Episode 4 - Dennie Declercq

In Episode 4 of 365 a11y the podcast, Mike Hartley is joined by the wonderful Dennie Declerq.

From Belgium, and a multiple times Microsoft MVP, Dennie runs his own non-profit company where Accessibility is at the forefront of what they do. Working with people with different types of disability or neurodiversity to help them access technology, and live the best life.

Transcript

Mike Hartley (00:01)
Hello everybody and welcome again to another episode of 365 Ally the podcast. My name is Mike Hartley and I'm your host for the evening. today I am absolutely, I'm just really loving having Dennie as, Dennie is the guest. I've known Dennie for a few years now and

He always brings a smile to my face. Dennie, welcome to the podcast. Welcome.

Dennie Declercq (00:29)
you

Thank you very much.

Mike Hartley (00:36)
So for those who don't know you, tell us a bit about yourself. Introduce yourself.

Dennie Declercq (00:43)
Okay, first of all, thanks Mike to be welcomed on the podcast because for me it's also an honour to be invited by you. We know each other, as you said, for a long time. We are both advocates for accessibility, like-minded people think alike. So, I am Dennie. I live in Belgium. Maybe you hear it on my accent. I hope not too much.

So I have my own business in Belgium, DD Software. We are really trying to connect the IT industry with the social industry with a big, let's say the biggest emphasis on accessibility. Beside of that, I am a Microsoft MVP at this time for seven years. I'm very proud of it. It's crazy. Or is it six years?

Time's going fast, it's sexy. I hope to deserve my seventh one, my seventh disc. So I do speak at conferences about accessibility and also neurodiversity and techy stuff. I make websites accessible. I educate people. do advocacy for accessibility.

in my own work and also beyond it for the community, let's Addicted to make the technological world a better place for everybody.

Mike Hartley (02:10)
Yep, no, that's awesome. That is absolutely awesome. And I will say, if ever you get a chance to hear Danny speaking at a conference, yeah, you really should try and get along to hear him because he's well worth hearing and watching. So cool, awesome. So.

as we do with all the podcasts, have sort of, we have a rough few questions that I ask. and as I, as I tell all the guests, it's no wrong answers. It's a chat between friends. It's a bit of fun and the answers, the questions. They, they're all from your perspective because we all know it's not one size fits all. It is definitely one size fits one.

Everybody has different experiences. with that in mind, good starting point really is for you, what does accessibility mean to you?

Dennie Declercq (03:09)
For me, accessibility means that software, websites and applications apps are accessible for everyone with all kinds of disabilities. In my own opinion, I'm going very far into accessibility. Let's say I even dare to go a lot beyond to the WCAG because if you ask me, even the WCAG is even excluding some people.

And of course they are honest about it, they call it the chapter zero, the introduction before chapter one with the perceivable. So they are really saying in the chapter zero, which disabilities they are excluding. And even there I try to do loads of research myself. I have a cooperation with a nonprofit, with a center for people with disabilities.

I am doing technology and working together with people in a center for people with cognitive disabilities like Don syndrome. So people with a limited IQ and make software for them. even working on software for illiterate people. But not only that. That's what I'm saying. It's going beyond the WCAG.

But I really do believe and I do like the WCAG for what it is already because it's a basic. All those people also we want to include. So it's really including a lot of people blind, colorblind, deafness. Let's say also that's really important. A lot of people don't think on deafness, by example, and accessibility. But if your application has a introductionary video,

and there are no subtitles and there is a lot of stuff being said, what to do in the introductory video, then it's excluding people who are being deaf. So it's really the whole range of including people. And not only at the workplace, also applications that need to be used by citizens need to be accessible. They even need to be

more accessible even for a wider range of people with disabilities. It's also something that I'm really working on and telling people and teaching them and making sure people knowing this. I don't want to see bad designs made by people for a promotion of an opening and with bad then I mean inaccessible so where they are using a color contrast that excluding some people where they are

using the small work. So I really want to see it good that people are feeling included and are welcome.

Mike Hartley (05:59)
Yeah, no, that's that's amazing. And just for folks, if they don't know, when we talk about WCAG, WCAG, it's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines developed by the World Wide Web Consortium. And really, they are the standards that underpin a lot of digital accessibility. So

If you use accessibility checker in Microsoft 365, for example, it will base a lot of the results on WCAG standards. But you make a really good point that they don't cover everything. And it's something that I say to people is there's no such thing as something being a hundred percent accessible because what you might do for one group of people.

might make it harder for another group of people. And it's finding that, finding that balancing act that makes it as inclusive as possible for as many people as possible. mean, yeah, sure, if you've got millions of dollars and you've got plenty of time, I'm sure you could build something that would be fully accessible, but no business.

is ever gonna put that in there. But no, it's a really good point and I love the work that you do and I just love the heart that's behind that and your outlook on it all is fantastic. so, I'm...

Dennie Declercq (07:40)
Thanks.

Mike Hartley (07:44)
I guess this is really quite a big question because of the work that you do and where your passion lies and where your advocacy lies. But for you, what is accessibility in daily life for you? What kind of things do you use? Do you build? Do you make use of?

Dennie Declercq (08:10)
So one of the things that I see, last of the time that I even catch my cell phone, so I am not blind, I am in between having, let's call it just bad eyes and a very, very light form of vision loss. So I can see the most of the things with my contact lenses. But a lot of...

color combination where the foreground of the text is on a background that doesn't match, it is difficult. And that's as not being colorblind and that's really something I started to dig deeper in. And then I did a lot of research. And then I saw that the problems of having a bad contrast between the foreground and the background

is even more a problem for people with colorblindness. And then you are seeing so many websites, so many commercials being really, bad in color contrast. And then I'm really starting to think, OK, it's excluding too many people. And

Yeah, that's really something that I see. It is so obvious the tools to test the color contrast, but really too little people know it and doing it. So that's where a point for me that it's really important. Yeah, yeah. Next to this, I'm neurodivergent, so I'm open about it. I have an autism diagnose.

So also clear communication, clear navigation structures, and navigation that is direct and to the point is so important. Also, it catches my eyes. say, if I need to look to find the right content on the website as IT, as nerd, as geek, what, how many struggles will other people have?

But let's say cognitive disabilities, learning disabilities, people being starting, let's say aging and not being used to using computer. Also a group to talk about because there is a group of people with those disabilities but having a lot of accessibility issues. If you want to can ask me more about it, but in general, it's the people who are not grown up with a computer in the digital world.

I need to do that. So again, it's more than cities and users. So, and then if I already need to search to find it, what will it be for other people? And then I'm thinking, my God.

Mike Hartley (10:51)
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, again, I mean, I just think to my parents and their ageing, as people do, but they didn't grow up as children or teenagers or even young adults really with computers and

I mean, my mum always laughingly calls me her IT support. Because I'll get phone calls and they'll be asking me, how do I do this? I can't find this. How do I get there? How do I do that? Whenever I see them, you can pretty much guarantee there will be questions about how do I do this on my phone? Because it's changed and I don't know how it works anymore. ⁓ And it can be really, really frustrating.

Dennie Declercq (11:41)
yeah.

Mike Hartley (11:46)
for them. And yeah, I mean, the whole thing with color blindness, color vision deficiency, but color contrast in particular. I have an app on my computers that brings up a yellow filter on my display because

If I have too much bright white light, I get a migraine. And it's really interesting because the yellow filter, depending on the time of day, sometimes a day, it'll be really quite strong. And I'll go to some websites and I can't read the text. I can't see what's on the buttons because the yellow filter and yes, I know the yellow filter is artificial, but

Dennie Declercq (12:07)
OK, yeah.

Mike Hartley (12:30)
it highlights the fact that the color contrast isn't good enough there. And if I'm experiencing that, then there will be a whole group of other people who are experiencing the same. And there are plenty of apps out there to test website accessibility, to test for color ratios and contrast. And yeah, so yeah, let's...

I know you and I will keep shouting about this and keep saying please people. Yeah, of you can. Yeah.

Dennie Declercq (12:58)
Guys.

Can I say something, one thing more about this? Because

the idea is so crazy that you have found a way to use yellow filter to let's say to stop migraine or for not having a migraine outbreak. If the website's color contrast is so bad that you are forced to turn off the filter, then you can be triggered by migraine.

due to the developers and designers and it's cruel. cruel. It shouldn't be. It really shouldn't. Same for analytics, but seizures and accessibility is a thing. For example, if you are building your applications and they are flashing too much, it can trigger epilepsy for people who are epileptic.

Mike Hartley (13:34)
Hmm? Yeah? Yeah, no, no. Yeah?

Dennie Declercq (13:54)
It's not accessibility, it's not something nice to build on. Really, your software gets designed and accessible, people can have epileptic seizures, no one learns for you, even migraine attacks. Fascinating. How evil it can be, a bad design.

Mike Hartley (14:12)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's it. That's exactly it. So.

I know you're kind of like the technology and like using the technology in the best possible ways. AI has been, the explosion is huge. We all live in that AI world now. What would you say the impact of AI has been on accessibility at the moment?

either positive or negative. Have you seen any impact on accessibility because of AI?

Dennie Declercq (14:47)
Yeah. And also giving talks about it. I think AI, let's spread it up into things. Let's say AI to help developers and AI for people. So by example, and user thing like ChatgyPT. It's crazy what ChatgyPT can do. For example, people who are illiterate. As I said, I'm with Don't Singlem, with people with illiteracy. And...

Sometimes people ask me, isn't it crazy to let them use AI? And I'm working in a very protected environment where I teach those people, some of those using ChatGPT to make their life easier. And it's funny if you like say difficult concept, let's say a lot of words, concept are difficult for those people. If you can say to the ChatGPT to the AI,

explain to a kid of five years old, it's giving amazing, amazing demos and examples. If you ask it, by example, learning to cooking to generate an easy to use recipe, it does it really, good. Otherwise, the moment that you will find a recipe on the internet that is easy enough to use,

The same for autism, context, questions that you don't dare to ask. AI is doing crazy, crazy good work. And then for the people, the developers, the technologies, the geeks, the nerds like us. Let's call it that way. Let's call it how it is. A duck is a duck, my friends. A duck is a duck. Even if it doesn't want to call it a duck. Too many people.

Mike Hartley (16:25)
Yeah, it is.

Dennie Declercq (16:32)
are spending too little time on making stuff accessible. So too many coders, designers are not implementing all the accessibility guidelines, all the stuff that needs to be accessible. As I said in the beginning, you can even go beyond the accessibility guidelines, by example, providing sex to speech everywhere because...

Speech is amazing, for example, for people with illiteracy, for people with conditions like Down syndrome. Speech is a holy grail there. instead of people, developers, or IT pros and citizen devs being afraid of losing their job due to, thanks to AI, they should do the same work, but have AI next to them as a co-pilot and let it

implement a lot of accessibility features, a lot of stuff that let's say business developers, people didn't have time to build, is able to build right now. And the same time as you did, but with AI. So we should stop being afraid of AI losing our job, but really start to embrace AI to really provide way more value.

And then especially in the terms of accessibility, where there is still way too little value.

Mike Hartley (17:59)
Yeah, yeah. 100 % agree. totally agree. Totally agree, mate. Yeah, definitely.

Dennie Declercq (18:03)
Can you get the nut?

Mike Hartley (18:07)
If that's where we are with AI now and accessibility, what, if you, if you kind of get the crystal ball out and try and look into the future, which, I mean, it could be six months, could be a year. It could be five years. Who knows? what, what do you see the future of accessibility with AI looking like?

Dennie Declercq (18:28)
I think there are two things that we need to consider. First, what will be possible from a technical tool perspective? That's the first thing. But second, we also have what will business makers, decision makers decide? Let's for example, if you say with AI again for developers, in which sense? If it's citizen death,

IT pro software developer, just call them devs because they are devs, because they've they develop something. I don't say codecs, but they develop solutions in a way. Let's say for devs it will depend. If the business let them really take the same time with having AI and provide a lot of new accessibility features, then the solutions will be way more accessible for way more people.

But if decision makers decide we have AI, we will, let's say, say, quitting half of our job, half of our team, we quit them. So they have a leave and the same work needs to be done with half of the team. Or if they say, and we are providing double outcome as we have in right now and features with the same team, then it will not be the thing. So.

There will be a lot possible on what we build, but also it will depend on what decision makers will make. And that's scary. On the other hand, there are things coming for free. And for free, I mean literally free. If you create a free chat GPT account, there you can already talk to it and use the wet-allowed so that it also lets allow text. It's really, really great.

So some features will become automatically or every using a more funny name, automatically. So it all will be the balance. And that was also the reason that I decided already a year ago to start in a protecting environment training also people with Down syndrome to use AI because they need to know it, they need to use it.

The more use cases there are, the more it is used for that kind of accessible stuff, the more quality of life of those people is created, the more accessibility is created. So, well, we seeing a world where applications automatically having speech interface that's workload, it will depend on what people will do.

While we are using AI to make all the stuff that we are building, confirming the WCAG as most of the business is not doing yet. So there will be lot possible lakes of possibilities, but it will depends on what those people, what the money decides to be honest.

Mike Hartley (21:34)
Yeah, yeah, money will decide everything but I mean I've got to say that I mean I look at I look at Copilot I look at github copilot I look at chat gpt clawed Gemini anti-gravity or all of those and It's really interesting because when I first looked at

Dennie Declercq (21:38)
And that's the same thing.

Yeah, we know that.

Mike Hartley (21:58)
how they could understand accessibility, probably a couple of years ago now, and I would try doing it. I did a talk on copilot and accessibility. And the results back then were very mixed, I think it's safe to say. It would get some of it right, and then other bits of it, it would say, yeah, I've done it, but it hadn't.

Dennie Declercq (22:21)
yeah,

yeah, it always said he'd it. It always this.

Mike Hartley (22:23)
it has got it completely wrong. Yeah,

but I look at where we are now in 2026 and I can ask AI to make something that is WCAG compliant. If I'm building a website or something or an app, can say make sure it's got WCAG compliance.

And it's got all the ARIA tags, which again, for people, ARIA is accessible rich internet applications and it's a subset of WCAG. And it does a really good job of it now. It doesn't get everything right. You then have to prompt it a little bit more. But for developers who...

don't know anything about accessibility, who don't understand it and who maybe don't have the time because of the way that their projects are being run, being able to say to AI, make this accessible, anything that AI does now to make it accessible is a huge improvement on what that developer would have done otherwise, because they wouldn't have done anything.

And it's progress over perfection. It's that you've got to start somewhere. And I think as we start using AI more in this way and it learns from what we're asking it and how we're correcting it and it's training itself on what we're saying. I think, yeah, you go a year forward from where we are today and

I can see it's going to really be able to create some amazing accessible content. So it's yeah, it's definitely an interesting time, I think. I think there's a lot of potential and possibilities.

Dennie Declercq (24:19)
Can I add something? No, you can ask, let's say, vibe coding is at this time a thing. There are haters, there are lovers. And I think also most of the haters use it to know what they hate, you know? ⁓ it's a bad fit and then and then well-tried podcast, but most of them, don't say all of them. So if you are offended as in people again, vibe coding, you are one of those not doing it. I'm very sure that you don't do this.

Mike Hartley (24:32)
Yep.

Dennie Declercq (24:46)
But let's say the majority is doing it. Now you need to say, let's say, me a website with all the features and make it an accessible website. But what if we, and I think we need to make it a step further. You don't ask for an accessible VCAG compliant website, but you get it automatically. So you ask for a, let's say, no, can say create five code, create a website.

Mike Hartley (25:08)
Yes.

Dennie Declercq (25:16)
for my favorite sport club. Point. People need to be able to subscribe for the next season. Now you need to say the same thing, make it fully accessible. What if we are coming to the time that accessibility is a norm and you just five code prompting to ask to create the website for the sport club.

You even don't think about accessibility, the code that is providing is being accessible. That would be very, very great.

Mike Hartley (25:50)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd love that. I would love that if it, yeah, yeah, so please.

Dennie Declercq (25:58)
it becomes

more difficult to change. We need to come to a time and I'm going to dream and you know, I am Mr. Dreaming is believing so I can dream. We need to come to a time that it takes more time and energy to delete the accessible elements generated by code. So that is more easy, less work, less time.

having it accessible than not accessible.

Mike Hartley (26:28)
Agreed. Agreed. Totally.

Dennie Declercq (26:31)
So they need to

it if they are building it inaccessible. It needs to cost time and...

Mike Hartley (26:36)
Yeah, yeah, no, no, yeah, please let's make that happen, please.

Dennie Declercq (26:42)
It will be society,

will be who prompts what prompts what prompts. I think one way of doing this podcast is talking about it. Both how I envision the future. I see you do the same. We need to think about it. I society, developers, businesses will create a future of AI. it will be us. And unfortunately, not only both of us because otherwise it will be perfect. Let's say, perfectly accessible at least.

Mike Hartley (27:08)
Yeah.

Dennie Declercq (27:11)
Not this.

Mike Hartley (27:12)
Yeah, no, no, cool. So really the last question and this is...

What is, what would be your one personal top tip for accessibility?

Dennie Declercq (27:26)
Make it easy. Just whatever you build, test with a accessibility checker. Accessibility checker, is there in Office 365? Is there in Power Platform? Is also there if you are building websites. Let's say in the browser, there are different way of checkers. I do love the Microsoft accessibility insights, but there are others. If you are building applications for mobile, are two.

So whatever you build, whatever you create on my network, the way you are doing it, run it to an accessibility checker to be conscious about how accessible or inaccessible is what you are building.

Mike Hartley (28:09)
Yeah, yeah. And what I will say to people is if you don't know where to find these tools, head along to 365-A11y.com and we've got links to all sorts of tools. The Microsoft Accessibility Insights for Web is linked there. There are other tools there that you can use for things like color contrast, website testing.

There's a link to Adobe's tool, also tests for color vision deficiency as well, which is a really good insight to have. So head along to our website because you will find links there. And if you find links that aren't there that you know about, please let us know so that we can add them so other people can find them. But Dennie,

Honestly, it has been an absolute delight having you on the podcast. It has been wonderful. Your insight and your passion and your heart for all this are totally infectious. They... You've inspired me over the years and always bring a smile to my face. So thank you so, so much.

Dennie Declercq (29:18)
Thank you.

Mike Hartley (29:29)
for being on the podcast and thank you so, much for all the work that you do as well because yeah, you have a huge impact and it's amazing to see. So thank you, thank you. And with that folks, that brings us to the end of this episode of 365 Ally the podcast.

So thanks once again to Dennie for a fantastic chat and I will say so long folks and I will catch you on the next episode. I'll see you around. Bye bye.