely via libraries and via information services. And yeah, it's really only been the last few years, like you said, that I've kind of put together, maybe one reason I've also been interested in it is because of my own issues with using technology. And again, I think I've become more conscientious of that as I've gotten older and I've had to be more thoughtful and be more planful about how I just do stuff in general. I guess don't have as much energy to burn on things that aren't working very well for me. So I think the last few years it's definitely impacted my work more. But for a long time I think it was just like this is what information scientists do, so that's what I will do.
Nic:
Has your view of accessibility change in the last eight years that you've realized, hey this is my job?
Devon:
I think so. I think my introduction to it, like a lot of people's, was from the kind of compliance model. We had a client who for legal reasons needed to have an accessible product. It was an organization that had previously been sued. And so I came to formally serve, do accessibly work via, ah yes the WCAG success criteria and doing testing and reporting issues. And I think I was still looking at it from a kind of usability perspective because that was also my educational background. But I think it was later when I started doing teaching and training that I started to think more about how the compliance model doesn't, definitely does not capture the whole picture.
Devon:
And I think ultimately is not actually that great of a teaching tool because it's not interesting for practitioners. It feels like a separate thing than designer dev work. And so I think approaching it from the perspective of you're already doing design work or you're already building websites, so these are things to do while you're doing that, versus here's how I can do accessibility as a separate thing and here's absolutely no information or context about how to actually integrate it into your work. The checklist model is great to get started, but I think unless a team or organization can move beyond that, it still feels like a checklist that happens at the end of a workflow versus being something that just needs to be considered throughout.
Devon:
So I've even backed off from the workshop I teach at SVC. I talk about WCAG a bit, but it's definitely not the center of the workshop. It's more about best practices and showing how those fit into WCAG. But I show the web WCAG site for like, we maybe talk about it for like 10 minutes because I usually am teaching designers and it's also just extremely dense documentation that is not interesting or fun or enjoyable to look at, really.
Nic:
Yeah.
Devon:
No offense to the people that run it because it's extremely important and someone has to write that documentation. Again, documentation. But it's not great as a teaching tool and it's not great as a day-to-day work tool, I don't think. But it's very important that we have it because we need those guard rails, especially when people are first getting started and they don't have that context and they don't have maybe access to usability information or other ways of seeing how people experience things. So I think that's been my biggest change is kind of going from compliance a checklist to just integration into how people do work.
Nic:
I love what you say that the compliance model doesn't capture the whole picture and that using that model it makes it difficult to integrate and to integrate accessibility into every stage of the process. I had not verbalized it to myself quite that way and I think that's a very powerful statement. So thank you for that.
Devon:
Sure. I'm glad. I've had enough coffee so you hit me at a good time. My brain is working. It's great.
Nic:
Right. Yeah, that's right. You're in Seattle. So coffee is a big part of the culture there.
Devon:
It's also morning still. Yes I do. I've always been a coffee drinker but yes, coffee, we do like our coffee here.
Nic:
What barriers did you or are you now facing in terms of implementing accessibility?
Devon:
I think a lot of it is just scale. In my day-to-day work, Shopify is a very large organization. Has many moving parts, many products. And I think that's probably something similar that folks that work in other product companies face especially really large product companies, is scaling. We rely heavily on folks that are kind of ambassadors for accessibility as a concept and I've been starting to call them kind of our local experts who are scattered around different product teams.
Devon:
But that's also something I see in the events we organized for the meetup and also the class I teach, is that a lot of folks are bought in, a lot of folks that do digital work. Again, designers, developers, content strategists. The folks that do the work are bought in. And now they're struggling to figure out, again, like how to actually do that work and sometimes how to convince their managers or their leads that it's important. So that's, the workshop I teach has definitely shifted away from, we definitely talk about best practices and doing work, but we also talk about how to talk to other people about it. And then also I think the thing that I struggle with too is, now that you've convinced people, what do you actually do? How do you actually build out, how do you actually like build out a sustainable program and what are all the moving parts of that, like testing education workflows, tools. Like figuring out all those pieces, again in like a scalable way.
Devon:
So that's a lot of the stuff that I'm thinking about right now and figuring out kind of, it's interesting because it's kind of moved past the specifics of how to do accessibility work and more into how to make it part of those processes and workflows. So it feels a little bit more like project management work or program management work I guess, which is interesting. It's not something I ever really envisioned doing but I think that a lot of organizations are at that point now where they're trying to figure out how do we actually make this work now that we know it's important and people are on board. There's always going to be people that still require, hand holding and still require convincing. But I think a lot of people who actually do day-to-day work, even if they don't know a lot, they've heard about accessible at this point. There's so much information available online about it. They know they're supposed to do it, but they're not exactly sure how.
Nic:
I do think being to scale sustainability is going to be one of our biggest challenges in coming few years, I think. Let me ask you one last question for this week, finish on a bit of a high. What would you think your greatest achievement is in terms of web accessibility?
Devon:
Greatest achievement? That's a great question. I think personally, I'm kind of an introvert and so getting more involved in the community I think has been really great. I'm not quite sure if this is where you're going with that, but I think for me from like a professional standpoint and from the community standpoint, it's been really good to be involved. It's also been very interesting. It's been really cool watching folks from my, I guess sort of cohort in the accessibility world, like publishing blog posts and doing talks. And I think just seeing the way that the community is changing and the way it's getting broader and again, more inclusive, I think has been really cool. It's also been cool watching folks, there being more overlap between different fields like gaming and other areas that where accessibility is kind of a newer thing. It's been really interesting watching all of those things kind of come together, that people getting that this is something that affects so many facets of people's lives.
Devon:
I think also just that we're at that point now where people are talking about how to do it, versus not. So I guess for me getting folks to that point in organizations that I'm in and in groups I'm in, I guess that's something I feel very proud about that folks are now at the point where they're like, okay, you convinced us. Stop talking about it.
Nic:
Yeah.
Devon:
What do we do next?
Nic:
Yeah.
Devon:
Which is challenges challenging and scary, but I think that's probably, that's something I feel very good about right now.
Nic:
I think it's something to be feeling good about, when you've managed to get that little spark of light of understanding in somebody's eyes and you know you finally got over the biggest hump because convincing them or making them realize the importance is the biggest battle. The rest is just technical building understanding of skills and it's just like understanding implementation of accessibility. It's just like understanding how you write HTML and CSS and JavaScript. And it's just, yeah. Devon Persing, thank you for being a guest this week and talking candidly about all these things and we'll talk more next week.
Devon:
Thank you. Looking forward to it.
Nic:
That's it. Thanks for listening. And a quick reminder, the transcript for this and all other shows are available on the show's website at a11yrules.com. Big shout out to my patrons and my sponsors. Without your support, I could not continue to do the show. Do visit patreon.com/Steenhout if you want to support the Accessibility Rules podcast.