An honest conversation about accessibility, with an optimist

‘Nothing about us, without us’

“it's not about what we think people need, it's about asking users what they need”

“Explain to me what this slogan means, and what it means for the Government of Canada (GC) to have adopted this perspective and understanding,” I ask Luna. She tells me that it’s a principle that is embedded in the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, and a fundamental principle of the Accessible Canada Act. The line means exactly as it reads: ensuring that the people with lived experience have a say in the decisions that will inevitably affect them. On this, Luna draws an interesting parallel to the participation of women in society. Similar to how there was a time where women didn’t have the right to vote, we’re currently in an evolution of making sure that persons with disabilities can have a say in their own matters. And with that she makes another relatable comparison: just like user experience (UX) research and design, “it’s not about what we think people need, it’s about asking users what they need,” Luna says. This is why OPSA heard from 12,000 public servants across the country before launching the Public Service Accessibility Strategy at the end of May 2019. “In a way, we should be consumer driven,” Luna adds, “because we are here to serve Canadians.”

Everyone has something unique to bring to the table

“I hope to see more employees with disabilities feeling like they are valued and are in an environment where they can fully participate and contribute at work.”

Did you know that more than 6 million Canadians aged 15 and over have a disability, and less than 60% of those aged 25 to 64 years have jobs? Not to mention, persons with disabilities earn less, and are more likely to live in poverty. When I ask Luna where she wants to see the accessibility issue in the future, she tells me she wants to see this fact change, “it’s also not just about hiring persons with disabilities, it’s about how you can make sure the workplace is an accessible and inclusive environment for them.” She emphasizes the need for this to be incorporated into fundamental human resources planning, just like diversity should be, in a way that sees these different groups as sources of talent. “Instead of creating special jobs for persons with disabilities, it’s thinking, oh I need to hire policy analysts, scientists, writers, etc., and I need to make sure my employment strategy considers the population we serve—that it is diverse, and intersectional,” Luna explains. “I hope to see more employees with disabilities feeling like they are valued and are in an environment where they can fully participate and contribute at work.” To Luna, employment is the crux of the issue, “if we can address the real barriers to employment that we face today, that will be real progress as far as I’m concerned.”

Accessibility in the digital world

I ask Luna how she thinks living in the digital age has affected accessibility standards. “In many ways, it’s opened so many possibilities,” she tells me, “I’ve had Amazon Echo in my home for the last couple of years, and I can’t imagine not having Alexa anymore; she’s like my security blanket. The way she helps me out, I don’t care, she can listen to me all she wants! I don’t have any secrets,” she laughs. And it’s true, technology has opened the doors to improving accessibility in endless ways: optical character recognition used to need a big huge piece of equipment, and can now be done with a phone, live captioning of meetings can be done with an app, “it’s unlimited,” Luna describes. But that being said, accessibility has to be a first thought. If you don’t build and plan the technology with accessibility in mind then you will face even more barriers. “There are financial costs to go back and fix something like this, but there are also costs we can hardly quantify: human costs, i.e. people feeling excluded, and not being able to succeed. Those costs can’t be measured but they’re so real,” Luna emphasizes. It’s a lot easier to plan design for accessibility in anything, than to try and fix it afterwards.

It’s not about what we don’t have

To see accessibility in a new light, we have to fundamentally think about human beings as each having something to offer. Luna tells me that at the heart of the issue is this: don’t think about what you imagine this person cannot do. It’s human nature to think ‘what would I do if I couldn’t see or walk?’ And you might answer yourself, ‘I would be lost’, but in reality, that’s not the way it is because the individual has probably learned all kinds of ways to work around this. Instead, think about what someone can do and how they can add something different. “The moment you start thinking like that, your whole perspective changes, and the way of doing business changes,” Luna states.

“every step is progress, and I dream that we will see accessibility become as much a part of our culture and our way of doing business as other issues that have come up in the GC like privacy, official languages, and security. I want to see it up there with the big three.”

Accessibility is about everybody, and we can all do our part to contribute to it. “We are working to make it so that people don’t need to think when or how they can do something, they can just simply do,” Luna concludes, “every step is progress, and I dream that we will see accessibility become as much a part of our culture and our way of doing business as other issues that have come up in the GC like privacy, official languages, and security. I want to see it up there with the big three.” 

Changing culture and attitudes isn’t done overnight but like I said, Luna Bengio is an optimist. “I think it can happen,” she smiles.