Thank you Kim
Good morning
I've very excited to focus on, can you hear me ok?
It's ok, good. I tend to talk softly
and sometimes it carries a bit, but
not always. And we were talking about
a really good video, that I was telling
Jennie about that I would love to share
someday. It's a video about people who say
oh, I don't need the mic, I talk loudly.
That's a bad idea but it's a great video
because it's true it might make a big
difference in terms of communicating sound
effectively. You have no idea how much of an
impact talking loudly does not do the same
thing. So, that's why you have a mic for me.
So Jennie and I asked to come talk to you all
and I'm very excited to hear your stories
because usually, when I come in front of an
audience, on the job, to persuade you on why
accessibility matters. It sounds like you
already know that (laughter).
So, thank you (laughter).
I have a slide to talk about that so I'm
going to go ahead and go over some of the
basic stuff to make sure that we are all on
the same page but most of you have said
that you know you are here to hear about
accessibility and you want to support
accessibility. So to give you a little more
details about that just so that, not only
do you have that information but you can talk
to other people who you may need to
persuade, on why you do what you do.
It's good to have those tools in your tool
box is useful when you are planning your
role and what you are trying to do. So we
will spend some time on that and then Jennie
is going to talk about getting to and making
content accessible. This is my section of
the slide and my title is Chief Information
Accessibility Officer and I think that's the
best title in the state because you say CIAO.
So, we are part of the Office of
Accessibility. We are housed in Minnesota
IT services or MNIT. We don't have the dock
anymore in those slides, I'm sorry.
And (indiscernible).
Our role is standards that effect the state
of accessibility standards and related
standards, outreach, education, we often get
involved in procurement, making sure the state
buys stuff that is accessible. And so we have
to look at the standards when buying new
content management systems, buying software,
buying new systems, we want to figure out
that what you buy is accessible and how to
build that into the system. We also have
accessibility coordinators, like Kim
introduced herself as an accessibility
coordinator for MDE. We want to have
every agency and division or your organization
if you want, to have at least two
coordinators. Somebody on the IT side and
somebody on what we call the business side,
or the non-IT side and they will partner
with each other. Ok, so we organize
meetings every month and other activities
for the coordinators as well.
So, I'm going to give you a quick quiz
to see where you are at and what your
understanding of accessibility is. Can
anybody give me an answer or have a guess
at the difference between accessibility
and accommodation? We tend to use those
words very often, sometimes interchangeably.
But, they are not interchangeable. So who can
say what the difference is between accessibility
and accommodation? Anybody want to give
a shot at it? Ok. Accessibility is literally
making content controls accessible to people
with different abilities. Accommodation is
changing instruction to meet those needs
as opposed to how it's physically works.
That's interesting, I've never heard that
answer before. That's an interesting answer
because you're talking about making content
instruction accessible, which I know
people in here are coming from. Let me
give you my answer and then we will
see how the two line up, ok. Because that's
a very interesting way of putting it. For me,
accessibility is the foundational concept.
It's making something that everybody
can use, in every way. So, kinda what you
said about putting it in there. So, what
we do, I'm not looking at the house
I'm looking at the curb cut because in
a digital world, we call digital accessibility
this is an electronic curb cut. It's an example
of putting something there regardless of
whether or not we anticipate a need.
So for example, with the curb cut, when they
built the sidewalk, they didn't walk around
we need to poll any resident to find out if
there is anybody in a wheelchair within five
blocks. They just put the curb cut in so it's
not about whether or not there is a known need.
It is built into the system so accessibility,
like you said, is what we build into it. The
accommodation, at least in the digital world,
and not necessarily a change in construction,
that is one way to do it, right. For example,
what your perspective would be like, is
somebody who wanted a text version of a
audio file. Then in our interpretation would be
an accommodation is something that is specifically
an instruction or a technology for that person.
So assistive technology, for example is
an accommodation. For example, a screen
magnifier, a screen reader, a pair of glasses,
a refreshable braille reader. Those are things
bolted onto the system to serve a particular
purpose or requirement. However, the
accommodation may not have any value if the
technology itself is not accessible. We could
have an inaccessible website, put a
refreshable reader right on there and
say have it, they still can't use it. The
accommodation does not work because
the technology itself is not accessible.
Which is a slight difference from what you
are saying because accommodation, from your
perspective, which is a valid accommodation,
is taking in accessible content, reformat it,
make it accessible and then give it as
an accommodation. That is doing something
after the fact. I built an inaccessible PDF, oh oops, too bad.
I can't read it so I'll print it out, make it a text file and
then give it to somebody. That's the accommodation,
to fix something that was not accessible. Where
the accessible PDF file, where everybody
could use it, but then I happen to require
Read Write Gold, which is assistive
technology to actually read the PDF. That's the
slight difference of what I'm talking about
where you're talking about accommodations
to fix something that's not working and is
not accessible. I was trying to not work
the assistive technology because I thought
that was the next question (laughter).
I taking if from my own child's needs
where his instruction is an accommodation for
his instructional needs (indiscernible). And again,
to your point, some of the accommodations
when it's in a non digital world -
Jay - right -
really does require physically changing
something after the fact, because text
books aren't necessarily accessible in of
themselves, the way they are printed off.
Exactly, so, it sort of depends on the
situation, like you said, and what we are
trying to do today, or what we are
trying to do in your world, is
trying to make things accessible so
that we can get the bar higher and
require less accommodation because
accessibility covers what they need. And then
accommodations are only added for those
that have specific needs because of mobile
issues, sight issues or from my perspective,
hearing issues. But, that is the other thing
about accessibility and accommodations,
we're changing that bar as the time evolves
as for example, captioning, it's no longer
an accommodation it's part of the accessibility.
So, I shouldn't have to request an accommodation
for captioning cause it's just built in. As
opposed to somebody needs a screen reader.
You don't build a screen reader into web
browsers, yet. Down the road, they
may be building screen readers into web
browsers. Microsoft is already doing that
with Microsoft Narrator. Ok. The difference
there is that requires you to use one product
as opposed to having a need you prefer
or have a need for something else.
And so things get a little tricky there.
I'm not going to talk about that today but
I am saying that the definition though the
line between accessibility and accomodation
is evolving and will continue to evolve,
through the roof. Ok, so, accessibility,
accommodation and then assistive
technology is the third word that I'm
assuming most of you know what that is.
That in the digital technology world,
assistive technology is something that
we need to be sure we are buying
is readable by something like a
refreshable braille reader. Ok. Is there,
as you pointed out, are there other
accommodations besides that of AT,
such as reformatting a document or
providing other concrete mechanisms.
Ok, so, we've talked about accessibility,
we talked about accommodations. What
people (indiscernible) word is how do I
make this ADA compliant? They have
the right idea, they have their
heart in the right place. But they are
using words that I consider to be inactive.
And, so one of my missions is to increase
more clarity and (indiscernible) in the terms
that we use. So that we are clear and
we can communicate more effectively about
what we are trying to do. Most of you have
heard about the Americans with Disabilities
Act, or the ADA. The ADA was written
before the internet was invented yet. Which
means that when the ADA was written there
was no internet. There was no concept
of digital accessibility. And that is why
the ADA was updated in the 1990s
they (indescernable). For involving for your
son or for involving like people needing
ramps, floors, handlebars. Ok. So there
is nothing in the ADA law that has anything
to do with digital technology. So how do you
make something that is ADA compliant?
There is nothing there. What is there is
that the ADA there are three titles for the ADA
or five. The first one is involving requirements.
The second is we have state and local
governments. And the third involving
(indiscernible). And the fourth is the
Department of Justice. And the Department
of Justice is several civic and federal courts.
That have determined that public
accommodations in the public sphere
now extends from the physical bonds
to the digital bonds. And so case law
has subjects that have started to target
law suits way back, maybe you have talked
about Target quite awhile ago, with an
inaccessible website. That is when the ADA
started evolving into the digital space.
But, there was still nothing written into the
ADA itself. They have been writing or
rewriting something called an advanced
mode of supposed rule making.
(indiscernible)
And they were taking there time doing it,
as you know ((indiscernible). And they
were getting close to it and then
(indiscernible), now we know where they are
at. So, we don't say ADA compliant, because
they're not the same. But we do say is
how do I make this work for everyone? And
that is what you want to do cause that
makes sense to people. How do you make it
work for everyone. And (indescernable) building
something you want it for one the people who
can see. Do you ever say that? I want it only
for people who have full use of their legs
and arms. Do you ever say that? You don't
say that. So think about it in this way,
(indiscernible) compliance. But, there are rules
(indiscernible) written in the ADA, so we will
go over those rules very quickly. First of all
how many of you have heard about the
web content accessibility guidelines 2.0?