Cynthia Shelly – Fireside Chat 29th November 2025

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So there we go. So now we're we're 
officially and what I will do is I

want to share. Let me mute my notifications.

Okay. So now we've got that sharing. Okay. Okay. 
So, now we've got us on the side and see I just

wish it was they were larger. But anyway, um 
Oh, okay. You're going to get me in trouble.

Why uh why for for Yeah. Well, that's the thing. 
If there is anything that that you don't want

to be associated with, you can say. I'll cut it 
out. Anyway, this is this is just the the first

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URL for it and there's a code PIGGYTRUMP that you can get 20% 
off. So, moving swiftly on. Okay. So here is the

yeah the various people and good company. 
The first question I have actually which I forgot

to ask Crystal Preston Watson is  which 
seat would you like to sit in? The cardboard seat

or the plushy seat? Oh, is there actually fire? 
Well, yeah. Well, I mean, it doesn't really I

mean, I'm not You're not going to get physically 
burnt by sitting in the seat, put it up. Okay.

I think I want the plushy seat then. Yeah, it's 
it's the obvious choice, isn't it? So, it looks

like it should have unicorns. Yeah. Well, yeah, it 
it could well do. I might add that it does have I

don't know if you noticed, but it's got the   hands of power in their David's arms. Don't

don't ask me why. so first thing is 
is that can you name these people on the screen?

Oh boy, I am bad at names. So, top left is I 
I mean I could just say you don't it's not it's

not a competition really. You don't Okay. I mean I 
know Glenda. I know me. I know Matt. Yeah, I know

that. Is that David McDonald? Yes, that Karl. Yes, 
Groves. I've met the person with the green shirt,

but I don't remember their name. her name's 
Sam Snedden. okay. She was the first

the first TPAC I went to in 2007, which is 
Mandelieu or 2008.  She was there. She was

about 12 or something. It was really odd. she'd 
been involved Yeah, I do remember her from there.

Yeah, she looks really different. Been involved 
in web standards and she's a luminary of the

WHAT WG and she still works she works for Apple 
now as far as I know. Um and then Natalie Patrice

Tucker. Okay. bottom line.  is that Adrian? 
It is Adrian. It's And that's Charles next to him.

Yeah, Charles. I thought I' drop him in I just 
wanted to mix it up. Uh, and next to him is a

fellow called Dax Castro. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You 
probably PDF guy, right? Yeah. PDF guy. And next

to him, is that Crystal? That's Crystal Preston 
Watson. And lastly, but not leastly, James Nurthen.

James Nurthen. Yes. And so up the top we've got the 
swallow. He's very proud because he's got some

sort of medal he runs. Okay. So, well, he tries to run, but anyway, he got a participation medal.

Next to that is it's the same picture as the other day that um I didn't change it. That is Haydon

Pickering. but it's a drawing and I don't know 
where it came from. And it reminds me of Frank

Zappa. And I love Frank Zappa.  next to that is Patrick. Patrick. Okay. And that's on

his wedding day. Wow. Yeah. It's a bit squashed 
up because squash. Yeah. But he's actually

Yeah. Oh. Ah. He's Oh god. It just why? Yeah. See, 
this is what happens. I just keep doing this this

thing whereby it just keeps disappearing. 
Um, okay. So, I'm going to try again.

All right. So, we've got all these people.

choose any one of them that 
you want and it will reveal a

a topic. Let's go with my old friend Charles. 
Can't hear you now. What's up? You sound gone. Oh,

I'll turn up volume. Maybe it's me. Oh, there 
we go. Is it you? Okay. Yeah. I don't know what

happened. See, that's what I mean. It's just that 
they Yeah. Should we try that again? It's going to

be hard to edit. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the Who which 
person would you like to choose? Let's go with my

old friend Charles. Charles. Okay. Hobbies. What 
hobbies do you have? Do you have any hobbies? Oh,

wow. Um I have been trying to uh get back to doing 
art. Um been sketching, doing a bit of watercolor.

I used to do a lot of art when I was young and 
then you know jobs and kids and mortgages drawing

and stuff. Drawing and stuff. Yeah. Do you  
hang pictures of the drawings in your

abode or do you have do you know make them 
public in any way? I don't make them public in any

way. I might at some point. Um I just moved so 
before I moved I was hanging them in my abode

and I haven't gotten anything put up yet but 
that is the intention. Uh, cool. To yeah,

have more things on the wall that I actually 
made instead of bought. I have some uh Yeah,

I mean, I take lots of photographs and 
especially when I'm in Spain. I go to Spain

fairly regularly because my wife is Spanish and 
I don't speak the the language that well,

but I do really enjoy this just walking around 
and taking pictures of mainly architecture, but

uh I've turned some of those into  sort of uh 
canvas frames and I've got them up on the

wall. So yeah, I mean it's nice to have things 
that you have a personal association with. For

sure. Exactly. Yeah. I'm thinking about signing up 
for there's a sketching an urban sketching class

in January that I'm thinking about signing up for. 
So doing uh rough sketches and and watercolors of

buildings in Amsterdam, which sounds really 
fun. Yeah. Well, there's lots of interesting

I like Amsterdam. Yeah. I like Holland or the 
Netherlands I should say now in general. I went

to the Hague recently as for a WCAG-EM meeting
with um hidde which I think that you talked

to. Yeah. And yeah it's it was an interesting 
place and I just like the vibe. Yeah. So that's

where you're live. Well, you're not living in 
the hague, but you are living in Amsterdam. In

Amsterdam. Yeah. Just moved a little over a month 
ago. And how's that working out so far? So far,

it's working really well. You know, I'm I'm 
mostly moved in. Don't have any art on the walls,

but I am mostly moved in. You know, I I found 
my spatulas and all of that sort of thing.

my stuff that was shipped by sea from the US 
arrived last week. So I'm still kind of surrounded

by boxes, but it's nice to have like more than 
a suitcase worth of stuff. yeah, and yeah,

it's working great. You know,  I'm I've I
gotten to the point where moving is mostly done

and I'm now focusing on getting getting my 
business up and going and finding clients and

grant funding for standards work and all of that 
kind of thing. Wow. yeah, it's a big task.

so have you have you moved on your own or with 
family? Uh my 21-year-old is with me and we're

we're starting this business together. 21year-old. 
Is that Yes. That is that baby you met? Wow. Yeah.

I mean, I was just thinking back as, you know, 
how long I've known you. And did you were you

at the Birmingham ARIA work meetup? I think 
he might I'm I'm pretty like I'm talking 2009,

sometime like that. I know Rich was there, but 
we were doing a lot of the ARIA the Yeah. Yeah,

at the time um the area specification of 
of how ARIA can be used or what what implicit

semantics were within HTML elements were was in 
the HTML spec itself. I don't think I was at that

one. I think that was one of the years where my 
corporate role was internally facing. but you

miss a lot. Well, I mean, I could hardly remember. 
I know that Charles, I know that Rich Schwertfeger,

I always have problems saying his name. Um, was 
there uh all I remember cuz at the time I was

smoking and I went outside with Charles went 
outside the venue for a cigarette and then

there was like these people like street urchins 
sort of homeless people that just descended upon  us

as soon as we appeared. like literally ran over to 
us to to beg. It was interesting. So, I don't think

I was there on that. Um, so you've moved to uh 
Amsterdam. You're setting up a business with your

daughter. That's that's an interesting point. What 
is the business? So, uh we're doing accessibility

consulting obviously because that's you know what 
I do and there's kind of two areas that I

think we have sort of stand out. One is that 
I have all this experience with big companies

and with setting up sustainable programs and you 
know shifting left and making it so that not

only are we going to find your bugs and help you 
fix them but we're going to help you set up the

systems and do all the training and integrate 
it into your processes and so that you don't

get those bugs so you don't keep getting them 
and and so that when you do you find them early.

So when you say you you've got the experience, 
give us a bit of a potted history of your

uh work in accessibility and standards etc. Show 
my age here. Um so uh you're not as old as me,

so you're doing okay. Um, I was a uh dev lead 
on the MSN homepage uh right at the turn of

the century and someone from Microsoft's internal 
accessibility group showed up in my office office

with a door um with WUKG one on paper and asked me 
to implement it and um MSN even then was like we

had done all these things. It wasn't called Ajax 
then, but we were doing server round trips and,

you know, using using the DOM to pull things out 
of iframes and update and cookies and stylesheets

and all sorts of good fun, right? And and WG one, 
if you remember, said don't use JavaScript. Yeah.

And was that one of those until until uh 
assisted catch up or not? I can't remember.

No, it it wasn't even an Intel user agents. 
I think the CSS one was because it also said,

you know, everything has to work without CSS. Um, 
but uh it it was basically that you have to have a

no script and your no script has to have the same 
functionality as your script because there were

people using links and stuff still then. Um, as in 
LYNX links, lynx, which was a textbased. Yeah,

I think Pat still Patrick L, he still uses fires 
up links. Well, he always mentions it when Yeah.

arguing about things, ironically, I must admit, 
but he still mentioned it. And, you know, for

a static textbased, maybe an image tag here and 
there kind of a web, it's a perfectly fine tool.

I mean, I also remember using Gopher in the 
library in college and you know, wasn't that

your age? Yeah. Yeah. So, so you sort of like 
I associate you with Matt May and Wendy Chisolm,

you were all friends together and we're all 
friends together. Yeah. So, time. So, they they

person from Microsoft's accessibility group handed 
me WCAG 1.0 on paper and asked me to implement it.

And I looked at it and said, "This says don't use 
JavaScript. don't use CSS.  I can't do that.

Um can I fix it? And uh I didn't expect that to 
take eight years, but it did. And suddenly by the

end of that eight years, people had decided I was 
an expert. Um during that eight years like I left

that job at MSN, I went to a startup for a while. 
I came back as a a program manager in on Visio.

did a lot of thinking about graphics accessibility 
and sort of what it means to separate content from

presentation in diagrams and drawings. I 
have patents about that. it's very fancy.

Generating money for you though, that's the 
question. Uh, Microsoft gives patent bonuses.

Not huge amount, but you get you get a nice little bonus when you get a patent and a

little statue. Um, yeah. Okay. um which you know 
I cared a lot about at the time to uh Europe. Did

you did you carry the statues with you? I actually 
did ship a box of old office stuff because I just

couldn't get rid of it. You'll have to you'll have 
to put them on public display at some point

so we can see. They're in they're in a closet 
right now. but yeah, um I also have a shrink

wrapped IE2 or is it IE3? I think wrapped IE3 box 
software. Um yeah, I got the MVP  thing and I

for a couple of years the you know what is it the 
most valued right? Most valuable partner I think.

Yeah. Something or most valuable person. Yeah. 
Something. It's just a load of rubbish really.

I mean I but here still got it here but I haven't 
got See you see yeah I recognize that font yeah

but it hasn't like you have these sort of little 
little like um glass like uh coins or something

you put on it for each year. I've lost like I 
had it for two years. I lost one. But not Yeah,

I think it's like most things it's uh it's worth 
less than the trouble it is to maintain

it. Yeah. So, like I said, my things are all in 
a box. but and so yeah, sorry. Go on. so

like after that  you know I left MSN I went 
to a startup for a while. I came back as a program

manager working on graphics. I worked on Smart 
Art which is part of it's in all the office

apps now but it started out in PowerPoint which 
does automatic diagramming. It's not AI. It's

it's extensible with an XML based 
format. Not that anybody does that anymore

but you know that was the new hotness at the time. and then I worked on a bunch of

other Microsoft products, but I always kind of had 
accessibility as a side job. And then sometime I'm

trying to remember exactly when, like 2008 or so. 
I went full-time to run accessibility for Windows

Live and then I went to the central accessibility 
team um, that was at the time called Trustworthy

Computing uh, under Robinclair who you probably 
know. yeah. Yeah, I mean I think I've met him

and know where is Rob Sinclair? Is he he's somewhere 
else like he was at Atlassian. I haven't checked

in a while. Yeah. Yeah. I mean cuz I knew 
somebody from TPG that that or a number of people.

I mean uh what's his name? Uh Gerard Cohen. I 
don't know if you know him but he was he was at

Wells Fargo for many a year. I was front end developer accessibly relate but he

moved to Atlas Atlassian I say Atlasian but yeah 
but but that doesn't really matter but yeah I

mean people tend to move around don't they really 
do yeah mostly I was at Microsoft for a very long

time but and then I left in 2016 and I went was your your departure from Microsoft. Was that a

 was it acrimonious or was it fine? It was fine. It was fine. It was it was time. Yeah.

and I went to Starbucks for a while where I set 
up a whole, I remember you being at Starbucks.

Yeah. I set up a whole accessibility program for their technology department. So

Starbucks is a huge company but they're the team that builds their website and their apps

sits in an IT organization and you know which a 
couple hundred people but their apps have such

broad reach that we were working on the mobile 
order and pay app so it had you know not only

did it have I don't remember the numbers but you 
know bazillions of users it also had bazillions

of dollars flowing through it right and you 
know we were working really hard to make that

app as accessible as it could be so that we, you 
know, so it would work for everybody. Starbucks

client base is everybody, right? Like they try to 
be super broad-based and appeal to everybody. Um,

and you know, I think we did a pretty good job. 
Like it it I'm sure you did. Yeah. It's never one

of the things I was talked to uh Crystal Preston 
Watson about about was um burnout and uh and how

you know especially when you're in organizations 
in a smallish team or you're the only person in

in the accessibly person in the room um that you 
expect to know everything. And I've been lucky

enough never to be in a situation where I'm expect 
to know everything because I I obviously don't.

And I like to stay in my lane, you know, as far as 
the when people say a subject matter expert as as

in relation to accessibility. There's just so such 
a broad technical subject you can't you know I I

never claimed to be. Luckily enough as I I said 
I when people say are you an expert I say no I'm

not an expert but I know somebody who is I know 
quite a few people you know I mean there's people

so I always ask you know the person or the people 
that I know well I think have some understanding

of of that particular area to you know provide 
the information because the last thing you want

to like well the last thing I would want to do is 
to provide advice that's incorrect or you know

so yeah and a lot of what I've tried to do at all 
the places I've worked is to like train everybody

on the team right like you know before I got 
so deeply into accessibility I have a lot of

experience just shipping software right and and 
building websites and high volume websites and

keeping them alive and keeping them updated and 
you know not getting server 500 errors that show

up on in newspapers and all sorts of fun things 
like that, right? The '90s were awesome. but

but being able to like understand that building 
anything is a team is a team thing. And you've got

you've got developers, but you've also got 
designers and product managers and you know,

sometimes you have business analysts and you 
have all these different roles that all have a

and content authors and you have they all have a a 
role to play and just doing some very broad-based

training. So that what I really hate about being 
the one accessibility person is that you spend 80%

of your day answering the same 10 questions 
over and over again. And I that is not fun.

And so getting it so that people can generally 
answer those 10 questions themselves whether

that's by looking something up or by going through 
training so they know the answers and also so they

can integrate it into their work. Right. Because 
like I'm never going to know all the nuances of

UI design. Right. Exactly. Yeah. not my thing. And 
I, you know, I can kind of sort of use Photoshop,

but I can't like do anything good with it, and I can kind of sort of use Figma,

too. Like, it's just What do you mean by good? 
I quite like what I do with Well, I had

a version of Photoshop that I had when I first 
started at Vision Australia and I kept it. It

was like version six. you know, I could just take 
the whole Exie and then put it onto a new machine.

That finally stopped working when Windows 
10 came out, I think. Yeah. but I, you know,

it it was just as useful you know, 15 years 
later than than it was when I first cuz my skills

never really increased. But, you know, just being 
able to do basic manipulation. I really dislike

a lot of the AI integrations into uh into like 
graphics products. I've gone back to using

paint. So, which is which has evolved somewhat, 
but still, you know, I just want to do basic

things like turn images around or just remove 
backgrounds and things like that. anyone my

deeply ingrained set of keyboard shortcuts for 
like taking screenshots and things with paint

most of them don't work anymore and you know 
and you know backward compatibility is a good

thing but some of these things that were you know 
it was still considered backward compatibility

in 2002 right like it you know it um like until 
pretty recently all the word perfect key keyboard

shortcuts worked in Word I don't think they do 
anymore but They worked forever. Wow. Well,

I mean, it's it's good that they keep, you know. 
Yeah. Yeah. So, the muscle memory still work, but

there's some point, I suppose, where you've got to 
Yeah. Change it up a little bit. I think Microsoft

is less dedicated to backward compatibility than 
they once were. But, you know, I don't work there

anymore, so I don't have any inside info. Well, yeah, 
that's you know, Internet Explorer. I mean,

well, that was an unfortunate demise. Yeah. Did 
you work on the on the edge? I did work on edge.

That was the last role I had at Microsoft was on 
the edge. What were you doing then? I was doing

um accessibility PM for Edge web platform. 
That was the pre-chromium edge web platform. Oh,

okay. So, so that that time when we got 100% on 
your test, that was that was that was me and my

team. Well, I knew that. Yeah, I could remember 
that you were involved with that somehow and but

then I was I was dealing with Melanie somner No, not 
Melanie some Melanie something. Yeah, Melanie took

over when I left. Yeah. And Dave storey. Do you 
Yeah. Yeah. I haven't talked to him in a long I

haven't He's disappeared off the face of the 
of the universe. I haven't seen anything from

him for ages. Yeah. I don't know. I think he's 
still in Seattle, but I'm not sure. Yeah. I mean,

I was thinking back that we first started to 
collaborate on the what became the HTML accessibility

API specification. That was like 2010 2011 some 
over there. Yeah. And yeah, I can't remember why

you stopped being involved. I think that you got 
taken out of you know your focus was changed at

Microsoft. But what I was thinking about that  
document that specification was that that predated

uh any of the other a you know the model and 
now you know I've just seen well you're soon to

be working on the SVG which is has been moved 
for ages but yeah there's a whole thing I remember

um at CSUN and which about 2010 and I was 
touting this the idea of of having this because

having the HTMLAAM and purely because that there was 
no central like there was no documentation around

how it worked you know how the accessibility 
APIs worked and and how they

represented things whether there was any
interoperability and I remember I was talking to

um you what was his name Aaron Leventhal at 
the time and he was yeah he told him to [ __ ] off

basically well didn't he didn't say that but you 
know it was there wasn't a huge amount of interest

coming from yeah because he'd been doing the ARIA 
one HTML was the HTML group was pretty hard to

work with in that era and I think that may have 
been some of Yeah, I feel a lovely bunch. It's

funny you should say that because now I'm on the 
uh I get pinged when there's WHAT WG you know

HTML related issues. Yeah, accessory related 
issues. And I'm one of the people that gets

pinged. There's quite a few. But now I I sound 
like the voice of reason, you know, sort of like

there's these things that come up and then myself 
and others such as Leone and Pat, we sort of,

you know, sort of say, well, yeah, you've got 
to think about it differently or whatever. And

and we end up usually making the point 
that no change needs to be made or or people just

don't understand. I think there's still a lot of 
misunderstanding about how accessibility APIs

work, how browsers, you know, produce them, how assistive technology, mainly screen readers

consume that information. So, it's but 
there it's a lot. I mean, thinking back to,

you know, 10, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, even 
the amount of people involved in the accessibility

community and the web standards community that 
that have an interest or that have expertise

in in accessibility related stuff was minuscule 
compared to today, which is pretty good. I mean,

I'm glad there's lots of people, but there's 
also lots of, you know, people that that want to

be involved that that have eagerness, 
but don't have the full perspective. So,

it, you know, it can it can involve um education. 
There's it's a still there's a lot more resources

and infrastructure for beginners than there used 
to be. Yeah, there is. But I think it's it's a lot

more complicated. Well, the whole web is more 
complicated than it used to be, right? It's not

like you're going to build a website in Notepad 
anymore. Which I did for money at Microsoft,

you know, at one time, right? so yeah so the 
that well and the thing with the aam is that there's this big disconnect because 
web people don't understand operating systems

and operating system people don't understand the 
web right and for accessibility to work it's going

through it's it's the web getting translated 
into an operating system API and then operating

system rules taking over and they it's just really 
different and it's different on every platform and

And it's super complicated and it's hard. I 
think it's just hard for a lot of people, people

who love the web and have, you know, think in web 
ways. Operating systems are really alien. And the

same was true. I think Microsoft is better about 
this than they used to be. I don't know. Google's

certainly better about this than they used to be. 
But, um, that, you know, people who spent 20 or 30

years building Windows Yeah. The browser is just 
an app, right? And it should work the same as all

the other apps. Yeah. But no, but no. Right. 
And it's just like there's it's really hard to

bridge that that paradigm. See, I got to say 
paradigm. Nice. Well, yeah, they take that one

off your bucket list. Um, so I've always I mean 
the the Microsoft always push UIA and I get it

but I just don't understand the full advantages of 
you of user what was it you UIA or something

versus Iaccessible2 for example. So 
putting on a hat from three jobs ago. Um that's

why you back you asked me what I was doing. I also 
after Starbucks I worked at Google for five years,

four years uh on Chrome. But um uh basically the 
idea behind UIA was that you wouldn't be as tied

to roles. So like roles as they were defined in MSAA 
and as they are defined in ARIA were designed for

Windows 98. Right. Right. And there was only so 
many widgets and you couldn't really customize

them very much. And they were mapped onto 
the set of of roles and different properties.

And if you think about, you know, you set the 
Wayback Machine and think about,

you know, I don't know, Word or something looked 
like in 1998. Yeah. Everything that you needed

for that was available in MSAA. But when in the 
early 2000s when Microsoft started changing their

UI and doing a lot of things to make you know a 
lot of stuff was more customizable even in Windows

and and also on the web like people were you know 
building brand new kinds of UI out of tables and

divs and click handlers and all that GUI  
and there wasn't anything in MSAA to express a lot

of that stuff and so the idea behind UIA was that 
you instead of having just like this is a button

and it has these states and these actions, it it 
had ways to combine behaviors uh which are called

patterns in in UIA. the iOS accessibility API 
has something really similar traits where you

can instead of having well you can have a role of 
button you can have a thing that has clickability

and a pressed state and other things like that. 
And it doesn't have to be a button or it doesn't

have to be a menu. it can you can combine 
all the behaviors that you want to express

any kind of UI. So that's what UIA was about. 
It was also tied in with all the managed.net

Vista sorry, Vista Longhorn stuff, 
right? yeah, I mean it what you said

you work you worked at Google on Chrome. 
So what is the well I don't know about the

current state but what what is the state of 
implementation of UIA in browsers other than edge

I mean okay so I'm I have not looked at 
the code but this is what I was told that

Microsoft to get Edgium chrome based edge 
to work with UIA Microsoft implemented it

But it's not turned on in Chrome, right? 
And I believe you can build with a flag

and turn it on, but  
why is it not enabled in Chrome?

I'm trying to think of what I'm actually 
allowed to say about this. Yeah, that's fine.

But I'm just interested because compatibility 
mostly like you know but it's a big change

right switching what accessibility API you're 
using is a huge change and like the

the potential to break the web is huge and the testing cost is huge and like I I think

that's the gist of it but it wasn't really like a project that was being seriously considered when I

was there. Gotcha. It's Yeah. I mean because 
like a screen reader like narrator which is

the built-in screen reader from  Microsoft 
from Windows that only uses UIA as far as I know.

Is that correct? That is correct. But there is a 
translation layer in Windows. Right. So narrator

can work with MSAA based apps but not IAccessible2 based apps at least that may have changed but at

one point that was true. So there's a well because 
IAccessible2 isn't Microsoft's API right like it's

it's No it's a Linux foundation isn't it? It's 
a yeah I don't know I think it first showed up

in Netscape I can't remember. but it 
is well supported across

browsers Chrome, Firefox, etc. So that and 
this is one of those places where the web way

of thinking about things and the operating system 
way of thinking about things are really different.

When UIA was created, it was created for Windows 
apps, right? And so there's a translation layer

that allows old Windows apps to work with. Yeah. 
UIA based AT and it wasn't really necessarily

thinking about the web. It was think then it makes 
perfect sense. But then you got things Yeah. Then

you got things like Electron apps which are on 
browser engines but are apps themselves. So yeah,

I mean it's just mad. I mean there's always 
something new and exciting and and interesting

and buggy to to work on. So going back to 
your current So you're in a, do you plan to

stay in Europe for an extended period? I'm on 
a two-year visa which I will probably renew but

you know things are a little fluid at the moment. 
Yeah. So but I'll be here for at least two years.

Oh, excellent. well hopefully we can catch 
up when next year TPAC is in Dublin. It is.

And there's something in Dublin in February too 
that I'm going to go to. I can't remember what

it was but some some little conference. Yeah, 
there's a really good conference called State

of the Browser. that it's a one day thing that 
happens in London. uh if you get a chance to go

to that I think it's in February this year but 
I presented at one of my rare times of presenting

and it's just got lots of interesting speakers like 
last year it had the guy from the Ladybird

browser the engine and that was interesting 
because I'd learned more about that and

there was a guy that I I think he was a German 
guy or Austrian guy or maybe a Dutch guy I don't

But Oliver Lindberg, I think his name was and 
he did his all about fonts and that was

a I really enjoyed  his presentation. So 
anyway, state the browser, I'm just giving a

shout out for that. I've got my ticket already. 
Tetrslogical, we sponsor State of the browser. So

um Okay. It's Yeah, it's Send me some info. I'll 
look at it. Yeah, the location

the venue is is the I can't remember the name of it 
now. it's it's somewhere in London

but it's but the architecture of the building 
is really like it's sort of almost organic but

brutalist organic. It's quite interesting. 
I haven't been to London in like 20 years so I

don't know but that sounds cool. Yeah. No, no, 
it is. It is. So, I'm looking forward to that.

Always always like to look, you know, 
forward to things. So, where like you're living

in a flat or a house? Living in a flat. and 
yeah, right in the center. And Absolutely.

Yeah. And uh I have a co-working space that I 
don't go to very often. And a desk in a

corner. And that's where I am right now. That's 
my real background behind me. Nice. Yeah. Well,

I showed you my my real background. Would you 
would Yeah, you got it lined up perfectly though

because pillows keep blinking in and out on the 
on the cushy. Yeah. Yeah, that's So, I've got

some pillows in the back here. Yeah, it's it's my 
comfy zone. Office stroke comfy zone. Okay. So,

I'm not going to bother to go back to the 
board because we're just, you know, chatting about

stuff. so were you actually involved in WCAG one? No, I came in right at the beginning of WCAG 2.

So that's that's where I met Wendy, right? Because 
Wendy Wendy worked on WCAG and Wendy worked with

uh Gregg Vanderhiden at the Trace Center. Yeah, 
I think when she was in grad school and was

the editor of WCAG 1 and then I asked to you know 
can I fix this when I was at Microsoft and I went

I went to a WCAG meeting at CISA in 2000 and 
where they decided to charter WCAG 2 and so I was

there at the very beginning of WCAG  2 and I had a 
lot of experience trying to implement WCAG  one on a

you know big modern site which was just not what 
people were thinking about right I mean it went

Rec. in 99, but it was mostly written in like 
97. And I know those now those sound like kind

of close together, but the web changed so much 
in those two years. I remember the the first day

I started Vision Australia, which was in 2001. 
my boss at the time, Andrew Arch,  it

was just before Christmas, I think. But he just  provided me with a paper copy

of WCAG 1 and said read it. I had very little  
understanding of accessibility. but yeah just

four or five years working as a consultant 
at vision Australia really really helped. But also the

the fact that there was lots of people that you 
know that had disabilities around at vision

Stroke because low vision and yes uh it was it was 
really instructive and helpful for me you know to

to understand and also to understand 
the WG or understand WCAG at the time.

So, now that you've you've set up a do you have 
actual business set up like a I have a an actual

I have a Dutch corporation. Excellent. Well, you 
should give Do you have a website that you Yes,

it's not quite up yet. Um, so it's Scaled 
Accessibility Consulting  is the company and

scaled11y.com is the website. It's a coming soon 
page right now, but I'm I'm real close.  well,

please when when it does actually, you know, 
you do actually get some content on there,

let let us know and yeah, do my best to promote 
your work.  I'm using WordPress and learning

all about WordPress accessibility and  I haven't 
really I've worked with a CMS before but not

like building a site from scratch in a CMS. When 
I've built sites from scratch, it's been, you

know, writing code from scratch. and so it's 
it's interesting, but I decided to go ahead

and go with WordPress because it's so popular that 
it seemed like it would be just a really important

thing to know how to do. What's that? I use that 
for my blog. I have for years and and before that

 TPG the TPGI TPG blog was WordPress based. So 
yeah, I yeah what one thing that I do know is that

I don't use the new editor, you know, the wizzywig 
editor. I use the old one because it's got some

odd name, the new editor, but it's just Yeah. Huh. 
Block editor. Yeah, it's a pile of poo. I just use

the, you know, I mean, I don't need to have, you 
know, lots of intricacies on the site. So,

helpful. I think I need to know how all that 
works because I'm looking for consulting work,

right? So, yeah, and it's going to be a thing a 
lot of people are using and it seems like like a

lot of things, right? If you know how you can make 
it accessible, but it's pretty easy to screw it

up. Yeah, definitely. But I've I've definitely 
screwed it up more more often than not.

so I'd mentioned that you  had talked to Hidde de Vries.  he seems to like he seems

to be everywhere these days like you know sort of 
wherever I look  he's doing  a conference

or a talk or or he's at TPAC or whatever. But 
he's a really nice guy. So, I'm glad that you two

managed to get in contact and I actually now 
that I'm settled, like reaching out to him again

and being like, "Okay, let's have lunch is one of 
the things on my on my short to-do list." Yeah.

I mean, I had a really nice time when I went to 
the Hague because that that's where their offices are.

because he works for the Dutch government and so 
I went up some huge skyscraper but it was just a

really nice and like the Hague is just got a really 
chill sort of vibe about it even though it's

you know like I've always thought the Hague you know 
there's all this sort of polish going on I didn't

see much going on but I just got a good feeling 
of about the place something I've been really

impressed with it here is that government works 
really well here. Like it just it's pretty chill,

but everything's very organized and it's really 
doc well documented what to do and there aren't

too many steps and and everybody like the people 
working in the government offices are nice and

helpful and the lines aren't very long and you 
know it's like government as government should

should should work. unfortunately the yeah 
the states I mean the state of the

of government and in general in the states seems 
to be on the wane so to speak and interacting

with government offices in the US has never been 
well in my lifetime never been particularly easy.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. What do you as regards 
health care, do you get health care or Yeah,

I can get so the Dutch system it's 
not a fully nationalized system. It's a regulated

insurance system. and I am I do qualify 
for that insurance and it is significantly less

expensive than the US.  that's one of 
the reasons why I  don't think I can live in

the States because the the cost of healthare 
and just that that that model of health care

just means that for me to me that you you won't 
you're not guaranteed to get the help that you

need. I've always worked for big companies and 
I've always had good insurance. I mean I had a

few years without insurance right after college 
but I was young and healthy and it I was lucky

right like but you know since I was in 
my late 20s I've always had good insurance I

always worked for big companies and I you know 
going independent and actually like going and

looking at those marketplaces I was like wow 
this is this is hard it's really complicated

it's really you know and And it got simpler like 
Obamacare sort of simplified what the some of the

choices but but it's still still yeah it's still a 
big marketplace which which yeah I mean I just

find it difficult well I understand it because 
you know we live in a capitalist society and and

there's plenty of of other aspects of life that 
are involved with the markets but it's always you

know like both education and and healthcare 
has always been that that it shouldn't be profit

motive you know motivated by profit and I mean 
it look I mean people complain about the NHS but

still um I find and to an extent it's the postcode 
lottery depending on where you live but I have

always found uh the healthcare support to be 
excellent in the UK and in Australia as well which

had a sort of universal health care but there 
was some co-pay but it was all you know very small

but for example as far as  prescriptions are
concerned I have to take certain medications

on a regular basis andup until I was 60 they 
it didn't matter what you for getting that it was

£10 or this you know approximately £10 a bit less 
but now so per prescription so if I was getting

you know if I was getting some some antibiotics 
it'd be £10 but once I turn 60 it's free that's

nice yeah yeah I mean the benefits of getting old 
I was surprised because I went into the chemist

and the guy said to me I'm going to have to pay 
anymore. I said, "What?" Cool. Yeah. Yeah. So,

it's uh you know Yeah. I mean, 60 doesn't sound 
as old as it once did. Well, I only Yeah. Well,

I wish I was 60. I would be 62 in January. But 
anyway, I mean, that doesn't Yeah, it's just part

of part of life getting old. It's that  getting 
older. But I don't what I don't want to do was

end up because you I've see sort of especially in 
the standards work and the and the W3C there some

older people that should really just not 
retire but just be less you know officious in

their and active in their you know 
wanting to put their finger in their every pie.

I don't think there's actually age related. 
I think there's just some people that just like

sound of their own voice or or just want to have 
an opinion on everything. And I've never been one

of those people. Thank God. Some, you know, I've 
been around standards a long time and some of

the people I think you're talking about were like 
that when they were 35, too, or 40 or, you know,

Yeah. Yeah. When you Yeah. I mean, I had my times 
with with HTML and the WHAT WG group and all

those things and that because one of the subjects 
that that I talk about that I bring up as topic is

burnout and I think that I did have a bit of 
a burnout from doing Standards work for several

years and then I've sort of got back into it and 
it seems similar. Well, I'm not saying you had a

burnout but you were not involved. Now you're 
starting to get back involved again. Are you

enjoying the I am right. Like I get to pick what 
I work on now. Yeah. And you know in when you work

for big company like there's the thing that the 
whole company is doing and you need to be involved

in that and then you've got your own little 
specialization area. Yeah. And it's hard to like

carve out enough time to do it and do it well. 
And and there's also there's always, you know,

the winds change a lot in big companies. There are 
reorgs and strategy shifts and yada yada yada. And

you have to like refocus what you're doing to 
survive. I used to call it surfing reorgs. But

, you know now I'm independent and one of the 
things you know of course that means that I'm you

know I'm it used to be very easy to get funding. 
I just had to convince you know my boss's boss

right and and now I need to like go out there 
and and beat the bushes and and look for some

look for look for actual funding to do that work, yeah, that can be time consuming and can also,

you know, get you down. But I mean I've been 
you know like my life has been and my work

life has has been I've been gifted 
with the opportunities to like I've never

Iworked like I worked for a largeish 
company but you know compared to the likes of

Microsoft or whatever but also that I worked 
you know for a long period for a accessibility

primarily accessibility consultancy. Yeah. 
And so I got to work on stuff and also I

had a lot of latitude so I was able to just 
work on stuff that interested me right.

yeah so I'm trying to find the right balance 
between like consulting with companies and

helping them make their their presence accessible 
and helping them build systems that keep it that

way and doing standards work which is probably 
mostly grant funded. Um, you know, maybe you can

get a vendor contract with a tech company every 
now and then, but it's mostly going to be grant

funded. Yeah. And, you know,  I want to do some 
of both of that. And then, you know,

Finn, my my my business partner is, you 
know, early in their in their career. And so,

I'm training them to do some more of the testing. 
And I think they're probably going to do the the

PDF remediation certification. Seems like 
there's a lot of PDF remediation work. So,

we I hope that we'll be able to offer sort of a 
full spectrum.  they're also really interested

in accessibility of physical spaces, buildings, 
and and things like that. And I'm hoping that,

you know, as we get a little farther along, 
we'll be able to offer businesses this sort

of full package that includes both digital and 
physical presence. do you like the you know

if you get the more work you get, do you plan on 
employing or getting other people involved if we

have enough work? Yeah, you know, I haven't 
probably something I've thought a lot about is

like internships and yeah, how we can bring in 
and I did a lot of this when I was at other in

other jobs too. How how can you bring in early 
career engineers who have disabilities? How can

you train up people who have a lot of potential 
but maybe you know don't get the interview?

so you know thinking like maybe doing some 
some internships or some co-ops or I suspect that

there's government funding for that sort of thing. 
haven't really looked into it a whole lot. But

yeah, you know, I think I think growing to, you 
know, certainly bigger than the two of us. I don't

I don't want to be a unicorn or have a hockey 
stick or blah blah just I just want to do work,

right? I don't want to I've already managed big 
companies. I don't want to do that anymore. but

you know if we if we have enough clients then yeah 
I would absolutely want to do you know to expand

the pool of people who can work in this field and 
also obviously to partner with other consultants

and other companies that that do this kind of 
work. Yeah. You should also Hidde knows

them. There's the guy there's a company called 
Abra which is they have a a um a Dutch company and

they have a uh they specialize in in mobile um uh 
the automated testing or or semi-automated testing

but they also do some some testing. But there's 
a guy called Jan [ __ ] I think his name is. I

never know how to pronounce these people's names. 
But he is um head of the or he's the chair of the

uh mobile accessibility task force. Okay. But 
he's one of the the people that that work there.

Another guy called Paul I think his name 
is. Seen that name. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway,

 I'd sort of, you know, have a look Hidde knows 
them, ask because I'm sure it would just be nice

to for you to hook up, not hook up, but you know, 
sort of to meet them because they they're local.

They live in Dutch land. One of my  what what 
a person that I worked with for many years

Hans Hillen started on the same day. I don't know 
if you ever I've I've been in some meetings with

him but I don't know. Yeah. Hans Hans is sort of 
like he he has a deep level of knowledge.  but

he doesn't have a social you know presence and 
so people don't know him as well unlike me who

has a very surface level of knowledge but 
has a social presence a deeper social presence

but yeah he's Dutch u I don't even know why why 
I was thinking see I'm just thinking of all the

Dutch people you know right yeah yeah but no 
but Hans lives in New Zealand now anyway he's

still working at TPG but he and I started 
it on the same day in 2006 at TPG.  anyway,

yeah, sorry. It ends up like I don't mean to to 
bring the topic of conversation around to myself,

but it just seems to Yeah, that's good, you 
know. it just seems to happen. Yeah. I'm just

trying to think of like reminds me of all these 
things, you know, especially talking to someone

uh such as yourself who I've known for  years on a you know, some level and interacting with

in various situations. it just reminds me of 
Yeah. all these things from the Yeah, that's part

of what happens when you get old. True. You know, 
what has gone before is greater than what

what will come in the future. Hopefully. I don't 
know. People in my family live into their 90s. And

my dad didn't retire till he was almost 80. So, 
yeah. Well, I don't plan on retiring till I'm

70. Not because I Well, I mean, I enjoy doing this 
stuff anyway, but but also I've got, you know,

I've got a 16-year-old daughter and a 21-year-old 
daughter and they both still live at home. Well,

the 16 year old, of course, but the 21y old and 
uh so I  just need to generate money to

feed their habits, you know, their their 
lifestyles. Yeah. My wife works as well,

so we both work full-time. Yeah. So, how how 
are you finding the cost of living over in

Amsterdam? It's it's a more complicated answer 
than you would expect. So, I came from Seattle,

which is one a very expensive place. Like, it's 
not it's right behind it. It's not quite up there

with like London, New York, San Francisco, 
but it's not too far behind there. Yeah. So,

compared to that, it seems pretty affordable. 
But there is a housing crisis and a lot of

landlords won't rent to immigrants and it's, 
you know, it ends up being kind of pricey, but

in comparison to to Seattle, it's less than 
Seattle, but also like, you know, I had a whole

house, right? and I bought my house before the 
interest rates went up and you know so it's

a little hard to do apples to apples. Groceries 
are definitely cheaper. I don't have to have a

car that's definitely cheaper. I bought a bike. 
Yeah. I Yeah. I love like just watching you know

because a lot of the times when I go to Amsterdam 
or mainly Amsterdam I've been to just watching

the people on the bikes you know just sitting 
there and some having a coffee just watching

the world go by. It's such a wonderful place for 
doing that. It really is. Yeah. And you know,

I the first few times I tried to ride a bike here, 
it was like, there's every roof people everywhere

and how does this work? And and you know, 
like not only are there bike lanes everywhere,

there's left turn lanes for bikes. Like it's 
Yeah, it's serious. And and I realize the closest

thing I the closest analogy I can come to is that 
riding a bike here is like driving in Los Angeles.

You just have to be you have to be, you 
know, a protozoa floating with the flow,

right? Yeah. You just got to get into that  stream. I um I spent some time in Thailand

in in the in a smaller city in the south of 
Thailand and I had a moped there and yeah,

driving around there is exactly it's like you go 
into a stream and just got to follow with the flow

and just Yeah. It's it's incredible.  okay, 
so you're still finding your feet in

Amsterdam and in you know you work-wise you you're 
starting to get some clients or customers getting

there. Yeah. So things are things are positive 
for you which things are positive. Yeah. you know,

I'm working on the I just started working 
on the SVG AAM and I'm working with Lola on

accessibility compat data and you know, that's 
as you may remember like testing and automated

testing and being able to test browsers 
and compare them and have you know again

that's what the AAM were about too is like writing 
down what the browser's doing and comparing it.

ACD I think is kind of the next step in that 
and you know if anybody remembers Intel user

agents in WCAG one and then accessibility 
supported was the WCAG 2 version of that but it

it was kind of you know vibe based and so trying 
to get to a place where it's not right where you

don't have to expert on the market definitely 
some interesting discussions around that around

accessibly supported because quite often I 
mean or quite often I on occasion I use that

as an argument as to why something fails wag 
or whatever because even though if it's not

accessibly supported like you know if enough 
of the the assistive technology people use don't

support it or the majority doesn't support 
it then then it's not accessibly supported

in my but how do you know that as a regular web 
developer like there's just you know you I mean

you got you know even among the crowd we hang 
out with there's a lot of like discussion and

positioning and is it or isn't it and and then 
you know you got all the different at and the

different operating systems different language 
markets you know something that's accessibility

supported in English might not be accessibility 
supported in some other language um And you know,

if you don't speak English, then that doesn't 
really do you any good, right? Um, and it's a

really complicated thing. And so I think that's 
where having I mean, just like your your HTML 5

acid test thing, right? Like just having some data 
that says like these are the things we expect and

this is where it works and doesn't. Also, that's 
what I've tried to do with the uh the HTML screen

reader support. Yeah. It's, you know,  
 it's not trying to to to provide it's just

trying to provide like an easy way for people who 
don't have a lot of time to be able to compare,

you know, and to understand how how assistive 
technology screen readers in particular you know,

sort of interpret and convey the the semantics of HTML. It's important for people to

understand, but yes, a lot of it and this 
ACD stuff that you're doing with Lola that

I'm tangentally involved in I think that will 
be helpful as well because it it provides that

yeah that those data points that people need to 
understand and implement things appropriately,

right? Like I was talking before about the the 
the way that you know web people and operating

system people don't understand each other right 
and like if you look at it there's a bunch of

layers right there's markup and then there's a 
DOM and then there's uh internal accessibility

representation and then there's mapping to you 
know half a dozen accessibility API operating

system accessibility APIs and then there's every 
at on those operating systems mostly consuming

those APIs but sometimes going back over here too 
and you know so like the the screen reader support

one works all the way out here in user land and 
uh something like axe works all the way there in

markup land and WPT is sort of that internal 
representation but there there aren't there

isn't data about a lot of those layers except you 
know maybe in Aaron Levthal's brain right like and

and Aaron Leventhal has a wonderful big brain 
but it's difficult for other people to access yeah

yeah exactly it's it's funny like saying about 
Aaron. He says that like he's one of the people

I never quite like I've talked to him over the 
years, but I never quite felt comfortable in his

presence. Always feel. But that's just me. That's 
I mean he and I worked together pretty closely at

at at Google and he just, you know, when you 
have a question, you could just say, "Hey,

how does this work?" And if he doesn't remember, 
he'll just go look in the code, right? And yeah,

but not everybody can go look in the Chrome code 
and know where to look. And you know, I mean,

not only is it an enormous codebase, but it's also 
C++ and 25 years old and, you know, um it's

not an easy thing to just to just go look. And 
so having some more, you know, testdriven ways

of looking at that information and particularly 
having it as automated as possible so that it can

stay fresh without having to, you know, pay armies 
of testers, which nobody wants to do anymore.

Yeah, that was one of the things that was nice at 
Starbucks was they still had QA. So, I taught all

the QA people how to do accessibility testing. 
It was great. Well, that's cool. Um, okay. So,

we've been speak for over an hour now, so it's 
probably time to um wind it up. Yeah. Do you

want me to answer one of your quiz questions? , 
yeah, if you want. , I I'll just hold on a sec.

I'll  I mean this WCAG 3. Oh boy. Okay. 
How what what's your what's your gut feeling about

the direction? Did I mean I do it? It seems like 
they are starting to get their act together. Well,

that's good. I'm not super involved in WCAG 3. 
I you know when they were when when people were

deciding whether to do 3.0 or do 2. a million 
I was more in favor of 2. million because of

backward compatibility and the legal references 
and you know I was also working for big company

at the time. Um yeah well you do know are 
you aware that there's now talk of a two dot

x and I think that's probably needed because 3.0 
is still a long way off. Yeah. Yeah. And you know,

but the backward compatibility is super important 
and I know a lot of people want to not have that

and the reasons aren't like there's nothing 
wrong with the reasons. It's just that in the

same way that web and operating system people 
don't talk to each other. Sometimes standards

people and business people just really don't 
understand each other. Yeah. And you know the

fact that WCAG 2 is the reference for every law 
around the world Yeah. has been a huge driver of

stuff actually getting done because there's some 
clarity about what it is you're supposed to do.

That's um one one of the that's why I think 
that the ongoing work on WCAG

2 backlog which is essentially you know putting 
time into yeah into updating and and making

and clarifying stuff in the in the volumous
techniques documents whatever I think this

is really important work because it affects you 
know like yeah I mean I'm interested interested

in WCAG 3. I'm interested in the direction but you 
know boots on the ground today everybody uses WCAG 2

and even after WG 3 comes out it's going to take 
the conformance model is so different it's going

to take a long time for regulation to catch up. 
So yeah I mean I'm always wondering will you know

will it be taken up before I retire before I 
die? I don't know, I wouldn't be surprised if

Wukg 3 ships before you retire, but I think it'll 
be at least another 5 years before regulations are

able to integrate it because it's so different. 
Yeah. And you know, a lot of governments around

the world are in a state where they're not getting 
a whole lot done right now. And and that wasn't

true in 2008, right? like there was a lot more 
momentum behind regulation even in the US than

there is now. We don't think that the uh EAA has 
sort of given things a jolt because it does it it

seems from from you know from my side where where 
people are you know get in contact with us and ask

us about work. Um it seems to me the EAA is one 
is an important driver in it is. Yeah. Yeah. The

things like the you know there's always this this 
people say oh you know that it shouldn't be about

you know sort of the the stick. It should be more 
about the carrot. But yeah just saying that you

know oh well it's a nice thing to do and it's 
the right thing to do. It just doesn't always

cut it. I mean, you know, companies don't give a 
shit really in the end about those things or or

probably that is a bit harsh. They do care. They 
do have concern about but it's it's the profit

motive is much more to the fore  you know 
they they're looking after their investments and

their their shareholders. So unless you unless 
you the government comes along and regulates it,

it got to happen. Something I've seen happen 
a lot is that the existence of some regulation

or a lawsuit gets the process started and then 
they hire someone like you or me to go and teach

the teams what it means and how to do it. And for 
the most part, most people who work on products,

once they know it's a thing and know basically 
how to do it, they want to do a good job. They try

to do a good job. Most people do. Not everybody 
and not everybody's boss, but for the most part,

if you have a team and you teach them how to do 
it, they're going to want to do it right. Yeah.

And and that is everything. But the, you know, and 
the people on that team who are actually writing

the code and doing the testing and making the 
graphics high enough contrast and all of those

things, like what got them started sometimes was 
that there was a a stick. Yeah. Their boss got hit

with a stick and and that pushed it up the 
priority list. But however they start, whether

it's carrot or stick, you know, there's also a 
lot of stories about like some executive has a

kid with a disability and starts an initiative and 
yada yada. both of those things can happen,

but it's in the end it doesn't really matter how 
it happen. Doesn't matter. It it happens. And so

yeah, so I like I'm not anti- legislation. I think 
legislation you know government, big government

is a good thing. my particular bit but yeah 
so WCAG 3 and I'm well I attend the meetings

and I'm following I follow along with it but 
I haven't put a lot of time into actually

uh I've still like I'm always very cautious I'm 
finding my feet with it with stuff so I tend to

you know I do stuff that that I work on stuff that 
that I feel confident in working on it and I

just listen and and and try to understand the flow 
of you know discussion that continues

for these these sort of developments. I 
mean it's a it's a wonderful uh um opportunity

place to to be. I think you know talking 
about the W3C and the working groups I sort of

like I feel like I've come home but being more you 
know involved and it's just you know there's new

faces old faces like Janina Sajka I mean I remember 
being involved in in the HTML task force 15

years ago and there she you know it's sort of 
like it's just yeah old faces and new faces and

But and it's still Yeah, I'm thoroughly enjoying 
it. That's what I should say. I really I really

like working with W3C. I always have like the 
people are so nice and everybody's really smart

and like really trying to get things done. And you 
know, recently, just to echo your point, it's one

of the few places where I encounter co-workers who 
are older than me. Um, and you know, I'm a little

bit younger than the baby boomers. Not a ton, but 
I'm a little bit younger than the baby boomers.

So for most of my career there were like lots and 
lots of people who were 15 or 20 years older than

me and they're all retired now. Um and it and W3C
I still run into people who are in that and it it

feels much more comfortable than I'm just not 
used to being the old fart. Right. Yeah. Well

that's yeah but that's yeah that's on that on 
that note that is what I want to like I don't

want to become a dinosaur and so I always but I 
think that we're all of us are lucky that is those

that who are involved in this work is that it is 
always like is you're never doing the same thing.

You're doing something you know different and 
novel and and you're pushing the boundaries and

pushing yourself to understand things which which 
you don't get the opportunity in every job to do.

So I think we're all you really don't. Yeah, we're 
really quite lucky. That's why I've continued

doing W3C work even when I had to do it, you know, 
outside of 40 hours. that it's just and it

also has a big impact, right? I mean, you you get 
an accessibility feature into the HTML spec like

that and you had a browser to implement it like 
that matters. That matters, right? That impacts

everybody. I'll always have the main element as 
well. Yes. And main is awesome, right? But it was

a really simple thing, but it was such a lot of 
work. It really it details and summary was mine.

Yeah. Well, that was nice. Yeah. I mean, there's 
some really nice features  in HTML,

but it's just getting them to work. the the other 
thing because I I don't know at the time but when

uh canvas was being developed and implemented 
you know or specified there was lots of push back

about using canvas for interactive UI 
 interaction and whatever and the

representation of uof controls etc. and 
semantics. But I I just recently picked up on

something and I always thought that at some point 
people are going to use canvas to build UI and I

but it never really happened in any big way. But 
just recently there's some can't remember the name

of I I'll put it when I put together the uh the 
post associated with this. I'll put it on there.

But essentially some mobile framework that just 
uses canvas to create UI all over the place. Uh

yeah, Google had one of those too. And I mean, 
you know, we've come full circle, right? Because

HTML was a super high level language. It's 
all declarative and all the like you don't

need to know about how any of the gui inside 
the computer works. And then five years later,

people were using it to blitz pixels to the screen 
and having to build all that gui again. Right.

But there was the the the uh thing was is the 
person at the time that that uh was um writing

the specifications for for such or it had a lot of 
influence.  just decided that they didn't want

people to be able to do UI in canvas. 
But just like anything, I mean, you know,

they the when, you know, a div and a span were 
developed, they even want those to to become

user interface elements potentially. But if 
you add, you know, you add on the the behaviors,

etc. People will find a way to use things in the 
way that you don't want it used or you don't it's

not specified to be used. And so you we've got 
to, you know, come to terms with that and try to

make it accessible regardless. And again, that was 
the idea behind UIA, right? That you could combine

descriptions of behaviors and come up with new 
UI widgets and describe how they worked without

having to come up with a name and change windows. 
Uh, and I really wish that Arya had additive

things. I've been saying this for years, right? 
Like the thing where if you put role equals link

on a heading, it stops being a heading. Like being 
able to say that this thing is is a heading button

link would be awesome. But there's ARIA doesn't 
work like that. Is there is there a reason? Oh,

[ __ ] Yeah, we should do people want a heading 
button. That's the reason, right? We should do

this. we should have a further conversation. 
I'm already inviting people back everybody I

talk to. So yeah, we can go into a deeper dive in 
our next meeting. What I was going to say was

that I will be in um I've been asked to present 
at a  Dutch government

conference is happening in Utrech. Okay. In  
March. So maybe worth something. Yeah, you worth

checking out. Uh Hiddie, I've got the gig via Hiddie 
because we're working on the WCAG-EM together. He's

going to do a talk on WCAG 3 and I'm going to do 
a talk on the WCAG-EM. So So I'm going to read it. I

implemented that at Starbucks actually. We did a 
we and built a whole automated system that used

Google Analytics data to 
figure out what were the most important things and

and build the that yeah you could provide because 
that's one of the things we've been thinking about

I mean what we essentially tried to do with WCAG-EM is 
just bring it into the the modern day and and for

how we all know that that that likes of people 
such as James Craig will will make it clear that

that that WCAG is about the web accessibility, but 
we all know that that it's that WCAG is being used

to test the accessibility of of mobile 
applications and and desktop applications and

operations desktop applications and and document 
like that's the part of the thing was you know

it's always been the web XP guidelines, but 
then then it was it covers PDF. PDF's not you

know like yes it's primarily but it's it's still 
it's a document format that it's easier to make

a P like the parallels between PDF and a web 
page are a lot more than the parallels between

you know Chrome OS and a web page right like and 
everything is being tested against WCAG because

of WCAG ICT But WCAG like WCAG was was written 
and designed with the assumption that the

stuff you were working on was rendered inside 
a browser on an operating system and that lots

of things were abstracted away from you and then 
trying to bring it back so it covers everything.

And you know at some level UI is UI and a lot 
of the things are applicable but when you start

digging into how stuff works and why it's broken 
and then it gets really messy. Yeah. But that's

Yeah. But that that is sort of the implementation 
details or the remediation details rather than

you know as you say when I mean when I look 
at an app on my mobile phone I see UI

and I see you know that I can use the built-in 
screen reader in iOS to interact with it. It's

it's still doing the same sort of stuff. It's 
telling me whether it's a button, whether it's,

you know, pressable and blah blah blah. And it's 
there's not a lot of difference between that and

the sort of information that's provided about the 
UI on it that's created voiceover on iOS is very

good about making that experience consistent. But 
if you if you go to say Windows and you're trying

to you look at the difference between a native 
app and a web app that look exactly the same.

Yeah. The screen reader experience is radically 
different. and and and that's confusing. Yeah,

it you know there have gotten to be with ARIA 
and various other things that happened after

Arya you can make them a little more consistent 
but there's still this sort of underlying thing

that web pages are scrollable documents full of 
text and links and maybe images and the way that

at works with them has a lot of that built into 
it. Yeah. And that's not true for, I don't know,

a video player or uh this, you know, Zoom app I'm 
looking at, right? Which is probably Electron,

but yeah. Well, yeah, it could be. It's 
just like the the Firefox browser. I mean,

the UI of that is built with HTML as far as I 
know. I believe that that's true. Yeah. Yeah. So,

but yeah, I mean, it just looks like, you know, 
and some of Chromes is too. Yeah. So there's

there's that blurring and you know with the 
Electron apps essentially JavaScript and right

HTML and stuff. So anyway, we could rap it on for 
hours and hours about Yeah, we could. But yeah,

we I need to go and have my uh my dinner. Yeah, 
me too. You probably need to as well. And uh

thank you for taking the time to chat. Absolutely. 
It was it was really fun to chat. And you know,

if I could just put a little plug in there, 
right? Like I'm looking for I'm looking for

consulting contracts. I'm looking for funding for 
SVG AM and I'm looking for funding for ACD.

And um I really you know I would like to be 
able to do a balance of commercial contracts

and standards work and have you know both of those 
in my life. Uh very a noble uh cause a very noble

uh desire. Um what I will say is that I as it 
as is clear we've known each other for for years

and we've been around the same um you know sort of 
standard space community accessibility. I would

wholeheartedly suggest any corporation or 
any organization would be very lucky to

have you and your expertise. Thank you. That's 
really nice. Thank you. I mean I just tell it

like it is. That's even better. Yeah. So, uh, so 
good luck and, uh, I will, uh, talk to you again

soon. Hopefully see you sooner rather than later. 
Yeah, I'm sure I will see you soon. Thank you for

being on fireside chat, the resurrection. 
Thank you for having me. Good night. Bye.

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