Working to Integrate All Abilities Through Design

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(thrilling music)

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- Hello, this is Digital Accessibility,

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The People Behind the Progress.

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I'm Joe Wilinski the creator and host of this series.

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And as an accessibility professional myself,

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I find it very interesting as to how others have found

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their way into this profession.

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So let's meet one of those people right now

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and hear about their journey.

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- All right. Well, here we go

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with another episode where I have the interesting

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activity of talking with an accessibility practitioner.

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And today I am talking with Betty Troy.

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Hello, Betty. How are you doing today?

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- Hi Joe. I'm doing great, thank you.

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- Well, I am talking from my home office on Vashon Island,

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which is near Blink's Seattle-based headquarters.

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Where are you talking to us from?

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- I'm talking to you from the San Francisco Bay area,

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and probably the biggest city that most people would know

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that I'm near is San Jose.

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And then where one of our Yahoo offices is.

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- Okay, great. Well, it's great to be able to have

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this opportunity to chat with you.

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And I know a little bit about your background,

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but good place to start always with you is just

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telling us a little bit about the work

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that you're currently involved in.

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- Yeah, I'm at Yahoo right now,

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as an accessibility specialist.

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And what I'm focusing on a lot right now

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is doing user studies and understanding the users

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and just getting to know how users use our products

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and where some issues are

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and providing the feedback back to our teams.

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So that's mainly what I'm focusing on,

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and measuring the accessibility of our products.

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So-- and also I'm doing some internal mentoring,

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which is something that I'm really excited about

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and passionate about to help spark interest

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in accessibility in small bites.

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And that's something I'm very passionate about right now.

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- All right. Well, great.

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Well, yeah, I definitely want to learn a little bit more

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about the things that you're doing at Yahoo

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and also a little bit more about the mentoring program,

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because this program is all about helping others

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find their way into career and accessibility.

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But one of the things that I also like to do is find out

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how people made their way to where they are today.

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And you have a lot of interesting things in your background.

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Let's go back in time a little bit.

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Maybe you could let me know when you first started

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being aware of accessibility and started moving toward that

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as a career point.

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- Yeah, so it goes back to my childhood, when I was a kid.

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And I was a kid who just loved to find solutions.

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And for example, there was a time when my brothers

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and cousins and I decided to have an overalls party.

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And what is an overalls party?

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It's when everybody wears overalls

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and gets together and has fun.

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Well, there were six of us and five of us had overalls,

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but my little brother didn't have overalls.

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So that didn't make me feel so good.

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So I thought about what I could do.

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So I came up with this design that my mom--

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My mom actually had some scrap denim fabric around

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and he had a pair of jeans.

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So I thought I'd come up with something

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that could be like overalls for him.

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So I came up with this design that had a rectangular piece

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in the front, and it had a waistband and straps

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that came up from the back and fastened to the front.

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And inside the waistband had these belt loops in them.

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So he would wear a regular belt, and his jeans and weave

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the belt through the loops in his jeans and the loops

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inside the waistband of this makeshift overall's top.

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So when he put it on, it looked like pair of overalls.

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So we were all able to have overalls

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and have our overalls party and had fun.

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And I was also a kid who loved to read about physiology

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and health, and was totally just fascinated about science

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and the human body.

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And I would ask my dad to subscribe to things

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like the Berkeley Health Newsletter

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and the Harvard Health Newsletter.

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And while my my classmates were probably reading

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about romance novels and stuff, I was reading about science.

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So I decided to go to engineering school,

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and I wanted something with the human body in it too.

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And at that time there weren't too many places

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that offered biomedical engineering.

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So I made my own engineering major

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and combined physiology, biology, neurophysiology in

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with my engineering classes.

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And so I decided to go to grad school,

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and there were biomedical engineering programs

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in grad school.

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So in grad school, though, I took this really

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interesting course on assistive technology.

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And it was taught by an engineer

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and an occupational therapist.

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And I thought this was just an amazing course

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because I was just totally absorbing everything

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from the course.

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It's like those times when you are absorbing everything

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and you hardly take any notes.

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So I was just really enjoying this course.

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And there was a project that we had to do.

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And my project was to create a lap tray

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for women who had cerebral palsy

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who used an electric wheelchair.

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And this was a really amazing project for me

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because we got to go to the center where she spent her day,

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and got to see her in her environment,

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talked to the people who worked with her,

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looked at her wheelchair, and saw what kind of parameters

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the design needed to follow.

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So I created a prom definition and ideated upon that,

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iterated on prototypes, and then came up with the design.

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But the golden moment was when the lap tray

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was placed on her wheelchair and she couldn't speak,

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but she was making all these happy sounds

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and waving her arms around.

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And that was the moment when I knew I could use my skills

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to help people do what they need and want to do.

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So I decided to go into rehabilitation engineering,

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and specialize in that, and created many more of these

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kind of user-centered designs.

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And I took a year off for my grad school program

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and did this assistive technology program

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in rehabilitation engineering in San Francisco,

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and which focused very deeply on assistive technology

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and various types of disabilities.

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And during that time, I was also an intern

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at the children's hospital

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at Stanford Rehabilitation Engineering Center.

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And I rotated through three different areas,

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augmentative communication, prosthetics and orthotics,

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and seating and positioning, and learned a lot of things,

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got to see a lot of different cases.

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And during that time, I also entered

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a student design contest at RESNA,

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the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology

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Society of North America.

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And it was a power soccer guard design, and I actually won.

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So with a project partner, we created this

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power soccer guard for power soccer players,

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which I don't know if you've ever seen

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power soccer being played.

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But they basically have this big, huge like a big yoga ball

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and they propel their wheelchairs and compete

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in a indoor gym.

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And we made this guard that helped them not get

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so many injuries or damage to their wheelchair.

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So after that--

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- Yeah, can I just jump in for a sec?

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- [Betty] Yeah.

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Yeah, well, just wanted to catch up where we're at so far.

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And so, up until this point, it seems like you had found

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just a really natural path where everything seemed to

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link up one after another, through the university setting

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in academia.

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At this point, were you thinking that your career

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was going to continue more in an academic way?

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Or were you already starting to think that

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you might be moving into non-academic,

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other parts of your career?

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- At this point, I wasn't quite sure yet.

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I was open to anything that would be coming in my path,

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the next thing that would be coming.

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So actually, I went back to grad school after that

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and finished my master's

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and did my master's thesis on ergonomics

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and manual wheelchair users in the office environment.

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And then from there, I ended up at the Vue in Palo Alto,

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and was a biomedical engineer there.

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So that we worked a lot with Stanford.

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So it was kind of more academia and lots of research.

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So we did lot of work with the professors

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and the clinicians at Stanford.

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And I got to work with some amazing people.

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When I was at the Vue, I was a biomedical engineer

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in the human machine integration section,

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and worked the main project.

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I did a lot of things there,

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but the main project that I worked on

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was the wearable accelerometric motion analysis system,

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which was a wearable system that used accelerometry

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to look at the motion signatures of people,

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particularly in the area where people might be fall-prone.

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This was to be designed ultimately as a fall prevention aid.

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So the idea was that these people would wear this device

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if they were fall prone

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and they'd be trained to fall safely

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or to fall with minimizing the injuries

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that they might sustain, if they have a fall.

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And so this device would be able to detect that

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and then it would send out a signal or voice or something

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to let them know that they might be falling.

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And so they would be prepared to fall.

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- Was the idea with these projects that these things

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would then be put in a form to be manufactured

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so that they'd be available to people to support

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those physical challenges?

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- Yeah, we would develop them and then

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a company would probably--

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it would be licensed to a company eventually.

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So yeah, that was the goal to have it licensed

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after we developed it.

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- And then, when did things start to pivot and move

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to where you were working in private industry?

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- Well, what happened was I took a break to raise my family.

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And then during that time I wrote a blog.

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And to write my blog, I created my own website.

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And then when I was creating my own website, I realized,

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"Oh this is kind of fun."

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So I learned HTML and CSS, and then dabbled in web design

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for a little bit.

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While I was doing that I discovered the UX field

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and realized, well that is very similar.

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That has a lot of similarities

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to what I used to do in user-centered design.

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And so I dabbled in that a little bit.

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And while I was in that field, I learned about

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the digital accessibility field.

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And I was amazed with that

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because it combined so many things

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that I had been passionate about for a very long time.

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And it had my new interest in web design.

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So it combined the human-centered design

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and accessibility and web design.

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So I totally dove right in, talked to everyone that I could

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who would talk to me, and read anything, attended webinars.

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And there were some wonderful, wonderful people

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who were willing to help me too, and talk to me.

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And this is an amazing field 'cause there's so many people

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who are really wonderful.

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Some really great people helped me and talked to me.

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And I also got my CPACC certification.

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And then I landed at Applause and was an auditor there,

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an accessibility auditor, which was an amazing place

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to learn too, and to really build my skills fast, so--

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'Cause there was some really great experts

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and auditors, my fellow auditors,

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and I worked on 80 different projects there.

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I mean not projects, products. Products.

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And I got to see a whole lot of things.

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I mean, these were products that we exercise on,

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we watch on TV, talk show hosts, websites,

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and fast food apps and medical things that we invest with

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and lots of department stores

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and lots of different types of products

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I got to see in a very short time,

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and with the guidance of experts and fellow auditors too.

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So I learned very quickly there.

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I got to see a lot of things.

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And then now I'm very excited I'm at Yahoo.

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- And so what's that like?

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So what's a day in the life, or a week in the life,

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working as an accessibility practitioner at Yahoo?

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- Oh, I love it. I love my job at Yahoo.

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I spend some time with the product teams

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when they have questions on accessibility,

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and help them with any questions that they have.

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I also do a lot of user studies to understand the users

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and how they use our products,

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and what kind of issues that they have.

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And I also do a little bit of mentoring

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of some of our product team members.

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And I mean, I just love working with the people at Yahoo,

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and I feel completely supported in accessibility.

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There is no resistance to it, I feel.

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Anybody that approaches us or we approach them

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with something, there's complete acceptance

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of the accessibility team there.

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And anything that we incorporate into the products.

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- Yeah. It's great to hear.

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And so kinda looking forward, are there any things

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either Yahoo that you're excited about

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looking into the future?

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Or, more generally, things within the accessibility

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profession, things that you're hoping will develop

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of any kind of thoughts looking ahead into the future?

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- Yeah. WelL, what I hope to see is everything

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will be integrated.

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What I hope is that there is some resistance

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in the field right now, and there is sort of--

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we're kind of getting used to this.

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There's a lot more awareness now because of the pandemic,

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I think, for digital accessibility. But it's more--

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I hope that there is more of a feeling of us.

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According to the CDC, there's 26% of us have or adults

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in the US, have disability at a time.

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So it's not people with disabilities are in one part

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of the world or one part of the US,

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it's we're all integrated.

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Everybody is mixed together.

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And it's us that have disabilities.

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And at some point, we're gonna have disabilities

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most likely when we age and it's really us.

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And we create everything that we use, really.

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It's created by us, and everything we create

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can be considered as a prototype,

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and we can decide what to do with what we we create,

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and what we go forward with with the next prototype.

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So I hope that we will integrate more,

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people with disabilities, different abilities,

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and listen and incorporate that into our designs.

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So that's what I hope to see in the future.

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And I think we'll get there, at some point we'll get there.

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The awareness is starting to get out there

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and we're working toward it.

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And it's a big job, and we've had to start somewhere,

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but we'll get there.

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- Well, I think that's a great place for us

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to end this conversation.

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Betty, thank you so much for telling us

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about your background and the the wide range of things

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that you've been involved in.

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And I look forward to hopefully meeting you

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in the physical world at some point,

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at a conference or something like that.

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- Yeah, that'd be great. It's been a pleasure.

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- Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.