Episode 9
Trying to Change Perspectives Globally About Disabilities and Accessibility
Sambhavi Chandrashekar, D2L, Accessibility Lead
Sam is the accessibility lead at an educational technology company called D2L. She began her career as an IT professional. Her post-graduate work focused on online accessibility for people who are blind or vision impaired. She taught a master’s program in Inclusive Design at OCAD University in Toronto. Two of her students started Fable - now a prominent platform to connect to people with disabilities for user research and accessibility testing.
Mentioned in this episode:
Info about Accessibility at Blink
Transcript
(orchestral music)
Speaker:- Hello.
Speaker:This is digital accessibility
Speaker:for "People Behind the Progress".
Speaker:I'm Joe Welinske the creator and host of this series.
Speaker:And as an accessibility professional myself,
Speaker:I find it very interesting
Speaker:is to how others have found their way into this profession.
Speaker:So, let's meet one of those people right now
Speaker:and hear about their journey.
Speaker:(orchestral music)
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Well, here we go with another episode
Speaker:where we meet prominent accessibility practitioners
Speaker:and today I am pleased
Speaker:to be speaking with Sambhavi Chandrashekar.
Speaker:Hello, Sam. How are you doing today?
Speaker:- I'm well. Thank you, Joe.
Speaker:Thank you for having me.
Speaker:- Well, it's great to have you
Speaker:hear to chat about the things
Speaker:that have gone on in your career.
Speaker:But before we do that, I'm speaking from my home office
Speaker:on Bacha Island, which is near Seattle, Washington.
Speaker:Where are you talking to us from today?
Speaker:- Cool.
Speaker:I live in Toronto, Eastern Time Zone,
Speaker:three hours ahead of you.
Speaker:- Well, a good place to always start is
Speaker:what you're up to right now,
Speaker:organization you're involved with,
Speaker:and the nature of your work.
Speaker:- Okay, so I'm the accessibility lead
Speaker:at an education technology company called D2L corporation.
Speaker:And my role
Speaker:is to
Speaker:make sure that our products
Speaker:are accessible to put it in a very simple way,
Speaker:but it's way beyond that.
Speaker:Yeah, I always like to joke
Speaker:that the accessibility bug stops at me
Speaker:or stops with me.
Speaker:- And
Speaker:what's a typical day
Speaker:or week like for your work in that activity?
Speaker:- It's a flurry of
Speaker:tasks of a variety of types.
Speaker:It's not just about the product.
Speaker:It's also about support.
Speaker:It's about sales, marketing, legal,
Speaker:everything under the umbrella,
Speaker:and about culture and
Speaker:everything. (chuckles)
Speaker:- Well, we can dig more into the specifics of that,
Speaker:but a good place that I always like to start
Speaker:is where people first became aware of accessibility,
Speaker:how that impacted their life in different ways,
Speaker:and the journey that brought you to what you're doing today.
Speaker:So, what's a good place to start for you
Speaker:where you started to experience accessibility?
Speaker:- Let's start at the very beginning.
Speaker:Okay, the very beginning of my journey out of my country,
Speaker:that was 17 years ago,
Speaker:when I left India to study further, go back to school.
Speaker:After 27 years in the central bank of the country
Speaker:called the Reserve Bank of India,
Speaker:I was a hardcore IT professional, doing IT projects,
Speaker:and also doing corporate training in IT.
Speaker:I had a science background, even in my studies.
Speaker:I did a master's in quantum mechanics
Speaker:from the Indian Institute of Technology or IIT.
Speaker:And after all that, I also taught for one year
Speaker:in a master's program in banking technology management.
Speaker:That's when the PhD bug bit me, and I wanted to do a PhD.
Speaker:And as a precursor, I did a master's
Speaker:for one year in London, UK,
Speaker:in UCL, University College London.
Speaker:Because I believed that after 27 years,
Speaker:it's good to go back to school,
Speaker:gather your elements, and then
Speaker:find a good spot that you can do your PhD
Speaker:rather than just go there directly.
Speaker:And UK was a good place
Speaker:because you have one year master's.
Speaker:So, my journey essentially began there.
Speaker:And 17 years later, I'm here talking with you.
Speaker:But
Speaker:I do believe that in talking about my journey,
Speaker:I have to talk about three things,
Speaker:the people that I met along the way that transformed me,
Speaker:the places that I went through
Speaker:that afforded me all the opportunity,
Speaker:and the perspectives that got changed all along the way.
Speaker:And I hope that I'll be able to introduce you
Speaker:to some of the people,
Speaker:to talk about some of the places that I've been through
Speaker:and what type of perspective changes
Speaker:actually twisted and turned my journey
Speaker:in accessibility to bring me where I am here today.
Speaker:- Well, where would you like to start?
Speaker:You've certainly done a lot of
Speaker:different aspects in your career.
Speaker:You've been involved with the work
Speaker:through the World Wide Web Consortium,
Speaker:and also with the IAAP
Speaker:as a certified practitioner through that organization.
Speaker:What are some of the...
Speaker:Where would you like to start
Speaker:chatting about your experience?
Speaker:- I prefer to chat about things that are not on LinkedIn.
Speaker:- All right. - That people can read about,
Speaker:not even about how to do stuff,
Speaker:how to do accessibility or how to...
Speaker:Debating between conformance and compassion
Speaker:or where the standards are.
Speaker:No, no, no, none of that, none of that.
Speaker:What I'm really
Speaker:longing to do is to
Speaker:go back in the memory lane
Speaker:and then try to trace through these 17 years,
Speaker:what is it that actually influenced me, inspired me,
Speaker:and transformed me along the journey
Speaker:to be what I am today?
Speaker:And I'll frequently go back to people,
Speaker:places, and perspectives, because I think,
Speaker:those three are key in any journey,
Speaker:not only in accessibility journey.
Speaker:So, going back to UCL
Speaker:where I did my master's for one year,
Speaker:it was in human computer interaction.
Speaker:Because having done IT for that long,
Speaker:I didn't want to do a PhD in computer science.
Speaker:And I was interested in psychology,
Speaker:so I chose to do a master's
Speaker:in human computer interaction.
Speaker:And University College London,
Speaker:the UCLIC is an amazing place.
Speaker:And
Speaker:I do remember all the
Speaker:teaching.
Speaker:It was the very first time for me after a long time
Speaker:to learn, first of all,
Speaker:and to learn in a different system altogether.
Speaker:Although not too different because Britain and India,
Speaker:well, we do have some connections,
Speaker:but what was very different,
Speaker:what started my accessibility journey in UCL
Speaker:was the fact that I did my project
Speaker:with students who are blind.
Speaker:My project was about accessibility and usability,
Speaker:where is the dividing line?
Speaker:That was the project, but it was not theoretical.
Speaker:I did some studies with
Speaker:some students
Speaker:who were blind.
Speaker:And with that data,
Speaker:I tried to distinguish between accessibility and usability.
Speaker:With respect to those days,
Speaker:it was WCAG 2.1, WCAG, sorry, 1.0 ruling,
Speaker:and WCAG 2.0 was struggling to come out.
Speaker:And it took a long time,
Speaker:because they introduced cognitive disabilities.
Speaker:They made it go beyond machine recognizable accessibility.
Speaker:And so, that's why that question was very interesting.
Speaker:But the reason why I took that up
Speaker:was because of a colleague of mine
Speaker:in the Reserve Bank of India.
Speaker:His name is Harish Kotian.
Speaker:He was the first blind programmer in India,
Speaker:and he served the RBI in the IT department.
Speaker:He moderated a huge 3,000 strong
Speaker:mailing list called AccessIndia,
Speaker:which is all about blindness and IT.
Speaker:And he recently retired and we still are in touch.
Speaker:It was him.
Speaker:It was he who inspired me
Speaker:to start working on this area called accessibility.
Speaker:'Cause before that, I had no idea, no clue.
Speaker:So, that was the starting point.
Speaker:And Harish was the person who inspired me.
Speaker:And UCL gave me all the opportunity to work on that.
Speaker:But as soon as I joined my master's,
Speaker:I had to apply for my PhD.
Speaker:So, I started applying
Speaker:and when I applied to University of Toronto in Canada,
Speaker:I discovered the second person that influenced my life.
Speaker:That is Jutta Treviranus.
Speaker:Jutta is the director of an organization
Speaker:called the Inclusive Design Research Centre in Toronto.
Speaker:And she's also a full-time professor
Speaker:at the OCAD University.
Speaker:And she has been my mentor since 2005 'til today.
Speaker:And anything I know about inclusive design is from Jutta.
Speaker:I am ever so grateful to her.
Speaker:And so,
Speaker:at UFT,
Speaker:I moved from UCL to UFT.
Speaker:And at UFT, I took on a PhD
Speaker:in
Speaker:information systems,
Speaker:because I was in the iSchool,
Speaker:because Jutta's
Speaker:unit called the Adaptive Technology Research Centre
Speaker:was housed inside the iSchool.
Speaker:So, I did a PhD in information
Speaker:or information systems, whatever you may call it.
Speaker:But actually,
Speaker:it was about how people who are blind or vision impaired
Speaker:assessed the credibility of information online.
Speaker:Effectively, it was a study with 66 people
Speaker:using screen readers.
Speaker:And it was an amazing PhD, five years, I thoroughly enjoyed.
Speaker:I thoroughly enjoyed the learning and all the research.
Speaker:And all the research projects that I did with Jutta,
Speaker:because I was
Speaker:totally working with her as well
Speaker:as a student research assistant, plus doing my PhD.
Speaker:And soon after I got into postdoc,
Speaker:because I got a fellowship,
Speaker:the program is called Mitacs.
Speaker:It's a Canadian funding agency.
Speaker:So, I had a two-year elevate
Speaker:postdoc with Mitacs.
Speaker:Even there, I did a study on
Speaker:handheld devices and navigation for people who are blind.
Speaker:So, the research was all through about people who are blind.
Speaker:And
Speaker:all the academic opportunities, I really enjoy,
Speaker:when I think back about the conferences,
Speaker:the papers, and everything.
Speaker:Plus the nonprofit projects that I have done.
Speaker:Then, came- - Oh.
Speaker:- [Sam] Yeah?
Speaker:- You definitely were fortunate
Speaker:to find your way so early on in the academic portion.
Speaker:Yeah, I think, that's a time
Speaker:when people first do become aware of it
Speaker:and start thinking about it,
Speaker:but it can be hard to find the mentors
Speaker:that you were fortunate
Speaker:to run into - Yeah.
Speaker:- and be able to have guidance early on,
Speaker:so that you can be doing such substantive work early on.
Speaker:So, it sounds like you were fortunate to have those mentors,
Speaker:but were you also
Speaker:actively looking
Speaker:for those people
Speaker:early on?
Speaker:Were you able to find them
Speaker:or was it just kind of a serendipity
Speaker:of life that had happened? - Yeah. (chuckles)
Speaker:I was exactly ready with that world.
Speaker:It was totally serendipitous that I found Jutta.
Speaker:In fact, I finished doing the application
Speaker:for the mechanical
Speaker:and industrial engineering department at UFT,
Speaker:because that's where the HCI PhD is.
Speaker:And then, I came across her website,
Speaker:and then I tore that application
Speaker:and I applied to the iSchool.
Speaker:And I was always an outsider in the iSchool,
Speaker:because it was a library science department, bless my soul.
Speaker:But I had the best of experiences there.
Speaker:So, UFT gave me an amazing place to
Speaker:progress
Speaker:my practice of accessibility, I should say,
Speaker:and strengthen it very much academically.
Speaker:Very interestingly, during my PhD,
Speaker:I would always say, I'll never teach,
Speaker:because I had this dream about entrepreneurship.
Speaker:I had created a domain
Speaker:and a website called saha IT,
Speaker:and I thought that's all you need to make a company.
Speaker:When I finished studying, I'm gonna become an entrepreneur.
Speaker:But Jutta went on to another university
Speaker:called OCAD University.
Speaker:It's a design university.
Speaker:And she started a master's program in inclusive design.
Speaker:Because I had grown with her,
Speaker:embodying all her inclusive design principles,
Speaker:she started the master's program
Speaker:and she had me start teaching in that.
Speaker:And for the next five years, I taught in that program.
Speaker:That was the best time of my life, I should say,
Speaker:because every cohort was as diverse as possible.
Speaker:They were at least,
Speaker:in a class of 20,
Speaker:at least 10 people would have a disability.
Speaker:And Jutta had the best infrastructure.
Speaker:What is currently called is the HyFlex or hybrid flexible.
Speaker:The most up to date technology, the most
Speaker:well-structured UDL practices.
Speaker:Without realizing they were those by name,
Speaker:I actually thought for five years.
Speaker:And while teaching at OCAD University
Speaker:is where I met the third person
Speaker:who actually changed my perspective about stuff
Speaker:or about accessibility.
Speaker:Because through Jutta,
Speaker:I had become introduced to inclusive design.
Speaker:And the fact that inclusive design
Speaker:is about designing with people with disabilities
Speaker:and disability's a design mismatch.
Speaker:And accessibility is about removing that mismatch,
Speaker:meeting the needs, and all those kinds of ideas.
Speaker:But how do you practice that?
Speaker:How do you actually do accessibility?
Speaker:So, two of my students actually,
Speaker:one of them is called Alwar and the other one is Abid.
Speaker:They graduated and they started a company.
Speaker:The company is called Fable Tech Labs.
Speaker:And it is I think, just about the only company even now
Speaker:after four years, in the world to do what they are doing,
Speaker:which is offer
Speaker:to the industry
Speaker:a way of recruiting people with disabilities,
Speaker:to do every aspect of a product design,
Speaker:starting from research
Speaker:to prototype testing,
Speaker:to QA during development,
Speaker:to triaging for support, everything.
Speaker:It's as easy as just going on the website and saying,
Speaker:hey, I want two people.
Speaker:One using voice-over on Mac
Speaker:and one using a voice-over on iPhone,
Speaker:and two people using NVDA,
Speaker:and one person using ZoomText, and Dragon, and name it.
Speaker:And you will get to either meet them
Speaker:and do your conversation and testing,
Speaker:or you can set up the tests online.
Speaker:And the whole process became so simple
Speaker:that it's very easy to practice
Speaker:doing accessibility with people
Speaker:with disabilities. (clears throat)
Speaker:So, the perspective change that
Speaker:Alwar and Abid brought about in me is that,
Speaker:to do accessibility,
Speaker:you need to involve people with disabilities
Speaker:from the beginning to the end.
Speaker:Conformance with standards, compliance with regulations
Speaker:happen on the way.
Speaker:Because I hate this concept of
Speaker:testing pages after pages, after pages.
Speaker:I'm someone who believes in workflows.
Speaker:What is the task in hand?
Speaker:If your pages allow a way to go through
Speaker:and click complete the task,
Speaker:don't worry about the surrounding things,
Speaker:even if they're not fully accessible.
Speaker:The person's able to complete the task,
Speaker:which is more important.
Speaker:I don't mean to say that it's okay
Speaker:to have inaccessible pages,
Speaker:but just by spending all your energy
Speaker:on testing pages completely with, I dunno,
Speaker:automated tools, doesn't really serve the purpose.
Speaker:You have to stop me on the way,
Speaker:otherwise I will keep going on.
Speaker:- All right.
Speaker:Well, yeah, I don't like to interrupt,
Speaker:'cause it's interesting to hear your story,
Speaker:but yeah, certainly,
Speaker:Fable is a very interesting progressive organization.
Speaker:And that does bring up
Speaker:an example of where there's the shift left mentality,
Speaker:which moves us - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yep.
Speaker:- beyond remediation (Sam clears throat)
Speaker:and testing, and maintenance after development is completed.
Speaker:And moving us toward foundational research,
Speaker:having participants (Sam clears throat)
Speaker:with physical challenges involved
Speaker:in early testing of wire frames
Speaker:and the other things that we do in our design,
Speaker:in our design activities.
Speaker:So, yeah, I totally agree with your thoughts
Speaker:about truly really having an inclusive approach
Speaker:to how we come up with solutions.
Speaker:- Yeah, because inclusion actually
Speaker:is about being mindful of diversity,
Speaker:equity, and accessibility.
Speaker:IDEA, that acronym is being used
Speaker:by a number of people today.
Speaker:Inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility.
Speaker:Because human beings are diverse.
Speaker:So, they have different needs.
Speaker:So, that's diversity.
Speaker:But you can't give everybody the same thing.
Speaker:That's equality. But it doesn't work.
Speaker:You have to give each one what they need,
Speaker:so that we get equal outcomes.
Speaker:It's not about providing equal resources.
Speaker:It's about enabling equal outcomes, and that's equity.
Speaker:And how do you do that?
Speaker:You do that through accessibility.
Speaker:So, the practice of accessibility,
Speaker:we preach you have to include people with disabilities.
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:Because
Speaker:A, that's very important for inclusion.
Speaker:And B,
Speaker:if you design for people with disabilities,
Speaker:automatically, you cover
Speaker:other people having constraints
Speaker:that are not because of the disability,
Speaker:but because of situational or contextual reasons.
Speaker:You might remember Microsoft
Speaker:and their famous Persona Spectrum.
Speaker:But essentially, the impact of designing
Speaker:with people with disabilities is much larger.
Speaker:In fact, recently,
Speaker:there was another perspective change that happened,
Speaker:but it was when I was presenting in
Speaker:a forum called the digital disability and dance.
Speaker:And my presentation
Speaker:was about how to teach dance inclusively.
Speaker:And that's when I came across this thought
Speaker:that it's not enough to say disability
Speaker:is about a mismatch between the person's needs
Speaker:and the environment, you go beyond that,
Speaker:and look at disability as a resource,
Speaker:as a resource for innovation, as a resource for creativity.
Speaker:So, that's where we need to go.
Speaker:That's how our perspectives need to change.
Speaker:And I am ever so grateful to where I work now
Speaker:for the amazingly inclusive culture that's present,
Speaker:the passion of the company that aligns with my passion.
Speaker:Because
Speaker:the first important thing
Speaker:is to work for a place that has a purpose.
Speaker:And then, the second important thing
Speaker:is that your purpose aligns with that purpose.
Speaker:If that happens, then you are in heaven.
Speaker:And being able to do, being able to practice
Speaker:all that you dream about accessibility.
Speaker:If some place allows you that,
Speaker:then that place is really helping you transform.
Speaker:- Well,
Speaker:that would be a good place
Speaker:to maybe dig into that a little bit.
Speaker:You have such a long career
Speaker:in academia and teaching,
Speaker:and continue to be involved in that.
Speaker:But now, you have this opportunity to, as you said,
Speaker:get out and make some practical improvement.
Speaker:So, what's that work been like?
Speaker:What are some of the things you're passionate about
Speaker:or the activities that you get involved with for that?
Speaker:- Well, when you get out of nonprofit and academia,
Speaker:and get into the industry,
Speaker:there are certain paradigm shifts
Speaker:that happen in your surroundings, not in you,
Speaker:but what is valued is different.
Speaker:The goals are different. The priorities are different.
Speaker:So, the same kind of strategies don't work.
Speaker:But if you keep remaining focused on outcomes,
Speaker:everything is magic.
Speaker:Even here, if your outcome is that
Speaker:the end user has a good experience,
Speaker:that is going to serve the purpose of the company.
Speaker:And then, you are meeting some of the goals of the company.
Speaker:That means you are a success in the industry.
Speaker:So, keeping focus on the outcomes
Speaker:is I think, key to everything.
Speaker:Plus, I must consider myself,
Speaker:I mean, I do consider myself privileged,
Speaker:because in some organizations,
Speaker:you will have this very high barrier of attitudes
Speaker:and culture that you have to overcome,
Speaker:which was not there in my case.
Speaker:So, it was much easier
Speaker:to try to practice doing well by doing good.
Speaker:- Well, looking forward to the future.
Speaker:Are there any certain things
Speaker:that you're looking forward to working on
Speaker:or another way (Sam clears throat)
Speaker:of considering it?
Speaker:Are there any things that you think
Speaker:we as accessibility practitioners
Speaker:need to be paying more attention to,
Speaker:looking toward the future?
Speaker:So, what your outlook
Speaker:as we move forward (Sam clears throat)
Speaker:from today about things.
Speaker:- Okay, this was my personal story.
Speaker:So, I'll also conclude on a personal note.
Speaker:In North America, we are privileged.
Speaker:We are in a privileged position
Speaker:with respect to knowing about accessibility,
Speaker:with respect to practicing accessibility,
Speaker:and making an impact on those who need that assistance.
Speaker:This is not the case globally.
Speaker:I come from India and I know of several places
Speaker:around the globe where
Speaker:the knowledge about accessibility is lacking,
Speaker:and lacking in the sense,
Speaker:people with disabilities do not know
Speaker:that they can demand and get
Speaker:accessibility done.
Speaker:So, what I dream of is
Speaker:to reverse what I went through.
Speaker:I met people who inspired me and mentored me.
Speaker:So, I am in that club of Lainey Feingold
Speaker:I'm sure you know the lawyer
Speaker:famous for her structured negotiation.
Speaker:So, she believes in this concept
Speaker:called accessibility eldering.
Speaker:And I am also an accessibility elder.
Speaker:What I dream of is to be among the people
Speaker:who inspire and mentor the next generation,
Speaker:to get into organizations and transform the places,
Speaker:and try to change perspectives globally
Speaker:about what disability is,
Speaker:what accessibility is, and how the world should be.
Speaker:- Well, that's definitely
Speaker:something that I think should motivate all of us.
Speaker:And so, I wanna thank you for
Speaker:giving us a little bit of an insight
Speaker:into the people that have made your life
Speaker:move in this direction of,
Speaker:and the things that you're looking forward to in the future.
Speaker:So, thanks for taking the time
Speaker:to share your experiences with me.
