Five key takeaways from TechSharePro 2019

It was my privilege to attend our annual digital accessibility conference, TechSharePro, for the second time this year. The two-day event brings together a passionate community of designers, makers, researchers, leaders and inclusive design enthusiasts from all across our diverse world. This year felt bigger and bolder than the last, and was hosted by Google in a fantastic space in their UK headquarters in Kings Cross with views across London.

I had the pleasure of seeing many of the speakers on Day Two including those working to promote cultural change and raise accessibility awareness in new media spaces. These are my takeaways from this year’s conference — and they’re not actually about technology:

1. When it comes to inclusion, show, don’t tell

In literature, we explore and experience stories best when the author allows their characters to express themselves — through actions, words, thoughts and feelings — and engaging people in the conversation about inclusion and accessibility is no different.

Sam Soloway from the Verizon Media Accessibility Lab talked about their Day One onboarding process and the experiential approach to learning that they use to foster empathy and curiosity in every new hire. By grounding all staff in disability education, allowing them to get hands on with assistive technology, collaborate with customers and — crucially — leaving the door open for questions and conversations, they’re creating ambassadors for accessibility awareness and positive change.

You can’t just have Assistive Technology and a little piece of paper explaining the stations [in Accessibility Labs], and you also can’t just have a person explaining what accessibility is.

You really need to pair these two in order to make a really genuine experience that’s leader-led, interactive […] and when you come into the accessibilty lab you feel safe and comfortable to ask the questions that you’re wondering about, to learn a little bit more and ultimately to empower yourself to be a champion of accessibility within your organisation.

2. Feedback is an opportunity to grow and do better

Thorough planning, ideation and prototyping can lead to innovative, creative designs. However, even the most beautiful and functional products and services must evolve when tested in the real world, with real people, with real needs, desires and obstacles.

Lauren Moore from BBC Children’s Games talked about their collaboration with Everyone Can and the benefit of getting instant, authentic feedback from young minds: being able to show developers children who really, really want to play their games and the disappointment and frustration they express when they find out they can’t; discovering the pitfalls of basing our Assistive Technology support on the behaviours of adults rather than children.

Too often our culture dismisses voices because of a perceived lack of experience — whether due to age, background, education, digital literacy, or subject matter expertise — but everyone can contribute their own lived reality. Listening to each other and understanding our unique perspectives can only improve the experience for everyone.

3. Accessibility is a journey, not a destination

Guidelines, standards and best practices are important — they can provide structure, direction and confidence in the work that we do — but it can be easy to find ourselves aiming to complete a checklist, to earn a gold star, rather than understanding the current context and learning from all the steps in between and those that come after.

Robin Spinks from the RNIB talked about the importance of understanding an organisation and its culture first and foremost — of setting out a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ — before considering possible implementations:

This is a relationship and we need to understand the roadmap of what you want to achieve and how we can help you do that.

4. All voices are valid, whatever the sensory channel

We live in world where some communication channels receive more priority and attention than others, and the inability or lack of energy to communicate in one channel, can be mislabelled as some other “lack of function”.

Jamie Knight from the BBC shared his very personal experience of non-verbal communication, sensory overload and living with the weight of anxiety “elephants”. Technology can help us ration our energy and share meaning when we can’t verbalise it — we all have times when we can’t talk, and some things are just hard to talk about — while being playful with language can allow those conversations to happen.

It’s like an elephant that follows you and can end up sat on your chest, BUT elephants love structure.

Technology keeps me safe and leaves me more energy to communicate and thrive.

5. Technology is important because people are

Our Mark Walker (AbilityNet), said that he was “preaching to the choir” when standing in front of a room full of people who are already passionate about accessibility. But accessibility and inclusion doesn’t stop when we step off stage: it happens every day, everywhere in all the little moments we spend with each other.

Throughout the day I witnessed many small acts of kindness and consideration between attendees and speakers — people received genuine smiles and welcomes; refreshments were offered and directions given; room and understanding was provided for personal space (for people and their four-legged friends); people checked in on each other; sessions were delayed so that people could find a place to sit (and asked if they wanted to); highly visual slides were described; questions were thoughtful and thought-provoking —and I very much got the sense that everyone appreciated the time and energy of the other attendees and speakers.

Every interaction, situation, and environment is an opportunity to build spaces where people can share their experiences in safety with the mutal understanding that they are welcome, valued and heard. Technology can be an enabler and a conversation starter, but it is the people who use it to enrich their lives and those of others who really matter.

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Many thanks to all the Googlers, caterers, audio-visual technicians, captioners, and sign-language interpreters for helping all the event days run so smoothly ❤️

[ Cover photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash ]