ATIA 2019 Highlights
Last week I had the privilege of attending ATIA 2019 in Orlando, Florida. Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) is an international organization whose mission is “to serve as the collective voice of the assistive technology industry to help ensure that the best products and services are delivered to persons with disabilities.”
ATIA 2019 was a marvelous gathering of accessibility professionals, AT providers, educators, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, physical therapists, and makers from all over the world. Getting exposure to over 350 education sessions and over 100 AT exhibitors as a first-time attendee, I am walking away enlightened, inspired, and hungry for more. Check out some highlights from my ATIA 2019 experience below!
But First, a Quick Glossary
Key Takeaways
Here are the golden nuggets I get to take home with me from the various education sessions I attended:
How to Create Accessible AR for iPhone and iPad
By Suzanne Taylor, Barbara Taylor, Mark Laino
- A variety of sensory feedback is crucial to making AR accessible. Combinations of visual, auditory, and haptic feedback allows users with any subset of these senses to play AR games fairly.
- While official accessibility guidelines don’t yet exist for AR/VR, inspiration should be drawn from software/web, gaming, AR, and real-world guidelines and best practices. For example, it’s important to follow ADA pathway width requirements to maintain an immersive experience for wheelchair users (so that their wheelchair isn’t on top of the path-adjacent grass), or at least making the path width adjustable. Additionally, it’s crucial to make user interactions accessible by following WCAG, for example, using buttons as accessible shortcuts for complicated functionalities.
Leadership Spotlight: The Evolving Landscape of AT in 2019 and Beyond
- AT used to be intended for some learners; it’s now meant for all learners. Student populations and needs are diverse across ability, socioeconomic status, race, and so on, so AT programs need to be able to cater to a diverse pool of students at the intersections of their needs.
- To keep up with increasing demand and inclusion of who AT serves, the AT model of service delivery needs to evolve from a 1:1 concierge model to an efficient, scaled programs. Tools such as video conferencing and tiered services can help AT providers scale their services to wider audiences.
- As schools and administrations adopt “business lingo,” it becomes increasingly important for AT providers to record and document data that demonstrates the value and impact of their services. Additionally, AT providers need to be at the table when schools administrations make decisions about how students access learning in the face of technological advancement.
Creating Accessible Content
- Accessibility is about inclusion. Not making content accessible is exclusion, intentional or not. The line is drawn at the populations you want to exclude.
- Embracing accessibility from the beginning of the design and development process improves usability for everyone. For example, presentation captions (like how Henri used with Google Captions!) helps not only those who are D/HH, but also anyone having trouble keeping up with a speedy speaker.
Living Independently with Low Vision
By Scott Gartner
- Low vision can manifest itself as general blur, central vision loss, or peripheral vision loss. Respectively, controlled lighting (reduced glare/increased contrast), magnification, and prism-reflected lenses can improve the vision of those with low vision.
- Treating low vision increases productivity, employment, and independence. The ability to read email, personal bills, bank statements, and medication gives people with low vision the agency to be independent.
Not Easy Grow Up
Film by Ron Taylor
- As important as independence is in the realm of accessibility, we are all interdependent humans who rely on each other for meaningful relationships.
- A body is a whole, integrated unit. A body that uses AT is a whole, integrated unit. If one part isn’t functioning, the whole, integrated unit still functions in unison.
“Normal is a false and unnatural concept…People are unique.” — Margaret Wheatley, PhD, Author of “Finding Our Way”
Mainstream & Web Accessible Technologies Spotlight: All Orange Line Stations are Accessible: How is Your Website?
- We never know who will come to our public sites, so we must include everyone in the user base we design for. Even sites designed for a group of able-bodied students need to be accessible for the blind parent who is helping their child with homework.
- When evaluating external accessibility auditors, it’s important to partner with someone who is an expert in what is being audited. This helps mitigate false positives and negatives from not understanding the product space/industry and provide more tailored recommendations.
- Accessibility statements should be a two-way conversation: a way for the company to share publicly its commitment to accessibility (which standards they’re working towards and how) as well as a way for users to contact the company with any accessibility challenges or questions.
- Companies committed to accessibility should hire Accessibility Coordinators who not only understand accessibility and the diversity of their users deeply, but also advocate for accessibility within the product’s development and in future technology purchases.
- All automated accessibility tools all have limits. It’s best to get your product in front of real users and challenge them to break it.
JAWS, ChromeVox, NVDA: A Framework for Teaching
By Cody Laplante
- By teaching the what and why (it takes 32 down arrow keystrokes to navigate to this heading) before the how (the quick heading keyboard shortcut) and reinforcing patterns, students can easily adopt updates to existing patterns they already know, instead of having to memorize a list of new keyboard shortcuts.
- Just because a webpage can be read by a screen reader does not make it accessible.
- It is crucial to connect the dots between the computer vocabulary students learn (context menu) to the nicknames sighted users use (right click) to ease the transition into communities dominated by sighted technology users and help students persist through updates in technology and social language.
Video Player Inaccessibility
By Ricardo Garcia Bahamonde
- Video players should avoid flashing content (unsafe for users with epilepsy), auto-play (sparks confusion for screen reader users), infinite scroll (not usable for keyboard users), un-focusable buttons (“X” button on advertisements need to receive focus), and keyboard traps (entering full-screen mode usually causes a keyboard trap).
- Video players should provide transcript, captions, and audio descriptions that are easy to find, provide volume control independent of the system, have sufficient color contrast on video controls, use more than just color to convey information, be keyboard accessible with correct tab order and visible/high contrast focus indicators, and announce button on/off states, current time, and volume level upon request. Basic WCAG stuff!
Android Accessibility Features for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
By Isha Bobra, Christopher Patnoe
- The D/HH community is greater than the U.S. population and is the third largest population after China and India.
- Google’s goal is to help people connect and interact with each other. Technology can bridge gaps in communication for anyone, regardless of ability.
The Transformative Impact of Emerging Technologies on People with Disabilities
“My body is different everyday.”
- How might technology help adapt to a body’s variable needs over time?
- OT, PT, and SP need to be advocates for their clients. “Don’t underestimate people. Give them the options you would give anyone else.”
- AI-immersed smart cities are the future of removing environmental barriers for people with disabilities.
Awesome AT
I would be remiss to not highlight some of the incredible AT demoed at the exhibition hall:
AT Exhibitors
AT Maker Day
And the grand finale… :”)
Reflections To Be Continued
ATIA sparked a lot of questions for me. How might we make accessibility more accessible? Since technology is assistive by nature, isn’t all technology AT? Given the multitude of combinations of AT and environmental factors that yield very different user experiences, where do designers draw the line on the UX they intend to create?
If these sound interesting to you, join me on voca11y where I will explore and dig deeper into these topics and many others!
Special Shoutouts
Thank you to David Dikter and the ATIA team for putting on such an incredible conference, Claudio Luís Vera for the thought-provoking and inspirational conversations, Christopher Patnoe for the guidance (a11y and HP), and of course Chewy for giving me this opportunity to further my accessibility education! I’m leaving ATIA 2019 with an elated heart and inspired mind, and I’m already looking forward to ATIA 2020!
