Ben Ogilvie - Head of Accessibility at ArcTouch
The Digital Accessibility Podcast – Ben Ogilvie
In this episode of The Digital Accessibility Podcast, Joe James is joined by Ben Ogilvie, Head of Accessibility at ArcTouch. With a background in software engineering and a career spanning both in-house and agency roles, Ben shares his thoughtful, systems-driven approach to scaling accessibility in complex digital environments.
Now leading accessibility at ArcTouch, a global design and development agency, Ben supports teams and clients in embedding inclusive design practices across product lifecycles.
We discuss:
- Transitioning from engineering to accessibility: How Ben’s development background helped him spot systemic accessibility issues early on and shaped his pragmatic approach.
- What makes accessibility sustainable: From patterns and tooling to strategy and documentation, Ben shares the foundational elements that make accessibility scalable.
- The role of agencies in accessibility maturity: How ArcTouch collaborates with clients to raise internal capability and shift accessibility left.
- Balancing perfection with progress: The importance of enabling teams, prioritising pragmatism, and avoiding "all-or-nothing" thinking in accessibility.
- Advice for aspiring accessibility leaders: How to gain traction, work across functions, and stay grounded in the work that matters.
Whether you’re part of an in-house team or a digital agency, this episode offers clear thinking and grounded strategies for scaling accessibility with purpose and clarity.
Follow Ben Ogilvie:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benogilvie/
Follow Joe James:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeajames/
Twitter (X): https://twitter.com/A11yJoe
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PCRDigital
Visit PCR Digital:
Transcript
Welcome back to the Digital Accessibility Podcast.
Speaker:If you're looking to learn more about the field of
Speaker:accessibility, how to implement it within your role
Speaker:or your company, or to get advice on where to start or
Speaker:see how others have navigated complex issues that you may
Speaker:find along the way, then you're in the right place.
Speaker:I'm honored to be able to share these insightful
Speaker:chats with thought leaders, advocates, and practitioners
Speaker:of digital accessibility throughout this podcast,
Speaker:and I hope you'll find it a useful resource.
Speaker:As always, thank you so much for listening, and I
Speaker:hope you enjoy the chat.
Speaker:Today I'm really excited to be joined by someone who's
Speaker:been doing incredible work in the digital accessibility
Speaker:space for many years.
Speaker:Ben Ogilvie, Head of Accessibility at ArcTouch.
Speaker:Ben's journey into this space is both deeply personal and
Speaker:professionally inspiring, and I think our listeners
Speaker:are going to get a lot out of this conversation.
Speaker:Ben now leads the accessibility efforts
Speaker:at ArcTouch a mobile and connected experience
Speaker:studio that's grown massively since he joined.
Speaker:He started out as a product manager and is now Head
Speaker:of Accessibility for a company-wide commitment
Speaker:to accessible design.
Speaker:So welcome to the podcast, Ben.
Speaker:Thanks so much, Joe.
Speaker:Really excited to be here.
Speaker:And, a part of the, the storied history of,
Speaker:of incredible guests on your podcast so far.
Speaker:I really appreciate being included.
Speaker:Well, I'm still gobsmacked, awestruck, and yeah,
Speaker:incredibly honored and thank, thank you so
Speaker:much for being here.
Speaker:So, yeah, I guess we'll get started.
Speaker:As with every other episode, it's always nice for our
Speaker:listeners to sort of get a bit of a feel for your background.
Speaker:So what first got you into accessibility, Ben?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I, as, as many of us, in the space do have, have a
Speaker:pretty personal path in, I. In the early aughts, I
Speaker:started working for Apple, as a, as a Mac genius at the
Speaker:time at the retail stores
Speaker:and then over time progressed into, a retail
Speaker:operations IT support role.
Speaker:But in 2009, I was working in California.
Speaker:My father was training for a bicycling race
Speaker:for his 60th birthday.
Speaker:And he's always kind of been, you know, Superman, captain
Speaker:of all the sports teams, all of that, very athletic.
Speaker:But as he was training for this race, he came around, a
Speaker:corner in the neighborhood where I grew up, and
Speaker:collided with a delivery truck and became quadriplegic.
Speaker:And I flew home from California to Texas, to
Speaker:retrofit his computer so that he could keep his
Speaker:job and was able to do so, but it was way harder
Speaker:than it should have been.
Speaker:And I kind of thought, okay, what do people
Speaker:do if they don't have a computer nerd in the family?
Speaker:Something that's already life altering shouldn't also have
Speaker:to be career ending, but it nearly was for him and he was
Speaker:able to keep his job for, a number of years after that
Speaker:using everything primarily by voice.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:And, with a bit of interaction with a stylus
Speaker:on his hand, that he, he's able to control a bit.
Speaker:But that was kind of my being thrown into the
Speaker:deep end of learning about software accessibility and
Speaker:kind of seeing the, the gaps in ways that things
Speaker:are not built for, a large portion of the population.
Speaker:And so I stayed at Apple for a few more years after that,
Speaker:but still on the operations and and support side.
Speaker:And I decided I wanted to be closer to building product.
Speaker:And, at that time I came over to ArcTouch,
Speaker:which, had started in at the same time in 2009.
Speaker:I joined at the beginning of 2013.
Speaker:We were about 25 or 30 people at the time, and, came
Speaker:in as a product manager.
Speaker:I was kind of doing stealth accessibility on the sides.
Speaker:As long as, clients didn't ask questions about timeline
Speaker:or budget, I tried to see what we could sneak in to
Speaker:make things a little bit better as I continued to
Speaker:build the skillset myself.
Speaker:And that was kind of my start, in, in the space.
Speaker:Incredible.
Speaker:I've, I've actually quite, I think in previous discussions
Speaker:you've mentioned stealth accessibility before, and
Speaker:I think I've coined that phrase a few times recently
Speaker:in conversations myself, because I dunno if I want to
Speaker:give the, give the game up.
Speaker:But, obviously as a recruiter, people are asking
Speaker:for front end engineers or product or, or, um.
Speaker:Project managers or program managers and my conversations
Speaker:with candidates, regardless of the role, and if a requirement
Speaker:is accessibility, I'm always talking about the topic.
Speaker:So I feel that I'm doing my bit by being a bit stealthy
Speaker:and being like, well, if you've got some knowledge
Speaker:and accessibility, you're gonna be making better
Speaker:products, in my opinion.
Speaker:and I think that that's sort of.
Speaker:How it's, so I guess people are gonna start looking out
Speaker:for that now in my candidates.
Speaker:But, yeah.
Speaker:Another thing I loved, the way that you phrased something
Speaker:just then was, where you said making products
Speaker:that are better or that couldn't be used by a large
Speaker:portion of the population.
Speaker:I think language is really important in the accessibility
Speaker:space and it's quite tricky as a now podcast
Speaker:host, but just generally having conversations that
Speaker:we use the right language.
Speaker:And I think that that's such a nicer way to, to express.
Speaker:Who this actually affects.
Speaker:We're always on the conversation of, people
Speaker:that have impairments or with disability, live
Speaker:with disabilities or conditions temporary,
Speaker:could be or long term.
Speaker:but I think just describing that as we are, we are,
Speaker:we are here for the user regardless, you know?
Speaker:I think that's a really nice way to phrase it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's, it's one of those things that.
Speaker:I have lots of conversations with clients, who are at
Speaker:various stages of their kind of own awareness and, and
Speaker:progress along the journey.
Speaker:And a lot of times those first conversations are just
Speaker:about widening the lens and, and understanding the, the
Speaker:impact of, accessibility on just good product design
Speaker:in general, and specifically on how to reach, what is it?
Speaker:Turns out the, the largest.
Speaker:And most historically underserved, population
Speaker:in the world, globally.
Speaker:So, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:and that's the thing.
Speaker:So on that topic of stealth accessibility, so
Speaker:that was before it became your full-time role.
Speaker:So did anything change in particular at ArcTouch that
Speaker:made you push for that?
Speaker:Or how did you sort of manage to get that title
Speaker:and that sort of buy-in?
Speaker:that sort of million dollar question, I suppose.
Speaker:Yeah, the, the second inflection point for me
Speaker:was also deeply personal.
Speaker:I had continued to kind of do that work, on the
Speaker:side for, for a handful of years, from when I joined.
Speaker:But in 2009, my wife and I had our first son and, uh
Speaker:we learned, within 24 hours after he was born, that he'd
Speaker:actually, lost oxygen in utero, for a period of time,
Speaker:which had resulted in, some neurological differences,
Speaker:including epilepsy.
Speaker:And we spent the first, chunk of time in, in the ICU and
Speaker:once things had stabilized, and I came back to work,
Speaker:I talked to my management.
Speaker:And said, Hey, I, I can't be doing this kind of as
Speaker:a side gig anymore this is the work that I'll be
Speaker:doing in some capacity for the rest of my life.
Speaker:but I don't know if there's space for me to do that here.
Speaker:And they effectively said, we'll make space.
Speaker:And they pulled me off of all my other projects and gave me
Speaker:the time and the room, to, to build a program and a team
Speaker:and an approach to how do we do those same work we've
Speaker:always done for our clients, but from an accessibility
Speaker:first perspective.
Speaker:And, the company was founded from the beginning
Speaker:on the concept of building lovable products
Speaker:and they had originally defined that the, the
Speaker:pillars of what makes a product lovable is that
Speaker:it is both useful but also delightfully designed and
Speaker:we've now added a third pillar to that, which is useful,
Speaker:delightful, and accessible.
Speaker:and we've gotten to do that work, thankfully with, with
Speaker:some incredible brands and, and clients and partners,
Speaker:and, and kind of introduce that concept to their,
Speaker:their work streams as well.
Speaker:That's absolutely incredible.
Speaker:And I guess, uh.
Speaker:It's, yeah, it definitely speaks to the, the
Speaker:field of accessibility.
Speaker:You know, like you say, that personal experience.
Speaker:And I think that at times I've struggled with imposter
Speaker:phenomenon or imposter syndrome where, you know,
Speaker:you think do I belong?
Speaker:But everyone belongs, you know,
Speaker:but it makes it that much more meaningful for
Speaker:you as a practitioner in that space, as well.
Speaker:'cause like you rightly identified, this is good.
Speaker:This is your life.
Speaker:You know, you have a son.
Speaker:You also already stepped into that and gave your
Speaker:time and effort and built the knowledge to ensure
Speaker:that your, your father could still work as well
Speaker:so it's, it's sort of bred into you, you know?
Speaker:and I would say that.
Speaker:It's not uncommon to hear people that have had that
Speaker:similar type of journey into accessibility, but I do think
Speaker:that there's obviously still space and you've probably
Speaker:seen this yourself, of people that have just got an innate
Speaker:amount of empathy and, and would just love to make
Speaker:the world a better, more accessible place as well.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:But yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:And one thing I've found is, to your point a number of
Speaker:people in the space do have the personal connection,
Speaker:but many others have kind of stumbled their way
Speaker:into it in one capacity or another for various reasons.
Speaker:and, and then once it's one of those things that once you see
Speaker:it, you can't unsee it, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But one thing that I've found, and, a friend of
Speaker:mine, said at one point, not everyone has had that
Speaker:light bulb moment yet.
Speaker:But when you're having these conversations with,
Speaker:you know, clients, vendors, partners, whoever, if they
Speaker:are, if they haven't had their moment yet, one of the most
Speaker:impactful things you can do is let them borrow yours.
Speaker:And so storytelling is such an important part of doing
Speaker:this work, kind of sharing either personal stories
Speaker:or as you get into testing with, with users and, and
Speaker:really seeing the impact.
Speaker:Letting people have that moment, that personal
Speaker:connection, to understand why this is something
Speaker:that's not just compliance, but it really is building
Speaker:things that work better
Speaker:and also future proofing products and all those
Speaker:benefits as well.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:That innovation piece and it's, it kind.
Speaker:It's very similar to sort of reach, it probably
Speaker:shouldn't be because like we're saying it should be
Speaker:in at the start, right?
Speaker:But I guess that research is so important and that develop
Speaker:that r and d side of things.
Speaker:So companies with a good research and development
Speaker:facility or team, or commitment, I'd find it
Speaker:really interesting, strange and probably infuriating
Speaker:if they didn't have an element of accessibility
Speaker:in their research and development, but Right.
Speaker:You know, hopefully we'll start to see more
Speaker:and more of that, as the, the years go by.
Speaker:But, awesome.
Speaker:So ArcTouch has had that massive growth as well.
Speaker:You mentioned there were sort of 20 people when you
Speaker:first joined in, 2009.
Speaker:and it's been, we're about 300.
Speaker:About 300 now.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Oh my God.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:Huge, huge growth.
Speaker:and I, I, I'd like to think that that's purely because
Speaker:of all the work you've done in accessibility.
Speaker:I, I, I wish I could take that credit.
Speaker:I, I, I can't.
Speaker:But we've gotten to work with incredible clients
Speaker:and, you know, continue to, to grow, a pace with them.
Speaker:Brilliant.
Speaker:and there was an acquisition in 2016 by WPP, so I know that
Speaker:that may have had, something to do with it, but, um.
Speaker:Has there been a key role that accessibility has played in
Speaker:that growth story and, and how sort of, have you had
Speaker:to manage that internally rather than just the products
Speaker:you're building, I guess?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:you know, we, when we made accessibility kind of a,
Speaker:a core, component of the work that we do was kind of
Speaker:in parallel with, with the beginning of the pandemic.
Speaker:you know, 'cause I, I came, my son was born in 2019 and then
Speaker:I came back and, and shortly after that the pandemic hit.
Speaker:And so there's lots of, variables that
Speaker:that came into play
Speaker:across agencies and across all kinds of companies, both
Speaker:in scaling up and scaling down, and, you know, all
Speaker:of those, those, waves of that rollercoaster.
Speaker:So, you know, it's hard to track what influenced
Speaker:what, but certainly that acquisition in, in, 2016
Speaker:was, was a big benefit to us.
Speaker:You know, since the, since ArcTouch was founded in 2009,
Speaker:we've, we've really gotten to work from the beginning with
Speaker:incredible brands kind of punching above our
Speaker:weight, and getting to do, do good work with, with
Speaker:incredible global companies.
Speaker:But joining WPP absolutely accelerated that.
Speaker:you know, we, we get brought in as mobile specialists,
Speaker:as product specialists, and now as accessibility experts
Speaker:in, you know, some of the
Speaker:largest global clients that WPP has, and have gotten to
Speaker:do really exciting, work in bringing accessibility as
Speaker:a foundational component to some of those clients that,
Speaker:you know, you would, you would hope would have a robust
Speaker:program already in place, but in some cases just the
Speaker:operational inertia of some of those large companies,
Speaker:just doesn't, hasn't
Speaker:permitted that to, to flourish.
Speaker:And so we, we get to come in and say, Hey, let's
Speaker:tackle this on this project.
Speaker:And then when, when people start to see how that has
Speaker:been successful on that, on that project, we get to
Speaker:start having conversations with other teams within
Speaker:the organization, those organizations, and
Speaker:as part of WPP, we also get to collaborate with our
Speaker:sister agencies, show them the approach that we've built
Speaker:up to accessibility, first product thinking, and then
Speaker:that's continued to drive further collaborations as more
Speaker:of the WPP network learns of that expertise and, so it's
Speaker:kind of this virtuous cycle.
Speaker:Amazing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it just, I guess it's probably opening
Speaker:more doors than it's closing for you as well.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Because, and it's I think we're starting to see a
Speaker:lot more in the, in, in Europe or in the uk, at
Speaker:least with our clients.
Speaker:So a very familiar territory.
Speaker:You know, we're now a company of, of six people, um mm-hmm.
Speaker:But we work with, you know, huge global brands
Speaker:and, feel very fortunate and it's hard to measure
Speaker:the impact as a recruiter because unless we are, you
Speaker:know, constantly in contact with, with the managers.
Speaker:But I, I like to think we're doing a good job
Speaker:at helping teams grow with, of that expertise.
Speaker:But that's great to see that you can really partner
Speaker:with, historically, I guess people that might, you might
Speaker:have seen as competitors, or companies you may have
Speaker:seen as competitors, but now actually working together,
Speaker:sharing that knowledge.
Speaker:And I think that that's a huge, huge aspect of the
Speaker:accessibility space anyway.
Speaker:Is that free and open transfer of how, how
Speaker:about trying this out?
Speaker:'cause you know that the end goal is, is a
Speaker:better internet a better experience for, for everyone?
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Amazing.
Speaker:And that kind of brings me on quite nicely actually
Speaker:to this next question.
Speaker:Dunno how I managed to do that you have done fantastic
Speaker:work over, over the, the course of your career
Speaker:and someone that has popped up, during that time is,
Speaker:is Joe Devon and The GAAD Foundation, in particular.
Speaker:So, or G-A-A-D I should probably say, just to help me
Speaker:out with the captions later.
Speaker:But, can you tell us a bit more about the, um.
Speaker:That the GAAD Foundation and, and what it's doing
Speaker:to help within the broadest world of accessibility.
Speaker:Yeah, so global accessibility awareness day.
Speaker:A a lot of people at this point don't know it 'cause
Speaker:it's such a global phenomenon, but that, that's recognized
Speaker:by huge companies the largest companies all around the
Speaker:world, but it started, with a blog post that Joe Devon
Speaker:made as he was watching his own father struggle with
Speaker:banking as he aged and lost his eyesight and, and hearing
Speaker:and, and other things.
Speaker:And Joe, just out of frustration as a posted on
Speaker:a MySQL database development blog you know, kind of this,
Speaker:he calls it a backwater, blog that probably only had 10
Speaker:people that really frequented it regularly at the time.
Speaker:And he just said, accessibility has to go
Speaker:mainstream for developers now and there's, there's
Speaker:a whole story about how that became, this grew
Speaker:into this major thing.
Speaker:Jennison Asuncion, the other co-founder of of
Speaker:GAAD saw that blog post.
Speaker:He and Joe didn't know each other, but he reached
Speaker:out and said, let's do it.
Speaker:Let's make it happen.
Speaker:And they created the first GAAD, and it's been an
Speaker:incredible run since then.
Speaker:You know, it, it was massive from its first year, 10 years
Speaker:after that first GAAD, they created the GAAD Foundation
Speaker:and the goal is really to shift the culture of software
Speaker:development and disrupt, disrupt that culture and in
Speaker:inject accessibility as a core principle and a foundation
Speaker:of kind of the, the culture of software development and
Speaker:I reached out to Joe a number of years ago and said, Hey,
Speaker:I'm, I'm trying to build this culture within an agency and
Speaker:we've got some, some things that are inherent to agency
Speaker:life that are different than
Speaker:product companies or different than, organizations
Speaker:that have, you know, multi-year, single product
Speaker:suite types of roadmaps.
Speaker:So I, I'd like to pick your brain about how, how
Speaker:I might approach that.
Speaker:Starting from that initial outreach.
Speaker:we, we formed a friendship and Joe and Jenison said, you know
Speaker:we don't have other, we don't see a ton of other people that
Speaker:are in kind of the position from an agency perspective
Speaker:that, that you all are as ArcTouch, that are really
Speaker:pushing for accessibility.
Speaker:and, and after a while they invited me to join the,
Speaker:the board of directors of the, the GAAD Foundation.
Speaker:So we've really gotten to do some, some exciting
Speaker:stuff there's, you know, folks can learn more about
Speaker:what the foundation does if they go to GAAD.foundation,
Speaker:but there's a number of different aspects to it.
Speaker:One of them that we got to work with, with Joe
Speaker:on was putting together our state of mobile app
Speaker:accessibility report.
Speaker:He had a number of years before that worked on a state
Speaker:of accessibility report that covered primarily web to
Speaker:start and then started to shift to mobile into 2021
Speaker:but that was the last year they put out that report.
Speaker:So I know we, we will, we'll talk more about the, the
Speaker:report later, but that was one of those areas where,
Speaker:there's so much in the world of digital products that
Speaker:exist, that are touched by agencies and if we can
Speaker:drive that culture shift to where agencies are pushing
Speaker:their clients to make things accessible as opposed to
Speaker:just maybe including it in the, the contract as a, you
Speaker:know, compliance checkbox sort of exercise and really
Speaker:driving towards best practices and, and introducing those
Speaker:across their suite of
Speaker:client work that will really make a dent in so many aspects
Speaker:of what exists in software and interface across all
Speaker:industries globally and so we really see that as one of
Speaker:the, the points of leverage that, that we're working
Speaker:with, with, as part of the GAAD foundation to try to add
Speaker:that not just into primarily software companies and, and
Speaker:global brands, but also the agencies that partner with
Speaker:them and find those ways to kind of make those outsize
Speaker:ripples throughout the the culture of development.
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:It sounds incredible.
Speaker:I mean, it's something that we've been talking about at
Speaker:PCR Digital as well about how, how can we do more obviously
Speaker:this podcast was, was born out of that, trying to raise the
Speaker:awareness, but there's only so much you can do as an external
Speaker:recruitment agency when you are introducing people
Speaker:that's why the stealthy side of they don't know it yet,
Speaker:but this person's gonna be great for their accessibility,
Speaker:but then actually trying to have that conversation
Speaker:and push for it and, and advocate for it with decision
Speaker:makers, it's, it's quite hard to get that face time.
Speaker:But I suppose yeah, as an agency or if we've got larger
Speaker:pieces of work, then we could make that the gold standard.
Speaker:You know?
Speaker:That's, that's what we have to work with and making
Speaker:it industry standard.
Speaker:And that's, that's one of the other things I've, I've found
Speaker:as part of WPP is that there are pockets of people who
Speaker:care deeply, and are doing this work day in, day out
Speaker:and pushing for it within the agency, within those agencies,
Speaker:but it's very siloed.
Speaker:And so we've been working on identifying those, those kind
Speaker:of individual contributors or leaders within that global
Speaker:organization and try to kind of de-silo that and have more
Speaker:conversations about how do we share best practices, how do
Speaker:we collaborate and, and kind of level up the approach as a
Speaker:standard across agency work, and then communicate that out
Speaker:to clients and help them shift their own internal cultures
Speaker:by leading, by example there
Speaker:and that's how we kind of see that flywheel of growth,
Speaker:and, and expertise growing.
Speaker:Amazing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I guess when you leave behind, a trail of, of that
Speaker:knowledge, I guess, do you as an agency provide any kind
Speaker:of like training or like e-learning and things that you
Speaker:can just, they can have or?
Speaker:Yeah, so we've, we've definitely built up our
Speaker:own internal training and processes over the years.
Speaker:Because one of the things that we find is that, especially
Speaker:in the majority of our work, is about well over half of
Speaker:our work is native mobile and accessibility in native mobile
Speaker:is a pretty niche still still a fairly niche expertise.
Speaker:It's growing, certainly.
Speaker:But one thing that we've found is while we've been
Speaker:able to hire, a handful of, of really great practitioners
Speaker:who have that experience, we've learned that really we
Speaker:do need to work on equipping our, our new hires as they
Speaker:come in to, to start growing that expertise internally
Speaker:because there's just not
Speaker:enough of it in the places where we hire, to,
Speaker:to expect that we can hire that, that senior
Speaker:expertise off, you know, off the street as it were.
Speaker:So we've definitely built up internal programs around
Speaker:ensuring we have a foundation of baseline training for
Speaker:all roles and make sure everybody understands what
Speaker:their, what, what's expected of them at a baseline.
Speaker:And then as people raise their hands and say,
Speaker:I'd like to know more.
Speaker:Then we have the ability to dive deeper with them and, and
Speaker:support them in that growth.
Speaker:But, certainly we, one of the most important things
Speaker:we've done is, is build out that expectation of kind of
Speaker:a baseline level of awareness and knowledge as people come
Speaker:in the door, that we can help them kind of both set, set
Speaker:that level, but also plant the seed of, this is an, an area
Speaker:where you can invest and grow.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And that's, I think that's brilliant.
Speaker:Planting the seed is, is excellent because they
Speaker:might not know, they might not realize it when it's
Speaker:happening, but that could be such an invaluable piece of
Speaker:training that they receive.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, to, to grow their career and to, you
Speaker:know, huge, huge ways.
Speaker:So, um.
Speaker:No, that's great.
Speaker:And I know that some companies like, Heather Hepburn
Speaker:mentioned on, on our mm-hmm.
Speaker:We did an episode for GAAD and she mentioned about
Speaker:the induction that they do.
Speaker:So it's, it's a similar sort of scenario, but just making
Speaker:sure people are aware as well.
Speaker:So it's, getting it as early on as possible
Speaker:is, is brilliant
Speaker:and I guess on that hiring perspective, um.
Speaker:Would you say that that's how it's starting to embed
Speaker:within your team's cultures and, and or the culture
Speaker:in general at ArcTouch?
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:You know, like I said, we've, we've been fortunate to
Speaker:have people who have come to ArcTouch now because
Speaker:they see that it's something that we treat as a first
Speaker:class citizen, and that we, you know, I've, I've
Speaker:had a number of our people come in the door and say,
Speaker:Hey, the fact that you all have a person in your role
Speaker:as a head of accessibility is not something I see
Speaker:a lot of other places.
Speaker:You know, a lot of our team is in Brazil because when
Speaker:ArcTouch was founded, the first engineer that was hired
Speaker:was from Brazil, but living in San Francisco at the time and,
Speaker:moved back to Brazil and have just continued to hire there
Speaker:as we've grown over the years.
Speaker:But a lot of our, a lot of our team has said we came
Speaker:to ArcTouch because we saw that that was something you
Speaker:really cared about now, which is really a, a great
Speaker:thing, but also plenty of folks come to us without
Speaker:that kind of knowledge, and so we've, we've gotten to
Speaker:start to build that culture of awareness and expectation
Speaker:and that they can then take to conversations when they're
Speaker:working with their clients, and say, you know, we've got
Speaker:just a little bit of knowledge.
Speaker:Let's have an initial conversation
Speaker:about it and then.
Speaker:A little while later, those clients will
Speaker:come back and say, Hey, you talked about this.
Speaker:Can you tell us more about how you approach that?
Speaker:Which has been a, a great way to kind of see those, that
Speaker:knowledge and awareness grow.
Speaker:So, Ben, you recently shared with me, the state of
Speaker:mobile app accessibility or SOMA report, before
Speaker:its public release.
Speaker:So I was very, very, uh delighted.
Speaker:I did give it a read through, but I didn't give you feedback
Speaker:because I'm a horrible person.
Speaker:I was just caught up with so much else,
Speaker:but, really appreciated that sort of insight,
Speaker:but could you walk, me and the, the listeners through
Speaker:some of the most important findings from that report
Speaker:and why it's gonna matter to product teams today?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, we, we work with a lot of clients specifically
Speaker:on their mobile apps and one of the most common
Speaker:questions is how are we kind of compared to... where,
Speaker:where's the industry overall on accessibility and how
Speaker:are we doing by comparison?
Speaker:And we started to kind of look for industry baseline data and
Speaker:it really, didn't exist, and or at least wasn't current.
Speaker:I mentioned earlier, Joe and his state of accessibility
Speaker:report where in the last year that that report
Speaker:came out, they started to focus on mobile.
Speaker:But there really wasn't much kind of, that
Speaker:was broadly available.
Speaker:On the web side, there's the web a million, which
Speaker:comes out every year.
Speaker:There's, there's other data that exists out there
Speaker:for, for people to kind of benchmark web accessibility.
Speaker:But it, we really didn't find anything for mobile,
Speaker:so we decided, okay, I guess we need to, we need
Speaker:to do this ourselves and, because we had a sense
Speaker:that, you know, mobile, mobile accessibility is
Speaker:you know, in some ways further ahead because of
Speaker:the closed ecosystems on iOS and Android and the work
Speaker:that Apple and Google do to provide developers with tools
Speaker:to build things accessibly.
Speaker:But they have to choose to do it and they have to know how
Speaker:to do it and on the other hand mobile accessibility is
Speaker:a bit further behind, because it's not open source code
Speaker:you know, there aren't, there isn't as much support out
Speaker:there to, to improve things and, and monitor things.
Speaker:So, we looked to start providing some kind of
Speaker:bench benchmark or baseline data and contribute it to
Speaker:that global conversation to say, okay, where are we?
Speaker:So we at least know where we can go next.
Speaker:So what we did, in this first version of the report is we
Speaker:looked at 50 different apps on iOS and Android across,
Speaker:five different industries.
Speaker:We looked at food and delivery payments, fitness,
Speaker:shopping and streaming.
Speaker:and we looked at kind of the core user journeys in each
Speaker:of those industries, that existed in all of those apps.
Speaker:And what we found was that 72% of those user journeys
Speaker:were likely to produce a poor or failing experience for
Speaker:assistive technology users at some step in the user journey.
Speaker:And an app is really only as good as its point
Speaker:of highest frustration.
Speaker:So you know when, when nearly three out of
Speaker:four of those produce.
Speaker:What we rated as poor or failing, you know, those
Speaker:apps are likely losing users, likely losing
Speaker:business, causing, causing brand harm, all those things.
Speaker:And you know, when we looked at the the different
Speaker:industries, we found that streaming, streaming media
Speaker:apps ranked the best.
Speaker:But even the best, that was still 60 out of 100 on
Speaker:the, the kind of normalized scale that we, we rated.
Speaker:So still a lot of ground to cover.
Speaker:And, and on the other side of the spectr we found
Speaker:that shopping apps and, and e-commerce apps rated
Speaker:the worst, with, kind of across the industry,
Speaker:an average score of 42 out of 100, which really was.
Speaker:Kind of baffling to us because that industry in
Speaker:particular has the most directly to gain, arguably
Speaker:from building products that work for everyone who
Speaker:wants to buy from them.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And they're just leaving money on the table.
Speaker:so you know, the.
Speaker:Between those two extremes, of, of testing the other
Speaker:three industries, we, we saw a lot of common patterns
Speaker:of kind of baseline stuff that is not that hard to
Speaker:get right, and then you get into more complex things.
Speaker:But there's a lot of baseline stuff that,
Speaker:developers and product teams could be doing better.
Speaker:But we think it's a lack of awareness, lack of
Speaker:training and skillset, and a lack of consistency.
Speaker:one thing that we found was it seemed as though
Speaker:where we could tell some attention had been paid.
Speaker:It was kind of piecemeal because you would have
Speaker:one screen in the user journey that did well,
Speaker:and then the next step completely fell flat.
Speaker:And then the step after that was doing okay again.
Speaker:And it was clear that, you know, or from what we could
Speaker:tell, teams might be doing a sprint here for accessibility,
Speaker:bug fixing, and a sprint later for bug fixing or that
Speaker:those two screens had been audited before, so they were
Speaker:done, but the one in the middle hadn't been audited yet
Speaker:and so there, it was not part of the kind of definition of
Speaker:done to make it accessible from the beginning and that
Speaker:it was kind of this break fix cycle, and that there
Speaker:was that culture shift that needed to happen, you
Speaker:know, and why it matters, obviously there's the EAA
Speaker:that's just come into force.
Speaker:there's lots of statistics around the business case
Speaker:and the addressable market, but one of the things that
Speaker:we wanted to make sure we included in the report beyond
Speaker:just the, the statistics was, the human impact, the
Speaker:real, like why it matters on a, on a personal and
Speaker:individual user scale.
Speaker:so that was one of the things that we did was in addition
Speaker:to our internal testing, we also made sure to get feedback
Speaker:from users with disabilities,
Speaker:working with our, our partner Fable to bring that
Speaker:kind of human perspective to the impact of that,
Speaker:that, lack of accessibility in those user journeys.
Speaker:And and so for each industry, we have kind of a, a
Speaker:section on that insight in and allowing, like I
Speaker:said earlier, allowing the readers of the report who
Speaker:maybe don't have that, that firsthand experience to
Speaker:borrow their story a bit and understand a little bit more
Speaker:why it matters beyond the compliance and, and even the,
Speaker:the business case as well.
Speaker:And one of the things we didn't want to do was
Speaker:just make it, you know, a WIC HAG focused report.
Speaker:We really looked at that, that entire end to end user journey
Speaker:and, and how consistently or not, different assisted
Speaker:technologies were supported
Speaker:and hopefully, you know, we've had lots of great
Speaker:conversations since then the report, has been really well
Speaker:received and you know, it's, it has sparked some, some
Speaker:good conversations with brands and teams and, both
Speaker:individual practitioners who have said, this is the
Speaker:data I needed to go make a case to my management to, to
Speaker:do something differently, which has been
Speaker:really great to hear.
Speaker:Amazing.
Speaker:Yeah, and I think it's, it's sort of arming people
Speaker:then with that data.
Speaker:I mean, there's so many, so many business decisions that
Speaker:are purely based on data these days, aren't they?
Speaker:I mean, yeah.
Speaker:So if you don't have that to back you up sometimes, and a
Speaker:lot of people will see with CAG as guidelines, and then
Speaker:when you are challenged on.
Speaker:By decision makers, or senior stakeholders within companies.
Speaker:Why, well, why do I need to do that?
Speaker:It's like, oh, well these guidelines.
Speaker:It's like, okay, but it's a guide.
Speaker:So it's a nice to have, you know, and it's so easy to
Speaker:use that as that language.
Speaker:But yeah.
Speaker:That's amazing.
Speaker:So it's incredible you've put that work together,
Speaker:like done that work to put that together.
Speaker:Yeah and one of the other kind of aspects of the,
Speaker:the work that's being done is, you know, the
Speaker:W in WAC stands for web.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:and so for native mobile teams in particular, it's
Speaker:been a, a challenge to really understand how, how does WCAG
Speaker:apply to native mobile so that's another aspect of, of
Speaker:kind of work that we're doing.
Speaker:We've got a, a member of our team who's on the, WCCC
Speaker:mobile accessibility task force to help provide that.
Speaker:Um.
Speaker:That translation of how does WCAG apply to native mobile?
Speaker:Because a lot of teams have been for, for years now,
Speaker:kind of having to do that work internally and it's
Speaker:led to, inefficiency and inconsistency across kind of
Speaker:interpretations and approaches
Speaker:so that's, that's another aspect of, of work
Speaker:that we're, excited to be contributing to is
Speaker:that mobile accessibility task force to help.
Speaker:Provide some, some clarity from the WCCC
Speaker:level, into that.
Speaker:So teams can get, get to work doing the work rather than
Speaker:kind of, bike shedding, about how to interpret
Speaker:WCAG success criteria.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:So do you think that that might end up in a MCAG?
Speaker:mobile content?
Speaker:It, it may, you know, there's been
Speaker:conversations around that.
Speaker:Right now it's working under the.
Speaker:the WCAG to ICT, approach and kind of, adapting from
Speaker:there because that's kind of, there's an existing kind
Speaker:of knowledge cascade and, and process that exists to
Speaker:inherit from, whereas if, if a separate MCAG thing were
Speaker:to be adopted, none of the legislation points to that.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:None of the legislation.
Speaker:Says anything other than, well, most legislation
Speaker:either adopts or points to WCAG as a standard.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so, you know, the, the team wanted to make sure that,
Speaker:that they were aligned and could kind of flow down from
Speaker:that because if you're looking at what do I need to do from
Speaker:a compliance standpoint well the regulations say this
Speaker:so we wanted to make sure that that, or the team wanted to
Speaker:make sure that that was kind of, uh clear and transparent.
Speaker:Yeah, perfect.
Speaker:And that's a much better way to say it, MCAG rather than
Speaker:me trying to put in medicine.
Speaker:Oh, maybe a McDonald's.
Speaker:no.
Speaker:anyway,
Speaker:perfect well thank you so much for, I mean, that's,
Speaker:that's incredible and it's definitely gonna be so usable.
Speaker:You know, we've, we've started to read through
Speaker:it and we are having great conversations off the back of
Speaker:the work that you've done so thank you, on that report.
Speaker:Just to sort of help raise that awareness as well.
Speaker:So I definitely implore people to seek that out, utilize
Speaker:it and use it in their conversations around, the
Speaker:state of mobile accessibility.
Speaker:I think it's something that, as you say, I mean, it's, it's
Speaker:a space that as a recruiter I've worked in for coming
Speaker:up to eight years and, for certain clients, in the iOS
Speaker:space anyway for accessibility and it's, it's incredible
Speaker:how little is still known.
Speaker:I guess there's, there's elements of stuff not
Speaker:being open source or, or shared publicly with,
Speaker:certain applications on the mobile side
Speaker:however, there is still growing knowledge in that
Speaker:space and I think this is a really good step
Speaker:towards, broader knowledge on mobile accessibility.
Speaker:So yeah.
Speaker:Thank you so much.
Speaker:That's the hook on behalf of everyone else.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:awesome.
Speaker:And so finally, if you could give one piece of
Speaker:advice to companies other than reading, the report,
Speaker:that are just starting to invest in accessibility, what
Speaker:would you say that would be?
Speaker:Yeah, you know, it's probably not groundbreaking to anybody
Speaker:in, in the space or, or who has been doing the work for
Speaker:a while, but start small.
Speaker:It accessibility is such a, a deep, kind of, deep
Speaker:and broad topic that it can feel paralyzing
Speaker:and, and overwhelming and starting small and
Speaker:thinking about, okay, what can I do this sprint?
Speaker:What can I make better in my product requirements?
Speaker:Just just for this one feature?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And just start to build on that, is, is really the.
Speaker:The first piece and the second one that's, that's really
Speaker:critical is do all you can to try to get feedback from
Speaker:real users at, at some point wherever you are, get feedback
Speaker:bring someone in, compensate them for their time.
Speaker:but, but get real user feedback because that is, I
Speaker:think, the biggest return on investment you can make, to
Speaker:help make the case or, help.
Speaker:Leadership, understand the, the need beyond just saying,
Speaker:look at the guidelines, or, or this is, you know, a
Speaker:regulation that's required, really humanize it.
Speaker:And then the, the last piece I'd say is early on
Speaker:we found great partners to support us as we started
Speaker:to learn the, the process and the journey and kind of
Speaker:build out our, our program.
Speaker:And now we get to be those partners for, for our clients.
Speaker:Find the right partners, you know, so that you're
Speaker:not having to go it alone,
Speaker:because so many, so many folks in this space start
Speaker:and feel like they're the one person shouting into the void.
Speaker:and find finding real users that can help tell the
Speaker:story and, and partners who can help support the,
Speaker:the growth, and accelerate you to the next step.
Speaker:is is huge.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh, all very valid and amazing points to be made.
Speaker:And I think it's, that's a, a huge part is the
Speaker:knowing you're not alone in this space.
Speaker:I remember the first time I heard of Global Accessibility
Speaker:Awareness Day, and I was like, there's a day.
Speaker:I was like, well, every day is global accessibility day.
Speaker:But um.
Speaker:I was like, oh my God.
Speaker:Like, and this is global.
Speaker:Like there's, and as soon as I went into even just
Speaker:one of the events and saw that there were like 50 to
Speaker:a hundred people attending this, this webinar on, on
Speaker:accessibility, I was like
Speaker:okay.
Speaker:It's, it's pretty good.
Speaker:It's getting there.
Speaker:There's gonna be more awareness and this is great.
Speaker:And it's, I think that a lot of burnout comes from
Speaker:feeling you are alone, feeling like everything's on
Speaker:your shoulders and you have to do a hundred percent.
Speaker:But there's so many conversations I've had
Speaker:where people have said, look, I think it was
Speaker:Mamuna actually, who's at, StepStone Group here
Speaker:in the uk and she, she said
Speaker:every step forward is a step forward.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:So celebrate the small wins, like you've said, start small.
Speaker:It's something you are making progress and it's
Speaker:accessibility is incremental.
Speaker:It's not gonna be done a hundred percent you know,
Speaker:nothing is perfect in this world, but yeah, every
Speaker:little bit you can do helps.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:And, and, and the, then the last, the last thing you
Speaker:said, other than reading the report, but I will just plug
Speaker:if anybody is interested in reading the report.
Speaker:they can grab it.
Speaker:It's free, ArcTouch.com/somaa, or you
Speaker:can just go to ArcTouch.com and, and find it, from there.
Speaker:That's incredible.
Speaker:Thank you so much.
Speaker:I'll make sure that's absolutely
Speaker:linked as well below.
Speaker:So if anyone's watching on YouTube or there
Speaker:should be links in the description as well.
Speaker:So hopefully make it as easily accessible to anyone that
Speaker:would, would like to find it.
Speaker:Do my little bit there.
Speaker:But perfect.
Speaker:Ben, thank you so, so much for joining me for not just today.
Speaker:We've had some great conversations.
Speaker:Uh.
Speaker:Over the couple of years and just looking forward to to
Speaker:getting to know you better and, and staying in touch.
Speaker:So thank you so much and, yeah, I guess, thanks
Speaker:everyone for listening.
Speaker:Joe, it's been great to be on.
Speaker:I really appreciate it.
