Episode 2 - Taylor Dorward

Taylor Dorward joins Mike Hartley for Episode 2. In this episode we hear from Taylor about what Accessibility means to him, his views on AI and Accessibility, and what his top tip is.

Taylor is a CPACC certified specialist who speaks at events across the US and also virtually, working in organisations to make inclusion a reality.

Transcript

Mike Hartley (00:00)
Hello everybody and welcome to 365 Ally, the podcast. My name is Mike Hartley and today I am joined by Taylor Dorward who is a long time friend of mine and somebody I have a huge amount of admiration and respect for, who has become one of the leading voices for accessibility at

conferences all over America and virtually and all sorts and yeah so Taylor welcome mate it's really good to have you here

Taylor Dorward (00:33)
Thank you so much. And I really appreciate that introduction and that respect and admiration goes both ways. Absolutely. But thank you so much for having me. As he said, my name is Taylor Dorward and I have been doing accessibility for a while now and I am a CPA CC, which is a certified professional in accessibility core competencies, which is quite a mouthful, but I'm fine.

Mike Hartley (00:41)
mate, it is-

Yeah, yeah.

Taylor Dorward (00:59)
having to say quite a bit, because not too many people are familiar with that acronym. But essentially, it just means I have a very good foundational knowledge on a lot of different accessibility topics.

Mike Hartley (01:09)
That is brilliant. I must admit I've kind of looked at it. It's not something that's necessarily that big over kind of here in the UK, but I have looked at it and I've gone, yeah, I'm quite interested in investigating that. So yeah, yeah, I know that that is awesome. Awesome, mate. It is fantastic to have you on the podcast.

It's always good to talk to you. So we've kind of got a bit of a format. I need to be on my best behavior to try and keep things at pace, which I will try and not get sidetracked, but that's always a challenge. So got kind of a few standard questions that we'll go through and yeah, just answer away, talk away, please. So really the first one.

It's kind of a wide ranging one and obviously very personal to individual circumstances and individual people. And that is accessibility. What does accessibility mean to you?

Taylor Dorward (02:12)
so this is very interesting question. And as an advocate for accessibility, I find myself giving the definition for accessibility a lot. And so the official one I refer to is that accessibility refers to the design and provision of products, services, environments, and information that can be easily used, accessed, and understood by everyone, especially those with disabilities.

Now, as you can tell, that's quite a lot. But I always like to give that one initially, because I feel like it really encompasses how broad of a topic accessibility really is. It's hard to sum up in just a few words. But in simplistic terms, it's really just about creating an equitable experience for everyone.

And so that's really what it means to me is just making sure everything, whether it be your PowerPoints, your verbal presentations, your workplace activities, whatever it is, it's able to be done and interacted with by everyone, regardless of their ability.

Mike Hartley (03:16)
No, I love that. I love that. That is, yeah, yeah, so true. It's, yeah, it's always a fun one because I mean, I'll be out and about, I'll go to events, I'll just be going out and about on my daily business and I'll just be like, always looking and it'll be like, oh no, that...

be better and no well done they've done that really well and I think that's also really important is not just noticing the the all they could do that better but it's also noticing where people have actually you know what you've done a really good job there and I have to say I I have seen it where particularly if I see a small business that have gone out their way to make sure that

Taylor Dorward (03:56)
Yeah.

Mike Hartley (04:06)
whatever they do is accessible. I will always go up and I will just say, can I just say thank you because the accessibility here is amazing. Because people need that encouragement.

Taylor Dorward (04:16)
Yeah, it's great to see that kind of

stuff in the real world.

Mike Hartley (04:19)
Yeah,

yeah, so yeah, which I guess kind of leads on to the next question really is in your daily life, what does accessibility, what role does it have in your daily life?

Taylor Dorward (04:34)
Yeah, so accessibility as a person with the disability myself, I am blind. I have something called cortical blindness, which is blindness caused by damage to the visual cortex in your brain. So when you look at me, you may not be able to tell right away if at all that I have a disability. And that's part of having a hidden disability like vast majority of disabilities are. I think the statistic is around 70%.

of disabilities are hidden. And that's very important to know because you can never assume someone's situation. And so for me as a person with blindness, as you can imagine, certain things can be a bit challenging. And I do a lot of stuff on the computer. So something that is very important to me as my screen reader. And so for a person with blindness, you have some options when using your computer.

Mike Hartley (05:01)
Yep.

Taylor Dorward (05:24)
For me personally, I use NVDA. A lot of people also use JAWS and I have both. But for me, since I do have some functional vision as do a vast majority of blind people, in fact around 95 % of blind people still have some functional vision. And this may be as little as perceiving light.

but it's not always seeing darkness as it may be portrayed in movies or in written text. So I would like to emphasize that point. But for me, I tend to use NVDA quite a bit because it's better suited for my situation. It's hard to put it into a quantifiable statistic, but I would say I have roughly 70 % of my vision. Sometimes it feels like 50.

Sometimes it feels like 80, it can go back and forth. But so I did initially try JAWS, but it was a little bit of a little bit too much of a screen reader for my situation. So NVDA seems to be a right in the sweet spot for me. So I use that all the time when I'm on my computer. And that's just talking about digital accessibility. I use a lot of other accessibility tips and tricks throughout the day, just doing my normal daily life.

Mike Hartley (06:21)
Mm.

Yeah, yeah. And I have to say, I didn't know that stat around blindness and the percentage on visibility within blindness. That was something I didn't know. But the hidden disability one, is, yeah, that's what that 70 % it's a stat I use quite a lot. Because again,

to look at me people wouldn't know but I have hidden disabilities as well. And actually it's kind of a good time. You can get the sunflower lanyard and the sunflower badge. These started out during COVID actually.

They started out for people who couldn't wear masks when doing shopping because of hidden disabilities. So they came out with the sunflower lanyard to indicate, I've got a hidden disability, therefore please don't judge me and don't sort of guilt trip me and what have you. And since then they've really grown, they've become international.

so you can get these.

in so many countries now. ⁓ know in America you can get the hidden disability card and lanyard. My wife and I, we came to New York last year for our 25th wedding anniversary and it took me a long time to actually feel comfortable wearing the lanyard and the badge because I was like, I don't like having a label on me. It felt really kind of personal.

But then I started to use it a bit and then the first time I flew and I had that with me and I got up to security and they were like yeah just you can go through the hidden disability lane which helped with my social anxiety, it helped me cope with my mental health element as well as my physical element and

It really surprised me when we came to New York. I mean, I've been to Seattle and it's kind of helped me get through TSA a couple of times at Seattle. But New York, when we arrived and when we left, they were just like, yeah, you've got come here. You go down here, you cut the lines that they'll help you through.

They're like, is there anything we can do to help you? Is there anything that you need to make it bit more comfortable for you? My wife and I, we were the fifth and sixth person to board our flight home from New York because they were just like, yeah, no, no. You just get on the plane straight away. And it was like, okay, this is actually really helpful because we're not fighting everybody. And again, my social anxiety is not.

being triggered, my, I'm not getting pushed about which would trigger my physical chronic pain and everything else. so, so yeah, I would say to people, if you do have hidden disabilities, then yeah, please look up the sunflower scheme. because it really, it really does help. ⁓ it's, it is invaluable.

and

I know from my wife's perspective, it gives her a lot more peace knowing that I've got that with me and that I will have support when I'm going through security and all that if she's not with me. So yeah, on the hidden disability, definitely check out Sunflower Scheme. So yeah.

Taylor Dorward (09:58)
Yeah,

yeah, I have mine as well. And it's it's been very helpful during the reports, like you said, but also at these in person conferences. It's been extremely helpful having these and it's still gaining some awareness. I get a lot of questions about it. And I'm sure a lot more people want to ask, but they might be shy about it. They may not want to offend or anything like that.

Mike Hartley (10:07)
Yep.

Taylor Dorward (10:21)
But it's been really nice having it. What's cool is actually a few conferences ago when the companies was giving out sunflower badges because they made ones that are the sunflower lanyards, but their colors are inverse for people who support the movement. And so the whole company was wearing them and they were handing them out. So it was pretty cool seeing that stuff.

Mike Hartley (10:38)
⁓ nice. Yeah.

yeah, no, that's awesome. I love that. I'll have to keep an eye out for things like that one. Cool. So that's kind of everyday life living. I think unless you've been living on Pluto for the last few years, you can't have escaped AI.

And I always find it interesting listening to people's experiences because I've heard a whole mix of things and I've had different experiences with AI and the impact of it both positive and negative sort of from an accessibility perspective.

What's kind of your view on the impact of AI?

Taylor Dorward (11:26)
Yeah, I love this topic. It's something I talk about quite a bit at conferences and I've talked to other people with disabilities as well and I've heard mixed reviews. Some love it, some really don't like it. So it's very interesting. But for me personally, I think it's fantastic. It's a new assistive technology that I can use.

And so I, and I think it can help a lot of other people with disabilities as well, allowing them to attain skills that they may not have thought possible before. Like for example, utilizing Microsoft Co-pilot to help you learn how to code, how to analyze code and how to develop those skills, maybe opening up new career opportunities. And for me personally, with my blindness, looking things up,

something as simple as that can be extremely challenging doing it manually, but using like the voice mode for some AI, I can just ask the other question and it can give me the answer and I can even ask where they got that information, make sure it's from reputable source, because you don't want to just believe AI blindly, because just like a human, it's going to make mistakes and

No matter how you prompt it, sometimes it's still going to make those errors. So making sure you're getting the correct information is always important, but having access and information in that way has been a game changer for me. And it's been very freeing to be able to look things up, just so trivial things, looking them up now that three years ago, I would have to ask someone or

play games with Alexa and see if she could finally give me the answer. Because Alexa and Siri and other AI that's been around for a little longer can be very helpful for sending messages back and forth and reading some things. But for example, I'll use Siri and I'll ask a question. And it'll just say, here's the results. And I'm like, can you read them to me? It'll show the answer on the screen. And I'm like,

Mike Hartley (13:27)
Yeah.

Taylor Dorward (13:30)
I can't read that though. But so having these AI tools to be able to ask you questions and have it tell you the answers and learn all these different skills, utilizing AI has been incredibly helpful. So there, I do see some of the negatives that people talk about, like becoming too reliant on AI, maybe causing cognitive decline. But for me personally,

I think as long as you do it in moderation, can be extremely beneficial as an assistive technology.

Mike Hartley (14:01)
Yeah, I mean, one of the biggest things I use Copilot for is I get huge emails sent through and people don't seem to know how to write an email that's to the point and that's short. They seem to want to give a whole story.

And there'll be points in there and I'm just like, I haven't got the time or the attention span. Copilot, give me a summary. Tell me what the key points are. What, what do I need to do? And it has helped me out so much in that respect. I mean, it's actually enabled me to make sure that I'm paying attention to stuff that

Quite honestly, in the past I would probably ignore because I'd be looking at it going, haven't got time to read that. I'll come back to it later and I never would. Whereas now it's like, you know what, just give me a summary so I know the points. actually I need to pay attention to this. And I'm kind of sitting there going, yeah, how much else should I have paid attention to in the past? hey, life's too short to read.

Taylor Dorward (14:54)
Yeah.

Mike Hartley (15:11)
emails that are about four pages long and that's not an exaggeration in some of them but it is nice to get those those kind of summaries and I mean it is for somebody who doesn't necessarily have the greatest of attention spans let's say it really is helpful and I know a lot of other people that find exactly the same so

So yeah, yeah. No, that's really cool. So that's kind of now, we look at moving forward, mean, the pace of change with AI has been phenomenal. It has been just crazy to witness.

Taylor Dorward (15:47)
Yeah.

Mike Hartley (15:53)
it, it, and yes, I know this makes me sound old, but it takes me back to sort of the, the nineties when the worldwide web was first came into being. And then all of a sudden you went from a few tech companies having websites to all of a sudden, everybody having a website and, and

you're not a business without a website anymore. And that kind of happened within a very quick pace. And this seems to be going at an even faster pace, certainly in terms of the reliance and the capabilities of AI is insane.

From your outlook on things, from your perspective, what do you see sort of the impact, the sort of future of accessibility within this AI world? I mean, you sort of mentioned about people getting overly dependent on that. Is that something you see as a concern or do you see?

much greater positive potential for AI and accessibility.

Taylor Dorward (16:53)
⁓ I mean, specifically talking in the context of those with disabilities, I worry a lot less about overuse. Because, for example, my sister is a big proponent of that. is always, because I use chatty teeth, the voice mode quite a bit on my phone for quick questions. And she'll say stuff like, I wish you wouldn't use that so much. And like, it's going to

cause some cognitive issues down the road, because you're going to be thinking less, which I understand. But also, I'm not using AI to do something that I can already do. I'm using AI to kind of close that gap. think like an average person has the capabilities of doing this amount of work. And me without AI, I might be down here.

Mike Hartley (17:23)
Hmm.

Taylor Dorward (17:42)
But with AI, it kind of closes that gap. And so when I think about my usage of AI, I think the instances I use AI, it's got to be at least over 100 times a day. But those could be very quick questions, quick snippets of using Siri, using Alexa, and all these different AI tools like Copilot, ChachiPati. But I'm not using them to replace

Mike Hartley (17:44)
Hmm.

Taylor Dorward (18:06)
something I could be doing without it. I'm doing something, using it to do stuff that if I had the same disability 10 years ago, I wouldn't be able to do. So I feel like it'd be irresponsible of me to not utilize these amazing tools that I have at my disposal when I'm not using it in the negative way where I'm just being lazy.

Mike Hartley (18:16)
Mm.

Taylor Dorward (18:27)
I'm using it to help me be more efficient and learn new things and be more open to trying new things. Cause I know I have this tool I can use to help me learn and, and understand things easier. And so I think the progress of AI is really exciting to see what it's going to do going forward. Cause you have things like the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, and I have something called Solos, another form of smart glasses.

And I remember just like three or four years ago, I tried something called Oracam, which is a similar technology, but compared to what they have now, it looked like it was like a calculator, like an old school calculator in comparison. like implementing AI into accessibility, I feel like is...

drastically changed the game and I'm really excited to see where it's going to go in the future. I think it's going to be very exciting.

Mike Hartley (19:22)
Yeah, I absolutely love that because you talk of it as it is another assistive technology aid in your daily life. It's

I've not heard anybody describe it in that way and I absolutely love it because it is such a ⁓ valid point. mean that closing the gap thing is huge and you mentioning the Metaglasses. It was funny, we had the TV on the other weekend and we were watching Snooker because

We watch a lot of sport in our house and we do like snooker and the match finished early. So as they do, they stuck a program on just to fill the time. And it was one of those programs that I wouldn't have necessarily tuned into if I hadn't seen it, I'd have been doing other stuff, but it came on and it sucked me in. And it was a guy named Chris McCausland who

Taylor Dorward (20:04)
I've stuck that right where I'm on just a little tongue.

Mike Hartley (20:23)
He lost his sight when he was, I think, a teenager. And he's a comedian and he did Strictly Come Dancing, so like Dancing with the Stars in America. And he won it. He actually won it, which was phenomenal. But he was in San Francisco and he was trying out different assistive technologies, different, he tried AI, different, looked at

lots of different things. And one of the things he was trying out was the Meta glasses and seeing just what they were capable of more and more from where they were. I mean, when you, when you think about the whole Google glasses thing and the controversy over people recording and everything else, but seeing how he was able to use them and

Taylor Dorward (20:53)
Thank

Mike Hartley (21:12)
he'd be looking and he'd be like, meta, what's this? And the way that they'd be describing stuff and it's just like, yeah. And that, as you say, that embedding of AI in there as well, just really adding that intelligence aspect to the assistive technologies that are there. It's just like, and it was a fascinating program. It really was.

It was one of those I just sat there and I went I was really glad I was in the room when that came on because it was a brilliant thing to watch. But it was just sort of quite a revelation seeing the different things and seeing it from his perspective of how that technology can impact. So yeah, yeah.

That's, no, I absolutely love just AI as that assistive tool. It's, yeah, it's brilliant. No, that's really cool. So final thing, final thing. What is your personal hot tip for accessibility?

What would be the one thing that you would say to people for accessibility, whether it be people implementing accessibility or people who are using assistive technology or have accessible needs, what would your top tip be even?

Taylor Dorward (22:40)
Uh, that's a very great question because there's so many different things you can can do to learn more and understand what it's like to experience true accessibility. So, I mean, just understanding what people go through on a day to day basis, like trying to like for, for example, going, going to your company's website.

and seeing how well you can navigate it only using your keyboard. Because that's how someone like me, who's blind, or some people with motor impairments might be navigating your site. And if you do that, you might notice, we have a keyboard trap where you're tapping through the screen and it gets stuck. And so just doing these things to understand what people with different disabilities go through

and how they interact with your product or service, whatever it is, can really illuminate different issues that you might need to fix. you don't need to understand necessarily how to fix the issue. That's where you can rely on other resources and maybe ask a friend who, like one of us who has decent understanding on accessibility, you can ask for assistance later on, but understanding

what to look for. You don't need to be an expert. Yes, I consider myself an expert, but there's certainly plenty of stuff I still don't know. And that's okay. And just like it's okay for me not to know, it's okay for someone who's brand new to this not to know. But just understanding when there's a problem and seeing something and noticing, all right, that color contrast might be a little low.

but then they can utilize AI and say, hey, this is what we're, you can even do like the hex code with RGBA value and say, this our current colors. Can you tell me the color contrast ratio and if it's compliant? And if not, give me some suggestions that make it compliant while keeping our branding. So using AI can be very helpful as well for people just getting into.

caring about accessibility, because as I said in beginning, it's an extremely vast topic. But utilizing AI to help you understand these topics and different accessibility features can help you help others. So I think that would be my one big tip for people who trying to get involved and trying to understand how to best

get started with understanding accessibility and how it looks in the real world.

Mike Hartley (25:09)
No, no, that yeah, yeah, that is that is cool. No, that is that is really good. Thank you so, so much for your time, Taylor and for for sharing with us, folks, I will say, just take a look at events. Have a have a look at the agenda, see, see what's coming up because Taylor is.

always speaking around the place. Well worth checking out and keep monitoring for content and

all the good stuff because there is just so much that I learn from talking to you and I know that lots of other people will learn from as well. So Taylor, thank you so, so much for your time today. And yeah, it's been awesome having you on the show.

Taylor Dorward (25:58)
Well, thank you very much. was my pleasure. And thank you so much for getting this started and what you're doing is very exciting. So thank you.

Mike Hartley (26:07)
Thank you. Okay, folks. Well, that's it for another episode of the 365 Ally the podcast. yeah, stay tuned and we'll catch you on the next episode with more personal takes on accessibility. So thank you everybody and so long. Bye.

Taylor Dorward (26:12)
Thanks

Thanks for watching.