Episode 6
From Good Intentions to Sustainable Execution
Samantha Karell, who leads Digital Accessibility Services at Allyant, discusses helping organizations build sustainable accessibility programs through audits, VPATs, consulting, and strategic guidance. She traces her path from student services into the University of Washington’s Disability Resources Office, where working with accommodations, Braille materials, and digital access sparked her passion for accessibility. Samantha also shares her optimism about AI, explaining how it can improve internal operations, scale expertise across teams, and deliver faster, more meaningful guidance to customers without replacing human judgment.
Transcript
Well, hello. This is Joe Welinske, and I'm the host of the Digital
Speaker:Accessibility Podcast, The People Behind the Progress.
Speaker:I'm here with another guest. Today I am speaking with Samantha Karell.
Speaker:How are you doing today, Samantha?
Speaker:Hi, Joe. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker:I'm really excited to be here.
Speaker:How are you doing? Yeah, well, it's kind of a dismal day in Bellingham,
Speaker:Washington. Where are you talking to us from?
Speaker:I'm about 80 miles south of you in Seattle, so I suspect you and I have probably
Speaker:been sharing the same cloud the last couple of days.
Speaker:All right. Well, hopefully we'll actually get summer soon, but it's good to
Speaker:have you as part of this program.
Speaker:And the first thing would be to just hear a little bit about your work,
Speaker:the things that you're involved with now.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. So currently I'm leading Digital Accessibility Services at
Speaker:Allyant. So there I'm overseeing teams that are
Speaker:really spending a lot of time delivering accessibility evaluations,
Speaker:VPATs, doing a lot of client-facing consulting and strategic accessibility services,
Speaker:really to organizations across a lot of different industries.
Speaker:So the team that I lead, they're really helping organizations understand where
Speaker:accessibility barriers are existing in their digital environment.
Speaker:But I think more importantly,
Speaker:we're really trying to help the organizations that we work with build
Speaker:really sustainable programs and practices that help them really, I think,
Speaker:proactively think about accessibility and how to improve it over time.
Speaker:I am a little bit newer to the organization, so I'm still getting oriented to the
Speaker:day-to-day there. But I think what I've really loved about my role so far is that
Speaker:it really kind of overlaps with accessibility, customer experience, operations,
Speaker:and business strategy. And so it really feels like it's kind of drawing on a lot of
Speaker:areas of my professional history.
Speaker:And I think the other thing that I've really liked about it is that, you know,
Speaker:I think sometimes people think accessibility is primarily a technical
Speaker:or a compliance challenge. And I've learned through my career that
Speaker:it's often a little bit more holistic than that, and it's usually an organizational
Speaker:challenge. And so I think having an opportunity to be in a leadership position
Speaker:where I can think about governance, processes, priorities, and
Speaker:just how we proactively build accessibility into the way that
Speaker:companies are getting work done has been a really great opportunity for me.
Speaker:Well, for people that may not be familiar with your organization,
Speaker:just tell us a little bit about what the company is involved in.
Speaker:Yeah. So Alliant is a digital accessibility organization.
Speaker:So we're providing a variety of services to support organizations become more
Speaker:accessible. So I mentioned I oversee the digital audit side,
Speaker:so really kind of getting into
Speaker:organizations'environments and helping them understand
Speaker:where those barriers and blockers exist and how they can fix and ideally prevent
Speaker:them from coming up in the future.
Speaker:And then one of the things that's been really interesting about
Speaker:Alliant is it provides a host we provide a host of accessibility service
Speaker:offerings, so things like remediation services,
Speaker:print and alternative format services, and even Braille services,
Speaker:which is kind of a fun callback to some of the time I spent at the
Speaker:University of Washington where we were involved in providing things like Braille
Speaker:textbooks to students or faculty.
Speaker:So a lot of different accessibility services the organization is providing.
Speaker:I kind of like to think of it almost as like a full suite of offerings that you can
Speaker:explore if you work with the company.
Speaker:And how did you find your way to where you are today?
Speaker:Maybe tell us a little bit. You mentioned the University of Washington.
Speaker:Maybe just talk a little bit about your background and the path that
Speaker:led you to what you're doing now.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. You know, accessibility really, I think, did come to me through
Speaker:higher education. I started my professional career working in student
Speaker:services, and I always felt really strongly about educational access and inclusion.
Speaker:And then while I was working in student services, I had the opportunity at the
Speaker:University of Washington in Seattle to start working for their Disability Resources
Speaker:Office. And I think that's really where I got my start in accessibility,
Speaker:as well as program management and service delivery.
Speaker:I think those three things have been kind of common connections throughout my
Speaker:professional career. And it was just such an amazing experience getting to work for
Speaker:Disability Resources. Between learning from the professionals that worked in that
Speaker:office and then certainly the students it served,
Speaker:I think really just kind of kicked off a passion for accessibility.
Speaker:While I was there, I was managing classroom access services and accommodations.
Speaker:And I think very typical of the higher education environment was just
Speaker:wearing a lot of hats. So from managing classroom accommodations to testing support
Speaker:to things like department operations, staffing, and service delivery, kind of all
Speaker:fell under my wheelhouse there.
Speaker:I think at the time I was doing more work, again, around classroom access,
Speaker:so thinking about how do students get into the building,
Speaker:how do students get into the classroom, how do students engage in that environment.
Speaker:And one of my colleagues was focused a little bit more on the digital environment,
Speaker:so supporting students who needed materials in large print, Braille, or other
Speaker:accessible digital formats. And I think that was really my first
Speaker:the first time I really thought about access in the digital space.
Speaker:And it was really great learning from her because,
Speaker:again, it just made me think about understanding accessibility beyond
Speaker:a physical classroom and into the digital environment.
Speaker:And I think that environment, you know, the digital world has only become
Speaker:increasingly important since then.
Speaker:And, you know, I think really that experience working at DRS, at the University of
Speaker:Washington, it just fundamentally shaped how I think about accessibility today.
Speaker:And I think ensuring that students had equitable access to the same
Speaker:opportunities as everyone else has become, I think, kind of
Speaker:a guiding principle in the work that I do.
Speaker:And then I think the other thing that really kind of set me on the path that I'm on
Speaker:today was actually my graduate work.
Speaker:So while I was at the UDub, I completed my graduate work in higher education
Speaker:administration. And one of the concepts that I really
Speaker:leaned into, and I think had a really lasting impact as well on
Speaker:just kind of my approach to access and inclusion, was universal design for learning.
Speaker:I think one of the things that really stood out about that was that it really
Speaker:challenges us UDL really challenges us to think beyond just accommodations,
Speaker:which is not to say that accommodations aren't incredibly important, but they can be
Speaker:sometimes very reactive.
Speaker:They're often provided after someone is encountering a barrier.
Speaker:And I think universal design kind of makes us stop and ask a different question,
Speaker:which is how do we proactively design learning environments, systems, services,
Speaker:experiences, and so on in a way that supports a wide range of learners, including
Speaker:students with disabilities, from a start?
Speaker:And I think that concept of how do we proactively design for
Speaker:this is something that has kind of followed me throughout my career,
Speaker:whether I'm working with a university,
Speaker:small business that's maybe just getting started after litigation, or, you know,
Speaker:a large Fortune 50 company that has a mature accessibility program.
Speaker:I think those experiences at the University of Washington and with universal design
Speaker:really, I think, caused me to kind of ask that same question: how do we create
Speaker:systems that really work to further accessibility for more people
Speaker:instead of constantly reacting to barriers after they appear?
Speaker:Well, you definitely it sounds like you
Speaker:had a lot of great experience at the university,
Speaker:and that led you on to other things.
Speaker:There's certainly differences between academic and corporate environments.
Speaker:Did you find any challenges moving into the type of
Speaker:work that you're doing now? You know, it's been an interesting transition.
Speaker:I kind of eased into it a little bit.
Speaker:I think my first kind of real immersion into digital accessibility as a profession
Speaker:came when I joined Blackboard.
Speaker:I think they were known as Anthology for a little while,
Speaker:and I think they're back to Blackboard now.
Speaker:And I started working there as an accessibility consultant.
Speaker:And that was really eye-opening for me because I was still working within
Speaker:higher education, but it was on a much bigger scale.
Speaker:I was really working with university systems and colleges around the world
Speaker:to implement this very interesting tool called Blackboard Ally.
Speaker:And I think that was a really nice introduction for me.
Speaker:Ally was a tool that was very deeply rooted in universal design for learning
Speaker:principles. So it was helping institutions kind of identify barriers and course
Speaker:content while providing students alternative formats, things like audio versions of
Speaker:reference material, electronic Braille, HTML, or mobile-friendly formats.
Speaker:And I think really the goal there was to support different learning
Speaker:preferences and needs. And while I was there, something that really
Speaker:prepared me for that transition out of education and academia into kind of the more
Speaker:corporate world was that I was working with institutions that were at just
Speaker:totally different stages of their accessibility journey, which is something I
Speaker:have found moving more over to the corporate side.
Speaker:I would sometimes work with an institution that had, you know, a single champion
Speaker:that was really, you know, trying to move the work forward.
Speaker:And then other times I was working with a university or maybe an entire college
Speaker:system where it was really top-down, you know,
Speaker:the entire leadership that was pursuing accessibility as a strategic initiative.
Speaker:And I think that experience and something I took forward, you know, from that
Speaker:was just that accessibility,
Speaker:again, it's not just technology or compliance challenge.
Speaker:It's, you know, really it can be a change management challenge.
Speaker:It can be a leadership or governance challenge.
Speaker:And it's really about meeting an organization at where they're at and
Speaker:kind of helping them mature in that.
Speaker:And so I think that is something that, as
Speaker:I started working with all of these different businesses that were at different
Speaker:stages of their journey, is something I've come back to: where is that organization?
Speaker:What are their accessibility goals?
Speaker:And how do we help them start to achieve that in a way that feels both
Speaker:proactive and sustainable over time?
Speaker:Well, you've mentioned, yeah, the perspectives that you've gotten from different
Speaker:clients that have different challenges that you have to help them with.
Speaker:I imagine that also there's so many things
Speaker:evolving in accessibility, new technologies that
Speaker:change things, new business realities that change.
Speaker:I was wondering if you have any thoughts in that area in terms of things that
Speaker:you've seen or learned from your clients or through your own team
Speaker:of new changes that we have to be aware of
Speaker:as accessibility moves forward. Yeah.
Speaker:I think when I first started in accessibility, it was
Speaker:a lot of times viewed as kind of this niche specialty.
Speaker:And so a lot of the conversations I was hearing were really happening
Speaker:among kind of this small group of disability services professionals or
Speaker:accessibility practitioners or, you know, relatively small groups
Speaker:of advocates in the community.
Speaker:And I think it's been interesting to see that, you know, as time has gone on, that
Speaker:conversation has become a much broader business conversation.
Speaker:And I'm starting to hear and I think really the pandemic maybe accelerated
Speaker:the shift a little bit. But I think, you know, in the last several years, it has
Speaker:been very cool to see how that conversation has expanded.
Speaker:And it's becoming part of discussions around things like customer experience,
Speaker:product quality, risk management, even things like procurement or
Speaker:the employee experience. You know, companies are starting to think about
Speaker:accessibility and having awareness of that.
Speaker:It's really increased pretty dramatically.
Speaker:So I think what I'm seeing now, and I think this is a challenge that we're trying to
Speaker:solve, is now that we have awareness, how do we shift from
Speaker:knowing what the challenge is and knowing what the barriers are to actually
Speaker:operationalizing that and really kind of moving that forward?
Speaker:I think, you know, the question I hear, and I think this has, again, changed over
Speaker:time from organizations, they don't really need
Speaker:to be convinced why accessibility matters.
Speaker:It's not something that I'm really having to gain a lot of buy-in around.
Speaker:I think it's more it's less of why should we do this?
Speaker:And then I think the conversation has shifted to how do we do this consistently?
Speaker:And so I think that's where I've been spending a lot of my time today,
Speaker:is how do we move from good intentions to actual sustainable execution?
Speaker:And I think we have made a lot of progress, but I do think a lot of work
Speaker:still needs to happen on just making that move from reactive to proactive.
Speaker:Yeah. The last part you mentioned is something that I've mentioned on this
Speaker:program before, is that there are things that when I started working
Speaker:in accessibility 25 years ago, I assumed things would be a lot farther along
Speaker:in the future than they are now.
Speaker:And on the other hand, there's been some amazing developments that I never could
Speaker:have, you know, imagined earlier on as well.
Speaker:So there's always that trade-off.
Speaker:Yeah. I feel the same way.
Speaker:It's been really cool to see the conversation evolve at the same times.
Speaker:It feels like we're sometimes running into the same stumbling blocks that we did,
Speaker:you know, 10, 15 years ago. And I, you know, I am.
Speaker:There are some organizations that are doing it really well.
Speaker:I think, you know, it's not as proactive as I would like it to be, but
Speaker:I am seeing some movement in, you know, just bringing accessibility into
Speaker:product development or design systems or even organizational strategy.
Speaker:And I do think that the earlier that accessibility becomes a part of an
Speaker:organization's decision-making, the greater impact that it has.
Speaker:And I also I think something that I would often tell customers and still do,
Speaker:I think that a lot of times when people think of accessibility,
Speaker:they think that they have to go from 0 to 100.
Speaker:And I always say that it's progress.
Speaker:It's not perfection. One of the reasons I love this industry is it
Speaker:changes and it evolves so much.
Speaker:And we, as practitioners, get to change and evolve with it.
Speaker:And I think with that means that you're always learning something new.
Speaker:You know, there's always something that you could be incorporating into your
Speaker:practice that's just come out.
Speaker:And so this idea that you're going to get to perfect out of the gate,
Speaker:I think, can really trip a lot of organizations up.
Speaker:It's how do we make these small incremental changes that become practice over time?
Speaker:Well, I'm sure you're always being kept busy with
Speaker:new and different things that are happening.
Speaker:Are there any things coming up in the near term or
Speaker:farther out that you're looking forward to?
Speaker:Are there any new challenges or opportunities that you're, you know, particularly
Speaker:excited or concerned about for you or your organization?
Speaker:Yeah. You know, I think and this is probably not the first time you've heard this,
Speaker:but I think just the really big topic right now is AI and the role that that could
Speaker:play with accessibility. And it's something that I am
Speaker:very curious and I think cautiously optimistic about.
Speaker:I think something that I feel really passionately about is that I don't see
Speaker:AI replacing accessibility professionals.
Speaker:I certainly don't see it replacing the learned experiences of people with
Speaker:disabilities or native screen reader users.
Speaker:I think that that lived experience is really essential.
Speaker:But I am very curious to see how AI can maybe
Speaker:be almost an accelerator when it comes to fixing barriers in the environment,
Speaker:whether it's, you know, how can we use this to identify patterns more quickly or
Speaker:provide more tangible or actionable guidance?
Speaker:How do we maybe use it to help scale some of our accessibility knowledge?
Speaker:So I think things like that, I'm really kind of curious to see how that can help
Speaker:as a tool within accessibility.
Speaker:I think to me, AI is a tool, maybe not a complete solution.
Speaker:And then I think, you know, beyond how it can help with, you know,
Speaker:things like accessibility audits, I think from a service delivery perspective,
Speaker:I'm also very intrigued around how AI can help us
Speaker:just continue to operationalize and scale out, whether it's things like forecasting,
Speaker:capacity planning, internal training and enablement, or just process efficiency.
Speaker:I think, you know, one of the things that I focus a lot on is if my team can be,
Speaker:you know, really, really efficient and really aligned, that means that we can get
Speaker:guidance, consultative experiences, feedback, recommendations back to customers more
Speaker:quickly. So I think that's something that, like everyone in the industry,
Speaker:we're kind of playing around with to see, you know, again,
Speaker:how is this a tool that we can make work for us and for our customers?
Speaker:Well, you're right that AI has come up before.
Speaker:It definitely is something that's top of mind.
Speaker:And, you know, I think we're at the point where we're talking
Speaker:less about the idea of it. And over the past year,
Speaker:I've seen and heard so many people talk about what they're actually doing,
Speaker:the solutions that they're producing to be able to use that
Speaker:technology for the good and to move things forward.
Speaker:Yeah. It's been really interesting to see,
Speaker:I think, the creativity that some of our colleagues are leveraging when it comes to
Speaker:AI. And, you know, I admit, I think this is where I have to take my own advice and
Speaker:stay open and stay curious to it.
Speaker:I think when the AI conversation came up, and I don't know if you heard this a lot,
Speaker:Joe, I think a lot of times it was getting
Speaker:positioned within the accessibility community as this total solution,
Speaker:something you could take and it was going to tell you where all of the barriers
Speaker:existed in your environment and help you fix that.
Speaker:And I do, again, think that there's a lot of validity that it can certainly, again,
Speaker:accelerate that. But I think, you know, over
Speaker:time we're seeing that it's not replacing people.
Speaker:It's just supporting the work that they're already doing.
Speaker:Yeah. And I'm particularly interested in the
Speaker:kind of the new things that move us forward.
Speaker:Certainly, it's useful as a tool to help speed things up, but
Speaker:it's some of those innovative techniques that I'm kind of always looking out for
Speaker:because, well, those are new things that hadn't been possible before or
Speaker:thought of before. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:And it is really cool to see some of my team has been kind of playing around with it
Speaker:and to see some of the potential that it has to, again, really get
Speaker:results or very tangible recommendations to customers more quickly,
Speaker:or even internal enablement. How do we take the knowledge and the expertise that
Speaker:exists across an accessibility team and go,"OK, here's where we need to scale out.
Speaker:Here's a trend that's coming within the community.
Speaker:Like, here's how we proactively, as professionals and practitioners, kind of,
Speaker:you know, get ahead of some of that so we're providing the best
Speaker:guidance to customers?"So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how it evolves over
Speaker:time. Well, it's been great having this time to chat with you,
Speaker:Samantha. So I appreciate you taking the time to share some thoughts about your
Speaker:background and your own work.
Speaker:And I look forward to, hopefully, meeting you out in the real world at some point.
Speaker:Absolutely, Joe. I really appreciate the time today.
Speaker:It was wonderful getting to talk with you.
Speaker:All right. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.
Speaker:Thank you. Bye.
