Two years ago, I spent part of my summer visiting companies in Silicon Valley, California, learning about their initiatives in the world of accessibility. In this reflection, I’ll touch on the companies we visited, their advancements in the field, and how the experience shaped my views on accessibility, my own career, and the impacts of privilege in general.

Lighthouse for the Blind

Today we visited Lighthouse for the Blind, a national nonprofit that provides education, training, advocacy, and community for blind individuals in California and around the world. We got to sit down with users with visual impairments and ask them about their experiences. It’s one thing to learn about accessibility in class, and something else entirely to see how it actually affects people’s lives.

The people we talked to were all about our age – or even younger- which made their experiences even more relatable to me. All of a sudden, I was imagining myself in my daily scenarios not able to function how I normally do. One girl I talked to, named Chelsea, told me about how difficult it can be to order food at a restaurant. In San Francisco, some restaurants will have an “accessible” menu, where the dishes are translated into Braille. But often, there’s only one of these menus available. If she wants to eat out with other friends with visual impairments, they all have to share one menu. She showed me how she uses apps to combat this. She has apps that can visually translate written words into spoken words, so she can still access the menu.

Alcatraz Island

Learning about accessibility firsthand from users with disabilities changed everything about my day. The whole day, in the back of my head, I was questioning how my experience would be different if I had some form of disability. This was perhaps at its most evident on Alcatraz Island.

Alcatraz is one of San Francisco’s biggest tourist draws, and it really sells itself. Aside from being so prominently visible on the water, it has a monopoly over a section of the pier area, running boat tours out there. From the moment we arrived to line up, I started thinking about Chelsea. She uses a foldable stick to help navigate around public areas, but here, in a large and open space, with boundaries really only drawn by different lines of people, not physical barriers, she would have little to no guidance on where to go. How many physical spaces are designed to be completely reliant on sight to navigate? Before, I don’t think I would have ever noticed this. Now, it was all I could think about.

Once on the island, the tour is entirely self-guided with a headset. For those of us who aren’t visually impaired, it’s another thing we don’t notice, because it doesn’t interfere with our experience. But how would Chelsea experience it? With low staff numbers and no disclosure about their accessibility policy, it’s unlikely a staff member would be able to guide her physically throughout her tour. The audio track is designed to sync up with your expected walking pace, so if Chelsea fell behind the set timing, all of what she heard would be at the incorrect parts of the tour. Lastly, if Chelsea, and everyone else, is listening to this track through headphones, how does that change the accessibility landscape? Can you ask for help? For direction? If the audio track is taking up most people’s sense of hearing, how does that change the experience of differently-abled peoples?

Walmart

Walmart was probably the company everyone had least expected to be on our list of accessible visits. We typically think of the elite tech companies as leading the pack, but it was refreshing to see accessibility being taken seriously by different fields.

At Walmart, we were walked through different work areas and met with various teams tied to accessibility. What initially surprised me was how many teams were seen as part of the larger mission of accessibility – it wasn’t just a dedicated few working on this initiative, it was something the entire company was taking seriously.

I think one common theme in my own experience regarding accessibility is having to defend it against people who “don’t see the point”. Many times, the people who would be making that claim were some of the people who may have been placed on these auxiliary teams – not directly related to anything accessible, but still having the potential to be so. That’s why it was so great to see the effort being made by everyone. The entire company seemed to realize the importance of this.

Google

This is the big one. I think we were all expecting Google to be the accessibility giant of Silicon Valley, and we weren’t disappointed. With our entire day dedicated to exploring their various accessible technologies, it was a fantastic experience to learn about the cutting edge of the industry.

When they brought in their various techs, it was almost overwhelming. They’ve been working on various accessible solutions for years, and it shows. Among the high tech solutions was a unreleased Beta app from Google which could utilize the camera function to vocally identify an object. For example, using the app with an apple in front of the camera would result in a little robot voice reading off “Apple”. It’s very much still in Beta, but this could revolutionize everything for users with visual disabilities. It gives them possibly the most advanced visual identification system, short of a human aide.

One of my favorite techs from Google wasn’t as high tech as some of the others. A spoon, designed for people who suffer from tremors, was introduced. It worked to directly combat the tremors by adjusting the spoon in the opposite direction. If your tremor made your hand jerk up, the spoon would tilt down. The result of this was a spoonful of cereal remaining entirely intact throughout serious hand tremors. It’s not as revolutionary as the app, but it has a crucial purpose of giving people back to ability to feed themselves in a succinct and effective way.

Yahoo

Yahoo stood out to me because we got to meet with two teams: both Accessibility and UX Research. As you can imagine, there’s plenty of overlap between the two. However, as someone who’s keenly interested in UX research, it was my first ever opportunity to see how it functions in real life.

The standout of Yahoo was the age of their accessibility team. I think we often see accessibility being implemented almost as a band aid solution to larger issues at the company, or simply to generate positive PR for the brand. However, Yahoo has never used accessibility in that way. Their team was one of the oldest and most well established that we met, and they’ve been practicing for decades.

In fact, some of their members have directly been responsible for huge accessibly measures – implementing subtitles on streaming services, and pushing for audio descriptions on videos. Being able to see where these ideas formed, and talk to some of the people that helped create them, was unforgettable. These specific techs are also some of the ones that affect my daily life. I can’t remember the last time I watched a movie or TV show without subtitles. This is also a great example of how accessible techs can benefit everyone, even non-disabled peoples.

Apple

Let me start off by saying I find Apple terrifying. In a good way. We were let in by a guard, escorted to buildings via golf cart, and strictly allowed no pictures. The interior of the main building didn’t help with this image. The way I like to describe it my friends is “space hospital”. A giant chrome circle, with minimalist signage on each of the doors. When I first made this observation, I didn’t initially think of the accessibility concerns. However, imagine navigating this building with your eyes closed. You essentially are walking in one big circle, with no smaller, more distinct routes to memorize, feeling for the braille on every door sign. This entire trip has changed how I interpret things.

Apple worked a bit differently by showing us their accessibility measures. We got to meet firsthand with employees who worked on accessibility measures. The standout of this was Jordyn Castor, an MSU alumnus who is now Apple’s first and only blind engineer. Jordyn is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. I remember introducing myself and trying to draw a connection from the early computer science classes I had taken. Jordyn, however, was more interested in asking about MSU Ski Club, a non-academic organization notorious for doing far less skiing than drinking, which she had been a member of for years. She showed us photos of how they had figured out ways for her to ski, so she could still experience their infamous field trips. Besides Jordyn, there were many higher-ups that were mingling about. It was a little intimidating to talk to them, but at the same time, intriguing to see so many people involved in accessibility.

Also, the snacks were amazing. Dark chocolate tortes filled with raspberry puree and topped with edible gold?! I’m not sure if that’s grandiose or dystopian, but either way: Apple, if you’re hiring, I’m interested.

Reflection

I think the motif of my experience has been clear throughout my entries. Simply talking to people with disabilities fundamentally changes how you view your everyday experience. It makes you interested and invested in finding solutions. It makes you humanize people, not seeing them as just something to be accounted for. These were all things that I didn’t experience to the same depth before, which speaks to my privilege as an abled person. How many things have I taken for granted? Even worse, how many things have I thought didn’t need changing because they worked for me?

The changes haven’t just been personal. Professionally, they’ve also changed how I view UX research, and my work in general. There is no good UX without accessibility in mind. I think the main idea of UX has always been making experiences easier, but I often think that stops when the experience is easier for an abled person. Why stop there? Why not make the experience easier for everyone? I don’t think you could find a single designer who would proclaim only abled people should be able to use and enjoy their product. But I think you could find many designers who’s work made that a reality. We need to put more emphasis on teaching accessibility as part of a UX curriculum, and instituting it as part of the roles and responsibilities as a UX professional. We need to open up the conversation about accessibility, to help design catch up to the people using it.