Episode 4
Enabling People to Unlock Their Creativity
Jack Nicolai, Adobe, Senior Product Manager, Accessibility
Jack Nicolai talks about his experience working as a web developer in eLearning and then with accessibility at Starbucks. Now at Adobe, he describes how the compnay continues to build accessibility into their tools so that customers of all abilities are able to have an equitable experience.
Mentioned in this episode:
Info about Accessibility at Blink
Transcript
(compelling string music)
Speaker:- Hello, this is Digital Accessibility:
Speaker:The People Behind the Progress.
Speaker:I'm Joe Welinske, the creator and host of this series.
Speaker:And and accessibility professional myself.
Speaker:I find it very interesting as to how others
Speaker:found their way into this profession.
Speaker:So let's meet one of those people right now
Speaker:and hear about their journey.
Speaker:(compelling string music)
Speaker:All right, well, let's get started.
Speaker:And today I am meeting with Jack Nicolai from Adobe.
Speaker:Hello, Jack, how are you doing today?
Speaker:- Doing great.
Speaker:Doing great, thank you.
Speaker:- Well, I'm at my home office on Vashon Island near Seattle.
Speaker:Where are you talking to us from?
Speaker:- Also from Seattle itself.
Speaker:- All right, well, yeah, it's been a difficult year
Speaker:the past year, but it it's good to be able to see you.
Speaker:We've talked by email and LinkedIn
Speaker:and things like that before.
Speaker:And I believe we've met at your facility (chuckles)
Speaker:when facilities were open.
Speaker:You were located at, it was the Fremont facility in Seattle,
Speaker:is that correct?
Speaker:- Yeah, that's right.
Speaker:- Yeah, it's a great location right by the Fremont bridge.
Speaker:Yeah, it's really (indistinct).
Speaker:- Yeah, it's really nice.
Speaker:Well, I thought we'd just start off
Speaker:with you talking a little bit
Speaker:about what your position is right now
Speaker:and what you're involved with at Adobe.
Speaker:- Yeah, so I'm a senior product manager of accessibility.
Speaker:A lot of my focus is
Speaker:on some of our Creative Cloud products,
Speaker:as well as our web products or web properties
Speaker:like adobe.com.
Speaker:And so, how I engage with different teams
Speaker:kind of can vary depending upon where a product is
Speaker:in its life cycle, whether it's something brand new
Speaker:that we're building.
Speaker:And so I'm working closely with the product manager
Speaker:and let's say the designers to help craft new features
Speaker:with accessibility first in mind,
Speaker:and then often acting as an educator
Speaker:to help drive accessibility into that early work,
Speaker:as well as then supporting engineering and test,
Speaker:so that as they're building and validating the work
Speaker:that they're also keeping accessibility in mind,
Speaker:so really helping to drive accessibility
Speaker:into all the different steps
Speaker:of a software development life cycle.
Speaker:And in some cases, myself and my teammates are working
Speaker:with products that have been around a while.
Speaker:And so really getting in
Speaker:and evaluating what's the current state of that application
Speaker:from an accessibility standpoint, providing feedback,
Speaker:and helping to drive roadmaps to remediate those products
Speaker:and raise the bar in terms of their accessibility.
Speaker:- Well, I wanted to definitely talk with you a little bit
Speaker:about some of the details of that work.
Speaker:But one of the things that I like to do
Speaker:in this series is just get a little bit of idea
Speaker:of what people's backgrounds were
Speaker:and how they ended up into accessibility.
Speaker:It seems like in this area,
Speaker:everybody has a different story that brought them here.
Speaker:So, tell us a little bit about what your journey was like.
Speaker:- Yeah, I think my first exposure to accessibility
Speaker:was really early in my career.
Speaker:I started getting into web development
Speaker:near the year 2000.
Speaker:And so in 2000 was actually the first time
Speaker:that I got a job with really a technology related company,
Speaker:which was an e-learning company
Speaker:based out of the Minneapolis area.
Speaker:And in working, of course, with an e-learning company,
Speaker:they had a focus on accessibility
Speaker:and everything that we were building.
Speaker:And so I was really exposed to the need
Speaker:and the value of accessibility early in my career.
Speaker:I sort of diverged from it for a number of years
Speaker:as I ended up doing a lot of Flash development,
Speaker:which was never really accessible platform at the time.
Speaker:And a lot of advertising,
Speaker:I would say sort of myself in the woods for a while
Speaker:when it to accessibility, but fast forward several years,
Speaker:I ended up moving to Seattle
Speaker:and pursuing a job with Starbucks
Speaker:at their corporate location,
Speaker:working as a front end development lead for starbucks.com.
Speaker:And as a company, Starbucks really has a clear focus
Speaker:on the customer.
Speaker:And as a part of that focus on the customer
Speaker:really includes ensuring access for those customers
Speaker:really showed up first in their physical spaces
Speaker:in making sure that their physical spaces are accessible,
Speaker:and then more and more was growing into,
Speaker:how do we make sure that all the digital touch points
Speaker:are accessible as well,
Speaker:whether that's the website or the mobile apps
Speaker:or touch screens in the stores, different things like that?
Speaker:And so really in that time,
Speaker:my exposure and my interest in accessibility
Speaker:really grew quite a lot.
Speaker:And as you meet customers
Speaker:who have a variety of different needs really helps,
Speaker:I think, to open your eyes
Speaker:about the kinds of gaps that exist, the kinds of needs
Speaker:that people have, ways that you can support them.
Speaker:Ultimately there's also a business interest as well,
Speaker:which is we want customers to be able to buy our products
Speaker:And so, I think those those things just align really well
Speaker:in terms of their corporate mission.
Speaker:So in that time at Starbucks,
Speaker:really worked hard at actually starting to build up
Speaker:a more concrete like accessibility program.
Speaker:And during my time at Starbucks
Speaker:actually had my own experience with temporary disability.
Speaker:There's a sort of very rare neurological disorder
Speaker:called mal de debarquement syndrome,
Speaker:which most people experience after exposure
Speaker:to some kind to passive motion.
Speaker:You'll often hear about people who go on a cruise
Speaker:for a week or something like that.
Speaker:And they get back and they never really feel
Speaker:like they've gotten off the boat.
Speaker:They experience a continuous rocking sensation.
Speaker:It causes problems with equilibrium, focus, fatigue,
Speaker:a whole variety of symptoms,
Speaker:but as a collection, they make it very hard to concentrate,
Speaker:very hard to function.
Speaker:And so I had my own experience with that
Speaker:and ended up on temporary disability for a month.
Speaker:Even beyond that, it was several months
Speaker:in recovery, finding it very difficult to work.
Speaker:And so, really helped to also personalize accessibility work
Speaker:from my own perspective.
Speaker:And so, sort of a number of things
Speaker:in that experience working at Starbucks really
Speaker:for me helped to crystallize both my desire
Speaker:and my passion around accessibility.
Speaker:And then I just really happened upon an opportunity
Speaker:with Adobe, happened to see a job posting
Speaker:for the work that I'm doing now.
Speaker:And for myself, I grew up on Adobe and Macromedia products.
Speaker:They were the things that allowed me
Speaker:to drive my career forward, really to help...
Speaker:I mean, it was being an expert at those as products
Speaker:was really my career.
Speaker:And so I really felt
Speaker:and continued to feel a real responsibility
Speaker:for helping to make Adobe's products accessible,
Speaker:so that a young developer or designer, UX designer,
Speaker:if you have a passion and you wanna work in the industry,
Speaker:Adobe products are some of the premier products to use.
Speaker:You need to be to able to use them to really,
Speaker:I think, measure up in the workforce.
Speaker:And so to be to enable more and more people
Speaker:the ability to unlock their won creativity
Speaker:really has been my call.
Speaker:- Well, you're just going back a little bit.
Speaker:You mentioned that you you'd done some early work
Speaker:with accessibility and then there was a break,
Speaker:and then you'd had that substantive work
Speaker:with Starbucks and now into Adobe.
Speaker:And so you've had kinda a long time spectrum for that,
Speaker:but just from your own experiences
Speaker:do you have any feelings of what has changed in the area
Speaker:of accessibility for digital products and services
Speaker:from the earlier times to now?
Speaker:I know when I reflect on it,
Speaker:I started working on it around 1998, '99.
Speaker:There's some things I could talk to you about
Speaker:where I'm kind of amazed at how much progress has been made.
Speaker:And then there's other things where it's like,
Speaker:wow, I really thought we'd be at a different place
Speaker:when I was thinking about it 20 years ago.
Speaker:Has anything come to mind along those lines?
Speaker:- Well, certainly I think that
Speaker:because of the web content accessibility guidelines
Speaker:developing over time and those coming more robust
Speaker:and people's awareness in the industry,
Speaker:I think that has been a real benefit,
Speaker:because people have a roadmap to some degree to follow
Speaker:about ways to make their content more accessible,
Speaker:whether they choose to follow that or not.
Speaker:Tooling has gotten better, right?
Speaker:Products like AX or other automated test tooling,
Speaker:so that it enables people to have more insight
Speaker:into the level of accessibility of their products.
Speaker:I mean, those kinds of things just didn't exist before.
Speaker:And so I think those are ways
Speaker:that things have gotten better and grown over time.
Speaker:I think there's always going to be a need for education.
Speaker:And I'm trying to remember the program
Speaker:with the colleges, Access...
Speaker:Forget the name of it now,
Speaker:but there's a program with universities
Speaker:to help drive accessibility into curriculum.
Speaker:And so things like that I think are really good signs
Speaker:that accessibility and inclusive design continue
Speaker:to become more and more included, I guess,
Speaker:in the work that people are doing.
Speaker:I talk to more and more product designers
Speaker:and inclusive designers or UX designers
Speaker:that are really excited about accessibility.
Speaker:I think one of the the bigger challenges right now
Speaker:is just barriers that we often find
Speaker:within organizations often from people
Speaker:who don't necessarily understand accessibility at the time.
Speaker:And so they're often with that lack of understanding
Speaker:often prioritize other things
Speaker:in the business over accessibility.
Speaker:And so it can be hard for someone like a product designer
Speaker:who really wants to do the right thing
Speaker:and is really trying to drive accessibility work
Speaker:for their customers, driving up against problems
Speaker:with product management not prioritizing that kinda work.
Speaker:And so I think some things never change really,
Speaker:but we still need to continue,
Speaker:I think, that process of education.
Speaker:- Yeah, well, hopefully we'll continue
Speaker:to have more and more people paying attention to it.
Speaker:And I know I feel as well that a lot of new people
Speaker:that I see coming into it through my work
Speaker:at the University of Washington will have some knowledge
Speaker:or wanna talk about it,
Speaker:and that's something that's different
Speaker:than five, eight years ago.
Speaker:Go ahead.
Speaker:- I was just gonna say even recently,
Speaker:we, in the last year or so,
Speaker:hired one of our UX researchers
Speaker:specifically for researching accessibility
Speaker:within our organization,
Speaker:which is just a position that didn't exist before.
Speaker:And so, we really made the commitment
Speaker:to center accessibility within our research group as well.
Speaker:- Yeah, well, that's great.
Speaker:There's definitely a progressive step
Speaker:to get that going so early
Speaker:in the product development process.
Speaker:You mentioned your own experiences with what I guess is
Speaker:the illness that you had, I guess would sort of be
Speaker:like a cognitive physical challenge.
Speaker:I'm not familiar with that one exactly,
Speaker:but when I think about your different physical categories
Speaker:like sight and sound and mobility,
Speaker:and then there there's cognitive issues,
Speaker:that to me is always the one that is the one
Speaker:that digital products and services really don't dig into
Speaker:or necessarily have the greatest solutions in my experience.
Speaker:I've helped in volunteer situations with people
Speaker:who've had accidents, traumatic brain injury,
Speaker:and things like that.
Speaker:When you're trying to help them,
Speaker:even something as simply as setting up a Gmail account,
Speaker:creating a right mental model for people
Speaker:with cognitive issues can be really different.
Speaker:So, yeah, I don't know what your experiences were,
Speaker:but like, how does cognitive...
Speaker:What were your experiences with that
Speaker:and how does that fit into the work that you do today?
Speaker:- Well, at the time, my experience,
Speaker:because I was experiencing
Speaker:in some respects kinda a sensory overload,
Speaker:because of this constant rocking sensation,
Speaker:it was taking up so much of my conscious energy.
Speaker:It made it hard to concentrate
Speaker:to actually sit down and get work done.
Speaker:I couldn't focus.
Speaker:And it created just a lot of like mental fatigue as well.
Speaker:And I think that the cognitive piece is challenging.
Speaker:It's hard, because I think that
Speaker:because there are so many different forms
Speaker:of cognitive disability,
Speaker:you can try to move one solution forward,
Speaker:but it only maybe helps three outta five people.
Speaker:And in some cases you might actually have solutions
Speaker:that are like in competition with one another.
Speaker:I think that there can be a number of different
Speaker:kinds of solutions to your point,
Speaker:whether it's providing a Gmail account in some situation,
Speaker:but I don't know.
Speaker:I think that even WCCC struggles
Speaker:with cognitive as well, the W3C.
Speaker:I mean, I think that in conversations that I've had
Speaker:that are people involved with the W3C
Speaker:like it's a challenge to try to actually create standards,
Speaker:actual standards around cognitive issues.
Speaker:I mean, I think the best that we try to do
Speaker:is to provide clear, simple interface
Speaker:that doesn't do things like play animations
Speaker:that are distracting.
Speaker:I mean, it can be little things like that
Speaker:using clear labeling,
Speaker:using language that's going to be understandable
Speaker:at lower grade levels just to make things simpler.
Speaker:And I think ultimately in the end,
Speaker:it comes down to user testing, right?
Speaker:You've just gotta get it in front users
Speaker:to find out whether or not it's challenging
Speaker:for one audience or another.
Speaker:So I don't know if that answers your question.
Speaker:- No, that's great.
Speaker:I mean, it's like I mentioned
Speaker:at the very start of my comment.
Speaker:I think the most difficult area
Speaker:of the different physical challenges.
Speaker:Maybe we could talk a little bit
Speaker:about what you have going on right now.
Speaker:Are there any, you know, highlights
Speaker:from recent work things that Adobe has out there
Speaker:that people may be familiar with or could look to
Speaker:to kinda see the manifestations of what you've done?
Speaker:I think people are always looking for examples
Speaker:of what others are doing and finding success with.
Speaker:- Yeah.
Speaker:I'm sort of speaking for one of my colleagues,
Speaker:but there is something called liquid mode for PDFs,
Speaker:and it is a relatively new product release
Speaker:for Acrobat and PDF that actually allows PDF content
Speaker:to reflow to mobile devices
Speaker:without actually originally being formatted for mobile.
Speaker:There's a lot of like machine learning and AI
Speaker:behind it that actually allows all that content
Speaker:to be reflowed automatically,
Speaker:which then makes that content accessible
Speaker:in a lot of different form factors essentially.
Speaker:We had released in the last, I believe, year support,
Speaker:a level of support for voice control
Speaker:in our product Adobe XD,
Speaker:so that on Mac using voice control,
Speaker:you can actually drive features of the XD application itself
Speaker:like interacting with the menus and the canvas
Speaker:and other things like that.
Speaker:So for people who may have, let's say,
Speaker:a motor disability,
Speaker:typically unable to use the mouse,
Speaker:they can use voice control.
Speaker:And I think, we've made a lot of improvements for adobe.com
Speaker:over the last few years.
Speaker:For me, adobe.com is really the entry point
Speaker:for most of customers to buy, subscribe, to learn,
Speaker:to modify things about their account.
Speaker:And so I think that really making sure
Speaker:that the adobe.com experience is an accessible one
Speaker:has been really important to me.
Speaker:And then more recently,
Speaker:because of the pandemic,
Speaker:we've driven all of our events
Speaker:to be completely online events.
Speaker:And so I've worked very closely with the Adobe Max team,
Speaker:which was last fall, and then our Adobe Summit conference,
Speaker:which was just here in April
Speaker:and really working to ensure
Speaker:that we are delivering an accessible conference experience.
Speaker:Adobe Max before the pandemic we had about,
Speaker:I think our our last conference in person
Speaker:was about 14,000 people.
Speaker:There were over 250,000 registrations, yeah,
Speaker:for the most recent Adobe Max. - Wow.
Speaker:- And so that's a lot of exposure for that content
Speaker:in a very short amount of time.
Speaker:And so, helping to support features like captioning
Speaker:for all the sessions, both recorded and live,
Speaker:to make sure that it's an inclusive experience for everyone.
Speaker:- Yeah, that's amazing, those numbers grew like that.
Speaker:Well, there's one other thing I wanna ask you about,
Speaker:which I ask a lot of people about,
Speaker:'cause it's an interest area of mine
Speaker:is kind of like how an organization
Speaker:has its its overall accessibility process baked in.
Speaker:So some organizations, especially larger ones,
Speaker:may have a kind of a centralized accessibility group
Speaker:that then informs individual divisions and departments
Speaker:and provide resources and guidance
Speaker:and things like that,
Speaker:and others may be more laissez faire.
Speaker:It may even just be about a certain evangelist
Speaker:in one area and then that percolates to others,
Speaker:and they try to string together a complete solution.
Speaker:There's everything in between.
Speaker:So I was kind of wondering how things are set up in Adobe.
Speaker:- Yeah.
Speaker:Well, more like you described at the beginning,
Speaker:we do have a centralized team.
Speaker:We do have a governance program
Speaker:that we basically plug accessibility
Speaker:into a larger Adobe governance program
Speaker:that also manages other topics
Speaker:like security and internationalization.
Speaker:And so we leverage that
Speaker:to help drive accessibility requirements
Speaker:throughout the company
Speaker:and to make clear what the expectations are
Speaker:and to set milestones for teams
Speaker:to actually meet around accessibility goals.
Speaker:And as a part of that structure,
Speaker:we also identify accessibility champions per product.
Speaker:And actually depending upon the size of a product,
Speaker:we may actually identify multiple champions,
Speaker:just because to scale across the product.
Speaker:So yeah, centralized team governance program and champions.
Speaker:And then as you were saying earlier,
Speaker:our centralized team then acts often on a consulting basis
Speaker:to help drive accessibility requirements,
Speaker:to help educate, and essentially be that centralized hub
Speaker:for accessibility excellence.
Speaker:- All right, great.
Speaker:Well, yeah, I appreciate all of these insights
Speaker:and also for you taking the time to chat with me today.
Speaker:And good luck with all of your continued efforts
Speaker:and accessibility at Adobe.
