Accessibility in the Spotlight: Navigating the New EU Accessibility Requirements and More

Karen Hawkins, Gareth Crossan, Mike Keane, Patrick Mooney at UXDX EMEA. Video: https://youtu.be/F1eHEsYqOro

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

Introducing the panel

[00:00:07] Patrick: We're going to have a panel discussion here. We're going to talk about the EAA, the European Accessibility Act, and really its impact on our digital products and our landscape here in Europe, which is really exciting. I'm going to take a seat, because let's get comfortable with this. I've got three incredible panelists here beside me.

[00:00:28] Patrick: Karen Hawkins, human factors engineer, certified accessibility professional, over 13 years' experience. You're a member of the IAAP careers pathway working group, currently leading the accessibility design practice at Level Access, and you train global teams in integrating accessibility into really every aspect of their product journeys as well, which is pretty phenomenal. You've traveled here all the way from Toronto, Canada. You're very welcome, so a big round of applause for Karen.

[00:00:57] Patrick: Joining Karen we've got Gareth and Mike, both principal digital accessibility engineers at Optum, and I'm also from Optum, so I do know them very well. Gareth is a certified professional in web accessibility, working with cross-functional teams across Optum to ensure all of our digital properties are fully inclusive. You're also the founding member of Accessibility Ireland. We're going to talk a little bit more about that later on as well, and that's a group that's dedicated to building a community of accessibility advocates here in Ireland, so it's fantastic. Welcome, Gareth.

[00:01:33] Gareth: Thank you, Patrick.

[00:01:33] Patrick: And last but not least is Mike. Mike is Optum's standards lead and a key contributor to the mobile accessibility task force at W3C. You're also a co-founder of Accessibility Ireland. There's three of them. I can see Michael out there as well, so hey Michael, why aren't you on the stage? We'd give you this pass. And you also lead our digital inclusion employee resource group here in Optum, so you're doing an awful lot for the company, which is phenomenal to see. You have extensive experience in accessibility testing, compliance and training as well.

[00:02:08] Patrick: So really we've got an expert panel here this morning. I'm very excited to see where we end up. Now of course this is an interactive panel. I'm up here, I've got some questions, but really I want to hear from you. I believe we've got a throw mic, and I can see the questions coming through here as well, so please ask questions and I'll throw out to those. You can ask a question live or do it online and we'll bring you in.

Accessible design thinking and designing for a system

[00:02:32] Patrick: Let's get started. Karen, we talked about that you lead the design practice at Level Access. What I'm really interested in here is, can you tell us a little bit about that and how you actually work with clients to train them in digital accessibility and even accessible design thinking?

[00:02:54] Karen: Sure, thanks. Hi everyone. First and foremost, it was mentioned that I'm a human factors engineer, so really I'm an industrial engineer. That's systems engineering, process, logic, statistics, that kind of thing, with a sub-specialty in human factors. I think it's important because that's really shaped my perspective on design and more specifically accessible design.

[00:03:19] Karen: I have a pretty cool job working at Level Access. I get to work with customers and colleagues, and my goal is to elevate this concept of accessible design. Not just the nuance of how do you design a button to be accessible, fine, but how do we make the whole process more efficient and how do we make it more sustainable? Because we need it to stick. We're not there yet with stickiness.

[00:03:44] Karen: The question around accessible design thinking: it's not unlike design thinking. What is design thinking? You're trying to get to understand your users and you need to understand what their needs are. You're designing for a diverse set of needs. But I think the accessibility extension of that is that the group of users for whom you're designing, well, it's probably a larger user group than what you're used to designing for, and then their needs are probably more diverse than what you're used to designing for.

[00:04:15] Karen: So think about it. You're a designer, you try so hard to design for these users. You try so hard to get to understand them and to get to understand their needs. Now think about that in the context of accessibility and disability. The goal is that we're trying to design for just everybody. We're trying to design absolutely amazing experiences for everybody.

[00:04:43] Karen: I think what we need to do, and it might sound a little odd, is we need to actually get away from just thinking about the user when we're thinking about accessibility. We can't just be human-centric. That's the thing that sounds odd, because we need to start designing for a system. That system includes the human, and we're all able and we're all flawed in different ways, but it also includes all of the technologies that we use, and they help us interact with these experiences that we're designing. So this system I think is the perspective, and it's a human factors kind of perspective. Think about the person and the technologies that they use in a given environment, and we're designing where they interface.

[00:05:25] Patrick: Absolutely love that. That's really thinking about the service holistically. I think that's incredible, and it's taking you beyond that digital touchpoint. We're not just designing for that one-point interaction, you're designing for the whole of their experience. I think it's pretty incredible.

Getting into accessibility and founding Accessibility Ireland

[00:05:41] Patrick: Getting into digital accessibility, Gareth, I'd love to ask you, how did you get into this as a career?

[00:05:47] Gareth: Good morning everyone. Like most accessibility professionals I know, I got into it by accident. There's no formal route to becoming an accessibility professional, I would say. Prior to joining Optum I worked as a graphic designer for another large American corporation, where our function was to create marketing materials, interactive forms. They were an insurance company, so there were lots of those type of materials, and we were then tasked with ensuring that those materials were accessible, something I knew absolutely nothing about.

[00:06:15] Gareth: I had to start doing research. I got a mentor. It had never crossed my mind that there are people that access digital content other than using their eyes and with their hands, so my mind was a bit blown with that. That's how I got into it to start: PDF documents, quite laborious work. Then I wanted to expand from that into web more generally, so that's when I started with Optum around seven and a half years ago, and that's what I've been doing since.

[00:06:44] Patrick: Fantastic. I always like to talk about, you have a eureka moment, and you don't necessarily choose your career, you end up in it. And it's by attending conferences like this, attending even meetups, that you get to open your horizons and see that there are wonderful areas to explore. That leads me very nicely, Mike, into Accessibility Ireland. It's a fantastic group and it's really a force of change within Ireland. Maybe can you talk a little bit about the foundation of that group and maybe some of the initial goals that you're hoping to achieve?

[00:07:14] Mike: Sure, thanks Patrick, and hi everyone. Myself, Gareth and Michael Hunton [?], we set up Accessibility Ireland with the intention really of building advocates and awareness around digital accessibility specifically in Ireland, through networking and education essentially. We've all worked in accessibility, or as accessibility professionals, give or take seven, eight years, but we've all done work in other countries essentially, because that's where legislation and where the jobs are. There are very few accessibility professionals actually working on Irish products, unfortunately. So we want to see Irish products accessible essentially, and wanted to see what we could do.

[00:08:01] Mike: We have a good network, being in the industry long, in terms of accessibility professionals but also designers and developers who've gone on the journey of not knowing about accessibility, taking the time to now incorporate it into their work, and also people with disabilities. So the idea of bringing those people into a room and talking to designers and developers who are starting off and sharing those experiences, I think it's a really good starting point, and that's been our aim.

What the European Accessibility Act means

[00:08:34] Patrick: That's fantastic. I think that thread, that we're all working on the international stage, supporting clients and products internationally, bringing it home to Ireland, Accessibility Ireland is quite special. Because of course we're going to turn our attention to the European Accessibility Act, and that was originally encoded into law back in 2019. Really it's a directive that mandates that all European Union member states have to implement local laws to ensure that products and services in certain criteria meet minimum accessibility requirements. I'd like to explore that a little bit. Karen, this new legislation that's coming into Europe will have very significant impacts, I believe, on services and products. Maybe could you give us a little bit of a breakdown about what it actually means for us as UX professionals and developers and product individuals?

[00:09:32] Karen: Sure. I'll begin by saying I'm not a lawyer, of course.

[00:09:37] Patrick: Absolutely fair to say.

[00:09:38] Karen: But I think what's great about the EAA, the European Accessibility Act, is that the tenets of it are that they're trying to enact real change, and I think that's what we need. We need real change. I'm really done with "this thing is broken, let's fix it." I'm really tired of that. I'm also really happy about the extension beyond what we're used to designing for when we think about accessibility, which is just digital. So we have the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. I'm hoping you're working towards 2.2 AA, nudge nudge, AAA if you can. But now what's been introduced is another technical specification, EN 301 549 [captions cut out here] of technology.

[00:10:29] Karen: So we're talking about products and services that affect the public. If your organization serves consumers in any way, then the likelihood is that the EAA affects your organization. What's cool is we're not just talking about digital, like I said, software. There's ebooks, banking services, transportation services, but ecom. There's a lot of ecom. Are there any ecom people? Yeah, so it's a big deal. There's also kiosks and point of sale terminals. That's what's great about it, is that we're now thinking beyond just the minute touchpoints, and what Patrick mentioned is more like service design. We really need to be starting to think about how we're designing absolutely everything and all of their interacting touchpoints too.

[00:11:20] Patrick: Absolutely. Gareth, we are seeing a lot of movement already throughout Europe in relation to the Accessibility Act. Maybe can you tell us a little about the impact it will have for companies, maybe here in Ireland, and maybe the impact on the broader digital landscape?

[00:11:36] Gareth: I think generally it's going to be really positive for companies, because right now, selling products and services into Europe, you have to consider the national frameworks of every member state, whereas this will unify that. They'll all be harmonized, following the same. From a market perspective, if your product is accessible, your service is accessible, you're going to expand your market reach, because across the European Union there's over 100 million people with disabilities. Right now, if you're inaccessible, they may not be able to access your product or service, so I think that's hugely beneficial.

[00:12:12] Gareth: If you act early and make your product or service accessible, you're going to have a competitive edge over those that don't. And also there's a lot of brand loyalty among people with disabilities for companies that consider them, among themselves, their families and friends, and also people in favor of inclusion. So that's the impact really for companies.

[00:12:32] Patrick: And getting in early creates that really big impression and makes a big, strong statement as well. Mike, I'd like to explore maybe what is the impact of this legislation on the field and the practice of digital accessibility. Do you feel accessibility is going to evolve and change throughout Europe as a result of this?

[00:12:53] Mike: I hope so. I think it brings focus. It's the stick. Legislation is the stick to the carrot. It now makes a very big awareness around accessibility, and it's going to succeed and fail in terms of how companies implement it. To Karen's point, there is a real service design point of view to it. If you take someone, with this legislation now, someone who's blind and wants to go on a holiday. You look at the websites and the apps they're going to buy their tickets through. They have to be accessible. But when they arrive at the airport and they have to check in their bags and their luggage, the kiosks have to be accessible with screen readers. The announcements for what gate they have to go through, are they in audio and text format? Are the staff trained? Is there Braille signage? When you exit the airport, the transport information, is that accessible? So it really brings a much wider picture to it, which the end goal hopefully is a much more accessible experience.

[00:14:03] Mike: In terms of the digital aspect, in terms of websites and applications, we're looking at WCAG, likely 2.2, in June of 2025, level AA. I think if companies are looking and focused on meeting compliance and fixing issues constantly, as Karen mentioned, it's not going to evolve. But if you're looking at embedding accessibility throughout your practice, at a design, developer, product owner phase, and really doing it properly, then I think it's going to be brilliant.

Innovation, low-effort changes and the creative challenge

[00:14:42] Patrick: Wonderful. Following question, and maybe I can open this up to Gareth and Karen as well, but Mike, I'm wondering, will this be a catalyst for innovation? Will companies really innovate as a result of this, or will companies struggle?

[00:14:59] Mike: It's a good question. It depends on the company, I suppose. I hope so. I think the fact that it's looking at that whole experience, and there's various standards, not just standards around the digital aspect, I'd be hopeful.

[00:15:19] Karen: I might just add, Karen speaking here, that what I'm hopeful about is that we'll be focusing more proactively. If we're talking about service design, I'm a designer, so we're at the beginning of the process, not excluding research and requirements. But if we start to design things with accessibility in mind, and we're considering again not just the digital but the human, the technologies, the environment, the socio, the economic, there's a lot of compounding factors that can go into that design. All it does is it is just forcing us to think about it earlier in the process. You've heard "shift left." I actually don't like that because it implies shifting left of dev, but it's good because it's forcing us to do the work earlier. So I think that's a good thing.

[00:16:07] Patrick: Absolutely. Again, a reminder, I'm seeing some questions coming through already. If you do have a question, please ask it. We'll get to those questions in a moment. Gareth, can we explore maybe low-effort changes that teams here can start today to implement that will have a high impact on the accessibility of their products and services?

[00:16:25] Gareth: There are multiple angles you could look at that from. I think one, and this is probably quite a boring one, but it's collaboration. What I've seen from working on lots of teams is that different disciplines can be quite siloed. Design work on their piece, pass it along, and there's no discussion between the different disciplines, and that is just a cause for major issues, is what I find. So if you come up with a new concept, a new design, a new prototype, have everybody that's part of it around the table at the start. Discuss, because you will find that you'll be able to rule out certain things at that point rather than getting them too far down the line.

[00:17:03] Gareth: And push back as well, as part of that. Being able to push back on business requests that maybe don't make sense. UX should feel empowered. They are the professionals. You often hear of businesses essentially designing the experience and designers then just having to mock it up in Figma. We don't want to be doing that.

[00:17:26] Patrick: Mike, maybe let's explore the design aspect. There's a wonderful myth that accessibility can hinder the creative process. Maybe talk to us about that.

[00:17:37] Mike: Sure. I think one of the first accessibility professionals I ever heard speak was Léonie Watson at a conference, and she gave a talk called "Coding like I give a damn," which I think is a great title. She has also given a talk called "Design like I give a damn." But one of her quotes from it was, accessibility is not a challenge to creativity, it's a creative challenge. I think that's where the focus needs to be. It's a mindset. If you are looking at accessibility through the lens of "I have restrictions based on these standards," versus if you're looking at it as what Karen mentioned earlier, accessibility enhances the user experience. I'm going to create a site for everyone, I'm going to create a product for everyone.

[00:18:29] Mike: A lot of what accessibility does is for everyone. If you take something like captions or transcripts, really important for someone who's deaf in terms of being able to understand what's being said, but how many of us have turned on captions when the environment's very loud or you can't understand the accent, or you've relied on transcripts when you missed a meeting and you can go back? So it really enhances the user experience.

Building accessible design systems

[00:18:57] Patrick: Absolutely. And of course we have the wonderful idea of universal design around that as well, that we design once and it's applicable everywhere. We shouldn't have to design interfaces for particular use cases; it's across the board. When we design products, of course, we have to use design systems, and Karen, you're going to be giving a bit of a deep dive on this later on today. You're going to talk about how we can create better accessible design systems, so maybe let's talk about that. Can you talk about how we can do that in a nutshell, and maybe just tease a little bit about what you're going to cover in that session?

[00:19:35] Karen: Sure. It's actually an eight-hour workshop.

[00:19:39] Patrick: Eight-hour workshop, so it's a long one.

[00:19:42] Karen: Yes, it is. Okay, so when we look at design systems, I think there are two main takeaways. One is that we should be considering accessibility as early as possible. It even starts in your styles, setting up your style guides. Things like making sure that you have your border radii, the thicknesses and shadows, setting up all your tokens. Do that, because we need to use those tokens when we start to design our components.

[00:20:06] Karen: The interesting thing I found is that our accessibility requirements and responsibilities are different at the different levels of the design system. For components, the focus is on designing amazing states, all the different permutations, all the different variations. Not just focus state, not just hover state, but put real devotion into designing those states. That's very different than when you're designing your patterns, like toolbars and product cards and that kind of thing. This is where we're thinking about the reading order, the focus order, focus management. If I do a particular thing, does focus stay here, does it go somewhere else, what should really happen? And then feedback as well, so not just visual feedback but auditory, tactile, that kind of thing.

[00:20:48] Karen: Then we go up one more level to building your page templates. Now we have an opportunity to focus on optimizing as many navigational strategies as possible and making sure that people are oriented at all times. There's a lot to all of that, because there are so many different types of components and patterns that we need to think about. But we need to start at the basics, learn those basics, and then I think that you can apply them to even larger and more complicated pieces.

[00:21:15] Patrick: There's a lot there, and an eight-hour masterclass I'm sure is just the tip of the iceberg. I think if anyone is joining that, you're going to learn an awful lot.

[00:21:25] Karen: I hope so.

Audience questions: testable criteria, developer tools and trends

[00:21:27] Patrick: I'm going to ask a very different question. This is one that's coming from the audience. Karen, you mentioned WCAG 2.2 and some other standards that are coming out of the EAA. The question that's come from the audience here is, there's currently no detailed testable criteria to confirm whether a product has satisfied all those requirements of the Accessibility Act. How do we address that? Is that being addressed?

[00:21:52] Karen: I might defer to my colleagues.

[00:21:54] Mike: It doesn't explicitly say WCAG, but you can assume that it's going to be WCAG.

[00:21:59] Gareth: Yeah, so if you're compliant with WCAG you should be good for the EAA, from a digital perspective anyway.

[00:22:03] Patrick: And it's 2.1?

[00:22:05] Mike: The latest version, I'd say 2.2. 2.2 by June 2025 it will be.

[00:22:12] Karen: Okay, perfect. So I think that's really it. Just conform. Aim for WCAG 2.2 AA and possibly AAA, is what we're saying right now.

[00:22:20] Patrick: Perfect. And of course, don't get bogged down by standards and what you have to do. Start small, take a few key practices and start there. But yeah, WCAG 2.2, absolutely. I think it's showing the willingness to make that change. That's what we're looking for here. We're not doing it because the law is saying it, we're doing it because it's the right thing. It's universal design and we're designing for everyone. Maybe, Gareth, can you talk about, from a developer experience, what tools could developers be using now, and even designers, what tools could we be using now to help us?

[00:22:54] Gareth: Okay, so the tools, or what I encourage developers to do, are four key steps when they're doing their work. Parse their code using an HTML checker. Very simple thing to do, and it can catch some issues which are potential issues for assistive technology. Run some automated checkers. Now, automated checkers only catch a small fraction of issues, but again, a good starting point, and there are numerous out there that people can avail of.

[00:23:21] Gareth: A big one is test the keyboard. Test all your work with the keyboard. This is one that people just don't do, for whatever reason, and there's a certain irony that when computers first came out it was all keyboard and there was no mouse, and we've flipped that now to the point where some sites don't work with the keyboard at all. So test the keyboard. That goes for designers too. I think it's important to understand the interactions of the components that you're building out, so that's definitely a high-priority one. And lastly, I would say, if you can, try it with a screen reader. It's hugely beneficial to see things from a different perspective, or hear things from a different perspective.

[00:23:53] Patrick: Fantastic. Mike, maybe we'll talk about trends and innovation. Is there anything right now that you're excited about?

[00:24:01] Mike: Yeah, loads. As well as the hot topic of AI and machine learning, the thing that really excites me is what we mentioned a little bit: bringing accessibility throughout the product experience. It's a shift I see in accessibility engineers' roles, that we're not just testing at the end. That's where accessibility gets very hard, very costly, and pushes it to the side. The role of an engineer now really should be, and hopefully it is becoming more of a trend, educating teams. WCAG is a very technical document, so it's breaking that down into a manageable checklist for each owner, for a product owner, having the conversations at the very beginning about what to design.

[00:24:51] Mike: If you break down the success criteria within WCAG and give it primary ownership, there's probably about 30% with development. So if you're leaving it to the very end, you could potentially solve 70% of issues, roughly, through product, through UX, content and visual design.

[00:25:18] Patrick: Have it through the whole process, have it all there. Karen, there's a question that came from the audience a few moments ago, and it was around the EAA, asking is it applicable to existing websites and applications, products and services that exist right now?

[00:25:34] Karen: That's a great question. Anything that's going to be live as of June 28th, 2025, that's when the EAA is going to apply. So anything that you're currently working on, or anything that's in your roadmap that will be live post that date, you want to make sure that you're applying your technical specifications now.

Surprises, myths, legacy stacks and the doomsday scenario

[00:25:55] Patrick: We have about five minutes left or so, so we're going to slowly begin to wrap up this. But a quick-fire question, and panelists, anyone who'd like to answer this: what really is one thing that surprised you when you first started working in accessibility?

[00:26:11] Mike: Pushback. When you go into a full-time accessibility role, where someone is asking for accessibility, you don't expect people to push back and companies to push back. But again, it comes through awareness and education. But yeah, pushback.

[00:26:30] Patrick: What is the biggest myth that you've seen out there?

[00:26:32] Karen: Has anyone heard of the blueberry analogy? Yes, the blueberry analogy. That states, if you're going to bake a blueberry muffin, you can't actually bake the muffin and then put the blueberries in afterwards. So the analogy is that accessibility is the blueberries; you can't end with accessibility. I think it's served its purpose up until now. I have a different perspective, in that my problem with it is that the blueberry is finite and it has bounds. I think rather we need to think about accessibility more like the flour in the muffin, that you have to start with the flour. It's the base of the whole thing, and really it's the essence of your muffin. Every bite has flour. The point of that is that accessibility is everywhere, and it's not even a thing. That's the point. It's not a thing. We just take care of it, just like all of our other functional and non-functional requirements. It's just there, and absolutely everybody has a role to play in seeing that happen.

[00:27:32] Patrick: That's fantastic. I see we've got a few more minutes. I just want to again throw some questions from the audience here. There's a question here about how should we tackle products and UIs that are built on old stacks, legacy frameworks, that may not be compliant with WCAG 2.1. How would you recommend we handle that situation?

[00:27:59] Gareth: As part of the EAA, every site will have to have an accessibility statement. On that statement you can say the current state of the site and your plans to address things. So while there may be some things that are difficult to make accessible, that won't be a good enough excuse. You need to have a plan for the future as to what you're going to do to address it.

[00:28:18] Patrick: I get it. So for the time being, maybe no urgent action, but watch your roadmap, where you're going. Absolutely. I think this is a really interesting question about EU countries can add their own rules, and I know Ireland can have some quite severe consequences, so I'd love to maybe explore that for a moment. Some countries can be more strict. From an Irish perspective, potentially, if Ireland is planning to implement any stricter rules, can we talk about the impact potentially? And again, we're not here to scare people into having to act immediately, but maybe let's just entertain that doomsday scenario. What is the worst thing that could happen?

[00:29:04] Gareth: Sure. If companies are non-compliant, generally in the EAA there can be fines, you can have your product or service pulled from the market, or you could be banned from selling in the market entirely. Hopefully it won't come to that. Again, what Mike said earlier, we don't want this to be the driver for change. In Ireland there will be potential fines up to €60,000 or imprisonment of up to 18 months. But again, hopefully we don't get to that stage. People just do the right thing.

[00:29:36] Patrick: That's a lot. And do we know whether Ireland is going to implement any stricter implementations of this?

[00:29:42] Gareth: That's all we're aware of right now.

[00:29:44] Mike: Okay. I think the part that the EAA is pushing is that if they find that you're failing, or there's a finding that you're failing, it's to help you improve first. It's not to hit you straight away with fines. It's to try to guide you in the right direction.

Automated testing, hiring and one thing to take away

[00:30:06] Patrick: I'd like to talk for a moment about testing. Mike, you mentioned an exciting development is artificial intelligence. Let's talk about a myth, and let's talk about the role of automated testing when it comes to conforming and checkmarking and saying yes, we comply. Will AI transform how we do automated testing? Will AI transform how we are doing compliance verification?

[00:30:35] Mike: I'm not a fortune teller, so I'm not 100% sure, but at the moment there is a use for automated testing for sure. If you're a developer, it's a great tool to start finding issues. Companies will tell you different things in terms of how much an automated tool is going to catch. In my experience, it's generally around 30%. The problem with just solely focusing on automated tools is you're not getting the full picture, you're not seeing everything, and you're not actually embedding accessibility into your processes. You're doing that thing of finding issues at the end, and it's always a lot more difficult to go back.

[00:31:20] Patrick: That's right. It's not just throw it out at the end and verify it. The key message is integrate it throughout the entire process, from that initial product brief to the design, to ideation. It's something that I know we're taking very seriously, about integrating DEI into everything, and accessibility of course is a key factor in that. Another question that's come from the audience, Karen, I'd like to ask, is hiring. Can we see this legislation impacting how we hire product designers and developers into the future? Will we be looking for people with the necessary skills, certifications? Will it impact hiring?

[00:31:58] Karen: I would hope so. As mentioned, I'm working on a working group with the IAAP, the International Association of Accessibility Professionals, and it's about career progression, so I'm on the cusp of where we're trying to go with it. I think the problem is that we don't have clear requirements in order to hire lots of different types of functions. So we're championing UX, which I think is an interesting function to begin with. We're trying to define all the different requirements, the skill sets, the competencies that we require for these different functions.

[00:32:38] Karen: I think the legislation coming in, all it's doing is giving us a broader awareness of it, and maybe what it'll do, it'll help us expand what those skill sets and competencies are. We're focusing on digital right now, so I think it'll help expand. But there are things in the works. The IAAP has been working on this for a long time. It's not out yet, but there really isn't anything that we can point people to. Organizations are making it up, and a lot of the reqs out there, they're not accurate. You want a unicorn? Well, they don't exist, because each function has different responsibilities. I can't do what a dev does. They really can't do what I do. We need each other and we need to collaborate. So until we have those clear definitions, I think we're misserving the market.

[00:33:24] Patrick: Fantastic. Just to follow on from that, I think a key part in Ireland and all countries is the hiring of accessibility professionals, or building an accessibility champion within your group. Absolutely. We've got about two minutes left. This time flew by, and of course we can carry on the conversation afterwards. In the next two minutes, very briefly, rapid fire: if there's one thing, one piece of knowledge that you can impart upon the audience here and watching online, what would that one thing be? Karen?

[00:33:58] Karen: I think everyone needs to test their own work. Every single person should hold themselves accountable for the accessibility of their output. That's everybody, and it's not just your product development team. You can extrapolate that to the larger organization. Every email you write, every Word document, PowerPoint, you're responsible for the accessibility, even to your colleagues, to your communities, as well as your customers. So test your own work. Make sure that whatever you're outputting is as good a job as you can do.

[00:34:27] Patrick: Gareth?

[00:34:30] Gareth: Use a screen reader. Try it out. Everybody has a screen reader on their phones that are in their pockets right now, or if you're on your desktop computer there are free versions: NVDA if you're on Windows, or VoiceOver if you're on Mac. It'll completely change your perspective of how the user interface works, so it's very valuable.

[00:34:46] Mike: Be curious, following on from that. Learn about the why. Look into assistive technology. Google down the road has an assistive technology center that you can go to for free and learn why and how people are using it. Vision Ireland have a Wayfinding Centre, and do things like Gareth mentioned. Test the screen reader, and go to talks where people with disabilities are going through their experiences.

[00:35:14] Patrick: Fantastic. That is us. Karen, where can we find out more about yourself? How can we follow you?

[00:35:20] Karen: Check me out on LinkedIn, Karen Hawkins. You can use some keywords like Toronto, engineer, that kind of thing. I'm not the romance novelist, so find me another way. LinkedIn's the best.

[00:35:32] Patrick: There you go.

[00:35:34] Gareth: Likewise, LinkedIn's the best, and you can also follow Accessibility Ireland on LinkedIn as well.

[00:35:36] Patrick: Fantastic. And Mike?

[00:35:38] Mike: Yeah, LinkedIn, same again.

[00:35:41] Patrick: Everyone, a big round of applause for our panelists this morning. Exceptional, exceptional. Thank you so much. Really it is a thought-provoking discussion, but the most important takeaway is that this isn't just a requirement, it's everyone's responsibility. There are great resources. Connect with the team, connect with the groups. Thank you so much.