Shaun Conner - Head of Accessibility at Monzo Bank
A new episode of The Digital Accessibility Podcast featuring Shaun Conner, Head of Accessibility at Monzo Bank. We discuss Shaun's experience starting out as a web developer and moving into the Accessibility space. Realising that Digital Accessibility is not just one team or one persons' responsibility. The work that Shaun is currently doing to raise more awareness for Digital Accessibility and what businesses can be doing ahead of new EU regulations. Implementing Accesssibility a practice level so that it is a fundamental thing all stages of the SDLC are considering.
Resource Links:
- Monzo Bank: https://monzo.com
- PCR Digital, Digital and Technology Recruitment: https://www.pcrdigital.com/
- Nexer Accessibility Summit, Gothenburg: https://nexergroup.com/events/nexer-summit-2023-gothenburg/
Joe's Social Media Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeajames/
- Twitter: @A11yJoe
Shaun's Social Media Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaun-conner/
- Personal Website: sconner.net
- Twitter/X: @EqualsShaun
Transcript
Hi and welcome to the Digital Accessibility Podcast, sponsored by PCR
Speaker:Digital, who provide people centric recruitment. Throughout this series, I'll
Speaker:be interviewing professionals who work within the field of accessibility to share
Speaker:their expertise, journeys and general thoughts on the key issues facing the
Speaker:industry today. My aim is to provide an in depth look into the world
Speaker:of digital accessibility and the impact it has on everyone. The goal is to
Speaker:bridge the skills gap in the current market and inspire other people to join
Speaker:the movement towards a more accessible digital world. So whether you're a
Speaker:seasoned professional or just starting out, I hope that this platform will
Speaker:provide you with valuable insights and practical advice from experts and
Speaker:advocates within this extremely important community. So sit back, relax, and I
Speaker:hope you enjoy the chat.
Speaker:Today.
Speaker:I'm joined by Shaun Connor, who is Accessibility and Inclusion Strategy
Speaker:Manager at Monzo Bank, the bank that lives on your phone, who are on
Speaker:a mission to make money work for everyone. Shaun has also worked as an
Speaker:accessibility lead for the HMRC and spent eleven years within development and
Speaker:leadership for the NHS. He's an excellent keynote speaker, experienced front end
Speaker:developer, specialising in web accessibility, digital inclusion and
Speaker:accessibility standards. Welcome to the podcast, Shaun.
Speaker:Thank you very much. That's a very flattering when you read it like that,
Speaker:it sounds like I've done loads, but I promise you it's not that it's
Speaker:not that impressive.
Speaker:Well, eleven years working through the ranks at the well, nearly twelve years
Speaker:working through the ranks at the NHS. I think that's impressive to that'd be
Speaker:impressive to most people.
Speaker:No one can tell you you're not.
Speaker:Loyal or committed to the cause, right?
Speaker:Well, that's it. And it's, it's weird when you're, you're in a place
Speaker:like that because you almost become a little bit institutionalised. And then
Speaker:when I was looking for a new job, I realised, actually, the world
Speaker:outside of this, there's like, much higher paying jobs for this line of work.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:Yeah. Interesting stuff.
Speaker:But then, I guess, obviously being the Digital Accessibility podcast, the first
Speaker:question I was going to ask you is if you can tell us a
Speaker:bit about your first experience with Digital Accessibility and if it was a
Speaker:passion. From day one, you get a lot of passionate people in the space.
Speaker:Or if it's something that took you some time to sink in. Because I
Speaker:know that, like I said, your background's in the sort of development and technical
Speaker:kind of space.
Speaker:Yeah. So it's a good question. While I was working at the NHS,
Speaker:there was a conference, and I think it was called Future Gov, if you've
Speaker:heard of that. They were like a really good conference and it wasn't an
Speaker:accessibility conference, but one of the speakers who was there was called Kat
Speaker:McCauley, and Kat was Head of Design at the Scottish Government and she was
Speaker:a very sweary Glaswegian who was just fed up. She was disabled as well
Speaker:and she talked very passionately about, first of all, it was around physical
Speaker:barriers and accessible toilets and hotel rooms. And then she sort of transitioned
Speaker:into the digital side of it and just talking about how really there's no
Speaker:need for any of this stuff to be inaccessible because we have the
Speaker:technology now to make things fully accessible. So I was sat at this
Speaker:conference and I just remember sitting there so inspired by the talk, and
Speaker:she was effing and blinding and it was very right down my street. And
Speaker:I remember thinking in the moment when she was talking, I'm like, well, I'm
Speaker:a front end developer, i can fix almost everything that she's talking about
Speaker:here. And I know how to do that. You know, I met Kat after the
Speaker:talk, and I was speaking to her for a little while, and I'm like,
Speaker:listen, that has just lit a fire under me, because I can take what
Speaker:you've experienced and start to fix some of this stuff. So I came away
Speaker:from that conference and at the time I had a small team of front
Speaker:end developers and I was sort of advocating for it. And then in 2018,
Speaker:the public sector accessibility regs came in, so it was like, all
Speaker:right, okay, I know all this stuff, but now we legally have to do
Speaker:it. So it almost by accident became my job. And because I was inspired
Speaker:by Kat and started running accessibility talks at the NHS, and then with
Speaker:the public sector regs, when all that stuff come in, it was like, right,
Speaker:well, I get to do this as part of my job now. So went
Speaker:on after that to lead the full remediation piece at the NHS. So there
Speaker:was a lot of things that we needed to fix. We had to put
Speaker:accessibility statements on literally hundreds of services. The second part of
Speaker:that was like, going and fixing some of the stuff, so it meant upskilling
Speaker:some of the team. And suddenly I found myself in a sort of accessibility
Speaker:leadership role and I enjoyed it at the NHS, but it wasn't very mature
Speaker:as a process. It didn't really have the top down support that it needed,
Speaker:which ultimately meant that I left and joined HMRC, where, as you say I was
Speaker:an accessibility lead, there so much sort of better set up. There was one
Speaker:of the bigger accessibility teams in government and I led the Audit and
Speaker:Assurance Team. So my team was like seven people. Then there was, I think
Speaker:the same on another team around compliance and governance, and then there was more
Speaker:people and contractors and stuff. So it was a breath of fresh air when
Speaker:I went there and it was like, these folks know what they're doing with
Speaker:this stuff. And then, obviously now I've joined Monzo to focus on strategy, so
Speaker:it became a passion, I suppose. To answer your question. And as soon as this industry,
Speaker:people slam doors in your face all day, every day. And I'm a very
Speaker:stubborn person and I just think, you know what, keep slamming the doors, I'll
Speaker:keep opening them again. And it was sort of a match for my personality,
Speaker:I suppose.
Speaker:I think it's funny you say that, because obviously, being a recruiter, you
Speaker:can imagine the stigma behind recruiters constantly banging on people's doors and
Speaker:getting the door slammed in their face. Maybe I'm just glutton for punishment.
Speaker:Recruiter - within accessibility.
Speaker:Well, I know you get a double whammy, but it's funny because I was
Speaker:talking to Jamie, a friend of mine who also works in accessibility, and we
Speaker:come up with this analogy about our jobs as accessibility professionals is
Speaker:almost to become those metal things that you put on doors that stop doors
Speaker:from slamming. And then eventually people stop trying to slam the door because
Speaker:they just think, well, this is pointless, it's just going to slowly shut.
Speaker:I live and breathe this stuff now and for the past eight years, it's
Speaker:all I've done. And we've came a long way and it's good to see
Speaker:the progress, but there's just still so much to do.
Speaker:Absolutely. And I think you'll find that hopefully not, but most people I've spoken
Speaker:to that have been in the space for 20 odd years and they're just
Speaker:like, yeah, we've seen progress, but there's still so much to do. And
Speaker:I think it's always going to be the case. There's no full stop, I
Speaker:don't think, because tech is always going to keep changing, people's needs are going
Speaker:to keep evolving. So I think it's more, as we keep saying on this
Speaker:podcast, it's about the mindset and getting people sort of engaged with it
Speaker:and understand that there is an ever evolving need for people that focus on
Speaker:this stuff.
Speaker:Definitely. And I feel sorry for anyone who's been doing it for 20 years,
Speaker:still telling people add alt text to images, but I suppose you just have to
Speaker:be a certain type of person to just keep on keeping on with it.
Speaker:Which is why you find a lot of passionate people who do this line
Speaker:of work, because it's like, right, well, it's the right thing to do, we'll
Speaker:just keep shouting about it. Yeah.
Speaker:And it's horrible, because the first word that came into my mind going to
Speaker:use to coin a phrase from Craig Abbott, who I know you know personally
Speaker:as well, when he was on the podcast, he said, the unfortunate thing is
Speaker:when I'm looking for people to work in accessibility, the first word that came
Speaker:to mind was resilience. And then when you think about these people that have
Speaker:been in the space for 20 odd, even yourself, eight plus years, it does
Speaker:go hand in hand, unfortunately. I think it's like, yeah, got to be resilient.
Speaker:You just got to keep on keeping on, keep banging down those doors.
Speaker:You do. I remember I listened to Craig's podcast. I thought it was
Speaker:brilliant by the way and you know, Craig talking about if, for me, you can be
Speaker:the most resilient person in the world and eventually it's going to get on
Speaker:top of that. I think that's where all the burnout stuff comes. We just
Speaker:we want to keep on keeping on and it just gets too yeah.
Speaker:interesting stuff.
Speaker:This isn't a question I've already posed you, Sean, so I'm apologising. I'm going
Speaker:to add another one in there, but it sounds like you almost got a
Speaker:bit of a lucky head start with attending that Future Gov talk, hearing
Speaker:Kat talk, and then going back to the NHS, where you said it wasn't
Speaker:very mature. There wasn't the support top down. So your inroads to accessibility
Speaker:probably helped the NHS on their way to becoming a bit more sort of
Speaker:focused in that area. So I guess by the time you left, did you
Speaker:feel that that maturity was starting to grow?
Speaker:Definitely. So while I was there, off the back of the Remediation project,
Speaker:we implemented certain things, so there was, like, things had to be signed
Speaker:off before they went into production around the technical compliance of stuff,
Speaker:and it was getting there. But I think the problem at the NHS was
Speaker:nobody wanted to "own" accessibility. It just was this sort of hot potato
Speaker:that would land in somebody else's lap and then they would be like, absolutely
Speaker:not, I'm not having any of this, and then it would get passed to
Speaker:the next person. And when you're trying, especially from an elite position, to
Speaker:shout up about accessibility and they're not shouting down, then you're on a
Speaker:certain path to failure with this stuff. And I did burnout very quickly at
Speaker:the end of that, because I'm like, I'm fine to keep shouting about it,
Speaker:but I need other people to at least have my back. And I spoke
Speaker:about this at a conference that I was at in Sweden a few weeks
Speaker:ago. And I was just saying I could probably find an old NHS service
Speaker:that we fixed and we published an accessibility statement on to say, like,
Speaker:right, we'll fix this by, I don't know, September 2019, and that statement
Speaker:won't have been updated. So as much as we've done the work up front,
Speaker:it didn't have what it needed to continue and start assuring some of this
Speaker:stuff. So it might be better now. I mean, that was a few years
Speaker:ago, but certainly when I left, I was disappointed and I sort of took
Speaker:some of the responsibility for that, because I'm like, Well, I'm the one
Speaker:who's trying to drive this, but anybody who's worked in this line of work
Speaker:will know that you need buy in for this stuff. It doesn't just happen
Speaker:with one person. Certainly not yeah, I was going to say;
Speaker:you can't fight, it's trying to win a war with a one man
Speaker:army. You just can't take that on. No amount of resilience is going to
Speaker:help you win that battle, unfortunately, but great that you started them on
Speaker:that path, so that's all good. So the next part, I believe that you
Speaker:were part of the team that worked to get the DDaT Accessibility Specialist
Speaker:role description together when you were at the HMRC. And a couple of weeks
Speaker:ago I was at Accessibility Scotland, and Beverly Newing was talking about that. And
Speaker:I know that you've worked alongside and things as well, so just wanted to
Speaker:know a bit more from my perspective as a recruiter, why that was important
Speaker:for you to get something together and why it was so hard to actually
Speaker:implement that in public sector.
Speaker:Shout out to Bev by the way, she is a lovely human. I've been talking
Speaker:to her, actually over the last couple of days, coincidentally. But yeah, so
Speaker:around the accessibility Specialist, that was led actually by David Caldwell
Speaker:and Beverly, so they sort of spearhead that. And I was part of the
Speaker:focus group. So the focus group was made up of different government
Speaker:departments. And why this was so important was because, and I've seen this everywhere
Speaker:I've worked, everybody approaches accessibility in different ways, which is
Speaker:fine, there's no right or wrong way to do it, and we're all still
Speaker:trying to figure this out, especially off the bat of the public sector Accessibility
Speaker:Regulations. So we had to come up with some sort of job description that
Speaker:would work for more or less everybody. So I was part of one of
Speaker:the bigger accessibility teams, so there was two of us who went, myself
Speaker:and Wojcek. So Wojcek was part of the governance side of it and I
Speaker:would lead the auditing team. And then you had people I think we had
Speaker:somebody from Department of Education, Kev was there, who ran Accessibility Scotland,
Speaker:so he was part of it, there was like quite a few of her.
Speaker:And it was good because it just meant that we could come to a
Speaker:general consensus of what we thought this role should look like. And of course
Speaker:it was important because we had teams who we legally have to do this
Speaker:now. So just like you would have a front end developer, the idea was
Speaker:that we would have an accessibility specialist and it was a route into
Speaker:accessibility, which was good, and then it was also a route for people to
Speaker:progress within the profession as well, which was just as important. And it
Speaker:was an interesting project. I think at one point the job description was very
Speaker:much looking like a front end developer, so there was a lot of back
Speaker:and forth around what should this role look like? And as much as I
Speaker:would say the technical skills are important, my view on it is that
Speaker:we should have more user researchers, content designers, like varied experience
Speaker:in there. It doesn't really always have to rely on just being a technical
Speaker:person. So getting that balance right was really important. And we
Speaker:got a first version of it out, and I think that's worth pointing out
Speaker:as well, that what you see on the accessibility specialism was meant to
Speaker:be taken by departments and add to it or create your own roles off
Speaker:the back of it. It was just like a structure, really, for teams to
Speaker:recruit. Brilliant. But it was just amazing to get that added to the DDaT
Speaker:framework because it just added credibility to the profession, which we
Speaker:spend a lot of time shouting about why we need accessibility specialists. And
Speaker:now to be part of that DDaT framework, it's a massive success. And
Speaker:probably one of the things I'm most proud of in my career is being
Speaker:part of that group to get that done. I think I was looking at
Speaker:the governance side of it, which was probably the most boring side of it,
Speaker:but we got it done. And I just think to collaborate across many
Speaker:different departments as well and come to an agreement was like a massive success
Speaker:for everyone involved. So I'm excited to see over the next couple of years
Speaker:how that changes and how we improve it over time.
Speaker:I think it's also, from my perspective, obviously, job specs and job descriptions,
Speaker:they're a daily occurrence for me. And we actually spoke pre recording about
Speaker:certain job specs, and especially in the private sector, how convoluted and
Speaker:complicated and daunting they can be. Because even if you have half the
Speaker:skills that they've listed, because they're not really sure they know what
Speaker:they're asking for, it can put so many applicants off. It can make a
Speaker:lot of people think, I don't think that's quite right for me, or that
Speaker:may be that I'm biting off more than I can chew. I think that's
Speaker:a team of people, not just, I can't go in there and do that,
Speaker:especially for the salary they're offering. So I think to get that
Speaker:in the public sector, we definitely need to try and start pushing that into
Speaker:the private as well, and just being like, right, take that by example and
Speaker:just say, Right, okay, well, we need to set some edges. If you set
Speaker:those boundaries and be like, right, these are the key elements that people should
Speaker:and will need to have to be successful in the role, then people feel
Speaker:more comfortable applying. They'll feel, yeah, that's an achievable role. I'm going
Speaker:to gain something from it. I can progress within that rather than, oh, my
Speaker:God, I'm burnt out. Just reading the spec before I even.
Speaker:Start.
Speaker:I think, what an amazing achievement. And you were part of the accessibility. X-Med
Speaker:or Avengers, great group of people.
Speaker:Well, people who are far better than me that was in that group, but this
Speaker:was it as well. And it was just I think what we're starting to
Speaker:see now is a lot of places will model around Gov.UK And particularly
Speaker:around design systems, and the data framework is very much the same. So
Speaker:private firms will look in and look at what a good team should look
Speaker:like. So the fact that accessibility is now part of that, and then of
Speaker:course, you've got the European Accessibility Act coming in in 2025, which
Speaker:the cynical side of me thinks, well, nobody's going to listen to that and
Speaker:they'll just pretend it hasn't happened. But what realistically should happen, and
Speaker:what I would hope would happen is that firms then go, actually we need
Speaker:like an accessibility team because we have to do this legally now. So we'll
Speaker:see how that unfolds but really solid group of people who've done that. And
Speaker:it landed pretty well as well. So we only had five or six departments
Speaker:involved in actually doing that. And of course, government is massive. So there
Speaker:was a risk that we sort of put it out there to get other
Speaker:people's opinions and they were like, oh my god, you've got this all wrong.
Speaker:But we kept it quite high level and I think that's why it worked
Speaker:brilliant.
Speaker:I know it's not a simple job to describe or explain and because there
Speaker:are so many moving parts and different areas of focus within accessibility,
Speaker:digital accessibility, or physical or social, but it's a big job that
Speaker:needed to be done. So it's great that you were part of that, like
Speaker:you say. And as I mentioned in the intro, you have quite a heavy
Speaker:development and technical background. I know you're less so sort of hands
Speaker:on tech at the minute, but you like to keep up with things. I
Speaker:actually saw you posted not too long ago about Daniel Devesa Derksen-Staats
Speaker:from Spotify, the iOS engineer who wrote writing accessible iOS applications. So
Speaker:he's a guy that I'd love to have on the podcast and we're working
Speaker:at it. So I know that you're keeping up to date with stuff, but
Speaker:I think that there's a bit of a misconception that tech and development
Speaker:is the hotspot. That's where digital accessibility responsibility lies. That's
Speaker:a tongue twister. The responsibility lies with technical or development teams. But
Speaker:do you agree as a leader in the space that that's where it should
Speaker:lie? Or what do you think needs to be done to kind of share
Speaker:and split that responsibility out?
Speaker:Yeah, that is a real misconception. And my position on it is that accessibility
Speaker:is everybody's responsibility. Most people don't know that. So I think a
Speaker:big part of what I do is educating people around the role that they
Speaker:can play and ensuring that they're embedding accessibility at the right
Speaker:times. So that could be product managers, delivery managers, designers, developers,
Speaker:testers content across the spectrum of the product and even outside of the product
Speaker:as well. One of the bits that I did at Monzo was like training
Speaker:our customer service representatives how to speak to disabled people.
Speaker:Everybody has got a role to play in this. And I suppose as a
Speaker:developer, yes, I could fix a lot of this stuff, but also developers try
Speaker:to be smart and developers break more than they fix. So I'm throwing shade
Speaker:on developers here, but it was me who would have to go in and
Speaker:often fix some of this stuff. But again, it's an education piece and I
Speaker:think one of the things that we did at HMRC, so the Gov.UK Design
Speaker:system is arguably one of the most accessible, best built design systems that
Speaker:there is. But we were finding that teams were making the same mistakes over
Speaker:and over and over again. So what we did was we would log all
Speaker:of our accessibility issues in Jira not jira, sorry, in GitHub. And what that
Speaker:meant that we could do is we could hit the GitHub API and look
Speaker:at all of the audits that we've ever done and pull them down by
Speaker:tag and we could create this nice little front end that said the most
Speaker:failed thing was something like error messages or inputs. And we got all
Speaker:of this amazing data where we could go back and say, well, actually, we
Speaker:need to do a session with the content designers because we're not doing
Speaker:very well with our error messages. Or we would have to go to our
Speaker:developers and say, you keep breaking radio buttons. Can we teach you how
Speaker:to do this properly? So, again, it's doing it within the context of what
Speaker:are the real problems here? And I think taking an approach like that, it
Speaker:helps teams understand as well. Actually, this is my responsibility and doing things
Speaker:like role based training, but again, you have to have a top down approach
Speaker:to this. And one of the mistakes I made early on in my career
Speaker:was I tried to sort of embed accessibility into teams. So I would go
Speaker:to a team and say, like, right, this is your job. And we would
Speaker:do all this interest, and you spend all this time training the team. And
Speaker:then two weeks later, they would leave and somebody else would come in. And
Speaker:it was like, oh, actually, hang on. I'm doing this the wrong way here.
Speaker:So then I rolled it up a level and be like, well, actually, why
Speaker:don't we just embed into Practice? So rather than hit individual teams, start
Speaker:getting in amongst communities of Practice. So one week we would go
Speaker:and sit in front of the automation testers, or the next week it would
Speaker:be designers. And this is still something I do at Monzo. Now, I would
Speaker:much rather do it that way. And then you increase your reach as well
Speaker:and you can start measuring. Are you still seeing the same fails off the
Speaker:back of it? But ultimately it's all about your users. And for me it
Speaker:has to start with research. If we want research and before it even kicks
Speaker:off, then you're almost setting yourself up to fail, you would have heard
Speaker:this time and time again. But from my experience, accessibility is always
Speaker:considered too late in the process. What's the earliest, the absolute earliest
Speaker:opportunity you can get in that's usually like discovery, research, start from there
Speaker:and build around that.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:But getting that sort of culture change, especially in somewhere like Government,
Speaker:is really challenging, like trying to shift the needle. I hate to use
Speaker:horrible terms of phrases like that, but trying to do that at that scale
Speaker:know, Craig talked about this as well. It's very hard to change culture at
Speaker:somewhere that big, and I've been extremely fortunate at Monzo that it's a
Speaker:much smaller company. Like, I've nailed, we've got the culture absolutely down
Speaker:there. I have no problems whatsoever.
Speaker:Yeah, I think it's having that appetite, isn't it? I think it's tricky to
Speaker:measure that with something as huge as government, but like you say, Monzo, you
Speaker:can quite I'm not going to say it's easy because I'm not doing your
Speaker:job, Shaun, but you probably start to see that appetite across the board
Speaker:more clearly. And I think it's more of a I'd assume Monzo's got a
Speaker:bit more of a startup feel. I mean, obviously government's been around
Speaker:for God knows. So I think that the
Speaker:appetites there in the sort of younger companies in the private* sector that are
Speaker:sort of on the pulse, they can see that this is needed, they can
Speaker:see that there's benefits to their business as well for implementing
Speaker:accessibility and making sure that their products and services are usable by
Speaker:everyone. But it's interesting because what you were saying on the role
Speaker:based training and how you sort of try to implement it across teams, it
Speaker:sounds like you're like the one-man-band
Speaker:consultant that's like, right, I've
Speaker:got the knowledge. I'm going to try and consult all of these different areas
Speaker:and these different teams, less so taking it all on board, people emailing you
Speaker:as the head of accessibility and fix this for me. I think that's where
Speaker:it lies. It's got to be training, workshops, learning and development,
Speaker:e-learning, even, and make it compulsory. But like you said, they'll learn that
Speaker:and will they implement it?
Speaker:I think you're right.
Speaker:It has to be embedded in the practice and make it standard.
Speaker:And this is it. And one of the first things that I did when
Speaker:I joined Monzo is like, everybody needs training on accessibility. It's non-
Speaker:negotiable. So when you join Monzo, if you join tomorrow, you would get mandatory
Speaker:accessibility training. It would be within the context of your role, so you know, you
Speaker:learn what you need to know. And I think one of the things about
Speaker:accessibility and what can put people off is it's a big beast, oh, my
Speaker:God, I'm going to have to know all this stuff. And actually, if you
Speaker:do it within the context of somebody's work, it's like, well, actually, there's
Speaker:not really that much that you have to know. It becomes big when you
Speaker:get it wrong or you leave it too late. It was interesting as well,
Speaker:because when I joined Know, the whole time I worked in the public sector,
Speaker:I could count on one hand how many times I was approached about, like,
Speaker:tell me more about what you do, like accessibility. I joined Monzo and
Speaker:honestly, within the first, like, three days I was doing training myself, I
Speaker:had, like, 45 messages from just people all over the bit. And this wasn't
Speaker:just product people, this was like, trainers, managers, senior leaders, chief
Speaker:this, director of this. And I couldn't believe it. I was like, Somebody's put
Speaker:them up to this. Surely they can't be that invested in this already. But
Speaker:I think they were just crying out for somebody to come in who knew
Speaker:this stuff and who had experience of driving it to be like, right, well,
Speaker:set us up in the right way, what do we need? I've used
Speaker:Craig Abbott. I don't know whether you've read it, but he's got an article
Speaker:around an accessibility strategy. I modelled the Monzo strategy around that
Speaker:approach, and it works. You're getting your culture right, setting up some level
Speaker:of compliance and educating people as well. So a huge part of what
Speaker:I've done so far is just being around, like, culture and educating
Speaker:people. And you would think that the compliance side of it takes care of
Speaker:itself after that, but we'll see.
Speaker:Time will tell, right?
Speaker:Yeah, I hope.. Maybe I'm still a bit naive.
Speaker:That's brilliant. And I think it is that, isn't it? You're planting the seeds
Speaker:to then help people to grow themselves, rather than just standing over them with
Speaker:a cane. You did that wrong, do it again. I think that might work,
Speaker:but we'll try this way first, I think, and that's it.
Speaker:But I think one of the things I've learned over time is that not
Speaker:everyone's going to care about this stuff. You can do all the empathy labs,
Speaker:you can show them stats. Some people just don't care
Speaker:where you have to take a different angle, which I don't necessarily like
Speaker:doing, is like talking about risk, like reputational damage. Are you happy to take
Speaker:on that risk, then? And the chances are you start talking about risk and
Speaker:reputational damage. Actually, no, I don't want to do that. So there are
Speaker:ways around it and I think that it's just knowing when to use different
Speaker:tactics. Like 90% of people, nobody builds something trying to make it inaccessible,
Speaker:they just often lack the knowledge around how to actually do it. There's very
Speaker:few people, or if anyone, will go out of their way to create something
Speaker:that isn't accessible.
Speaker:Definitely it's quite hard to fathom because I think there's a lot of
Speaker:empathy in the accessibility space to think that there's people that wouldn't
Speaker:give a damn nearly about it. It's hard to sort. Of get
Speaker:your head around, I suppose. So I know that a huge part of your
Speaker:role is centred around that strategy. Roadmap planning and implementation,
Speaker:learning and development, training workshops. It's a long list, but as
Speaker:Burnout has been discussed at length previously across the whole field of
Speaker:accessibility, I just wanted to know, with your title, so obviously, access Lead at
Speaker:HMRC, and then you're pretty much head of accessibility at Monzo with that
Speaker:increased responsibility, that title, how have you managed to juggle that? I
Speaker:guess you've kind of already answered this question, I suppose, just now with the
Speaker:strategy.
Speaker:Yeah, it's difficult and I won't say for me, I haven't spoken to
Speaker:anybody who's got a silver bullet for this stuff. So I said to you,
Speaker:I was talking to Bev about this and I've talked to many other
Speaker:accessibility people who are burned out and I think we all find ourselves
Speaker:in the same position. So what I've tried to do, we get into this
Speaker:because we care. And I think that's half of the battle as well. When
Speaker:you genuinely care about your work and you're passionate about it, it can be
Speaker:very deflating. You're talking about the door getting slammed on your face and
Speaker:how many times can you realistically do that before it starts to impact on
Speaker:your confidence or your mental health? And that's like a huge part of this
Speaker:as well. Right. But I think the way I've tried to do it at
Speaker:Monzo is I've got a roadmap and I would encourage other people to do
Speaker:this as well, because I think too many times we just take on too
Speaker:much and can I just this, can I just that and everything's last minute.
Speaker:So what I've tried to do is focus on, right, well, this is my
Speaker:roadmap, I've got, let's say, two years worth of work. So understand what you're
Speaker:meant to be working on versus what is business as usual, versus what is
Speaker:just being thrown over the wall. And for me, it's been actually really quite
Speaker:rigid and if I've got time, absolutely, I'll help with stuff. I
Speaker:think Craig touched on this a little bit in his podcast as well, about
Speaker:we just want to help people and you don't want to be seen to
Speaker:be turning people away, but also we have to manage this and manage our
Speaker:own workloads. And one of the things that I've struggled with in my current
Speaker:role is working too many hours, and that's my fault. And that's because
Speaker:often I'll be like, right, okay, yeah, I'll do the thing. But actually, the
Speaker:last couple of months, I've just been saying no and it's hard and you
Speaker:don't want to turn people away, but actually you need to for the benefit
Speaker:of the work that you're actually meant to be doing. So I'll not explicitly
Speaker:be like, no, I'm not going to talk, I'm not going to help you,
Speaker:but if there's a quick something up and send them on Google or whatever.
Speaker:I'll try and be as light touch as possible with things like that, but
Speaker:for me as well, it's just learning a big part of avoiding Burnout is
Speaker:sort of learning to accept that everything's not going to go my way.
Speaker:So if you can get comfortable with that and celebrate the small wins,
Speaker:take the small wins and celebrate them, shout about them. That's what this is
Speaker:about. I think too many people look at the big picture, like, think big
Speaker:and then start big. Well, for me, it's like, think big, start small and
Speaker:try and do it that way because it is overwhelming. And so many times,
Speaker:I mean, these teams, like, you've spoken to quite a few people. Now, accessibility
Speaker:teams tend not to be big teams. There's like 1, 2, 3, 4, maybe it's five people.
Speaker:Like, the one I had in government was the biggest one and it still
Speaker:wasn't without its problems. There was all sorts going on. And I think
Speaker:another way I've tried to do this is just, again, around the culture, do
Speaker:people care about accessibility, make it their responsibility? So use things like
Speaker:when I joined Monzo, I immediately knew, like, four or five people from these
Speaker:DMs who were very interested in it. So it's like, right, well, how much
Speaker:of my workload can I share with them? So that's where you have things
Speaker:like Champions Networks, which they can go a bit stale, but I think if
Speaker:they're done right, there can be a force multiplier for the work that you're
Speaker:trying to do. But I think the biggest mistake I see people doing is
Speaker:just taking too much on and then not being aware that you've took too
Speaker:much on. I think it's very easy to keep saying yes and then before
Speaker:you know it, it's like, oh, my God, this is, like, painfully bad. And
Speaker:for me like, I lean a lot on people in this. Like, I've had phone
Speaker:calls with Craig late at night before and I've been stressed and I'll text
Speaker:them now and again saying, and I'll speak to other people, Jamie, I've got
Speaker:friends who the thing is about this community accessibility is people
Speaker:genuinely want to help each other try and solve similar problems. And I would
Speaker:encourage anybody who's on. That sort of the line of burnout. If you do
Speaker:want to chat, just drop me. Know, other people will try and help you
Speaker:figure things. Know, speak to people, friends, peers, ask for help. One of
Speaker:the things that we did at HMRC to try and avoid Burnout was like,
Speaker:we had fire break weeks. So my team, the auditors, were front end developers,
Speaker:so they weren't doing any development, they were just testing. And nobody wants
Speaker:to do that. No developer wants to just be testing all day. So we
Speaker:would have, like, once every five, six weeks, there was an entire week where
Speaker:we would take no audits. It was non negotiable. The team just had a
Speaker:full week to build cool stuff like the GitHub front end to see we
Speaker:would work on passion projects or they could go and do some self learning
Speaker:and all that stuff. And it really worked well, it was difficult when we
Speaker:were grinding out audit after audit after audit, but everybody knew that the week
Speaker:or two weeks sometimes it was that we would take a full two weeks
Speaker:and we're all fortunate to do that. And I think it's hard, this line
Speaker:of work. I'm not going to sit here and say that I'm always happy
Speaker:about the work that I do. I'm frustrated a lot of the time and
Speaker:I think that's very normal and acceptable and just be kind to yourself. If
Speaker:you feel like you're burning out, take some time off. It is fine to
Speaker:walk away from this for a little while. I've been off on the sick
Speaker:because of this and that's okay. I think it's a
Speaker:bigger problem. Well, not a bigger problem, it just is a problem because
Speaker:we care so much and that we are passionate about this, that this
Speaker:profession will ruin your mental health if you allow it to. But it's also
Speaker:the most rewarding job I've ever done, but also the most frustrating.
Speaker:It's a very strange balance of things, isn't it? That's the thing. And looking
Speaker:from the outside in.
Speaker:It's.. it's...
Speaker:Is a bit mad. I think there are some people that will go and
Speaker:it's not that they don't care or they just think how on earth am
Speaker:I going to make a difference there? But another thing to remember is, like
Speaker:you've said, celebrate the small wins. There's the quote that everyone sort of
Speaker:uses in the community progress, not perfection. I don't think there's going to
Speaker:be such thing as perfection because your product or your
Speaker:tool might be accessible for some, but it might be by nature inaccessible for
Speaker:another group of people. So it is just constantly thinking about that and
Speaker:taking those steps and small wins.
Speaker:And that's the mistake as well that some people would make and some people
Speaker:being me. When I first started doing this, I wanted to fix everything for
Speaker:everybody. I'm like, I can do this as a technical level, I can. And
Speaker:we are always going to be excluding somebody. You can create what you think
Speaker:is the most accessible thing, but we're always excluding somebody. And that is
Speaker:just the facts around it. And I think again, if you just I would
Speaker:talk about when I was at like it's tax, it's complex language. A lot
Speaker:of it is like policy that can't be changed and rigid rules around. Like
Speaker:you cannot change the wording and all this stuff and it creates barriers by
Speaker:doing it that way. And it's like, well, start doing research with people.
Speaker:Stop focusing on a token blind person to test with a screen reader who
Speaker:is this particular service going to exclude and go and do your research
Speaker:with those. So for tax, it might be people with Dyscalculia, people with
Speaker:Dyslexia, people with ADHD. Those are where you're going to get the most
Speaker:fruitful data around. Accessibility. I think it's just trying to shift focus
Speaker:away from compliance and more around what are the actual barriers that people are
Speaker:facing. Then how do we solve for that?
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. Like you say, you could have screen readers, switch
Speaker:controls, anything that works with your product, but if it's written in complete
Speaker:technical jargon, then again, you've just completely excluded such a huge portion of
Speaker:people. Madness. But we'll touch on everything. I think
Speaker:we've even discussed the recruitment within the space previously on the
Speaker:podcast, and I think we've spoken about it before as well. Very mixed reviews
Speaker:on how it's being done. I've spoken to some people, obviously, I'm speaking to
Speaker:candidates, people that are looking to get into the space, people that are currently
Speaker:interviewing. And obviously it'd be nice if you had someone that knew
Speaker:accessibility, knew about what's needed rewriting job specs, like you said, that
Speaker:was done for the DDaT and doing that for the private sector. So that's
Speaker:what I'm hoping to be. So I'm trying to focus on all of that.
Speaker:But do you have any pointers, do you have any advice for me on
Speaker:how I can better serve the general community from a hirer, but also from
Speaker:a candidate perspective? Have you had people that have supported you in those
Speaker:sort of interview processes before?
Speaker:Yeah, a lot of recruitment processes are just inaccessible and outdated just purely
Speaker:because of the SaaS or the software as a service that they use. So
Speaker:that is a massive barrier to entry to a lot of people because they
Speaker:just can't actually apply because the thing isn't accessible to even get an
Speaker:interview. So that's like the first part of it. But I think we talk
Speaker:about reasonable adjustments and interviews and stuff like that. And like,
Speaker:my position on it is like, they shouldn't be "reasonable adjustments", they
Speaker:should just be like how it is. So I don't know, sending out interview
Speaker:questions beforehand, like, why is extra time a reasonable
Speaker:adjustment? It isn't, really. It should just be standard. Like, if you want
Speaker:to get a good answer out of somebody, then give them time. A big
Speaker:one for me is around disclosing the salary. Too many times I've had recruiters
Speaker:like, oh, we've got this really good job, and we briefly thought about it
Speaker:before we started this, but there's so much discrepancy in accessibility
Speaker:salaries. Like, you might get one job that's paying like £70 grand, you might
Speaker:get the same job description somewhere else is paying £20k. And it's like,
Speaker:well, hang on a second. But the reason why I say disclose the salary
Speaker:is because a lot of marginalised groups end up getting less pay. And
Speaker:I think if we keep hiding salaries, then those marginalised groups remain
Speaker:marginalised. So being transparent around that is something that I'll never apply
Speaker:for a job where they don't do that. Because I just think, well, why
Speaker:waste my time going through all that process just for you to potentially say,
Speaker:oh, well, there's £25 grand.
Speaker:Well, no, you've not worked all these years for that.
Speaker:Well, exactly. And maybe that's just me being a little bit obnoxious, but
Speaker:technical tests are a big one for me. I was a lead developer. I
Speaker:would like to think I knew me stuff, but if you put me in
Speaker:the interview situation and ask me to recall code, I'm going to look like
Speaker:a junior developer who hasn't got a clue. I sort of understand why firms
Speaker:ask for them, but some places are doing like three or four technical
Speaker:interviews or go and spend 4 hours writing this full thing. Just think, well,
Speaker:hang on, why, where do I have
Speaker:time? The main one that
Speaker:annoys me is just recruiters reaching out and asking, oh, Sean, do you want
Speaker:to go and be the head of HR? Where'd you get that from? It
Speaker:just seems, especially on LinkedIn, it's really bad. But yeah, there's just so
Speaker:much improvement to be made across the board, I think, around recruitment. Not
Speaker:necessarily from a recruiter's perspective, but just like all of those
Speaker:systems and stuff are just like a big one that I see as well
Speaker:is around. Like so let's say you have a blind person, they go all
Speaker:the way through, they get offered the job and then we can't offer or
Speaker:you can't offer them the job because your internal software just won't work
Speaker:with the screen reader. You've just wasted their time all the way through. That
Speaker:process known, fine, well, you can't do it, but in the view of diversity,
Speaker:inclusion, you've let them go through it and only to let them down because
Speaker:of this thing doesn't work. So I think there's a much bigger conversation
Speaker:around setting up internally. I spoke a little bit about this on LinkedIn the
Speaker:other day. Firms need to start taking internal accessibility a little bit more
Speaker:seriously. The stats remain the same within your organisation and it's never
Speaker:going to change. If you don't fix it, then you can't hire disabled people,
Speaker:then it's a vicious circle, isn't it?
Speaker:And you're missing out on an incredible,
Speaker:incredible resource there.
Speaker:People with disabilities or those that may have additional needs are still some of
Speaker:the most fantastic and most amazing minds on the planet, regardless of, like you
Speaker:said, not just your user base and the people that are going to spend
Speaker:money on your platform or your service or your tool or product or whatever
Speaker:it is. It's also, like you say, you can build better with nothing, with
Speaker:us, without us, sort of another quote out there. But it has to be
Speaker:that representation.
Speaker:And what you have to remember as well is like a lot of people
Speaker:who go for accessibility jobs are disabled, new divergent. There's a lot of
Speaker:people in this space who meet that criteria and if they're not getting the
Speaker:reasonable adjustments, well, that doesn't really set the tone for how it's
Speaker:going to go for the rest of their employment if you're treating them
Speaker:like crap on day one. I just think firms are getting better at it,
Speaker:definitely, but, like, everything, I mean, we could talk about this all day,
Speaker:we just still could always be improving on this stuff. Yeah, and I think
Speaker:it is.
Speaker:It's like standard practise. It's my responsibility. Obviously, if I'm saying
Speaker:I'm going to focus in this space, I need to make sure that I'm
Speaker:getting that right and try and lead by example. And hopefully it will create
Speaker:competition, it will make sure that there's other recruiters in the space that
Speaker:are seeing that this is a viable area to make sure that we can
Speaker:help people find work, but also find the right talent and resources for their
Speaker:teams to grow this out. But hopefully, yeah, if I can set an example,
Speaker:then that would be great. So that's why I'm asking for that advice from
Speaker:the likes of yourself, which is good. So you mentioned earlier that you
Speaker:travelled to Sweden recently to deliver a talk at Nexus Accessibility event. Was it
Speaker:just accessibility or was it just one of their sort of Digital/UX events?
Speaker:Yeah, so it was just focused on accessibility. So it was
Speaker:people from the Swedish public sector. There was some people there from Swedish
Speaker:banks. Obviously, I've done both, so they were like, come and could talk about
Speaker:how it's been approached in different ways. It was really good, actually, and
Speaker:it was the first. I do a lot of talks internally and stuff, but
Speaker:I always feel a bit like an imposter sometimes when I'm talking,
Speaker:because a lot of this stuff, everybody else talks about it. So if I'm
Speaker:going to talk about something, I want to be able to bring something new
Speaker:to this. I don't just want to regurgitate what everybody else is saying,
Speaker:because it can become a little bit like that. And I read the same
Speaker:articles over and over again, so I've always sort of just put myself off
Speaker:doing stuff like that. But I just think, if it's not for people like
Speaker:me and lead roles and you are driving this stuff, if I'm not going
Speaker:to talk about it, then why not? Exactly. So
Speaker:I was nervous for it, but it actually went down really well. I just
Speaker:think it's made us think, well, I'll do more this stuff now, it landed
Speaker:really well.
Speaker:Those types of events. And obviously I've mentioned that I went to Accessibility
Speaker:Scotland and thankfully my boss helped to sponsor the event, which was an absolute
Speaker:honour. And it's obviously, like you say, there might be some regurgitation, there
Speaker:might be some repetitiveness with these events, but it's raising that awareness.
Speaker:You're trying to let people know the work you're currently doing what's being
Speaker:done, what they can do differently. I think there's a quote unquote problem. I
Speaker:mean, it's the same with this podcast I've got you coming on here and
Speaker:you might be saying some of the stuff, but the people that weren't at
Speaker:Nexus event or won't be able to see that content, hopefully will be able
Speaker:to hear you speak here. So I think it is just churning it out
Speaker:and keeping it going. But the problem, quote unquote or air quotes,
Speaker:is that a lot of the audience or the listeners of this are people
Speaker:that are already aware or interested in or focused on working in the space.
Speaker:So it's trying to find that market. How do we grow that out? Do
Speaker:we need to partner with more design and product focused conferences and have
Speaker:an accessibility piece there? Or we need to just grow that presence, I suppose,
Speaker:everywhere? Because like you said, we need people in every team, really. Don't.
Speaker:I mean, do you agree?
Speaker:What's your view on.
Speaker:I do. So, you know, if I refer back to the start of this
Speaker:conversation like, you know, Kat McCauley was at something that was nothing to
Speaker:do with accessibility and it got me hooked, so it definitely works by doing
Speaker:that. I think the problem about this is that there aren't enough of us
Speaker:to go to the 200 conferences every year or whatever, so
Speaker:it's hard to do, but I think we're seeing more of it and I
Speaker:think when people learn my friend Laura Parker, so you might know Laura, she
Speaker:does a talk around Dyscalculia. She was one of the people behind the posters
Speaker:around designing for Dyscalculia. She does a lot of talks, she's a content
Speaker:designer by she has been talking about accessibility within the context of
Speaker:content design and particularly around numbers and stuff. Does a brilliant job,
Speaker:has been doing lots of talks at those events. So when people realise
Speaker:actually this applies to what I do, we're seeing more people popping up at
Speaker:these events going, oh, by the way, accessibility. And most people I would
Speaker:like to think that most of tech is quite left leaning, so it's not
Speaker:a hard sell usually. I suppose it's back on my previous point,
Speaker:I should probably be doing more. I've got a lot of experience in this,
Speaker:I've pretty much done it all now and I think even if it is
Speaker:regurgitating some of the stuff that people might have already said, it still
Speaker:goes a long way, I think, on an audience that's never heard it before
Speaker:and we've all got different experiences as well. And I think one of the
Speaker:things that always comes out in conversations I have with other people
Speaker:doing this is we're all still doing it differently and that's fine. I love
Speaker:to learn what other people are doing, what's working, what didn't work. And I
Speaker:think we're good as a community at trying to sort of come up with
Speaker:some standards for this because the Wakag and all that stuff, it's very hard
Speaker:and complex. I think we'll definitely see more of it, but definitely
Speaker:I would love to see more around training. I would love to see a
Speaker:training conference where they talk about disabled staff and how to do training
Speaker:for that. So there's so much opportunity in that space. It's just I don't
Speaker:think there's enough people to actually go and continuously talk about this like all
Speaker:summer or whenever the conference season is.
Speaker:Yeah, no, absolutely, it's tricky. I think it's opening up a lot more because
Speaker:we can do some more fully remote conferences, things like this as well. I
Speaker:guess if we can get some more podcasts going, I would love to see
Speaker:that. I know there are quite a few out there as well. And this
Speaker:isn't the only one about accessibility. I'm going to do a piece on
Speaker:that as well because I want to do that cross promotion. I don't want
Speaker:people to just think, oh, it's just this one guy doing a podcast, but
Speaker:I think it is just constantly talking about it. I think that helps with
Speaker:the mindset shift, I think it helps with the culture, it helps just people
Speaker:just to spark that idea. Like, what could I be doing differently? Which brings
Speaker:me to the last question, which I've tried to ask on every episode of
Speaker:the podcast, and it is what are the simplest, most cost effective and
Speaker:convenient ways that someone can implement more digital accessibility within their
Speaker:line of work? And don't worry, I know that we've spoken about all the
Speaker:different teams that need to be focusing on it, but yeah, just in general.
Speaker:So interestingly, actually, when I was in Sweden, there was like a break in
Speaker:between and they put this poll thing on the screen and it was like,
Speaker:what are the problems that the audience were facing? So it was things like
Speaker:getting buy in, going beyond compliance, developing capability and budget. And
Speaker:interestingly, when we came back, I was very surprised to see this, but getting
Speaker:budget was the one that sort of peaked that list, and I thought it
Speaker:was going to be like getting buy in or even development capability. And
Speaker:this was like a winner by countrymel and I think
Speaker:do you want to know how much I've spent this year on accessibility?
Speaker:I would love to.
Speaker:Less than 1000 pound. By the way, I'm not saying
Speaker:that you don't need budget because you do. Like, I'm about to spend four
Speaker:grand on an audit. But I think if you're just starting out and you're
Speaker:trying to make a case for accessibility particularly, or even get to a strategy,
Speaker:let's say you should be going out doing a gap analysis. What are the
Speaker:problems? What are the problems that we intend to solve? Write your strategy. How
Speaker:are you going to do this? Create some project plans. There's a lot of
Speaker:this stuff that you can do without ever getting budget from anyone. And if
Speaker:you're interested, the less than 1000 pounds was for Kit, for our Accessibility
Speaker:Empathy Lab. So it was just buying some equipment for that. Of course you
Speaker:are going to need budget if you need to fix things and bring more
Speaker:people in and all that stuff. But I think what I'm trying to say
Speaker:is it's not going to stop you starting almost so you can get
Speaker:a long way with this stuff and launch a Champions Network. There are so
Speaker:many different things that you can get going and do a good job at
Speaker:before you need that. But I think if you are going to do this,
Speaker:to answer your question again, think big, start small with this stuff. What are
Speaker:the real problems that your customers or your people who use your service are
Speaker:facing and try and get involved at the right time. The earlier the better.
Speaker:We all know this. If you are start embedded into as many meetings as
Speaker:you can. When I joined Monzo, if there was a meeting I was in
Speaker:know, I was just there talking about this stuff unapologetically, just waffling
Speaker:on about accessibility wherever. Like you will be surprised at how much buy
Speaker:in you can get just by doing that and getting in front of the
Speaker:right people, champions Networks in this community as well. Lean on me,
Speaker:lean on other people. I've had so much help from people who work in
Speaker:this line of work. I don't think I would have been in the roles
Speaker:I'm in now if it wasn't for the likes of Craig. Craig's helped me
Speaker:with loads of stuff like amazing. Like I'll always try and get back as
Speaker:well. I do mentoring with people every now and again. I'll put something out
Speaker:on Twitter. I'll mentor some people. I've got a few going now. I'll do
Speaker:catch ups with other people who work in the line of work and I
Speaker:just think we can solve things together. Don't feel like you need to do
Speaker:this by yourself because this community is brilliant and you can get a long
Speaker:way without having to worry about, oh my God, I need like 3 million
Speaker:pounds to do this amazing stuff. If it's done at the right time, you
Speaker:technically don't really need any money. It's only when they do it at
Speaker:the end and it's all broken, then you need to go and fix it.
Speaker:All right, okay. That'll be like 6 million.
Speaker:And you're so right. I think it's such a friendly and welcoming environment.
Speaker:And I feel that like you say, doing that gap analysis at the beginning,
Speaker:just sort of understanding what the problems might actually be that people
Speaker:encounter. Or if you've got problems yourself, it might even help to gain
Speaker:that buy in because you're like, well, I can't actually access this system that
Speaker:we work with because it doesn't work for me.
Speaker:Exactly. And there's like, one question as well. If you are implementing anything
Speaker:into your work, whatever it is you're doing, just think while you're doing it.
Speaker:Who might I be excluding by doing this thing? That one question will make
Speaker:you think. Right, okay, well, I've just written this 70 paragraph thing, that's
Speaker:immediately going to be people with Dyslexia ADHD. Just by thinking in that
Speaker:way, you will notice that you improve your work and make it more accessible
Speaker:by default. Just by thinking, actually, this might not work for this person.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. And it's just alt text, all sorts of stuff. And I know
Speaker:that in this podcast series I've not introduced myself and described
Speaker:myself or our guests and things which I should really be doing. But I
Speaker:suppose because it is such an audio only I know we have the YouTube
Speaker:for the visual and the transcript as well. But I feel like if people
Speaker:are just listening to this on audio, they don't really necessarily need to know
Speaker:what we look like. However, if people are interested, then I'm more than happy
Speaker:to start doing that. So I guess that'll be something I'll put out there
Speaker:if people would like descriptions of people that are joining us on the
Speaker:podcast, but cool. So I guess we've come to the end of the sort
Speaker:of formal questions. So if there's anything that's of real importance to you
Speaker:at the moment, are there any talks coming up or what you're doing at
Speaker:the moment at Monzo? If you'd like to share that with everyone, then that
Speaker:would be great.
Speaker:Yeah. So I'm going to be going back to Sweden in November. Nexer have
Speaker:kindly asked me to go back, so I'm like, really buzzing about that. Get
Speaker:to go to Gothenburg, which should be good. I've managed to get a really
Speaker:big gig next year that I can't really talk about yet, but that'll be
Speaker:coming soon. I'm always doing mentoring, trying to help people where I can.
Speaker:If you're on LinkedIn, Twitter, any of that stuff and you need help with
Speaker:this, or you just want to sound off, drop a message. And the last
Speaker:thing that I'm working on as well is we've just started recording a podcast
Speaker:with Jamie and Lion. Jamie Knight. Which is going to be really fun. Cool.
Speaker:Jamie is a brilliant character, I love spending time with him and that's going
Speaker:to be around, like, monotropism and tunnels and not tasks. So want to
Speaker:look out for if you're interested in the new divergent content.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. I think that just sounds incredible and Jamie is such an incredible
Speaker:person to speak to. There's been on and off talks with Jamie over the
Speaker:years of asking him to come on this, but I kind of felt like
Speaker:I felt that impostor syndrome, because he's got is it 1800 seconds of
Speaker:autism. There was something he'd done with
Speaker:BBC Sounds? I just thought, I can't compete,
Speaker:I'm not going to ask him again. I'm just going to sort of leave
Speaker:it, but we'll maybe approach that another time, maybe we could get a panel.
Speaker:Honestly. Do it. Jamie is a lovely human and he's just amazing to spend
Speaker:time with, so I'm almost certain that he would come and talk to you
Speaker:on this.
Speaker:He's a lovely, lovely man. Yeah, I'll definitely get back in touch, but that's
Speaker:brilliant. So cool. So to finish each episode with a quote centred around
Speaker:accessibility, which is what I like to do, and it's actually something that I
Speaker:heard on ID24. The 2023 Conference has just finished
Speaker:and Neil Jarvis said; "Depending on which measure you use and which country you're
Speaker:considering, anything between one in four, one in five or one in six
Speaker:people would count themselves as having a disability. That's a lot of people to
Speaker:close the door on. There's a strong economic reason for not blocking access to
Speaker:potentially a quarter of your users!" and it just sort of, in a nutshell,
Speaker:tells you from that perspective, if it's not the empathy side, if it's from
Speaker:a business perspective, think of your users. You could be increasing by 25%
Speaker:by doing this stuff. But thank you again so much for joining me, Shaun,
Speaker:and it's been an absolute pleasure. It's always a pleasure speaking to you and,
Speaker:yeah, really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to spend
Speaker:this last hour with me and hope you've enjoyed the chat as much as
Speaker:I have!
Speaker:Yeah, it's been good. Thank you very much for having us. No problem.
Speaker:And I'm sure we'll stay in touch. I'll get all of your LinkedIn and
Speaker:your Twitter and stuff posted as links alongside the podcast, so if anyone wants
Speaker:to get in touch with you, I'll direct them there, but I'll double check
Speaker:which ones you want me to use first before posting them, in case people
Speaker:start calling you at lunchtime every day.
Speaker:That's all right.
Speaker:Brilliant. Thank you again so much, Sean, and, yeah, take care.
Speaker:No worries.
Speaker:Another huge thank you to Sean for joining me on this episode. Hope you
Speaker:found that as insightful as I did. As mentioned, I'll make sure that links
Speaker:are provided for our LinkedIn and Twitter profiles for you to reach out with
Speaker:any comments or feedback. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you on the
Speaker:next one!
