So I was thinking about what I could contribute to this discussion and the
people before me clearly know more about the actual logistics of achieving web
accessibility than I do. As Clive hinted when I had the idea for All Is For All
I actually outsourced to a developer because I am NOT a
developer so the logistics I don't know about. All I know is that we used
Bootstrap to create all of our buttons and things, which is an accessible system
and then we used WordPress, which again, as Clive said strives to be accessible.
So with that being said, what I believe I can contribute to this discussion is how
web accessibility or accessibility in general contributes to a sense of
belonging for people who have access needs, because essentially that's really
what accessibility achieves, is when something is accessible people feel like
they belong. And everybody really should feel like they do belong. Is this an okay
position? I'm like here because then I can see my slides because I actually
don't have any notes but am I like cutting myself, oh it's fine, I'm cool.
So on the left hand side of this slide is an image
of a woman named Rebecca Dubber and some of you might know her, she's one of our
models at All Is For All, so that's what that image is. So I was just gonna do a
little like spiel about who I am. So as Laura said I have always used a
wheelchair, my knowledge about accessibility if I'm honest has kind of
only really grown and come on in the last few years, And so when I started and
came up with the idea of All Is For All, I was really just thinking about the
problems that I faced and how those would go about being solved. But if I'm
honest I have lived quite a sheltered life and all of the accessibility
problems that I have faced, whether it be tangible or otherwise, have been solved
by other people around me. But obviously as I grow up and become an adult, I
kind of need to have self agency and be able to solve those problems myself.
So for me navigating that transition, I came up with this idea.
I wanted to first talk about what it means to belong. At All Is For All, our focus
is fashion and so fashion is not really a place where you would see a lot of
disabled people classically. In 2017, I went to Fashion Week for the first time
as a media delegate. I was the only person in a wheelchair there - shock, horror,
surprise! Not! And I went there with a media platform called Vice and I don't
know if some of you know, but they kind of create really cutting-edge kind of
content it's it's things that you probably wouldn't normally talk about or
hear. And so my pitch to the editor of Vice was that I wanted to write a column
about my experiences being a round peg in a square hole at Fashion Week, because
I had the belief that when I went there I wouldn't fit in. And then I went there
and everybody behind the scenes was actually really weird because they were
all super creative and they that's kind of what they did. And so my diversity and
what made me different actually really complimented me in the space, which is
how I kind of came up with the idea that maybe fashion could be a career for me
and a career for other people with disabilities. So I think one of the
first things when we discussed belonging and when we discuss accessibility
I'm not making the assumption from the outset before you know something or
before you ever experienced a space that you're not going to belong there, whether
that space be online or tangible, the mind set still stands.
And so almost for all so I'm just gonna
run through some of the accessibility things that we have taken into account
that make us different to other online stores. On the left hand side of this
image there is an image of a woman in a wheelchair, well she's not in her
wheelchair at the moment but she uses a wheelchair and in the image she's
sitting on a couch and she's wearing an Ingrid Stan's dress and if any of you
aren't familiar Ingrid stands as a New Zealand designer. So All Is For All
curates New Zealand fashion and it looks at fashion from an accessibility point
of view. For example this dress has an invisible zip at the back and that
clasp that does the zip is a really small clasp. The size of that clasp is
like a minor detail to people that aren't disabled but to me it's actually
the difference between independently dressing and not because I can't
physically do the zip. So All Is For All is kind of a website that integrates
ecommerce for a larger vision about using fashion to achieve self agency.
Also, fashion is like the home of cultural relevance, it has a lot of
impact on how we see others so by making that space accessible I believe that
we'll see kind of accessibility be driven and achieved in other areas and
also I want to make like accessibility a sexy thing to do and so fashion kind of
helps me to do that. So some of the things that we do on All Is For All that
make us accessible. First of all, every single one of our images has detailed
alt text behind it. Alt text is what a screen reader reads out and so we pride
ourselves on ensuring that everything that your eye might see through our eyes
is written down so that a blind person can they can experience the images as
equal to other people as anybody else. If you go on other websites like Lululemon
and those kinds of big fashion websites and you use an alt text scanner, you'll
find that on the images they'll have something like 'black leggings' and I
don't know if you've ever been on Lululemon but they've got like, 2000
freaking pairs of black leggings so that's really gonna help me isn't it!?
So we do that um obviously we also put all of the items that we
curate, we put on models with disabilities and as part of All Is For All
we have an agency attached to the company. So the models that we work with
don't leave us after a shoot they're actually signed to us and this year
we'll be taking 11 models to New Zealand Fashion Week to be cast in shows so it's
very exciting.
So yeah we do that um all of our contrast so we only use black and white
on our website, we use really strong contrasts and
like Clive said you know I could say, I could sit here and say that we use
really strong contrast for accessibility reasons but if I'm honest it was the
best design choice so it actually looks, it actually looks way better than if I
was to use 800 colors. But it just worked out that actually it was the best choice
for accessibility as well and I think often when you make choices for
accessibility you'll then stand back and you'll be like 'ah that was actually the
right choice for everybody not just like a quarter of the population' - you know,
wouldn't we rather all have a ramp, rather than stairs? I've never climbed
stairs in my life but I imagine it's not a fun task, so um yeah, we do that and
then we do a whole bunch of other things. This part of our website is
actually scaling and being improved so if I'm honest it's not where I want it
to be at the moment but we are working on it. We've got an audio translation of
our garment descriptions so the idea being that if someone wants to listen to
a garment description they can do that and so they might listen for a number of
different reasons. It might be because they don't feel like using a screen
reader or don't have access to one or it might be that they are dyslexic.
It's actually easier for them to listen or if you're a multitasker like me you
might want to online shop and do your uni assignment at the same time so you
might be like 'oh it's really coo.' But that part of our website needs to
be improved and so we are actively working on it. So those are some of the
things that I do. And I want to say too that we're a start-up so we've done this
in the most lean way possible. And it cost me no extra money
it just cost me extra time. But when you're willing and you want to invest
the time what you should, because like Clive said, it's a legal obligation, it
actually doesn't cost you anything extra.
I use a student, we are developing a web developer student, who was also a female
yay for woman in tech; and she did me the website and learned about accessibility
in order to create this website and make it accessible, she didn't have a
background but we've created something that we actually ran by one of Zoe's
colleagues, I think Zoe's in the room, and we have accessibility like on a
big scale and are real talented about it and way more knowledgeable than I am and
they said that we've done a good job so that kind of shows that you don't need
to know everything you just need to have the will and the desire and then that
will take you to a certain point. Again I kind of said 'why fashion?' but the reason
why I think fashion is important on an another level that I'd just quickly like
to touch on, is there is a very low employment rate in this country for
people with disabilities. I don't know if you know that but for those who don't
know 22% of people with disabilities are employed so the gap and around
70% of non-disabled people are employed. So the gap is around 40% - I failed math
so you can do it yourself. But the reason why fashion is important to me on
another level, to tackle these bigger societal issues, is that if somebody
feels like they look good they're more likely to be confident. You know you walk
into a job interview and you've all done it and you're feeling yourself and your
outfit you're like damn I look good and so you're more likely to do well. So by
making this website accessible and by giving people access to fashion, we're
actually showing them that they can have the agency over themselves and they
don't have to feel like they're limited to express themselves. If we give people
power to express themselves they're more likely to be successful, so that's why we
chose fashion as well. Other than it just being like a real cool industry. So I
just wanted to touch on the fact that we're trying to make it cool. So this is
Sophia and Sophia is a tetraplegic so she was in a riding accident, I'm not
going to tell her story because it's hers to tell, but she's one of our models
and the video on the right-hand side, we were like talking about Sophia
about her loss of function and then she goes to us all 'but I can still pull the
finger, watch this.' And so she used her mouth to pull up her middle finger and
we put it on video and use that as one of our campaign and use that as one of
our campaign ads and the the caption that we use with that was you know to
anybody who thinks that disabled people can't be in fashion we have this to say.
So it's kind of the same thing about accessibility, anybody who doesn't want
to do it, you're actually missing out it's not a choice anymore because there
is so much space to make it cool and to make it something you're passionate
about. If it's just a box that you want to tick, you're thinking about it wrong
because it actually shouldn't just be something that you want to like
something that you feel like you have to do, you should feel inspired by it and be
like 'Shit, I want to make the coolest website I can make and accessibility is
part of that because it's an opportunity to innovate.' It's not just like, you know,
a series that you have to do, like include a bunch of people in wheelchairs
(even though we're real cool) but yes, yeah. So the other thing about accessibility
in tech is that it enables people to have success. This is a big part of
the equation I think and it was kind of like what Clive was saying, you
know the ability to go and buy what you want to buy or the ability to experience
what you want to experience shouldn't be limited. So by making things accessible
we're aiding people in their success but I think it's important that you know,
those who might not have experience with disability, the success is gonna look
different person to person everyone's experience with disability is different
and I said in a quote the other day when I was asked by a reporter, like what
my goals were and what I wanted to do with this company, I said to them
"No matter how big I grow and no matter how much I can tell you about
where we're gonna go with AI and how much we're gonna, do I'm always gonna need somebody
to tie my shoes because I'm disabled and that's what my experience means." So don't,
Clive tell me if I'm
talking out of turn, coz you know more than I do, but I would
say when you're designing for accessibility don't go in there and try
and make disabled people conform to the able-bodied persons experience go in
there and think about how you can design for them in a welcoming way that also
means that able-bodied people have a good experience. It's not about trying to
make able-bodied people fit, in it's about respecting that we're different
and trying to find the best out of that. So when you don't make your
website accessible that's a barrier to belonging and that's really annoying.
So make your website accessible otherwise like
Clive said I won't go on them and then you'll lose all my money.
I wanted to say, on some level through technology, just on this slide there's
a quote on the left hand slot on the left hand side that I'll read out and
then on the right hand side is another image of our model Rebecca and she's
sitting in a wheelchair with her hand on her hip and she's wearing this pink kind
of like 60s vibe jumpsuit it's really cool it's by a brand called Beach
knickers but um, I wanted to say that on some level it is possible for everybody
to break down barriers through utilizing technology but technology must run
parallel with human skills or soft skills. I'm doing the bunny ears around
"soft" because I actually think that human to human skills are harder than
technology. I don't know if you've met many developers but a lot of them
probably need to work on those skills. So what I mean by that is you know,
it's real possible for me to put alt text on all my images and to read it out
to you and you be able to go on there but then when I speak and when I meet
you, if I don't know about accessibility, if I can't talk to you about it if when
I speak to another person with a disability, I'm a dick, then I don't have
I'm not relating to them on an authentic level. So it doesn't stop with
technology, it's actually asking questions about who am I hiring, what is
my office look like. When we speak about disability, or when we speak about accessibility,
tech, what language do we use? Do we use the word disabled because is that
the right word to use? You know and I'm not saying you should sit there in a
meeting for half an hour and like just find out what's the right word to use
but I'm saying you know accessibility is a full picture thing. Technology is one
aspect of it but if you're not carrying through with the human soft skills then
you've got a lot a long way to go and it actually you know you might be in a
position where you don't have a lot of money to make your website accessible on
a larger level, but if you're like coming in with the will and desire and you
actually are owning up to that and you're saying you know 'I am working on
this' that's better than you're just denying it and not you know not actively
trying to fix it. So it's really important that your customer service and
your actual experience of people with disabilities at a whole picture level
is positive. And then I always use this little flow chart and when I do little
talks I've used it. Oh golly sorry. I use
that every time that I do a talk and I kind of want to apply it here. I don't
know if it will work but we'll see. So my company in like my view kind of runs off
this flow chart. At the top of the flow chart is representation. So through
continual representation, so whether that representation pertain to you as you
know for me it pertains to making sure that our models are pictured in
magazines all the time. One of our models has just been in Fashion Quarterly, which
is a big New Zealand fashion magazine and a couple of them were just in the Herald.
So my goal is to make sure that international media continually
represents people with disabilities. So that's the first step I think that um
representation flows on to self-confidence. So when somebody is
represented the other people who can empathize or can see themselves in that
person are able to gain self-confidence and able to feel like, yes, I can
do it like these other people like me out there. From self-confidence you have
the development of aspiration and ambition because when somebody is
confident they're more likely to develop goals for themselves. And a person
without goals isn't going to go anywhere. Once they have goals they're more likely
to seek out opportunities and then with those opportunities they feel like they
belong. And so the way I'm going to tie this then with technology is but I think
that at every single step of this flowchart technology can assist in that
because you have things like you know if we can represent more disabled people.
As developers, if we can represent more women as developers, just got to tie it in,
sorry, you know. At every single step technology is relevant to creating a
culture of belonging, because technology is something that lets people in and
whether or not that be like tangible technology, like my wheelchair runs of a
Bluetooth motor and if I didn't have it I wouldn't be here today. So technology
is super relevant to achieving belonging and that's kind of what I wanted to like
offer you today, and I think that's it.