From myth-busting to "but/and"-ing: Persuading people to do accessibility work

One of the hardest parts of accessibility work is convincing other people to do the work, or help us to do the work. In this little talk, we’ll see how I went from myth-busting (telling people their assumptions were wrong) to “but/and”-ing (agreeing with them, and going from there), what they said / what I said, and what effect it had on the awareness, knowledge, and interest of a11y at the place I was working.

This talk was given as part of A11y Bytes 2021 https://a11ybytes.org/bytes-2021/ . Closed caption YouTube video of the talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lioeqgOopa0

Transcript

1. From myth-busting to “but/and”
   -ing:
   persuading people to do a11y work
   !
   1
   

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2. Homework
   !
   When persuading people to do a11y
   work: agree with the objections and
   work from there
   2
   

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3. Agenda: some typical objections
   1. Accessibility is boring
   2. Accessibility is difficult
   3. Accessibility is time-consuming
   3
   

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4. Who am I?
   !
   Steve Barnett
   FED & UX person, since 2005-ish
   Accessibility at Totara Learning
   4
   

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5. The clumsy conjunction “but/and”
   Use "but/and" to join phrases and
   ideas that need a turn or a twist
   5
   

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6. The clumsy conjunction “but/and”
   For example: "Giving a talk is kinda
   scary, but/and it's a lot of fun"
   6
   

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7. Why "but/and"?
   !
   Previous tactics included:
   taking the moral high ground;
   myth-busting.
   7
   

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8. Why "but/and"?
   !
   Use inclusiveness, empathy,
   perspective, like we do for our users
   Being shamed or punished doesn't
   promote behaviour change
   8
   

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9. 1. Accessibility is boring
   Doing it just for compliance is boring
   Not shiny or glamorous work
   9
   

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10. Accessibility is boring
    but/and
    it's worth doing,
    even though it's boring
    10
    

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11. Other boring things we do:
    Maintenance work
    Security updates
    Writing tests
    11
    

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12. 2. Accessibility is difficult
    It's easy to get ARIA wrong and end
    up making it worse
    Some frameworks make it easier to
    do the wrong thing
    12
    

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13. Accessibility is difficult
    but/and
    it's worth doing,
    even though it's difficult
    13
    

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14. Other difficult things we do:
    Learning new things almost every day:
    we work in a very fast-paced industry
    14
    

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15. 3. Accessibility is time-consuming
    Designing and developing and testing
    code can be time-consuming
    Especially if it feels boring or difficult
    (or both!)
    15
    

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16. Accessibility is time-consuming
    but/and
    it's worth doing,
    even though it's time-consuming
    16
    

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17. Other time-consuming things we do
    Cross-browser (and device and tech)
    testing
    17
    

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18. Accessibility is boring / difficult /
    time-consuming
    but/and
    it's worth doing, like the other
    boring / difficult / time-consuming
    things we do
    18
    

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19. Homework
    !
    When persuading people to do a11y
    work: agree with the objections and
    work from there
    19
    

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20. Thanks!
    !
    20
    

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