E078 – Interview with Liz Jackson – Part 1

Liz Jackson says it's not enough to fix accessibility, people with disabilities must be included. She says: "I think somebody thinks that if they just smooth something out and they make it usable that we won’t have feelings about it. But, we are a people that probably hungers for choice, right? Like, we want to have opinions about things. We want to be delighted. So to simply try and smooth something out and endeavor no further, I think is… we’re missing something." Thanks to Twilio for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Make sure you have a look at: Their blog: https://www.twilio.com/blog Their channel on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/twilio Diversity event tickets: https://go.twilio.com/margaret/ Transcript Nic:    Welcome to the accessibility rules podcast. This is episode 78. I’m Nic Steenhout, and I talk with people involved in one way or another with web accessibility. If you’re interested in accessibility hey, this shows for you. To get today’s show notes or transcript head out to https://a11yrules.com. Thanks to Twilio for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Twilio connect the world with the leading platform for voice, SMS, and video at Twilio.com. This week I’m speaking with Liz Jackson. The girl with the purple cane. Thanks for joining me for this conversation around web accessibility, Liz. How are you? Liz:    I’m good, I’m good. Thanks for having me, Nic. Nic:    Well thanks for joining me. I know you’re herding a lot of different cats lately. I like to let guests introduce themselves. So, in a brief intro, whose Liz Jackson? Liz:    So, whose Liz Jackson. I am a disability advocate. I’m somebody who found my way into disability right before my 30th birthday. So, I’ve been a disability advocate for going on 7 years now, and my advocacy has sort of caused me to fall into the design world. And, so, increasingly I’m also starting to see myself as, what I’ve been saying, as a design strategist. Nic:    Tell me one thing that most people would not know about you. Liz:    That’s such a hard question. What’s something that people might not know about me. I don’t know if I have an answer for that. I think. I think… the thing that’s coming to mind is this increasingly on the internet and in my work I’ve started phasing myself out of the work so it’s less stories about me and it’s more stories about the work. And so I think right now at this point in time I do sort of wonder if there are ways that I could’ve actually gotten lost in this work. So I’m at a point in my life right now where I’m trying to also separate myself from this in some ways. Because, it’s really easy to get caught up in the day to day, and really figure out what I want to do outside of, what I perceive as, a fight. I’m in the fight. So. Nic:    Yeah, I have a t-shirt from a guy called Dan Wilkins, I don’t think he makes those shirts anymore, but it says, more or less, ‘there comes a day when even best advocate needs a day off from this stuff.” And, I think separating yourself from the fight is probably a very wise and healthy thing to do. Liz:    Yeah, I’m actively always looking for things, but it’s interesting because even as I look for things to do, I find myself pushing them away because I… there’s so much now. You fight for so much, and finally, things start to catch on so there are now so many things that I can do, that I’ve been given access to and so I’m trying to achieve that balance. Nic:    We are talking about web accessibility specifically, but I know… I would like to open that a little bit more because of your personal work in accessibility and advocacy. How would you define accessibility as a whole? Liz:    How would I define accessibility as a whole? Increasingly I’m seeing accessibility as one half of disability. I think you need really two parts to have… to kind of achieve whatever it is that you’ve set out to do so you need the access, you need people