E64: Temitope Somuwa on Driving Accessibility Change in Africa and Beyond

Temitope Somuwa, 2025 IAAP Individual Impact Award winner and Group Website Audit and Optimization Officer at United Bank for Africa, joins the United in Accessibility podcast to share his journey as a digital accessibility advocate driving meaningful inclusion change within one of Africa's largest financial institutions. Together, we explore his work on WCAG compliance, his international advisory contributions on the European Accessibility Act, and his vision for a more inclusive digital future across Africa and beyond. 

Transcript

00:00 [Speaker]

[upbeat music] Welcome to the IAAP United in Accessibility Podcast. In this episode, we are honored to feature Temitope Somuwa, a digital accessibility advocate and inclusion strategist. Temitope is a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies, a professional member of IAAP, and serves as Group Website Audit and Optimization Officer at the United Bank for Africa. With over 15 years of experience in website optimization and digital inclusion, he has become one of Nigeria's most influential voices in accessibility. Under his leadership, his entire team underwent comprehensive accessibility training, driving meaningful culture change within UBA, and embedding inclusive design principles into the bank's digital transformation strategy. He has also voluntarily advised European colleagues on compliance with the European Accessibility Act, extending his impact well beyond his own organization and continent. In 2025, Temitope was honored with the IAAP Individual Impact Award, presented at the M-Enabling Summit in Washington, D.C., recognized for his exceptional leadership, systemic contributions, and commitment to making digital spaces truly inclusive for all. Join us as we explore Temitope's journey, his work transforming accessibility culture, and his vision for a more inclusive digital future on the United in Accessibility Podcast. 

00:01:29 [Sam Evans]

Hello. This is Sam Evans with the International Association of Accessibility Professionals, and I want to thank you all for joining us today, whether you're listening or reading to our United in Accessibility podcast. Today, we have a really wonderful opportunity to meet with one of our colleagues, Tope Somuwa. Tope is a really great leader and an innovator and, and looking to grow accessibility in business and, and awareness in the African continent and Nigeria. And so for our listeners or readers, they're meeting you for the first time, so can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background? Just tell us a little bit about what was your first step into accessibility. What brought you into this work that we all do? 

00:02:15 [Temitope Somuwa]

Thank you, Sam, for this opportunity to speak. My name is Temitope Somuwa. I call myself a web technology expert and an accessibility expert. I'm a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies. Uh, my love for technology and professionalism started since 2006. I was an undergraduate at that time, but I enrolled for another course, a training institute. There, I was trained as a network engineer using, um, the Microsoft, um, technology suite, Cisco, and the likes. So, my first certification was in 2007 under Microsoft. I became a professional member of Microsoft since that time. However, I was still in the university then. To date, I'll count my working experience as fifteen years. That's after graduation, but I've since been certified since 2007. So yeah, that's my crave for technology, and today I call myself a web accessibility expert or a digital accessibility expert. Mm, I keep delving in and more and more into technology world. So, what's my entry into digital accessibility? I would say this wasn't planned. However, it's unavoidably. I'm in that position where I give website reports, metrics to consultants, to, to, to organizations, clients. I've been in this for thirteen years, majorly for websites, and, um, but until a particular project where I was going to give a report and also fix whatever issues that I have identified searching that client. Uh, so using the tools available then for automated reporting and testing, accessibility was one of those, um, features or those metrics I, I needed to report about. Then I used, um, the Google PageSpeed, um, to test for performance. It also has that option of accessibility. That is core base, um, methodology. Gave the report I needed to fix. I went through, um, the information there. As at then, it wasn't exhaustive, and there was more like a disclaimer there that this, you know, cannot fix or this is not all about accessibility. So, then I started searching, making research. Needed tools now. I needed to be able to fix what I have identified. And yeah, and that's where my search began. 

00:05:13 [Sam Evans]

Part of the reason that we invited you to join us on our podcast today is because you were awarded our 2025 Individual Impact Award from IAAP. Um, and this was really for your exceptional leadership in advancing digital accessibility and your training with your teams at United Bank of Africa and, and helping to guide, uh, the European Accessibility Act in your organization and being an advocate there. So, one of the things that you did that's really impressive in any company anywhere in the world is that you secured accessibility training for your entire team, which really is an amazing way when it's not just training, but also then implementation to change your inclusive practices as your team. Everyone should applaud that. It's something that isn't achieved most places. And so not only did you help get the training, but it wasn't training and then walk away. It was training and then how do we adjust the way we do our work to implement this every day. It wasn't just an activity. It became a change in, in your process, which is ideally that is strategic leadership in accessibility. So, you've done this. You, you drive your innovation and compliance, but for usability, which I liked reading and learning more about that. It wasn't just for the technical components but understanding the impact on people. It's just really impressive to see that happen anywhere in the world. And so- 

00:06:36 [Temitope Somuwa]

Mm-hmm 

00:06:36,316 [Sam Evans]

... you and your team, [chuckles] I'm so glad that the people- 

00:06:39,136 [Temitope Somuwa]

Mm-hmm 

00:06:39,146 [Sam Evans]

... within your organization recognize this. So, congratulations on your award. And so, when you learned about receiving your award, is there something that came to mind about, ah, this work that I was part of, that I helped grow? What was the first piece of your leadership that came to mind when you learned you had been not just nominated, but also to the recipient of the award? 

00:07:03 [Temitope Somuwa]

I joined the sessions, um, online. As you know, I couldn't join physically. I was glued to the screen, not just because of the award, but because I'm part of all of the sessions. Tried to engage people via chat using the, the event app. Yeah, so until then, so I heard, uh, my name. I, I remember, I think I had my family in, in the same room. Said, "Oh, Tope see, that's your face. That's your picture over there on, on, on the screen." 'Cause I had to share the screen to a bigger TV. The thought that came to mind was that, oh, so all of these efforts weren’t in vain. You know, those, um, times, those hours we put into, um, ensuring that, um, that project was launched and is compliant, uh, didn't eventually, you know, turn into vanity. Yeah, that determination, you know, to contribute to the World Wide Web, transforming how people access information and how digital platforms are usable. So, it all mattered. So, I could get back to my team and tell them that, oh, that little thing we tried to do right here in Nigeria, Africa, is now globally recognized. I, I mean, the efforts. Also, I could tell them that, yeah, this award is not for me, it's for the team. And that those are just, you know, the thoughts that ran through my mind. Importantly also, I thought about my, my leaders. You know, those times I knocked at their office doors. Not like they understood in full what was going on, but, uh, they just trusted that, um, in my years of experience, what I'm bringing to the table, it's very important. And that award was very, very important to me to take back to them and help them see that this is being recognized. And even much more, if we put more efforts into this, we'll do beyond just a recognition. We'll change more lives all over the world. So yeah, that was it for me. 

00:09:15 [Sam Evans]

And hopefully your peers and leaders in the structure at the bank, did they gain, you think, perhaps a greater appreciation of the work your team is doing for the recognition? Hopefully. Sometimes, sometimes accessibility work can get lost in, uh- 

00:09:30 [Temitope Somuwa]

Yeah 

00:09:30,736 [Sam Evans]

... privacy and other, and other, uh, their professional realms. But hopefully, uh, this able to maybe raise some visibility of, of accessibility as part of the process at the bank. 

00:09:43,496 [Temitope Somuwa]

This will relate to big organizations like banks. Uh, sometimes it's not as easy to continue something that is not in the policy gate, you know, or it's not in the culture. So yeah, the methods still remains. Work with that, your small team, relate it to your immediate, um, leader, which is the line manager, who in turn relates what you are doing to the next line manager, and keep it in that circle and ensure you're doing what you need to do. What we endeavor to work hard is when we report, we ensure that we report, you know, the progress, including every new page that has been added, to ensure that these pages are also compliant. These are the errors found now. These are things we'll do about. So just keep them, carry them along. And with time, once it's included in the policy or any standardized option, it will just be a perfect, um, way to go. 

00:10:43 [Sam Evans]

It's not that simple. But could you, for perhaps we have people who are listening and/or reading who are not technical, uh, accessibility experts. But for those who are in other teams, do you have a bare bones description of, of your process about how your process works within your team, identifying issues or challenges, making recommendations on how to resolve them, making, implementing the changes, and then delivering the final results? Could you high level talk a little bit about that process and what your team does? 

00:11:14 [Temitope Somuwa]

All right. So, I'll keep this as practical as possible. Uh, the first step is to discover. You do not fix what you have not discovered. Within that means that we need tools. We work with tools to discover. We use automated, we use the manual. Automated implies that we have that available tools online. We use to scan, detect some errors. Having detected those errors, you also manually, um, I can use the keyboard, um, navigation to look at some interactive elements. Sometimes you could even dim the lights of your laptop so that you are not able to see as exactly what is on that website and try to navigate and assume that you cannot see. But, um, are you able to, you know, hear what the voiceover to seeing does it represent the buttons on that side? Does it represent the interactions you want. And those are very interesting aspect. Sometimes what you hear is not what you thought you had, um, you know, uh, coded into the website. So at that, even the team, you know, it becomes very interesting at that to show, oh, wow, so this is what, you know, someone with visually impaired, um, challenge is going to hear about our website. So yeah, so there are other of, um, forms of, um, ensuring that we discover, you know, where there are issues. And the second option is now to prioritize. Prioritize. I believe accessibility, there's no 100%, you know. I do not think there's an 100%. So, prioritizing implies that what are the issues, you know, we need to attend to first. If someone visits our website, what are the interactive elements they would see first? What are the sections? I believe the navigation area is the first section, you know, where you have the home, you have the about us, those aspect. People should be able to navigate those aspects. So, we are going to now check those navigational area. We use assistive technology tools, and we, you know, use, um, keyboard to navigate. Are there forms on that landing page. I will check the forms for the errors in the forms. When there are errors, if I am using a form, someone that has no, uh, visual impairment, I'm able to see a pop-up of the error. For someone that is visually impaired is filling that form, the error that popped up, he may not-- he might not see that. Obviously, he will not see the error, but he also may not hear an announcement of a particular pop-up. He will just feel that he's stucked. He can't continue in the process. He can't use the keyboard to keep navigating the form fields. He does not know that there is an error that popped up, and that's where we now implement the ARIA alerts. Those codes help to announce a particular pop-up and those kind of interactive elements. So also simple parts, uh, aspect of website contrast, color contrast. This ensures that the background color, the foreground color totally distinct. That means that on the buttons on the website, or we have tool you can use to check that online and put the background color code, the foreground color code. It will tell you if you pass that, um, contrast, um, color code required for your website. However, understand some organizations already have a particular color code in their brand, and it may be difficult to change some things in total. That's why it's a gradual process. Let's see how we can minimize the use of this color. Let's see how we can use the secondary colors they have if those ones will pass that color contrast test. Also importantly, the structure of the website. Structure from, uh, the, the titles of, of the, of the headings used on the website. There is a structure it should follow. You have the H one in which under the H, you should have only one H one tag in the page, which shows that as the main title of that page. Then followed by H two. And after H two, you have H three. These are headings of posts. H four and like that. Why is this important? It's important because when you use a keyboard to navigate our website, it will follow that structure of the headings and the titles. So, for myself, if I will use a mouse to navigate a website, I can easily move to where I want to go on the part of the website. But for someone that is using just maybe the tab key on the keyboard, it will be going in a particular order. So, I've seen a website where I navigated using the tab. I went from the top to the footer of the website. So, it means it had missed a whole lot of interactive elements within the body of the site. So, the third is now let's fix it. We have discovered or prioritize the major elements we want to work on at that moment, and we fix it. Now fixing requires collaboration. I now work with designers, and that's why it's also important that ability is included from the beginning of the project. But at that point, the designers are already aware. What, what I do with my team majorly or what I did with my team or what I will always do is that educational part. Ensure that everyone is not on the same page, but almost on the same page. So, I expose them to free webinars, resources, come before every meeting, tell them the importance, show them how things are done. They go search themselves, do more research. So now collaboration is gonna be easy. Either at the start of project, what we are doing, at the end of project, the continued effort, it's gonna be easy because everyone have an idea of what we are doing. So, collaborate closely with the designers, the developers, the content team, because accessibility is a team sport. What I call it, team sport. So, fix, collaborate. My fourth opt- step will be to now validate. That means that we are testing again. We start with testing, which is to discover. Then at the end, we test again. So, we now validate. At that point, we cannot document everything that we have observed, achieved, and that's how we go about it. 

00:18:21 [Sam Evans]

I think as you talked about that collaborative work was kind of leads into the next question we were gonna talk about is, in large organizations, including banks where, where you're working currently, is that what are the biggest challenges you run into, and what helped you move past them? And some of the, what you just mentioned, talking about meeting with people, educating, collaborating, working with so that everybody is, if not on exactly the same page, very close to it. Is that one of the bigger challenges you face, or are there... What's your big, what are the friction points that you encountered and, and what's helped you? I mean, you mentioned the collaboration education, where you can bring people onto the same, onto the same objective, the same team. Are there other things that have helped you move past some of those other challenges you've faced being part of a large organization? 

00:19:06 [Temitope Somuwa]

Allm right, Sam. Thank you, yeah, for that question. Um, so bigger organizations have policies. They have standard operating procedures. Uh, you can't just come in and just change things. You need to be able to justify. Always a cost justification, um, yeah, and, uh, what's the essence of what you're doing. Also, in organizations, we have what we call KPI, you know, Key Performance Indicators. Everyone, staff are working towards a particular goal. So sometimes you don't want to do something else because all you intend to do is just to meet up with your KPIs, that's how we call it over here. Meet your KPIs, then maybe you can be promoted. Meet your KPIs, then you have achieved the team's goal. So sometimes accessibility, or in most, uh, situations, is not part of the KPI. So there's a mindset challenge here now. Uh, the information on accessibility is not as adequate. So how do I overcome such? Firstly, there's this executive buy-in. Need to be able to identify my stakeholders. Is it my line manager? Is it the immediate manager? Is it, is there a team lead? Is there someone that can give me that authority or to speak to this? That's exactly what, you know, I do with my team. So, I have that privilege, that kind of authority. Someone that's a senior, you know, senior, um, um, personnel in the organization. So, with that, that buy-in, whether they understand full or not, is saying, "Go ahead." Then training must continue. Expose them to understand that in this part of this, um, the, the world we have, reading books are quite difficult. Our attention grasp is reducing all over the world anyway. Um, watching training courses online is not popular as it should before. So, when you give them training courses online, don't expect that they would see everything or follow, you know. So, you have to mix it. Mix the online videos, mix the e-books, mix the practical options. Find a way to ensure that it's becoming interesting. Then, um, trying to help them, expose them to some real user stories. Real user stories. In fact, one of the things I helped my team was the fact that we brought in people, you know, with, um, those challenges. Those, um, um, um, um, challenges, visually impaired and related challenges, you know, and test our website. So, when they see such feedback real time, say, "Wow. Oh, so this is this person's challenge. I never knew, I never understood the importance of what I've done here." Now that. So yeah, so that's, that's the only way around it for the bigger organizations. So- 

00:22:20,016 [Sam Evans]

Yeah 

00:22:20,176 [Temitope Somuwa]

... once people see accessibility as part of quality, then the entire organization shifts. 

00:22:27,136 [Sam Evans]

That's big change, and that's gonna be lasting change. 

00:22:30,005 [Temitope Somuwa]

Mm-hmm. 

00:22:30,065 [Sam Evans]

Not only for- 

00:22:30,716 [Temitope Somuwa]

So 

00:22:30,726 [Sam Evans]

... now, but hopefully where those people, if they, if they pursue other, other professional work, that they'll be able to take that with them and, and help lift accessibility as part of standard practice and not something that belongs to one person or one team alone. [chuckles] That's the change we hope to see in the world. So I wanna ask you about a topic that, uh, we see a lot around the world, and these are, the concept you're working at is identifying challenges and making sure the website is usable for people with disabilities, so that they can use their own assistive technology of their own choice, which they use for everything in the world online. There are these products online, and for those that work in our professional realm, called overlays, and you can talk openly about them. But in simple terms, they're marketed to companies as if they, there's no need to understand accessibility and digital accessibility 'cause they can just plug something in. Talk about what you're ob- what you've observed in, in your realm about overlays and how prevalent they are and if they can help or what problems they present. versus what they purport to do. 

00:23:39 [Temitope Somuwa]

Thank you, Sam. If you are just coming into accessibility, and you check the search engines, what you see mostly are these overlays, um, the organizations pitching overlays and promising that once you purchase this, then you are compliant, and I think that's where the challenge is. I will tell you that, um, I had a client at particular time that, having discussed and proposed accessibility for the new website, uh, they went on searching the internet, and before you know it, they had purchased an overlay, you know, thinking that, oh, okay, so yeah, so I solved it. So that's where the challenge is. So that's our problem is, is the challenge, and I think that's why we're all speaking to that overlay. It's not as though we don't want these organizations to form, try and innovate, but once there's an object on that website that could also add more barrier to the users that we're trying to ensure that information, the elements are accessible to them, then it becomes more problem than good. So, for me, all of the kind of experience I've had about a client that wants overlay, yet I still implement, you know, the accessibility in the codes, in the design, in the content. No problem. Go ahead. We're gonna get the job done. So, where we now have feedback of the real users, the overlay is now intercepting, interrupting any of the elements, then we all can see the feedback and say, "Oh, okay, so can you see this and this is happening?" So yeah, that's it for me. So, overlay, so you know, appears to be a quick win, but it's really not. Another way I can put overlay for those people that just want to use overlay, see it as a supplement. You're sick now, um, in, in... And that... Okay, so let, let me say, for food. For our body, we need food to live, right? Yeah, not supplements. Supplements are more like an add-on, right? Yeah. So, where you lack protein, you use a supplement. So firstly, if you see it as supplement, it means the main food should be taken into the body. That means the proper code should be done, proper design, proper content. So, when you have done that and you still want to use overlay, I'll stick to that. 

00:26:10 [Speaker]

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00:26:41 [Sam Evans]

So, we've heard for a lot of years people have, uh, analogies like accessibility is like a recipe and, and the food elements come together and, uh, if you leave out big parts of your recipe, you, you won't- 

00:26:53 [Temitope Somuwa]

Mm-hmm. 

00:26:53,984 --> 00:27:05,734 [Sam Evans]

It won't be what you expect. So, I, I think I may suggest to people to consider that supplement, uh, versus just, oh, it's a, it's a drink that tastes like a food, but it's not got any- 

00:27:05,734 --> 00:27:05,734 [Temitope Somuwa]

Right 

00:27:05,734 --> 00:27:20,924 [Sam Evans]

... nutritional value. [laughs] I kinda... Or it might be something extra. So, I think the supplement concept, that's the first time I've heard that. I think people will, will find that as a, a really nice other concept to, to use in discussions. We're gonna add that to my book of- 

00:27:20,924 --> 00:27:21,243 [Temitope Somuwa]

Sure 

00:27:21,243 --> 00:27:24,064 [Sam Evans]

... of, of interesting things to share with folks. Um, 

00:27:25,104 --> 00:28:00,654 [Sam Evans]

can you mention for people who may not be familiar with what's happening on the African continent or in Nigeria, um, what kind of myths or understanding are you seeing in Nigeria and in parts of Africa that you may be familiar with about accessibility and what might actually solve them? We're seeing some really big steps happening in parts of Africa where we're seeing some really good growth on things. But you're in the business world there. What kind of under- misunderstandings are you seeing or, or hearing about, and what do you think, if you had the opportunity to, what do you think might be a solution set for those misunderstandings? 

00:28:01 [Temitope Somuwa]

One of the major challenge, um, not challenge, is a myth. I'll call it a myth. Accessibility is for blind people only. Yeah. So that's, that's a myth. And some also believe that it's for foreign organizations, foreign companies, international companies. Yet the international companies we have in the country, uh, you know, they are not complying in that sense. So yeah. So that blind people part is something that is so funny. Even one of my team members said, "Oh, okay. So that, that's tough for blind people, right?" You know, and I thought, "Oh, so what are you saying?" I mean, this is not for blind people. You know, it's for all kind of disabilities, and that's what we're working towards, you know. So, what's the solution? Awareness, education. You know, we need, uh, more local examples because when you say it's just for international organizations, uh, it's easy to point to those organizations, their website, their digital asset. But when we now have local examples, organizations within this country, within the continent, and showing that their website's accessible, they are, they're building, you know, speaking to built environment, uh, maybe divers- diversifying to built environment and maybe looking at employment also of those with disabilities, then other organizations can look at that and say, "Okay, if these people have started this, I think it's the way to go." So yeah, local examples. More trainings, trainings, trainings. Real stories. Yeah. And these stories must be our stories. And that's why I like, you know, what, um, some people are doing in some other African countries where we come together, talk about stories. Also some blogs today that try to talk about stories. You know, what's happening, what's changing. And so real stories showing how accessibility is improving the business. Also, I believe, which I know from experience and from my reports, that accessibility also improves search engine optimization of websites. It improves the performance of website. So, where we're able to show this analytics to the organization, show before this site was disaccessible, this was the traffic. These are the, you know, the, the, the metrics from the search. Now, this, this is what's happening. This is the change. You know, these are the kind of traffic we're getting. We're now having more people from this part of country. We're now having more people from this age group. This is doing this content. These are the things that would, you know, drive that particular change. It's going to change that mentality or that mindset. So yeah, I think people understand, must understand the economic benefits. More, but more importantly, the human benefit out of the affect. 

00:31:15 [Sam Evans]

I think some of that comes out of the automated testing tools that identify screen reader use as the primary thing that people are first introduced to. And so- 

00:31:24,468 [Temitope Somuwa]

Yeah 

00:31:24,478 [Sam Evans]

... certainly a, a really important group of people with disabilities, but not the only elements to consider. And part of that is why automated testing alone won't ever really serve the needs of, most of the population. We have to take into consideration what we've learned. So, I think that awareness. I think that, I think your message though about having local examples so that it's not just some far off international conglomerate that's, that's driving this. I think that makes the storytelling more personal when it is in community. I think that's really wise advice. [chuckles] I know that you're working with other folks on the African continent. Are there policies and laws that are affecting change right now? There's so many countries. Yeah, wouldn't expect you to know them all. But for the countries, um, and the advocates that you are working with across the continent, are there any things that stand out to you that have been affecting change, that the laws or policies have come into place that you're seeing change and- 

00:32:22 [Temitope Somuwa]

Yeah, in Nigeria, we have, um, the act, the act that speaks to dis- disabilities and, uh, majorly addresses unemployment. So beyond an unemployment will be the built environment and nothing beyond that, to my knowledge. The best of my knowledge. Yeah, and that's why today what we are trying to push is that, uh, digital accessibility inclusion for Nigeria. But for the built environment, we have bodies, we have, um, the Association of People with Disabilities. Other associations which I won't want to mention are pushing a lot of efforts going on from government down to other private organizations. Uh, yes, so that's why I can speak to as touching employment and inclusion, also as touching built environment. For digital accessibility, uh, we do not have a policy. We do not have any law at this moment. 

00:33:23 [Sam Evans]

A lot of things can change in five years. But if you had to- 

00:33:25 [Temitope Somuwa]

Yeah 

00:33:25 [Sam Evans]

... where do you think advocacy should focus for like the next five-year period? 

00:33:30 [Temitope Somuwa]

So importantly, we have to enforce the existing law. And at that, we can now start with the public institutions, the government, uh, institutions, public institutions, training those public institutions so that the private institutions can now follow example. Then we can encourage the local technology companies to adopt the WCAG early enough. So, um, in their forum, in their discussions, and in their summits, they are speaking more to the WCAG, because this has become a standard. It's not just, um, a desire. It's not a feature. It's not an option. It has become an international standard. So also, I believe an option we can, yes, implement is making accessibility a skill taught in the university. It can be an optional course. It can be making accessible, available in the university. It can be possible. So, policy is good, but cultural change is where the real progress happens. 

00:34:41 [Sam Evans]

Culture will eat strategy for lunch. [chuckles] 

00:34:44,437 [Temitope Somuwa]

[chuckles] 

00:34:45,908 [Sam Evans]

So cultural change is the big power. That's when, that's when the ship turns. That's when we see change happen. 

00:34:52 [Temitope Somuwa]

Mm-hmm. 

00:34:54 [Sam Evans]

So, something that it's relatively new, we know in technology that AI or artificial intelligence will help lift, you know, do some lift and help scale. And AI is everywhere, not just in 2025. It's been part of a lot of workflows in organizations. How do you see AI being used in accessibility, and where should people be careful if they are maybe less familiar with accessibility and think that maybe AI is, uh, you know, the solution set for everything? 

00:35:25 [Temitope Somuwa]

Yeah, AI discussion is a very interesting one. I think that's why we have the responsive AI coming up, discussions about responsive AI. So, but for me, I use AI, I think, in my everyday work. I, I doubt if anyone can, can, can dismiss, uh, that option of using AI. So, I use AI. I integrate AI into workflows. You know, I have tools in our design tools and BDI. I do a quick check. You are doing your design, be it UI/UX design. I have those quick checks, you know. I'm pointing out errors while you're developing. You know, so we have tools available for that. Also, where you have repetitive tasks, you have to use AI, so you don't have to, you know, come back to the same thing again and again. So, where you need to automate some findings, you want to search for some alt texts, you want to check color contrast. You know, some issues, you can automate them since they are repetitive, you know, also that also helped me to focus on the parts I need to focus on. If AI taking this part is helping me to automate this part, then I spend my time on some more complex scenarios. Yeah. So also can con- um, I, I do leverage c- the conversational AIs we have today. You know, there are some code reference you could just search for using conversational AI. Give me code reference for this. Okay, so my table is this and that. I can't remember what's the ARIA label for this part of it. So, you know, just conversing like you have a partner near you. The keyword is assist. 

00:37:08 [Sam Evans]

Yes. 

00:37:09 [Temitope Somuwa]

Yes. Use AI as your assistant. So, where people should be careful, over-reliance on automation. So, there's a lot of danger in this. Um, we see that, um, people can take AI as a silver bullet to fix all accessibility issues. You know, and this can lead to neglecting some fundamental accessibility design principles. Yeah, so that's a question because, uh, when you are fixing accessibility issues, there's that human center, center design to consider, and that's why we have the human test, the manual test to see how this person feels. In fact, in practical, if you want to look at user flow of a website, you need to test yourself, see what is the delay or what's the possible delay. If there's an animation on the, on the site, how can it affect this kind of people? Maybe slow down and all that. So, AI at this moment may not be able to, you know, detect all that for you. Then the aspect of false sense of compliance. Call it false because you cannot tell me that automated AI testing tools would flag all your issues, then also, um, make you that 100% compliant. No. It's known that maybe about 20%, 30% is what, you know, the automated testing tools will detect, and that speeds up your work, and you're going to now focus on some other parts. So, there are barriers beyond what AI can detect, which you will have to manually detect yourself. So, we also have seen several studies. They have shown patterns of AI models developing bias, you know, against the, uh, disabled people. You know, so and that's where we need to have people with disabilities, professionals, people with disabilities in the development of AI and its algorithm. Yeah, so because AI works on data provided. So, when we have those, the proper education, that means it appears like we're educating the AI platforms also, so that they are now able to pull the information and make use of it. So, when AI, an AI sees a, a walking stick, is able to identify this a walking stick. It doesn't call it a chopstick, something else which becomes, you know, an insult entirely. 

00:39:47,228 [Sam Evans]

Yes. 

00:39:47,368 [Temitope Somuwa]

So, use AI to enhance your workflow, not your accessibility expert. 

00:39:54 [Sam Evans]

I think it's similar to the concept when we talked about data years ago, dirty data in, dirty data out. Whoever shapes the, the information the AI gets to pull from, if it's not well-informed, and if it's not disability-led, there's dangers and risks about what it will spit out that it thinks is about accessibility. Great tools to use as part of a toolkit, but should not be the default for all, and always double-check it. [chuckles] Just, just like AI translations for language, there's some people. We still need people to understand to, to review what, what's come out of it. [chuckles] So, so Tope, you're, uh, you're CPACC certified, and you're an active member with IAAP. This is the IAAP podcast. Can you mention just a little bit about your engagement with the IAAP professional community and network and how that's helped support you and, and your career? 

00:40:52 [Temitope Somuwa]

Yeah. So IAAP has been instrumental. There are resources on the portal once you're a member. There's also that global network. So that exposed me to that network. It helps me to bring about that best practice, and also I'm able to benchmark what I'm doing maybe with what some other people are doing. So that helps me to feel not alone, you know, working with experts. We have, um, that forum part where we discuss. As a community, you can pull up topic, discussions. People can come and, uh, comment. There's also a part on portal where you have resources. People can share their resources, and other parties also improving. Yeah, so, um, the events that you can attend, the webinars. There are also... while I was, um, um, preparing for certification exam, you know, the, the, the resources I got, they were so very useful. Very useful. Beyond the exam, you know, I had that knowledge. I took on knowledge about disabilities, then those core competence that a, a reliable professional should have about, you know, accessibility and digital accessibility. So being part of, um, the IAAP means you are not working alone. You have a community pushing the profession forward, and that support is shaping my growth. 

00:42:24 [Sam Evans]

Ideally, that's what associations do, is we bring our colleagues together and help people find a place and, and find neighbors, whether it's actually next door or around the world. So, I'm glad that you're finding those resources valuable to you and-We hope they're of value to everyone who's a member. But what's next for you? What's, what's one big project you're excited about? Then to wrap things up for us today, what's one message that you really want everybody who's listening or reading to remember from today? 

00:42:52 [Temitope Somuwa]

What's next for me is both exciting and very deeply meaningful. I've recently been consulted to lead a full accessibility center revamp of a major web portal. This web portal is used by young entrepreneurs across the 54 African countries, where they try to-- they, they access funding for their webs- for their businesses. There's a revamp proposed for that po-portal, and I was called on based on my impact award and impact done so far. So, over the years, this portal has supported thousands of African youths. And considering the estimated eighty million people in Africa who live with disabilities, uh, it is just the right time to ensure that no one is excluded in accessing such funds that have been provided by that foundation. Whether they are visually impaired, having mobility challenge, hearing, or cognitive challenges, every young person deserves equal access to information and also interactive tools that can change their future. I'll be working with a strong team. The developers are called in. They have been informed within the scope of the project. Have, um, some experienced, um, accessibility testers also, majorly with, um, physical challenges do-down on board. You know, so I'm, I'm truly hopeful and excited about what we are gonna be building. It's in process already, and I really hope everything will go out well as it should. So at the same time, continue my work from organization to maintain accessibility compliance across our platforms, expanding those standards to other websites we manage across other countries. So it's a long-term work, but it's a work that matters, and we're putting our efforts to it. Then personally, I started a blog, personal blog, a11y.ng. That's what I call it, a11y.ng. Yeah, so I want to promote the information around accessibility in Nigeria and Africa. This is very important because at this point, I just got an award, and I believe a lot of youths, young people, people that want to learn about what's going on in accessibility, they're looking up to some information from somewhere. So, I can't put all on LinkedIn at all times. So, I started this blog. You know, you're looking for awards, you're looking for job opportunity, you're looking for what's happening in Nigeria. There are a lot of things we're working on now, you know, with different association personally. So once those things are coming out, they are making sense of putting them on that blog. That's the intent. Now, combined with my expertise in search engine optimization, you know that with a little few more months, that website, anything you search about in, within Nigeria, you ask for accessibility in Nigeria, that website will need to pop up. So, what will be in that in- that website will be contents that are very relevant, and that's my aim. If I was speaking to professional bodies, you know, it's gonna be the events and the like. So yeah, so my final message to listeners. If there's one thing I want to speak to or I want the listeners to remember is that accessibility is not a favor. It's not a favor. You know? It's not, it's not charity. It's, it's, it's, uh, an obligation. Um, I remember a development team, it, uh, some developers speaking-- I was speaking to. I was called in for, into a project to negotiate, um, the costing to implement accessibility 'cause it was outsourced, the costing. So, when it came with the costing, "Yeah, I know it should be this expensive. I know. Yeah, I know the what. You know, yeah, I understand." But this is what I have to tell you. That's what I told them. Said, "This should be, you know, part of your responsibility. If you have taken up this job to deliver this software, then you should have considered the standard procedures. Should have considered the standard guidelines. You'd have considered that accessibility must be included. You know? It's not a feature, it's a responsibility. So, give me the cost for this responsibility." I would have said, "But don't just make it look like a feature and a best feature." Every improvement you make opens the door a little wider for someone else, and that small step can change a life. Start where you are and build with everyone in mind 'cause everyone is important. That's what I have to say. 

00:47:51 [Sam Evans]

I think if we could all follow that lead and guidance, the world would be a better place, Tope. [chuckles] So thank you all for joining us today. If you're listening or reading along, this is Sam Evans with IAAP, and this has been another episode of our United in Accessibility podcast. And Tope, thanks so much for joining us again, making time. Uh, again, congratulations on your Impact Award. Everything that you've done is impressive, and it's gonna change not just the, not just the work for the company, but for those that you work with as they learn how to incorporate accessibility as part of our business practice and not a feature but built in our responsibility. So, I hope everyone has, uh, has some, uh, opportunities to learn. Tope, we'll make sure that we have your blog in the information for the podcast. Thank you again. And for everyone else, we'll look forward to having you join us on our next episode. 

00:48:46 [Speaker]

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