The Pied Piper of accessibility: turning good intentions into real change, with Sarah Pulis

Hyun Song (00:00) Hi everyone, welcome to This Is HCD. I'm your host, Hyun Song. I'd like to acknowledge that I'm joining you today from the lands of the Gadigal people. I pay my respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to any and all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners of this podcast. My pronouns are she/her, and my visual description is I'm a woman with dark, medium-length hair, wearing headphones and a blue and yellow striped top, and as always, I'm sitting in front of my very unexciting living room wall. Today I'm joined by Sarah Pulis, co-founder and director of Intopia a digital accessibility and equitable design organisation based in Australia. Sarah spent years taking accessibility out of the good intentions pile and into the daily habits of how organisations design and build. She's also helped establish and grow communities such as A11y Bytes and A11y Camp. So today we get into what it takes to make accessibility real and sustainable, and to move past simply ticking the compliance box. Sarah, thank you so much for joining me. Sarah Pulis (01:17) Thank you so much for having me. Hyun Song (01:19) Before we get into it, would you like to give a quick visual description of yourself? Sarah Pulis (01:24) I absolutely can. so I am a Caucasian woman. I am wearing glasses and I have no not shoulder length, above shoulder length hair, reddish colour, and my pronouns are she/her. Hyun Song (01:45) so Sarah, I'd love to start with something that I'm sure our listeners are curious about. What made you start Intopia? Sarah Pulis (01:54) That's a really good, really interesting question. So Intopia is actually 10 years old now. We celebrated our 10-year anniversary earlier this year. And Intopia was actually co-founded by three people. So two other than myself, Adam, who is also an accessibility specialist like I am, and Stuart, who comes more from a tech background, but more from that business management side of things. So We made a nice compliment. But Adam and I both were working in the accessibility industry back then. I think we've both been working in it for about sixteen odd years in Australia and also then now with international clients. And at the time accessibility was approached quite differently to I think it is now. it was even more compliance focused than it is now. So it was, you know, very much a What do you need to do to be compliant? but also you know, it was a lot around fear, you know, what what is well, you know, you have to do this, like, you know, you're really bad people if you don't. And that's how a lot of the accessibility consultancies were operating. They were sort of really trying to instead of entice people into it and say, hey, look, you know, this is about opening up to more audiences and providing better experiences. It was much more a Okay, you know, this is a compliance-based exercise, and we need to do this, and you're bad people for not doing it. So we had this different approach to accessibility back then. On top of that, Adam and I, particularly also working in the space, what we were finding is that even when organisations did say get an audit report, they often didn't know what to do with it. So it was not written in a way that it was clear what the issues were. what the impact was for users, you know, how to actually fix those issues. And so Adam and I both sort of found ourselves in this translation role often. You know, we might not have been doing the audits, but we were working with organisations who had had audits done. And then we were sitting down and actually translating these audits for them into something that was actionable, that they could, you know, implement and also helping them to be a bit, you know, How do you prioritise things? Like we can't always do everything. And you know, our philosophy was we understand that there are business pressures. You know, organisations are facing a whole heap of competing priorities at any point in time. So this all or nothing sort of scenario, if we're talking about more accessibility from a compliance perspective, obviously that's not the only way of looking at things. But for a lot of organisations, that is where they start. And so, you know, these organisations were sort of stuck in this place of, well, first of all, I'm being told that I have to do everything, I have to fix everything, but I can't. Then they're looking at this report thinking, my gosh, how do I go about fixing this? Like this is not clear and actionable. I'm not actually sure what it is that I need to do. and so yeah, Adam and I found each other in these roles. So that was part of the reason we we started Intopia. Stuart obviously comes from a business side of things as well. So how should a consultancy work? How do you work well with clients of all scales and all sizes? And, you know, we do work with a lot of sort of large corporates that have particular needs and, you know, have particular pressures, down to smaller organisations that, you know, have a lot of, you know, different needs that they need to also factor into it. So it was a great mix and we sort of came together as a meeting of minds of those different things. and that's really how Intopia started. Hyun Song (05:42) I love the focus on sort of reducing the cognitive overload or the burden on organisations to get started on the accessibility journey because sometimes they might have the best intentions, but it when it feels like a mountain to climb, I'm sure it just would absolutely hinder any kind of progress, making it that much harder to start. So I love it. It's kind of making that audit process more accessible. So Sarah Pulis (06:10) Yeah, that's right. And I think, you know, for a lot of organisations, they do start with an audit often. And to just be presented with this massive long list of issues, it can be very, very overwhelming. And so that sometimes can be, you know, it's that progress over perfection. and I think, you know, when you are talking about that starting point, whatever that is, it is about how can you get some progress and show some progress. as opposed to being completely overwhelmed or feel like you have to do everything, you know, to start. And that's not the way anyone wants to to operate. And it can be really daunting. And let's be honest, you know, for a lot of organisations, they've always already got digital products in play. So it's not like you say, what's the little thing that I can do to start integrating this into my process? I mean, that's great. But often you've got this massive system. that already has hundreds of ac accessibility issues, you know, that that are easily detected through a, you know, technical audit, let alone putting it in front of of users. And so it is about how do you support organisations to take those first steps in a way that they can get some momentum, you know, happening, see what difference, see what changes can be made, not make it feel like it's just so completely onerous that they're just put it in a too hard basket and then just don't want to tackle it at all. Hyun Song (07:38) Yeah. I I really love that philosophy of kind of meeting people where they are. so I wanted to ask you about Intopia's Global Accessibility Pulse. so this year for Global Accessibility Awareness Day, or GAAD, you asked co-founder Jennison Asuncion to put one question to practitioners and people with disability around the world. And the question was Is the internet more accessible than it was ten years ago? so I'd like to put it to you, Sarah. Is it more accessible than it was ten years ago? Sarah Pulis (08:17) Sorta? it's it's it's both an easy and a hard question, I think, to to answer. I do think there is has absolutely been progress in the last ten years. so more organisations are focusing on accessibility and also inclusive design. that has meant that I do believe there are more products that that that are accessible. but at the same time if you just think about digital and our digital footprint, there are so many things that we are reliant on within a digital environment. And a lot of them are core to what we do in an everyday life, you know, banking, you know, buying things online, that kind of thing. And so for a lot of those organisations, I think those larger organisations that are offering those core services, they have recognised the importance of accessibility and I think are investing a lot more in creating accessible experiences for everyone. But the ease of being able to publish things. You know, whether it's a website, whether it's putting information out there, documents, social media, whatever it is, means that the proliferation of content is just so large that is being produced by people who might not even know any better, or even organisations who, as we mentioned before, are just so far behind to start with that it is a huge, huge like undertaking, you know, to to have. and I always say, you know, I am a specialist, not an end user. So I do not have a disability. And, you know, I talk to a lot of people who still every day encounter barriers with the things they want to access. So it might be great that perhaps some of our essential services are are more accessible these days. But that, you know, we all have our own personal interests. And I think, you know, you then are coming across a whole lot of different, you know, sort of things that people want to interact with that still are not built with accessibility in mind. And so that's when I I think of the question, I'm like sorta. I'm like, I do actually think it's better, but all these other factors, the ease of publishing, the proliferation of things, it a lot of it depends on the people behind it and the organisations also behind it and the priority they give to that, they are all still facts. that mean that, you know, on a day to day basis we an individual might still think, No, actually this hasn't, you know, improved for me. Hyun Song (11:15) Yeah. And we we we all know that retroactively fixing things that are already existing or or legacy products and services and systems, that's it's so much harder and more expensive than getting it right from scratch. and having that system already in place for you to be able to build and publish. Just following on on on the Pulse, so one of the clearest bindings was that progress is real. But outcomes still aren't following for people with disabilities. So in your opinion, what's missing? Sarah Pulis (11:52) Well, I think part of it is you know, we have seen progress, but I think it's maybe what type of progress. And this is where we do get into that maybe discussion of compliance versus usability. so the compliance or technical sort of view of the world is where, you know, people and organisations are focused on more meeting the accessibility standards and may not be looking at the usability of a product. and I think that's one of the you know, can be one of those factors is that we might be seeing progress, we might be seeing more websites that perhaps are conformant with standards, but I've seen systems that are conformant or mostly conformant with standards, and yet you pop the system in front of a person and watch them try to complete a task and you know it that they still struggle or maybe even are not able to complete that task. And I think it it comes back to you know, what you just mentioned about the building accessibility in versus bolting it on at the end. if you do bolt it on at the end, you know, often it is you, you know, you're sort of bug fixing for lack of a better word. it's rare that an organisation will or even can redesign an interface. purely based on maybe accessibility issues that you you that you find. and so, you know, to your point, then it's not designed with accessibility in mind. And so then there's only so much you can do when you are just trying to sort of fix issues within that framework. and that's not to say you shouldn't. And there's a lot that you can fix and a lot you should fix, you know, when it does come to like conformance if you are like working on a an existing system. But it I think that, you know, it often means that that usability side isn't focused on. So I think that's one of the problems, you know, that that why we see progress, but we don't necessarily see outcomes. I think some of the aforementioned though reasons as well apply. It's just that proliferation and that ease of publishing content means that, you know, Progress is probably defined in certain areas, but it doesn't necessarily apply, you know, more broadly. and you know, you you get people that, you know, it's it's just so easy to to spin things up and they do so, and there's there's no guidance around accessibility, often when you are able to to do these things. And so, you know, that means that we're also, again, you know, we're sort of feeding the machine, we're feeding the inaccessibility machine. due to a whole host of reasons. Hyun Song (14:45) I love what you touched upon just there about how it could tick a box. it can meet compliance requirements, but it doesn't necessarily reflect lived experience. And again, staying with the Global Pulse for a moment. there was also a finding around the impact of AI on accessibility. And thanks to AI, it's never been easier to build things quickly, as you said, you can be very prolific about the work that you produce. and what is that doing to access and exclusion? Sarah Pulis (15:25) So it's it's very interesting because it could again it's that sorta, it could go either way. so what we're seeing with AI is yes, it is becoming both easier to produce content websites relying on AI. And by default, if you just give an AI agent a prompt to build something without considering accessibility It gets some of the basics right, but it doesn't get the, let's call it the more advanced concepts, even with setting aside usability for a sec, because that's a whole different conversation and nothing, in my opinion, should ever replace, you know, real users, no matter who they are, with without disabilities or that kind of thing. But if we're more thinking about how a how AI can build things and the things that it can do, yeah. By default, it can absolutely just proliferate issues. So yeah, it it doesn't have a base of what is accessible. So that's a real problem because it makes it easier and easier for people to build things and it's not, you know, without prompting, it will not actually build things that are even close to compliant with standards. Having said that, what we absolutely have found is that if you do know about accessibility, you can actually prompt your agents to create more accessible experiences. And so we've actually been doing at Intopia a really quite deep dive into this. And my colleague Chris Pigden actually, who's like our AI accessibility guru basically, he's the he has deep dived into this to to so such a level. and yeah, what we have found is is that he's been doing some quite rigorous testing around what if you prompt for something without any form of accessibility mentioned, if what if you prompt for it mentioning WCAG and and so the web content accessibility guidelines. And then finally what happens if you actually have an accessibility skill file in it. And so he's actually been doing some quite rigorous testing with that. We also recently released a Figma Make skill file as well. and what we actually sh showed in both of the tests that we've been doing and the Figma Make results are available and and on our website, is that the accuracy of the accessibility when it comes to conformance against WCAG increases quite. quite significantly as you go through these these sort of different tests and these different prompts. So from memory, I think we got up to about 90% with the Figma Make skills file and the tests that we were doing. Now granted this was just a singular test. So I suspect that as a system gets more complex, so when you build more like SaaS style systems with highly complex interactions or that I would say this percentage will sort of lower down a little bit because there's a lot of decisions that go into those types of things, complex components and what have you. But what it did clearly show is that we can get improvement depending on the things that we we do in that sort of design and that build process. and what was fantastic for Figma Make is is that that is the ability to go from a Figma file to then a sort of coded prototype. And what it will allow is for us to do usability testing earlier on. so the problem we've always had is that often, you know, when you know systems are designed, they're more flat prototypes. So they might have click-based interaction, but that's really about it. and so it was very hard to test with particularly assistive technology users, so screen readers, voice control users, potentially keyboard users. You could do it in more of a cognitive walkthrough style where maybe the researcher was actually guiding someone through and asking what they would do, but that's a little bit different to them being able to actually use their keyboard or their technology in the way that they usually would. And so what This also showed is that if we can get a more accessible prototype that is heading towards that sort of 90%, we can also put it in front of users much, much, much earlier. And so again, it supports that building with accessibility in mind and not fixing at the end where you end up doing a little bit of a band-aid. and as part of the Figma Make work that we did, we actually did actually share the prototype that we made with two of our friends who are screen reader users. It was really great because they did actually, you know, they were able to interact with the prototype, give direct feedback on, you know, the system that we were designing. So that's some of the benefits of AI. It's also been shown to help with remediation as well. So Atlassian rec recently presented at the Sydney Web Accessibility and Inclusive Design Meetup. I wasn't actually there. But they were talking about how they had been using AI not just to produce things that were more accessible, you know, sort of at the start, but also actually to speed up their remediation process. So the fixing of issues too. and they found that that that it they still had humans in the loop. And I think that's the most important thing right now is we cannot trust AI to produce accessible content. Like that's That's not possible right now. We it's also how do you validate that? How do you know? Like if you if you can't measure this, if you can't test this, how do you know what it's doing? Things have progressed. Like, you know, I think there are certain things that we have more confidence in being able to test with, say, AI assisted testing than we did say a year or two ago. But once again, it comes down to for me that level of confidence. So yes, do I have confidence that something is going to be produced in an accessible way? Do I have confidence if I have AI-assisted testing that it will be able to test correctly? You know, or at least what, you know, within a a confidence level that I'm comfortable with. So if you could say, particular test case perhaps has a 95% confidence level, then perhaps that's enough. that could also, though, then your decisions may vary depending on whether that's on a critical path or a critical task. You know, is it a critical task that if someone couldn't complete this, you know, it would be like a major, major issue for that particular person for the thing they need to do. So yeah, there's a lot of nuance, I think, to it and and it's why, you know, and it's what Everyone said in the in the Global Pulse survey as as well, I think for most people it was, yeah, we're kind of, you know, we're we we can see where it may actually change accessibility for the better, but we can also see where there are just so many pitfalls and downsides and that it could just proliferate things. And that's just talking about how it can be used to produce products. obviously, and there's been many people who have talked about how they use it in a day-to-day way just to help and assist them with things. And that can include actually getting around inaccessible content as well. But again, you know, it's like, okay, so I might ask it to create alt text, you know, for an image that might not have alt text, but what is what if it gets it wrong? And I think for individuals using it in that particular way, they need to decide, you know, what is going to be, you know, what is that risk versus benefit. the most lovely story though, so one of my previous colleagues, Neil, who is blind, talked about how, and this would probably be about a year ago, but he talked about how he actually used AI to describe his wedding photos. and so this was many years ago. he had the photos actually of his late wife And you know, so he got AI to describe them. And so for him, you know, it's like he was like, yes, you know, I remember that, like I remember that moment that had been captured as as a photo and that AI could now describe to him in a way that he didn't have to rely on anyone else to sit there and to describe what was in those photos or things like that. And so I think there's some, you know, there for every story, let's call it, that you know, might be something where something does go wrong. There is still lovely, you know, uses and and really practical uses as well. Hyun Song (24:46) Yeah, absolutely. And the 2025 Assistive Technology Survey that Intopia ran did show that over half the respondents are using AI to help them with tasks online. And that's a really kind of probably the most beautiful use case of AI that I've heard. it's it's a lovely story. And yeah, and and you mentioned that the results of the Figma Make trial is available online. Sarah Pulis (25:18) They absolutely are, is and the Figma Make file itself. so yeah, if you go to the Intopia website, we've both published the Figma Make file itself. So you can actually use that. and then in our News area you can actually read about the tests that we did, you know, on the Figma Make file, but within the context of building a website and what those different prompts did and what we showed. And we did do we did validate through automated and manual testing as well. So, you know, I think it really shows that there is absolutely going to be improvement if you use it right. But at this stage it's still kind of like so it's it's it's a human problem in an AI form. Yeah. But you know, it at the moment you can't just trust that AI knows what to do in the same way as any human that doesn't have An awareness of accessibility, who doesn't have a, you know, that capability for their role, like the understanding of what they need to do within their role, with it whether it's design or development, in essence, it is the same problem, just human versus technological. The difference is that at a human scale, and also the processes around it, but at a human scale, you can probably manage for it a little bit better at a human scale. whereas I think, you know, at an AI scale, well, there are pros and cons. It's like, well, if you get it right and everyone is using some of the the same sort of underlying information and skills and that, then you should theoretically get more consistent results. But noting that it is AI, it's never going to be a hundred percent consistent as well. And that's you need to take that into consideration. so there's sort of trade-offs on both sides. It's like, but if you don't have a human in the loop that knows what they're doing, whether it's to set up the system right, to validate that the system is working, to validate every time we change, like what happens if you change your agent? What happens if you change your LLM? Does that theoretically they should get better? But what if it degrades? there are some things in the way that LLMs and AI agents and harnesses and the way they all work together, which also means that there are some things when we can't a hundred percent, I think, be aware of and have control of at the moment. and so look, that might be small, it might not make a big impact, but it does mean that if something changes that we are unaware of it or so could change then the accessible output. So again, how do we How do we have that confidence and that measurability? You know, because I know everyone's going, well, why do you still need to do manual testing now? You know, it's like, can't AI just do, you know, all of the WCAG testing now, automated manual, it doesn't matter. And it's like, well, we're not there yet. maybe, maybe, you never know, we might get there. But I would say that we're certainly not there yet to a hundred percent. And then, you know, there's a okay, if we take the human out of the loop. How do we put those checks and measures in balance to make sure that something doesn't actually break the pr the process, the system, the ability to have that confidence that things are accessible? Hyun Song (28:45) Yeah. Yeah. I wanna pivot a little bit because I know Intopia one of the things that it does for organisations is the digital accessibility maturity work. It has different criteria and culture is one that sits separately from other categories such as governance and policy. And I would love to know why culture needs its own category. Sarah Pulis (29:16) No, absolutely. And and it's funny, I think it's where our model slightly differs from others in that culture is its own sort of category. a lot of others lump it into maybe either governance or sometimes it gets lumped into process. for us, I guess what we have always found is that governance and process are more organisational structures. That you put in place to make sure that things work. You've got your processes. Usually your processes will escalate into governance as needed, or governance would drive process. Whereas culture is a very, very different thing. And it's got a lot to do with how people see and approach accessibility. So, you know, we've We've worked with organisations where, for instance, you know, they might actually be doing quite well in accessibility, but the way that things are approached means their culture to accessibility is I just need to do what the organisation tells me or the or what the organisation's goals are, you know, that whatever that minimum is and often that minimum is is, you know, conformance and So there's a lot of like bargaining, you know, it's like, you know, do I have to do this? What's the minimum I need to do? Can I get out of little things and things like that? And so that's one end of culture where perhaps you might still actually be doing things well. You might still be achieving some of those accessibility outcomes or the accessibility goals set by the organisation, but it doesn't engender like any sort of culture of access and inclusion. even things like being able to celebrate success when you do, you know, build things that are inclusive, being able to celebrate progress, you know, over that perfection and and, you know, having that as part of a culture, having a diverse team as well that does represent the diversity of society. And that does include people with lived experience of disability and and also, you know, sort of other aspects of of society and sort of having that in an environment that is supportive for everyone too. And so that's for us why culture is is so important that we wanted to pull it out of that governance side, that process side. It's like you need those, but you also need that culture. You need that culture from the top, starting at, you know, sort of seeing your executive but you also need that culture throughout, you know, your your organisation. Yeah. Hyun Song (31:51) Absolutely. And it and it's it's not culture above everything else, it's culture in addition to these other really important categories like g governance and policy and process Sarah Pulis (32:03) Okay, so. Hyun Song (32:04) procurement, everything. Sarah Pulis (32:06) Yeah, yeah, that's that's exactly right. And you know, I think you don't want to just boil accessibility down to the right thing to do. Like unfortunately, saying to someone, why should you do accessibility? Because it's the right thing to do, there are people who will absolutely, you know, believe and and you know, for that that is core to what they do. But when you are talking to businesses, that's just not enough. Like to say just do accessibility because it's the right thing to do is is not enough. so it is, as you say, how all of those things interplay together. You know, it is about what is that business case for accessibility. And part of that is, you know, it is the right thing to do. and sometimes that for for different individuals, talking about that in a way that resonates with that individual or the role that that individual holds as well can be really powerful too. So you don't necessarily have a one size fits all message, you know, that you that you put to individuals or to organisations. It's about tailoring that message to what is important to the organisation or to the individual. And that's where, you know, those different aspects also come into play. Hyun Song (33:24) Yeah. And and on that note, I I wanted to also address the people, the people who drive change and act as champions in their organisation from an accessibility front and also just contribute to the culture that can enable a more inclusive environment. And you know the people aspect really well, I think, because you're somebody that I think community building is a is a huge strength. for you and my question to you is what what do people get from community that they can't always get inside their own organisation? Sarah Pulis (34:04) It's you are absolutely right. I think for me, community has always been part of what I do and and also part of who I am and how I do it too as well. I've sometimes I've sometimes called myself the Pied Piper of accessibility. So I'm not very good at like the influencing senior executives or that. I'm like I can sort of do it, but I would never say that, you know, if you needed someone to go into an organisation to influence senior executives that you send me in. That's not really who I am. but what I do do is like I'm the Pied Piper, I sort of play my accessibility pipe, which is usually being super passionate about it and sharing as much and as much knowledge and experience and that as I can. And you know, I play my pipe and I look behind me and I'm like, look, there's a few people behind me and I keep playing my pipe and I'm like, look, there's a few more and then, you know, all of a sudden I've got this big crowd behind me and then they go off and they play their accessibility pipe. So I think Starting A11y Bytes, which was for Glob well is, I should say, is for Global Accessibility Awareness Day, which I think 15 years ago, I think, is when A11y Bytes started. And, you know, it was to support that mission of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, which was to build awareness of accessibility, but also to bring people together. and I think, you know, funnily enough, back then there was less awareness of accessibility. And there were more individuals championing for accessibility, particularly without support in their organisations from leadership. And that can be extremely hard and extremely lonely, you know, to be doing that. So to be playing your pipe basically on your own. Or maybe one or two people, you know, that are playing the pipe beside you. and so it, you know, it can be really, really hard. really isolating. There is a lot of both presentations and articles from accessibility professionals who have talked about the burnout of accessibility or or championing accessibility. And I think actually it was recently, and I think it was actually Jennison who talked about how sometimes in this space you actually almost need to learn how to care a little bit less, which is an interesting concept in that you know, it it it sort of feels wrong for accessibility that is so human people focused. But really I think it was, you know, the the crux of that was is that you can sometimes burn yourself out so badly that then you can't do any more good or you you can't do the good that you have been doing. And so yeah, there was some talk about how do you need to you know learn to sometimes sometimes care just that little bit less in order to almost preserve yourself, you know, put your own oxygen mask on before you put it on for for other people. And I think that's where A11y Bytes and then later A11y Camp, which is the the full-blown conference came from, you know, to start with, it was A11y Bytes bringing this community together, increasing awareness, absolutely. But then for those people, you know, allow giving them a forum that they could learn more, they could connect with other people that were also interested in accessibility. provide that support, you know, at a time where, yeah, there was a lot more lone voices in organisations. It's a lot, lot better now. but there are a lot of lone voices in organisations, you know, at that time. And so, you know, that was how I think A11y Bytes started. And then A11y Camp came along because we wanted, you know, not just one night you know, a year, we wanted something that was a bit more in depth, but also then once again bringing people together to be able to share. And I mean I've been part of this community now for well, officially for sixteen years is the the amount of time I've been doing this full time. But actually I was part of the community and came across accessibility. Twenty thir thirty-four years ago, I think, was when I first came across accessibility and I was part of the community even back then. and you know, what I've always found is is that it is a very strong community. you know, and it is a community that, you know, will certainly support e each other. we also have a tendency though to be a bit judgy sometimes, and that's not always the best. So I'm not gonna say it's all r rose colored glasses. but certainly within Australia I've found that, you know, there are a lot of people that are coming together to support each other. And that's only grown. so it, you know, as I said, it used to be that there were less people who even knew about accessibility. Accessibility was a little bit more siloed. So, you know, back when I started sixteen odd years ago, we were only on the cusp of thinking about accessibility from the entire project lifecycle and not either it's a testing thing or it's a developer thing. You know, back then that's basically what it was. and so there's so many more people that have accessibility as part of their role. And that's what we wanted A11y Camp to be, is also a place where it wasn't about people like myself, accessibility specialists that live and breathe this stuff. It was about bringing people together where it was part of their their role. it was part of what they did on a day-to-day basis. And so how can we also come together and support that, but also come together in a way that Designers and developers can talk together. You know, we've over the years thought about, you know, maybe we could have a Design Day and a Dev Day. And I've always said, no, no, no, we want, you know, the the different people involved in the in in product essentially to be able to come together because accessibility is one of those things that sits across the entire life cycle. And it's always an interesting conversation when I have with organisations about if they're hiring an accessibility lead or that. And it's like, where should it sit in the organisational structure? And very often it sits under experience design or equivalent. but actually for me, that's probably too low. Like it, it, it has it should have a seat at the table with, you know, sort of all other, you know, leads or practice leads or whatever, however the organisation is structured, because it does touch all of those, you know, design, dev test, content, BA, you know, it touches everything. And so it should have its its own place at the table. It shouldn't necessarily sit under one of those areas because every single one of those areas has to work. It has to consider accessibility as part of, you know, what it does in order to actually be successful. Hyun Song (40:55) Yeah. Yeah. Then then it becomes a shared responsibility as opposed to that business unit, they're the owners, like they're in charge of that. So I have nothing to do with it. Sarah Pulis (41:05) Exactly. Or I don't have the influence I need to change things as well. And that's also what often happens when it sort of sits under one of those areas. and I've I've seen organisations where it sits under different, you know, it sits in the testing area or it sits in the design area or or or things like that. But then often I've found that those organisations or those leads then struggle where they're like, Look, I need to, you know, we need to change the way we do need to do accessibility in a certain area, but they don't actually have any of the authority, you know, and and you know, it's all then influencing, which I mean, that's part of life. You know, we we everything is a bit of a an influencing game, but It is harder when, you know, it's it's sort of, yeah, siloed in in that way and seen as it own like so and so owns it. This this practice area owns it. Well, it's actually a practice in and of itself. Hyun Song (42:02) Yeah, yeah. yeah, absolutely. And I might end with this question for you. If someone listening to this wanted to start bringing in inclusion to their practice, to their teams, to their organisation, and they wanted to do that right away, what what's something that they could start with? Sarah Pulis (42:24) You know, it's actually a hard question because sometimes I think you want to start with the thing that is going to create the momentum. And that can really vary depending on your role, your organisation, you know, anything like that. I think, you know, at a principal level it's like start small. Start with one thing that you can do. whatever that is that's suited to your role and your organisation. I think that works two ways. One is so that it's something that you can do that's tangible, that you can think, okay, I've done that, you know, I've I've done that first step. also showing that first step to someone else, you know, can be really fantastic. So I have seen where someone has been able to bring in someone with lived experience of disability And whether it's having them talk about their experience and maybe within the context of something like that your organisation does. doing one even usability session where, you know, you might do that, record it and then show people and you know, that's sometimes that factor of, my gosh, like I I had no idea and it's quite hard to watch someone, you know, assuming they are having a a a poor experience, but it's quite hard to watch someone struggle Struggle with your baby, I'll say, you know, a lot of us are very proud of what we do. And, you know, you don't sometimes you don't actually realise then how hard it is, you know, for someone if it hasn't been designed with accessibility in mind. So it could be something small like that. It could be something small like take an easy concept. Keyboard accessibility. Probably actually not so easy, but let's let's simple keyboard accessibility, let's call it. and you know, it like could do that as a potential focus perhaps for the team. And that's, you know, a nice one where if you do have a team, you could be thinking about, okay, what does keyboard look like from an interaction perspective? So for designers, what does keyboard look like from a development perspective? So, you know, how do we make sure that things are keyboard accessible? So you could actually take a theme maybe and you know, have a look like have a look at how it actually impacts the different roles perhaps that are in your organisation. So you're also creating a little bit of again that what I that community around it. So, you know, it might be just you doing something or it might be you doing something where you can actually go, you know, start to say to people, hey, look, these, this is a concept. Let's actually have a look at it together. And that hopefully will also then build that momentum and build maybe that community. So then others do the next little small bit and it just snowballs from there. Hyun Song (45:17) Sarah, thank you. This has been such a great conversation. And the thing that I am taking away from it the most is really that this work is like you can't do it alone. And the importance of having a community around you and people that also care about this and trying to bring in others to this inclusion space so that it becomes a shared responsibility and a shared task. and a shared priority too. That was Such a beautiful message, so thanks so much for the conversation. Sarah Pulis (45:49) No worries, I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you so much for inviting me.