Lē Silveus McNamara talks about neurodivergence, color choices, and overstimulation

Lē Silveus McNamara says consuming Tech has a stimulant effect on the nervous system and the overconsumption of a stimulant, like technology [is] bad for your health. Thanks to Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout, and you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments, and what barriers they encounter on the web. Just to remind you that transcripts are available for all episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yrules.com. I am really grateful to Fable for sponsoring this episode. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible and accessible user experiences. They do that through product testing and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable can work with your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Lē McNamara. Hey, Lē, how are you? Lē Hi, I'm doing well thank you, Nic. Nic It's been a while since we've been in touch on and off on the web. And we worked a little bit together a while back on the Knowbility internet accessibility rally. And that was fun. And finally we get to connect. So let me ask you this, what's your disability or your impairment? Lē So well, I am a multiple neurodivergent. So I and I also live with a chronic illness. So the nuts and bolts are C PTSD, chronic pain condition and autoimmunity with self diagnosed autism, which is kind of a recent discovery that I have made of myself as part of being a part of the accessibility world. And man has that discovery, blown some things up wide open for me. So it's been that's been an exciting adventure the last few years. Nic It can be very exciting to realize you, you have something that has never been diagnosed, but suddenly when you realize it's like all the pieces of puzzle come together. Lē Exactly. Yep. Yeah. Nic So we're talking about barriers on the web, what would you say your your greatest barrier or your biggest pet peeve related to your disabilities and using the web? What what would that be? Lē So I would say the number one is going to be the overuse of high saturation, or what I call emergency colors. So when you are neurodivergent, although many of us see especially high saturation colors differently. So if you imagine, in your mind, a bright red, we might see that as more of a neon. And that same mechanism of you know, when you see when you're online and you see an emergency pop up, for example, and it's in that bright, high saturation red, that same mechanism that makes it so that that red gets your attention is overly stimulating for me. Right. And so when that color, whether it's high saturations reds, yellows, or oranges, when those colors are used, outside of the context of their intention, which is to say, an emergency, we need your attention right now. That hook, right, that hook into the mind can be very problematic. And in fact, when I see a website that uses especially high saturation, red as a branding color, and so you'll see it in blocks all over the side, or see buttons all over the site. It actually causes both high anxiety and nerve pain so that overstimulation can be so severe that it puts the nervous system into overload. And the experience of that internally is anxiety, frustration, sometimes a sense of panic, but also active pain that can last sometimes for a few minutes, but sometimes for several days. Nic Would you say then that companies that have red as a brand color need to change that or what would be a solution there? Lē Yes. So really, what we're looking at is the saturation level. So you can use red, but you want to bring the saturation level down. Right. And actually, if you want to see examples of what I mean by this, I did write a blog post that is currently posted on the TPGi website.