Maya Sellon Accessibility & Inclusive design specialist Design for everyone

What if accessibility wasn’t a hurdle at the finish line but the spark that makes products shine for everyone? We sit down with accessibility specialist Maya Selin to unpack how inclusive design moves from checklists to genuine human impact—and why that shift boosts creativity, market reach, and team morale.

Maya traces her path from early web days and brand governance to a people-first practice rooted in standards like WCAG and ISO, yet animated by real user insight. She explains how audits rise with new regulations such as the European Accessibility Act, but enforcement alone can’t replace empathy. The breakthrough comes when teams see that options beat perfection: strong structure, semantic HTML, clear labels and contrast form the base, then flexible controls, captions, and keyboard flows open doors for more users and more contexts.

We explore AI’s double edge. Tools like Be My Eyes with GPT can expand independence by describing scenes and guiding tasks, yet models also inherit bias, over-weight dominant languages, and sometimes hallucinate. Maya makes the case for resilient, multi-modal experiences that serve screen readers, magnifiers, voice, text, and keyboard alike—because accessibility that helps assistive tech also improves AI parsing and overall usability. Along the way, we talk culture change: moving accessibility from an afterthought to a shared habit across discovery, design, and engineering, with real users involved early and often.

If you build digital products, lead teams, or care about customer experience, you’ll find practical ways to embed inclusion from day one and avoid costly rework later. Come for the standards, stay for the joy: accessible products are not just compliant—they’re clearer, faster, and more humane. Enjoy the conversation, then subscribe, share with a teammate, and leave a review telling us one change you’ll ship this week to include more users.

Transcript

Warm Welcome And Maya’s Background

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Well, um my the amazing minus talent accessibility specialist extraordinaire and I know because I have worked with quite a few in my time as a yeah designer uh and I had the absolute gift of finding you in Shell. Um you're in a completely different area, and eventually got round to twisting other people's arms, and obviously because it was big corporate, they all thought they were twisting my arm. Um, but I not so secretly was thinking, yeah, we can have an accessibility specialist and wow, just wow. So, Maya, thank you so much for finding the time to do this. It is this is gonna be a joy. I know it is going to be a joy. So without further ado, would you just like to just introduce yourself? Who are you? What do you do?

Discovering Accessibility In Brand Governance

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Ooh, uh, that's such a loaded question. Um it feels like it. But no, thank you, thank you for the extremely warm welcome, Joel. Um it's it's also been a great honor and pleasure working with you. But um I I am Maya Selin, and I've been working in inclusive design and accessibility for I think a little over 15 years now. And um it is i it's it's what I do. I work with people. I would say it's I think there is a misperception that it is a very technical job, and it is and it can be, but at the end of the day, it always comes down to people. And that's one of the great challenges, but also the great joys of working in this field, I'd say. I think I managed to talk more about the job than me, but uh hopefully that'll do for now.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

No, that that's it's it's it's all good. Um so how how how did you get into inclusive design and accessibility? Because I think they're two very, very distinct things, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:41

I would say so. There is a a lot of synergy and um happily, but I think for me, both were a matter of kismet, happy coincidence, whatever you'd like to call it. Uh I was working in IT and uh just working on websites really back in the the good old days, um where we actually worked in HTML and and JavaScript and did all of that hand coding.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

And I had a colleague who said over in brand who said, Hey, we've got a job open up, and I think you'd be really good at this. So uh I I applied and went over to brand, and the role was it was explained to me as a governance role. So it was looking after brand standards from a digital perspective. And uh there they gave me this little Word document that had a checklist on it. So all of these things that I was supposed to be checking the assets against. And there was one section that really caught my attention that seemed to be a little bit more than you have to use these colors or you have to use this type of font. And when I dug into it, I found out this was accessibility. And then it was just indulging and finding out more and more about what that actually meant. And most importantly for me, why? Uh, because once I understood what it was there for, I just couldn't get enough of it. Um it's it's just and it makes so much business sense too, because it's helping people access the digital environments and having a good digital experience. So it's kind of like, well, why wouldn't you want to do that?

From Afterthought To Partnership

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Exactly. Exactly, exactly, exactly. It's it's it's often, I mean, everyone complains, all right, design gets bolted on at the end. It's just about that which you deliver. But then I think, and keep me honest here, um, I'm firmly for now of the view that accessibility and inclusive design specialists like you, you must feel even worse. Because then once all of the quote unquote design is done, then it's almost kind of, okay, right, yeah. Is it is this accessible? Maybe even if anyone is remotely interested in that. Is it is that a fair observation?

SPEAKER_01 5:26

There are certainly teams that work that way, uh, and it's not an unfamiliar experience. I had that constantly in the beginning. Uh, but I've also had the I can't think of the right word, but but I had the privilege of staying within an organization long enough and working people with people long enough to see that shift. Um but yes, it it's it was very much an afterthought or a, oh no, we want to go live. Oh, we have to submit to this person who's sitting over there somewhere in a little cave, hunched over with their checklist. Um it it's it was a lot of um understanding where the teams were, what they were trying to do and why, and working with them to make friends and help them see like I I'm not the one with the big stick over here, really. I'm I just want more people to be able to use what you've just spent, all of your time and effort building.

Maya’s Definition Of Inclusive Design

SPEAKER_02 6:35

So yeah, it it you know, when you say it like that, it makes so much sense. And I think the way that you framed it and and and clearly professionals who do what you do, um inclusive design is yeah. Do do you want to give us a just a a Maya definition of inclusive design?

SPEAKER_03 7:02

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Um to me inclusive well, I I'd say it's in the wording really. The the idea to to me, designers and developers, you craft experiences. Uh you you create experiences for everybody who use your digital products. And you know, it's it's like one of those sayings, even if you don't do something, it it's still an action. So uh being the inclusive design aspect of it is being mindful that we have humans, wonderful, diverse humans with various levels of needs and access and uh resources, and designing something and building something that takes that into consideration. So it's being mindful of your audiences and the technologies that they're using as well, and building something that is robust and flexible and usable. And I mean, that that's what you're doing as well. It's it's just for me broadening the definition of who you think your audience may be.

Laws, Standards And The Enforcement Gap

SPEAKER_02 8:20

Right. Well it sounds so easy, it sounds so simple, it sounds, yeah, but of course we do that. But unfortunately, we know, you know, that very often that's just not the case. And then um thankfully now you've got EU legislation, different variants of EU legislation. Um but that was really, really a long time coming. You have like, you know, standards, and and and maybe you can just briefly touch on those. Um uh ISO and WCAG and you know, all of that kind of stuff. But I hadn't really seen at a government level or any kind of centralized administrative level um where it was looking to mandate inclusivity and accessibility. Or have I just got that wrong? Is this is this something that's evolving, do you think? Or um is is the rest of the world actually catching up to this incredibly important and needed um thing. Am I making sense still or not?

SPEAKER_01 9:38

You are making sense, I think. You you'll be able to tell by my answer whether or not I I followed along with what you meant. Um I I would say you're not wrong, but it may be a bit more nuanced than that. Um I mean, if we look at the the UN's Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, uh, you had that that was a massive movement, and you had so many countries signing up very enthusiastically for it. And even before that, we had the Americans with Disabilities Act, that really powerful movement in the US, and the US making the that pledge that yes, it's important, we need to ensure access. Um, Canada has also been very strong. Australia, there are countries around the world that have really taken this as something that is incredibly important. I I think where we've seen things that could use a bit of a boost, to put it that way, is not necessarily in the fact that it's required or that there is a standard, because the standards have exist and evolved over the decades. It's much more in the monitoring and enforcing. And it it's also very much, and I really hope that this improves massively with the European Accessibility Act, is if I am an end user and I'm trying to use your product, what legal mechanisms or what, not even legal, but what mechanisms are in place for you to fix the issue so I can access, so I can purchase your product, I can buy that plane ticket and go on my trip, or whatever it may be. And that is what where I have seen the system, if I can call it that, not living up to its full potential.

Joy, Humanity And Team Culture

SPEAKER_02 11:44

What I mean, I've I've always admired folks who do what you do, and um rightly or wrongly, I've not seen folks who when they're speaking about inclusive design and accessibility um do it with as much joy as you do. Right? Thank you. Um and and that has always, always, always said to me when, you know, I'm speaking to someone about a potential opportunity or it at interview or I'm meeting some colleagues for the first time, whatever the discipline happens to be, um, you know if they're really if they're really, really, really bought into what it is that they are there to do. Right? And it's you you've you've all you know, since I've gotten to know you at the the big energy company, um you've always brought a humanity to it. You've always you live it. It's it's not just a series of words. It it really, really matters for you. I mean it shouldn't matter for everyone, but you know, it's what your day job kinda is, and but that is so evident, right? And I think that's one of the things that probably um make you as awesome as you are. Because everyone I know who've worked with you um within accessibility, or they've come to you, um, or the small team that we had, right? Um they they've always fed back that, yeah, we thought it was gonna be dull. We thought it was gonna be boring, we thought it was just gonna be, okay, the standards over there, and here's a big stick, and you better abide to these standards, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, but they came back with actually it wasn't like that. It wasn't like that at all. They're lovely people. I don't know why I didn't speak with them before. Um, I think that's incredibly important, but it is not the norm, especially, you know, in my experience. I've I've worked with other um inclusive design and accessibility people, and yeah. Sometimes it's it's really, really hard work, but you bring that humanity to it.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

And that's appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

That's really, really, really awesome.

Options Over Perfection And Real-World UX

SPEAKER_01 14:22

It wasn't always that way, Joel, I have to say. You know, uh when I started out, it was you you do the audit, you're doing the checklist, and the amount of work that you're trying to get through, you you do churn, there is a a real danger of turning into a robot where you're just going through and doing the audits and then passing it off to the teams and and praying that that they will remediate and and make the fixes that you're asking for. Uh, but what I discovered, and it's I also have to really thank the leaders that pushed me into UX and and said, like, you need to start looking at this, and we want you to learn more about this. Because when I started thinking of it as an experience that people were having, and I had more exposure to designers and really got to sit with the product teams, it was fun. And I'm just like, this is amazing. This is so much fun, because I'm not doing the hard work. Like you designers, you developers, you do the hard work. I do the fun bit, which is the brainstorming, which is defining the problem and helping you see there's not one way to fix this. Because I think that was one of the greatest gifts I got as feedback from someone who did user testing, someone who I would say um was a target user, right? So somebody who used assistive technology because they told me that you don't have to make this perfect. You just need to give me options, right? And as soon as I understood that there are so many ways to make something accessible, and it's really about that flexibility, about giving people the ability to customize so that it works with their tools and technologies, which really just means follow the standards, make sure you have the basics right, but then you can add all kinds of stuff on top of it. Then it was fun for me, but I think it also got fun for the designers and developers because um the more advanced they got, the more I was, you know, going like, I think we can make this just a little bit more fun. I think we can make this just a little bit sexier. Oh, and yeah, especially those types of people love that challenge and they really rise to it as well when you you lay it out and say, you've you're the experts here, you have all of the skills. I'm I'm just sitting here seeing what kind of amazing, gorgeous thing you're going to create. So I to me it's it's fun. It's fun, it's puzzle solving, it's problem solving, and I love that.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

No, that's it's it's so evident um in how you speak about this, um, the way you're gesticulating and just a big massive smile you've got on your face as well, um, which is it's just awesome. Uh I think it's so much more helpful when that level of empathy and engagement um comes naturally. It's not put on. Right. Um I'm a terrible actor, so no, but your your integrity um always shines through. It's always it's it's it's it's always there. Um and I for one am incredibly grateful for that, um, which is cool. You touched on assistive technology and you know the advancement, if you like, of different types of technology. So the big good or the big bad, um, depending upon people's perspectives. Artificial intelligence.

SPEAKER_03 18:25

Right? Um w where's your head with artificial intelligence right now?

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Um cautiously optimistic, I suppose. I see massive, wonderful things that AI has done. Um I think uh a brilliant example would be Be My Eyes, which was and is this really amazing company who has uh just this huge pool of volunteers who sign up to be eyes for people with visual impairment. So it's a service completely free for the end users, or someone with a visual impairment can sign up and say, Hey, I need someone to be my eyes for me. And you have volunteers who will then help. And you go onto the app and it connects you um in real time, or you can also record stuff, but it connects you and you can have somebody to say, like, help you pick out an outfit or or whatever the case may be. So beautiful, beautiful app. And they added AI to this, you know, a GPT to it. Um, and um that AI then enabled another level of uh just self-uh authority, I guess, because now you could use AI. You don't have to worry about troubling in air quotes uh a volunteer, but you can be more independent and use AI to help you see the buttons on your microwave or help you pick out the clothes because you know you bought that shirt that had the cat prints on it, but you don't know exactly where in your wardrobe it is. And it gives you that level of independence then, and in that type of way, where AI is enabling autonomy, it's enabling um you know independence, it's building up your self-esteem. It's beautiful and very magical experience. Uh, but we also see where AI hallucinates. And because of the way that um it tends to be trained, the quality of and the inclusiveness of its data on which it's being trained is incredibly important. Because if you don't ensure that that data has multiple perspectives, has um different ways of looking at things, you can accidentally marginalize people or minimize certain voices, uh, prioritize majority voice, etc. So it can be a bit of a slippery slope as well. But the potential is is pretty amazing.

Voice, Interfaces And Thinking Of Everyone

SPEAKER_02 21:23

No, it is pretty huge. I mean, I was doing some reading the other day, and I actually used different large language models. I interrogated them to basically say, well, how different are the outcomes that you provide to disparate geographical audiences? Right? And then is there an awesome machine learning framework that then And aggregates. And I was surprised, and then later on less surprised, when multiple responses from a collection of large language models all kind of said the same thing, which is they go by the volume.

SPEAKER_03 22:20

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

So you could be Western English speaking, you could be Southeast Asian, you could be South American, whatever that community is, so native English or Spanish or Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, whatever, um, or Mandarin or Cantonese. But it will always bias towards English.

SPEAKER_03 22:49

Because that's what it's been trained on, largely.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

And I just thought to myself, hmm, that's weird. That is weird. Because you can be someone who sat in, for the sake of argument, in India, and the math, thematics behind this artificial intelligence machine learning predominantly system is going to serve you up its aggregated outcome based upon English. Not based upon the context that you live, perhaps, and work in.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

So hopefully, hopefully that'll improve and it'll get a lot more contextualized. Um but that, yeah, that did surprise me a little bit. Um hopefully that made sense.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Uh it it does. It does. It it's one of those um I I I well insidious is the is the word that comes to mind, and I don't want to go like Terminator, end of days. But um it it's it it has the danger of quietly eroding and erasing certain perspectives or voices or even facts. And it it is something I don't think we need to be afraid of it, but I would like more people to be aware of it.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

Definitely. Definitely need to be a lot more cognizant with it. Definitely need to look beyond the convenience, I think. Yes. And and definitely I think there's a balance between challenge and experiment more. But it's great that I think from an accessibility perspective um there are already some really, really cool tools uh that make people smile. Make people think, well, this is really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

And I will be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

It's opening up new worlds.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

Sorry?

First Principles And WCAG Basics

SPEAKER_01 25:12

It's it's opening up new worlds, new experiences that people I think didn't dream of before. So the the potential is is pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

It is, it is very, very awesome. But me being me, I'm just kind of like, yeah, I'll take the awesome. As long as you've got a healthy governance wrapper around there, as long as we're mindful. Um, yeah, it's great. It it's such an exciting time. And I think for design, if we just speak about that as a group, it's incredibly exciting. Yeah. It is. Um, and then you break that down, and then you have the inclusive design, the accessibility aspect to that as well. There's a lot of talk right now about, yeah, well, we can just bake all of these standards in. And I'm thinking, well, on paper that sounds great. Right? Um who's validating that? Are we just gonna bake it in because we've ingested all of these standards and, you know, we've tokenized them, for example. Yeah. And are we just gonna release products and make this massive assumption that it's all gonna do it for us? Um, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

I hope not, because I mean this has been a truth ever since I was introduced to accessibility, and I dare say I expect it to remain a truth, even if AI is now doing the checking. But you can have something that is accessible and absolute nightmare to use. So I I don't see a world at the moment where a human who is actually looking at it and trying to use it is not an important part of the process. Um and, you know, uh I was reading an article the other day where it was talking about AI optimization and how this was brilliant for accessibility because AI follows the accessibility tree. So if you follow those standards and you have created something that is accessible and has the headings and the labor, labels, and all of that wonderful code structure, AI loves it, it can access it. That is helpful. Um but it was interesting to me that I know that the article is written with a clear focus on promoting accessibility from that AI optimization perspective. And it was talking about how the interfaces were changing and people were going much more towards um chat and and all of this. And it it it just made me wonder, okay, but if we're going purely to voice interfaces, what if I can't hear you?

SPEAKER_03 28:15

Uh-huh.

Childhood Curiosity And Fearless Experimenting

SPEAKER_01 28:17

So um it it it just so I I know I I can be the wet blanket in the room a lot of the time, but it's always remembering you have to come back and think about all of the people in the room or the people who aren't in the room. And I I I really see that as a very big part of what I do. It it's trying to think about different types of people and different types of tech that are accessing this. And um but that's also what the standards are so brilliant at. That's that's why WCEG has its four principles and it breaks it down and it helps you, it gives you that framework and structure to say think about all of these aspects. It's not gonna be perfect, but it'll be pretty flexible, and a lot of people will be able to use what you're doing. So it still comes back to the basics, I think.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

Stuff, you know, it it it really half the time, definitely for me, because I was so lazy academically, it's not funny. Um you just kind of go with, you go with, you go with, you go with, and you don't I never really appreciated where fundamental standards, first principles, you know, have got to be so right. Exactly, exactly that. And then over a period of time, you kind of revisit them either proactively or by consequence, and suddenly it smacks you around the face, and you kind of go, You guys really thought about this. This makes so much sense. Um you know, and for me it was why the hell didn't you pay attention, you bonehead? Um but anyway, that's cool. That's really, really cool. So, artificial intelligence, yay, big thumbs up. It's doing an awful lot of good stuff. We need to be mindful, though. We need to make sure that humans, number one, are in control. Right?

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

I I mean, I think the basic thing is um just remember that it's humans that created this in the first place. So our lenses, our biases, they're all baked in there as well. I think as long as you walk in with open eyes and assess things and don't expect everything that there is no magic bullet. It just, I'm sorry, it still doesn't exist. As long as you don't believe that it does, you'll do a pretty good job.

SPEAKER_03 31:14

Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So you got into, you know, as as for most folks who I've had the absolute joy to speak with. It wasn't a linear journey, right? You kind of started over there and bounced around a couple of places and then suddenly, hmm, this could really be my space. And now you own that space, right? Um, and it's great. But if I can take you all the way back, what were you doing like when you were a when you were a kid? What did you enjoy like playing with? And my standard question is, you know, when you were a rug rat, what were you up to?

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Oh, all kinds of trouble, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 32:07

Um standard answer, good.

Speed, Shortcuts And Learning To Learn

SPEAKER_01 32:09

Yeah, I I I had a very active imagination. I loved I was constantly narrating my own little space operas and um fantasy worlds and everything, because I'm I'm a big sci-fi geek. I got into sci-fi at a very young age, and we also had a library right across the street. So uh I would go to the library and come back with five or six books. I read three books at a time. It was just like this room had this book, that room had that book. So, you know, I was also reading. Um, and all of these fantasies and uh future and tech from you know the big sci-fi masters were filling my head from a very young age. And uh yeah, I I spent most of my time outside uh playing in the mud, climbing in trees, uh living out all of these adventure cycles on off-world and exploring galaxies and and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

Um and I think also You lived the life of a trekkie.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

I really wanted to, yes. In my mind, and still Starfleet, yes, if you're if you're looking for recruits, I'm there. Oh I I don't know if I could think of a better job than exploring new worlds and new civilizations. That sounds fascinating to me.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

See, I I can I can imagine, visualize Trekkies, right? If anyone's even listening to these things, trekkies out there going, Yes! Yes, we're everywhere, it's awesome. No, no, no, it's it's it's amazing. So that imagination, that um immersiveness of it, it wasn't just sat in front of a screen watching Captain Kirk and you know Spock and everybody else. You were actually playing out different scenes in real time, in your own backyard, in the mud, as you say, um, but fueled also by reading.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

Very much, very much so. I had you know, the shoulders of giants, uh like I said, Asimov and Heinlein, and just there are tons more, but those are probably my top two. I just devoured their writing and uh it it helped me dream.

SPEAKER_03 35:04

It gave me wonderful dreams. Awesome. That's I think very What am I gonna where am I going?

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Being a kid again, I'm so glad that, you know, my other half says to me, Oh god, you're such a child. Right? When I'm you know, geeking out about something and getting really excited about something, and that inner child just yeah, it's it's not about escaping. He's like, Yeah, I'm here. Yep, this is me. I'm back in that zone.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

And I think that's really, really important. There's so much shit around, so much ambiguity around, and leaning into that inner child, that innocence, that abandonment, imagination. Um, it's incredibly important.

The Facilitator Role And Lived Expertise

SPEAKER_00 36:12

I I think there's a lot of uh just very graceful strength as well.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Because that's beautiful. Kids are fearless, you know? Oh, they're fearless.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

I've not heard that. Graceful strength.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

I don't know. Well, I d I was grasping for words, but it it's it's good words. They they don't accept no, they they fall over. I mean, I still remember I guess you had those in the UK as well, right? Those those little uh they even made a movie about it, but it was uh those little toy wagons, uh it was like the Flyer 100 or something. It was a little red toy wagon, and you didn't have a wheel, you had this handle, so it was a bar with like a little grip on the end that you used to steer.

SPEAKER_03 37:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

My mom lived at the top of a very, very big hill. And um she had a very steep driveway.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

So where was this geographically?

Where Accessibility Work Is Heading

SPEAKER_01 37:20

This is in North Carolina, North Carolina, okay. In the US, and um in Jacksonville. And uh yeah, you're I don't know, you're a kid and you're thinking, okay, I I I think I can steer this thing. Um, because we had a sidewalk in front of the house as well. So it was one of these ideas where it's like, okay, I'm gonna ride down the driveway and I'm gonna be able to make that turn down the sidewalk and ride all the way down the street to the end and somehow miraculously stop before I shoot out into the street. Child logic. Um it was one of those where it was just uh it was almost it is slow motion, right? When you're going down the hill, picking up speed. Luckily for me, my mom did not see because I probably wouldn't survive this incident uh experiment. Let's say it was an experiment, if if she had seen it. But picking up speed, going down the hill and going, hmm, okay, okay, I can do this. I can time this perfectly so I can make a very graceful turn. Uh no, no, not really. Um physics where your your wheel just turns and then the whole thing tips over, so you go flying through the air. I mean, I didn't land in the street or anything like that. And the wagon was also in peace, but um, you know, it's laughing after that when your clothes are all ripped up and the only thing you're thinking is like, mom's gonna be so mad because I just ruined my clothes. Um but completely fearless and thinking, okay, what could I do next? What can I change next time so that this would work? And it's that type of strength where I I I think that's also part of embracing your inner child and and not forgetting you you have that, you have that power. It's really easy to forget when you get older and you worry about, oh, this they're gonna laugh or they're gonna say something.

SPEAKER_02 39:29

And so many things, so many things, so many examples. Um Wow. When I when I I mean I write a lot more now and because I've got the time and I make time. But I don't start with Chat GPT, I don't start with a large language model. I've got to get my much in the same way that I compose music. Improv. Get these ideas down. Right? And but what I'm seeing with with other folks, and particularly um those who are much younger than me, right? Uh they'll start with large language model. And and they'll they'll look for that validation instantly. Right? This this there's almost kind of a experiment. Why would I want to experiment? I want I need to get to an outcome. And I need to have confidence in that outcome. And I think inherently it's about confidence. Right?

SPEAKER_03 40:35

I think you're right.

SPEAKER_02 40:37

I think um Am I confident enough to actually get up and just write something or play something or whatever it is without seeking some kind of validation, and even if it's from, I don't know, the AI. Hmm. Is is is that kind of yeah. I need to feel safe. And then you take the whole social media thing into that as okay, well, you know, I don't want to offend anyone, number one, and I don't want to um yeah, just have people look at me and judge me.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

That that's still terrifying to me. I I try not to think about that. Um, but I also when you were saying that, I also wonder if it's a question of speed. Because the world seems to be moving so much faster now than it did when I was little.

Visibility, Embedding Access Across CX

SPEAKER_02 41:37

Yeah, well, it's it is the it's the shiny Olympics, but not every four years. It's every day, right? How quickly can I get to shiny? Right? How how quickly can I get to that outcome? And forgetting about the experimentation, forgetting about the wagon and going down the hill and you know, ripping your clothes and and getting scars on your knees and whatever else. It's it's just kind of yeah, I want to bypass all of that. I just want to get to the outcome. Thank you very much. The opportunity to learn and enjoy that learning, regardless of yeah, whether you're gonna get, you know, I've spoken about this before in other episodes, scar tissue. The accumulation of scar tissue is so important. That learning by doing that, you know. I'm not a big advocate of, you know, fail fast because that came out and everyone was just like, yeah, I'm failing. Look at me, this is great. I'm failing all over the place. Yay! Yay me. Yeah, do it, but you gotta learn as well, right? Stop doing it. That doesn't work. Right?

SPEAKER_03 42:54

Um, fail less. Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 42:58

It's not about the shortcut.

SPEAKER_03 42:59

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 43:02

How does that I've seen it myself, but you know, do you do you still see that um in the world of inclusive design and accessibility?

SPEAKER_01 43:15

Seeking shortcuts. I uh I I do and I don't blame people for it, but even what you mentioned where it's you know baking in those fundamentals or and well, just get AI to do it. It's that type of thinking. Um I I think there is uh a lot of value in having AI uh or or reaching for tooling, going for efficiencies and and things of that nature. But uh I I completely agree with you. In that if you haven't gone through the learning process and I I don't I I've always loved learning, so I'm I'm struggling a little bit, but as you go through and you learn, you're integrating things. Like when you really when you really learn stuff, you integrate. And it's that integration that uh I find amazing and wonderful also in interacting with people, because the way, the different ways that people see the exact same scene or a situation or a product always reminds me that there is something left to be learned, a different way to look at something, something that I might have overlooked or not considered before. And when you integrate all of these things, you make something that's just so much bigger and more robust and interesting than if you just stick with the basics of. I mean, you know, it's like if you show up with a your Lego kit and you've got three bricks, and then somebody shows up and and they have another two bricks that you've never seen before. And so, you know, and then all of a sudden you're building something you never could have built with just your three, or at least it would look different.

Working Yourself Out Of A Job

SPEAKER_02 45:24

Yeah, I mean, there's there's a lot to be said about, you know, I can't remember the technical thing, but you know, scarcity. When I grew up, I mean, we had NAF4. Um and it literally was, you know, three, four Lego bricks. But then you had to think really, really, you're just pleased that you had three Lego bricks, right? I've got some Lego. Good, yay! Um, but then yeah, how can I transpose in real time and manipulate just those three and come up with so many different options, different pieces, and that again was fueled by imagination. So go back to your examples, you know, you you had access to all of this reading material, and then you'd play all of this out, right? Uh, and combine that with, you know, the curse that is Star Trek. I'm saying that tongue in cheek, right? Because once that's bitten you, right, that's it. I mean, no one's half a trekkie, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:26

Well, you know, you keep going, I'm gonna pull out my Star Trek Combat, so right?

SPEAKER_02 46:32

Um yeah, you're either full on Treky or you're not, right? That's that's my point. Um, but this whole imagination, this whole willingness to play, to experiment, to find that joy. Um, let's try this shit out, right? That's just I don't know. It's it's it's brilliant. It's it's brilliant. And I think the stuff that inclusive designers and accessibility specialists like you, right, because you're not all the same. Trust me, you're not. You bring so much of yourself to that space.

SPEAKER_03 47:21

And I think that is fundamental to yeah, separating the good folks and the folks you need to get better.

SPEAKER_02 47:36

And and for me, I mean, hands down, and I'm very, very pleased to be able to say that I've had the opportunity to have you around and and then point people in your direction with the utmost confidence. I've never ever had to sit back and think, okay, hmm, should I send them to my um hmm? No, never, not a once. Thank you, Joel. You you just own. You just own. Um So that's fantastic. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 48:16

I appreciate that. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 48:19

It's all all good stuff. It's all good stuff. What's what's on the horizon then for you? I mean um where where do you think you might be going, like, at some point in the future, career-wise? How do you see what it is that you found is your space and how it might be evolving? Is that something that you've kind of excuse me, thought, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:48

It's heading over there. Has it happened yet?

What’s Next And How To Reach Maya

SPEAKER_01 48:53

Well, it it happened somewhat. I mean, when EAA came out, uh I was pretty sure that the industry was going to see an absolute surge in requests for audits and people who could run audits. And and that's what I've seen. Um I I think it's certain things are predictable, you know, in embedding AI, um, empowering those automated tools with AI to run the audits. Also, you would have to see that coming if you're in the field. I'm I'm sure everybody saw it. Um where it's going next um remains a little bit to be seen. Um and where I'm going in in some ways, I'm happy to say in in some ways um it's it's a little bit troubling because I don't know. I don't know where where I'm headed or or where I'm going, which also makes me laugh because I I just doubled down in this and finished my master's in assistive tech and human services. And but right now, uh I'm I'm experimenting. I I feel like I've gone in a very good way a little bit back to my childhood. You know, and I'm exploring different things and seeing if you know the the stories I used to say to myself where it's like I can't draw or I'm not an artist, if I can maybe turn that around and say, well, actually, you know what? Maybe I am. Maybe I I am a writer or an artist or a drummer or whatever I I want to explore. Um and I will see. I mean, the the one thing I do know is that I like working with people. And nothing brings me as much joy as when somebody says, Hey, can I just bounce something off of you? Or I have a question about this. And oh, I I love brainstorming with people, and I love discussing aspects of assistive tech or inclusivity or or things like that. It's always a learning for me. And so I always get so much out of it.

SPEAKER_02 51:21

But you're right about it too, right? I mean, you share your knowledge. I never used to. I was just kind of like, yeah, I'm busy working. Now I've started to write more, and there's it's so cool. I get a lot out of it, and people, you know, like you're saying, we're human beings. We do stuff, we share stuff. Sometimes people come back and they say, Whoa, that was cool. Right? And then you take that conversation or that writing, that article, um, in a completely different direction. Right? Because you're then collaborating. You're still experimenting, but you're collaborating. And that's an absolute joy. Right. No surprise to me that that's something that you know you love to do.

SPEAKER_03 52:12

Um and you the way that you write as well.

SPEAKER_02 52:19

Pun totally intended. It's so accessible. Right? Um, you it's it's I'm reading it and I'm thinking, uh-huh. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 52:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:30

Duh. Um you're taking all of the jargon-esque out of it. You you you're you're making it just like, you know, doofus is like me can, yeah, I'm learning this. Actually, yeah, that's super cool. So you've got all of these things that you that you're doing and have done, right? And I think you're absolutely right. Um, but it will probably expand even more. So I think the auditing, right? That's a no-brainer. Okay, we got this thing accessibility, da-da-da-da-da. We've now got some standards um where governing bodies are saying, yes, you have to be compliant, unless, you know, and if you're not, there is a financial consequence. Um, so there's that work, but I think folks like you really need more visibility. Right? Because it's not just something to be done. And this is the biggest uh learning that I got um with working with you and having you in our you know leadership team. Um, okay, Joel, yeah. No, we're not gonna be doing this right at the end. This happens at the beginning, this happens all the way through the middle, and then also, yeah, it also happens at the end, and then we've got all of these loops in between, all of it. And you know, if I put that into a CX lens, awareness, yeah, accessibility. How do you go from awareness into accessibility?

SPEAKER_03 54:05

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's everywhere. It is. It is.

SPEAKER_01 54:14

And it's it's not a specialist role, because uh, I mean, I I said I've said this for well over ten years. Like I my job is to work myself out of a job. Right? Because uh to like I said before, I'm not really doing well, at the risk of never getting a job again, but I am not doing anything. I'm working with people who do the hard work uh or putting you in touch with users who use assistive technology. I mean, they're the experts, they're the ones who go across and use all of the websites and all of the software, and they have so many insights into what are amazing experiences and what are god-awful experiences for them. And all I'm doing is saying, like, hey, Joel, do you know my friend Rob? He actually uses a screen magnifier and he does this and he uses voiceover and he likes audio descriptions. And um it it's making those connections or or even just saying, Have you ever heard of Tommy Edison? Do you know that he used to use Instagram way back in the days? And by the way, he was born blind, and you're just like, wait, what?

SPEAKER_02 55:34

And so it's Yeah, but this is this is this is you are describing verbatim for me, okay? The exact reason why folks like you are invaluable. Right, and I'll tell you for why. Because folks like you are facilitators, and in order to be a facilitator, you have to know your shit inside out. Because otherwise, when people come and they have a question, how the hell are you gonna know what to share with them, which direction to to point them into, unless you know your business.

SPEAKER_03 56:20

I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 56:22

You clearly know your business. And and whether it's accessibility, whether it's whatever the hell I'm supposed to be doing these days, whether it's, you know, some newfangled technology paradigm. We need human beings, and we need human beings who are facilitators, those who have a higher level of appreciation and understanding of those specialisms so that they are available and they can respond and they can point in the right direction.

SPEAKER_03 57:03

Um that's you. I'll take it. I like it. That is you. Awesome stuff.

SPEAKER_02 57:12

Awesome stuff. So is there like we're we're approaching the hour, and it's this has just been a joy. I mean, I I always love speaking with you anyway. I miss not being able to yeah, just punch up on teams. Maya, where are you? Can we talk? I really, really do. Um so this has been an absolute joy.

SPEAKER_00 57:39

Um likewise. And hey, I'm I'm still here, so no, I know, but you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 57:46

You know what I mean. Um, what's next for you, right? I mean, where can people find out about you? How do they contact you? Um, you know, just just just get to benefit from the awesome work that you do.

SPEAKER_01 58:07

Well, you can find me on LinkedIn. So just MayaSelen. Uh, I have a website as well, myaselen.com. And I've I've had people reach out and I've I've forged new friendships, you know. If if you want to talk about Star Trek, if it's Star Trek Next Gen, you know, I'm your gal, uh come talk to me. Or um, yeah, you you just want to shoot the breeze about uh, I don't know, travel or accessibility, or you've got a question, by all means, yeah, please reach out and and say hello.

SPEAKER_02 58:47

So on LinkedIn, myassellen.com, um, and enter the world of awesomeness. My this is Nakazel Ray, this has been amazing.

Closing Reflections And Sign-Off

SPEAKER_01 58:57

Um I've really enjoyed it. The hour flipped by. It just did.