Technology

Digital accessibility touched my life soon after I lost the low vision I’d been using since birth.

I learned JAWS for Windows rather quickly after switching from a Mac to using a Windows-based PC full time. I could use the productivity apps that mattered for university—Word, Excel, e-mail, web-browsing and a calendar.

The real accessibility struggle started when I tried using JAWS with Software Audio Workshop Plus (SAW)—a PC-based multitrack audio editor we used at university. SAW was far from accessible as its controls were not seen by JAWS in its off-screen model (a database of all of the on-screen elements such as buttons and text fields).

JAWS had a powerful scripting language built into it. I attempted teaching myself how to script JAWS to work with SAW, but my high school level programming knowledge made this much more difficult. I did however learn about window classes, control types and functions—all useful building blocks to understanding digital accessibilitY. 

 

Accessibility for  Protools

After using JAWS to successfully start my radio career at CHRY, I went back to Ryerson to focus on digital accessibility in a Master of Arts program for media production. At the time, the coveted holy grail of accessibility in the sight loss community was ProTools—a Mac-based digital audio workstation (DAW)—the gold medal industry standard for working in audio production.

In late 2009, ProTools was totally unusable by a screen reader user with the only accessible buttons being Close, Minimize and Zoom. Blind audio engineer Slau Halatyn started “the ProTools Petition” which received over 1200 signatures. Slau  presented this to Avid on behalf of blind engineers, educators and enthusiasts around the world who saw ProTools as an  equalizer that could give blind people employment opportunities in the audio and music industries.

I was one of the first to test the new accessible ProTools in an academic setting. My thesis—VoiceOver in the Control Room: Usability of ProTools recording software by the blind using a screen reader—focused on examining whether a blind engineer could completely use the program in its entirety without sighted assistance to not only produce audio, but produce something of major label quality that would stand up against a modern pop or rock recording.

My thesis involved recording, editing and mixing a five-piece Toronto rock band, all while keeping notes on the accessibility of each of the main activities within ProTools. During my thesis, I learned even more about accessibility and usability as a whole as well as user experience and software design. 

 

Accessibility for  VOD

After leaving school, I had a sneaking suspicion my future was going to involve digital accessibility a fair bit. I took another basic programming course through iTunes U and picked up even more fundamentals of how computer programs were constructed from the ground up. This gave me enough knowledge to venture into the startup world where I could speak to the accessibility of video-on-demand (VOD) platforms like the one I was building. Building TellMe TV required me to communicate the ideas about accessibility to engineers. Through this process, I developed more familiarity  with concepts like HTML 5, ARIA, mobile accessibility and the world of accessible media players.

 

My work for TellMe TV got the attention of the Ryerson DMZ. Startups there wanted to know how to make their digital offerings and products accessible to the widest variety of users. This led me to develop a TEDx Talk called Design the Inclusive experience which I delivered for Ryerson in 2014 at the Royal Ontario Museum.

 

 

Accessibility for Ontario

My unique knowledge and experience caught the attention of the  Government of Ontario. In 2016, I was invited to sit on a committee to review the information and communications standards for the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). This is legislation enacted in 2005 that mandated a fully accessible Ontario by 2025 in key sectors such as customer service, information, communications and education. Standards written in the early 2000s hadn’t caught up with the explosion of mobile technology as well as new types of information systems that were now on the market such as touch-screen kiosks, SMART devices such as thermostats and innovations in web technology. After much consultation and debate, we agreed to an updated standard in 2018. 

Amidst all of this, I was being tapped to review the accessibility of websites, mobile apps and other digital products by various companies, usually after I complained about not being able to use their service. Some of the changes I requested made their way into business planning software, a popular dating site and a local cable provider’s set-top box.

By the time TellMe TV and my work with the Government of Ontario was winding down, I joined CNIB and found myself wearing my accessibility advocacy hat once again as we built Venture Zone Game and CNIB Market. I was also taking an accessibility-first approach to building MenuVox—my latest startup.

 

Accessible Education

My latest accessibility work has been with Edsby—a K-12 learning platform. Edsby needed help in ensuring its web-based app was accessible to students, parents and teachers. Much of this work involved testing and reporting on the operability and perception of web components such as radio buttons, text fields and links. Often, the fixes involved simple changes to making web code more robust. I took a task-based approach to Edsby, mapping out the user journey through various activities and ensuring users could interact with the necessary components along the way. This culminated in a demo video Edsby has running on their site—showing off the accessibility of the platform.

 

Developing My Skill

Today, I work as the digital accessibility lead at Tangerine—one of Canada’s leading digital banks. I work with designers, developers, business analysts and other accessibility professionals to ensure the Tangerine app and website are fully accessible. A part of this work involves improving my knowledge about digital accessibility. Since starting at Tangerine, I’ve enrolled in the excellent digital accessibility courses from Deque (pronounced ‘Dq’) University. I am steadily working towards a certified professional accessibility core competency (CPACC) designation, having completed 3 exams and nearly 3 dozen courses in everything from document accessibility to customer service for people with disabilities. After this, the goal is to receive a designation as an international accessibility professional.

 

How I Adapted

Not every screen reader user can be an accessibility expert. Most screen reader users use their assistive tech to accomplish some other goal such as writing documents or tracking expenses in a spreadsheet. Others, like myself, want to know how the machine works and how we can make better software usable by more people. 

I learned the basics of programming in languages like Python, Java and Swift and understand how the building blocks of programs such as variables, arrays, strings, objects, functions, libraries and so on, fit together to make an application. In addition, I learned the fundamentals of how HTML works as well as how to speak to engineers about the type of behaviour I want specific websites to exhibit.

I also became familiar with the role accessibility plays in agile methodology. This is how most programming shops are set up today. Accessibility is best when it is thought of in the concept and design stage of a program or feature, not bolted on at the end to appease a tiny customer segment and avoid a law suit.

One of the most important things I did was become familiar with my assistive technology. Today’s off-the-shelf software builders often include accessibility as part of their packages, but it’s up to the screen reader user to know how to use this powerful tool at their fingertips. In addition to navigating efficiently and quickly with VoiceOver, I learned how to use its additional features such as hotspots, web spots, activities and custom gestures. In the case of desktop software, I made a point to teach myself the keyboard shortcuts in each program so I spent less time hunting around the screen and more time getting work done.

Entrepreneurs Solve Problems

I was once asked, “How do you become an entrepreneur?” My quick response was, “Find something that irritates you so much, you are left with no choice but to solve the problem yourself.”

 

Several months  after completing my Master of Arts in Media Production in 2011, I found myself waiting for the next big career move to find me. I was still working at CHRY Radio and unsure on what to do with the rest of my life. 

One of the many amusing conversations among the staff at CHRY had me feeling a bit left out. We were all discussing movies and TV shows we were watching and I was clueless when it came to new  shows and classics I’d missed out on after losing my sight. I was determined to catch up by finding as many movies and TV with audio description as I could. 

 

Audio description (or described video (DV) as it is known in Canada) is narration of on-screen activity in between lines of dialog in a movie or TV show. It enables someone with sight loss to get the jokes in a comedy or emote with the story in  a drama. I demonstrated how audio description worked in a TEDx Talk for Ryerson in November of 2014.

 

I had a shelf full of DVDs at home—many of which were still in shrink wrap. Some of them had audio description tracks on them, but I didn’t feel like navigating a series of silent menus to locate and play the audio description soundtrack. I went online thinking, “Surely one of the big online VOD platforms had movies or TV shows with audio description!” I found none.

 

And that’s when the idea struck me like lightning—build a Netflix for the blind.

 

I immediately began typing furious notes as to how I’d accomplish this goal. I couldn’t code well, didn’t know anyone in software or the film & TV industries and I had no clue where to begin. Just like learning to DJ or jumping into audio production, I made the decision to just dive in and start. I asked questions and worked through the contacts I had.

Within six months, I had a working prototype and a name, Zagga Entertainment. I wasn’t sold on the name, but I wanted something with a Z in it and zagga.tv was the first domain I could get. Zagga was slated to be the first fully accessible subscription VOD service of its kind with audio description on all of its movie and TV titles.

 

The Pitches

With a functional prototype and some of my own cash, I took the idea to CNIB—Canada’s national blindness charity whose CEO loved the idea and pledged his support right away. I was also accepted to what was then known as the Ryerson Digital media Zone—a university-based startup incubator. In September of 2013, I decided to jump in with both feet. I left CHRY and pursued Zagga full time.

 

 

The Easy Part

Since I Used a screen reader full time, I knew how I wanted the website, and eventually a mobile app, to behave. I quickly learned our accessible prototype wouldn’t cut it when it came to handling the security requirements of the content providers. More on them later. After a crowdfunding campaign, we built the first  full version of Zagga running on the web and an iPad app before financial setbacks forced us to abandon those platforms for a mobile-ready website. We ran this for several months before receiving some help out of the Blu. (Pun intended.)

Blu Focus handled the quality assurance for Hollywood DVDs and digital assets. Its founder, Paulette, got in touch with me and offered me a fully turnkey VOD solution that solved all of our problems for handling security, scalability and accessibility. We changed the company name to TellMe TV and built the next version of the app on the robust VHX platform which was the best thing that ever happened to us. Thanks to Paulette, we launched in 2016 with a few dozen titles including rare content from the National Film Board of Canada, The Film Detective and Entertainment One. 

 

TellMe TV Video

We worked with Kent Parker, a great commercial producer out of Toronto, to create a video explaining TellMe TV Credits to Jeevan, her guide dog Kizzy and our excellent voice talent Susan for bringing this piece together.

 

 

 

The Hard Part

In the world of film and TV, content is king. Much like location, location, location for brick and mortar retail, content, content, content should be the motto for anyone looking to start a subscription VOD service. This one issue hamstrung us, especially as the market began to mature around us with audio description soon being offered on Netflix, iTunes and other VOD services when we launched.

 

Our customers in the sight loss community wanted top tier Hollywood content with audio description. They, like me, wanted to be included in the water cooler talk about hit movies and TV shows from the past and present. The content providers which included major studios in Hollywood, wanted their pound of flesh on behalf of the directors, writers, actors and other people who had a financial interest in the success of their films and TV shows. For a large universe of titles, the costs began adding up quickly. I was soon stuck with a dilemma: subscribers weren’t coming because we had no content and we couldn’t get the content we wanted because we didn’t have the subscribers.

 

The Hardest Part

With the  market rapidly maturing around us and with our cash running out, I had to make the tough call to pull the plug on TellMe TV in 2018. Calling it quits on a dream is sometimes the hardest thing an entrepreneur will ever have to do, but I have learned quite a bit by taking on the challenge of starting up my own company and blazing a trail into unknown territory. 

 

Lessons for the Entrepreneur

 

Share Your Idea; No One’s Going to Steal It.

You’re the one who was irritated enough to find the solution to the problem. You spent late nights jotting down notes, trying out solutions and pounding away at your code until you found something that worked. Chances are no one else is going to put in the time and effort you have to get to where you are. Attract others to your ideas and they will want to help you succeed.

 

Launch Early

Yes, your product is held together with a shoelace, some duct tape and a safety pin, but someone out there sees the same problem you do and will pay you for that solution. You can refine and iterate, but you shouldn’t wait until everything is perfect for launch, because it never will be.

 

You Don’t Have to Get It Right. You Need to Get It Done.

In my head, I pictured the launch of TellMe TV being a lot like the launch of the iPhone. The service would gleam as I showed off its features to an audience that would ooh and aah over all of the details. Much like my first point, you can’t get it perfect on the first try, but you have to show something for your efforts, especially when investors are waiting to see what you’ve been doing with their cash.

 

Find Your Customers, Then Listen To Them.

As much as you know about your product, your customer may have an insight that simplifies or improves your product in ways you can’t see because of your perspective. 

 

Build A Stellar Team

The vision of TellMe TV attracted several key people to my team including the former CEO of Lion’s Gate Entertainment, a two-time Emmy Award winner and the lady who launched the xbox in Canada.

 

Develop Tough Skin

Conflict, confrontation and hearing the word ‘no’ come with the territory. Learn to lick your emotional wounds quickly and move forward with the mission.

 

Fail Fast

You will fail. Your code will break. You will introduce a feature and realize it was a bonehead decision. You will hire the wrong person. Cut your losses and move forward.

 

Never Give Up

While I had to make the hard decision to wind down TellMe TV, it came after seven years of hard work. There were some days I felt like giving up and many where I wondered if I would have been safer, happier and more satisfied working in audio. Even when the going gets rough, remember all you need to do is take one step forward.

 

Something from Nothing

If I had to choose one regret from my journey with TellMe TV, it would be not launching faster with the content I could easily get. In some ways it would have been easier to build a loyal audience with customers who believed in the vision, but after a couple of years of promising vapourware, it’s hard to build trust and loyalty when the market movers are offering your service as a feature. Aside from that, I regret nothing. I learned a lot, especially about the world of business, accessibility and the often colourful world of tech startups.

By the time I wound down TellMe TV, I had been invited to join CNIB in building a national entrepreneurship program for other Canadians with sight loss. It was an opportunity to build something from nothing all over again and I couldn’t say no to the prospect.