Hello everyone. My name is Alison Walden, I'm a Senior Director of Technology at Publicis Sapient and the host of our accessible design and technology panel for IDPD Week. We have almost an hour and a half for our discussion today, and I just want to go through some housekeeping items upfront. American Sign Language is available from Roopa, who is listed as one of our panellists, so find Roopa on the screen to take advantage of that. We also have real-time captioning available; there should be a link in the chat that you can follow to adjust the appearance of the captioning. Any questions on these housekeeping items, just use the Q&A button on Zoom. We are taking all questions for the panellists at the end, so please use the Q&A button throughout the presentation and we will get to them after.
Before we get started, I wanted to provide a bit of background on IDPD Week. It stands for International Day of Persons with Disabilities, which this year falls on Thursday, 3rd December. At Publicis Sapient, we have organised events this week, from Monday to Thursday, to promote an understanding of both visible and non-visible disability issues and to mobilise support for the dignity, rights, and well-being of individuals with disabilities. Throughout the week, we will be joined by colleagues and clients from all over the world to illuminate disability issues and raise awareness, because everyone should be enabled at work. We are proud to be celebrating IDPD Week, and we hope you will participate each day and take away some key learnings and new insights to help make every environment you are part of more accessible and inclusive.
Now, I'm very happy to introduce our esteemed panellists. Thank you all for joining us today for what I'm sure will be an insightful conversation. We have Kendall Akhurst, a Product Owner from Lloyds Banking Group; Matt Roberts, Lead Digital Designer and User Experience Manager at Sightsavers; Manish Agrawal, Senior PM Accessibility at Microsoft and former Publicis Sapient employee; and Shadi Abou Zahra, Accessibility Strategy and Technology Specialist from the W3C. Welcome to all of you. Let's jump right in and get started.
As experts in this space, can you each take a moment to articulate for people on the call, who might be new to the idea of web accessibility, why it's so important for organisations to create accessible experiences? Both for internal applications and external applications for the general public.
At Microsoft, we distil it down to four reasons for accessible products. First, our mission: to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more. "Every person" includes people with disabilities. That's the philosophical underpinning of everything we do. Beyond that, there's the impact: more than a billion people in the world live with disabilities. This is not a static demographic—everyone becomes a part of this billion at some point in their life. People with disabilities face disproportionate hardship in employability and are more likely to be unemployed. There's also an economic impact: making our products more accessible allows us to sell more, and that number is likely to quadruple in the next two years based on our recent analysis. There's also an untapped pool for hiring and recruitment. The third reason is legislation—compliance to legislations across the world. We do it because we have to. The last, and perhaps most important, is innovation. When we build inclusive products, considering the needs of people with disabilities upfront, we end up with a much more compelling product. Adding constraints to our design process results in a more versatile product that can be used in more situations. I can give many examples, but I'll let others share their reasons as well.
Thank you, Manish. Shadi, would you like to go next?
Manish has already outlined a lot, but to add: we shouldn't underestimate the "electronic curb cut" or the benefits for everyone that accessibility provides. Accessibility is often thought of as for a certain group, but it's much broader. Microsoft research found that about 15-20% of the population require accessibility features, but up to nearly two-thirds benefit from them. That's why they started calling it "ease of use." Think of elevators or curb cuts—these started as assistive technologies but now benefit everyone. People with disabilities are often early adopters of new technologies, and designing for the fringes of the bell curve makes products more robust and usable across many more use cases. Also, as we all age, we tend to have more age-related disabilities. Companies like SAS have published white papers on why they do accessibility, noting the average age of employees is increasing. To retain employees, we need to ensure both outward-facing and internal ICT systems are accessible. Accessibility is not just for others—it's for all of us.
Thank you, Shadi. Matt, your thoughts?
From a Sightsavers perspective—a charity focused on preventing avoidable blindness and fighting for disability rights—building more accessible products changes people's lives. We're data-driven and research-driven, aiming to get help where it's needed most, whether that's surgeries or education. Data must be collected, stored, and presented accessibly, from fieldwork to partnering with organisations, applying for grants, or campaigning for disability rights. Making data accessible for supporters helps them understand the importance of our work, from research centres to websites to donation processes. Accessibility is core to who we are and what we do, and it has a real-life impact on changing people's lives.
Thank you. Kendall?
All the panellists have covered a lot. For me, all our customers should be able to access our products and services. If we exclude a group because they can't access our content or facilities, we can't meet our goal of helping people prosper. Personally, as a wheelchair user, I've seen how things aren't accessible to some colleagues and customers. As a product owner, it's frustrating to find things that aren't accessible when you're trying to do a great job. We need to wear our heart in the game because it's the right thing to do, and there's a huge business case—why exclude a valuable group of customers?
No organisation does it on purpose. Hearing all these reasons for closing the gaps is really helpful. I have another general question: The internet has been around since 1990, software even longer. Why is accessibility of digital experiences still an issue today? Why haven't we solved it yet? What are the main barriers?
The biggest reason is that organisations don't understand how important it is from the bottom up. Top-down, most organisations are trying to drive accessible solutions, but at the middle management and backlog level, accessibility often gets deprioritised. Universal access benefits everyone. We don't do a good job of seeing the value of customers with disabilities, even though there's a lot of money in that market, especially with an ageing population. Regulation is helping, but there's still a long way to go.
Matt, what do you think are the barriers?
It's about the definition of "accessibility" and whose responsibility it is. It's a shared responsibility, and everyone needs to understand what it means for their role. Personally, I'm colour blind, was hard of hearing as a child, and had arthritis. If I can't have open conversations with colleagues, they can't understand how to help. For example, people would send corrections in red, but I can't see red. Simple changes, like using yellow, can help everyone. Universal solutions come from conversations with the right people.
Shadi?
There are societal and educational aspects. Societally, there's a lack of understanding and connection—people with disabilities are often segregated, so others don't know or understand their needs. Accessibility is not just technical; it's about mindset and diversity. Educationally, many developers, designers, and project managers never learn about accessibility, or worse, are taught the wrong way. Accessibility needs to be part of education from an early stage, just like security and privacy.
Manish?
I agree with Shadi. Most people never learn about accessibility in their education, so they lack exposure to the need and the skills. Accessibility is often treated as a compliance checkbox at the end of a product lifecycle, rather than being integrated from the start. Legislation is lacking in many parts of the world, and even where it exists, it often doesn't apply to enterprises or internal environments.
Let's move on to what you've each been doing. Kendall, as a product owner at Lloyds Banking Group, how are you ensuring accessibility is incorporated into products and services?
We focus on accessibility from the discovery stage, breaking work into smaller pieces and addressing blockers early. We use strategic platforms that have been tested for accessibility, and we engage external non-profits to challenge and test our sites. We also use AI-based testing, but the real proof is customer testing. We test, test, test. Mobile-first approaches bring challenges, but starting with the smallest device and working backwards helps. Accessibility is now just part of the business, not something I have to dig into every sprint.
That's key—getting people with lived experience to test your product and being willing to change based on their feedback. Has embedding accessibility into your processes added significant time to your product duration?
With bigger releases, no. Testing has always been a challenge, but once accessibility is part of your framework, it doesn't add time. If you don't do it often, it can add time, but with repetition, it becomes part of your process. New technologies can be challenging, but overall, it gets easier the more you do it.
Thank you. Matt, as a member of the British Interactive Media Association Inclusive Design Council, how are you helping organisations design with everyone in mind?
BIMA is a community of businesses, charities, and academia across the UK. The Inclusive Design Council launched in March and brings together people from various organisations. Our first success was BIMA recognising inclusive design as a key topic. We ran a masterclass aimed at all levels of understanding, ensuring no one was left behind. We want to be truly inclusive and are inviting people with lived experiences to educate us and BIMA members. We're creating toolkits to help organisations become more accessible.
When working with different audiences, what works well to engage those unfamiliar with accessibility?
Keep the message simple and straightforward. Personal stories, like my colour blindness, resonate with people. Remote working has highlighted the need for good captions on Zoom and Teams. Making conversations simple and relatable helps people understand the impact of exclusion and motivates them to find better solutions.
Manish, can you tell us about Microsoft's accessibility evolution model?
The accessibility evolution model is a capability monitor for accessibility. It provides a structured way to measure progress across areas, from initial to repeatable, defined, managed, and optimised. You can measure facets like vision and strategy, risk and compliance, standards, and the development lifecycle. Are accessibility bugs treated as quality problems? Each division at Microsoft measures the same way, allowing us to collate information at an enterprise level and focus strategic investments. It's been very useful to scale accessibility across the organisation.
Is this documented somewhere for others to use?
I believe it's available at Microsoft.com. I can look for it and send it over.
Shadi, at W3C you've produced many web accessibility perspective videos. What structures do organisations need to benefit from your advice, and who should learn from these videos?
Everyone. The audience is broad: executives, managers, developers, designers, researchers, and more. The web has become more mature and complex, requiring many roles and deeper knowledge. The perspective videos are under a minute each, designed for easy sharing and quick understanding, especially for executives. We also provide tutorials and techniques for more detailed guidance. We're developing curricula for accessibility training, starting with foundations, then for developers, designers, and content authors. These are modular and role-based, intended for trainers, educators, and organisations to use in mainstream IT teaching.
Is there a place where the perspective videos are arranged by discipline?
Not the videos themselves, but we're developing curricula for different roles. The site W3.org/WAI has information, and you can follow working groups and project timelines there. All our work is open and resources are provided freely. We welcome involvement.
Many people are interested in emerging technologies that will make content more accessible in the next decade. Manish, can you start us off?
The most important technologies are in AI and machine learning. Applications like Seeing AI help blind people make sense of their environment—reading text, describing scenes, identifying people, and more. AI is also being integrated into mainstream applications like PowerPoint, Teams, and Zoom for real-time captions and subtitles. These technologies are solving problems we couldn't imagine solving five years ago.
For those unfamiliar, can you briefly explain Seeing AI?
Seeing AI is an app that helps blind people make sense of their environment using their phone's camera. It reads text, scans documents, describes scenes and people, and identifies products via barcodes. It's a very handy tool.
Matt, any emerging technologies at Sightsavers?
Personally, I'm fascinated by automation like face ID and fingerprint scanning. Remembering passwords is overwhelming, but being able to unlock services with your face or fingerprint provides a level playing field for many people. This technology makes digital services more accessible and user-friendly.
Kendall, how about at Lloyds?
We're looking at technologies that make customers' lives easier, like fingerprint login and voice assistants like Alexa. As a bank, we're risk-averse, but we're leading the way in open banking and making services more accessible. We've partnered to make British Sign Language more available to customers, and AI is helping automate solutions. Internally, tools like Teams transcription have made it easier for deaf colleagues to be involved. Technology is improving, and we're using it to make customers' lives easier and differentiate ourselves.
Shadi, any thoughts on emerging technologies and guidelines at W3C?
Every technology has the potential to be beneficial or exclusive. For example, smart homes can be inaccessible if interfaces aren't designed well. AI bias is a big issue—self-driving cars have failed to recognise wheelchair users in simulations. There's little data on people with disabilities, so it's important to address accessibility concerns early. We're looking at XR, AI, big data, and privacy, especially with IoT. Privacy concerns are increasing, especially for people with disabilities. We're exploring where accessibility and privacy overlap and how to address these issues for all of society.
How best can we address the education gap on accessibility? Any examples of where this is being done well?
The real need is to give students exposure to disability, the tools and technologies people with disabilities use, and how to build accessible products. Accessibility needs to be embedded in fundamental courses, as it's hard to relearn later.
Keeping it simple helps. At Lloyds, we have half-hour "espresso" sessions where experts share solutions, and hackathons to tackle accessibility problems. These approaches help upskill the organisation.
Education is broad—there's higher education and organisational education. Many organisations have sensitivity or diversity programmes. Making accessibility part of job expectations helps. Only one organisation ever asked about accessibility in a job interview, but that's changing.
At the organisational level, training programmes and certifications help, but the most effective is letting people see how people with disabilities use their products. Seeing the challenges and benefits firsthand is a lightbulb moment for designers and engineers.
At Sightsavers, every new starter attends an inclusion workshop, regardless of role. We discuss disability, inclusion, and what it feels like to be excluded. Instilling this idea from the start produces accessible involvement across the organisation.
How can the trade-off between accessibility and security be overcome with CAPTCHAs?
We have a paper on alternatives to CAPTCHA. CAPTCHAs are inherently not usable and lock out many users, not just those with disabilities. Accessibility highlights this issue. There are less intrusive alternatives, but really, think about the user experience and impact.
At Microsoft, we're moving towards zero passwords and no CAPTCHAs for many services. CAPTCHAs can be defeated by machine learning, defeating their purpose. If you must use a CAPTCHA, provide multiple options—audio, math questions, etc.—to lessen the burden, but there's no perfect solution.
There are other solutions, like bot managers and better form design, that can reduce the need for CAPTCHAs. Good design and customer experience should make CAPTCHAs unnecessary. There are many forms where you don't need a CAPTCHA, or only use it as a last level of security.
Thank you, everyone. This has been an incredibly interesting conversation. Thank you for sharing how you've fostered accessible design and technology in your organisations. Hearing about your challenges, successes, and impact will help all of us. In today's world, as people become increasingly reliant on digital tools, it's more critical than ever to ensure all content and services are accessible. It's something we should have been doing all along. I'm glad to have had the opportunity to share and promote your ideas during our IDPD Week events at Publicis Sapient.
There are more events this week, and we look forward to seeing you again in 2021. November 29th, 2021, we'll have activities for the whole week. Thank you to everyone who joined the call and asked questions.
Thank you, I enjoyed that.
Thanks very much, guys.