Episode 9
Accessibility Must Be Usable—Not Just Conformant
Aileen Hackett, Director of Product Management for Accessibility at ServiceNow, shares how her team scales accessibility across a global enterprise. From mandating training for 20,000 employees to embedding accessibility into design systems and product workflows, she explains how organizations move from compliance to usability. Aileen also discusses the importance of listening to people with disabilities, aligning accessibility with business priorities, and preparing for the opportunities—and risks—of AI.
Transcript
Hello, I'm Joe Welinske,
Speaker:and I'm the host of the Digital Accessibility Podcast,
Speaker:where we talk to the people behind the progress.
Speaker:And today I am visiting with Aileen Hackett. Hello, Aileen, how are you today?
Speaker:Hi, Joe. I'm very well. Thanks for inviting me to the podcast.
Speaker:Well, it's good to have you here. I'm talking from my home office, which is in Bellingham, Washington,
Speaker:about 80 miles north of Seattle.
Speaker:Where are you talking to us from today?
Speaker:I'm near San Francisco,
Speaker:about 13 miles outside of San Francisco,
Speaker:on the East Bay in the Bay Area.
Speaker:Yeah, thanks for being part of this.
Speaker:I'm looking forward to hearing about your journey into accessibility.
Speaker:And a good place always to start is if you could tell us a little bit about what you're up to now.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:So currently I work at ServiceNow, and
Speaker:what I do there is I'm the Director of Product Management
Speaker:for Accessibility.
Speaker:And we have a small but mighty team of people
Speaker:at ServiceNow who work on accessibility.
Speaker:And so what my team do is they're responsible for making sure that our platform
Speaker:and our products all are accessibility conformant,
Speaker:but also usable for people with disabilities.
Speaker:I think both are important.
Speaker:Of course, it's really important to be WCAG accessibility conformant, but it's also
Speaker:important that the apps
Speaker:and products are usable for people with disabilities.
Speaker:And we're also doing things as well
Speaker:around introducing new products or features that can enable
Speaker:people with disabilities in their work life.
Speaker:So that's what I currently do.
Speaker:Go ahead.
Speaker:That's what I currently do. And I've been at ServiceNow about eight years.
Speaker:Before I was full-time on the
Speaker:accessibility product team,
Speaker:I was on the design system team. So we had some remit for accessibility there, too.
Speaker:And before that,
Speaker:I worked at another company on design systems and accessibility.
Speaker:So this has been my world for, I guess,
Speaker:the last few years.
Speaker:So I'm very excited to be working in this field and love what I do.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:you work for an organization which is
Speaker:fairly large, with, I assume,
Speaker:a lot of moving parts.
Speaker:So for the work that you're involved in,
Speaker:does that cover all of the different
Speaker:product and service aspects of your organization,
Speaker:or are you involved with one particular aspect of it?
Speaker:Anything to do with digital accessibility.
Speaker:We work with a large it's not just
Speaker:our accessibility product team,
Speaker:but we work with what we call an accessibility center of excellence.
Speaker:So we have people from engineering,
Speaker:from design,
Speaker:from UX research that we partner closely with
Speaker:and make sure that all the platform
Speaker:and products are accessible.
Speaker:And of course, everyone at ServiceNow is part of making everybody who creates software
Speaker:is part of making it accessible. It's not just down to the accessibility team.
Speaker:And we have a pretty successful
Speaker:program which we've introduced,
Speaker:which is we have mandated that everyone
Speaker:there's over 20,000 employees,
Speaker:and everyone must take
Speaker:accessibility training annually.
Speaker:And we've got a lot of great feedback, actually, on it, because generally,
Speaker:I find that people really want to do theright thing and make the software accessible.
Speaker:And just spreading this awareness of
Speaker:how it impacts people with disabilities, if you don't, can be really powerful.
Speaker:So we've got lots of great feedback.
Speaker:Even though we mandated it, we've got a lot of great feedback on it.
Speaker:And it does help us to make sure everyone cares about accessibility, not just the accessibility team.
Speaker:Well, I think that's always a good indicator of
Speaker:a progressive
Speaker:organization when accessibility is
Speaker:broadly available to
Speaker:all the people in various roles
Speaker:involved in products.
Speaker:Yes, yes, absolutely.
Speaker:And I think it's important.
Speaker:We also have our internal employees.
Speaker:We have a really powerful, important group, Employee Resource Group,
Speaker:for people with disabilities and their allies.
Speaker:And I'm part of I'm on that group,
Speaker:too. But what we've built there, which is interesting,
Speaker:is we built also a panel of volunteers who said, you know what?
Speaker:If you're looking at some
Speaker:new feature that you want our feedback on,
Speaker:let us know. And so we have this volunteer. It's confidential.
Speaker:But we have a volunteer panel that our UX researchers can utilize if they need to get
Speaker:specific feedback.
Speaker:So that's been really nice to see built as well.
Speaker:Yeah, that sounds great as well.
Speaker:What about your background?
Speaker:What found you into
Speaker:what brought you into the accessibility profession?
Speaker:What were some of the things you did before
Speaker:you got involved in accessibility,
Speaker:and how did you end up where you are today?
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:I started off my career as
Speaker:a software engineer.
Speaker:And I still I do
Speaker:love solving problems.
Speaker:And that's part of what I've always loved doing. I moved over into product management then.
Speaker:And like I said,
Speaker:I was working on design systems and
Speaker:liked working on systems and approaches that would impact everyone.
Speaker:So that was kind of my journey.
Speaker:And then I actually, when I was on the design system at a previous company,
Speaker:I was talking with a junior engineer on the team.
Speaker:And she was saying, you know I think we can do more.
Speaker:We're doing a lot for making the components and the
Speaker:design system accessible. But I think we can do more.
Speaker:And would you come with me to this conference
Speaker:at the weekend around accessibility?
Speaker:And so at first, I hesitated.
Speaker:I cannot lie, because my son
Speaker:plays baseball. And usually, every weekend, I'm on the bleachers at a baseball game.
Speaker:But she pleaded with me and said, I think you're going to learn a lot if you come.
Speaker:And so I'm so grateful to her. Her name is Tally Marcus. Shoutout, Tally.
Speaker:And we went together to this conference. And it was mind-blowing.
Speaker:It's the Bay Area
Speaker:Accessibility Camp
Speaker:run by Jennison Asuncion.
Speaker:And they have it annually.
Speaker:And this particular one, there was a lady in there who was showing
Speaker:how she was a screen reader user. She was blind herself.
Speaker:And she was showing how difficult it was
Speaker:to work and
Speaker:access a web page.
Speaker:There was one particular place where she got she was looking at a carousel.
Speaker:And it was just it was awful, you know?
Speaker:And so it helped me
Speaker:see things in a new light and
Speaker:double down and focus on accessibility.
Speaker:And that's where I decided I wanted to focus full-time on accessibility.
Speaker:So yeah, so that's the background.
Speaker:And then, of course, you know like everybody else,
Speaker:we all have whether it's temporary disabilities
Speaker:or situational
Speaker:disabilities as well that can influence
Speaker:how you work and how you can use software,
Speaker:and also family members as well who have had disabilities.
Speaker:So the combination of all of that
Speaker:led me to the role I'm in now.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:I think for those of us that
Speaker:find our way into accessibility,
Speaker:there always comes a time where we're kind of wondering,
Speaker:where do we go to
Speaker:learn the craft of
Speaker:this particular profession?
Speaker:What was it like for you once you
Speaker:found it something that you were very interested in?
Speaker:Where did you go to start to build up your skills?
Speaker:I think the very first important thing is to
Speaker:talk to the community and people with disabilities and find out what their pain points
Speaker:are or what challenges they have in accessing software.
Speaker:So I did a lot of that
Speaker:talking to people and talking to other accessibility experts and learning more about
Speaker:the field.
Speaker:There are certifications you can take, too.
Speaker:But I think the more important thing is
Speaker:to understand
Speaker:the experiences and the user experiences of someone who
Speaker:is deaf or someone who is blind or has limited
Speaker:physical mobility
Speaker:and experience what they're doing. And then you can start imagining and thinking about solutions.
Speaker:And like I said, I love problem solving.
Speaker:So that was where I started.
Speaker:We also did it at ServiceNow.
Speaker:We did something interesting, which was we decided that we wanted to
Speaker:make sure that we were shifting left
Speaker:in the whole software development lifecycle process.
Speaker:So instead of fixing defects or thinking of testing as being the place where you test
Speaker:the software for accessibility, we wanted to shift left.
Speaker:And what I mean by that is that as we're planning new features or enhancing software
Speaker:or making new products, that in the design phase,
Speaker:we're thinking about
Speaker:the experience of people with disabilities
Speaker:and accessibility at that point.
Speaker:So that was a change.
Speaker:And about four years ago, then, we
Speaker:changed our approach,
Speaker:where we had accessibility sitting in the product org
Speaker:and treating it as a product with a roadmap, a roadmap to improvements,
Speaker:rather than being reactive when there was issues,
Speaker:being more proactive and seeing how can we
Speaker:build in processes to our practice
Speaker:to make sure that we're treating it
Speaker:as proactively as we could.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:it sounds like you've created a good
Speaker:mission and framework for your accessibility work.
Speaker:Maybe you could tell me a little bit about
Speaker:what it's like, kind of a day in the life or maybe a week in the life of
Speaker:your activities.
Speaker:Obviously, as managers, we're involved in managing.
Speaker:But what are some of the accessibility aspects
Speaker:that you find that take up a lot of your time?
Speaker:Good question.
Speaker:You know I do say
Speaker:that every day is
Speaker:a little different, which I like.
Speaker:There's a lot of different aspects when you work on accessibility team.
Speaker:Of course, we're not perfect.
Speaker:And of course, there are sometimes issues that you have to
Speaker:figure out where the underlying issue is and assign it to theright people to get it fixed,
Speaker:and then influence and make sure that it does get fixed.
Speaker:So that does happen.
Speaker:But I guess the days I love most is when we're brainstorming on
Speaker:new ideas and innovations.
Speaker:Like yesterday,
Speaker:somebody on my team came up with this idea.
Speaker:And it's a really interesting idea to help screen readers when they're on screen reader
Speaker:users when they're onboarding.
Speaker:And she had some great ideas of using AI and doing it in a certain way.
Speaker:And so that's really exciting,
Speaker:and then seeing an idea like that come
Speaker:to fruition throughout the make it happen.
Speaker:And so that's kind of a good thing.
Speaker:We also work with a little bit on both internal and external awareness.
Speaker:So even though we have this
Speaker:good framework, like you mentioned,
Speaker:and we've put into our processes steps and guardrails
Speaker:and resources to help people make accessible software,
Speaker:it's still an important part of the job
Speaker:to continue to advocate for accessibility and support people,
Speaker:because not everybody is an expert.
Speaker:It's a lot to know about
Speaker:the ins and outs and the technical details of accessibility.
Speaker:But supporting those people and enabling them
Speaker:is a large part of what I do as well.
Speaker:And then externally, also,
Speaker:letting people know that our company is
Speaker:a good accessibility
Speaker:has a good accessibility practice.
Speaker:And subsequently, our software is highly conformant and accessible.
Speaker:And we have a goal to be the
Speaker:leader for accessibility in enterprise software.
Speaker:And so part of my job is also making sure that people know about that as well.
Speaker:But I think going back to your question,
Speaker:I think the days when we've got some great idea and
Speaker:there's one, actually, that we're working onright now.
Speaker:It's close to being delivered in April.
Speaker:And it came from a member of the team who,
Speaker:during an innovation day we had this innovation
Speaker:day where we were brainstorming on ideas. And that's coming out now.
Speaker:And also, we
Speaker:implemented something recently that came from one of our customers.
Speaker:So we talk a lot with our customers.
Speaker:And our customers, including who lead accessibility practices in their organizations
Speaker:or advocate for accessibility,
Speaker:and the community of people
Speaker:who have disabilities.
Speaker:And we have something else that came out recently that was really
Speaker:a customer who has
Speaker:he has a visual disability.
Speaker:So he's almost
Speaker:legally fully legally blind.
Speaker:But he had an idea.
Speaker:And he came to us and said, what do you think about this? And we were able to implement that.
Speaker:And things like that make me most excited, I guess.
Speaker:Yeah, well, those are really great stories.
Speaker:And you paint a really good picture of the
Speaker:quality of accessibility in your organization.
Speaker:It's not always the case that organizations are
Speaker:as receptive and
Speaker:supportive in terms of accessibility.
Speaker:Sometimes it comes from
Speaker:primarily a compliance aspect.
Speaker:But it sounds like your organization, it's a lot bigger than that.
Speaker:So do you have any thoughts about
Speaker:how that all has come together and how
Speaker:it seems that you have so many rich activities going on?
Speaker:Yeah. And I think my advice on that is I've talked to other people in other organizations.
Speaker:And the accessibility community is very collaborative and sharing.
Speaker:And so we've had conversations on this with other
Speaker:leaders in their organizations who lead accessibility and maybe are struggling getting
Speaker:it prioritized in their organization. And so some of the things I advise on that
Speaker:is you have to kind of find
Speaker:what your company
Speaker:cares about or what your leaders care about
Speaker:and use that to your advantage.
Speaker:Like, for example, we all know
Speaker:AI is becoming really important.
Speaker:And so if you build
Speaker:software with accessibility built in, with that semantic layer built in,
Speaker:it's much better for AI. So AI works better.
Speaker:If that's the important thing that your company is working on now, that's a good angle.
Speaker:The other thing is that you're missing out on a lot of opportunity for sales.
Speaker:So if you've got a website or
Speaker:an app or product,
Speaker:and you're missing out on a whole pool
Speaker:community if it's not accessible,
Speaker:and that could be the
Speaker:money angle.
Speaker:And so whatever your company cares about,
Speaker:you know the other thing I've seen is when you're talking to different groups of people
Speaker:within the company, too,
Speaker:like usability.
Speaker:Designers care about having the optimal user experience and making it as usable as possible.
Speaker:And so that's another good angle to approach it if you need to get buy-in.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:you've already talked a little bit about some of the
Speaker:kind of current new things happening within your team.
Speaker:But kind of looking forward to
Speaker:the rest of the year, looking forward into the future,
Speaker:are there any things that you're
Speaker:looking forward to, new initiatives,
Speaker:or on the other side of it,
Speaker:possibly issues that you're
Speaker:concerned about that you think might be challenges going forward?
Speaker:I think I'm really excited, actually,
Speaker:about AI and what it can do
Speaker:in two areas.
Speaker:One is innovations around
Speaker:how to help people with disabilities.
Speaker:I was at the CSUN conference recently back in March in Anaheim.
Speaker:And I attended a session there.
Speaker:And the presenter was somebody who was deaf and blind.
Speaker:And his topic was,
Speaker:how does AI benefit the deaf/blind community?
Speaker:And there was a lot of positive reactions and some concerns.
Speaker:So I think both of those are valid. So from an excited point of view,
Speaker:I think AI can really help.
Speaker:We see things like AI summarizations,
Speaker:AI skills that help you to do something quicker.
Speaker:On the cognitive side, there's a lot going on there.
Speaker:Voice, we've implemented Voice AI.
Speaker:And it's so good.
Speaker:So you can hear
Speaker:even if you have an accent or
Speaker:a stutter or a stammer,
Speaker:the AI can understand
Speaker:it and understand you.
Speaker:And it's pretty powerful. So there's a lot of things good with coming with AI.
Speaker:And that's what excites me and a lot of things that can help the community.
Speaker:But I think also something that was raised at CSUN and some other places I've been talking
Speaker:with people is that we must make sure
Speaker:to guard against bias.
Speaker:So a lot of the large language models, for example,
Speaker:are based on code that's out there. And if there's a lot of inaccessible code out there,
Speaker:they're going to create inaccessible
Speaker:code going forward, whether it's created by AI or a human.
Speaker:So we have to guard against that and put guardrails in there to make sure that doesn't happen.
Speaker:And likewise,
Speaker:just bias in general in those large language models to make sure that it's
Speaker:including people, that all these large language models are including people
Speaker:with disabilities as a part of the community and being inclusive.
Speaker:Well, Aileen,
Speaker:thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me.
Speaker:I appreciate all of your insights,
Speaker:especially these ones about AI,
Speaker:I think,
Speaker:are ones that give me some new things to think about.
Speaker:And I appreciate you taking the time to
Speaker:share your journey with everyone that listens to this.
Speaker:OK. I'm delighted to talk about accessibility.
Speaker:As you know, I'm very passionate about the topic.
Speaker:So I'm happy to talk about it and
Speaker:share my experiences.
Speaker:And delighted to be on the podcast today. Thank you.
Speaker:Thanks so much. Bye-bye.
Speaker:OK. Take care.
