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[applause]

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Hello!

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It's great to be here.

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You might be noticing that I have a female

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voice that's speaking for me right now.

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That's because my interpreter is a woman.

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If I could have chosen, if I could have

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picked anyone for tonight, I think it

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probably would have been a British man.

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[laughter]

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Have you ever been in that situation—

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maybe you're in a supermarket

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or you're walking down a hallway—

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and you're walking towards a stranger

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coming the opposite direction,

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and you start that awkward dance where

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you're trying to pass them

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and you go to the right,

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and they go to the right,

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and you go to the left.

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You know how awkward that is?

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Have you ever been there?

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[laughter]

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So suppose you were deaf like I am

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and you're going down the hallway

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and the person coming towards you

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is completely blind

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and you start the awkward dance.

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What would you do?

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Have you ever thought about that?

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How would you communicate?

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This happened to my friend.

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He's completely deaf,

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and he was coming down the hallway

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and there was a blind person

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coming towards him.

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And they started the awkward dance

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and the blind man began to talk.

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And my deaf friend--

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what was he going to do?

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He couldn't hear.

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So his first intuition is to gesture,

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point to his ears, and say, you know,

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“I'm deaf,” but obviously

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the blind man's not going to see that.

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So his second intuition was to take out

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his phone and type in his notes.

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The blind man's not going to

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see that, either.

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So the third thing he did

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was a little unusual.

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He grabbed the blind man's hand,[br]and he held it up to his ear

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and he shook his head no.

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And the blind man felt this[br]and immediately understood,

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“oh, this guy's deaf.”

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That awkward dance was over.

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They were able to just kind of [br]share a laugh and pass each other.

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So let's change the story a little bit.

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What if my friend was himself-- he was [br]deaf-- but this person wasn't

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blind at all.

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He could still see.

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Maybe he spoke a different language.

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If my friend decided to do the [br]same thing, anyway--

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grab his hand, put it up to his [br]ear, and shake his head no—

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would that person still understand him?

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Probably.

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Might be a little awkward, but [br]it'd be universally understood.

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This is what I do every day as a [br]creative for Amazon and a designer.

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I make visuals on the front page[br]of the world's largest online storefront.

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I solve these problems that have to be [br]accessible to millions and millions

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of different kinds of people [br]with different backgrounds.

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As a deaf person, I have to [br]innovate solutions all the time.

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I do this in my everyday life.

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My communication medium changes [br]with every interaction I have.

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Everything from a pitch-- [br]pitching an idea to a client--

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to going into a bar [br]and simply ordering a beer.

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My communication style has to change.

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I'm constantly thinking about

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how to make a better solution [br]and sometimes my solutions are awkward.

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Like, for example, you see me [br]signing with two hands right now,

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but then I have to stop to click.

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That's one example.

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But I would like to argue [br]that everyone in this room

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has a disability, regardless of [br]if it's permanent or temporary.

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It could be something as [br]simple as being pregnant,

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having a broken arm, [br]being older, or being a child.

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Everyone has to figure out a way to cope [br]and navigate around their disability,

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and these solutions are worth sharing.

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One example would be my wife.

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She's hearing, and we visited [br]Iceland a few years ago.

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She's an educator, and she wanted to take[br]a tour of a school for the deaf.

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Now, neither of us can[br]read or write Icelandic,

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and I can't speak Icelandic Sign Language.

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But being a native signer, I could [br]understand much better than she could,

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and so I ended up interpreting for her

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for the first time [br]in our entire relationship.

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Often, I'm considered the disabled one,

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but in this situation [br]she was the one with a disability.

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So what is Universal Design, anyway?

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There was a professor named Ron Mace[br]who passed away a few years ago.

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He taught at the Center for [br]Universal Design in North Carolina,

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and he said that Universal Design

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is the design of products and environments

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to be usable by all people to [br]the greatest extent possible

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without the need for any adaptation[br]or specialized design.

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So humans interact [br]with objects every day,

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and all these objects fall somewhere [br]on the spectrum of Universal Design,

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from very universal to not at all.

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So let's use a doorknob[br]as a common example.

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Doorknobs are not really [br]usable by children.

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They struggle. People with arthritis[br]struggle to use doorknobs, and this guy.

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[laughter]

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So how could we improve on this design?

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Well, the door lever. It's a lot better.

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This guy can use it now.

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But think about people with wheelchairs.

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Have you ever seen them try to [br]go through a door? It' horrible.

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It's really tough for them.

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Or parents with baby strollers.

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It's really difficult,[br]not fully accessible.

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So to even improve upon [br]the door design further,

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the automatic sliding door was invented.

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This is such a Universal Design.

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It doesn't leave anyone out; [br]even animals can use it.

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One of my projects recently [br]was to work on something

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to make it more universally accessible.

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Remember when Google glass came out--

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It was so exciting a few years ago?

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Now, may it rest in peace. [laughter]

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But I started thinking about [br]how could I use that--

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how could I make that really [br]awesome new technology beneficial--

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for people like me?

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So I thought of my mother immediately.

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My mother is deaf, [br]and she loves going to movies.

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Often, movie theaters would [br]release a movie with subtitles

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that were imposed on the screen, [br]and that was a really exciting event.

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I don't know if you know this but[br]deaf options in a movie theater

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are really bleak, and you usually[br]have to wear something like this.

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Can you imagine going on [br]your first date looking like this?

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[laughter] Yeah.

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So I thought, how can I make this better?

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I decided to get a file for a movie script[br]and put it in an app

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so that you could have a timed app [br]where you could press play

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and go into any movie theatre [br]and see the script on your Google Glass.

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No one had done that before [br]and I had to move pretty fast on that.

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And the biggest reward was seeing --

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was not only realizing that it helps [br]people like my mom or people like me,

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but also anyone can use it.

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Imagine if you go to a different country [br]and you go into a movie theatre--

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you want to watch a movie-- you can watch[br]it in your own language.

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Or you could even have an app

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become your own personal karaoke[br]machine and have it play lyrics.

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That is the genius of Universal Design.

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When you achieve Universal Design,

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it snowballs to the point where people--

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even if you don't share[br]the same disability--

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everyone benefits from it.

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Disability drives innovation.

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The existence of disability forces you[br]to come up with new solutions.

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It does not impair you.

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All of us have a disability,

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regardless of if it's physical or [br]cognitive, emotional or even temporary.

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What is your solution?

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Share it with us. [br]It's what unifies us as humans.

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Let's stop making that awkward dance[br]so awkward. Thank you.

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[applause]