Implementing and Tracking Accessibility Progress

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

The Canadian Accessibility Network recently hosted a panel discussion on implementing and tracking accessibility progress. The session, led by Kathy Malcolm Edwards from the Accessibility Institute at Carlton University, highlighted the importance of advancing accessibility for persons with disabilities across Canada. Experts shared insights on effective tools and metrics for measuring accessibility initiatives, emphasizing the need for feedback from diverse communities, including people with disabilities. The panelists, including Mandy Crespo, Matthew Shaw, and Amber Kobble, provided real-world examples of overcoming challenges and successfully implementing accessibility strategies in various organizations. Engaging and informative, the discussion offered valuable takeaways for organizations aiming to improve their accessibility practices.

Highlights

Mandy Crespo emphasized that starting small and building on existing tools is crucial for tracking progress. 📊
Matthew Shaw advocated for solving real problems for end users to drive meaningful change. 💡
Amber Kobble highlighted the importance of leadership buy-in and using high-profile projects to demonstrate accessibility value. 👥
The role of feedback was a recurring theme, with all panelists stressing its importance in effectively measuring accessibility. 🔄
Mandy Crespo shared her organization's shift from a medical to a social model of disability in data collection to better capture relevant information. 🔄

Key Takeaways

Start somewhere, regardless of your current progress on accessibility. Every step counts! 🚶‍♀️
Feedback from the community, especially from those with disabilities, is crucial for meaningful progress. 🗣️
Use existing tools effectively, whether simple spreadsheets or advanced project management software. 🛠️
Aim for a long-term strategy, focusing on incremental improvements rather than trying to do everything at once. 📈
Storytelling and real-life examples can help secure leadership buy-in for accessibility initiatives. 📚

Overview

The panel discussion kicked off with introductions, highlighting the diverse expertise of the speakers. Mandy Crespo, Matthew Shaw, and Amber Kobble brought unique perspectives from their roles in different sectors, enriching the conversation about implementing and tracking accessibility progress.

One of the main themes was the importance of starting with whatever resources are available, ensuring that initial steps are taken toward accessibility improvement. Panelists noted that organizations could use simple tools like spreadsheets for tracking, gradually moving to more sophisticated platforms as their strategies evolved.

The session underscored the importance of feedback from diverse groups, particularly those with disabilities, to inform decisions and ensure accessibility initiatives are hitting the mark. Panelists shared success stories and common challenges, offering practical advice on securing leadership buy-in and focusing on meaningful, incremental changes.

Chapters

00:00 - 03:00: Introduction and Housekeeping Kathy Malcolm Edwards introduces herself and covers housekeeping items before a panel discussion.
03:00 - 05:00: Panelists' Introductions The chapter 'Panelists' Introductions' serves as an introduction and an invitation to join the network that is focused on advancing accessibility across Canada. The speaker encourages organizations or individuals not yet part of the network to connect and collaborate. The event and its accommodations, such as English and French captioning and ASL interpretation, are described, emphasizing their commitment to accessibility and inclusion in both of Canada's official languages.
05:00 - 10:00: Accessibility Tools and Metrics This chapter, titled 'Accessibility Tools and Metrics', highlights the importance of inclusivity during events by introducing ASL (American Sign Language) interpreters. The chapter emphasizes the need for speakers to maintain a moderate pace to ensure interpreters can effectively communicate the spoken content to attendees. It also mentions a feature provided to attendees who require ASL, allowing them to utilize 'multi-pin' privileges. This feature supports them in pinning interpreters during the event, enhancing accessibility and inclusivity for those with hearing impairments.
10:00 - 18:00: Success Stories and Challenges in Accessibility In this chapter, the focus is on ensuring accessibility in video events for individuals with hearing impairments. It discusses the usage of ASL (American Sign Language) interpreter videos and the importance of highlighting them (pinning and spotlighting) on individual screens throughout an event. The chapter highlights how event organizers aim to keep active interpreters visible at all times and provides guidance on enabling captions within Zoom, thus making events more inclusive and accessible.
18:00 - 27:00: Feedback and Organizational Change This chapter provides information about viewing subtitles during a session, offering external links for subtitles, and inviting users to comment in the chat for technical issues. It also provides guidance for phone users on muting and unmuting using star-six.
27:00 - 34:00: Q&A and Closing Remarks The chapter titled "Q&A and Closing Remarks" outlines the adjustments made to the chat settings for an event to enhance the accessibility for attendees using screen readers or voiceover support. Due to the potential distraction and interference caused by chat commentary during the event, the chat has been restricted. Now, participants can only communicate directly with the event support team, who will monitor the chat for any questions.

Implementing and Tracking Accessibility Progress Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 hello as I mentioned my name is Kathy Malcolm Edwards and I have a few housekeeping items to share with you before we begin our panel discussion the Canadian accessibility network is a national collaboration under the leadership of the accessibility Institute at Carlton University we often call it can C an can aims to advance accessibilities for persons with disabilities in Canada
00:30 - 01:00 if you or your organization are not yet a part of our Network I encourage you to connect with us and join our Network to advance accessibility across Canada while we Endeavor to provide forward-facing supports in both official languages the event today will be delivered in English however captioning is both English and French and ASL interpretation will be available throughout the events so that you can
01:00 - 01:30 follow along in your preferred language introducing our ASL interpreters is always a really good reminder for myself and for all of us to try and speak at an even moderate Pace not too quickly so that they can capture everything that is being said any attendee who indicated that they require ASL while registering for this event has been given multi-pin privileges so that you can pin each of
01:30 - 02:00 the ASL interpreters videos pinning highlights their video on your individual screen we'll also be spotlighting our interpreters videos throughout the event today and we'll do our best to Ure the active interpreters are always on screen captioning is available through Zoom you can enable subtitles within Zoom by clicking on the up Arrow that's right next to the CC button at the
02:00 - 02:30 bottom of your screen you can also view subtitles via external links that will be shared in the chat if you cannot see the captions or you encounter any other technical issue during the session please don't hesitate to put a comment in the chat and a member of our event support team will do their best to help you and for those joining via phone you can use star six to mute unmute
02:30 - 03:00 and star nine to raise lower hand our last housekeeping note for those who use a screen reader or a voiceover support we've been made aware that commentary and activity in the chat can be distracting and actually take away from our speakers it is for this reason that we've adjusted the chat settings today and you will only be able to chat directly with our event support team but don't worry they're monitoring the chat they're keeping an eye out for questions
03:00 - 03:30 and relevant comments thank you for your understanding so as I promised I I will give a more fome introduction of myself right now uh my name is Kathy Malcolm Edwards I use pronouns she her I am a middle-age woman with medium length blonde brown hair and today I wearing blue glasses
03:30 - 04:00 I also identify as having both apparent and non-apparent disabilities I'm very very privileged to be able to lead the accessibility strategy for Carlton University and I do this as a member of the accessibility Institute at Carlton we're here today to talk about implementing and measuring accessibility progress ensuring accessibility is crucial but knowing how to measure and
04:00 - 04:30 improve it can be even more of a challenge so we have an a really exciting group of panelists here today and I'd like to invite them to introduce themselves so we'll start with a quick round of introductions and I'd love to hear more about each of you so if you could give a Quick Share about who you are and maybe what Drew you to this conversation today I would really appreciate it so I'd like to start with Mandy Crespo
04:30 - 05:00 hi everyone I'm Mandy I am the national accessibility leader at BDO Canada um I use pronouns she and her I'm a a white I hate to say middle-aged but 41y old uh with with about shoulder length brown hair and I'm wearing a white Blazer and a black shirt underneath today um I I come to this conversation
05:00 - 05:30 with lots of experience working directly with organizations across Canada in um first assessing where they are on accessibility developing accessibility plans um developing progress reports and also implementing change and removing barriers over time and so after doing this for for years I I've learned a lot about what what what is working or isn't
05:30 - 06:00 working at different types of organizations and wanted to be here today to share some of what I've learned thank you so much Mandy it sounds like you really are working across the the entirety of a of a spectrum when it comes to looking at accessibility in organizations absolutely which is which is the fun part yep you get something different every every time exactly yeah I i' would like to now ask Matthew to
06:00 - 06:30 introduce himself hello everybody it's wonderful to be here with you today my name is Matthew Shaw I describe my work as an accessibility practice which is using the Viewpoint strategies and tools of accessibility and the disability experience as a way to create value and that can that can mean economic and social value when we're in private institutions it can mean um public
06:30 - 07:00 social value it can mean how do we remove barriers so that everyone we wish to engage with is able to engage and participate in that fully so I've had the pleasure of working with organizations across a number of Industries and sectors I'm today focusing a lot of my work in the nonprofit world and the standards and legislative and policy environments that are here in Canada and around the world um and helping people understand that since everything we do is mediate
07:00 - 07:30 through our bodies and Minds why on Earth would we create anything that doesn't respond or understand that that fundamental principle so I'm so excited to be here with all of my panelists and to be part of K and looking forward to a great chat thank you so much Matthew it's so important to uh for us to heed that call to action that you've already started started a song which is fantastic and last I would like to add ask Amber kobble to introduce themselves
07:30 - 08:00 as well thanks Kathy hi everyone Amber kobble here I am based out of Toronto and I uh for full-time work I work at Fable have for the last six years my role has evolved quite a lot over the the last uh number of those years and what really excites me the most about working on the strategy arm in particular is that I get to work with both public public and private sector
08:00 - 08:30 clients on really effectively uh arming them with the tools that they need to include people with disabilities as part of their product development processes um outside of fable I am also a co-lead for can and the research design and Innovation community of practice which is always great we get to have exciting conversations like this uh many times a year which has been uh a real as well so looking forward to bringing
08:30 - 09:00 some of that workplace knowledge and experience alongside what I've I've learned a lot from others here at Ken to the conversation today thank you so much Amber you bring up a really good point that can has um this ability to look cross sector as well and you're doing that within your role and bringing those different perspectives to the table is a big part of how we're going to be able to advance accessibility I think so thank you for for sharing
09:00 - 09:30 that so now I'd like to get us started with the panel discussion so I'm really excited that we are going to be having this time together and to kick it off I would like to start with you Mandy if you don't mind um in looking at what are some of the most effective tools and metrics that you've used to measure the impact of accessibility initiatives yeah and I been thinking
09:30 - 10:00 about that question and and I it's kind of two parts we have um different tools and also what metrics do we use and um first I'll just say it it goes right in line with accessibility it is never one siiz fits all um I've been in organizations like uh somewhere like uh like tus or a Canadian Tire that's huge have many different moving parts s and
10:00 - 10:30 there are so many different types of tools that they already have um and different metrics that they're already using and so it's how to how to expand on that and um and use what they already have um I also work with some organizations that have like four people and so they have very different access and very different needs than than a huge organization so um so I would say first of wherever you're at in your
10:30 - 11:00 processes for those of you that are watching this or listening to this um wherever you're at is okay I I just tell you that first um if you're currently measuring nothing or if you currently have a little bit that you're doing that's okay uh the most important thing I would say is just is where starting it's starting somewhere um as far as tools I've seen organizations that want things really simple they want to use a
11:00 - 11:30 document and just make a list uh they use Excel spreadsheets and then they they put different columns where they have what action they want to take what quarter they plan on taking the action who is assigned to that action um so so I've seen that we've also worked with organizations that use project management tools like assana or Trello uh Microsoft planner for people that are in the Microsoft
11:30 - 12:00 ecosystem um some are very fancy and have powerbi interactive dashboards which is the coolest uh or like Google data Studio that has free options uh that tie to Google analytics uh so there's a lot of different tools out there um so first I would just say look for what's around you or what you have access to what you've used before and and think about who needs to access it
12:00 - 12:30 is it just you tracking or do multiple people need to be able to access this tool um so you can kind of decide what works best for you um and I'll metrics really quickly I'll I'll just say a few things and then maybe Amber or Matthew want to add um again it depends on on I've been working with a lot of organizations around complying with the accessible Canada Act or the um still the accessibility for ontarians with
12:30 - 13:00 Disabilities Act or accessible British Columbia act so it depends on um if you are regulated and you need to meet certain criteria or if you're not um but I would say some of the things that we've we've started with for organizations that have no tracking right now are um first having a list of actions they're taking putting um what they've
13:00 - 13:30 completed um what percentage they've completed towards removing different actions um or towards removing different barriers um for some uh some legislation you have to have a feedback mechanism and so tracking that feedback how much feedback did you get over time um how quickly did you resolve any kind of feedback or or barriers that people encountered um and then also depending on the legis ation there's also things
13:30 - 14:00 like uh maybe you're tracking certain points within employment how many people with disabilities are you employing um are they getting promoted um how many are leaving your organization or things like um your website maybe you're looking at um how many how many errors related to to accessibility are there right now on your website and how quickly are you resolving those errors so so there there are a lot of options
14:00 - 14:30 and I would just say don't try to do everything all at once start somewhere start small work your way up over time and and just do something that allows you to have continuity where you can say this is we're going to get foundational data we're going to build on that or we're going to survey people every year we're going to just keep getting better and better with our tracking over time I see Amber did you have something to add I think you unmuted yeah no I think you
14:30 - 15:00 touched on some some really important points there definitely in terms of um starting where you are I think a lot of the times folks that I'm working with they'll come with a a big lofty goal they have their site set on becoming 100% compliant or 100% accessible but really understanding the bigger picture when it comes to the different efforts of work that that go into that right right and I find that when I'm working
15:00 - 15:30 with organizations and this is something that we've seen a lot of success at Fable is really breaking it down in terms of people process and product so that's not a New Concept in terms of how we we look at organizational change but knowing that to get to that goal we have to think about those three different buckets if you will and what you're doing within those buckets to date so how knowledgeable are your team right now in terms of fixing accessibility
15:30 - 16:00 issues and barriers which you touched on we're looking at are we seeing any Trends in terms of the number of accessibility issues are they increasing over time or are they decreasing over time and lastly and and what I would argue is most important uh depending on the sector that you're in what are your customers or your users uh your people with disabilities that are touching your products and services saying about your your programs or products um I find that
16:00 - 16:30 when we take that step back it helps us to really understand what more granular and tactical metrics are going to be the most meaningful for people and to Mandy to your point you might not be tracking some of these things right now and so that's going to be the first step it's let's put in a process to make sure that we are actually tracking these things because I can't actually answer that question right now um so yeah definitely a lot of parallels there and and some great points Matthew I'm not sure if
16:30 - 17:00 you've had similar experiences uh with with your work yeah very very resonant very very much BS of a Feather I mean I know we're talking today specifically about measurement but maybe even just as a quick note of preemptory is that goals metrics and and how we report on them are of course all kind of The Three Amigos right and what we're doing when we're talking about the measurement is we're trying to collect and gather our
17:00 - 17:30 data points and look at what qualitative and quantitative evidence do we have that we are making progress towards our accessibility goals and whatever they may be and and so one of the funny dynamics of this is that there's lots of things you can measure not all of them are directing you towards the outcomes that you want one of the cruel ironies is getting better at doing the wrong
17:30 - 18:00 thing makes you wronger not wrer and so if we're collecting that kind of information we don't understand how it connects to the goal um then then we really miss an opportunity so one of the points that I always try to remind people of particularly when they're beginning with a compliance mindset is focus on what is your objective as an organization or an industry like what are your goals and what are the performance indicators that would matter
18:00 - 18:30 to you in your line of work and how would you know that you're being successful that can provide a framework for your accessibility initiatives to to tie into your overall goal and destination Visa your compliance uh or or regulatory obligations which are still very important but um we can end up measuring all kinds of things and we're missing
18:30 - 19:00 what's really fundamental to to the work that to the work that we're doing and so I always encourage people to adopt some simpler key performance indicators and to track and measure uh measure with their goal in mind and kind of develop a a long-term approach I'm sure I I'd be curious to hear Mandy and Amber the I get sent a lot of accessibility plans and reports and after after a while they start to
19:00 - 19:30 read the image I get in my head is of the artwork that's outside my child's grade school classroom which is they're all filling in the same forms and templates and they're putting the information in of what people think is expect expected or to want to show that the work is being done but they're still early in their understanding of how this actually drives a result I.E the removal of a barrier or towards their goal and
19:30 - 20:00 so rather than you know reaching beyond their grasp is to really develop a develop a what are the metrics that matter most what are the things that we think we would tell us if we're getting closer to the right goal or not and how that aligned with the strategy and just trying to simplify it I I have to say Matthew and Amber you both kind of made the same point and I totally agree that it's sometimes people are just working
20:00 - 20:30 towards compliance and they just like you think of like the aoda in Ontario and you have to track you have to provide training people have to be trained on accessibility and it's a check box where you go yes we we've tracked it everyone in our organization has taken training but it's a very different thing to go was this training valuable did it uh reduce ableism in our in our um in our our Workforce and and
20:30 - 21:00 in our um employees um so there's there's very different metrics that you can set depending on are you just trying to meet those compliance obligations or are you trying to um enact change in your organization for persons with disabilities very good point I really appreciate you highlighting that Mandy and I'm wondering if maybe from there we can I can go to you Matthew and
21:00 - 21:30 ask with this context in mind that the three of you have shared so far can you maybe share a success story that illustrates how tracking accessibility progress has led to improvements in an organization I think fundamentally it is beginning with what's the goal and then setting a a kind of the right scale in mind so every we often default towards especially if we're taking an aod a or a accessible Canada Act mindset we're
21:30 - 22:00 going with compliance for example is we'll we'll look at what's required of the ACT we'll try to be as detailed as possible and maybe we'll try to embed this in a big picture commitment and uh we're going to kind of boil the ocean um in my experience the most successful approaches are to begin with the bottom and to work their way up and so one
22:00 - 22:30 approach that can be useful before or alongside a wider organizational reporting strategy would be to look at your your data collection from an individual or a team or function level and then working your way up one of my common points of advice to organizations and teams is solve a problem for an end user now now and find the simplest one
22:30 - 23:00 that you could solve and then put that in your handbook here put that in your your little your in the back of your mind and then learn how to replicate that and then track those challenges so starting from the small point of view and working your way bigger can help you avoid a can help you avoid your data collection subtly biasing itself not towards your outcomes that you want but towards your ability to satisfy
23:00 - 23:30 compliance I sometimes tell organizations like if you're choosing if you're a publicly traded company and you're choosing uh and you're an investor and you're choosing where to park your investment money the compliance obligations of the Securities and Exchange commit commission is just part of the it's the table Stakes it's everybody that's on your list of potential uh companies to invest in has already met those criteria you're looking for something more so it's the same thing when it comes to the
23:30 - 24:00 uh to the accessibility uh your accessibility data collection and Reporting I think one thing that I would mention is in addition to choosing the scale one of the things that can be really useful is let's measure let's measure and capture data that is Upstream rather than Downstream so if we're trying to make some some strategic changes to our culture or to our organization some of the problems or Solutions or data that we're going to
24:00 - 24:30 want to make progress toward are happening at a different stage in the cycle and so having the right teams and units be engaged in this can be really useful an example of a client that I worked with uh they were uh they were very interested in understanding how consumers with disabilities would use their products in the future and they built a long-term forecasting model and
24:30 - 25:00 they were really interested in how are they using their products today and what would that mean for future design decisions now if they do that well and they capture their data points well then the customer service team that's handling the angry phone calls from the product are never going to get those calls they're never going to have the metrics to solve for it so just really
25:00 - 25:30 being thoughtful and intentional whatever your org's structure and style and objectives are and just say where should we plant our first flag on this can be a really useful way to getting some traction thank you Matthew h Amber do you have anything to add oh yeah definitely um I think some great points there Matthew for sure I think what you touched on about the cross functionality of it all is a really really important piece of the puzzle when we're talking
25:30 - 26:00 about sustainability and I think what we see oftentimes are people coming with a very reactive um approach and again kind of what I was alluding to in the initial uh question around metrics how can we help folks see that this actually for long-term success we need to be thinking more proactively so sure we can work towards making sure that all of your products and Legacy products and and
26:00 - 26:30 services are compliant today but what are the training and operational aspects that we're going to introduce to make sure that the next time you update it or you experience turnover or whatever uh organizational change you face you're going to be covered in the longer term to make sure that you're not introducing net new issues and you won't find yourself in the the same position 6 months 12 months and Beyond down the
26:30 - 27:00 road so I think it's a it's definitely a yes and exercise you know we can we can do the checkbox exercise but let's also think about how we're going to prevent some of these things from happening in the future and the people and the processes that we need in place to to really make sure that that all this work will will not be for for nothing down the line and I think that those those conversations s are really important to
27:00 - 27:30 have early on um to highlight just how many different people need to be on board for organizations to succeed and I think you touched on that as well Matthew as you know making sure that everyone's aware of the different people that we we need on board for this initiative and um that's definitely where we've seen a lot of success and coaching organizations on the bigger picture of all of this work I see you shaking your head nodding your head Mandy yeah no it so I had two
27:30 - 28:00 things go through my head as you were talking Amber one uh is so at BDO um we we um did a full accessibility assessment of ourselves two years ago and um our our team did of the entire bbo Canada and um we one of the things we we said is we need data on how many
28:00 - 28:30 persons with disabilities are employed at BDO so we have a sense of what services we need to provide and how we're doing we and we need feedback um and when we went to try to um create better avenues for getting this data we realized that we um our our definitions of disability um the The Way We Were collecting information was was out of
28:30 - 29:00 date and and so before we could even begin collecting data we changed our our data collection model and um changed what types of data we collected and um and so it you know it that means it's harder to connect to what we were doing in the past you know the data they had on persons with disabilities at the firm before will be different from now um but
29:00 - 29:30 at least now where we know the data we are collecting from here on out um actually much better reflects um the the persons with disabilities that that are employed at BDO so I think I think that was a great Point Amber for sometimes you just have to take a step back and go what what data are we going to collect over the long term and let's make sure sure that we are collecting the right thing now even if that means
29:30 - 30:00 changing you know and and shifting what we're doing in order to set us up for the long term and have good data over time thing I thought yeah yeah the second thing was we're about to we just created a new accessibility training for all of BDO it will be released in a few weeks and I just I realized that the the feedback questions we're asking at the
30:00 - 30:30 end I I need to change some of those so that was the other thing so thank you all this is a great conversation for me to put my money where my mouth is and and go we're we need to fix that it's not good enough I think that that employment example Mandy is is super interesting and I think that paints a nice picture for for folks on the line as well of the evolution of the data that you need and where your focus will go because now you have that data of yes we're able to
30:30 - 31:00 employ people with disabilities successfully but then you know you might evolve that into retaining how are folks how the how long are folks staying with B are they feeling fulfilled and finding the right roles at BDO and set up for success with your internal processes and tools and and and um all of those important factors as well so I I think that's a really excellent example of again just meeting your organization where you're at collecting you know your
31:00 - 31:30 first step of data and then evolve being okay evolving that over time is an important call out for sure just to yeah just one of the things I and I think this is a a feather with both of your comments one of the things I try to say when organizations are are really thinking about this is the removal of barriers is a vital activity but I encourage them to think of the
31:30 - 32:00 accessibility in their data collection as evaluating a skill set which is their ability to be responsive um and to grow in their understanding and knowledge and to get for their data to become progressively more sophisticated so if we think of any activity that we learn how to do and we read the instructions for the first time or somebody tells us for the first time it's not going to be the same set of instructions or indicators that an
32:00 - 32:30 absolute expert would have if you're teaching uh if you're teaching a child to uh kick a ball or or or or swing a bat or to draw a picture is the steps that they would follow are not necessarily the same steps that Pablo Picasso or Wayne grety would use if they were describing the the the breakdown of those skill sets so having it be at a scale and resolution that they can use um and that you can kind of actually
32:30 - 33:00 measure yourself just like what Mandy was saying about the the work at boo is like we have to kind of do an honest assessment of our current skills and kind of at a level in resolution that's like useful for us right um versus um some arbitrary view of what we think we have to do because of what an outside organization has asked us I think one of the things a thread that I'm hearing throughout this conversation uh so far as well has to do with the importance of feedback um it
33:00 - 33:30 seems to have come up in each one of your where the that and feedback from users I think has been the word as well that's been uh has been used so to speak can you say a little bit more about that role of feedback I mean you don't know what what you don't know and and certain folks might have lived experienced that they're they're not quite um being called on to share or perhaps
33:30 - 34:00 it's um not something that they feel safe to to be sharing as well so I think you know collecting feedback from the communities whom you're trying to serve is just critical and you know it is the core of the accessible candidate act as well so I think it's no no longer what was previously um perceived as a nice to have to some organizations now it's just the right way to do this type of work
34:00 - 34:30 and it's invaluable for a few different reasons I think in terms of priorities it's it that's really where that feedback is going to going to help your initiatives um Excel because as we've just shared there's a number of different ways that you can tackle this very large uh challenge of removing barriers for people with disabilities but what does that Community want us to prioritize first there's always going to
34:30 - 35:00 be more we can do and um ways that we can improve but it will help us to really focus our efforts on where we we can have the biggest impact in the shortest amount of time I think that's whether you're talking about a digital product you're talking about a service you're talking about um employment I think that Rings true across all of those different uh categories Mandy Matthew curious your thoughts on we have to keep short thoughts on it so
35:00 - 35:30 because I have thrown us off off book here I went off book with a question um so maybe we can come back to to that um I do want to continue the conversation though Amber with um what what some of the common challenges are that organizations may be faced when they're implementing and tracking uh accessibility measures and how might they overcome I know we've given some examples when you're talking about success stories but what what are those challenges and how do they overcome
35:30 - 36:00 them yeah I think um again this this will depend but the most common ones that I've seen for sure leadership buying so buying to actually put investment time money resources behind this work is is definitely the the one that sticks out um I think this one again it will depend on the the the leadership team that you're working with and and how decisions are made but what I found is that combined and Matthew you touched on this earlier a mix of
36:00 - 36:30 qualitative and quantitative data and feedback again this is going to need to include stories of people uh to really help leadership understand why this is a a non-negotiable whether that's due to regulatory commitments that you have whether that's to Market opportunity in front of us again that that track talk track if you will will will change depending on the sector that you're in but those are going to be the story that
36:30 - 37:00 will help you not understand not only understand um why this is a smart business decision but also help build up some empathy and awareness and some education along the way so I think that combination is is really really important versus just leading with well we are a regulatory body and this is what we need to be doing you can help some of those trickle down uh conversations by really raising some additional Awareness on on the topic um
37:00 - 37:30 the other thing that I've seen success with is get involved with a a really high-profile project and get accessibility injected into that project the approach there is really about helping to dispel the myth that working on accessibility is timec consuming or it slows projects down or folks need a very specific skill set to do this properly um and use that as a as a case
37:30 - 38:00 study if you will to to shop around internally and say look at this high-profile product feature service whatever it may be and these were the the requirements that we built in from the top and this is the success that we had um I think using that to just set a really nice example helps again to cultivate that that buyin in the short and longer term wow uh bringing up empathy is something very close to my heart um Mandy Matthew any uh anything to
38:00 - 38:30 add yeah um I I had a few more to add of of challenges that I've seen um one is is um having a tool that not everyone can access um so if you you have maybe uh a tool where you have um actions that HR needs to take and people in facilities need to take and Communications need to take but only one
38:30 - 39:00 person owns that document or spreadsheet and no one else has access it's not top of mind for anyone else um if there's no set touch points and collaboration around that tracking um it it tends to fall to the Wayside so there has to be some um consistency with with that collaboration over time um another one is not break breaking things into manageable pieces it can be very
39:00 - 39:30 overwhelming if you if if your your goal is to become fully accessible um it's much easier to say okay we know we've got this specific barrier in quarter one we're going to make this much progress well and then after that we're going to work on this piece of making progress uh so if you can break things into smaller pieces over time and track your your progress on those pieces uh
39:30 - 40:00 that that tends to help you especially when you're in this long game like we all are um you need to have some wins and so the best way to do that is have something where you're tracking these wins and demonstrating to people say yes we're not there yet but here's what we've done look at all these great things so I think I think it's really helpful to to motivate people if we if we track um that progress in smaller
40:00 - 40:30 pieces Matthew we're getting in here to you know we're getting into the reality of like What It's Like on the ground when we're in organizations and we're in roles and there are all of these other wins and goals that are buffeting the organization around and we're trying to figure out how do we bring our how do we bring these metrics as because we know that we're valuable and how do we kind of introduce them into this kind of
40:30 - 41:00 wider environment that we're in and you know we all know what a lot of those barriers could be the idea that this is a compliance obligation that this is a this is a cost and a liability rather than an an asset or a revenue generator uh this becomes into oh now we're adding on to people's skills or people's plates we're adding more work we kind of know what many of the common objections are
41:00 - 41:30 if we're going to try to uh instill some stable basic data and evaluation criteria and kind of say how do I best embark on this within the organization I I love Amber's suggestion around finding that high-profile project there something that the organization's already excited about you don't have to generate excitement for the initiative and you're not adding anything negative to it you're saying wonderful while we
41:30 - 42:00 do this we're going to look at a b and c and track that in the metrics is that cool and then uh use that as a kind of way to get uh the kids to eat their vegetables without uh without realizing that it's getting going um I think one of the other barriers is a reluctance to hear the truth from the customer if you're a startup you will live or die on your ability to listen to your customer and revise your offering to to meet their
42:00 - 42:30 needs there are lots of Industries though where we're really buffeted or like have a big border between us and the client and it's not fun to get Negative information about you know our accessibility progress or things like that I think one of the things that's really important is the better your feedback mechanism and the easier it is and the more that you have some people people on that team that are willing to engage I.E actually ask people in
42:30 - 43:00 different forms like for their feedback the better your data the better your data points are going to be one of the ways that can help kind of start to build that case towards adoption of broader metrics is is actually have the feedback mechanism and try to get some good real life feedback from real people and then also try to find what are some of the
43:00 - 43:30 wins around the organization it can be a department it can be one person it can be one interaction and collect those stories so that at the point where you really want to start to encourage adoption of this maybe you have followed Amber's strategy of bringing some metrics into a project you've started quietly collecting and implementing a low stress feedback back mechanism while nobody's really paying attention and collecting
43:30 - 44:00 those insights and you've got a couple of stories in your back pocket of where somebody on the team has solved a win and then that can help really kind of pitch and persuade the story among other stakeholders and SE suite and and so on where we're all concerned with all of these other things that are kind of you know that are in that the the air all around us so I have one thing I know we're getting to the end but I want to add one thing I just thought of too was um I just wanted
44:00 - 44:30 to remind people to to pay attention to barriers within your data collection process if you are doing surveys make sure those surveys are are accessible to people offer multiple ways to to provide feedback uh whether it's in person or or it's Anonymous or it's in writing or um make sure you're meeting people where they're at and with what they're they're most comfortable and able to do to
44:30 - 45:00 provide feedback as well because it it might be that it it might not be that you're you you are um have a perfect uh uh product or or service but it might be that people just are not able to provide feedback because of your barriers in your feedback mechanism so just wanted to say pay attention to that as well and I I take from that I can hear it just
45:00 - 45:30 having done some work with Amber and stuff as well user testing user testing it's so important getting that that feedback before you launch yeah definitely I think that's a really important Point Mandy because the data can work against you know folks like us who are trying to drive this if those those barriers are in place so make ruling that out from the top I I think is a a very important point to to bring up I can't believe how quickly the time has flown so far um this has been such an
45:30 - 46:00 exceptional discussion I'm my only frustration is is moderating it's hard to also take notes at the same time and I'm just like I'm going to be going back and watching this uh for sure um now Now's the Time for question and answer so I'm if anyone has any uh questions or comments for our panelists I would invite you to type them in the chat and
46:00 - 46:30 we'll I'll then read them out to the panelist if you require ASL interpretation to ask a question or share a comment please raise your hand and we will Spotlight your video and invite you to sign your question for any attendee who's joining over the phone the controls you can use to interact with us are star n to raise and lower your hand star six to to mute or unmute
46:30 - 47:00 yourself so one question that uh has been brought to us is do any of the panelists here have experience with or use of global diversity Equity inclusion benchmarks this is a first for me I have personally not heard of them but have has anybody been doing any work with
47:00 - 47:30 those a a broader comment on the use of aligning um reporting to Global benchmarks and there can be a variety of different contexts we of course have wcag uh for digital we have uh we have the UN and ESG goals and we have an emerging body of Dei practices you one of the things I see
47:30 - 48:00 happen a fair bit is the introduction or adoption of those key metrics when the organization's evaluation maturity level or is is pretty low so it's kind of like trying to do a really complex I'll use my earlier analogy a really complex hockey move or drawing and and not having the ability to fulfill on it and so one of the things it can
48:00 - 48:30 do is it can tilt our bias from what is the customer or the this the person that's a part of our community what are they telling me and how am I responding to it to to positioning our body of work within a global best practice and that ultimate goal may be very Noble and worthy but it can create um a kind of analysis paralysis or we start looking
48:30 - 49:00 in the wrong direction in terms of what it is we're measuring and why I know that's not a direct answer to that question but that's one of the things I would say generally to um when we're looking at kind of global standards and benchmarks for organizations just to be careful of so they don't go from one end of the seesaa which is maybe we're not doing anything to all of a sudden we completely tilt and what's kind of guiding our action is not directly the people we serve but a kind of broader um
49:00 - 49:30 a broader standard or or best practice organization I think that understanding of organizational maturity is so important Mandy Amber do you have anything to add yeah I think um our approach historically and Mandy you touched on this earlier of really trying to understand the metrics that people are measuring today and and something that we found in the digital product
49:30 - 50:00 space in particular and the ux side of the equation is that folks were very often using a metric called CS or the system usability scale to measure usability what we quickly found um through throughout that process was that this sus wasn't very applicable when it came to the experiences of people with disabilities who are using assistive technology so came up with an adapted sus which is our accessible usability
50:00 - 50:30 scale score and what that allows folks to do is you know again focus on what they they care about which is the usability of their products on a globally respected metric like CS but make sure that it's painting that full picture and it was some some minor tweaks in terms of language um but we saw big impact in terms of how not only how our organizations were able to adopt this into their existing workflows but
50:30 - 51:00 how the experiences of people with disabilities were being better reflected as part of that process so I think it's a you know hyper specific in terms of product quality but um an example nonetheless of what we've done in the past I I your I think your example perfectly highlights what I was going to say which is you have to put it through your own lens of going is this relevant you know are the are these metrics is what they're asking on a global scale is
51:00 - 51:30 this relevant in our context um and also going what is this missing because sometimes you look at it and you go okay I've taken out what's not relevant but then think about what do I need to add in that is relevant to us that is not relevant at this larger Global level that's trying to Encompass the entire world so sometimes it's not specific enough to your context so think both what do you need to take away what do you need to add um if anything to make it relevant to your particular
51:30 - 52:00 environment Mandy while I have you I on the mic I have a question specifically for you oh man so how how did you change the data collection uh to collect um as you said the right information can you give us an example of a data collection format or questions that you maybe had changed um so we realized the the data we were collecting was very much based on the medical model of disability and
52:00 - 52:30 it did not include things like um temporary or episodic disability there was no room for that within the the statistics we were collecting um so so we we we changed we adopted the social model of disability changed our definition of disability to be in line with the accessible Canada Act even though we're not federally regulated and then um we also of course looked at the employment Equity act and made sure
52:30 - 53:00 we still aligned with that and the information we needed to collect for that uh but then we were just very intentional like looking at the um statistics Canada and the way that they collect data on disability um and we know that their data as they clearly say on their website they in order to retain um consistency they've they've kept in intact some older definitions of disability than they would like to um
53:00 - 53:30 but so we took that into consideration we went we're not tied to this old model of collecting data so we started out by saying this is our definition of disability and it's it's based on the social model go at this time do you identify as someone with a disability uh and and so it gave more people the opportunity to go oh this is different than what we had in the past yes I do identify as a person
53:30 - 54:00 with a disability where based on that old medical model uh I did not I did not fit into that survey um so that was the first change we made um and then we just did more um looking at um intersectionality um on disability we didn't have any questions related to intersectionality before um so we did did more questions based on that so we could really understand um where where
54:00 - 54:30 the firm is experiencing the largest barriers and who is experiencing those barriers um so we both are collecting data on on how many people identify as having a disability um where those those identities intersect but then also collecting information on the barriers they're experiencing and trying to tie that into the data as well thank you so much for that and we we have more questions than we have time uh
54:30 - 55:00 which is a good and of bad problem to have um I think I'm going to go with the the last one um is does the panel have any good resources um for maybe measuring accessibility from the bottom up maybe starting points in terms of of what people can use something tangible uh that the we can maybe also share uh with
55:00 - 55:30 others anyone yeah definitely have have resources um that we can share um from fables perspective as well things we've seen that have worked well from that kpi standpoint as well as um more information on on the accessible usability scale score which if you are a ux practitioner would be definitely one that you would find to be uh valuable um you know if folks are
55:30 - 56:00 interested in in um getting a bit of support building that business case or or those types of things I've got some resources to share on that side of things Kathy I don't think if I drop things in this chat it will make its way to the group but perhaps we can do a bit of a a Roundup after this exactly I was going to say that it's wonderful to hear that there are tools available and I think what we can do is um is send those
56:00 - 56:30 to uh to can and then those can be shared with those that registered for the call today is I think people are um you know especially in this time of we're all facing a lot of budgetary constraints and um and yet also passionate and wanting to to bring things forward that people are eager to have those those tangible tools that might be able to help us in our our everyday practice yeah I think Kathy it could be I know for certain there's a few Pro interesting projects from
56:30 - 57:00 community of practices within can that maybe it would be a good time to shine a light on some of that as well um so we can definitely share a list well thank you so much uh for that um as I mentioned we weren't able to get to all the questions but maybe what we can do is we can follow up with our panelists after and get some responses that we can then share with the the community that's here today that registered I I want to thank thank you
57:00 - 57:30 uh everyone for attending today for your comments and your questions and my goodness thank you to our panelists for your just insightful contributions for sharing your expertise um it has been such a great discussion I personally have found it really useful and have a lot of reflection to do um hopeful that the organizations that were represented today have gained insights that will be able to be put into practice so thank you for joining us today we'll also be
57:30 - 58:00 sharing a link to our feedback form in the chat and ask that you take a moment to fill it out uh to keep us developing developing and improving these events if you have any questions or want information about getting involved in can please do not hesitate to reach out to the national office at can that's C an Carlton c a r l l e t n.ca we'll share this email address in
58:00 - 58:30 the chat as well we hope to see you all at our next can connect forum and in the meantime have a great afternoon or a great morning depending what part of the country you're joining us from and we will see you at the next forum thank you again thanks everyone thank you Kathy for facilitating the discussion