- Alright, welcome everybody to
the Section 508 Refresh Seminar,
and thank you for joining us this morning.
You know, talking about why the Refresh is so important
is how we were going to kick off the program.
But let me get some housekeeping items out of the way.
For those of you who have parked in this hotel,
the garage in the hotel,
if you go to the front desk and get your ticket stamped,
you will get $10 off the parking.
Second housekeeping item that I want to get out of the way
is that this is a very long seminar,
and I'm sure after an hour and some minutes,
people will want to take a break,
so midway through the seminar we will take
a five to 10 minute break, and we will announce
that right before we take the break.
So with those two things out of the way,
I'm Preety Kumar, I'm the CEO of Deque Systems,
who has been
really immersed in the field of accessibility
for almost two decades now.
But enough said about me,
because here I have the most distinguished panel of guests.
We've managed to get together people who are
the who's who of information technology,
policy implementation, policy definition,
in the federal government,
and then, somebody who brings the industry perspective
to us when you're talking about doing accessibility
at a very large scale.
And Deborah Kaplan, who's
got yet another unique perspective,
not just having implemented
accessibility for two decades I think or more.
Having a legal background,
having been at the California State University,
and many other places.
But in addition to that, she obviously brings
a users perspective to accessibility as well.
And,
it's really funny because I was kind of dreading
sitting in that arm chair.
And being a therapist for the section 508 Refresh.
And I'm glad because of this logistical nightmare
I had to move down to the straight chair.
Because I'm much more comfortable in it,
and much more used to it.
But, I do think I would like to kick this off
by getting Deborah to talk about and kick us off
by telling us, why the section 508 Refresh
and ADA standards are so important from a users perspective
as well as from the perspective of
embracing it as a society.
- Okay.
Welcome everybody, it's a pleasure to be here.
Despite the change in weather.
So,
I'm thinking a lot about a couple of
very recent experiences.
And I'll tell a couple of stories that
might help illustrate some of my points.
Very recent experience of coming in and finding a ramp
that was too steep.
It was barely, barely wide enough for my chair.
And I didn't think it would be actually.
But, then it was too steep and my foot rest were
hitting the ramp itself.
And, I was not interested in trying to go down that ramp
at all, to get off the stage.
And so, I guess the first, and Preety said to me,
"But the hotel, they're supposed to be ADA compliant
wouldn't they know?"
And, I mean any of us who have much experience go
haha that's really funny.
(laughter)
But, I said well, testing is important isn't it.
Because you can't trust you gotta verify.
And, you can't trust the people who tell you that
it's accessible know enough to know themselves
whether what they're saying is right.
I'm sure the hotel people thought they had a good ramp.
And then, for people who are users of accessibility,
it's very tempting to not want to disrupt things.
And not, we're so used to doing,
okay, with what people give us.
Because it's better than nothing.
And we've all experienced nothing.
That it's difficult to say, "Well, wait a minute.
No I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna go along with that,
it's not really okay."
And, the law says that it needs to be,
it needs to actually meet the standards.
But in this case,
I would've been uncomfortable.
And I think everybody on the stage would've been
uncomfortable with me down on the floor
and everybody else up on the.
That would've just, been icky.
And, I had to say, "Well no, everybody come down.
Let's do it that way, and then we're all equal."
Which is the way it should be.
But, you have to be willing to realize that
that is the best thing and insist on it.
Or say, you know let's do it this way.
And so, I think the message for consumers is
trust your gut
and it's not wrong to expect equality
and to expect to be able to function.
And that is what the standards are for.
So use them.
The other thing, the new Refresh,
emphasizes if you read the text and read between the lines
what those of us who've been in the field have
been saying for a long time.
Which is, you can't really address accessibility well
and address these standards well
by waiting until you've already designed something
then already built it.
To then say, oh how'd we do on accessibility?
Because you're gonna end up with conky-er
less than adequate results.
That are also more expensive to fix.
So, the standards talk about user needs
and that user needs of people with disabilities
need to be taken into account,
throughout the entire life cycle
including design and development.
And that's really really, that's the key.
And it's the key to accessibility.
It's also the key to meeting the needs of everybody.
Yesterday, 508 coordinators went to a session that
Helen Chamberlain from GSA for now,
who's about to retire and go live a fantastic life
without us.
Anyhow, we had a symposium that was all about
what Microsoft has been doing to build
accessibility into.
A lot of the products that we in the federal
government use all the time.
And they're doing things to really,
do that user needs thing well.
With design specs relating to accessibility
and making sure that it's addressed
before they start actually building anything.
And, what they're finding is,
that it's addressing issues that pertain to everybody
really really well.
And coming up with better solutions than they would have
if they had designed things from a non-disabled perspective.
And, that's something that a lot of us have also
been saying for a long time.
But, now that big companies like Microsoft
and others are doing it,
they have great examples of how that's true.
And so yesterday, and forgive me if I'm taking too long.
But, yesterday I had to deal with
very poor implementation of accessibility by Metro.
Because I live in Silver Spring
and the red line is out between
Fort Totten and Silver Spring.
So, I get off at Fort Totten and wait for my shuttle.
And there's shuttles and they're these big, big,
huge coach buses.
You know, with really comfortable seats
and they're really nice.
They're not accessible.
And so I got off and this woman from Metro says,
"How are you?"
And I said, "I'm not sure. (laughs) What's the story here?"
She says, "Oh, don't worry we've got a bus for you
it's waiting at the top of the hill."
And it took like ten minutes to get it
from the top of the hill.
So, I'm not sure exactly which hill she was talking about.
But,
it came and it was an old,
an old Metro bus that they don't even use anymore.
And so, I said I need to have the restraints,
the tie-downs and the seat belt.
Well they didn't work anymore on this bus.
I mean it, this was an old crappy bus.
I mean, I was thinking so what's a metaphor for this?
It's sort of like, and maybe you're not ready
for this example.
But, it's sort of like, you know, where's the restroom?
And everybody gets to go to this nice, plush,
gorgeous, restroom with modern tile
or those sinks you know that, look like basins
and beautiful things.
And then, for people with disabilities
you get to go in the accessible porta-potty.
It's like, what, what?
Oh, no this is special just for you.
That's what it sort of felt like.
And that's what it feels like.
Oh this is special just for you.
Well, no.
I want the nice bathroom.
I want the accessible version.
I want to be thought of in the design.
So, that's why this stuff is accessible.
That's why these standards are important.
And it's why,
the ideas that are incorporated into this Refresh
about how you need to address accessibility are important.