Conferences can be extraordinary experiences. You learn so much, meet so many people, and absorb so much information—it’s absolutely electrifying. But conferences can also be exhausting!
Post-conference departure days are usually the perfect time to wind down, decompress, and reflect on all that you’ve experienced. But with a worldwide tech outage happening the same day that many DisabilityIn attendees were heading home, some people’s journeys may have taken a bit longer than expected! Hopefully, everyone is either home already or safely on their way.
At Deque, we’re grateful all our conference attendees have enjoyed safe travels. Everyone had an amazing time, and we’d love to share some highlights below.
Let’s start with Tuesday’s events, when we had Deque leaders joining three different panels over the course of the day.
Accelerating accessibility
Things kicked off at 10:00 am with our CEO, Pretty Kumar, speaking as part of Accelerating Accessibility: Strategies for Enhancing, Expanding, and Sustaining a Maturing Accessibility Program.
Preety was joined for this insightful discussion by Kim Findura, Director of Web Accessibility at Prudential Financial, Claudia Gordon, Senior Accessibility Strategy Partner at T-Mobile, and Kelly Risser, Accessibility Banking Director at U.S. Bank.
Having been a visionary leader in the digital accessibility space for more than two decades, Preety is uniquely positioned to address not just where accessibility has been and where it is today, but where it’s heading next.
“The next phase of digital accessibility will be dominated by efficiency and prevention.”
A key factor in achieving these new levels of efficiency and prevention is the increasing impact of technologies such as machine learning and AI. As she made clear during the panel, Preety foresees a harmonious future:
“Machines and humans can work more efficiently and effectively together than apart.”
At Deque, we see evidence of this every day as our customers take advantage of offerings such as axe DevTools Intelligent Guided Testing and axe Assistant.
But it’s not all about technology. “Having a policy in place is critical,” noted Preety. “Know where you want to go, set your goals, measure, and make progress visible.”
The other panelists echoed this emphasis on goals and measurable progress. As Claudia Gordon made clear, “You need to understand the ROI of accessibility and the risk of not being compliant.”
The panelists also concurred on the topic of awareness throughout the organization. “Having an enterprise standard is something that everyone can march to within the company,” said Kim Findura. “It’s all about making sure everybody knows what’s available for our customers,” added Kelly Risser, “so they can provide the best service to all our customers.”
Kelly Risser perfectly encapsulated this customer-centric vision by stating, “What’s important to the user, is what’s important.”
Another valuable insight from the panel was the emphasis on progress over time. As Kim noted, “This is not a flip of the switch. It’s a journey and constant effort.” And as Preety observed, the effort is all about combining the theoretical and the tangible:
“You can have the subject matter experts, but you’ve got to have that responsibility where the rubber meets the code.”
All of us at Deque know firsthand that digital accessibility success is made possible through close collaboration, and we’re eternally grateful to our customers for the work they do, and for choosing Deque as their partner.
After a fifteen-minute break, the next event got underway!
Accessibility innovation, leadership, and impact
Dylan Barrell, Deque’s Chief Product and Technology Officer, was our panelist for Nothing About Us Without Us: Accessibility Innovation, Leadership, and Impact, a luncheon plenary hosted by Microsoft, with the lunch provided by Fable. Dylan was joined by Diogo Rau, Chief Information & Digital Office from Eli Lilly, and Catherine Nichols, VP, Office of Accessibility at Salesforce.
A key moment during the plenary was when Dylan was asked to explore how we can leverage AI to empower people with disabilities.
As Dylan observed, “AI is playing a big part, and has been since 2018, in making it simpler, making it easier, and making it more affordable for organizations to implement accessibility at scale.” He went on to note the importance of a human-centric approach, stating that we need to “approach technologies in a way that makes the human more efficient.”
While he sees tremendous potential in how AI can be leveraged, Dylan sounded a cautionary note as well, observing that there are “three main risks” that must be considered:
“The first is we assume AI is going to do more than it really can. The second is to underestimate it or be scared of it. If we are too scared, we risk not taking advantage of things that will change people’s lives. And the third one is to realize that as great as all this is, we need to be vigilant, so we don’t create more digital divides and inequality.”
If you’d like to hear more of Dylan’s thoughts on human-centered AI and accessibility, see his recent axe-con talk.
Dylan’s reference to vigilance made for a powerful connection back to what had been discussed in the earlier panel, when Kelly Risser from U.S Bank acknowledged that “you must be very deliberate in your approach.”
If there was a single conclusion one could draw at this point, it was perhaps that we’re at a key inflection point where human values and technological capabilities are coming together to introduce a new era of digital accessibility, one in which the impossible is becoming reality.
Perhaps Andrew Holbrook of Wells Fargo, who moderated the panel, said it best when he observed that while “there is no one model, empowering the people to do the work is what matters.”
Scaling up accessibility
This theme of empowerment was prominent in our third event of the day, Scaling Up: Taking Your Early-Stage Accessibility Program to the Next Level.
Greg Williams, Deque’s Vice President and Chief Program Architect, was our representative on this panel and was joined by Elana Chapman, Accessibility Research Manager at Fable, Sam Latif, Company Accessibility Leader at Procter & Gamble, and Megan Lawrence, Global Director of Accessibility and Disability Inclusion at NIKE.
Elana Chapman made the connection between empowerment and awareness when she observed that “the more familiar you make accessibility to existing work and processes, the easier adoption becomes.”
Greg expanded on this theme and talked about what awareness means and how understanding and empathy can be achieved:
“You can’t understand technology until you understand assistive technology, and you can’t understand assistive technology until you understand disability.”
Achieving this level of understanding may feel like a conceptual challenge, but Greg went on to discuss in detail how success ultimately comes one small win at a time. And perhaps most importantly, he discussed how these small wins help an organization understand its costs:
“It does cost time and money to add accessibility to what you’re doing. And because it does, if you’re very careful about how you measure things, both the inputs and the outputs, you can go back and demonstrate to your organization that the investment they’re making in accessibility is having a very positive impact. And it’s not always in the very next step down the line, but in many cases, you can make those correlations. So where you’re able to collect metrics, where you’re able to have data, especially from your content development processes, make sure to put those in place, get yourself a baseline, and be able to report that out because that will demonstrate your success. This will give you future support from your organization for the things that you do. And positive ROI is very important.”
In making the point about demonstrating success, Greg also circled back to an observation that emerged from the first panel of the day, when Kim Findura of Prudential stated, “All of our success comes from top-down support. It’s not optional. It’s required.”
If you’d like to connect with Greg and his strategic consulting colleagues, you can request an appointment.
Day Two
With Tuesday’s panels successfully completed, Wednesday morning was an opportunity for many of the Deque team to see what else was on offer throughout the conference. Glenda Sims, Deque’s Chief Information Accessibility Officer, was especially busy checking out different talks and experiences.
Glenda attended the luncheon plenary #WeAreDisabilityIN: Celebrating Disability Pride, and enjoyed learning about the socioeconomic impact of certified Disability-Owned Business Enterprises (DOBEs). She was also inspired by the NextGen Innovation Lab. Glenda even found time to experience the Sensory Room, “a quiet space to step away from the conference if you need a moment to breathe, reset, and prepare to rejoin.”
Rachael Yomtoob was also on the move, and particularly excited about attending Artificial Intelligence: Futureproofing with Accessibility to Address Opportunities, Challenges and Biases, a panel hosted by KPMG. The event was moderated by KPMG’s Annette Rosta and featured expert panelists from TD Bank, Microsoft, Vispero, and Comcast NBC Universal. There were so many powerful insights being shared, but perhaps the most memorable quote was also the most plainspoken and direct:
“Y’all gotta be accessible with everything you do, folks. That’s still a problem.”
That quote comes from Jenny Lay-Flurrie, Microsoft’s Chief Accessibility Officer. Did you know that Jenny was the recipient of the Jim Thatcher Lifetime Achievement Award from Deque in 2023? It’s true!
The Accessibility Reception, hosted by Deque
Wednesday’s main event for all at Deque was the Accessibility Reception. As the event’s sponsor, we hosted our Accessibility Awareness Lab, which featured several stations around the room, each with interactive activities designed to show attendees various assistive technologies and demonstrate what these technologies make possible.
One of the most engaging components of the lab was the Accessibility Stories Table, where Patrick Sturdivant, Vice President and Principal Strategy Consultant at Deque and an experienced software engineer who is blind, connected with guests and answered questions about his lived experience.
Attendees loved the Accessibility Stories Table, as well as the Cognitive Station, where participants were challenged to trace a star first by looking at it directly, and then by doing so backward in a mirror. This activity illustrated how simple activities can wear on your cognitive load if you are neurodiverse or have a traumatic brain injury.
Laura Nandakumar, Deque’s Event Manager and Marketing Analyst, expressed that it was “wonderful to see accessibility leaders and enthusiasts get excited about learning about disability.” She went on to observe that “having awareness and building empathy are critical to advancing digital equality, and our team of onsite experts had a great time leading stations to ignite that spark.”
The reception was a memorable and moving way to round out our DisabilityIN experience, and we’re deeply grateful to everyone who attended.
Conclusion
At DisabilityIN, we’ve been able to experience firsthand how accessibility champions are combining values-first missions with transformative technologies to make meaningful progress and drive real change. We’ve shared panels with visionary thought leaders, met and exchanged ideas with practitioners, advocates, and allies, and welcomed guests to our Accessibility Awareness Lab.
While the conference has come to its end, we know the work of disability awareness and digital accessibility is ongoing, and we want to acknowledge the power and passion of every single attendee. Together, we are a movement, and we are making the world a more inclusive place through the strength of our community.
Do you want to continue the conversation? Reach out today, and let’s make digital accessibility a reality for everyone, everywhere!