Episode 9
Advocating for Digital Inclusion Every Day
Hanna Karppi leads Nexer Digital's accessibility business in Sweden, helping expand the company's accessibility practice while advocating for digital inclusion across clients and industries. Originally from Finland, she studied political history, political science, and communications before building a career in change management and digital workplaces that eventually led her into accessibility. Hanna discusses why human-centered thinking is essential to technology, how internal advocates often drive organizational change, and why she is optimistic about AI, workplace inclusion, and the continued growth of accessibility across Europe.
Transcript
Well, hello. I'm the host of the Digital Accessibility Podcast.
Speaker:My name is Joe Welinske, and this program is about the people behind the
Speaker:progress. And today I am pleased to be visiting with Hanna Karppi.
Speaker:Hello, Hana. How are you doing today?
Speaker:I'm good, thank you. How are you?
Speaker:Yeah, very good. It's been a fairly dry, sunny, and warm
Speaker:couple of weeks in Bellingham, Washington, where I live.
Speaker:Where are you talking to us from?
Speaker:I am in Stockholm, Sweden, and we haven't had super warm yet.
Speaker:It's been quite warm, but now we're expecting the European
Speaker:heat wave to come here in the weekend, so expecting that a lot of people
Speaker:will be out and about and enjoying the summer.
Speaker:Well, I've been there a few times.
Speaker:It's a lovely place to visit.
Speaker:And it's good to have you as an international guest for this
Speaker:podcast. And always a good place to start is if you could tell us
Speaker:a little bit about the work that you're doing right now.
Speaker:So I work for Nexer, which is a Swedish tech IT consulting company,
Speaker:but we have a global presence.
Speaker:And we do basically work in all different areas of IT, but one of the
Speaker:expertise areas that we have is accessibility.
Speaker:And we have really long roots with that in the UK,
Speaker:where we have a special kind of area and unit called Nexar Digital.
Speaker:And now we decided to expand Nexar Digital here in Sweden last year.
Speaker:So I'm running our business here in Sweden and running the team of
Speaker:accessibility specialists. So that's my job.
Speaker:So doing a bit of everything at the moment.
Speaker:Well, I'm sure, yeah, doing a little bit of everything can sound like a lot.
Speaker:What is it typically that the types of things that you'll be involved with
Speaker:in a week or a month in your position?
Speaker:In my position, I'm not involved in the practical accessibility work that much,
Speaker:but then my team is.
Speaker:And our team in the UK, of course, with everything from
Speaker:designing things to developing to doing audits to training
Speaker:strategies, guidelines, everything possible when it comes to
Speaker:digital inclusion and human-centered IT.
Speaker:But my regular work week is a lot about advocating for
Speaker:digital inclusion and accessibility.
Speaker:I go to events. I meet a lot of people, of course, meet a lot of
Speaker:clients, potential clients. Of course, try to be the best possible manager to my
Speaker:team and make sure that my team shines and be a good colleague to my colleagues,
Speaker:doing a lot of trying to find out trends, reading about things, listening to
Speaker:podcasts like your podcast, which is great, by the way.
Speaker:And yeah, it's a lot about meeting people.
Speaker:And I still, we think, still need to do a lot of advocating.
Speaker:So I see that that's a big part of my role, not just to get clients,
Speaker:but also for the bigger and more meaningful reasons behind
Speaker:the reason why we do this work, so.
Speaker:And you mentioned your clients.
Speaker:For people that may not be familiar with your organization,
Speaker:what type of work is Nexar involved with?
Speaker:So Nexar clients are for the whole company, are everything from big
Speaker:enterprises to smaller companies.
Speaker:When it comes to kind of our area of work, we are very much into
Speaker:in the UK, we work a lot, for example, with healthcare sector and education sector
Speaker:charities. But then also here, retail.
Speaker:That's a big emerging area now when we think of accessibility and inclusion.
Speaker:So it is very varying organizations that we work with.
Speaker:But I would say that if you are like most amazing stories probably
Speaker:are from, for example, from healthcare sector, where you can actually
Speaker:see that there's been a big impact and there are long roots in the
Speaker:UK, especially with the work that we have done.
Speaker:But I'd say it's very,
Speaker:very, very varying when it comes to our clients.
Speaker:Some of the clients are very well known also internationally.
Speaker:I don't want to name-drop here, but if you think of some big Swedish companies,
Speaker:some of them are our clients. Well, why don't we go back in time a bit
Speaker:and tell us a little bit about how you found your way to what you're doing today,
Speaker:maybe your lived life and the things that you've done in your work that brings
Speaker:you to your current position?
Speaker:So I have to first admit that I'm not an IT person, even if I work in
Speaker:IT or yeah, well, everyone is an IT person because everything is IT.
Speaker:But I come more of the human side.
Speaker:So this was never actually my plan even to work with IT.
Speaker:So I'm from Finland originally and got myself to
Speaker:university to study political history, political science.
Speaker:I'm specialized in American and Cold War history.
Speaker:And I was sure that I was going to be a diplomat or work in
Speaker:some governmental organization or something like that.
Speaker:I also studied communications and then found myself working in a
Speaker:big Swedish construction company at some point, doing a lot of
Speaker:change management, change communications, and then slowly kind of moved myself
Speaker:to IT and more digital things.
Speaker:And what became quite where my IT passion then comes from is the
Speaker:kind of the human side, since I am a humanist.
Speaker:So I've always wanted to kind of explore
Speaker:the users or us humans who use the IT.
Speaker:I hope the IT won't use us.
Speaker:I guess it does that also sometimes and more and more with AI.
Speaker:But I mean, it's fascinating how little we
Speaker:give the attention to humans,
Speaker:even if we are humans also working in IT industry.
Speaker:So I've kind of put a lot of
Speaker:effort during my career or been passionate about looking into how we think
Speaker:and how we would like to use the tools the best way and
Speaker:how we should design them so that they are better for us.
Speaker:So that's basically my IT path.
Speaker:And then I worked a long time with digital workplaces.
Speaker:So that's my original IT area, lots with
Speaker:intranets and internal communications, different messaging tools,
Speaker:and how people interact at work.
Speaker:So yeah, the kind of
Speaker:human-centered thinking there as well.
Speaker:And I think that we put too little focus on also kind of the internal tools.
Speaker:So then that's how I ended up in accessibility.
Speaker:Then I kind of learned while kind of
Speaker:studying how humans use the tools that there is also specific
Speaker:needs, became more and more aware of those.
Speaker:I'm definitely still not perfect today.
Speaker:I want to learn and I want to be educated.
Speaker:And I don't think anyone has to be perfect with
Speaker:this as long as you keep your mind open.
Speaker:But I think it's very, how would I say,
Speaker:important topic and close to my heart.
Speaker:And it's all about humans, not just accessibility, but usability and
Speaker:making IT better for everyone.
Speaker:So I'm very glad that I'm working now what I am working with.
Speaker:Well, I have some experience.
Speaker:I've done a lot of things where I work in a client relationship
Speaker:where we're always working with different clients.
Speaker:And ideally, we want our clients to invest in
Speaker:accessibility in every project.
Speaker:But in my experience and most of that being with organizations in the United
Speaker:States, there's some companies that are ready for it
Speaker:and they fully invested in accessibility and it's part of everything that they do.
Speaker:But I've found that most organizations
Speaker:have accessibility where they put it off and they find it as an easy thing where
Speaker:they can say,"We'll work on it later."And they never get around to investing in it
Speaker:in the way that they should. And I was just wondering what your perceptions
Speaker:are of being a large agency in your area in terms of
Speaker:how much clients are receptive to investing in accessibility?
Speaker:I think it varies. I think definitely there should be more
Speaker:investments, much more.
Speaker:I don't think everyone always understands that if you invest in an early
Speaker:phase and if you invest time and money, it will come back to you at some point
Speaker:and you will save a lot of money if you don't just fix everything afterwards.
Speaker:But then again, I've also seen really good examples of companies where
Speaker:already accessibility is embedded in the strategies and kind of ways of working.
Speaker:So it's always wonderful to see someone doing things right.
Speaker:But I also believe that in many of these places where they actually do this, it is
Speaker:normally some advocates inside that company.
Speaker:It's fascinating to see when I talk to people that I might ask,"So how did you
Speaker:start to work with accessibility in your company?"Well, it was me
Speaker:and my other colleague. He was normally it's like a coder or someone from
Speaker:development and someone from the business side.
Speaker:And then both of them are excited about accessibility or then it's just one person.
Speaker:And then they start to talk about it and try to spread
Speaker:the word. And if they are persistent enough, they
Speaker:get a small budget and then it starts to grow.
Speaker:Because I think that when companies and organizations get into it,
Speaker:they can actually see the benefits for everyone.
Speaker:But they don't see it if they don't do anything.
Speaker:But I think that that's why I said earlier as well that it's important with this
Speaker:advocating still because that is also one way of having
Speaker:these breakthroughs in a company. You would hope that it would happen
Speaker:for other reasons, that it wouldn't have to be just that one or two people pushing
Speaker:it through. But that's how it still seems to work quite a lot, at least here.
Speaker:I don't know how it is in the US, but many companies I talk to,
Speaker:it's the power of some very persistent,
Speaker:bold people who start to talk about it.
Speaker:And one of the things that is prominent in Europe,
Speaker:mainly new in the European Union, was the
Speaker:European Accessibility Act, which is
Speaker:meant to be an extremely far-reaching and important piece of regulation.
Speaker:It has been delayed for another year in terms of
Speaker:compliance. But is that something that your team has to
Speaker:learn about and be prepared for?
Speaker:Yes. So normally when we do audit work, for example, we, of course, do it based on
Speaker:European Accessibility Act as well.
Speaker:And I was just in an event a couple of days ago
Speaker:where we celebrated the one-year anniversary now.
Speaker:It's coming soon, the 28th, if I remember correct.
Speaker:So I think that there's been a lot of kind of
Speaker:at least last year when the law came out, that many companies wanted to audit their
Speaker:websites and there was quite a lot of fuss.
Speaker:But now it seems to that companies have done the minimal,
Speaker:at least, and then they may be waiting a bit.
Speaker:I just had this conversation with one of the colleagues and
Speaker:maybe there's a little bit like,"Okay, let's see what happens.
Speaker:And will someone get fined?"I understood that in France, there's been some
Speaker:fines already, but it hasn't happened here yet.
Speaker:And what's going to happen if we don't do this?
Speaker:So I think it hasn't fixed everything, but I still think it is a good
Speaker:thing that we also get the legislation.
Speaker:I hope that it will get harder and there will be sanctions and there will be also
Speaker:more services that have to be compliant.
Speaker:I'm hoping that someday it will also reach the
Speaker:tools that we use at work, that it's not only external websites, but it's also
Speaker:or external services, but it's also my
Speaker:digital workplace tools because I think employee rights is also important.
Speaker:So I have high hopes maybe, and I think we should be proud we have that
Speaker:legislation in place. But has it magically fixed everything?
Speaker:No, but I think it has at least brought more attention
Speaker:to the matter. It's great to see how that was
Speaker:put in. And as you mentioned, it'll take some time to see how the
Speaker:regulatory compliance part of it actually works out.
Speaker:Actually, I think I misspoke, but in the United States, we had some important
Speaker:legislation and that had been delayed in terms of
Speaker:enforcement by a year. And yeah, ideally, the compliance isn't
Speaker:the element that is why people do accessibility.
Speaker:But unfortunately, it's the reality that that is the type of thing that
Speaker:ultimately makes all of our organizations decide that
Speaker:it's time to build accessibility into their products and services.
Speaker:And it works with other things too.
Speaker:I don't think we had, for example, a GDPR big change happening in Europe
Speaker:a few years ago. And I think that that's made companies more invested in
Speaker:information security and things like that.
Speaker:So it's not only accessibility.
Speaker:Unfortunately, we people seem to need this kind of legal
Speaker:framework as well. But I think that it's good to have in place because it will also
Speaker:protect us if political climate changes or
Speaker:whatever happens in Europe, that I think it's always good to have these in place.
Speaker:But it definitely shouldn't be the ultimate reason to do
Speaker:things that are better for everyone.
Speaker:Well, as we finish up here, I just wanted to ask about the future, either
Speaker:short-term or long-term for you and your organization.
Speaker:Are there any things coming up, activities that you're excited about
Speaker:or on the other side of it, maybe things that look to be challenging that
Speaker:you're hoping are going to turn out well?
Speaker:What's it look like to you in the coming years
Speaker:for accessibility at your organization?
Speaker:Oh, I wish I had a crystal ball.
Speaker:As I say, I always want to be a little bit optimist.
Speaker:So I'm hoping that kind of the positive trend continues, that people
Speaker:are more and more interested in these topics.
Speaker:I think there is also some kind of, how do you say,
Speaker:forceful movement now when unfortunately, we have a political climate in the world
Speaker:that doesn't encourage diversity and inclusion.
Speaker:So I think that there are also companies and organizations who want to do things
Speaker:differently and be different.
Speaker:We're one of them. So I want to believe that there's opportunity to
Speaker:help those organizations and not only with accessibility, but with the whole
Speaker:inclusion thinking.
Speaker:AI, of course, is going to be a challenge, but also
Speaker:an opportunity for accessibility in many ways.
Speaker:I have personally very I'm torn.
Speaker:I'm a little bit scared of it, but at the same time, I also know that
Speaker:there are positive sides. So we really have to invest more time and energy
Speaker:in AI and accessibility. And then, like I said earlier, what I'm
Speaker:hoping and what I can see a little bit as well is that
Speaker:companies are also interested in workplace inclusion more.
Speaker:So at least here in Sweden, I have had discussions
Speaker:with organizations who want to make sure that their internal tools and also
Speaker:information is accessible for everyone.
Speaker:So hoping also that trend coming the
Speaker:next years. But yeah, things move so fast that it's
Speaker:sometimes hard to keep up.
Speaker:But yeah, hoping it will be a positive trend.
Speaker:Well, Hanna, it's been great to have this chance to speak with you and
Speaker:learn about your path into accessibility.
Speaker:So thanks so much for taking the time to do this with me.
Speaker:Thank you. It's been super nice.
Speaker:And yeah, as I said, your podcast is great.
Speaker:So I hope I didn't ruin it by this one episode.
Speaker:No, not at all. This has been a great addition.
Speaker:So thank you very much. Thank you.
Speaker:Bye-bye.
