Accessiversity Featured in Wareologie Interview Series

Last week I was invited to join Gina Adams, Founder of Wareologie and inventor of Buttons 2 Button magnetic adapters for another Facebook livestream installment in their weekly interview series that showcases innovative solutions providers and technologies focused on improving the lives of people with disabilities. Leading by example, Wareologie is themselves one of these innovative solutions providers who’s mission is to empower people with disabilities to lead more independent lives. The company launched with Buttons 2 Button magnetic adaptors to make buttoning and unbuttoning easy. To learn more about Wareologie and Buttons 2 Button magnetic adapters, visit buttonstobutton.com and follow them on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

See full interview at the YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/CAlLWoIu_fo

See below for a full transcript of our Q&A:

Gina Adams: Hello, I’m Gina Adams and I’m thrilled to have with us today Chris Knapp. He is CEO of Accessiversity Labs and Managing Member of Knapp Strategic. He’s also the author of Tales of the Reluctant Blind, and we’re thrilled to have Chris here today to share with us the importance of accessibility and usability, and how Accessiversity Labs is designed to help companies ensure that, whether it’s their website, software, mobile apps, or even just their business process, is accessible and user friendly for people with disabilities. Chris, thank you for joining us, how are you?

Chris Knapp: I’m doing excellent, how about yourself?

GA: Fantastic, thank you. Now I can see you. Again, I’m Gina Adams, Founder of Wareologie. We design accessories to help people with physical challenges restore levels of independence and empower people to look and feel their best. And we have been reaching out to professionals from all different spectrums of the work environment to learn more about tools and tricks and technology that people rely on to really help them thrive. And it seemed like such a perfect fit to invite you on, because, really, as we know more than ever, our computers are the life and  blood of so many companies right now, as we battle Covid-19 and we’re working from home. And so it’s really exciting to have you on today to share with us, you know. How first of all did you develop Accessiversity Labs, and what inspired you to understand that this is a pretty big problem, and come up with this brilliant solution?

CK: Yeah, so, I myself am an individual with a disability. I acquired late onset blindness in my early twenties as a result of an autoimmune disorder that affected the vascular systems in my body. So, in my case, it really attacked the retinas in my eyes, and so after several recurrent episodes of vasculitis, and multiple different retinal detachments, and surgeries and procedures, I ended up with a prosthetic left eye and what ended up being 8/200 vision in the lower periphery of my right eye. So I have a little bit of usable vision, but it’s kind of down in the periphery so I don’t have any fine vision, in terms of being able to read print, recognize faces or drive an automobile. So, starting at age twenty-two, as I started going back to school and all throughout the pursuit of my undergraduate studies at Michigan State University, and then after graduating college, and all throughout my 15+ year career in workforce development, I’ve had to really rely on assistive technology to be able to locate information, effectively communicate with others, and basically, just compete on the same level, or even exceed my non-disabled, visual peers. So assistive technology is something that I’ve used throughout my career, I use on a daily basis, whether it’s using my lap-top and the JAWS screen reader that I have on my lap-top, or I use the iPhone for my phone which has built-in accessibility features with the voiceover feature. And then, you know, after leaving my last position with the State of Michigan, I started up a consulting business, Knapp Strategic Projects & Consulting, and was just doing a variety of different consulting work. And then we had been involved with  several projects that serve individuals with disabilities and was meeting with a local software developer and talking about trying to help provide some job shadow opportunities for some of these individuals that we were working with over at MSU. And he just mentioned that they occasionally get work to do accessibility testing for some of their clients. So, as we were kind of talking that out and kind of fleshing out the concept, and he was talking more and more about what would be involved with doing that accessibility testing, and I just thought as someone who has used those assistive technologies for my entire adult life that, you know, I would really get something out of going through and doing that sort of testing because it would really help me to understand the underlying technologies and also help me to be more proficient at using these tools. So that was kind of the original reason why we, kind of, started Accessiversity Labs and coined the term Accessiversity cause we want it to be both an accessibility and usability testing and learning lab. And our goal, long-term goal is to actually still have a physical lab presence, whether that’s physical, or virtual, or some hybrid where we actually bring individuals with disabilities through a program where we can actually work them up through a progression of different levels of training and working on progressively more complex client work, to eventually get them to a point we could maybe start to develop them as entry level Quality Assurance Analysts and actually get them placed with some of the local technology companies.

GA: So, I’m sorry to interrupt. I do want to just…first of all thank you for sharing the origins of your disability because I didn’t realize that, you know, how that occurred, that it really was a result of, um, can you just go back for a second? First of all, can you tilt your screen just a little bit further down so we can see your cute face?

CK: Sure.

GA: Thank you, that’s perfect.

CK: Sorry about that.

GA: No, that’s perfect, because we want to see your face. And so, I just want to back up for a quick second, and I know that you were really active as a young kid, you were involved in sports, so, just share with us a little bit again, cause there was a lot of information, before we jump into Accessiversity Labs and how amazing that is, first, could you share what year that was when you first started having symptoms?

CK: Sure, yeah, it would have been in 1992 or 93, so I would have been twenty, twenty-one years old when I was first having those symptoms. And the way that it affected me, it actually presented in the left eye first and I had several issues with my left eye, where I would have these bouts of vasculitis and from time to time I would even lose, I’d get blurred vision or lose vision altogether. And it ended up that things kind of ran its course in my left eye, we did everything we could to try to save that eye and unfortunately it got to a point where I wasn’t getting any sort of light sensitivity back, I was experiencing a lot of pain and it just, you know, it wasn’t worth, you know, holding on and so we decided to enucleate my left eye, and I had a prosthetic left eye, and then there was a period of about three or four months where I didn’t have any occurrence in the right eye but at the same time no one could really tell me, you know, what was causing all of this, so we were kind of monitoring it pretty closely. And then, one night I went to bed, I didn’t feel right, I could just tell that something wasn’t , just wasn’t right. And I woke up in the middle of the night and I looked over to the window to see if I could see the outline of the blinds in the window, and I could tell part of it was missing, so I clicked on the light and my eyesight was just slowly , just like a curtain was just going across my field of vision, and what I was experiencing was an exudative detachment where fluid was bubbling up behind the retina. And when that happened, I was completely blind for a couple of weeks, and wasn't sure I was going to get any sort of usable vision back, but fortunately I did get a little bit of that usable vision down in the lower periphery of that eye. And my medical team , the doctors all were, you know, really good at thinking outside of the box and that’s how they diagnosed this as this autoimmune disorder, even though I wasn’t showing all of the symptoms, they said, “well let’s, you know, Let’s act as if it is this, and we’ll treat it as that and see if you respond” and I did, so I’ve been pretty fortunate that way.

GA: And, yeah, wow, how absolutely frightening and again, I didn’t know that autoimmune disorders, you know, they affect people, differently, just how all disabilities, you know, are unique in that regard, and so, thank you for clarifying that and sharing that frightening time in your life. I would imagine there was a lot…you were…you had graduated from Michigan State? Which happens to be my alma mater as well, so, I was there just maybe a couple of years after you. Had you graduated at that point then?

CK: No, no actually I was, well I had aspirations of becoming an architect and I was taking some classes at Lansing Community College and I was, you know, very creative, very artistic when I was younger. And I was actually involved with a project to help bring minor league baseball to the City of Lansing and I was part of the Blue-Ribbon Committee for Minor League Baseball and served on the Design sub-committee and actually drew some of the conceptual site design plans when we were trying to recruit the team to Lansing. And so I was, you know, kind of riding high on cloud nine thinking, you know, that I had made it because, you know, here I was having my work evaluated by some of these like, you know, premiere sports architecture firms around the country and then, you know, everything just, you know, went south and I started experiencing the issues with the right eye. So going back to, or graduating from Michigan State was a plan B, I had to think of, you know, what am I going to do? I can’t pursue architecture at this point because of the visual aspect of that particular field. And so I ended up going back and I graduated with a degree in Political Science, and I’m married to a Zoologist, so I often joke that we’re the most useless couple on the planet.

GA: That is so not true. Because, from that you still were at least able to utilize your creativity and channel that into Accessiversity. And so I’d love to now, you know, we kind of jumped over and I don’t want to depart from Knapp Strategic, which is also an amazing consulting firm that can help businesses really develop their projects and business analysis, but Accessiversity is new and exciting and there is such a demand for it and a need, as I personally have been experiencing with developing my own website. So, what I think is fascinating , and what we’d like to know more about is, you know, that technology and how you’ve seen, obviously, in the thirty-five years, the advancement of just opportunities, like the iPhone right? And how it has perhaps  made your life a little easier, I hope? And so Accessiversity, what I love about it is that you’re bringing in people from all different spectrums of physical challenges to assess, right, the usability, whether it is a website, or an app, or something like that. So tell us a little bit about your team, if you don’t mind, and maybe some of the top, you know, we’d like to know, like what are the top five no-no’s on whether it’s a website, or it’s a mobile app, because as you mentioned earlier, what’s great about your usability testing is that it makes it easy for all people, not just people that have physical challenges. So, tell us a little bit, of course, about your team, and what you guys look for?

CK: yeah, so. Well first of all, Accessiversity Labs is a relatively new venture, we’re only about a year and a half old. It started as a service through Knapp Strategic, but, you know, eventually the plan, like I mentioned in the earlier part of this, is for it to be its own, kind of, stand alone lab where, you know, we can bring folks through and really help develop their skills as testers and hopefully develop them into entry-level QA analysts and get them placed with some of the local technology companies, even as software testers. I mean that’s kind of our goal, it’s rather ambitious but that’s what we’re building towards. So, we’re still relatively small. I do a lion’s share of the testing, although, I’m aligned with multiple different organizations across the Lansing area, and even more broadly across the state that I can bring folks in to help with projects, if there’s specific needs that need to be assessed, or, you know, different types of disabilities or challenges. And we, you know, we can help businesses with a wide range of things related to accessibility. I mean we talk about the big one being website accessibility, but you mentioned, you know, software products, mobile applications, and even business processes which is something that often gets overlooked. I give an example sometimes, there’s a large manufacturer here in the Lansing area that, when I left the State of Michigan and was still kind of trying to figure out what my next career move was going to be, I heard about a job that they had offered. And so, I reached out to someone I knew that worked there, and said, “hey, I was interested in this, what can you tell me?” and he said, “go ahead and apply through their online application portal, and then once you’ve done that let me know and I’ll contact the hiring manager, kind of back channel, and let them know that this is someone that I know, and put a word in for you”. So I went through their whole online application, and I got all the way to the end and there was a question that said, “Do you have a valid Michigan driver’s license” “yes or no”. Well, I’m statutorily blind, I can’t drive a vehicle so I don’t have a valid driver’s license, but I do have a valid State of Michigan state ID, but that wasn’t the question, it was “do you have a driver’s license? Yes/no”. So I said “no”, and it automatically put me into the rejection pile, and of course I contacted my person to say, “hey, you know, you need to let the folks in HR know that this is a problem”. Because, I mean, their website could be 100% accessible, their online application, you know, portal could be completely accessible, but if you have a flawed business process, then it doesn’t really matter because you’re going to still run into those sorts of issues. So, you know, the lion’s share, like I say, of our work is focused on web accessibility and really it’s, you know, doing that through a holistic approach that kind of combines accessibility and usability so that our customers can really get a sense of what the accessibility experience is for an individual with a disability, because, you know, again, most folks use assistive technology to access the digital content and so it just provides them with a little bit more insight into how those folks are going to be interacting with their website or system.

GA: And so, I hate to sound so naive about this but can you differentiate between accessibility versus usability? Because I kind of use those interchangeably and I don’t think I’m correct in doing that.

CK: yeah, so, accessibility would be, you know, the guidelines that really dictate making digital content, or content for that matter accessible to folks that have disabilities. Where usability is more generally about the overall user experience for a website. So, you can have sites that are, you know, technically compliant from an accessibility standpoint, but they still might not be very user friendly for large, you know, portions of the population, including individuals with disabilities. So a lot of when we get in there, you know, we’re identifying issues that get flagged as accessibility issues…

(Sound of the synthesized voice of Chris’ screen reader in the background saying, “new notification from Outlook”)

CK: For instance, oops sorry about that, that’s my screen reader popping up. But, for instance, we’ll flag different accessibility issues like missing alt text on images, or links that don’t have good descriptions, or, you know, color contrast that doesn’t have like a good contrast ratio. But then we’re also finding things that, “hey, if you just, you know, place this, you know, button on a different part of the screen it would make it a lot more user friendly for folks who are navigating that site with a screen reader” like I have to do when I go onto a website. Does that help at all?

GA: That is great, thank you so much. Because, you know, so you answered my other question too, which was kind of like what are the top five things that people may miss when developing, whether it is a website or their mobile app, and really to repeat you, you’re saying like, to repeat you, it’s identifying the missing alt text, which…

CK: That’s a big one.

GA: Yeah, and I’ve noticed a lot of it, there’s been a lot of amazing discussions around the ADA , it’s the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act and so I’ve been listening to a lot of great lectures and they do have the alt text that explains who we’re looking at, like who is on screen. Of course, having subtitles so that people can read it…

CK: Yup.

GA: …if they do have some hearing impairments. And then of course, those links. You know we’re all guilty of that, we think that we’re linking to something that’s really exciting and then it doesn’t go anywhere and then we’re kind of like, we get a slap on the hand from Google for having those bad links anyway. And then of course, color contrast, which, you know, a lot of designers have beautiful ideas and they want things to look beautiful, but if you’re not , if you don’t understand and take into account somebody that does have visual impairments, you know, or even if they’re color blind, right? They can’t read a lot of things.

CK: Well, another big one, and probably one of the biggest ones is that you’re able to navigate a website without having to use your mouse. Because, not only folks with visual impairments like myself that use the keyboard to navigate around a website…

GA: Yeah.

CK: …but there’s also a lot of folks that have different issues with fine motor skills, or limited dexterity…

GA: Right.

CK: …you know, and again, the range of disabilities is so vast, and there’s so many different things that kind of fit into, you know, that category, that you need to be able to navigate a site without having to use your mouse, which, you’d be amazed at how many websites, there are traps that you get into that you just, you know, you arrow or tab into something and you can’t move off of it and it’s just something that wasn’t taken into consideration when that site was designed. So, that’s another big culprit that we see. And then you mentioned the video with the captioning. Any time that a video or any sort of media starts playing without warning, that’s always very aggravating at a minimum, and it can be very disorienting, especially like if it’s not easily turned off or if there aren’t controls that are easily accessible to turn that off, so that’s another big one that we run into…

GA: So you recommend with the warning, just I want to make sure I get this right, cause I have to talk to my web developer right after this, so with a video, you’re saying that you prefer that there’s like a warning that comes up which kind of shares what is about to play?

CK: yeah, and that can even be done by just having a descriptive link. Like, when  you label that link that the person clicks on, they know that, you know, “Click here to watch the YouTube video of, you know, Joe Biden” or what have you. But what you don’t want is just some generic link that, you know, someone clicks on and then all of a sudden just launches this video and you can’t figure out how to turn it off.

GA: Right, okay. So thank you for sharing that with us because like you said, what’s going through my mind is, you know, a little revision and review of the Wareologie website for sure. So, one thing that I wanted to share with you is on September 16th we’re going to be hosting as part of the Detroit Design Corps, it’s an event, it’s for the month of September called “Month of Design”. And I’m fortunate enough to partner with Poco Labs and TrendAble and we’re doing what we’re calling “Design for ReABILITY”…

(Sound of cat meowing in background)

GA: …and that would be my cat chiming in right now. So, I was wondering if you could share with us what good design means to you. Because this is an open forum that we’re pooling a lot of people with different physical challenges so that we can understand, cause to your point, and what Accessiversity is all about, is when you bring in people and share stories, that’s how you create good design. Right?

CK: Yup.

GA: When you have people part of that discussion, part of that design process, it’s imperative if you’re going to come up with some brilliant solutions. And so, you know, that’s how Wareologie, that’s how we’ve gotten this far with, you know, including people in these discussions. So, I’m curious what your definition of, you know, what does good design mean to you?

CK: So, yeah. And when I talk about accessibility and I do projects or training, I always, kind of  give a qualifier statement at the beginning that because of my particular background and disability being a visual disability, that I always kind of have a slant, you know, that is more visual in nature. But, the web is intrinsically a visual medium so that’s not that far fetched to think that a lot of the accessibility stuff should be based on things that are part of, you know, having to do with the visual consumption of that content. But the one thing is, I don’t want to have anybody have to sacrifice, you know, design or make a pretty website or anything, just because I’m not able to, you know, see that like everyone else. I think to me, good design is able to balance having a design that works for, you know, the vast number of people, is aesthetically pleasing, and is still something that can be navigated by folks who have to access that information using that assistive technology. So it’s kind of like, you know, you go through and you make your design and then you go back and assess, “okay, where are the shortcomings in terms of folks with all of these different types of disabilities being able to access this content that we put up?” And then just working through to make that accessible to them. So, I kind of start with, “you don’t have to throw out your original design, or you know, sacrifice anything from a design or aesthetics standpoint, it’s just you gotta think about, you know, making those additional changes to make it accessible for the rest of us”. And to me that’s, I think where you have to strike that balance. So what we try to do is, you know, our contribution to all this, is that as a company is developing a website,  or as developers are developing a site for a client, we can come in and do some “live” manual testing of the site, just to kind of work through some of those issues and, you know, point out, you know, where those potential accessibility and usability issues are that they can maybe think about, you know, revising their design. But it’s not anything we want anybody to sacrifice anything, just from an accessibility standpoint, I mean…

GA: Yeah, but you’re able to add, and again, it’s just sometimes able-bodied individuals like myself, you know, we take for granted a lot of things, I will say. You know, and so, I think you’re point is with some of these tweaks, you can really enhance the user experience, and by adding the text, you know, it actually increases the imagination of the person that’s actually reading it and looking at it and if they can’t see it, again, as clearly as somebody that has, you know, full visual capacity, it really enhances that experience which is what, I mean all of us, that’s what makes life interesting, right?

CK: So when I consult with a potential business client, you know, I don’t even talk about the legal or ethical reasons for, you know, focusing on web accessibility even though those are very important reasons why a business should be focused on this. But I jump right to the business case, and it’s really easy because, I mean, you start talking about just, your sites are not accessible and there are customers out there that aren’t able to, you know, access information about your business, your products, your services. And then you were just mentioning the captioning. By including that captioning, that actually helps with some of your Search Engine Optimization results, so that, you know, your content comes back in the higher rankings for some of those results. So, there’s many different reasons, business case reasons for why organizations should, you know, look at accessibility. And you know, here’s the not very hidden secret, is that if you’re focused on accessibility your site’s going to, by default be more usable for all of your customers. So, it’s a win-win really.

GA: Absolutely. yeah, we want to make it easier for people to find us, not, you know, create a maze and get people frustrated, right?

CK: Yup.

GA: Great, so Chris Knapp from Accessiversity. People can find you, where’s the easiest place for us to go and we will put this in of course our comments so that people can find you, and of course once we pause this live video we will go back and add our captions to it as well. But how do we find you?

CK: So, well first my phone number, 517-881-4256. My email is chris@knappstrategic.com and if folks are interested in learning more about Accessiversity, they can go to our Knapp Strategic website. They can also, while they’re on the website, check out our Tales of the Reluctant Blind blog. And finally, I would really encourage people to visit our Accessiversity Facebook page. We really encourage you to like, and follow, and share all of the content that we’re posting to that page, and help be part of this important conversation that we’re trying to have about different accessibility and disability-related topics.

GA: Fantastic, and Facebook for that, it is great to remind people to share our work because even though, maybe your business doesn’t necessarily, maybe you’ve already had your accessibility and usability analyzed, but we all know somebody that is out there, either an entrepreneur such as myself who are starting businesses, or even from the business planning side of it and how we can make sure, whether it’s our applications, or just our hiring processes, how we can make them more accessible for all. And so, Chris Knapp from Accessiversity Labs, it’s so nice to have you on…

CK: And I wanted to thank you…

GA: …it went by really quickly, but I did want to comment on your handsome shirt that you’re wearing right now…

CK: Yeah, and I wanted to make sure…

GA: …and if you have any comments about Buttons 2 Button magnetic adaptors?

CK: Yeah, so I was hoping that my kids would have like a Superman shirt that I could just do the reveal, but…

GA: Yeah.

CK: So, yeah, I tried out, so the magnetic fasteners from Buttons 2 Button on this button up shirt of mine. And so, I appreciate you sending them over so that I could try it out, and what I’m going to do is I’m going to play it forward, I’m going to donate these to our Disability Network Capital Area here in the Lansing area which works with folks with all sorts of different disabilities, so that they can have those available for folks to try out, and then, hopefully they’ll be following up with you to maybe order some more sets.

GA: yeah, what did you think once you got…were they…how did they go on your shirt? Just give us the…

CK: They went on pretty good. yeah, I mean, no issues, they were pretty easy to get onto both the button and through the slot. Probably the most difficult part was just getting them off of the little cardboard insert that they came on…

GA: And, you know what, we did change our packaging since that, because I have, I realize that my cuteness, it was that I didn’t think that design through and I wanted it to look cute like it was on a little tab of a shirt, and I’m like, “wait a minute, I’ve just doubled the work for everybody” because our…

CK: No…

GA: …magnetic adapters, they come in sets of ten, and you know, you have to attach one part to the button, and the other two parts through the buttonhole, and typically you do need some dexterity to attach them. But they’re transferable, and so that people can change out from seasonal, you know, their Hawaiian shirt to their winter flannels, so thank you for testing those out and giving us a demonstration, and yeah, paying it forward. Really, we just want to reach people that may pick up some dexterity challenges and aren’t always able to manage dressing and undressing themselves…

CK: No, I think it’s great. You’re doing important work. There’s so much that’s needed and you know, we all have to come to the realization that, you know, as we age, if you’re not, you know, suffering from a disability, chances are that if you live long enough you’re going to acquire some sort of a disability, whether it’s just normal aging type things, with hearing loss or macular degeneration, or you know, hopefully you don’t, you know, have that, you know, type of situation like I had where you just, you know, have a life event that changes things overnight for you. But it’s important that organizations like yours, and all of the other folks who do great work to support people with disabilities, because I mean, any one of us can become part of that group at any time.

GA: That’s right, and so it’s really wonderful to partner with you and to share your great work with our constituents, and we’ll be sharing a lot in the next , you know, years to come for sure, because we know the importance of inclusion and making things accessible for all. So, Chris Knapp, thank you so much. I’m Gina Adams, the Founder of Wareologie and the inventor of Buttons 2 Button magnetic adaptors. So thanks everybody for watching, and we’ll look for comments. Again, I’m still navigating the Facebook Zoom link myself and so I don’t see any immediate questions for Chris, but if you have something please don’t hesitate to reach out to us and we’ll have the links directly to Chris right here. Yup, it looks like we had twenty-three people on today, so thank you Chris, and I’m going to sign off now. Thanks everybody.

*This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity*