Making New York’s Services Accessible by Design

In honor of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, this month we shift the conversation around accessibility from checklists to compliance deadlines to the heart of the matter: People. 

When a person with a disability can access information via a website or a digital application, it’s one more step toward creating a more inclusive state for all.

In this episode, we sit down with Michele Bruno from the New York State Office of Information Technology and Jeffrey Knaack from the New York State Digital Service to explore the human impact of accessible design, the shift from viewing accessibility as a "deadline" to seeing it as an "opportunity," and how New York is leading the charge by building accessibility into the very DNA of its digital infrastructure.

Whether you are a provider agency with a small budget or a curious advocate, this conversation offers a roadmap for making services truly accessible by design.

Featured Guests:

• Michelle Bruno, NYS Office of Information Technology
• Jeffrey Knaack, NYS Digital Service

Transcript

Erin Hogan (00:08):

Hello and welcome to the “Could This Happen in Your Program?” podcast, where we find collaborative solutions for protecting New Yorkers in care.

Conversations around accessibility often focus on checklists and compliance deadlines. Yet, at the heart of the matter is much simpler: people. When a person with a disability can access information on a website or digital application, it's just one more step toward creating a more inclusive state for all.

(00:33):

In this episode, we sit down with Michelle Bruno from the New York State Office of Information Technology and Jeff Knaack from the New York State Digital Service team to explore the human impact of accessible design, the shift from viewing accessibility as just a “deadline”, to see it as an “opportunity”, and how New York is leading the charge by building accessibility into the very DNA of its digital infrastructure.

Whether you're a provider with a small budget or a curious advocate, or even another state agency, this conversation offers a roadmap for making services truly accessible by design.

(01:06):

Okay. Well, welcome, Michelle and Jeff, thank you so much for joining us here today. So I'd love to start with just a little bit of background on the both of you. So, Michelle, would you like to go first?

Michelle Bruno (1:17):

Sure, yeah, thanks. So, I started a little over a year here at ITS. Before that, I was in the private sector, also doing accessibility work. And once Governor Hochul signed the New York Civil law, I knew that accessibility was going to become a bigger, more important thing here at New York State.

And so, I joined as, the, ITS Digital Accessibility Team Lead. And, we now have a team of eight, and we are working with the DCTs and the dedicated teams to understand a baseline of where they are with regards to digital accessibility, and meeting web content accessibility guidelines, which is part of our New York State Technology Law.

And so we're meeting them where they are. So we're doing, the common public facing workflows, if you will. And we're doing a full accessibility review. And then establishing communications with the teams to help them, carry the torch, if you will, to continue and consistently make, their web content accessible for all users.

Erin Hogan (02:36):

Great. Jeff?

Jeff Knaack (2:37):

I'm Jeff Knaack. I'm the Technical Solutions and Accessibility Engineering Director at the New York State Digital Service. The New York State Digital Service is part of the Office of General Services. If you know of the Federal Digital Service, we're kind of similar to that. We're a group of technologists, product managers, user experience designers, engineers who are working on improving the digital experience here in New York State for all New Yorkers.

My background, I sort of have a nontraditional path into web development and technology. My degrees are in History and American History. I've never taken a programing class or anything like it. But I always had an interest in technology and have been a web developer, for about 20 years now. As of tomorrow, I will have been at OGS for ten years in communications and digital roles.

Now, as part of the New York State Digital Service, some of the products that I work on extensively are NY.gov, the official website of the state of New York, as well as the governor's website. And part of our New York State Digital service experience that we provide to New York state agencies, is something called the Digital First Standards, and a portion of that is accessibility related.

We also do some accessibility engineering and consulting for- we work closely with our partners at ITS on various websites and applications doing accessibility reviews. Down into the code level of accessibility remediations. And then also, sort of general digital accessibility and disability advocacy on the fringes of all of that. So.

Erin Hogan (4:09):

Yeah, well, I've worked in the communication space for very long time, and I can tell you with certainty that almost none of the programmers came from a very traditional, I am a programmer, and this is the path I'm going to take. So, I think you're in good company there.

So, we're here today to talk about digital accessibility, and I think that term means different things to different people. So, I'm curious if you could give us your definition or even the state's definition of what digital accessibility means.

Michelle Bruno (4:36):

Sure. So, watching the trends of, to your point, what people think accessibility is. It used to be that people thought accessibility was like closed captions on audio and video content. Right? And then as we start to raise the awareness of what the full suite of digital accessibility encompasses and then trying to make that sort of bite sized chunks so that people in various roles can understand what that means. So that once we have the baseline of all that accessibility encompasses, breaking it down into small chunks, working through those chunks, and then moving on to the next level so that we can, consistently and continuously, demonstrate accessibility maturity.

And so, we're at the baseline now. But certainly, I think and I hope that folks, would better understand what accessibility is as they've been going through our test process and communicating with the teams and getting the engineers on the Findings Guidance meetings so that they can ask questions. And, well, I thought this… well, no, here's why... or the explain the user experience until the, the light bulb goes on. And then hopefully from that forward they expand their knowledge. And with all of our slew of resources across New York State now. The interesting thing is there's these pockets of accessibility all across. And I think of it like the New York State Symphony. So we have these pockets of accessibility and the music that we're going to make when we figure all of that out and where the gaps are, it's going to be a fantastic future for New York.

Erin Hogan (06:32):

That's a beautiful metaphor.

Jeff Knaack (6:34):

Yeah that’s great. It's interesting. Digital accessibility. Sometimes the terms are at an arm's length and difficult for people to kind of grasp. But, much like closed captioning on the technology side, or user experience or web development side of things, people would think, okay, well, we have blind users and we have users. That was kind of the only distinction that a lot of people made.

Erin Hogan (6:52):

Right.

Jeff Knaack (06:53):

When in reality, disability is a spectrum. And there's so much more to it than that. And when we bring other concepts into it, like assistive technology or any of the other pieces of what digital accessibility means, how disabled users actually use and interact with technology, it really opens up this really broad world.

But, digital accessibility is really an equity statement. It's about bringing equal access to people, where they are. As Michelle mentioned, like with all of the different, technologies that we present information to them with, whether that's an application, a website, something that's more physical and interactive, like a kiosk or anything else that falls under kind of the digital spectrum.

It can be overwhelming, but there's a lot of areas where there is really, really good work happening and has been happening for a while.

Michelle Bruno (7:36):

And so, as Global Accessibility Awareness Day. Right? We're going to be down in the concourse. And so we hope that the desktops that we have set up, folks can stop by and get a better understanding of some of the areas of accessibility that they may not otherwise be exposed to and have an opportunity to, ask questions and things and not be shy about what it what it means and try to experience, other users that we would never, ever think of unless, unless you start dealing with digital accessibility. And so it really, expands knowledge across the board.

Jeff Knaack (8:20):

Yeah. This was one area that really brought me into my journey into accessibility, was watching a user who was blind, who had lost vision later in life but used a screen reader, natively for years watching and listening to them use a screen reader on their device, the speed to which that they use that and then it read out information and seeing the frustrations and a lot of the frustrations with the same that, sighted users had. But you could see the barriers being put in front of them to being able to achieve that. And that experience was like, wow, I need to I need to research more about this. I need to understand how, how do these technologies work? How can we remove some of those barriers, whether it's at a programmatic level or like an awareness or a content level. So really, demonstrating for folks that, there's a lot of different ways that you can interact with technology is really important to, broadening their horizons to what accessibility means.

Michelle Bruno (09:13):

Yeah. And that's how we sort of break it down into those four user buckets, one of them being the screen reader users. Right? And also in that similar category as low vision. Sometimes you have to magnify the screen upwards of 400%. And what does that do to your page all of a sudden?

As well as colorblind users, we have colorblind folks on our staff, in fact, that until we had this group, this community, where you can't, you shouldn't feel slighted one way or the other about your abilities or lack thereof. And they've become very helpful in helping us, critique, content and colors and foreground and background colors.

And then the hearing-impaired users is the other sort of bucket that we try to think about, as well as those that can't use the mouse. Right? Mobility impairments and different types of input devices. As simple as, can you navigate with the tab key?

Erin Hogan (10:12):

Yeah.

Michelle Bruno (10:13):

So that's one of our favorite, especially for new folks in the accessibility arena, you don't have to know anything about assistive technology tools necessarily. You have one right available at your hands right now, and it’s using the tab key.

Erin Hogan (10:30):

Yeah, that’s a great…

Michelle Bruno (10:31):

And so can you navigate left to right, top to bottom. Make sure you can interact with all of the different buttons and links and things on a particular web page. It's a fantastic way to start.

Erin Hogan (10:41):

Yeah.

Michelle Bruno (10:42):

And sensing that frustration that Jeff was just talking about, you very quickly, the light bulb goes on.

Erin Hogan (10:49):

Yeah.

Michelle Bruno (10:50):

And that's kind of where it starts.

Erin Hogan (9:41):

I think I mentioned when we met in advance that, so, the Justice Center, hosts the TRAID program for New York State, the Technology-Related Assistance for Individuals with Disabilities. And it basically offers free temporary device loans to people in need of assistive technology to either live, work. Maybe they want to try a specific technology before they purchase it and make that investment. So, we've had folks on from the different TRAID centers across New York State, and they brought all of the super cool devices that I just think are awesome, including like these goggles that serve as a mouse so you can move a mouse with your eyes. But it really did open my eyes a lot to things that, I think we often think of accessibility digitally, like a checklist and compliance and even I fall victim to this a lot, too, when I'm going through. I'm like, did I meet this? Are the color standards correct? Are we meeting the contrast varieties? Are the headings appropriate? But, it should really be thinking about the human element and how it's being used. And if you are thinking about all the different use cases then you will hit those compliance check boxes.

Jeff Knaack (12:00):

That's why we do have the grounding and standards like the WCAG standards, web content accessibility guidelines, which help to guide us down all of those different paths to try and cover the spectrum of disability.

We can't always fix everything, right? For every user, 100% accessible is kind of a myth. And that's why there are some tools and things out there that will purport to tell you, okay, you're 100% accessible or you're fully accessible or fully conformant. And in reality, it’s a journey. It's a never ending process. But we can really improve, experience for users across that spectrum by hitting a lot of those, guidelines focusing on the core technology, focusing on the people aspect of it and how people actually interact and use that. And getting the feedback from the disability community is a huge portion of that as well.

Erin Hogan (12:45):

Yeah.

Michelle Bruno (12:47):

With the WCAG guidelines. So, they are guidelines, right? So, it's not prescriptive.

Erin Hogan (12:54):

Sure.

Michelle Bruno (12:55):

And so, they're working on version three, which remains to be seen how that's going to look or when that's going to happen. But what we have to go on right now to two, is what New York State laws, and the Information Technology policy we strive to meet the WCAG two too. And so how do you do that when there's no prescription. Right. It's what it is that you need to do, but not necessarily how.

Erin Hogan (13:21):

Right.

Michelle Bruno (13:22):

And so you have to think about it in the context of, your own sort of, silo of the work that you're doing, and then you pick the pieces of the guideline that make the most sense. And then that becomes, the how to do it to supplement the what. And so, it's really a challenge, with the WCAG and especially folks starting out, is trying to make that connection. And so what we try to do is break it down into the core principles, which is easy to remember: POUR.

Jeff Knaack (13:59):

I literally have it right here.

Michelle Bruno (14:01):

Perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.

Erin Hogan (14:07):

Okay. Alright, that's a great acronym. I like that.

Michelle Bruno (14:09):

Okay that helps, but now what does that mean? Right?

Erin Hogan (14:11):

Just add it to the list of acronyms...

Jeff Knaack (14:12):

Yeah.

Erin Hogan (14:13):

In our daily lives.

Michelle Bruno (14:15):

Yes, that’s what we’re famous for here. But helping again, break it down into manageable chunks, at least to start because we know it doesn't happen overnight. And we know it's a constant thing. It's never one and done.

Erin Hogan (14:27):

Right.

Michelle Bruno (14:28):

There's no such thing as 100% conformance. But all we can do is continually strive to just make it better. And it's really better for everybody, right?

Jeff Knaack (14:41):

Yeah. And a lot of those guidelines, there are many valid ways to meet them. And there's not necessarily one best way to do it. We try and cover the greatest number of user groups with the simplest possible method to achieve whatever that standard relates to. And part of that is the consolidated work that ITS is doing to push for the design system and some other things, to unify a lot of the technology approaches, so that we can all kind of present a very similar baseline for, for accessibility, as a piece of the process.

One thing that really gets left out a lot of the time is that accessibility doesn't always get brought in early on in the design phases, even in the ideation and decision phases about what you're going to build or who it's actually for. It's seen as that like compliance checklist at the end, like security or like something else.

We just check this box, okay? It's accessible at the end, but in reality it's far more expensive in terms of money, in terms of time, person hours, whatever it might be to remediate a problem at the end of the process than it is to include that in the phases at the very beginning, whatever it might be. Because there are considerations and decisions that could be made along the way, whether it's design or technology, that can enable it to be more accessible throughout that process.

Michelle Bruno (15:53):

And so part of our process is trying to help shift left the idea of instead of waiting like, we can come along and partner, with the dedicated teams to do remediation testing, but again, it's after the fact. And so we want to shift that left and start to think about accessibility in the design. Literally when you put pen to paper, to start sketching out things, if we have a better understanding of accessibility, we can start to, ideate accessibility in the design phase because 60% of accessibility issues are in the design phase.

Erin Hogan (16:29):

Yeah.

Jeff Knaack (16:29):

Yup.

Michelle Bruno (16:30):

Now granted, a lot of our transactional website applications are legacy, right?

Erin Hogan (16:35):

Yeah.

Michelle Bruno (16:36):

They weren't developed last year or the year before. And so, we're sort of playing catch up as best as we can. But modernization efforts, that all of the teams are working on, we're starting to see it happen more and more. And especially in procurement language now, we have the details around accessibility in procurement language as far as the vendor is responsible for doing their accessibility testing as they build out the products and then when it's ready for production, then we can come alongside and do sort of a final check, if you will, to make sure that all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed with regards to accessibility because we're the ones that are liable when it goes to production not the vendor. So we're starting to have deeper conversations around that too, which is going to be a huge help I think.

Erin Hogan (17:32):

So, as you mentioned, Michelle, it's, Global Accessibility Awareness Month is when this episode will air. And, I think Governor Hochul has been very progressive with her commitment to accessibility, not just in the digital landscape, but, elsewhere as well.

What do you think makes New York different in this space and unique in comparison to other states?

Michelle Bruno (17:56):

Oh, good question. I just happened to be on the NASCIO, the National Association of States, the Accessibility Committee meetings. And New York State, right now, has the largest accessibility team across the members…

Erin Hogan (18:14):

Wow, that’s really prominent, yeah.

Michelle Bruno (18:17):

…of NASCIO. And so, while they have a lot of public facing resources because they've been at it for so much longer, I feel like it's really a great collaborative because the resources that they may have or that they're looking for, like they look to New York to see, well, how did you do this? Or how are you doing this? Or my God, eight people like, how awesome must that be? Right. And it's just a lot of like, we've come a long way in a little time for New York State. But that perception, is we have we have a high bar and we stand by it.

Jeff Knaack (19:00):

And that the field is evolving too. I mean, accessibility has always been there as part of technology, but that accessibility engineering that the testing phases that all the pieces go into that are kind of valid career paths in either technology or communications, is kind of new as well. And the investment in people to do that work, is really critically important too. Because we have software that can help us do testing or help us with some of the remediations and people bring up AI and things a lot with that. And sure, it can help as an adjunct, but, in reality, we need people in the process.

Erin Hogan (19:30):

Right.

Jeff Knaack (19:31):

Same way that we need designers, we need developers, we need accessibility specialists at every level to be able to help inform agency strategy when it comes to accessibility, the technical strategy, any of the other pieces around digital accessibility.

It's really a career path. And even us, our team, the Digital Service, we're a very small team. But we recently were able to expand. And for the first time, I was able to hire an accessibility engineer for our team.

Erin Hogan (19:55):

Hooray!

Jeff Knaack (19:56):

We’re slowly making inroads on a lot of these areas.

Erin Hogan (20:02):

That's wonderful. Now, I've heard you both say, accessible design is usable design. And I think that's a really important quote to bring away from our discussion today. I think a lot of people think of accessibility, like I'm really panicked to comply with these guidelines, and I need to make sure I'm checking all these boxes. But, really it should be more, we are looking to improve the user experience for everyone, and that includes anyone who may interact with this digital storefront.

So what would you say, speak to that in terms of, how we can all kind of reframe our thinking around accessibility and less about just, again, checking those boxes and more around, really improving user experience because it should help everybody, not just those using assistive devices or who may have a disability.

Michelle Bruno (20:54):

Right. And it does. Right? And we've seen it. Think about filling out a form field when you're trying to redo your registration online. And the date of your birth is a specific format.

Erin Hogan (21:07):

Yeah.

Michelle Bruno (21:08):

And you put something in other than that specified format, you and I can see an error message pop up, but what about somebody that may not necessarily be, perfect vision. How is that? And so we start to think about the people because that's really what we're all about.

Erin Hogan (21:27):

Yeah.

Michelle Bruno (21:28):

And so accessibility is under human centered design. And we need to think about the people first. And what we found is that when you help folks understand the user experience, it tends to resonate, especially if they know of someone. And it's not just the disabilities, it's the temporary disabilities.

Erin Hogan (21:50):

Yeah, right.

Michelle Bruno (21:51):

Like, I break my arm and I can't use the mouse that I'm used to and so how do I, how am I going to navigate with the keyboard with just my left hand.

Erin Hogan (21:58):

Sure.

Michelle Bruno (22:00):

So, as we get older our eyesight. Right? And if we use small fonts or if we use, colors, text on a background color that doesn't meet the minimum contrast, which is the WCAG statement. But the bottom line is, if I can't see it, as we start to get older with our eyesight, we need to think about that too. And situational too. I always like to use the example of I'm on the train going down to the New York City office, and I'm supposed to be, watching these videos. And so I need the closed caption on there because you can't, the sound comes and goes or…

Erin Hogan (22:37):

Carries.

Michelle Bruno (22:39):

Or carries. And so while the importance of being able to enable closed captions, and that's just a temporary situation. And so, you think about all of the different ways that disability comes into play, being able to build better for everybody, again, it just makes a better user experience for everybody.

Erin Hogan (23:03):

It makes sense. Yeah.

Jeff Knaack (23:06):

A lot of times accessibility is kind of seen as this thing happening at the end of the process. It's a hassle. Here's some more standards we have to adhere to. It's going to limit our creative design. It's going to limit our technology options. When in reality, if you include it early in that process, you're really not limited. The prescriptions of the standards and other things don't prohibit us from using any particular method. It just means that we have to include everybody who's actually in our user base to do that.

Erin Hogan (23:31):

Yeah. And I think everybody probably out there who you speak to at least nowadays wants to create an experience that's accessible. I think there is a little bit of fear around, I'm not sure, I think it is. So, are there any tools out there, aside from the more prescriptive, procedural like the like WCAG and all the different standards out there, are there tools that the average user, even outside the state? I know, you all are excellent resources for all of us comms folks. But, are tools out there for anybody operating a website who wants to create a more accessible experience?

Jeff Knaack (24:11):

There's definitely some simple automated testing tools. The main caveat with any of those tools, whether they're AI driven or not, is that those things can really only test for about 30% of real barriers to access.

Erin Hogan (24:21):

Okay.

Jeff Knaack (24:24):

So. they can test for the things like color contrast or proper structure in some ways that have some like technology equivalent. But they don't have any context, they don't have any cognition, so they don't know if this thing is useful or not. So tools like WAVE, Deque has a tool called Axe, which is an auditing tool which allows you to inspect and see a report generated about your website. Microsoft has Accessibility Insights extension.

A lot of your other, going beyond websites into documents, Word and PowerPoint have built in now an accessibility checker. And then in PDFs…

Erin Hogan (24:58):

Yes, it's very helpful I’ve noticed.

Jeff Knaack (25:01):

It will make those suggestions like did you actually use bulleted lists and headings. You should use heading one, two and three.

Erin Hogan (25:07):

There's a lot of text on this slide.

Jeff Knaack (25:09):

Exactly. Those kind of suggestions about the actual structure of the thing that you're creating so that you're setting it up for success when it transitions to the next format or so that those different assistive technologies can see and interpret all the different pieces of that. For PDFs and documents, in Acrobat there's an accessibility checker.

There's some other free tools out there too. But, kind of to one of Michelle's earlier points, one of the best things that you can do as a user trying to think about interacting with technology in a way that is not your standard paradigm, like clicking with a mouse or using your hand, on a touch device, is to use your keyboard to navigate. Most devices that you could possibly have screen readers built into them. And a lot of times those are the screen readers that users actually do use. In Apple products, it's VoiceOver, Windows, there's NVDA, Jaws, Narrator. A lot of other ones that are available out there. Some of them have license fees, like Jaws, but, NVDA is a free one for all of our PC users. All Mac devices have VoiceOver built in, whether they're an iPhone or a tablet or a desktop.

So you can become familiar with these tools. There's lots of very good tutorials out there. Understanding and testing and using these tools and becoming familiar can start to, you can see those different, areas where barriers are presented to folks in using these things.

Michelle Bruno (26:31):

And those tools, by the way, that Jeff mentioned, other than Jaws, are all free, they're available on the web. You don't need a license. And I'm going to shift left here for a minute again. Because to start, if you're building something, if you're starting from the bottom, if you will, learn how to create it accessibly and then you don't even necessarily have to worry too much about the end point.

And so, to Jeff's point, there's a slew of resources out there. You want to be careful with them and that's why we talk about our SharePoint site so much because…

Jeff Knaack (27:18):

It’s a trusted resource.

Michelle Bruno (27:19):

What’s out there has been vetted and trusted, right. And we can support it. But, starting with, like, how do I create an accessible document? Well, what is the format? Okay. If it's Word, you start here and enable the accessibility widget as you go along that prompts you, to do as much as you can upfront with regards to accessibility. And then your testing is going to go, for the most part pretty quick with the automated tool.

And that 60, 70% that's required for manual is the user experience that we all are familiar with. And how does the thing that you just built work with just the keyboard navigation. And so I think the challenge is getting started. And that's why we're doing our very best to come alongside the teams to help them find out where do I start with this mound of information that I just learned about? And so, we break it up into the into actionable steps to help them move forward. And then ultimately, it's going to become part of what you do every day.

Erin Hogan (28:26):

Right. Right.

Jeff Knaack (28:27):

And if you're procuring a tool, like, even if you're not building something, if you're buying or using off the shelf software, begin to ask those questions of the vendor. So, do you have an accessibility conformance report? What is your accessibility status of this product? Because there might be assumptions around, okay, well, it's accessible or if it's on contract or something like does that mean it's accessible? And a lot of times, companies will have voluntary testing done. They'll have a conformance report ready, which shows you to what degree in general does this software meet some of those WCAG standards and other things. And including that now in procurement language is incredibly important for state agencies and even municipalities and local, and others, because lots of products are not accessible by default. Or rather, you might have to take some steps to make them more accessible by increasing color contrast or using proper headings or whatever it might be within the program or tool itself.

Michelle Bruno (29:24):

And so, when we think about those reports, it's not whether it's accessible or not. It's more about, people with perhaps this type of disability may have a challenge navigating this area because of… Right? And it's very defined. And I think a misperception about the VPATs and the ACRs is that well, if you have it, it means it's accessible. And that's not that's not necessarily accurate.

Now, there are some VPATs out there that does not support all the way down. And that's a red flag to be careful with.

Erin Hogan (30:06):

Right.

Michelle Bruno (30:07):

Like, what does this mean for our users. And do we want to proceed? But it's, again it's information that we take in and we do what we need to with it with regards to whatever it is that we're looking for from that vendor.

Erin Hogan (30:21):

Well, you've given a lot of great advice today. Are there any other tips for the good of the order you would share with our listeners today?

Jeff Knaack (30:31):

I would say one of the most important takeaways that you can have from this is trying to understand how disabled users actually interact with technology. That human element is so important. You can study the standards you can look at all the different tools, but really understanding how people interact with technology, you can see the barriers, you can see the frustrations. And the frustrations are very similar to frustrations we all have with technology. Whether it's that error message or a screen reloading in a way that is difficult or a form forgetting your information or something being slow or difficult to operate on a particular device.

These are kind of across the board barriers to users. So really, the more you understand how people use technology and what assistive technology is for folks, the more you can start to see where in my career, in my daily job, can I make some of those inroads and be the person who asks the question, say, is this accessible? Have we considered accessibility? In whatever way. And you don't have to be an expert to do that. A small amount of education and asking the right questions. You can start to learn all of the pieces and be the advocate, be the champion for accessibility in your organization.

Michelle Bruno (31:44):

And, knowing where to ask the questions is the other thing, right. We want to be careful, to a certain extent of what's out there on the web. But, to Jeff's point, ask questions and ask questions and keep asking questions because that's how we all learn.

Erin Hogan (32:00):

Right.

Michelle Bruno (32:01):

And accessibility is no different. And we do have office hours twice a month that you can just join and lurk and hear the conversations about what's going on with accessibility, right down into hearing from engineers about this challenge that they have, or a red light that went on for them about, oh my gosh, what about this? And their resolution and sharing the passion that they have. Like, I came across this and I fixed it by doing this and so F.Y.I everybody else. And so it really is sharing a community that you can feel free to ask those questions. And then together we elevate the accessibility so that symphony really starts to play some fine music.

Jeff Knaack (32:50):

Unknown

And there's a really vibrant community out there too, in accessibility. There's so many really good experts. So many very, very good articles, other resources for Global Accessibility Awareness Day. There's often lots of guest speakers and talks. Deque and others do conferences and presentations around that. It's a good sort of entry door to understanding what accessibility means for whatever it is you might work on.

Michelle Bruno (33:16)

Yeah, so find one thing that is most intriguing or most interesting or a family member, a friend, a partner that has some level and expand on it and learn a little bit about it. And you'll be amazed about how just the user experience and accessibility, it does not have a sexy, fun name to it, but it's just so important for everybody.

Jeff Knaack (33:43):

Absolutely.

Erin Hogan (33:44):

Well, thank you so much. I know I have my marching orders, I'm sure our listeners do as well. So I really appreciate it. And talking about this important topic. And yeah, we hope to have you back!

Michelle Bruno (33:54):

Our pleasure. Thanks so much.

Jeff Knaack (33:55):

Thank you so much.

Erin Hogan (33:56):

Thank you.