Episode 10
Accessibility Is a Driver of Better User Experience
Mali Fernando shares how accessibility becomes most effective when embedded into product development from the start. Drawing on a background in design and technology, Mali discusses working across teams to integrate inclusive design practices, shift accessibility from compliance to user experience, and help organizations build accessibility into everyday workflows. The conversation highlights the importance of education, collaboration, and making accessibility practical and scalable.
Transcript
Well, hello.
Speaker:This is Joe Walensky, the host of the Digital Accessibility Podcast,
Speaker:The People Behind the Progress.
Speaker:And I'm here with another guest to talk about the accessibility profession.
Speaker:And today I'm visiting with
Speaker:Molly Fernanda. Hello, Molly. How are you today?
Speaker:Yeah, really good, Joe. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast.
Speaker:Absolute pleasure to be here,
Speaker:and really excited to talk to you for a few minutes.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:I am speaking to you in the morning at my
Speaker:home office in Bellingham, Washington,
Speaker:which is about 80 miles north of Seattle.
Speaker:Where are you talking to us from?
Speaker:Yeah, I'm calling in from sunny London, and it's nice for a change.
Speaker:We've got some great weather outside.
Speaker:It's about 4:00, so nearing the end of my day.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:it's always great to have international guests as
Speaker:part of this discussion series, so thanks for that.
Speaker:And the best place to start is if you could tell us a little bit about what you're working on now.
Speaker:Yeah, of course. So, Joe, just to introduce myself,
Speaker:I head up Digital Experience and Accessibility for HSBC.
Speaker:And just to expand on what that means,
Speaker:I'm accountable for three different parts of
Speaker:the bank and its sort of digital offering.
Speaker:Firstly, of course, our digital experience,
Speaker:making sure we're giving the best possible experience to our customers, but also our staff.
Speaker:Digital governance,
Speaker:making sure that when we
Speaker:launch a digital product, platform, or service,
Speaker:it aligns to a variety of internal and external requirements, policies, regulation.
Speaker:But of course, the thing that I'm here to talk about is
Speaker:as the founder and the head of our Digital Accessibility Program
Speaker:as well for HSBC.
Speaker:In terms of scope, it's the full gamut of technology and our offering across the world.
Speaker:So it's our websites, our apps, our transactional platforms.
Speaker:That's across the range of our business offerings,
Speaker:all the way from personal and retail banking to our corporate and institutional banking.
Speaker:And about two years ago,
Speaker:our executive committee here at HSBC also asked me to start looking at our staff systems
Speaker:as well.
Speaker:So really, it's the entire digital ecosystem for HSBC Group across the world.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:I'm sure you're involved in quite a lot of different activities in your position.
Speaker:But could you tell us a little bit about what a typical
Speaker:day in the life would be, or maybe a week in the life,
Speaker:some of the things that regularly take up your time?
Speaker:Yeah, of course, Joe. Really good question.
Speaker:So look, I think one of the things about working in
Speaker:an international organization that's super exciting
Speaker:is having the opportunity to work with a variety of colleagues and customers around the world,right?
Speaker:And as I think we all know in the accessibility community really well,
Speaker:there is a variety of
Speaker:cultural maturities across the world around sort of disability inclusion.
Speaker:In places like Europe and North America, I think broadly,
Speaker:there's acceptance.
Speaker:Of course, societies there can, of course,
Speaker:continue to do more for
Speaker:the community.
Speaker:And it's very encouraging to see that
Speaker:year on year, organizations are getting better in this space.
Speaker:And then when I switch over to places like, particularly, Asia and Latin America,
Speaker:the concept of disability inclusion, much less digital accessibility,
Speaker:is quite a new thing. But actually,
Speaker:what's very encouraging is I'm starting to see both a societal change,
Speaker:but perhaps as important an organizational and a regulatory change as well.
Speaker:So there's a real recognition that actually
Speaker:that entire ecosystem of politicians,
Speaker:regulators,
Speaker:organizations are responding to
Speaker:a growing need driven by societies locally that actually
Speaker:we collectively have to get thisright
Speaker:and provide a better service to the disabled community respective of what that industry is.
Speaker:I think, look,
Speaker:banks are leading the way.
Speaker:And just to be clear, I don't think in any way, shape,
Speaker:or form are we as an industry perfect.
Speaker:But in many parts of the world, banks are on the front line of
Speaker:driving good accessibility. And I think that's really, really important,right?
Speaker:If I think about what banking does, and if I were to kind of summarize it to its core,
Speaker:we help people manage money,
Speaker:whether it's as an individual or helping corporates in terms of how it is
Speaker:they manage their money as well.
Speaker:And if I think about what that means for an individual, it means independence.
Speaker:If you can't manage your money independently,
Speaker:that takes away broader independence from you.
Speaker:So we take this work really, really seriously.
Speaker:At HSBC, we have an ambition to become the world's most digitally accessible bank.
Speaker:We want to be the bank of choice
Speaker:for disabled, neurodivergent,
Speaker:and elderly customers. But we also want to be an employer of choice for that same group
Speaker:of people.
Speaker:We recognize that in many of the countries that we operate in, we are a significant employer.
Speaker:And there's a real opportunity to
Speaker:bring in a more diverse workforce, allowing us to then better serve a diverse customer base.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:this program is all about people's journeys,
Speaker:personal and work life.
Speaker:So tell us a little bit about
Speaker:your background and how you found your way into the accessibility world.
Speaker:Yeah, really good question, Joe.
Speaker:So my background's in technology.
Speaker:I've always worked in some way in technology in some way, shape, or form.
Speaker:I've held a variety of leadership roles
Speaker:in transformation, product, customer experience, governance.
Speaker:I started off in a development team
Speaker:in Sri Lanka. And look, I had the opportunity to move around with the bank.
Speaker:I'm here now based out of our headquarters in Canary Wharf.
Speaker:My sort of first interaction with
Speaker:accessibility was quite an interesting one, Joe.
Speaker:This was some years ago.
Speaker:And we were launching,
Speaker:at the time, the biggest digital thing that the bank had done.
Speaker:It was an online banking platform.
Speaker:And I was running
Speaker:governance for the bank at the time.
Speaker:And the
Speaker:platform was due to be released
Speaker:at the time in the near future.
Speaker:And then I discovered that actually all of the content that
Speaker:you could see was in Spanish,
Speaker:but all the screen reader content was in English.
Speaker:And I realized this was, of course,
Speaker:a fundamental issue.
Speaker:And at the time, I was relatively junior.
Speaker:And if I'm being entirely honest, Joe,
Speaker:I was quite nervous,right?
Speaker:Because I recognized that there were a lot of
Speaker:senior executives and the bank, of course, wanted to get this out.
Speaker:But I also recognized that
Speaker:it didn't align to my personal values as an individual.
Speaker:I recognized that actually if we
Speaker:released this platform,
Speaker:we wouldn't be delivering on our promise,
Speaker:and we wouldn't be serving
Speaker:our customers and all of our customers in the way we should do.
Speaker:I did something quite peculiar.
Speaker:I picked up the phone to my mom,
Speaker:who was back in Sri Lanka.
Speaker:And I said, "Look, Ma, I'm worried about this project." I didn't get into the details,
Speaker:but I said, "Look, I'm getting a lot of pressure from people
Speaker:far more senior than I am to
Speaker:agree to this going out."
Speaker:And I remember that moment like it was just the other day.
Speaker:My mom's small in stature, but mighty in spirit.
Speaker:And she turned around to me, and she said something really simple.
Speaker:She said, "Look, Molly, we brought you up a certain way.
Speaker:Go do theright thing.
Speaker:Whatever happens, your dad and I are going to be proud of you." And at the time,
Speaker:I needed this job with the bank because I was on
Speaker:a bank-sponsored visa. I wasn't a British citizen.
Speaker:So my ability to remain in this country was
Speaker:tied to my employment at the bank.
Speaker:And at the time, the bank had one of its values was courageous integrity.
Speaker:It was about doing theright thing
Speaker:when it was difficult. Because I think it's easy to do theright thing when
Speaker:it's easy.
Speaker:But when it's really difficult,
Speaker:you require a certain amount of courage to
Speaker:stand up and do theright thing.
Speaker:So I remember the next day, I took a really big gulp.
Speaker:And I wrote back to
Speaker:a bunch of senior executives.
Speaker:And I said, "Look, guys, I'm really sorry, but with a clear conscience,
Speaker:I can't agree to the release of
Speaker:this platform.
Speaker:We've got some fundamental issues
Speaker:that need to be resolved." I went and spoke to
Speaker:my board member, who I didn't know very well.
Speaker:I think it was the first interaction I had with him.
Speaker:And I laid out the case for
Speaker:why we needed to be accessible.
Speaker:And to his credit, he said, "Molly,
Speaker:this is absolutely theright thing.
Speaker:Stand your ground.
Speaker:I'll support you." And Joe, that was the start of
Speaker:our accessibility program.
Speaker:At the time, we didn't have the ambition to be the world's most digitally accessible bank.
Speaker:And actually,
Speaker:we started from a place where actually accessibility wasn't a consideration.
Speaker:Now, that was about some time ago,
Speaker:more years than I care to say.
Speaker:But actually,
Speaker:what I think I'm most proud of is not just the progress that we've made as an organization.
Speaker:I'll talk about some of the sort of benchmarks
Speaker:that suggest we're doing quite well against
Speaker:our vision. But actually the cultural change.
Speaker:Because I think when
Speaker:an organization's heart and mind
Speaker:is behind
Speaker:good digital accessibility, the ones in zeros as they say will follow,right?
Speaker:Since then, we've had a lot of progress. We are by no means a finished article.
Speaker:But when we last benchmarked ourselves a few years ago in our top 13 retail markets,
Speaker:in 11 of them, HSBC had the most accessible website in financial services.
Speaker:Last year, as a bank,
Speaker:we won 13 awards for digital accessibility around the world.
Speaker:The Hong Kong Blind Union has recognized us repeatedly as the most digitally accessible
Speaker:bank out there.
Speaker:The UAE Central Bank gave us a score of 96% for our public website.
Speaker:So lots of progress to suggest that we are
Speaker:doing well,
Speaker:and we're making steady progress towards that ambition of becoming the most digitally
Speaker:accessible bank.
Speaker:But perhaps more importantly than being the most digitally accessible bank,
Speaker:in many parts of Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East,
Speaker:we may be the only digitally accessible bank.
Speaker:It means that actually if you have certain disabilities, and you want to bank online,
Speaker:and you want independence of your finances, you may not have a choice except for HSBC.
Speaker:It's a responsibility we take really seriously.
Speaker:And when I have the pleasure and privilege of speaking to our customers in different
Speaker:parts of the world, that view is validated by them.
Speaker:So for us,
Speaker:this is not just about
Speaker:putting customers at the heart of everything we do,
Speaker:but it's also about doing
Speaker:what we as an organization are all about,
Speaker:which is providing financial independence and allowing people
Speaker:to manage their money independently.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:thanks for sharing the
Speaker:challenge you had and being strong in our convictions about accessibility.
Speaker:While it often is challenging
Speaker:in our various organizational
Speaker:hierarchies with all the various
Speaker:governing conditions and
Speaker:existing cultural issues,
Speaker:so I appreciate hearing about that.
Speaker:In your personal journey into accessibility,
Speaker:were there certain things that you found that you had to
Speaker:lean on,
Speaker:resources you needed to use to feel like you were
Speaker:building your own personal
Speaker:growth in accessibility?
Speaker:Were there certain paths that you took
Speaker:to be able to get where you are?
Speaker:Yeah, really good question, Joe.
Speaker:So I was actually having lunch a few hours ago with
Speaker:a senior accessibility professional.
Speaker:And we were discussing why
Speaker:is it that some organizations actually,
Speaker:many organizations aren't making as much progress
Speaker:in this space as perhaps they could and should do,right?
Speaker:And I'm very fortunate that actually
Speaker:I've done a bunch of other things.
Speaker:And it's given me a set of skills that have allowed me to bring that into my accessibility role,right?
Speaker:The ability to put forward a cohesive and clear and concise
Speaker:commercial argument for good accessibility.
Speaker:Bringing my background in customer experience, actually,
Speaker:because when you strip away the jargon around WCAG and
Speaker:JAWS and testing and assistive technology, ultimately,
Speaker:this is an example of customer experience,right?
Speaker:Very early on,
Speaker:when I took on this work, I had to make a decision.
Speaker:Do I become quite a tactical digital accessibility professional,
Speaker:or do I learn some of those more strategic skills,right?
Speaker:Do I become a really good WCAG tester that can kind of whip out your phone and
Speaker:be able to do a really good audit?
Speaker:Or do I take on and kind of build on
Speaker:my enterprise transformation skills, as an example?
Speaker:And I realized that actually, as an organization,
Speaker:what HSBC needed me to be was the latter strategic leader that could really kind of drive
Speaker:an enterprise-level change, not just to our systems,
Speaker:but actually the culture around how it is we support,
Speaker:facilitate the banking needs of our customers,
Speaker:but also the career ambitions of our disabled and neurodivergent people.
Speaker:And it's really the latter that I kind of
Speaker:tried to develop myself against.
Speaker:Now, subsequently,
Speaker:I've had the good fortune of being able to build
Speaker:a digital accessibility team.
Speaker:And I've brought in a number of fantastic people
Speaker:that have deep technical skills in accessibility in a way that
Speaker:I will never have.
Speaker:I've got some of the best and brightest people anywhere in the field in the world
Speaker:working for me. I always say, if you want to be the best,
Speaker:you've got to have the best working for you.
Speaker:And I've brought some of those people into the organization.
Speaker:And I think that's allowing us to better serve this community of customers and stuff.
Speaker:Well, it sounds like you've set yourself up in a great place for you and your organization. Obviously,
Speaker:things are always changing.
Speaker:Are there any things looking forward that you're particularly
Speaker:excited or passionate about?
Speaker:Or on the other side of it,
Speaker:challenges that you're possibly concerned about or
Speaker:expecting to spend a lot of time on?
Speaker:Yeah, of course. So let's just talk about three things that I'm really excited about.
Speaker:A few weeks ago,
Speaker:we released a piece of content, a film,
Speaker:which features three different customers with three different
Speaker:disabilities in three different parts of the world.
Speaker:And Joe, I'll send you some details. You can send that out to your audience.
Speaker:And it features a customer here in the UK who's got ADHD,
Speaker:a customer from the Middle East who's blind, and a customer from Hong Kong who's deaf,right?
Speaker:And these are real-life customer stories.
Speaker:And it talks about how it is
Speaker:an accessible bank has really allowed them to live a rich and fuller life.
Speaker:And I'm really excited about that because I want
Speaker:other organizations and individuals to see this.
Speaker:Because actually, I hope it'll inspire change in
Speaker:other organizations,
Speaker:whether it's banking or other industries.
Speaker:The second thing I'm really excited about is building on our training program.
Speaker:So we recognize that
Speaker:as a large international bank
Speaker:operating in nearly 60 countries,
Speaker:we have the ability to drive
Speaker:real change in terms of
Speaker:technology by setting an example to other organizations.
Speaker:So in the last two years, we trained over 250,000 people in digital accessibility.
Speaker:We made a lot of our resources publicly available. So check out the HSBC Accessibility Hub.
Speaker:It's a fantastic resource for anybody who
Speaker:wants to start their accessibility journey.
Speaker:But it's also got some deep technical guidance in terms of how to set up an accessibility program,
Speaker:how to do things like testing, common mistakes,
Speaker:all the kind of things that actually you might be grappling with,
Speaker:particularly at the start of your journey.
Speaker:We also offer classroom, both in-person but virtual,
Speaker:training as well. We do that to any organization. We don't ask for anything in return.
Speaker:There's no cost. You don't have to be a client of ours.
Speaker:And we've trained over 300 corporates across 100 countries,
Speaker:companies like the NHS here, Vodafone,
Speaker:Accenture, British Airways,
Speaker:the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Speaker:And I feel very privileged to work in an organization that's willing to
Speaker:open source our expertise to
Speaker:really have a positive impact on
Speaker:other organizations
Speaker:as well. We're, of course, tapping into the power of AI.
Speaker:I'm working hand in glove with
Speaker:our AI team.
Speaker:We've launched our own indigenous GenAI platform that is available to
Speaker:our colleagues around the world.
Speaker:And of course, accessibility has been at the forefront of requirements,
Speaker:making sure that actually not only do we have a fantastic platform that
Speaker:boosts the productivity of our employees, but actually the front end is, of course, accessible.
Speaker:And I've been really encouraged that as we kind of build this out,
Speaker:some of the first people who wrote to us
Speaker:were the bank's disabled and neurodivergent staff,right?
Speaker:Just the other day,
Speaker:I had a blind lawyer write to a member of my team
Speaker:telling us about how they've been able to take a bunch of really complex documents and
Speaker:use that GenAI platform to summarize it for a senior executive meeting that they were having,right?
Speaker:And it was a real source of pride.
Speaker:I think there's a lot of opportunity that AI brings.
Speaker:And I'm sure, Joe, we could do another podcast just on that.
Speaker:But I think one of the fundamental things is that as organizations build out their platforms,
Speaker:particularly for organizations like ours that are
Speaker:highly regulated and we need to think about the sort of data that
Speaker:we have access to and making sure that we're managing it in a responsible way,
Speaker:that the experience that
Speaker:their staff have is, of course, accessible.
Speaker:Because of course, AI presents an opportunity to
Speaker:really enhance the experience that customers and staff have.
Speaker:But of course, if their needs aren't considered,
Speaker:then there's a risk of
Speaker:leaving that group of people behind.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:it's a lot of great things to hear about that
Speaker:your organization is
Speaker:working on.
Speaker:You mentioned earlier,
Speaker:before this conversation to me,
Speaker:about the
Speaker:free resources that are available through
Speaker:your organization.
Speaker:I think that's a great offering to the community.
Speaker:And I'll include some information about that
Speaker:in the show notes.
Speaker:But I was just curious,
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:how it came about
Speaker:that that became
Speaker:something that your organization decided to offer?
Speaker:Because obviously, anything that we do has
Speaker:some cost in terms of resources to it.
Speaker:Yeah, of course. Really good question, Joe.
Speaker:So there's sort of two parts, if I were to oversimplify our digital ecosystem.
Speaker:There's sort of two parts for the stuff that we build ourselves,right?
Speaker:Our own technology and IT teams and digital teams.
Speaker:And then, of course, the stuff that we procure.
Speaker:And of course,
Speaker:as a large international bank, we commission a lot of technology.
Speaker:What we were finding is that a lot of the
Speaker:partners we had in the technology space
Speaker:weren't considering accessibility.
Speaker:And ultimately, if we're offering that platform,
Speaker:that service to our customers or
Speaker:our staff,
Speaker:they aren't drawing any differentiation between something that's been built internally
Speaker:by HSBC or something that's been acquired and
Speaker:being given to them as a platform.
Speaker:So we found ourselves in a rather tricky position.
Speaker:Because ultimately, for us, it didn't matter.
Speaker:Frankly, if it had been built by somebody outside the bank,
Speaker:the experience that we provide to people has to be the same. It's got to be consistent,right?
Speaker:I can't turn around to customers and say, I'm really sorry.
Speaker:This wasn't built by my own accessibility team or by my own technology team.
Speaker:So it's not accessible. That's simply not good enough.
Speaker:So we recognize that, of course,
Speaker:we've got a contractual ability and
Speaker:a commercial ability to
Speaker:drive change. And we do do that.
Speaker:So accessibility now is within our procurement lifecycle.
Speaker:So it's a consideration at the sort of RFI, RFP stage,
Speaker:but also how it is we manage vendors.
Speaker:If that were to stick, Joe, we also need to provide a carrot,right?
Speaker:We need it to help these organizations.
Speaker:Because we recognize that some of these organizations perhaps didn't have either the
Speaker:ability or the cultural maturity to invest in
Speaker:accessibility in the way that they should do.
Speaker:So we stepped in to fill that gap.
Speaker:And that was sort of the genesis of
Speaker:open sourcing it.
Speaker:We had a lot of great resources that we make available to our people.
Speaker:And I went to
Speaker:our executive committee.
Speaker:And I said, look, do you have any objection to me making this publicly available?
Speaker:And it was a resounding no.
Speaker:That's a brilliant idea. Do it,right?
Speaker:What that's meant, Joe,
Speaker:is that many of the vendors that we work with
Speaker:who have made their platforms accessible owing to their relationship with HSBC
Speaker:then sell those same platforms and services to other organizations who benefit downstream
Speaker:from the work that we
Speaker:as a bank have done,right? And I don't think we talk enough about that sort of impact.
Speaker:But it's a real source of pride to my team, my accessibility team and I,
Speaker:that actually not only are we providing a certain quality of service to our own customers
Speaker:and people,
Speaker:but actually we're enabling accessibility in other organizations through that work that
Speaker:we've done with a partner.
Speaker:I think it's great when organizations are able to
Speaker:give back by contributing from their knowledge base
Speaker:back into the accessibility community.
Speaker:And it's been great chatting with you.
Speaker:So thank you so much for
Speaker:spending these few minutes with
Speaker:me talking about your organization and your work.
Speaker:Thank you so much, Joe.
Speaker:Absolute pleasure to be on with you.
Speaker:Allright. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.
Speaker:Take care, Joe. Bye-bye.
