Accessibility Beyond The E-Learning Content

Susi Miller (00:00)
It’s that confidence of being able to say, yes, we are ready now to disrupt this industry and to actually challenge the fact that people say, it’s not possible to make this accessible. It costs too much or it’s going to take too long or it’s a change of mindset. How are we going to make this accessible?

Esi (00:30)
Hi everyone, thank you again for tuning into yet another episode of the Equality Edit where we unpack equality one story at a time. Today I am joined by my long standing colleague, Susi Miller. And before I pressed record on this episode, I was trying to think of when Susi and I met because it seems as though we’ve been colleagues forever.

We’ve got a lot in common. both work in the disability inclusion space. Susi’s niche is something that she’ll explain to you in just a few minutes. And without further ado, I’m going to hand over to you, Susi, to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do and who you are.

Susi Miller (01:11)
Thank you, Esi. So, yes, and thank you so much for inviting me to talk today. So, my background is really learning and development. So, for about 30, 35 years, I’ve been kind of in that space. I started off as a classroom teacher, then I worked for a long time in local government. I did a lot of training for like face-to-face training, a lot of systems training, and then I moved into online learning. And

I also then worked in the higher education space and it was really when I was there that it was when the law was changing, the public sector bodies accessibility regulations were coming in and it made me realise ⁓ how important it was to make sure that all of the learning that I created, all of the digital learning that I created was accessible to everyone and as I said it wasn’t just the regulations, I’ve been thinking about that for a long time.

But the regulations were really kind of a catalyst because they were for the first time the opportunity for us to realise that it was the standards that we needed to meet with the web content accessibility guidelines. So they were kind of guidelines and sort of underpinning by the Equality Act. But those particular digital accessibility standards, as I say, was a real catalyst because it really made me understand what I should be doing.

And it also made me understand how little support there was specifically for people who were creating digital learning content. those, the standards, the web content accessibility guidelines are very much based on web content, particularly when they were first written, web content and mobile apps. And they weren’t really looking at it from the point of view of digital learning. So when I got started, it was…

a lot of the conversations I was having was actually this is something that does apply to us. know, a people were saying, no, that’s not, you know, it doesn’t matter about learning. It doesn’t apply to that. And so that was a lot of what I was spending a lot of time doing the advocacy of saying, actually, no, this really does apply. And when I understood just how little support there was, that’s what made me actually leave my job and start ⁓ eLaHub my own company.

focusing specifically on learning content and making that accessible for everybody.

Esi (03:28)
Awesome, thank you. So when you started learning about the new legislation, was it a big learning curve or was it something that was kind of common sense to you?

Susi Miller (03:38)
I think it was, it was bits of it, I suppose, were common sense. As anyone who works in accessibility knows, there are so many aspects of accessibility. You’ve got kind of being more aware of people’s different access needs of different conditions, different disabilities that people experience. You’ve also got the technical side of things, so really looking at those standards and the, they can be very, very technical. So when it came to ⁓

how it felt, it felt like a huge, huge learning curve, I have to say. And one of the things that I did was I spent hours and hours and hours trying to work out how to actually understand the web content accessibility guidelines and apply them to learning content. And I think it was the sort of impetus for writing the book. I wrote a book called Designing Accessible Learning Content, and I just thought,

my goodness, the amount of time I have spent myself trying to make sense of this, surely this could help other people. Surely other people must be going through this very, very steep learning curve. And I just thought, although it was terrifying because, you know, who was I to be writing a book on accessibility standards? I just felt like it was worth doing, you know, if it could help anyone. And I think the fact that it is such a steep ⁓ learning curve for so many people does mean

Esi (04:30)
Yeah.

Susi Miller (04:53)
that lot of people just give up on it. say that it’s too difficult, you know. So I just wanted, if this book, one book could stop anybody giving up on accessibility and trying to, even though, you know, I still to this day, you know, it’s my interpretation of it. I’m not saying this is, you know, this is definitely the only interpretation of those standards, but I just felt it was worth, you know, putting it out there just to make sure that nobody else went through that kind of

pain that so many of us have been through trying to make sense of those standards.

Esi (05:23)
Hmm.

It’s really hard because I ⁓ don’t know if you know, but I talked to Joe Collette as part of this ⁓ podcast series. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you. And I was saying that, you know, find as a disability inclusion expert working in companies, I find web accessibility quite difficult to get my head around.

Susi Miller (05:30)
Uh-huh. did. I heard the episode. Yeah, was great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Esi (05:50)
⁓ and I went through those difficult stages as well, trusting the wrong people, trusting that they were saying that they were doing it. but actually they weren’t. And the learning from me is not about knowing everything about everything, but making sure you know enough that when you are working with somebody that, you know, they’re doing the right thing for your website or your e-learning or whatever they’re doing for you.

Susi Miller (05:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely. And I think one of the things that I do find very encouraging, I mean, I’ve been doing this probably working for eLaHub for about seven years now. And before that, probably focusing on accessibility in my job for a couple of years before that. And what I do find really, really encouraging now is that generally people in the industry, I mean, when I first started talking about accessibility and learning content, people had absolutely no idea what I was talking about or the web content accessibility guidelines.

And I think the really encouraging thing is that a lot more people understand that this is something that they do need to be aware of. And also that they are a lot more, a lot more people are a lot more educated in what they need to be asking. So in the past, we were in a situation where maybe vendors or suppliers would be saying, yes, it’s accessible. It’s WCAG 2.1 accessible. And a lot of people had no idea if it actually was, but

we’ve moved on I think a long way from that where people now not only understand it but have a bit more of a knowledge of what it means by being accessible and I heard some great things that Jo was saying things like making sure things are keyboard accessible, things that you can do yourself to test you know if someone is saying this is accessible actually knowing what that means and obviously there are more and more people who are

Esi (07:33)
Mmm.

Susi Miller (07:35)
have enough knowledge that they can actually test this themselves. So they’re holding people to account now and that’s certainly something when I started that we just didn’t have at all. People really had no idea what they should be looking for when they were, know, maybe they had in their procurement process or legal requirements for something to be accessible. It was very easy for people to claim that things were accessible when in actual fact they clearly weren’t.

Esi (08:00)
Yeah, and I guess, I’m jumping around in our conversation a bit, but that is because I want to go back to ElaHub and understand a little bit more about that. But I want to. This is a really important thing, you know, legislation comes in and sometimes I think that we as people that work within our sectors see it as a kind of

something that gets in the way, always just legislation, people do it or they don’t do it, a piece of paper won’t make a difference. But I think actually this is a really good example of how legislation really helps to hone what something is and to make sure it’s being done right as well.

Susi Miller (08:25)
Okay.

Absolutely, because I think the, you know, how for all of the criticism of those, just not criticism of the complexity of the web content accessibility guidelines and the fact that actually they, and that this is not a criticism, but the fact that they actually weren’t written for, you know, they were written for websites and, you know, the difference between a kind of information or an e-commerce website to a piece of learning content where you’re trying to get someone,

Esi (08:55)
Yeah.

Susi Miller (09:02)
engaged, motivated, that it’s effective, it meets its learning outcomes is a completely, you know, sometimes that the standards are very, they’re applicable across the board and there are things like colour contrast, for example, you know, that’s, but other things are very much like, for example, there are a lot of the standards that are around error and errors when it’s

Esi (09:08)
in

Susi Miller (09:24)
you’re looking at a web form and you’re filling in something incorrectly is a completely different kettle of fish to actually if you’re making an error on a piece of learning because sometimes we want our learners to make errors because we’re helping them to actually that’s part of the process of learning. So there is a whole different kind of way of looking at it. I think the fact that you do actually have a standard. So there’s lots of people when they say

Esi (09:40)
Let’s make it two.

Susi Miller (09:49)
we don’t want accessibility to be a checklist. completely agree with that. But you do have to have a starting point. And if you don’t have that starting point where you can actually say, these are the requirements that I need to meet as minimum, that’s really difficult then to kind of…

it’s overwhelming, enough to have 86 standards or if you’re meeting the requirement, 55 standards that you need to meet. But if you, if you don’t have those at all, then it’s for me unmanageable. So, there are pros and cons to working to this checklist, you know, to this idea of standards, but without them, I think I’m a very practical person. And for me,

without that kind of practical, this is how I start going about it, I can’t function. I just wouldn’t be able to even make a start. And I think that’s where they are really, really positive.

Esi (10:30)
Yeah.

Well,

I think I completely agree with you. mean, when you know, I’ve never heard that people say that before, but I’m in a different field to you that we don’t want an accessibility checklist. Where do you think that’s coming from? What do you think they’re thinking when they think that?

Susi Miller (10:57)
So I think it comes from the idea of accessibility just being a compliance issue, think, you know, a check box exercise like, oh, yes, I’ve made sure that this, you know, I followed these and then, and leaving it at that. So I think the, one of the things that I think we’re going to talk about a bit later is the kind of moving away from accessibility and kind of that, that little bit more holistic and inclusion. So I think sometimes accessibility can fit into that, that, that category of

Esi (11:20)
Yeah.

Susi Miller (11:25)
you know, it’s a checklist exercise. And as long as I’m making sure that my code does this, I don’t mind whether it’s a great learning experience. I just want to check that, check that off, kind of thing. But coming back again, I think also to your question about, or to your point about legislation, one of the really positive things for me is the European Accessibility Act. And again, we could probably have a whole…

Esi (11:34)
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Susi Miller (11:50)
discussion about some of the intricacies of which guidelines we’re following and whether it’s a directive and whether it’s a piece of legislation and which countries are doing what. But for me, there’s a there’s a really good quote, I’ve written it down here. And it’s the kind of it is the ethos, I think of it and of that act. And what it says is full accessibility would simply be the way that things must be done and inaccessible products would never hit the market. And for me, having that kind of

overarching this is what we’re trying to achieve and that there are obviously there are complexities obviously people you know people struggle with with sometimes with the legislation sometimes with the standards but overall if that’s what we’re trying to achieve with this with any of this legislation surely that must be you know for me that that kind of keeps me going you know this idea that it is just you know full accessibility would just simply be the way things were done.

Esi (12:43)
Yeah.

I mean, it makes me think about, I mean, I know that we have, when we talk about what we want to talk about, we likened it to health and safety, but actually, you reading that quote, it makes me think about human rights. So there’ll be lots of complicated legislation in human rights that if I looked at it, it’d be like, what is that? But actually, the fundamentals of it are pretty clear to follow. And you know,

Susi Miller (13:09)
Exactly.

Esi (13:10)
you know, it might be a controversial subject right at this very moment, but you know, most countries are following human rights legislation without even considering what they’re doing, they’re just doing it because it’s what you do. so it’s not, not that far-scratched an idea to think that accessibility and inclusion in digital content across the board, specifically today,

Susi Miller (13:20)
Yeah.

Esi (13:36)
in digital learning content is that hard to do really. I was also watching, A clip from a webinar where this person was talking about launching a brilliant product that was completely accessible. So, I mean, we could, could, you know, again, debate over the term completely accessible.

But what he was saying was, I’m launching a product that’s accessible and look at the benefits it’s bringing from a commercial case, from a business case, from a moral case, and from everything. This is why we should be going in that direction. So I think people are getting on board with this idea that, if it’s not accessible, then it’s not worth doing. It’s just going to take a little while to get there.

Susi Miller (13:55)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and I think

I agree. And I think that’s really interesting, the case for accessibility, because that’s certainly one of the things that I found. And I think a lot of people who become interested or passionate about accessibility, you whether it’s they’re a learning designer in my field, but it, one of the things that you find that you, that you have to do quite often is, that advocacy piece is like, why is this important? You quite often are challenged by people and then you need to be, you know, for us, it’s kind of absolutely obvious.

But for a lot of people, you still have to make that case. And one of the things I think that I’ve found over the years is I can, I can make that case, till I’m blue in the face, but it’s not, or it’s not necessarily going to work. And what I find is that it doesn’t necessarily work until if something happens, which I called just the accessibility spark, someone finally gets it.

Esi (14:49)
Mmm.

Susi Miller (15:09)
when I spoke to you, Esi, and you gave me your, experience of it being in higher education and being discriminated against, that was one of those jaw dropping moments where I just thought this, this is, this is what it means. accessibility isn’t just, as we discussed, it’s not just a checklist. It’s not, just a compliance. This has an impact on humans, you know, has an impact on people.

And I think what I can see it when I’m doing face to face, or I’m talking to clients, I can suddenly see that kind of accessibility, but I can see it finally. You know, we can talk about the business case, we can talk about the moral case, but it’s the, oh my God, this has impacted someone that I know, or it’s, or I can understand how it would impact, or how would I feel? How would it, if this happened to me? And as I say, that, that experience that you told me of.

Esi (15:57)
Hmm.

Susi Miller (16:00)
of your, you know, of being discriminated against and the impact it had emotionally on you was just phenomenal. a lot of people now still say that it’s the thing that they take away from the book is your case study and what happened to you.

Esi (16:15)
And I didn’t pay you to say that at all. All jokes aside, I mean, that’s brilliant. I mean, let’s, you know, as we’re going that direction, let’s talk about the book as well. And, I’m so pleased that something good came out of that experience. And I also find in my work that there is a moment where you almost see

Susi Miller (16:17)
No, you didn’t.

Absolutely.

Esi (16:34)
⁓ I think penny drop is a bit insulting, but you see kind of that spark of when people get it, when it starts to mean something for them. And that can be from that commercial or it can be from the moral, it could be from the lived experience perspective as well.

Susi Miller (16:43)
I agree.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s one thing that we were talking about earlier as well, when we had our conversation is that one of the things that I’m deliberately doing for eLaHub at the moment is I think when I started off, was one of the reasons I was so terrified about doing anything like posting anything on LinkedIn or, you know, speaking to anyone or was that I felt like I was I was disrupting.

I was disrupting an industry and I didn’t feel confident enough that I was a person who should be disrupting. I was working as an instructional designer in a university and left and then started my own business. It wasn’t like I was someone who had something to say and was like a leader in the space. I was just this person and I was beginning to kind of prod and say, actually, this is not right. Seven years on from that, lots of…

learning steep learning curves ups and downs, I actually feel now I am deliberately disrupting an industry and I’m ready to do that. So we were talking about this idea of moving from advocacy to architecture and that’s something again sometimes you know these phrases pop up and they kind of stick with you and that’s one that I can it was an article on LinkedIn about disability advocacy and I thought that is exactly what we need to do we need to stop

Esi (17:47)
Good.

Susi Miller (18:08)
And I suppose it comes back to the kind of the quote from the EAA as well, that this is just the way it needs to be done. This is what it will be moving forward. But for me, a deliberate way of disrupting that industry is actually like so this the last year, we’ve deliberately gone for awards within our industry to prove that actually accessibility isn’t something that you’re doing, know, that learning content isn’t

good despite the fact that it’s accessible. It is excellent learning content and experiences because of accessibility. So it is accessibility that leads to innovation. It’s accessibility that leads to human centered design that actually really works for people. It isn’t just focusing on kind of the web content accessibility guidelines. It’s so much further than that. the, water that we went in for, ⁓ you know,

Esi (18:38)
Yeah.

Susi Miller (19:01)
in particular were like, they were big industry awards against, working, like big industries, know, huge amount of money behind them. And yet we still managed to win these awards. And one in particular was one that we went in for was excellence in learning design, because we were trying to actually say, excellent learning design is accessible learning design. This isn’t, you cannot say

Esi (19:13)
That’s it.

Mm-hmm.

Susi Miller (19:24)
that your learning content is excellent if you are excluding anyone, let alone potentially 25 % of your audience. I mean, how can we even begin to think that learning content is excellent if we’re excluding that amount of our audience? Again, coming back to the business case, all of the business case around learning content, all of your strategies. Imagine in organisation if you had an IT issue that meant

25 % of your audience potentially couldn’t access the content. You can imagine what would happen then. And I know that’s a very…

Esi (19:55)
Yeah.

Yeah, or only

maybe 25 % got out of the burning building because the health and safety regs weren’t that great. That would not pass, would it?

Susi Miller (20:06)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

No, absolutely. I think, I know that’s, you know, it’s not really comparable, but for me, that is actually having worked in HR and IT departments, I can imagine what would happen if someone said, there’s an IT glitch that means this thing that we’ve spent six months trying to roll out isn’t actually going to be, you know, obviously, you know, everything would be thrown at it to make sure. so I think it’s, It’s that confidence of being able to say, yes, we are

Esi (20:17)
Yeah.

Absolutely.

Susi Miller (20:35)
ready now to disrupt this industry and to actually challenge the fact that people say, it’s not possible to make this accessible. It costs too much or it’s going to take too long or it’s a change of mindset. How are we going to make this accessible? Not, should we do it if, it’s, three, four, five years down on our roadmap, let’s put it on the bottom of the list. So yeah. And I think that’s that for me is, disrupting the industry is so important.

To be able to start saying we’re moving from advocacy to architecture. We’re not just saying this is a good idea, this is what you should be doing, this is actually how we can make a difference by changing things and making that the whole industry realise that this is something that they should be doing and it’s just not negotiable.

Esi (21:20)
Yeah, no, I love that. I absolutely love that. And it’s that leading by example piece as well. And going back to what you were saying, about kind of these examples of it wouldn’t be 25 % of the industry of disabled people can’t access, but people just accept that. I find it a lot in the industry where people talk about where we are inclusive for all, and they hardly ever mean inclusive for all.

What they mean is inclusive for a couple of groups that they’ve thought about, and then everybody else just has to manage around it. So it’s the same kind of thing that actually, and when this industry around digital accessibility changes, it influences other industries as well. So it will run into organizations. Well, actually, it happened here. So it can happen in our processes. It can happen when we’re thinking about

Susi Miller (21:43)
Mm-hmm.

Exactly.

Mm-hmm.

Esi (22:10)
what inclusion for all actually looks like, what it doesn’t actually mean and those kind of things. So thank you very much from somebody in the industry and from somebody with lived experience of disability. Thank you very much for disrupting that conversation. And I can’t wait to see what happens next in it.

Susi Miller (22:12)
Mm-hmm.

So I think that’s a really interesting point about looking to other industries. One of the things that I always talk about when we talk about learning content is when people say it’s not possible to do this, comparing what we’re doing to, for example, the gaming industry, where accessibility is seen as a real lever for innovation and actually improving the market from a business point of view.

Esi (22:50)
Yeah.

Susi Miller (22:55)
And the incredible technical things that people are able to make accessible. And we’re still in the learning industry saying, well, Oh, well, we can’t make the drag and drops accessible. Do you know what I mean? And it’s like, I mean, it’s not only drag and drops and we are better now. Most tools have gotten accessible. I mean, literally I’ve been talking about drag and drops for about 10 years, but.

Esi (23:08)
Thank you, Beth.

Yeah, but for example, yeah.

Susi Miller (23:19)
you know, the absolute, like when you see the beauty of games, accessible games, and also the impact that they have on people, and you compare that to us as an industry, for me, that’s like, if you look beyond the way that we’ve done, the way that we do things, the way that we’ve always done things, to see what other industries are doing, that for me is a real kind of, you know…

Surely that must lead to people seeing that this is, we can do things differently, we can think differently. And there are also lots of people doing it as well now, more.

Esi (23:49)
And it’s also a wish.

Yes,

it’s also a really good kind of insight into how diversity of thought really does drive innovation. So people in the gaming industry, they’re coming from all different backgrounds, all different geographical, sociological, disability backgrounds as well, and how that innovation has driven a whole industry to do things.

Susi Miller (24:01)
Absolutely.

Yep.

Yeah.

Esi (24:18)
differently and be really excited about doing it differently as well. So it’s a good, you we’re going to talk about the case for diversity in the workplace. That’s it right there as well.

Susi Miller (24:22)
Absolutely.

Absolutely. And the really interesting thing for me in our industry is in the LND industry is that we still have the us versus them mentality. We still have the, well, you we need to do this for the disabled people. Not as in, you know, we are learning and and we are any industry has got people who we are, we have disabilities, we have.

Esi (24:51)
Exactly.

Susi Miller (24:52)
You know, so, and I’ve worked with, with absolutely fantastic, like everyone has with people, you know, who have disabilities. So we, but we still, you know, when we talk, when I talk to people in the, the industry, it’s really well, oh, oh, but we, don’t, you know, that’s, doesn’t, we don’t need to make our learning, the tools that we’re doing to create learning accessible because nobody in our industry would have a disability. I’m like this, you know.

Esi (25:08)
Yeah.

Hey,

what? How do you answer that?

Susi Miller (25:18)
Exactly,

it’s just that, you know, it’s that us versus them mentality kind of thing. So yeah, yeah, we’re just a little hurdle.

Esi (25:24)
Yeah, yeah.

had a situation, was about four or five years ago, I was doing some work for an organisation. We were creating some internal podcasts and the podcast was supporting the staff to understand the comorbidity between mental health impairments and hoarding. It was really interesting actually. I was the host, not the expert.

But it was so interesting. And when we were talking about kind of how to publish and kind of market these, I talked about accessibility ⁓ and captions and transcripts. And they said, no, Esi, this is internal. And it was like rolling their eyes at me. And I said, yes, I know that. But there are disabled people that work here too, you know? And it was almost like, of course, yeah, we didn’t think about that.

Susi Miller (26:06)
Yeah.

Exactly, exactly.

you

Esi (26:17)
And so

that kind of, you know, we were talking before about those aha moments. They come at different points for everybody. But yeah, I think, you know, these kind of because that was a learning tool as well, essentially. These learning tools are a great example of how to influence and change opinions and others just by by doing them really.

Susi Miller (26:30)
Okay.

I agree, yeah, definitely.

Esi (26:40)
I want to talk about your book and I want to talk about your business. So should we start with the book? Tell us about your book. Only because I want to talk about me more. No I’m joking, it’s not that, promise.

Susi Miller (26:43)
Okay. Okay.

No, we

do need to talk about you. So the book, as I say, came off the back of my own work as a learning designer, trying to make sense of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as a result, specifically of the regulations that came in, which, as I say, for the first time meant that we needed to understand

the web content accessibility guidelines, they were clearly kind of pointed to that this is what you’re trying to meet. And when I started my own business, I was really kind of following that entrepreneurship kind of playbook of, how do I raise my profile? ⁓ I’ll publish a book. And someone suggested that I actually went to a publisher rather than self-publishing. thought, ⁓ he’s never going to get, you know, and

the first publisher I went to, and to be fair, I did know that they were interested in accessibility and they had good accessibility score on the Aspire accessibility publisher. And then they said that they would publish it, which was, absolutely terrifying because I actually thought, my goodness, now I actually do have to, you know, this is going ahead. I signed the contract and it was the most terrifying thing I have ever done in my whole life because

Esi (27:59)
It’s good.

Susi Miller (28:05)
that imposter syndrome of, as I say, I was literally an instructional designer working at the university. I wasn’t a leader, I wasn’t a thought leader, I was not an accessibility expert. I didn’t have a lived experience of a disability. At the time, I didn’t know that I was dyslexic, although we’ll talk about that as well. So I didn’t know that I was neurodivergent, so I was like, who am I to actually be writing a book

on accessibility standards and it was absolutely terrifying and the most terrifying thing I had to do was, I didn’t realise this but I had to send the manuscript off to about, they wanted about 10 endorsements and they had to be industry leaders. So I chose five from the L&D space and five from the accessibility space and I didn’t know, I knew maybe two of them and it was just so…

I was like, I’d never shown it to anyone, you know, I hadn’t shown it, so, and I just had to send because they was like, well, we need these endorsements. And I was, oh, so terrified of what was going to come back. And so I was just so, so lucky that they were all absolutely lovely. And, you know, and it really just made it. And it was still terrifying to publish it. Cause I think the main thing about obviously when you’re not

Esi (29:04)
Yeah.

Susi Miller (29:19)
you know, all the way through I saying this is my interpretation. I’m not saying that this is how it has to be, but at least if I’m actually, you know, raising this, if you disagree with me, please disagree with me. And then as an industry, we can maybe move forward and say, is what we actually think this should be. But I think the…

Esi (29:32)
Yeah.

Susi Miller (29:37)
the fact that when you write something down and if it’s a blog or you can go and correct it, when you write a book and then you have to publish, you know, it’s published 800, however many times, you can’t change it. So for me, the absolutely best thing that could ever happen was the web content accessibility guidelines moved from version one to version two.

Sorry, 2.1 to 2.2. So I then could do the second edition of the book, which was so, so, so cathartic. I could change all of the things that I wanted to that I’d got the language wrong or I slightly interpreted something tiny. And it was just so, I felt I would really, dearly love to collect all of the copies of the first edition and then just replace them with a second one because I was just able to

to correct everything, was like that progress over perfection. I also had to learn. I worked with a lot of organizations after writing the first book and I learned so much. I think that’s one of the things that I love so much about accessibility is, I mean, it can be terrifying because you know how much you don’t know, but that you are constantly, constantly learning, I was so privileged to be able to be working with these organizations and getting firsthand experience

of the type of things that were covered in the book. The way the book works really is the first half of it is a sort of everything you need to know about accessibility and learning. that’s where all the things that I wish that I’d known before I started, that kind of thing was a bit more, so look at assistive technology, there were case studies, et cetera, and that’s where your case study came in. So the first part is kind of a bit that you can read. The second part is really looking at those standards, breaking all of them down,

applying them to learning content. So ⁓ it’s more of a reference book really. So I think coming back to your part of it, one of the things that I find when I’m working, especially with new clients who, again, if you start referring to these 80 or the 55 standards that the people, when we’re looking specifically at accessibility, it can be very overwhelming. So to look at it from the point of view of ⁓ different access needs.

So breaking it down into the four different access needs that are actually covered by the web content accessibility standard. So you’ve got the vision, the hearing, the motor, and the cognitive. Obviously, all vast. But if you can break it down into those four categories, for me, that was a way that I managed to make more sense of it than just looking at it from the technical side. Again, it anchors it more into that human-centered design as well. So,

your case study was the case study on motor access needs. So don’t know if you wanted to give your summary of what you covered.

Esi (32:13)
So I talked to you about the fact that I was studying at a further education university and I was in my second year and I saw the course outline and I saw something that I would have to do for an assessment and the way it was being accessed was inaccessible to me. So I was being asked to do a mind map.

And so I wrote to my tutor and said that I wasn’t able to do a mind map because I’m physically disabled and I’ve also got dyspraxia. So even if I was able to talk to somebody about how I’d want the mind map, I wouldn’t be able to visualize it enough to be able to do it. But I made it very clear that it didn’t mean that I didn’t want to do the work.

I wanted to find another way to demonstrate my ability and my knowledge. And to cut a very long story short, they said no. They said, you know, picking out some of the things they said, they said accessible, we treat everybody fairly. That’s what they said. Oh no, no, no, they didn’t. They said, we treat everybody equally. And so I said, well, I’m sure I didn’t have to tell you, knowing why obviously do have to tell them, I’m sure I didn’t have to tell you that equality and

fairness are not the same thing. And then I think it was when I said this is verging on discrimination, that then they passed me over to Student Services. But we focused on the fact that they discriminated against me by failing to implement a reasonable adjustment. And by the fact that they did that, it

created anxiety and depression in me, which made me not to be able to complete the rest of the module.

Susi Miller (34:01)
So I think that, as I say, one of the, remember when you were telling me the story and as you were telling me, I mean, I assumed when you said that you said you wouldn’t be able to do it, they would just say, that, you know, fair enough. know, well, this is what we’ll, you know, and the more you kept saying, well, then this happened and this happened. And then the fact that actually, you know, the impact that it did have on you.

Esi (34:24)
Mmm.

Susi Miller (34:25)
me still is one of the best examples that I have in my, you know, my, myself of actually, this is the impact of, of barriers. This is the impact of discriminating ⁓ against people. And, you know, obviously if you are as passionate about accessibility as I am, then, you never want to, and if someone came to you and said, this is, this is, you know, this is,

you’ve made a mistake and this is I can’t do this, I can’t access it, then of course you would do everything you can to find a way that they could access it. So the fact that actually, and obviously I’ve worked in higher education so I know the kind of institutional issues that go on, but the fact that you know the impact it had on you, the fact that you eventually stopped your you know, it was an absolute concrete example of how

it was learning content. was that learning experience, your learning experience, which could have been so positive and so beneficial to you. You know, you just couldn’t do it. It just stopped you. that, you know, had such a, that story had such a huge impact on me that, you know, that, it’s something that I, as I say, I do share with lots of people. And it’s part of the, I, one of the things I, that I’m very proud about is, is turning the, book into an online program, which

really that’s what we won the awards for because it walks the walk, talks the talk for accessibility and it proves that you can make content. Even when you’re using an authoring deliberately used an authoring tool which is kind of a market leader and is often criticized for not being as accessible as it could be, it’s better than some. But I wanted to prove that you could use that and there are things that you could do if you change your mindset,

then you can use a product that isn’t as accessible as you’d like it to be, and you can do your best to make it as accessible as you possibly can. So it’s that, I think for me that kind of, that message, I suppose the impact it had on me, the main impact is that I can do something about this. I’m in a privileged position where I, my job, which is an instructional designer, I can actually make a difference on people’s experience of learning

by understanding more about these different, you know, about different access needs and how, and understanding more about assistive technology and the things that I can do. So it’s that, for me, it’s a really personal empowerment. You know, it’s that, I call it sometimes quiet accessibilizing, which came from when we were in COVID and we had that quiet quitting. And it’s kind of the opposite of quiet quitting. Quiet accessibilizing is you might be in an environment talking about, you know, the…

the structure being in the university sector, for example, or, know, any organisation which isn’t necessarily doing the things that you would like it to do, you know, might not be doing it as you would like it, or as you say, it’s a slow process. But as, an instructional designer who has control over the content that they’re creating, and to be fair, anyone who’s creating any digital content has controls, even if you’re just using social media, finding out how to make that more, more accessible is

Esi (37:10)
Move.

Susi Miller (37:26)
doing something really powerful. And it doesn’t maybe feel powerful, maybe using not using emojis, which Joe was talking about, think maybe you were talking about emojis for bullet points, which made me chuckle. But you know, that is really powerful, you’re doing something that and in this day and age when it’s really difficult sometimes to find any positivity and to feel that you have any agency to be able to do something really positive in the in the work that you create the digital work you create is for me.

You know, it is so important for people to have that kind of purpose and that, you know, life is so complicated around it. If you can find something that, that makes you feel that you’re doing something positive, even if it feels really small, it is so important.

Esi (38:11)
Absolutely, I completely agree. And also, you know, I kind of think that as learning leaders in whatever field we are, whether it’s digital accessibility, whether it’s face-to-face learning, whether it’s virtual live learning, we’re there to impart something that we’re passionate about. So why wouldn’t we want to make it as inclusive and as accessible as possible so that as many people can learn what we have to say?

Susi Miller (38:40)
So I think, yeah, that’s a really interesting point. It’s made me think when you were talking about the inclusion side of things. So ⁓ again, one of my light bulb moments influenced by you, Esi, was the amazing video that you’ve created, the accessibility versus inclusion. It was like for when I first started out, I didn’t really know,

I kind of use them, you know, synonymously, if that’s the word, use them interchangeably that I used to say accessible and inclusive. And I was thinking, well, accessible, not quite sure, how to distinguish them. And then the video that I watched that you came up with had lots of different examples, but the one for me, which really, really helped me to be able to kind of clarify the difference when it comes to learning content.

was your example of a wheelchair user going into a restaurant and going in with a group of friends. And the group of friends are welcomed by the manager at the door and taken to their table. the wheelchair user goes, the accessible entrance is kind of around the back of the restaurant. It’s a dark alleyway and then through the kitchen, where I always remember there’s a chef cutting the top of a fish off,

which again, really stuck with me and then passed the toilets and then to the table. And you said accessibility, doesn’t necessarily mean just because it’s accessible doesn’t mean it’s inclusive. And it suddenly made the light bulb for me. So from an accessibility point of view, when we talk about accessibility and learning, what we mean at eLaHub and other people might have different interpretations, but what we mean at eLaHub is we’re very specifically looking

on is it accessible for people with disabilities and access needs, particularly is it meeting those web content accessibility guidelines? And that for me, again, it’s that kind of practical, that’s how I can distinguish that. That is from me an accessibility because accessibility very often is, can you use it with assistive technology? A little bit like your wheelchair user who could use the, know, the entrance, but, you know, and that is for me that the kind of

definition as I say of what we call it when we’re talking about e-learning accessibility. When we’re talking about inclusive learning, it’s broader than that. It’s, this a, does the person who’s experiencing this piece of learning, do they feel welcomed? Do they feel considered? And is it a great learning experience for them? You know, it should be a great learning experience for everybody.

Esi (40:55)
Mm.

Susi Miller (41:11)
So it kind of comes over that a little bit more that again, it’s that human centered design, but it’s that kind of inclusive design for learning. It’s the kind of like, are you giving people options? Are they able to access content in different ways that suits their learning preferences? So it’s a slightly different thing, but it was such a great example. And again, I still use it all the time now and I’m trying to explain the difference in the fact that yes,

just because it is accessible doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good experience for people. I suppose that that’s when we’re coming back to that question of why do people say accessibility shouldn’t just be a checklist. Accessibility, when you kind of look at it in that narrow way, probably is, does err on that side of, know, checklist. I meeting this requirement? Am I doing this? Whereas the inclusive is a bit more of a state of mind. It’s like,

Esi (41:49)
Yeah.

Yes.

Susi Miller (42:04)
yeah, that being inclusive for everybody, well, not just the two, you know, groups of people that you’ve thought about actually. And that for me is where great learning comes in, excellent learning comes in because it is everybody, you you are thinking about everybody when you’re designing it. And I think once you learn about accessibility and accessible and inclusive learning,

you just can’t go back to doing things the way that you did before because you’re actually thinking about how people are accessing it. So if you’re working within an organisation, you tend to be a bit more like, well, why are we doing this the way that we’ve always done? Why are we, it doesn’t work. What actually is going to help people? And so it just makes you such a…

like a better designer I think and that’s for me where as I say it really does lead to kind of excellence and you can see a real real shift in a shifting mindset really.

Esi (43:00)
I completely agree, then going back to what you were saying a while ago, the beginning of the episode about kind of that checklist is really kind of what you’ve just said that has cemented that is okay for accessibility to be a checklist because in order to get it right, we kind of need to follow a path. And then the, as you say just now, the inclusion is a holistic where we use our creativity to make it meaningful for everybody who’s interacting with.

Susi Miller (43:27)
Absolutely. I think the coming back to the checklist as well, again, I mentioned at the beginning that I think, or maybe you mentioned that I had a late diagnosis of dyslexia and dyscalculia. So like a lot of people, I think that for me was absolutely transformational. So wasn’t until kind of a few years ago that I actually had an assessment. kind of,

Esi (43:37)
Thank you.

Susi Miller (43:48)
been thought that had maybe, know, people quite often think that they might, have some kind of neurodivergence, but having that assessment and understanding, I think coming back to your, the emotional toll of kind of disability and neurodivergence, I think a lot of people with late diagnosis have had that experience of, you know, never being good enough and never understanding quite why it’s not working for them. And, you know, that’s

I remember one thing that sticks in my mind was when I was at school, I was kind of always sort of mediocre. However hard I tried, I was a real trier and never could kind of achieve what I felt that I should be able to the amount of time that I kind of spent doing it. So I think for me that emotional impact it has on you, for me the diagnosis of actually finally understanding.

Esi (44:25)
No.

Susi Miller (44:39)
know why that was, why I found it so difficult at university, you know workplace learning just really didn’t suit me and why I found that really difficult, just it was an absolute revelation. But I think that the really really key thing for me that that discussion we were having about the two versions, two editions of the book, so I wrote the first edition not having the diagnosis and the second one after I had the diagnosis.

Esi (45:04)
yeah.

Susi Miller (45:06)
Yeah, so as well as, you know, the fact that it was much more positive, as in I could kind of correct everything that that progress over perfection, I could finally get some things right that I got wrong in the in the in the first book, it was a different change in mindset. It was actually, I felt more confident because I thought, okay, I’m dyslexic. I knew there were things that I would find difficult that that, you know, I spoke to my publisher and I said, look, I really could help do you know, I need support and help in this in this area.

and they were really, really, obviously really helpful with that. Well, not obviously, but they were very, very helpful with that. So I kind of, it kind of made me feel a lot more confident when I was doing it. So it turned into more of a, you know, it sounds a bit cheesy, but it was a bit of a joy. It was actually like, really am loving doing this because I understand what I’m good at and I understand what I’m not so good at. And I understand why it’s not that I’m, you know, I’m lazy or

Esi (45:52)
Thank

Susi Miller (46:03)
This is just the way that my brain processes and it may take me a lot longer to do this thing than it might someone else. But actually the really, really amazing thing that happened to me was when I, when I started thinking of, you know, went, did a bit of research into kind of dyslexic thinking skills and, you know, some of those awesome skills that you have when you’re neurodivergent. You know, things like, you know, creative thinking out the box, you know, being able to,

make sense of complex, you know, complex ideas and kind of explain them to other people. I thought, well, my goodness, if the WCAG standards explaining those to other people is absolutely perfect for it. Because that’s exactly what I’ve had to do, you know, I had to try to make sense of it myself, because of my dyslexia means that I’m then able to kind of

explain it to other people in it. You know, someone said to me, that’s a real skill. And I’ve kind of thought it was a skill. was just that’s the way I suppose, if you’re if you’re in learning and development, that’s that’s what you tend to do. You know, you have to make sense of something and then explain it to other people. But I think that as I say, the most amazing sort of light bulb moment for me was was actually understanding that I didn’t write the book despite having dyslexia. I wrote the book.

Esi (47:01)
That’s amazing.

Susi Miller (47:20)
couldn’t have written that book unless I was dyslexic, because it was those skills that allowed me to write the book. And it wasn’t just, you know, I managed to kind of, I’m dyslexic, but I managed to write a book. It was like, I, you know, I wrote this book because of the strengths that I have as being someone who’s dyslexic. So I think that that is, you know, for me, that was, it was a such a positive thing. And I suppose it comes back to that confidence when I’m saying like, I’m now

Esi (47:34)
Yeah?

Susi Miller (47:46)
confident enough to start disrupting an industry. It’s like that is a change in mindset. I’ve never been someone who would, you know, I’d always tow the line and I’d always kind of, I’d never say, you know, maybe we should be thinking about this differently. And now I’m like, well, actually I’m confident enough that, yeah, that actually I feel, and I really hope that, you know, people who get on board with accessibility.

Esi (48:02)
Thanks.

Susi Miller (48:09)
who might be feeling similarly overwhelmed or that they should maybe not be bringing up accessibility because it’s something that within their organisation maybe, do you know what I mean? It does take a lot of courage, I think, sometimes to be as passionate about accessibility as a lot of us are. You really have to be…

Esi (48:26)
I’m just.

Susi Miller (48:33)
you have to understand that it can have a big impact on you that actually sometimes you really do need to be resilient in this field.

Esi (48:40)
I think there’s a lot of truth in that. I think, yeah, because, you know, as a confident person and a passionate person that can’t stop themselves from kind of disrupting the conversation, you know, not necessarily in massive way, but in any meeting that I mean, I think that’s why I was quite disliked in my last organisation. So half of the organisation, as in the senior leaders, didn’t like me and the other half thought I was great because I would say what they wouldn’t, kind of thing.

Susi Miller (48:56)
Thank

Esi (49:08)
⁓ But I think that when we are those confident and passionate people, it’s easy to forget how hard it is when you don’t feel like that. You might be really passionate, but if that confidence isn’t there and that imposter syndrome is there, that really gets in the way. So I think, you know, from everything that you’ve said, and everything that kind of, I think is really important as well, it’s…

Susi Miller (49:08)
Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Esi (49:31)
It’s not, it’s not necessarily having to make the massive difference. It’s about knowing kind of where you sit in that and knowing what you can bring to it and challenging in whatever way that looks like for you. Even if it’s saying, actually, have we thought about doing it like this? I’m not saying you’re wrong, but let’s do it like this instead kind of thing.

Susi Miller (49:45)
Absolutely.

let’s do like this and see if it works. I think that again, coming back to that, which I might mention that idea of progress over perfection, I think that’s another thing that can be in this field in accessibility, can be a real barrier to people because the imposter syndrome of knowing that you don’t know everything is, it can be…

Esi (49:57)
Hmm.

Susi Miller (50:10)
that can be something that really impacts your confidence. I think that it sounds like, you know, very easy for me to say this, but I think that the kind of seven or eight years of running my own business and spectacularly failing and kind of clawing my way back up again, you know, like anyone who runs their own business, and really interesting when you were saying a lot of people who are neurodivergent, a of people that have disabilities do

have their own businesses, you know, there’s a reason for that, you know, but that actually, yes, we’re very innovative, we’re very resilient, there’s a lots of reasons why people have successful, you know, run their own businesses, because they might not kind of fit into that organisation that they’re working in. And but yeah, and I suppose, again, that’s, that’s how I feel I could never kind of progress or fit in with, with the way that I was supposed to in a kind of an organisation, however hard it has been it, it

it really is, you know, working, being an entrepreneur allows you to, as I say, spectacularly fail and then get up again and keep going. In fact, after seven years, you know, the business is still running. again, what I don’t want

to sound across like, oh, I know it all, I know all of the answers and I’m one of these super successful, it is really, really hard work. I think the, the small wins, the feeling that you are making a difference to even if it’s just one person. if that’s within what you’re doing, you don’t have to be someone who’s advocating and.

Esi (51:22)
If you do this, you’re going to

Susi Miller (51:40)
posting everything on LinkedIn, but just as any small step that you can take is ultimately, I think it then just leads to, to see that you can do something positive, just leads to something which helps you to kind of deal with the more difficult things that you do as an entrepreneur and as a disability or an accessibility advocate.

Esi (52:04)
Yeah, absolutely. It’s almost like kind of compiling a list of all the wins, isn’t it? So that when you’re thinking, I won’t be able to do that, this is list to look back on. It’s like banking all the wins every time we have a little win so we can look back on it at times where we’re not feeling very confident.

About either a task or about whatever we’re going to be doing next, we can look back and think, this is what I’ve achieved in the past. And before I started that, I didn’t think I’d be able to do either. And you know, I agree with you, it’s not about knowing all the answers. I think my mantra, when I look back at all the episodes that we’ve done so far, and kind of the work that I’ve done in the last nine years in celebrating disability, I think my mantra has always been, and it’s just getting stronger,

Susi Miller (52:30)
Yep.

updating.

Esi (52:48)
we don’t need to know all the answers and actually we shouldn’t know all the answers because the minute we think we know everything then you know we are too big for our own boots kind of thing there’s always more to learn.

Susi Miller (52:59)
Absolutely. and I think that, yeah, I think that that progress over perfection mindset is so, so, so important. And I think the, and again, that for me comes back to the one of the reasons I do, you know, that probably we’re still both of us still doing this is because we, I think you’ve said before that, you know, we love learning is something that is so, so important for, you know, that’s why, obviously, I’m so passionate about learning, because that’s my field anyway, but

you know, as a as a human kind of, you know, what what you’re achieving is, is never, you know, that lifelong learner. And again, you know, that does sound a bit, but actually is is something it is kind of seeing it’s a bit again, of a change in mindset of seeing like you’re the things that you do wrong and make you cringe and still kind of, you know,

Esi (53:36)
Wait.

Susi Miller (53:44)
20 years after you’ve done them. if you’re anything like me, but you know, the mistakes that you’ve made is seeing them as things that have allowed you to learn. I think that’s one of the things that I do in the the the the the program, the online program is right from the beginning, I kind of say these are the mistakes that I’ve made. And rather than like burying my head in the sand and trying to just think, you know, make them go away is actually that process of

why did I make that mistake? What have I learned from it? And what can I do better? Which is really hard. I mean, it sounds like, that’s easy to do, but it’s a really, really hard thing to do. Ultimately, it’s so beneficial for actually, you know, making you learn things. you know, rather than just saying, you learned from your mistakes, it’s actually doing it, you know, and seeing the positives that actually come.

about.

Esi (54:34)
100 % and you know, I kind of I don’t know whether it’s my place to say this because I I don’t think I’ve ever been through any real trauma or anything really bad, but if we can learn from our mistakes and also not saying that trauma is a mistake that we make ourselves but if we can learn from those things that happen to us and those mistakes then nothing has to be a regret because there’s always a positive that comes out of it.

Susi Miller (54:59)
Yeah, and I think for me that’s one of the things I suppose being mother, know, that’s one of the things that you you know, you learn from your own mistakes and I think if you if you don’t come to that probably for me it’s taken me this long to actually find some you know to be in a place where I’m confident and it be in a place where I am able to identify mistakes and maybe be a little bit more resilient than I was whether that’s because of the diagnosis or because you know, I’ve managed to

I have managed ⁓ to start my own business, but I think it is that your life is going to be like this. Your life is going to be a series of things that aren’t going the way that you want them to be. And there will be times throughout your life where things are really, really tough. And that’s just human life, really. So if you can learn early on that this is going to happen and you can experience those things,

earlier on that you can experience those things and not think that as you say it’s not my fault it’s just something that I have to be able to you know that I need to learn. For me that is a kind of it’s such an important message and I kind of think well how did I get to be this age and it’s taken me this long to kind of find me for as you say for the penny to drop.

Esi (56:06)
Thank

I mean, without

turning this into, because I really like the subject, but without turning this into a philosophical podcast. And no, it’s brilliant, I love it. But I don’t think you can do that unless you have that life experience. Because if you said that to me when I was 20, I would have been like, what the hell are you talking about? That is such bullshit. But now at the age, I do everything, I’m never gonna make a mistake. But now at the age of 44, you know,

Susi Miller (56:15)
Yeah, sorry, yes. ⁓

I

you

you

Esi (56:40)
Obviously,

you know, that’s how we learn and how we get on. And I think for me, you know, lot of my confidence comes from, you know, so I trained as an actress when I was training in drama school. One of my tutors said to me, well, Esi, it doesn’t matter if you forget your lines because nobody knows what you’re meant to say anyway. And that, think, has been the biggest confidence for my entire life because

Susi Miller (56:43)
That is great.

Uh-huh.

you

Esi (57:05)
No one knows what I was meant to do next, only I made it up all along. So it wasn’t a mistake, it was part of the plan.

Susi Miller (57:10)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And

that I suppose comes back to being your own worst critic as well. And I think that for me, that kind of neuro, I don’t know, I think is, you know, it’s quite common for people who are neurodivergent to be very, very self critical. And I think, yeah, as you say, if you’re the only, you know, however much anyone else is telling you that you’re doing well, and you know, you have to feel it yourself. And it’s that part of that is that

Esi (57:18)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Susi Miller (57:38)
compassion for yourself and you know that’s for me where you’re you know as you learn more and you become more confident I think that’s where it genuinely sits is if you are compassionate with yourself and you’re and you’re kind to yourself so yeah sorry that’s the end of the philosophical

Esi (57:55)
Yeah, that’s good.

I agree with you completely. And I think that it might be a trait for people with neurodivergent conditions, but I think it’s a condition of being a disabled person in general, because we go through life being told that we’re wrong, and we’re not good enough. So we are naturally going to think that our ideas are bad ideas, and that we are the person that made the mistake and it’s our fault.

Susi Miller (58:08)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Esi (58:21)
Because

that’s what society is telling us every day, all day. So whether we’ve had a late diagnosis or we’ve got a congenital disability that we were born with, society is still telling us, well, you’re wrong, you’re not doing it the way that I’m doing it, so it’s all your fault. And that is internalised.

Susi Miller (58:33)
Yeah.

Yeah,

absolutely. it almost, you know, what you’re describing is a situation where you’re kind of disrupting everything really just by being you, just by, you know, is that you’re not fitting in with, you know, the norm, you’re not fitting in with. you know, not only from the kind of my point of view of like having made an actual, you know, decision to disrupt.

Esi (58:49)
No.

Susi Miller (59:03)
an industry, you’re actually you’re facing that on a on a daily basis is it is, you know, just by, you know, like, you say, you’re the work that you do, you know, when you when you use public transport, you’re, you’re kind of just, you’re disrupting the kind of status quo of how things are. And that is absolutely exhausting.

Esi (59:20)
Hmm, and it must I mean that’s from a physical perspective But it must be from any perspective of any when I talk about disability I’m talking about kind of the umbrella of disability including neurodiversity. For me, it’s obvious. I don’t mean that. I mean for me, it’s a physical manifestation. So I walk or roll into the room in a wheelchair and people instantly know that I’m disabled

Susi Miller (59:30)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Esi (59:44)
Whereas somebody with the struggles with depression or who has ADHD, they might be doing things slightly differently or interacting or engaging differently and everybody’s like, what’s wrong with her or what’s wrong with them? And I think that brings a different level of just frustration and fatigue and resilience chipping.

Susi Miller (59:55)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Yeah, think, yeah, every aspect, I think, and that I suppose comes back to the, the sort of imposter syndrome that you can also get when you’re, when you’re working with in this space is because obviously you haven’t got a lived experience of every, of course you’ve got, you can’t, you know, have that lived experience. So you, that I think, you know, am I using the right language? Am I remembering, you know, that when you’re talking about neurodivergence and disability, I’m very happy to say

that I have a disability that I’ve got dyslexia, but I know, you know, there’s a big debate about whether neurodivergence is not a disability. So then it’s kind of like, well, am I saying, should I be saying that I have a disability or should I be saying that I’m neurodivergent or so that can also, I think, add to people’s, you know, feeling uncomfortable and that imposter syndrome. And that again, was a real, again, for me, one of the things that really I found difficult when I wrote the book,

was I felt that I was an imposter because I didn’t have a kind of lived experience of a disability. So who am I to be giving, you know, that’s where the case studies came in, because at least I could get kind of perspective people with a lived experience. So it’s that kind of nothing without nothing about us without us. Well, if I’m not, if I don’t have a disability, then should I be even writing this book, you know, but I think it’s just, it’s just doing the best we can, really, I think it’s just.

Esi (1:01:27)
Yeah,

I mean, it’s doing the best we can all the time. And, you know, by the by, if I was writing a book about the, you know, the where I wanted to touch on the spectrum of disability, I would not do it for myself either, because I can only talk from my lived experience and whether you obviously, you know, in the second edition, you knew that you had lived experience of disability. But there’s no way I’m going to say as a blind person, because I’m not a blind person.

Susi Miller (1:01:39)
Absolutely.

Esi (1:01:53)
And nor am I ever going to say I represent disabled people because of course I do represent disabled people. Even if I did so happen to have all six categories of impairments, I also wouldn’t be able to represent anyone but myself because we all have different personalities.

Susi Miller (1:01:53)
Thank you.

Yeah.

And to bring it back to the checklist in the web content accessibility guidelines, that actually is another reason why they are so useful because I know if I’m meeting those guidelines, okay, from the point of view of the, those guidelines don’t actually specifically talk about people who have speech access needs.

Esi (1:02:13)
Yes.

Susi Miller (1:02:33)
because you’re talking about digital and basically the people who be using assistive technology would kind of, come under the keyboard, they tend to come from a digital accessibility point of view. So, but I kind of know that if I’m following those, I don’t know everything about assistive technology, but I know that that’s giving me a pretty good chance of making sure that I’m not leaving

Esi (1:02:33)
Yeah.

Susi Miller (1:02:56)
you know, any kind of access need or any type of assistive technology. And I can’t learn all of that myself. I can just do the best that I can. Progress over perfection is the mantra of the day.

Esi (1:03:10)
We both have a mantra. I also want to talk about, and thank you very much for bringing us back on topic of digital learning accessibility. I also want to talk about, we talked before we recorded this about the importance of considering, and I know you just touched upon it a second ago, but kind of just elaborating on considering speech impairments when it comes to digital accessibility.

So I know, for example, I rely heavily when I’m doing anything digital on Siri. ⁓ I don’t have a speech impairment, but I’ve got a friend who has a speech impairment. And in lockdown, we were recording a series for Facebook. I think one person watched it. And that was my mom. And she got bored as well. ⁓ And he said I was…

Susi Miller (1:03:35)
Yeah.

Yep.

you

you

Esi (1:04:00)
I think I was getting something up and taking a note or something. said, hang on here and I’m just going to take a note. And I said, Hey, Siri, blah, blah, blah. look, he’s listening now. and he was like, I’m so jealous. I could never do that. and I think, you know, we can take these things for granted that our speech will support us. So how do we ensure that people with speech impairments are not left behind in digital learning?

Susi Miller (1:04:18)
Yeah.

So I think the example from me was a great example from the progress over the perfection because having focused so much on the web content accessibility guidelines, which don’t have any specific requirements for people with speech access needs, I was in a situation where I was doing some virtual training. I had, it was a webinar and well, actually it was actually an online.

course, so there were people who were interacting and I noticed that someone wasn’t really interacting in a small group. So I asked them if they wouldn’t mind switching on their microphone and contributing and they said that they felt uncomfortable doing that because they had a stammer. And I felt that absolute, how could I have

overlooked that? How had I never ever thought that this was something that I needed to be aware of? Why didn’t I say, if you’re not comfortable using your microphone, you can use the notes, you can use chat, for example. I did it in the main room, but in the small room, I just had completely overlooked it and putting someone in a position where they had to declare that they felt, I just was absolutely mortified.

But what it made me realize is actually that was just something that I’d overlooked completely. I hadn’t even considered it because it was something that I hadn’t really focused on from the point of view of the guidelines. So I think it’s a really great example of just being more aware about every kind of possibility. And obviously you will overlook things, but as soon as you start putting people in the center and thinking,

what about you know, if I’m if we’re doing this, what happens if someone has this type of access need? It’s just being able to, I think, kind of acknowledge that you’re not going to get it right all the time, but to be flexible enough and have the responsibility. I think you were talking about that with Joe, is I am it’s not my fault, but I am responsible for doing something about it. So it’s that mindset of

I’m going to be as open minded as possible. I’m going to try and consider as many things as possible. But so again, that specific example of how you can make sure that you’re including people in learning content, you know, like an online learning, it’s that, you know, if you’re not comfortable or there’s any reason why you’re not able to use a microphone and contribute, then you can use the chat functionality within if you’re doing face to face training, it’s that ⁓ not putting pressure on people to speak, you know,

choosing someone who’s going to be the speaker of feedback and having maybe something like a flip chart where people can write questions rather than having to answer. Also, time limits were really, really quite often in learning, we were imposing time limits on people for a whole range. But for someone with speech access needs, that also can be really, really difficult as well. So it’s that idea of

giving people in your head thinking of right contingency. These are things that I can do. This is another way of looking at it. This is another thing that I can offer just in case someone does have an access need and it doesn’t work.

Esi (1:07:35)
you

Yeah, or you do I do in my in my I don’t create digital e-learning very often. I do sometimes but not very often. But in my sessions, I literally just say in whatever way works for you, tell me this. Or don’t if you don’t tell me. And I always give people an opportunity as well. So there is an activity called pass the baton. ⁓

Susi Miller (1:07:50)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

Esi (1:08:02)
And

it’s a way really of getting people to engage with what you’re trying to teach them. So I’d say, Susi what do you think? And also think about who you’re going to pass a baton onto after you’ve finished talking. So essentially you’d finish talking and then pick somebody else to pick up after you kind of thing. So I do do that exercise, but I put some guidelines around it to begin with.

Susi Miller (1:08:17)
Okay.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Esi (1:08:29)
So I

say, we’re going to play this exercise. And I tell them how we’re going to play the game as well as learning that’s going to come out of actually what I want them to think about. And I say, everybody has an opt out. So if you don’t want to engage and interact, you can say no, or keep your hand down. So I might do something if it’s on a digital platform where I say, if you want to play, put your virtual hand up. And then people can know who they’re picking from. And I also ⁓

say, I’m going to give you two minutes to think of the answer before we even start. So people aren’t having to think on the spot all the time. So yeah, enabling people to do it how they want to do it, rather than how you want them to do it can really support that engagement and interaction.

Susi Miller (1:09:12)
Absolutely and one of the things that I find when I’m doing live sessions or if I’m doing a talk and I there’s you know we always try to get some kind of interaction from the audience and you know quite often have a couple of discussion points but it’s really interesting but I always say you know if you don’t feel comfortable and you don’t want to discuss this just have a think about this that might give them a different topic to think about.

And it’s interesting because again, it’s that change in mindset that is so difficult as a kind of trainer or teacher, because you just want people to be talking to each other. So when people don’t, when they take you up on what you say and they don’t actually interact, then you’re just there thinking, my goodness, they think it’s boring. What do I, they need to interact. So it’s kind of like, no, no, no, you’ve just said to them, you don’t need to interact. If you don’t want to, you don’t feel comfortable.

Esi (1:10:00)
Yeah.

Susi Miller (1:10:01)
there’s any reason so don’t then start beating yourself up about the fact that they think it’s boring and they don’t and then they’re not interacting or engaging because you’ve just so it is it’s that it is a change in mindset really I think you have to be

Esi (1:10:14)
Yeah, you’re right. And that’s a really

good point that we, you know, that we have access requirements as trainers as well. And some of those, I always say, there’s trainers that work within celebrating disability. And I say to them, you need to find your own way. If you need that praise, that’s absolutely fine, but you need to find your own way to get it. So insider secret, the way I get my praise is through the question, what are you going to take away as a result of this session?

Susi Miller (1:10:20)
Absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Esi (1:10:40)
And then the more people have to say, other than

I’m never coming back to your session again, is the praise I need to know that I did a good job, because they wouldn’t have said that if I hadn’t have done my job.

Susi Miller (1:10:46)
Absolutely.

Definitely, definitely, completely agree. Not just smiley faces.

Esi (1:10:53)
not just happy sheets. Although they’re lovely to see as well. We’re coming to the end of the episode. So in every episode, I ask my guest to, if there’s anything that they would ask our listeners to kind of take away in action. So our listeners being learning and development managers, disabled people themselves, and maybe people in the EDI space.

Susi Miller (1:10:54)
Happy sheets, yeah.

Esi (1:11:20)
Is there anything you think they should do as a result of listening to us today?

Susi Miller (1:11:24)
I mean, I think that we’ve probably the message has been through what we’ve been saying all along. Learning and development leaders, obviously, my message would be, please, you know, it don’t don’t just leave it to the kind of people who are creating the learning to make a difference you obviously, you know, as an influencer, you know, you’ve got power within an organisation to make this happen to give people the

opportunity to really learn about accessibility and not feel like, ⁓ I’m just kind of doing this quiet accessibilizing. So obviously learning leaders, think that that’s always my message is like, use the influence you have. The power that comes from, I’ve seen it so often with the organizations I work for, the power that comes from making the positivity of making learning content accessible and the ripple effect that that has within an organisation. I’ve quite often seen it starting within that learning

department and then kind of the ripple effect of, well, we need to actually, this is amazing. This would be really helpful for comms or, kind of the way that we’re putting reports together or, you can kind of see it. It has a really, really positive effect. So, yeah, if, you’ve got any influence within an organisation, then please, you know, take on board how positive accessibility is for everybody. And I think,

If you don’t have direct influence, then don’t feel that you can’t do anything positive. It’s that kind of any any step you take to learn more about digital accessibility really has such a positive influence, a positive impact on people. Even if it’s only one person that you’re improving their experience of whatever it is you’ve got any control over that. That is a really positive thing that you’re doing. And try not to be kind of overwhelmed. It’s that you will make mistakes, you know,

we continue to make mistakes, you know, and you won’t get it right all the time. You might not use the correct language or you might not feel that you should be in this position. You might feel overwhelmed, but it’s just not giving up really and kind of seeing that you really are creating something which has an impact.

Esi (1:13:22)
Awesome, thank you. And also, go and buy Susi’s book. So we’re going to link to your book in the show notes so that people will be able to find your website, find you on LinkedIn, and also download, because you can download your book from Amazon and through your website, can’t you?

Susi Miller (1:13:39)
Yeah, well you can the ⁓ accessible version is via the publisher but you can access it on, you can buy it through the publisher which is Kogan Page which means that you get the ⁓ ebook and you can also get the accessible version of it. Amazon you can just get the print copy on it but yeah, they’re available but get the second one, not the first one.

Esi (1:14:05)
Okay,

brilliant, excellent. So I want to ask a little bit about your influences. So who influences you and who should people look out for?

Susi Miller (1:14:14)
Yeah, so I suppose most of my social interaction is on LinkedIn, I have to say. there’s various people I follow on LinkedIn. One of them is really one I’ve been following for long time is Haben Girma. So she’s a ⁓ deafblind lawyer. And I remember her, she did a TED talk on her experience when she went to university, which again was another kind of light bulb moment that really focused on, again, it was that,

that idea of accessibility being a right, not a privilege. the way that she, her experience, she had a great experience from learning actually, but from her experience that she had in the canteen where ⁓ she wasn’t given the menus and the kind of staff kind of treated it as they were doing her a favour to give her the, and she eventually, she was studying to be a lawyer, she sort of threatened

that she was going to take legal action even though she had no idea what to do. Anyway, for me, she is just, yeah, she’s someone who and she the post that she does, she does a lot of traveling and her experiences of being a deafblind person, she really challenges that, those assumptions that people have of someone with those type of access needs would not be able to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, she’s, she does ballroom dancing and

surfing and you know what mean she’s just such a challenger of those kind of assumptions that people have so she’s a great one to follow. Another one that I follow is is Lainey Feingold who is a lawyer in the States and she has an amazing she came up with a kind of a process of getting people to kind of work together,

rather than actually going to actually sue each other. So she’s got a really great attitude and she does a great overview of the legal situation. Obviously in the US at the moment, she still manages to find some positivity. So she’s a great one to follow. And then think people like Léonie Watson think Joe spoke about her as well. She’s such a great person to talk about. And she’s very, very clever on the

the technical side of things, but she explains it in a really clear way, so she’s fantastic. And then people like Molly Burke and Sinéad Burke, both kind of in the sort of fashion world, and again, they just make it, they’re very relatable, so I really recommend those. And then from a kind of work point of view, Jenny Lay Flurrie from Microsoft is a great one to follow. She’s always looking at the kind of the positivity of accessibility and that kind of massive

tech, you know, world, which again gives me some hope sometimes.

Esi (1:16:51)
Amazing. Thank you so much. We’ll put all of those in the show notes. So before we end today, is there anything else you would like people to know?

Susi Miller (1:16:58)
I suppose the, for me, the, the, the, the program, the online program that, and again, I can give you, give you links to, there’s kind of a three, there’s sort of eight free lessons that you can access. Because for me, it’s so important to practice what we preach. And if I, if I’m here saying to the industry, you know, accessibility creates excellent learning, I have to be able to prove that. for me, the,

the designing accessible learning content program, the online self access course really took me about a year to put together, but it really is, you know, fact that it’s just won these, these two awards as well just is for me, it’s a great starting point. So the book is great as a reference point, but if you’re actually trying to prove that you can make learning,

teaches you how to make learning content accessible, but it’s also accessible itself kind of thing. So that’s, that’s for me why it was so difficult to put together at the beginning, because I really had to kind of, you know, this has got to actually be as accessible as I can possibly make it. So, yeah, so that one, I would say, have a look at that, have a look at the, as I say, the free lessons and just get a taste of what it, what accessible learning content can look like, I think.

And there’s also an assessment I’ve put together, which again, that’s free as well. So you can see how accessible your learning content is. It kind of gives you an overview of the web content accessibility guidelines, applying them to learning. So you can actually kind of gives you a score and gives you a report at the end to tell you where you’re at with your learning content. So that’s another link that I’ll give you.

Esi (1:18:30)
Oh, awesome. If you can share those links with us, we will also put them in the show notes and I will also be doing that myself. And thank you so much, for today, I’ve really enjoyed this conversation today. So thank you so much for joining me.

Susi Miller (1:18:34)
Brilliant.

me see.

You’re very welcome and yeah, sorry to get a little bit philosophical in the middle. Okay, thanks again. Thank you. Bye.

Esi (1:18:47)
No, I love it. I absolutely love it. Bring it out as far as I’m concerned. All right. Bye, everyone.