Episode 7 - Keith Atherton

Keith Atherton is EVERYWHERE and it's not hard to understand why. He is one of the most genuine, kind, humble, and lovely people you could ever meet.

In this episode of 365 a11y the podcast he joins resident host Mike Hartley to discuss his thoughts and experiences of accessibility, the impact of AI, and what accessibility in an AI future looks like.

Transcript

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Hello everybody and welcome to yet another episode of 365 Ally the podcast. My name is Mike Hartley, as you probably all well know by now. And today I am absolutely cock a hoop and over the moon. to be joined by Keith Atherton, who is just an absolute legend and a well-known face and voice to anybody who's at conferences, events, on YouTube, on podcasts, everything. He's everywhere. I mean, I don't need to introduce him, but I'll let him introduce himself. Keith, tell us about yourself and welcome. Hey Mike. Yeah, thank well. Thank you so much. It's great to be here. Appreciate appreciate being a guest on the show. Really looking forward to this. So as Mike kindly said, I mean that what an introduction, but my name is Keith Atherton. I'm a Power Platform solution architect as Mike mentioned. I'm fairly active with public speaking at conferences and events as well as are you know many others in the community and also Microsoft MVP. Microsoft certified trainer and run, uh, you know, just like Mike, of course. Fantastic. And, uh, yeah, I, Oh, you've got to have a new, you've got to, yeah. I need to, I need to sort of, uh, yeah, sort that out myself actually. But, um, yeah, I also have a podcast as well called On Air in the Cloud and, uh, yeah, I'm just loving a chance to be on your show. Thanks Mike. It is wonderful to welcome you mate, is wonderful to welcome you. the way this thing goes, we've kind of got a bit of a standard set of questions for this time around. Yeah, we've seen it go to plan sometimes, not necessarily go to plan other times, so we'll play it by ear. And just to make it clear to everybody, if you've not worked it out by now, All of these questions, all these answers, they're all presented from Keith's point of view, Keith's perspective, accessibility. It's not one size fits all, it's one size fits one. We all have different views, we all have different outlooks on it also. The whole point of this is to get those different ideas and perspectives, which kind of leads us into the first question really, Keith, and that is... What does accessibility mean to you? I mean, it's quite a fundamental question, really, I guess. Yeah, it's a good one. You know, I was giving this some thought and I think for me, accessibility is enabling anyone or at least as many people as possible to use a tool or service. So I think a way of meaning that anyone can have the chance to use something is part of accessibility for me. No, Yeah. I wholeheartedly agree. I can't disagree with that one. It's a pretty darn good definition of it all really. oh yeah. Yeah, no. And I mean, for you in your daily life, Power Platform Solution Architect, speaker, event attendee, all these good things and living life as well. What does accessibility, what is it in your daily life? How does it feature in your daily life? Yeah, that's a good one, you know, because it's a tricky one. I feel really lucky in many ways, really privileged in that there aren't many things where I have to search for kind of like an assistive option. Typically, you know, one of the ones that I do, I do use quite regularly is my hearing's not quite perfect. It's not, it's not too bad really, but it's just kind of just off a little bit. for me using things like closed captions on TV, that could be a big, big benefit. It kind of sinks in a bit more when I, I can read it and hear it as well sometimes, which might sound a bit odd, things like that, or, you know, even wearing glasses, you know, don't wear them very often, but if, I need to wear glasses, if I go to the cinema or something like that, it would just sharpen things up a bit. So again, I'm using something that kind of assists me in some way just to make things a bit more. accessible, it kind of improves that experience for me. So again, I'm, you know, I'm fairly light on experiences at the moment, but as we all know, life goes through phases and we'll, see what changes in future. Yeah, yeah, I mean the whole thing with subtitles, it's really interesting because there's a lot of parents that are actually trying to make it that particularly on kids TV channels, the subtitles are on by default because they find that kids themselves, it helps them learning reading. but it also keeps their attention because if you're reading something as well as listening and watching, it's not going to fall into the background. That sense of I've got to be reading the words on screen just kind of fixes your eyes on there. And of course it's great if you're in bed with your partner and they're falling asleep and you want to watch something, you switch the old subtitles on and... You can turn the volume down and you don't need it quite as loud and all that lot. um the majority of users of subtitles don't have any hearing problems whatsoever. It's quite the interesting stat. think it's something like 80 % of subtitle users do not have hearing problems. they're used by people in either situational basis to like bars and clubs where there might be something on the TV and they've got the subtitles on. But it can just be people at home. I have subtitles on pretty much on everything. Because yeah, it helps me focus and concentrate. So. I do tend to take in more that way so yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. It kind of reminds me actually, was a, there was a time a few years ago, I used to live in, the U S and it was, it was quite popular in some bars and even some restaurants there where they would have lots of screens on with different sports, lots of games on football there, hockey here, basketball there. And I do remember now you mentioned that many of them having the subtitles on and then the volume lowered. So unless you were sitting in front of that screen or near it, could you hear it? But if they were all turned up, they'd all be competing. So yeah, now you mentioned that. I do remember that other subtitles going away on all the screens. Yeah. sports bars are actually a really common use scenario for subtitles. it's always interesting to see. yeah, it has a lot of benefits. So. Okay, I mean, thinking about things from the wonderful AI perspective that we all see things through nowadays, I mean, what do you see as the impact of AI, either positive or negative on sort of an accessibility? element, mean whether that's personal accessibility or whether it's in the solutions we build or anything else. Any thoughts on that? Yeah, it's such a hot topic at the moment, isn't it? AI and generative AI in particular. And yeah, as you mentioned there, there's so many things with accessibility. I saw this really good presentation by Heather Perriam, one of those wonderful community people, really great presenter. And she was presenting on the Power Platform Community Hi5 user group. She had a really good session about designing for everyone. and its accessibility and inclusive experiences focused on the Power Platform, but just in general. And there was a mention there of using AI, could that help disabilities you mentioned earlier, it could be situational, but you're temporarily distracted or certain environment, or there might be permanent or temporary as well. It kind of laid it out really clearly. It was a really good session. And there was mention there about using AI, it could help with certain things. It could automate, development of apps and solutions by baking in the accessibility from the start. So as I'm quite an optimistic person by default anyway, I'd probably say, you know, I'm optimistic that the impact of AI is going to be a net positive for sure. think there's so many things it could catch that I don't catch if I was only doing it manually or Or, you know, automated where an agent, maybe an accessibility agent could be working away at the same time as a data modeling agent, at the same time as a coding agent. So I think there could be ways it could have a big effect, you know, saying that the caveat is, know, like any tool, it's what you make of it, you know, but again, I'd probably go back to my use of copilot chat, GPT and many others. I love when I ask it questions, it's often catching things that I've missed and then just reinforces to me, that's the value of it of you didn't get everything did you? you kind of you know it's added an extra 20 % for me or corrected something I didn't quite you know know for sure and then I verified it separately like oh yeah yeah yeah I didn't quite have that correct so yeah I think I think there's good good things ahead it's going to be a positive I think. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think there's a lot of scope for AI having an impact. mean, yeah, we've kind of moved on in sort of the past year into the whole world of agentic AI and having agents running around doing all the tasks. And that's definitely interesting. And folks, if you go back a few episodes, you'll find that we did have an episode with Heather Periam as well. So you can go and check that out if you've not already. Sorry. I know, know, there you go. Who knew? But yeah, and so, I mean, if that's kind of where we are now in terms of asking copilot questions and chat GPT and using the tools that we've got currently. If you were to cast your mind, I won't be cruel and say three or five years because let's be honest, things are changing so rapidly now that I don't think any of us can predict three years ahead. But if you were to try and look So this time next year, so we're starting 2027. What would you say the future of accessibility would look like in that sort of AI world with all the momentum that's going on there at the moment? Yeah, you know, it's an interesting one is you say things are changing so quickly. Even for where we work, you know, you and I, you know, we work at the same organization that we might and there's so many smart people where we work and other places with actually sharing this knowledge and try new things and experimenting with new things. And it feels like we can almost see this cutting edge of like, where is it going? What we're doing? Because we, like many others all over the world, we're actually building these things and creating these opportunities. So I think, I think seeing the future of it, I do wonder if there would be those kinds of accessibility agents where it would just be dedicated to that. And there may be requirements of, well, you know, do we have, are we able to build in full accessibility, whatever that means, can we be completionist or are we going to aim for certain things that could be done? But maybe some things, for example, if we was to build a canvas power app, And we threw it together very quickly. And then we use something called the app checker and we see a lot of warnings for accessibility, things like tool tips, contrast differences, things like that. There may be some developers out there say, well, I now have 600 warnings for accessibility. Can I dedicate the time within the time remaining for this project or this sprint to realistically cover them all off? Obviously we'd really want that done and many organizations like ours, have best practices where things can only get shipped at certain customers and organizations if they're all met and the warnings are completely gone and so on. But if there's an agent that could automate that, it then removes that friction of I need three days to go through this. You know, it could be something that's automated or maybe even baked in from the start that we mentioned before, you know, Some of the customers we've got, Mike, you know, they're really hot on things like secure by design. It's built that it's designed with that in mind and you and I as architects, we've got that from the start rather than kind of bolting it on at the end. You know, maybe an accessibility by design and ABD, you know, it could be a great way of, we thought about this from the start and we're not building up technical debt by missing this out. This is just getting there from the start and carrying on through the entire project. I think that would be quite cool to see. it's one of my most used hashtags is accessible by design. yes, I'm definitely a strong advocate for build it with accessibility in. Yeah, I think having agents sat alongside that. and having the tools that automatically build in that accessibility there, where it's not optional. I'd love to see that. I'd love to see it where accessibility is just not an optional extra where you have to build it in. That'd just be, yeah, that'd be so good. Make it a lot easier. wouldn't have to nag everybody. Yeah, that's it. It's almost like it's maybe more standards than the guideline. Like it has to be met. So maybe even the, an agent, you know, building out automated testing or evals like you've Copilot Studio is they just get, they just get added. And again, the automation of adding those kinds of tests removes the friction and time of humans manually doing it. Although again, we'd like to verify and maybe have some input ourselves, but a way of saying, this can't go out the door unless it passed these tests for accessibility. Something like that could be cool. yeah, yeah, would be. Definitely. Yeah, yeah, Would be very, very nice. Would be very nice. Yeah, yeah. Hey, I wouldn't lose my voice all the time telling people. Thou must, thou must get on it. What do mean you've not done it? It would be nice. yeah, yeah, yeah. there we go. would love that because they just wouldn't have me nagging in their ear all the time about it, which is always fun. no, no, that's cool. And I guess that really kind of leads us to sort of our final question, really. And that is for you, Keith. Although I suppose I should call you Keith if I'm doing it properly. I'll get told off by somebody else if I don't call you that at least once. So for you, what would be your one personal hot tip for accessibility? You know, there's so many, it's a really good one. And I'm kind of, I'm looking forward to listening to more of these episodes to kind of steal, I mean, learn about all the great tips on what could be useful. And that's often the way someone will share these nuggets, these little gems. I'm like, you know what, I didn't know that. I've been using computers for years. You know, that's too long, some might say. And you know, I'm figuring out these things as I go even now. But yeah, think one of the ones that I've been using recently is on a Windows, if you use Windows H, you can do voice typing. So you can talk into it to type into the PC. Now, realistically, there aren't too many occasions when I don't have use of my hands. I'm quite lucky I can use them, but I can imagine there will come a time when it's useful or just for dictation. I just need to read something out quick or again. I'm kind of, you know, situationally distracted with something and that Windows H has saved me a few times. So yeah, worth checking out if people haven't seen that before. yeah, definitely. Yeah, I make use of it. For me personally, if I'm thinking through ideas and I need to be even just stood in here in my office and I'm pacing around, I'm thinking ideas through and I'm spitting out ideas because... I know that I can say something and immediately forget it two seconds later because I'll have another idea enter my brain. So, so no, I will sometimes use that to capture my thoughts because otherwise I will forget them. And the window that I have kind of just there, I've got a nice fence and it has squirrels that come along that fence and the fence is actually two fences. and they nest between the fence just outside my office window. So you can imagine that all the jokes about people suddenly going squirrel. I genuinely do that and it's really cute when you get the baby squirrels come out and they sort of peering over the fence. so yeah, that that voice narration is actually really A, it's really useful for me to keep track of my thoughts and B, it can be really quite funny when all of a sudden I'll go, Sparrow! It's like, that's where I lost my train of thought and I might actually manage to recapture it. So no, that's a really cool tip. And I have to say that I know it's a controversial hot take and I know there's a huge amount of hatred for Windows 11. My sons are gamers and they hate it. And I can kind of get it from their perspective because it is slower than Windows 10 for gamers. But from an accessibility perspective, Windows 11 was built with accessibility in mind. And it's really interesting because my eldest boy, he's dyslexic. And He's taught himself to read by using subtitles. He watches a lot of anime from all over sort of Asia region, but he watches them in the original language and reads the subtitles. And I mean, he takes after his dad. He's got multiple monitors. And he'll have YouTube videos playing on one monitor and on the other monitor. He'll have a book that he's reading and he's reading it in Edge or he does use Edge because of the accessibility features in Edge where it highlights the lines and things like that. Or he'll have an audio book going. but also displaying the text that's being read out, which you've got in Windows. So it's really quite funny because I'm just like, yeah, I get it from a gaming perspective, but from an accessibility perspective, there is so much that's been built into an 11. It's kind of crazy. And I know some of it's rolled back to Windows 10. which is good because obviously there's some companies that haven't moved to 11 yet. no, definitely go and check out the accessibility features in Windows folks because there's a lot of them. There is a lot of them. Very cool, yeah good to know. I remember when you used to be able to get a small sheet of paper with all the Windows keyboard shortcuts on it and now there's absolutely hundreds of the things. Yeah. I remember that. Even the mouse mat, you know, the mouse mat with all the hotkeys on there, like no chance now. Yeah. oh cover your whole desk with keyboard shortcuts now, but Yes, it's the wallpaper in your office now, isn't it? oh eyesight, I wouldn't have a standard chance of reading it anyway. yeah, Keith, it has been absolutely fantastic having you on the podcast. is absolutely wonderful hearing from you, And thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and your perspectives and visions for the future and tips and what have you. And folks, yeah, just make sure if you get a chance, if you see Keith is speaking at a user group nearby or at an event nearby or doing virtual user groups and all that sort of thing, please go along, show him some love. You'll come away educated and entertained as well. So, so yes, thank you so, so much, Keith. It has been an absolute delight having you on the show. house. My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me here. It's been a lot of fun and looking forward to hearing all the episodes for the podcast. I'm a big fan already. So yeah, really loving it. Thank you, Mike. And folks, don't forget, check us out. We're on all the major platforms now and we're even on TikTok. So you can find snippets coming out semi-regularly on TikTok as well. So please go along. I'm gonna say those wonderful words. Please go like, share and subscribe because we want this community to grow and really become a... connecting point for everybody who shares a passion for accessibility and wants to learn about it. So yes, please do. And on that note, I will say thank you everybody for watching and listening and tuning in and we will catch you next time on 365 Ally the podcast. Goodbye everyone.