Accessibility Lessons from a Straw

When it comes to addressing a problem it is important to take a complete look at the situation and then move forward to define all of the parts. Doing this dispels myths and is unveiling information always present. A successful accessibility (a11y) program needs to understand all forces (influences) at play to understand the state of play. So should you start making changes without understanding all of the influences on your accessibility program and what parts the same influences play? Should you implement new technologies without understanding the impact on all the parts of your program? Would you upgrade to Windows Seven without performing a compatibility check?

To examine this question I will use a straw. Everyone knows you put the straw in and suck out the fluid. This sucking up of the fluid brings the fluid into your mouth and quenches your thirst? Why the question mark? The simplest answer is that this is, prima facie, correct but you guessed it, in fact it is wrong. You are saying wait, “I put the straw in and I suck up the fluid”, but in fact you are not and if you were responsible for designing straws or juice containers and went forward with this premise you would fail and have a mediocre career without changing this mindset. What would you need to do to be successful? You should have understood all the forces that had influence on what direction the fluid would flow. (Note: I am taking a science topic that could take a few pages and a few good diagrams to describe and compressing it - saving you time on comments). The straw in glass example, it is simple, and here are the parts:

• Air (atmospheric) Pressure
• Straw with two open ends one in the fluid
• Open top glass
• Fluid (water)
• Gravity

So the atmospheric pressure from the outside of the glass is not important because it is sufficient to repel pressures, but the opening of the glass allows for pressure down and there is pressure at the bottom of the straw to force the water up. However, there is pressure from the air pushing the water back down, so when sucking on the straw you remove the pressure down on the fluid, this lets the upward force on the fluid act and you have fluid in your mouth. This is easy to test if you have a proper glass and cover, simply cover the glass and try to suck up fluid, you can’t! There is no upward pressure. Try another experiment, an easier one:

1. Put your finger over the top of the straw while it is submerged in the fluid.
2. Remove the straw from the fluid while keeping your finger on the top
3. Observe, the fluid remains in the straw and does not rise or lower, you have hydrostatic balance (a stalemate), two very powerful forces (Influencers pressure upward and gravity) but no net motion.
4. Remove your finger from the straw
5. Observe, all forces are in balance and the fluid flows (Hopefully back into the glass so that you do not have a mess!)

This shows us that at step two there was both upward pressure and downward pressure of equal amounts. The little bit of air left in the straw provided downward pressure that stopped the water from rising in the straw but not enough pressure to force it out of the straw. When you remove your finger the water flows as the pressure was allowed into the top, and all forces are in balance.

OK, time for my point. An accessibility (a11y) program is a serious and complex undertaking one which program managers need to guard against human nature and making decisions mainly on anecdotal evidence, even if the program manager believes observations to be true, because they may do severe damage to the program in the long term by making decisions based on untested/unverified data. Remember, anecdotal data gives us a place to start, a conversation, but it should never be the end. So every program for a11y and every program manager must define all the parts. For an example I will use an education and outreach program:

• Training Material
• Outreach Process
• Teacher
• Student

Should your training material be the same for every student? NO, if it is you will have limited success because it is proven that there are different types of learners. Do you teach adult learners as adult learners, or do you teach them like children? This is a very good question that need to be answered and based on these two simple questions you now probably have at least three sets of training materials required if you want to be successful! An additional training set would be required as related to the technical level of student and a possible additional set for lawyers and compliance people.  Outreach process, to whom and how do they communicate? The Teachers, Technical, non-Technical, does it matter? The Students, Young, Old, Executive, Technician. (Note: this does not come close to covering all training concerns you can email me at the address provided at the end of this posting if you have questions)

When, I think of the problems with education and outreach as related to a11y, I look at the data and conclude that they arise from poor training material or incomplete training programs. Some of the problems observed were:

• Technical people make decisions on training with no professional training on developing instructional systems
• The impact of technical decisions without understanding all the influences on the total program (e.g. with the false argument that the water comes out just as good from the straw because of only one force being applied)

Let us leave the straw and a11y for a moment. Think of a sales manager that sees an unsuccessful salesperson, they see that no sales are being made after 30 days so they terminate the sales person without ever trying to figure out why they were not successful. So if a program is successful in spite itself it is most likely something that will not be repeatable or sustainable, OK, back to a11y and our straw.

Therefore, if something makes the overall state of accessibility better, it is NOT a valid argument for continuance without total system/program review and validation to assure that gains in one area does not lead to losses in another. Additionally, and somewhat unrelated, it begs to question how many a11y advances are gained simply because of the observer effect; when a subject knows it is being observed the performance improves.

Unfortunately, there is enough anecdotal evidence available to indicate that as a group, a11y practitioners, program managers and standards gurus need to sit down and understand all the influences on an a11y program and chart the road forward. The need to include; trained scientists, trained educators, stake holders, and any other interested or important parties to the program is very clear. There are more than enough interested educators, scientists and other required elements to develop well performing programs that don’t steal progress with every new standard or guideline because of disjointed efforts.

If you have any questions on this post feel free to mail me at ryonaitis@34alabs.com , yes my spam filter kung foo is good!