Be a Digital Ally: AccessU Preview 2026

Be a digital Ally 2026 brought to you by

Knowbility

supported by Evinced, Performedia, St.

Edwards University, Salesforce, Monkee

Boy, and Microsoft.

So, we are here to talk about AccessU

and introduce you to three of our

amazing instructors

um who are excited to share some of the

latest and greatest in digital inclusion

that they will be covering at AccessU.

And today's conversation is going to be

guided by our fearless leader, Sharron

Rush, our co-founding executive

director. I am Jillian Fortin. I am the

incoming executive director who will be

taking over after um Sharron retires at

the end of May. And so we really have um

have put a lot of heart and soul, pun

intended, to making AccessU really really

special this year.

Um,

if you are new to Bada and

Knowbility, we are uh one of the OG

pioneering digital accessibility

organizations. Have been around since

1998. We're headquartered in Austin,

Texas, and are privileged to

work with folks all over the country,

the world, sorry. We have several

community programs. Um we're here to

talk to you about AccessU, but our impact

doesn't end there. We have the

accessibility internet rally which is

coming up later this fall. We have

access works which is a year round uh

micro employment program for people with

disabilities. We hire them on as user

testers for our clients who engage us in

few based services. We have uh K12 visual

accessibility which is a consulting arm

of ours that um that focuses on um K12

specifically and you are here for be a

digital ally our free monthly webinar

series where we focus on empowering

content creators of all roles all

responsibilities to create digital

experiences that everyone can enjoy.

Um, a little bit about AccessU. It will

be next month. We're officially less

than one month away from AccessU. Um,

also known unofficially as summer camp

for accessibility professionals. We will

be meeting up in Austin, Texas at St.

Edwards University from May 11 to 14th,

2026.

If you would like to learn more about

how to create digital content for

everyone, if you are into barbecue, ice

cream, if you want to attend

professional development that allows you

to wear linen shorts and flip-flops,

this is the spot for you. So, if you

have any questions about

attending or would like to learn more,

check out Knowbility.org/acessu

and we'd love to see you in

Austin next month.

And you mean

ice cream and barbecue, not ice cream

barbecue? That would be a very Texas

thing, but

I mean there's pickle ice cream. So why

wouldn't there be barbecue ice cream?

And you know, we're all about innovation

here, Kelsey. Don't knock it till

you tried it.

Um, a little bit about Knowbility

Services. Um, we offer uh fee based

services to help support any

organization of any size to reach their

accessibility goals. Um, if you have any

questions or would like to learn more,

please message us via our website.

Awesome. All right. So, we are going to

go ahead and dive in. Ask any questions

you have at any time within the QA

portion or within the chat. I will be

turning my camera off here shortly so

that you can fully focus on the

conversation that Sharron will guide our

panelists through. Towards the end of

the conversation, I will ask if you

have any questions, I will ask you to

hit that react button and raise your

hand. That way I can pull you on stage

so you can ask our panelists questions

directly. Um you it sometimes some the

the best conversations happen when you

get to talk to our experts one-on-one.

So with that Sharron I will stop

sharing my screen and turn the mic over

to you.

Okay great. And what happens now? Do you

guys go backstage again or do we just

No, I am not making that mistake again.

Okay. Okay. Well, this was a new this

was a new format for me too with that

backstage part. So welcome everybody.

Thank you so much for being here. As

Jillian said, I'm Sharron Rush. I'm the

co-founder, executive director. Been

leading Knowbility now since 1999 when we

were founded. And uh this turns out is

like year number 24 for AccessU too

because we started doing AccessU

pretty soon after we were founded.

I'm so excited for my guests today

and uh I'm going to I'm going to just

welcome them and let them introduce

themselves to you. But I will tell you

that these are some of the best

presenters and all of them have been

with us for years and years. They're

here with me today because their

content, the things that they bring to

AccessU every year are fresh. They're

vibrant. You always learn from them and

they are of course wildly popular. So,

um, Becky, Mark, Kelsey, I'm going to go

in that order. Becky, if you would start

and introduce yourself and say a little

bit about how you came to AccessU and

why you keep coming back while you're at

it.

Yeah. Okay, great. Thanks, Sharron. Uh,

my name is Becky Gibson. Um, I've been

kicking around the accessibility field

for 20 plus years. Um, I started, um,

working on accessibility full-time when

I worked for IBM. And IBM was also

located in Austin, Texas. I wasn't I was

remote but that's uh our one of my our

team members Richard Short Figure was a

um board member of Knowbility. So he

supported Knowbility and encouraged us to

start talking. Um I guess my claim to

fame is that I worked with Rich and

Aaron Levventhal on the what became the

Arya specification. So it came out of

IBM before it went to the W3C. I've

worked on the worldwide uh the working

group for WIKG 2.0. I wrote some of the

JavaScript techniques and I have been in

the APA

um as a co-chair for a while of the APA

working group accessibility platform

architecture. I'm told I'm supposed to

do all this stuff by my coaches by my

life coaches Laney Fiengold and others

always say tell you what you've done.

and um and now I'm working part-time

with ma MIT as a project assistant but

I'm really assigned to work with way and

I've been going through the trying to go

through the issues of the web

accessibility initiative tutorials few

okay

and how did you uh um what are you going

to bring to us this year at access

I'm presenting on Arya on labeling how to

label things using you know basic

labeling with HTML and then also how to

use Arya labeling properly because I've

also worked for other companies and done

testing and labels are still things that

people get wrong. So,

well, a lot there's a lot about Arya

that people get wrong, isn't there?

Yes, there is. Some people hate Arya,

but

used properly, it really can do good

things.

It really can do good things. I know.

And you help us get there. Hey, Mark,

how are you doing?

I'm just dandy Sharron. How are you?

Dad again. Another new dad. I am. I am a

dad again.

Congratulations on that.

Thank you so much. Yeah. Um I'm Mark

Steadman. Uh I am the squad leader for the

accessibility squad at Fidelity

Investments. Um I've been in the

accessibility field for 11 years now.

Holy guacamole. I can't believe I just

said that out loud. Feels like I'm like

only two years in and I'm 11 years in.

Um I've been my focus uh from an

accessibility perspective has always

been developers. Uh my career has been

from State Farm, TDQ systems, now to

Fidelity. Um and in that time, I was

actually a web developer um at State

Farm. And I just as I was doing that

stuff, I learned so quickly from a lot

of people in the accessibility field

that are so awesome how much the work I

was doing is actually hurting those who

are using State Farms content. And

that's where my passion came from. I

kind of learned really quickly how

simple things can make developing things

accessibly

easy. Um, and I my passion is trying to

share that same story with everyone. Um,

now across web and across mobile. Um,

I've been going to AccessU geez

Sharron since 181 17 in there. Uh, my

first talk actually playing off of what

Becky had was actually about misuse and

developers doing a tangled web of Arya.

um first time around but uh for the last

geez five years now I think Sharron I've

done the simplify and mobile

accessibility workshop and I'm doing it

again this year um the focus of it is

taking something that a lot of folks

just have absolutely no idea where to

start doesn't matter if it's developer

doesn't matter if it's a project manager

any of that and trying to bring in um

just really easy ways to make mobile

apps accessible because it's really hard

to find information um out in the wild

for mobile accessibility. There isn't a

guideline that's strictly put out there

from a WG perspective to mobile. And so

some of those translations are difficult

for people um to find and where to

start. And so everything's kind of going

the mobile route. And so my simplifying

mobile accessibility thing kind of gives

10 key factors to look at um and to take

away from it um to add to mobile

applications and make them accessible.

So for those of you who are coming or

thinking about coming to AccessU in May,

you should know that Mark does a

pre-conference session that's you know

deep dive into the um the mobile issues

but then he also does some shorter uh

focus sessions during the regular

conference and they are always really

really well received and like Mark said

this is the kind of information that you

can find information out there but it's

not always uh accurate or dependable. or

reliable. And so, uh, I always figure

whenever I have a mobile accessibility

question, it's, you know, what would

Mark say? I think I'm going to give him

a call because he just he he's mastered

this this aspect of it. So, thanks,

Mark. I'm looking forward to seeing you

uh in just a few short weeks.

Absolutely. And uh Kelsey Ruger is uh

going to going to uh talk a little bit

more about what he's doing. He's one of

our keynote speakers this week. And

Kelsey, you've just also joined

Knowbility's board of directors

for the second time because you were on

the founding board way back when and now

you're but you've uh we we've wrangled

you back to uh to join again. So that's

welcome in so many ways.

Thank you. Thank you. You know, whenever

someone asked me about Knowbility, I

always say, you know how you hear the

story about John Wooden having this

coaching tree and he's sort of the root

of all these coaches that have gone

everywhere and shared that vision? Well,

Sharron actually is my root. And so, here

I was 26, just moved back to Austin

after Prodigy had acquired all of these

teams. And our CTO at the time, Bill

Kirkner, calls me in and he's like,

"Well, Kelsey, you your team needs to

learn about accessibility." And I'm

like, "What's that? I don't I don't know

what that is." And it was that week

Sharron and John Slayton came in to

train our team at Knowbility. And at the

time, we were doing all desktop because

it was dialers and browsers. And they

introduced us to web because most of us

were really starting to build websites.

If you think about the time, this is

when we were really starting to spend a

lot more time building web. And so

Sharron and John introduced us to this

whole world of um accessibility back in

1999

and 2000. Um and that sort of set me on

the path that I'm on today where I've

spent pretty much the last 25 years not

just championing accessibility, but

access. And when I talk about access,

it's really beyond the software.

And Sharron's heard me say this a

thousand times that I don't really think

about accessibility as a checklist. I

think you got to build it into the way

you think, into the way you design your

stuff so that it's always there and

you're not coming back at the end and

saying, "Hey,

we should have thought about this."

Because at that point, it's much more

expensive. Um, and so that is sort of my

introduction. I've been on the Knowbility

board uh now twice. Uh served as one of

the founding members of Air Houston when

we were doing Air Houston here. Um has

spoken at AccessU many times and

I I always tell people that the way I

feel about like how I first got into

access really deeply, it's sort of the

same way I got into South by Southwest.

that sort of feeling of community around

the people who were doing it, what we

were learning when we got together and

some of my best friends to this day um

came through my relationship with

Knowbility. And so that's my Knowbility

story. This year I am going to be

teaching a day long pre-workshop or

pre-conference workshop on AI based

development and how you can integrate

that into your workflow. And it's not

necessarily going to again focus on

tools because whenever someone asks me,

well Kelsey, how are you doing this? And

I'll just answer, well, this week I'm

doing it this way. And I realize that

there's a framework that you should have

in place because things are moving so

fast and the technology is evolving. And

I actually think even alongside the

technology evolving, the way we're going

to interact with things that come

through the internet is evolving. And so

it's a really good time to learn about

accessibility because it'll be a core

part of how we build things going

forward into the future.

I love to hear that. I love to hear that

because I'll tell you the first several

years of Knowbility, I thought, whoa, I

thought this would all be solved like in

five years once people understood the

issues. But I didn't take in into

account the rapidity of the change of

the tech itself. And you know when

Jillian was introducing us and she said

uh this is where you can come with

flipflops and it's uh summer camp for

accessibility professionals. And you

know I find that spirit is exactly

right. It's a very joyful spirit.

We're on a college campus. It's a it we

we get to spend a lot of time outdoors

which is rare when you're going to a

conference but sometimes I wonder if we

under communicate the seriousness of the

work that goes on there because I mean

each of you have mentioned your focus

for this year and there are classes that

are so um so critically important to

building the skills that developers and

designers and as you said Kelsey project

managers need. So, what do y'all think

about that? How do you how do you

characterize the experience of AccessU?

And what really makes it um stand out to

you as something a different kind of

experience? What are some of the

things you mentioned, the friends you've

made? Um what about some of the things

you've learned? Anybody want to talk a

little bit about that?

Oh, I can talk to it really quick. Mine

will be super short and sweet, but I'll

say the biggest difference again like my

first year going I have been to a bunch

of other conferences accessibility or

not. I think the number one thing that's

different with AccessU is the

approachability of it all. And that

means from instructors to the people

everything. I mean I've sat in talks and

like when we talk like even in my own

talks there like people will raise their

hand and we'll go down different paths

that even like I planned before because

that's what people want to talk about

and it's and that's the great part about

it though is the ability for everyone

there. has just got an approachable vibe

to where I can, you know, hey, I came to

this talk and I want to learn this, but

I have this question on this. And it's

like nobody's ever just like, oh yeah,

that question, but no, it's like, hey, I

I'll roll down this path. I'll start

talking about. And I and I really

appreciate that because then the

conversations keep going like outside of

just like the sessions that you're in to

keep jamming on. That's my that's my

number one thing that I that I advocate

when it comes to AccessU is the

approachability of it all and allowing

everyone doesn't matter if you're new to

accessibility doesn't matter if you're

an expert in accessibility to ask those

questions and just kind of like take it

the path that you want like that you're

there for and that's what I've always

liked about AccessU

yeah

I think it's I just think of it as going

to see my friends like my family

my accessibility family and I you know

I've also been to a lot of different

conferences, big ones, not

accessibility, accessibility and you

know where do you get to sit down with

you know um

Mike Paciello or Molly Hull or some of

the names that have you know that people

rec name recognition to have lunch with

them right even you know you go to you

go to the bigger conferences and you

know everybody gloms on to the person

after the session and then they you know

run off and you never see them again but

here you're having breakfast with them

or going to an event with them and you

know you just get to meet some of those

you know respected where do you get to

you know um Sharron interviewed Judy Hume

you know and it was a video interview I

mean things like that are

that was during co Yeah.

Yeah. Um, and then you know just the

long I like the longer talks just like

Mark said you can go down and you can

have more time to dig into things with

people and you know just the questions

and people outside you know having a

free ice cream you know just shooting

the breeze and saying what did you go to

this or that and just having the access

is a good and approachability I think is

is nice and then the breadth of topics

right you've got designers you've got

testers you've got you know, people

from all sides of the industry that

accessibility is affected by.

Yeah. For me, I think Becky touched on

it.

It's a space in between because you can

learn a lot in a classroom, but the

place where you get real synthesis and

takeaway is when you can sit at a table

and have a conversation with someone and

talk about something and think about it

because that's where you're thinking

about things evolves because we can

teach you technique, right? But the

relationships you get and the thinking

you get from interacting with other

people who are like-minded, it's hard to

find that, especially now where

everybody wants to stay home and do

everything online.

Yeah, we're uh I think we got a

little acclimated to that during we

mentioned we got to meet we didn't

really get to sit down to lunch with

Judy Hume, but we interviewed her

through the right

through the uh the great technologies

that we have now. Well, you know,

speaking of that, it feels like just

like all the other sectors,

accessibility is really being disrupted

by, you know, by the fact that

everybody's sheltering more and by AI,

of course. And I know that this year a

lot of the sessions that were submitted

have some component of AI in it.

And one of our main keynotes with

UT and Jutta Treviranus and and Bill Curtis

Davidson are going to be sort of a

little bit of oppositional points of

view about how valuable and what are the

risks around AI for the disability

community. So I was just wondering

what you all think about what you're

going to be bringing this year as a as

an instructor, as a guide. Are you

anticipating that kind of those kinds of

questions and uh disruptions?

Are there any of the special events that

you're especially looking forward to? I

know that Laney's going to release Laney

Fiengold is going to do her book release

at AccessU this year. She just wrote a

book on digital accessibility ethics,

which is another topic I think that's

kind of disrupting our

community, the work we do, the way we

think about it, how it's evolving. Um,

what do y'all have? You have any

thoughts about that?

for me because I spend so much of my

time right on the edge because I'm

working for a company that's building

software and kind of working in that

space. What I see that is going to be

interesting to discuss and I'm sure you

will bring this up is there going to be

new levels of access and accessibility

we need to think about that we never had

to think about before both in the

software and who can access certain

software. So if you think about the pace

at which AI models are evolving, for

example, today you can get a great AI

model for $20 and

Open AI is very willing to subsidize

that.

A year from now, we don't know that

they're going to be willing to do that.

It may cost

$6700 to get access to the best model at

which point you have another access

problem. And so I think it's going to be

interesting to see not only what people

want to hear on that level and how their

companies are dealing with it and then

give them some tips and pointers to

be prepared for whatever comes because

it's hard to tell right now.

Yeah. As much as we can be prepared for

what for so many unknowns.

What about you Mark, Becky?

I think it's

you hit on AI and we could sit here for

four and a half hours and talk through

like some of the stuff and I actually am

very interested in the opposing views of

like the pro against not saying against

but like the opposing views of it

because

I I'll say this kind of playing off of

what Kelsey just said like the access to

it right now is pretty open for like

everybody. And so there are things being

made at I mean we used to say

accessibility just from like development

side of things is that light speed. This

is making it like

I mean I what's past light speeded at

this rate. I'm not scientist say but

like but it's the truth. But it's the

truth though, like the amount of

people and people that I talk to in the

accessibility field, like I'm sure for

the mobile talk I'm going to do, I I'm

trying to add in just small tidbits of

like things you can work on to help with

teams to develop things with AI tools,

right? But is that I mean, I'm being

serious. By the time it's May 11th, is

that still going to be valid? Like the

opinions I'll put in there and talk

through, right? Like with how quick it's

going. And so everybody, it seems like

everybody, and this is why I think that

coming to AccessU and allowing people

to kind of have these conversations is a

big deal

because

everybody feels like they're behind.

I'll tell you that right now. Like I

feel like I'm behind. Like even from my

advocacy side of things, I always feel

like I'm behind. And hell, I'm using

this stuff and I'm like, "Hey, I could

build this this thing. I could build

this, build this." And I'm like, "Oh,

wait. This new thing just came out. I

could do this even faster now." So, it's

almost changing entirely how we advocate

for accessibility in general. I'm more

speaking from a development side of

things and like how we work with teams

now to do that. But it's so difficult

because if you get so into like the

minutia of it, you're going to be

outdated really quick. So, how do you

advocate for something that's moving? I

saw someone put in the chat ludicrous

speed. So, it's a great Space Balls

reference um for it, but like it's true

though. So, like how do you advocate for

that? That's what I look forward

to is like the opposing view, but also

just to have conversations with folks of

what they're running into, what they've

been trying to advocate for, how they're

dealing with it, because it seems like

everybody is just like we're behind.

It's kind of like, well, I think the

world is when it comes to that a little

bit too, right? So

yeah,

I feel like I I'm I so I retired from a

corporate job at the end of December and

I'm, you know, doing this work with the

way and it's like I don't really

see, you know, I'm like I really should

be doing more with AI, right? They're

really the company I was at was really

pushing um AI, you know, what can we use

for accessibility? How can we do this?

And I and I'm like I don't want to get

left behind even though I'm not working

full-time, but it is hard to keep up and

like I don't use it in my personal life.

I don't want to pay for it. I'm like I

don't have enough appointments that I

need to have somebody schedule them for

me. But I you know I am using it not so

much to talk about at my talk but I

was like all right I need a good example

right and I and I got tired of trying to

find a good example of a well-written

dialogue that wasn't in react with div

soup you know very convoluted code I

wanted nice clean code and I'm like okay

write me here take this picture which

I've used in another bad session about

labeling that I'm expanding on in this

talk and I said here take this label and

you know generate the dialogue code for

me and it did a half a decent job

and I had to tweak it. So I mean I'm

trying to use it but I I hadn't really

thought about you know how can you use

that for labeling within your uh you

know within my talk so much as AI and

you know I try to say this is what the

clean looks like because I'm so used to

looking at code that has you know just

and I'm using labeling as an example but

code that you know has multiple um

attributes and things. It's not it's not

clean. It's just this mess. And yeah,

sometimes it works and sometimes it

doesn't. And

I would like to see AI maybe do things a

little bit more streamlined than

what we're seeing coming out of some of

the developers. But

I love your phrase, div soup. Div soup.

That uh Yeah,

div soup is awesome.

I met um I met Oliver

Emberton the other day at Driscoll

Hotel when Jillian was here for her

week in Austin. and he it as it turns

out he's the CEO of Silk Tide. they're

going to be uh an exhibitor at XSU. And

he got he got a um his master's degree,

I think he said maybe it was a PhD in

artificial intelligence in the late 90s.

And so he sort of feels like, oh, the

world is blooming, opening up. We had a

great conversation. I can't wait to see

him again. um during the during the

conference they're going to do an

exhibit and some demos of the work

because they work in accessibility but I

mean he is so focused on AI and the

benefits of AI and he pretty much

dismisses the risks which I think is

kind of dangerous and you know one of

the things like okay John Slayton

was an educator he was a teacher and he

founded I mean he it was his idea to do

AccessU and the idea was what people

need are skills they need these

practical skills. We're going to teach

them these practical skills and we've

done that from the inception. That's

been the whole thing. We have 90minute

classes. They are classes. Sometimes

they're three-hour classes.

But in the last few years, I think some

of these philosophical questions have

really emerged

and people do want to pay some attention

to them. So what we've done for the last

two years and we're going to do it again

this year is the last afternoon of the

conference has turned into an

unconference. And so as questions come

up during the during the week that

people, you know, these big questions

that people want to be able to talk to

others about and to try to sort through,

we're going to we're going to um collect

those during the week and you know,

vote them up and have a regular

unconference on the last afternoon. And

um and then and then we've got one track

that's just a flipped classroom track

where you prepare in advance. You read

the things that and UT has been very

instrumental in getting her students

involved in writing some of the white

papers for those classes and then you

come into the session to talk through

those. So that's a little bit of a

change this year. And we're also

bringing back um an evening event called

Sight, Sound, Soul, which is now this

goes back to summer camp because this is

really really fun. We've got D-Madness

who's a blind Austin musician. We've

got a painter who's going to do live

painting while he's playing the

music. She's going to be inspired by his

music and do a painting. We're going to

have spoken music by Ashley Shu who

wrote the book uh I mean spoken word. So

we are going to throw in some really

fun things and some philosophical things

and you know try to stir things up a

bit. And I I wonder if y'all might want

to comment on

you know what you're looking forward to

this year this year in particular.

I'm excited to have sight sound that

that sight sound and I can't remember

that last one but anyway sound soul

sight soul. Yeah. Yeah. I remember

because I remember you did that before

and it was it was really fun. So I

definitely am looking forward to that

and again I'm always looking forward to

seeing my friends right and making new

friends. Um you know that's just what

it's all about for me and why I want to

come all the time because I've been

coming for many years. Have you seen any

Have you looked at anybody looked at the

schedule and seen any of the classes

that are We've got some new folks uh

presenting this year and I'm kind of

excited about Christine Fouchy who's

doing uh one of the pre-conferences and

uh a few others that I've that I haven't

seen teaching before. And I think,

what's in the chat here? Is there were

there some questions? Oh, no. I I'm just

dropping links um as y'all are talking

about things in case folks want to read

more about sites on soul and the class

schedule.

Oh, okay. Great. Great.

So, do we have any questions from the

from the audience or

We do not have any just yet, but I'd

love to open up the um the opportunity

for folks to um maybe raise their hands

uh if if you have any specific

questions. Eric Sterns. Okay, I am going

to invite you to join our panelists on

the stage. Give me just one moment.

Alrighty, here we go.

Hi, Eric.

Hey there. Can everybody hear me?

Yes,

we do.

Yep. Cool. Sorry about the camera issues

and all that stuff. I've been

reconfiguring things. Got a couple of

questions for you. Um first of all um I

am uh I was I saw the fact that you had

all put out the vendor or not

the vendor but the volunteer uh

application forms. Are you still

accepting volunteers for AccessU?

I would imagine we are. I think I think

that's ongoing but I'm you know that

would be a decision for TIA but I'm

pretty sure the answer is yes.

Okay. All right. Cool. Cool. Um yeah,

I'm very excited to hear about uh mobile

development as well. Um also one of the

things that I also want to mention

just in passing is that I'm also a

musician as well. Um I play Native

American flu as the harp and percussion

u and do a lot of ceremonial music. But

anyways, um

So do you live in Austin?

Yes, I do.

Okay. Well, of course you're a musician.

Yeah. Uh yeah, kind of kind of almost a

prerequisite to live here in Austin, I

think. But anyways um but yeah what uh

to the question to the panelists uh kind

of a little more meteor media uh meteor

question is that what is your

observation as far as seeing AI in the

development of accessible uh websites

and applications both desktop and mobile

as well as AI in testing.

I think Kelsey that's going to be your

topic isn't it?

Um let me touch each of those

separately. I think

here's what I would say and this is sort

of a compressed version of what I'll

cover. I think when you think about AI

for any type of development, you have to

be willing to spend time on planning and

thinking through what it is you're going

to build. I think when people hear build

things with AI today, they think, "Oo,

vibe coding and I'm going to get in and

I'm going to tell it what I want to

build and it's going to create this

amazing piece of software that works

right out of the box."

And that might be true on your desktop,

but when you want to move that into a

true business environment, there are so

many variables that people don't plan

for. And that's really

with and this isn't new to AI, right?

like you needed to plan software all

along. But I think people think that now

they have a quick ticket to the right

answer. And for me, QA has been awesome

with AI because it's sort of designed to

do that step by step really well. But

again, you have to plan and know how

these agents work or otherwise they'll

I'll tell you in the last two weeks,

I've gotten into so many arguments with

my AI agent for not doing what I asked

him to do.

Oh, good.

Um and and you just have to

understand why that's happening. It's

not magic. Like there's a mechanism to

how these models work. And if

you're not planning and working around

that, you could end up not with div

soup, but a lot of sloppy stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. The

unintentional emergence of AI slop

basically.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Cool. Yeah.

Um that's uh that's really interesting

because of the fact that I come from QA

background. I've moved into more of uh

you know governance and business

analysis and stuff like that. But uh you

know uh I also use a lot of AI now

especially in the past few months as

well. And so I thought I'd ask that uh

ask that question especially considering

the fact that uh it seems to be

pervasive and it's also uh being used in

uh tools like TPGI as well as uh DQ and

stuff like that. So thought I'd ask.

Well, and the events tools, I think all

of their tools are AI based, right? The

their web flow analyzer, the mobile

analyzer, those are all web- based tools

and they're and is a big sponsor of

AccessU this year. Um, in fact, they're

our co-producing sponsor and they um we

Knowbility staff worked with them on some

learning modules that they're about to

release and I think they wrote the first

version of it with AI and we went

through and there were some, you know,

coffee chats about, can you

believe what they came up with, you

know, the AI? Haha. But then once you

start working with it, I don't know,

Mark, you worked on that project. What

did you think?

Yeah, that's kind of like my answer.

It's it's

Yeah,

I'll I'll say it's for doing so I I'll

actually share kind of like off of that,

Sharron. Like I've taken some of my

materials be like, "Hey, could I make

this into like a training stuff too and

like some of the things where like you

kind of get back to what Kelsey said,

like arguing with your agents and

arguing with it like you're like where

where the hell did you pull that from?"

how actually I I'll share So, just as a

funny tidbit, one time I asked it for

help when I was developing something and

it was like I pulled this example from

blah blah blah and I'm like, "Hi, I

wrote that like I know I'm trying I

you pulled from my example. I was trying

to do something else, but thank you.

Appreciate it." No, I mean it's it

has it has some good accuracy, but

there's also just when it comes down to

it, there's to me there's always going

to be a human element with it. Take

access picture. there's always going to

be some human element to seeing the

output, seeing the things from it. Um,

you know, and it was good, but

there's a lot more rework and things in

there that like it just doesn't have

down that takes a human eye to be able

to see like is this going to be

effective or not. Um, especially if

you're like making trainings. Um, hell,

back to what Eric said before, if you

come from a QA background, Eric, like

I've had people try to use AI to build

out their test suites from an automation

perspective.

And I'm like, it missed XYZ. Like, you

need to go back through and make sure it

does those things. And it's like, oh

yeah, I I just kind of I just kind of

pulled this and put it in here just to

get some like accessibility test cases

up and random. That's awesome, but

you miss the mark on about four

different things. It's just pulling what

it knows, right? And so that's kind of

the accessibility awareness piece of

this too of like you still have to have

some of that knowledge. Some of it I'm

saying like a lot of knowledge

to advocate and actually get it to get

things right as well. Right. And so I

kind of pivoted on your question

there, Sharron, like in five different

ways, but

Oh, no. That's great. That's fine.

That's what that's one of the

things I love about getting y'all

together is that the conversation goes

often in all kinds of branches. Becky,

were you

No, I just was

Yeah, I was gonna The only thing I was

thinking of, you know, as far as, you

know, writing code, I mean, it does do a

pretty decent job because I guess, you

know, the AI can read the spec and try

to follow the spec, but, you know, you

think of the there isn't a lot of

training material out on the web that is

accessible for it to use, right? it

have, you know, it it's not like it

can pull in code and potentially it I

mean it does it pulls in code, but it's

not pulling in necessarily always good

code. It's just like, oh, here's

something that, you know, somebody used.

And that's where my biggest fear is. And

and I agree, you really you can see what

it produces, but you're going to have to

tweak it and you're going to have to

have that, especially with

accessibility. You just telling a

developer, you know, tell it to make it

accessible code and they don't know if

it's right or wrong, the average

developer if they don't care about

accessibility. And then, you know, you

still have that gets thrown over the

wall to the accessibility person to say,

"No, no, no, it didn't do that right."

You know, and that's where the problem

comes. It really need we need the

testing ability or the be ability to

know that it's right. You know, you

don't know what you don't know. And a

lot of the developers, at least in the

last company I worked with, didn't have

that background knowledge.

Yeah, that's that is still a real issue.

I think that the fact that most the

great majority of

developers, designers, web

professionals, digital professionals do

not have solid foundational training in

accessibility. And that's kind of what

AccessU was meant to get started.

Jillian, are there any more questions

from our folks in the audience?

I have not seen any, but if anyone would

al would like to do what Eric did and

raise their hands to join our panelists

on the stage, you are more than welcome.

They are here to answer any and all

questions you may have.

Well, Sharron, what questions do you

have?

Well, I'm you know, I I don't have a

lot of questions for y'all. I have

questions about the future of this, you

know, this whole field because of the

fact that like I said when I started my

my career, I was uh I was almost 50

years old when I started Knowbility. So,

um so I' I'd knocked around. I worked

for Easter Seals before that. I I'd

managed restaurants. I was a bagel maker

for a while. I managed a bagel shop. I

mean, I I had all kinds of things that I

did and I never thought that I would do

anything in my life for 25 years and but

but I had, you know, I had a background

in computer science because I got a

little two-year degree. I got a little

associates degree when they were still

using IBM punch cards to write Cobalt

and Fortran and that stuff. So, so HTML

was a breeze to me. And once I

understood and I was working at Easter

Seals trying to find jobs for people

with disabilities and once I understood

the potential for technology to give

real good professional jobs to people

with disabilities, these barriers made

no sense to me. And honestly, I guess my

big question would be why is it taking

this long

to make, you know, technology

can do anything, right? So, why is it

taking this long to give people with

disabilities equal access to the

opportunities of the digital world?

That's um that's always been my

question. I thought honestly Kelsey I

thought oh yeah okay well we'll just let

people know about these barriers clearly

they didn't sit down and say let's block

out all the blind people you know it was

just that they weren't aware and once we

raise awareness once we get a lot of

smart people thinking about this problem

it'll be solved

so I still don't know the answer to that

one

I think with the work I do in

strategic foresight

When people ask me like, well, what is

it going to mean for mobile? My mind

immediately goes to I don't know if in

10 years we'll still have mobile phones.

We may have moved on to another form

factor.

If you look at the the way things

are progressing, the difference between

now and when we when you saw when social

media came in, when the smartphones came

in, when we started using the web is

that those were largely consumer-driven.

In this case, what's really interesting

is consumers are not always on board

with AI.

Yeah,

there's a there's a there's definitely a

divide in whether people think we should

be progressing as fast as we can. So

that consumer uh demand may not be what

actually drives it.

Yeah. I think sharing to your question

sometimes you say technology should be

for everybody and I think the last part

that you put there everybody it's human

aspect and I think that gets lost in how

fast things move.

Yeah.

And accessibility is a human

problem. I mean, hell, you could take

accessibility out of the picture and say

anything from like technology is a human

problem because there's always a human

on the other side's using the technology

and that stuff kind of gets lost in my

opinion just looking at how fast things

get built now. It's more of like did

that thing get out the door and make me

money, right? It's not like

for a long time. Yeah.

Yeah. User Yeah. Users be damned. Let's

get this thing out the door. And now,

you know, with the rise of AI tools, all

this stuff, right? It's even faster now.

I mean, I think I can't remember if I

saw a stat somewhere along the way, but

there was a something about like this

the amount of startups that have like

come into play in the last like three

years alone just from people in the

digital space making something, having

an idea and being able to light speed it

out the door is like jumped massively.

Yeah.

But in that time frame, they're just

trying to get it out the door. There's

no aspect of like, hey, what would this

do for somebody, right? Or how someone's

going to use this. that kind of gets a

little bit left behind at least in my

opinion just when you talk through it.

If you talk to developers and you say

what the impact is what they're doing, I

I always say it's 99% of developers,

people who are building stuff say, "Oh,

damn. I didn't know like, you know, I'll

change. I got you. Like I'll make

changes for it." Right?

But that's a great point.

Why isn't that But why isn't that the

starting point, right?

But that is a great point that a lot of

times it's just lack of awareness that

people don't know. And until

unless and until you have something that

you've developed or created or made and

you see the impact that it has on people

who cannot use it because of certain

design choices it that's when the

profound sort of change happens. I think

on that note um this is me and Jillian

wanted me to read my comment in the

chat. I just said, um, Sharron, I didn't

know all that part of your story and you

should document with the Austin History

Center because you're a total change

maker here in Austin and the digital

accessibility field and you honestly

changed my career path. So, thank you.

Well, thank you for those kind words.

That's true. I'm retiring. I guess I'm

gonna I'm gonna just go to the history

center

and become part of history.

No, that's very kind of you, Meg. Thank

you. I love that that it had an impact

on your career. I mean, that was my

situation, too. It was John Slayton,

Jim Thatcher,

those guys who when I started

learning more and more about it, you

know, Anna Sisnett from Austin Freenet, I

mean that is true for all of us that we

we march through this generation of

humans and um we have these impacts on

each other and yeah, you definitely see

that going on at XSU. It's just it's a

wonderful wonderful community and uh and

that that spirit of you know nobody's

going to tell you oh I'm not going to uh

I'm not going to tell you about that

it's proprietary or anything. You won't

get that kind of reaction from anybody

there ever. So uh so yeah, it should be

fun. I hope I hope I get to see a lot of

y'all there. Yeah, I know one of the

things when I first started getting into

accessibility and at the time it

was because of IBM, I was working on

something and IBM said it had to be

accessible. I think they've gone

backwards quite a bit in their support

for accessibility, but that's how I got

into it. And then Rich, I met Rich and

then full-time on accessibility. And

that was nice. I didn't have to program

email anymore. But the you know the

thing that I was going to say is when I

first went I got so sick of going to

talks and hearing about alt text and I

said I'm never gonna talk about alt text

in my talk because that's so basic

everybody knows it and you know I am

still talking about alt text because

it's a new set of people and it's just

something that's like a good way to

introduce the whole concept to people

like okay you know this is a simple

thing you could do but yeah I just

remember back at the time I'm like I'm

not going to keep talking about

that. But unfortunately, we still do.

Maybe AI knows that we need all text now

more, but

yeah, but they're not always they're not

always real good at

they don't have the right all text. No,

but at least there's an attribute in

there. Maybe,

you know, Wendy Chisum, who was the she

was the W3C contact when John Slayton

was the co-chair of the WICAG working

group and wrote that first set of

guidelines, WICAG one. Um, and Wendy

Chisum was the contact at the W3C. She's

went on to work for Microsoft in their

field and she has said something similar

to that, Becky, about I never want to

tell anybody about all text again. But

what she said is that I never want to

have to be in a position where I have to

convince someone else about the value of

accessibility. And so maybe before we

close, I think we've only got five more

minutes. Um uh

y'all could tell if you know people here

who are attending want to come to

AccessU, but they can't get their bosses

to pay for it or they can't get the

funds to make the trip. What would

you tell these folks that they can to

make that to make that case to their to

their bosses? Any ideas about that

before we close up

convincing somebody that this is

important enough to invest in?

mean, I think you can do a cost benefit

analysis as well for people and say,

look, this is, you know, I'm going to

get training long, you know, meeting

people. I'm going to be able to get

one-on-one with people and you know

longer sessions that are the it's

focused on training so I'll come back

with real skills. I mean, we also didn't

say a lot that you can attend um

remotely and you know, but even then, if

you look at the cost of AccessU, it's

it's very reasonable for what you get

and just saying

because you get the recordings for a

whole year. You can attend all of the 90

classes there or Yeah. So,

I think I'll play off of what Kelsey

had said earlier, which is some folks

reject some of the trends and things

that are going on right now, right? And

I say trends like the AI trends like

everything like if you call an agent

right now, you could call somebody and

you might get an AI bot that responds to

you on the phone for crying out loud.

But

yes, awesome.

The the human aspect of it, I

just keep going back to it, right? That

is the thing that's never going to go

away. And so if you're looking for a

selling point to get here, right, if I'm

a product owner, if I'm a business

analyst, if I'm a developer, a designer,

right, what I want to bring back is at

the end of the day, there's a human on

the other side of this, right? And

making things accessible only helps

everyone, right? Doesn't matter if it's

somebody who, you know, for the first

time ever, they don't have a disability

and they say, "Well, this site's really

easy to use and go through." Right?

That's access. That's making things

really easy and understandable for

everybody. Right? And so, I always go

back to there's always a human on the

other side that's using the content you

create, right? So, do you want to get