Episode 22 – Accessibility Burnout, Press-and-Hold CAPTCHA Barriers & AI Transcript Editing

Mark Miller (00:05)
Hey, welcome to the accessibility breakdown. I’m Mark and this is

Justin Stockton (00:09)
Justin?

Mark Miller (00:10)
Every Week We Pay Tribute to Those Who Stand Out to Us as Leading by Accessibility by Picking Three Topics That Strike Us in Some Way. This week we’re gonna talk about starting in accessibility is like the hype cycle. And this is by Alastair Campbell. And interesting comparison to.

getting all excited about accessibility, jumping into it and something called the hype cycle, which we’ll get into. Then we’re gonna do

Justin Stockton (00:41)
Don’t give it all away yet.

Mark Miller (00:42)
something a little bit different and we’re gonna talk about a LinkedIn post by Sheri Byren-Haber. There is no title for it, but we have titled it, What Fresh Hell Is This? Because that’s the opening line and that’s, think, what catches everybody’s attention. But it’s a very interesting.

post that will will dive into will talk about some of the comments and everything there and then finally our friend Jeff Adams put out a blog post called auto captions and Tris transcriptions must be edited a podcasters honest talk and Jeff Adams is a podcaster. But so are we and I think that this is an interesting one because it’ll be a little bit of looking inward for us.

as well. So, Justin, you want to start with starting an accessibility is like the hype cycle.

Justin Stockton (01:40)
Yeah. Yeah. I I chose this article because so I wouldn’t say I spent a lot of time there, but I monitor the accessibility subreddit. so and

Mark Miller (01:51)
Mm-hmm. Same.

Justin Stockton (01:52)
it’s weird. It’s like saying an ATM machine. The accessibility subreddit on Reddit. And the

Mark Miller (02:00)
The fuel filter filter. Yeah.

Justin Stockton (02:03)
Yes. It it’s exactly.

it seems like there’s always people coming on there and saying, Hey, I’m interested in getting it started in accessibility. You know,

Mark Miller (02:13)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Stockton (02:13)
what do I need to do? What do I need to do? And I just can’t help but think to myself, like, do you really want to do that? like not as a not in a gatekeeping way, but there’s there’s

There is that ignition initial excitement of I want to help all the people. I want to make the web an accessible place. but then like the challenges that come after

Mark Miller (02:38)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Stockton (02:39)
that. And I just I just got back from the Toronto Accessibility Conference. so I’m all hyped up on accessibility. I’m, you know, Kool-Aid has been drunk. again, redrunk, redrank, quaffed.

Mark Miller (02:50)
Redrunk. Redrunk. Yep. Redranked.

Justin Stockton (02:58)
And so I’m back up at that peak in you

Mark Miller (03:01)
Yeah.

Justin Stockton (03:01)
know my inf inflated expectations. and what I what I like about Alistair’s article here is that what he tries to do is when he recognizes someone kind of getting excited about accessibility and seeing where they are, is using this model that goes from that high of the peak of expectations

Where you’re probably they’re probably overly inflated. I’m gonna change the world. I’ve got this big bright idea. To the trough of disillusionment.

Mark Miller (03:33)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Stockton (03:35)
and once you can once you can if you can get through that trough, then you come back up into what he the he has here, and I think it’s from this Gartner model, is the slope of enlightenment. This is how I’m going to come out of it. I feel I’m not necessarily going up to

Like these inflated expectations, but I have learned something. I’m moving on. And then we

Mark Miller (04:00)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Stockton (04:01)
move into the plateau of productivity. And where you’re actually like able to get things done. And in that’s somewhere in between the highs that you felt with those ex initial expectations and the lows from that d disillusionment that you found out once you realized that you’re not gonna be able to do everything that you wanted

to do.

Mark Miller (04:23)
It all sounds like a role-playing adventure game, you know,

Justin Stockton (04:28)
Yeah.

Mark Miller (04:28)
like the plateau. We’re now entering the plateau of productivity. The slope of enlightenment.

Justin Stockton (04:34)
Is the like the the what was the one from Pantwreck the the cones of Dunshire?

Mark Miller (04:42)
But yeah, and I think that it’s so I love I love when models are repurposed like this. I really do.

Well, like in one of my favorite models to repurpose is is the cognitive behavioral therapy has a model of behavioral change, which is a circle and it basically says like, get ready to change, decide how we need to do to change, try to change your change is going to fail. Learn from the failure and then start again. Right. And in that’s to help people make life changes. Right. It could also be applied to something like addiction. But if you really look at even this.

Right. That notion that you’re going to start somewhere and you’re going to start with an ideal and then eventually you’re going to sort of it’s all going to fall apart. And then the question becomes, do you learn from that failure? Right. Do you pick up those pieces and build something slightly better and go back around the Mulberry Bush again and do it all over again until you’ve sort of failed enough for it to stick better. So I really I love when people look at these

these models and think where else they work. And I think that this is a very interesting topic and it’s just a human topic, right? We all have novelties that we get excited about, right? It’s the Christmas present. It’s the, want GI Joe with a Kung Fu grip for Christmas. Just dated myself, right?

Justin Stockton (06:15)
With the swivel arms.

Mark Miller (06:16)
I did.

I wanted Oscar Goldman with that little briefcase and everything. I’m not talking about the action figures like Star Wars. These were full size.

Justin Stockton (06:25)
Mm.

Mark Miller (06:26)
Like, yeah.

And you play with it like you’re out of your mind for two or three days and then two or three months later, you’re you notice it at the bottom of your toy box. Right. And you in in in it’s a and it’s a fast fall from grace. Right. But maybe you notice it in your toy box and you bring it out and you incorporate it into something else and you go get your buddies. And now you’re playing with it again. Right. Like I can absolutely.

I remember that Frankie Ferguson and I combined her Barbies with my GI Joe’s and had all sorts of adventures when I lived in Balikpapan So that’s what this is all coming from. But, know, those were those were more of that plateau or that enlightenment. You know, we can do this different thing with it than it was that initial excitement.

So I think that this I think that we can zoom out and look at this is us being human beings And the other

thing I’ll say

to anybody out there who’s thinking about jumping into accessibility or anything for the type of reasons that you jump into something like accessibility, which is usually altruistic reasons, right? I know somebody, like the story, it’s almost like goes without saying that when you run into another accessibility professional, there’s a conversation that can and will be had eventually around why you got into it. And they sound like, you know,

My mom was blind when I grew up. I had a friend who was deaf. I struggled in school because I’m neurodivergent in some way. It’s typically not like, know, I just thought it would be cool. There’s usually a very deeply personal reason for entering the field, which can make that high higher, but can also make that drop.

much further and the pain of hitting the bottom much greater. So I will say to those people that this is a job and this is work and you’ve got to you’ve got to honestly have to but if you recognize that upfront

you’re going to sustain because you have that really good reason and you’re admitting out of the gate that you’re going to go through arduous work days that you’re going to be frustrated by at least a perception of a lack of results.

But you’re going to sleep well at night because anytime you stop to think about it, you’re going to realize, yes, I’m working all day. I’m making money for my family. I’m doing all these things, but I’m also leaving at least a small legacy. I’m at least influencing a small change, if not more than that. And I think that that’s the that’s where that sustainability

comes in and that’s putting the slope of enlightenment a little bit as much as you can into the front of that process and just sort of being a little metacognition about it and really thinking through that before you dive in.

Justin Stockton (09:51)
also say a good yeah. I’d also say a good support. Yeah. That’s

Mark Miller (09:51)
because it’s hard and the failures cut deeper.

Justin Stockton (09:57)
yeah. Yeah, th those failures do really cut deep.

Mark Miller (10:01)
Mm-hmm. Well, and I think you and I and you and I have this conversation offline all the time, but we’ve both, you you with your 25 years and me with my 13 years in the industry.

We’ve sort of seen it all right we’ve we’ve seen really good ideas become great. We’ve seen really good ideas tossed to the side. In which creates regret you know when when you realize down the road that no that’s what it was a good idea and we should have done it and you’ve seen really good things get wrecked along the way. But.

That is the way that is business that is being human that is all those things and without those conditions without diving in without without taking the bumps taking the bruises having those disappointments you don’t have somebody sticking around and making the small positive changes. So that’s your that’s your role and I think that this

HypeCycle model.

particularly when you get to the point where you have the slope of enlightenment acknowledges that role very much.

Justin Stockton (11:16)
Yep. No, I agree. And it’s it’s challenging because I could say that throughout my career I’ve been through this model. It’s not it’s not a wasn’t when I got into it there was that peak accessibility zeal and then the trough and

Mark Miller (11:33)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Stockton (11:33)
then like like you know, every couple of years it’s up, it’s down, like the excitement, the enthusiasm bounces up, then there’s the disillusionment, then there’s that enlightenment

Mark Miller (11:44)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Stockton (11:45)
era and then

It just happens over and over again. It’s a cycle. I think one of the hard parts is making sure that that tro that trough of disillusionment doesn’t dig too deep and turn into burnout. that’s really tough.

Mark Miller (11:58)
Yeah. And expecting it, think is the

expecting it. It’s the way to deal with that and to realize that there’s just nothing that’s worth doing in this world to the degree that accessibility is worth doing. That isn’t going to be hard work that isn’t going to have these deep levels of disappointment. And the good news is, is for every time you’re

disappointed or it’s difficult. If you if you pay attention, something great comes with it. You know, I was watching a

This is a recent example, but I was watching a social media post by Molly Burke.

I think I’m remembering her last name right, but she’s she’s a blind woman who’s a fantastic influencer. And she wrote actually she wrote a book which I have. It’s called Unseen. have it over there. It’s you can’t quite see it on my camera. And she was a she was a fashion model at one time and she’s but she’s just really she’s just such an incredible human. She’s a guide dog named

Elton John and

Justin Stockton (13:18)
Ha ha ha.

Mark Miller (13:20)
but yeah.

Justin Stockton (13:21)
I just want him to

have the best, most flamboyant collar.

Mark Miller (13:24)
This dog is fantastic. This dog is

fantastic. And you know what? It’s it fits Molly because Molly’s very like for a woman who’s blind. She still she still is like, you know, part of who she is, I think, is this fashion person. So she just looks her fit is just on point, like whenever you see her. But anyways, all that’s all that’s aside. I was watching this video and I wish I could remember more details on it was it was somewhere in Europe that where she was using her.

arcane to navigate as you do when you’re blind. And in the sidewalks, they had built groups.

so that once your cane fell into a groove, it perfectly kept you on track.

Justin Stockton (14:08)
that’s cool.

Mark Miller (14:09)
Do you know what I’m saying? So think grooves that go along the length of the sidewalk.

Justin Stockton (14:13)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Miller (14:14)
And her video was interesting, her video was there because the sidewalk turned.

Justin Stockton (14:21)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Miller (14:23)
clearly they hadn’t, these were like pavers that were grooved that either somebody repurposed or built for this purpose, I have no idea. But they didn’t make one that turned, if that makes sense, right?

So the grooves were like, I want to say like eight grooves in a row. So kind of no matter where you caught, you kind of follow along. And then in order to facilitate these turns, the pavers they used only had one groove in it. So if you weren’t perfectly in the center groove, you lost it for a second with your cane. But somebody did the best with what they had. And so that was what the video was about. But I just looked at that and I thought, I don’t know, whoever built that sidewalk gets it and they’re doing it. And

All of this like I just had a very like this is worth it feeling when I saw that video. I’m like, holy moly. sidewalks are fine. I’ve never heard a blind person go like, yeah, I keep wandering off the sidewalk. Like if you have a cane, you can follow a sidewalk. You can tell that’s grass over there and that’s rocks over there and you stand on the side. Like I’ve I’ve walked with a lot of people who are blind and I’ve just never seen it be a problem. Maybe it is and I don’t know, but but I haven’t seen it be a problem. And then there’s things out there to say, you know, you’re about to this, you know, the the

I’m losing the word for it, but the pads with the bumps that say, that’s a street. Now you’re off the street and all that kind of stuff. But this was just a step further. And I’ll get can I give you one more example? I know we’re sticking on this for a little while. You

Justin Stockton (15:47)
No, it’s good.

Mark Miller (15:47)
could. OK, so another example. Is I live right next to a graveyard.

And we walk my wife and I walk through that every day. And there’s so we are friendly with people who take care of the take care of the graveyard. And there’s a woman there and we talk to her every single day and she’s absolutely wonderful. And we probably have a lot of. And I’ll leave it at this like views that are different, but it doesn’t matter, right? I seek out those people because I like my my thoughts to be challenged and.

She came to us one day and she goes, did you see what I did? And we’re like, you know, my wife and I are chit chatting in our own world half the time. And I’m like, no. And she goes, I, they had these places where you walk through the fence and it’s got like a bend in it. So you walk and you turn and you walk out. And she goes, we expanded that. We took out one of the sides of the fence that creates this sharp turn and we expanded the opening. And I said, well, why did you do that?

And she goes, well, there’s this guy that comes down the street every day in a motorized wheelchair. And I noticed, so this graveyard’s a cut through for a lot of people, right? So people who are walking would cut through. goes, I noticed that he would drive his wheelchair all the way around to the intersection and back around while everybody was walking just cuts through and walks down this little road in the graveyard. And I thought, well, of course he doesn’t cut through. can’t get through this thing that was built and put in the fence 30 years ago, right?

So she just thought, why not pull this thing out and expand the fence? And she went to her boss and said, do you mind if I do this? And then he said, of course not. And I said, that’s great. I said, did you check the ADA regulations and see if it was wide enough? And she goes, I didn’t. I said, okay. I don’t know that I needed to. And then she looked it up on her phone and she’s like, actually we made it two inches bigger. And I go, well, you what you might want to think about doing is putting a sign up to make him and people aware that this is actually accessible, right? Like just a little.

wheelchair or whatever. I said, I don’t need to do that. I okay. A week later, I’m walking by and there’s a sign. Now this is speculative and I don’t know if this is true, but I thought, I bet you she watched that guy buzz past in his wheelchair and not go through that a bunch of times and thought, you know what? Mark mentioned a sign, maybe that would help and put that sign up. But my point is, Justin, this is just a person.

Looking at what another human being is doing. And thinking there’s a better way and I’ve got an hour or two of my day to create that better way. There’s no guidelines

Justin Stockton (18:28)
Yeah, exactly.

Mark Miller (18:30)
there was no request there was no film form filled out there was no checking of the ADA guidelines none of that.

It’s those moments and realizing that you’re part of the bigger whole that influences those moments to make this worth it.

You didn’t think we could talk this long in this article, did you?

Justin Stockton (18:49)
No, no, no. Now I do worry

Mark Miller (18:51)
He got me fired up.

Justin Stockton (18:52)
about when the end times come and all the dead rise up out of that. They’re gonna there’s a nice big hole for them to get out now. Just kidding.

Mark Miller (19:02)
No, I’ve lived next to this graveyard for

30 years. My katana is over there. I know not to make a lot of noise. Our part of the fence is sealed up. We’re ready. We’re ready. This is gonna. Yeah, this is gonna.

Justin Stockton (19:10)
There you go.

Mark Miller (19:17)
We’re gonna be. We’re gonna be ready for this. And it’s it’s we’re recording this on October 29th. So I’m gonna be ready in two days. Really ready.

Justin Stockton (19:26)
That’s right. That’s right.

Mark Miller (19:30)
So, all right, let’s talk about Sheri’s article.

Justin Stockton (19:35)
goodness. Okay.

Mark Miller (19:36)
What, or not article, LinkedIn post. And I’m excited we’re doing this because we do a lot of blog articles and we really should be doing all sorts of stuff and a lot of great thoughts just pop up on LinkedIn. And this one was from Sheri and the post, the unofficial post title is What Fresh Hell Is This?

So.

Justin Stockton (19:59)
Keeping with our Halloween theme. Hell.

Mark Miller (20:01)
Yeah, I know we need like a in the background. So essentially what happened is that she was using she was using zoom and a version of cat capture popped up.

where you had to press and hold the button with a mouse in order to pass capture.

And I’ve since heard that in some cases there’s alternatives to this. In this case, there was not. And so Sheri having the mind that she does and always she’s so fast to be able to very accurately, I think, consider the consequences for people with all types of ability and disability. Right.

And I think that immediately when this came up for her, it should be, I know Sheri well and she can press and hold is I’m pretty sure she can press and hold this button with a mouse without a problem. So it’s not a specific problem for her, but she recognizes the accessibility implications really quickly. So do you want to tell us about the things that she pointed out in the art in the post that. This cause.

Justin Stockton (21:23)
yeah. So

so it’s apparently some sort of new s type of captcha. and you like he’s Mark said, you you literally there’s a button, like just a button you’re supposed to press and hold and and if you click on it with your mouse, then you see this little like progress bar start to tick across. You have to hold it for like three seconds or something like that. So but what’s

Mark Miller (21:46)
Sounds like

it sounds fine, right? So far.

Justin Stockton (21:48)
On its face it sounds fine.

Mark Miller (21:50)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Stockton (21:51)
It’s weird, and I’ve never gotten it to work, and I will talk about this in a minute. Never gotten it to work the first time through. but the

Mark Miller (21:58)
that’s interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever run

across it just for full disclosure.

Justin Stockton (22:04)
well we’ll have to find you some. The but what she points

Mark Miller (22:05)
No, sounds great. I can’t wait.

Justin Stockton (22:08)
what Sheri points out is that one, that this is gonna block agentic AI, and like agents coming to a website trying to perform an action on your behalf, are

Mark Miller (22:19)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Stockton (22:19)
gonna get stopped by

this.

Mark Miller (22:21)
which we talked

about, had a lengthy discussion about this in episode 21 and kind of compared those AI agents for people with disabilities to the physical world, it would be like having a guide dog in a way. And that may not be a great comparison, but that’s sort of where we landed with it. So it becomes a necessary accessibility sort of companion sometimes. So, sorry, go ahead.

Justin Stockton (22:46)
Yeah. she goes on to say that this you know becomes an accessibility barrier. You know, being able to sustain that press can

Mark Miller (22:54)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Stockton (22:54)
be really possi impossible for someone with tremors, someone with dexterity, maybe you’re using a stiff puff, you know, something along those lines, some sort of mobility based disability. it’s gonna be challenging for you to press and hold that. So how you’re gonna be

Mark Miller (23:09)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Stockton (23:10)
locked out from doing that. and then she also makes this kind of third one and

This is where I think the comments in this post get kind of interesting. She says, you know, it stops humans, not bots. and that you

Mark Miller (23:22)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Stockton (23:22)
know, all caption solving things. You know, there are services out there all that and I think that that I I think that and also the agenda KI, I think that’ll be a temporary thing. Like it is stopping it may it may be stopping it

But it may be stopping humans right now from an accessibility perspective or people not knowing what they’re supposed to do. It’s a new type of capture. I’m not clicking on stoplights anymore. and so it might, you know, just kind of takes me to go, what is this? How do I solve this? So it takes you a minute the first time you you s come across it. But for someone that is not held up by the accessibility barrier that it challenges, like I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be a

Huge stopper for folks, and certainly not for bots. Like there’s got to be something going on from a technology perspective. There’s got to be something else going on in the background to this. because I don’t see how agents and bots aren’t just going to figure this out and go, anytime it comes up with press and hold, I’m going to do this.

And it’s just another way of solving that particular type

Mark Miller (24:33)
Right.

Justin Stockton (24:33)
of capture.

Mark Miller (24:35)
I know this whole capture thing. It’s a lot like the. How do I know, you know, how do I know which one of you is the real you? You know,

Justin Stockton (24:42)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Miller (24:44)
well, when we were kids, you know, I used to wear the same T-shirt all the time. What is it? that was the like, then you’re the right one, you know, and that’s

Justin Stockton (24:53)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Miller (24:53)
in that like capture keeps. Trying to reinvent some generic public version of that.

that phenomenon. And

Justin Stockton (25:05)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Miller (25:06)
it’s interesting to me that they went in this direction because I was thinking about this and I’m like, I don’t know. Is there’s kind of a bit of a consistency issue here because I’m trying to think like, when have I ever had to hold the mouse down? And the answer was like, if I’m drawing or if I’m

Justin Stockton (25:22)
Politaire.

Mark Miller (25:24)
signing, you know, writing something, something like that is the only time and I thought, but surfing the web.

It’s mouse up, it’s on mouse up on mouse down. Like that’s the end of it. So it’s a little bit weird and I can see like where you said like you had to figure it out for a second. It’s a little bit of a interesting context switch for even the, for anybody I think all of a sudden being like you’re required to hold your mouse down on a website even though you’ve never been,

Justin Stockton (25:51)
Right.

Mark Miller (25:52)
had to do that before in your entire life. There’s just an interesting choice. just, would love to have been in the room where they decided that this was a good.

way to go and I’m not accessibility issues aside, I don’t really have an issue with it. The issues I have with it are ones that I share with.

Justin Stockton (26:11)
Sheri.

Mark Miller (26:12)
Sheri is, yeah, sorry, message popped in and distracted me in you were wondering if I had ADD.

So yeah, was just it’s just was when I saw it, it just kind of struck me little bit sideways. But you wanted to get into

Justin Stockton (26:26)
Yeah. What’s interesting

Mark Miller (26:28)
it. So to me, this is an example of like.

why you need full representation when you’re designing.

Justin Stockton (26:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Miller (26:37)
Like full stop. Because I don’t know that even if you were trying like we’re gonna follow Wicking, you know, if this would have maybe this would have been flagged in a case like that. But if you had had representation, if you would, if you would, when you I’m sure they did a user study on it. And if you had people with varying types of

disabilities and people that use different assistive technologies involved in that testing, this absolutely would have come up. You know?

Justin Stockton (27:08)
yeah, absolutely.

Mark Miller (27:10)
So I think to me that’s where I’m like, all right, you know, all that talk about all the things that excited me, you know, this

Justin Stockton (27:18)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Miller (27:18)
is one of those ones that kind of is a wah-wah for me. Like why?

Justin Stockton (27:22)
Yeah. Well

Mark Miller (27:23)
Why are we still

describing average users and saying test this thing? How does it work? Okay, good, let’s go.

Justin Stockton (27:28)
It gets even better because I’ve seen in Out in the Wild, I gotta I’d love to find it, but someone someone mentions it in the comments on this, that there is an access there’s an

Mark Miller (27:38)
Okay, well let’s get into those comments.

Justin Stockton (27:40)
accessible version of this. And in sh so in Sheri’s post, she has this picture, and you see a kind of a large outline of a button that says press and hold. In the accessible version of it.

Just in front of that is a smaller circular button with the accessibility logo, kind of the

Mark Miller (28:01)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Stockton (28:02)
universal accessibility logo. that if you click it, it it basically performs the press and hold function for you on the press and hold button. You actually see the little progress bar kind of creep across it and everything. So what I don’t understand is

Like you made an accessible version that all I have to do is click. But again, behind the scenes, what is happening? Because it looks like it’s just performing the action f for me, like with a single click, I don’t get it.

Mark Miller (28:38)
and

I want to correct you. think I said zoom before it’s zoom info, but

Why not pick the accessible version?

Justin Stockton (28:44)
Why have captures at all? There are better there are better ways to identify whether or not someone’s a person or a bot. Now that that line’s gonna

Mark Miller (28:53)
Well, there’s really good behavior all.

Justin Stockton (28:55)
get really blurry with eight with pr agenda companion not companions, personal agents.

Mark Miller (29:02)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Stockton (29:03)
well they may be companions one day, we don’t know. but that’s a different podcast.

Mark Miller (29:07)
another podcast. A very, very different podcast.

Justin Stockton (29:12)
But they

Like why why why does it matter? So

Mark Miller (29:20)
Well, yeah, and some of the best people. I mean, our buddy Nic Steenhout was one of the first to comment on this. Dr.

Justin Stockton (29:29)
Yeah.

Mark Miller (29:29)
Keith.

Justin Stockton (29:30)
Yeah.

Mark Miller (29:32)
wrote an entire this inspired an entire blog post

Justin Stockton (29:37)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Miller (29:38)
from him were there any other particular comments that you wanted to pull up pull out of this

Justin Stockton (29:46)
No, that

one from Dr. Keith was really interesting. That was the one that kind of because he he’s apparently working on some some AI and agentic testing, accessibility testing

Mark Miller (29:56)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Stockton (29:56)
and stuff. And he’s been hitting these and found them, you know, with companies like Walmart have them. And

Mark Miller (30:01)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Stockton (30:03)
and so he’s like getting into it and like trying to figure out how to get around these and how they’re going. These companies are gonna come to come to accessibility testers.

and say, hey, we want you to test our website for accessibility. We’re then going to go in with automated testing, with manual testers, performing usability tests, and we’re going to hit these things. So how do we get

Mark Miller (30:27)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Stockton (30:27)
by them?

Mark Miller (30:28)
Dr. Keith says Walmart target among the sites. I’ve encountered these products and let me tell you this thing is hell for anyone attempting to run legitimate browser automation human human in all caps uses a sophisticated combination of behavioral biometrics device and browser fingerprinting environmental telemetry and machine learning and other threat detection techniques to distinguish humans from automated system. And that’s where things get interesting.

Yeah, so we’ll post this post. We’ll

Justin Stockton (31:01)
Post the post?

Mark Miller (31:02)
include this post. So go check it out. But it was a really interesting reaction. And like I said, I just I think that Sheri’s just really good at it. Seeing these things, I don’t know that I would have thought of all that is what I’m trying to say. Like if I just ran into this thing, I would have like, yeah, I made it, you know. So I appreciate that Sheri does. Auto captions, interest transcriptions must.

be edited, edited, a podcasters on his talk by our buddy, Jeff Adams, who’s who Jeff Adams and Sheri, by the way, are both at T-PAC right now in Ireland. So if you if you all pick this up and listen to it, I hope you’re having or by the time you listen to this, have a good time. So I grabbed this one mainly because I’m like, all right, you know, we do this.

And I don’t want to pretend that what I think I do is perfect by any stretch. And I think it’s an area that we should be honest about and I should be continually critical of. But this podcast, everything you’re listening to right now is picked up by AI and transcribed, which is exactly what

Jeff’s talking about in this article and he talks about it through the lens of a podcast that he no longer does still sitting out there, but that he did a while ago and he and I think he did it so long ago that he’s got he even says in the article like there’s a whole bunch of the beginning podcasts that aren’t even transcribed. So knowing Jeff today Jeff today today Jeff.

he wouldn’t that wouldn’t fly with him. So this must have been, know, when he was young and before he was aware and and all that kind of stuff and they they’ll make them they’ll transcribe him for anybody who wants. But his he.

just talks about how accurate AI is nowadays, and that it’s very exciting to think that if you speak clearly and all that, it’s about 90 % accurate. But this is when you do the math on that 10%, it’s a lot of mistakes. And he goes into the sort of the pride and quality of your product and all that kind of stuff. And I think it’s a good reminder for us because we’ve

Automatic captions have been a thing for a long time, but AI does a different and better job of it. It’s one of the areas where it’s like, this is just measurably and marketably better than it used to be, but that doesn’t mean.

You can take the human out of the loop, essentially.

Justin Stockton (33:56)
Right.

Yeah. Well, and there’s things one of the things that I I really liked about this and probably a place that I would say I’m sure our transcript we’ve you and I have both spot checked the the captions that come out, we’ve looked at the transcription. but I think one place that neither one of us are really looking at is the kind of the things that happen visually or some of the uh’s you know agreement

Mark Miller (34:25)
yeah,

yeah. Yep.

Justin Stockton (34:26)
things. And

he talked he g he talks about that in here and about how that can really kind of change the the podcast. Or can r particularly for a podcast.

Mark Miller (34:35)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Stockton (34:37)
the there are defin I’m I’m sure those that watch, you know, religiously, like my eight year old,

Mark Miller (34:44)
You

Justin Stockton (34:45)
pick up on like there’s a lot of times that Mark will be talking and I’m smiling and nodding and everything. And that information is lost because it’s visual in nature.

now do we need to jump all the way into audio descriptions, that sort of thing?

Mark Miller (35:01)
Right.

Justin Stockton (35:02)
Probably yes. But we could also include it in the captions. we could include that in the in that in those transcriptions to say like,

Mark Miller (35:09)
Yeah.

Justin Stockton (35:10)
Justin nods along vigorously. Justin has

Mark Miller (35:12)
Yeah.

Justin Stockton (35:13)
a very sour look on his face because Mark just said blah.

Mark Miller (35:16)
Yeah, well,

in this is so when I I had these articles from Jeff I subscribed to, so they’re emailed to me.

And so I responded back to him on this article and I would ask him was hey, because this is second time he’s tackled the subject. He’s he’s he came back around to it to make some specific points in this one. said, hey, listen, if you ever tackle this again, can you talk about. Sort of the art versus science of.

what to include when it comes to the… and I wasn’t thinking about it visually, that would fit into this into the sort of more personality aspects of the speech, right? So the ums, the corrections, you know, like for me, when I pronounce somebody’s name wrong and then I get it right. And so the first time I say their name, it spells it in the worst way because I said it wrong. And then I say it right. it’s and then

then that should be correct. But should the first one be correct or should the first one be wrong because that shows the personality of the podcast where I can’t say somebody’s name correctly or if I mispronounce a word and then correct myself like how important is that to be part of the podcast and when does too much of that stuff become a distraction? Just enough of that stuff add properly to the

personality of the whatever it is and when is too little of it not sharing the right not sharing important information and I don’t have those answers and I think it’s an art science kind of a thing and that what I the analogy I threw out Adam because he’s a writer I said it’s just like the the discussions if you’ve ever if you’ve ever if you’ve ever studied writing or anything there’s discussions on

What if you’re writing dialogue in an accent? Like if you’re writing dialogue in an accent, you could almost change every single word, but then it gets impossible to read. So the art of it is, is you change just the right number and the right words to convey the accent without creating a challenge for reading, right? So where is that sweet spot? Where’s which bowl of porridge should Goldilocks choose when

Justin Stockton (37:46)
Yeah.

Mark Miller (37:47)
when editing, and my choice right now is I, based on what happens in our podcast, I leave a lot of it in. And I try to make

Justin Stockton (37:56)
Yeah, I think

Mark Miller (37:56)
sure, so my process, I’ll tell everybody my process, my process is I don’t go through every single word because it’s just impossible. I’ve tried to, and you literally don’t get podcasts, particularly since we wanna put one of these out on average once a week. So I read the transcript, I was there.

I generally know what’s happened and I look for people’s names. I look for the names of the articles. I look for things like CSUN. When we say CSUN this thing now I got to look for it. shouldn’t have said it. Now this thing loves to write S-E-E-S-U-N or something or S-E-S-U-N or something like that versus C-S-U-N. So if you’re listening AI could you please do it C-S-U-N all capital letters and do it correctly this time so I don’t have change every time. But

Justin Stockton (38:43)
Some AI

you can actually train on that though. I wouldn’t be surprised if Riverside,

Mark Miller (38:46)
I know I can train.

Justin Stockton (38:47)
which is what we use for the studio, let you go in and say, When I say C Sun, okay. okay.

Mark Miller (38:52)
It does. It does. It does.

But.

Yeah, no, but so so that’s what I do. so, you know, the questions I have to ask myself to get myself honest is should I should I find the time to listen, pause, listen, pause again through the entire podcast and match it word for word for word? Is that overkill? This is a podcast. It’s casual. It’s all over the place. Should we be making sure that we’re honest to the to the discussion?

and that we’ve got people’s names right and we’ve got CSUN right and etc etc. Like where’s the I don’t I don’t think people need me to do that and be like you know I said I’m here and it says I’m with three ends like whatever it might come up with you know or. So.

Justin Stockton (39:50)
There’s that

there’s it and it’s interesting because it’s similar to I don’t know, it feels like every year, two years, there’s some some article that comes out about screen readers and punctuation. And are there aspects of punctuation that we should be more deliberate about and make sure that they’re announced by the screen reader in a very specific way, versus allowing someone who uses screen reader to use the assistive technology the way that it’s meant

Mark Miller (40:19)
Hmm.

Justin Stockton (40:19)
and

If they don’t understand a word, go back a word, step through it so that they understand what it says or what’s being said, and derive the information that way. And like I said, it comes up like every, I don’t know, 18 months or so. Someone posts an article like that. And so there’s that there is that kind of balance between intent, like what are you trying to do? What are you trying to convey? And then the craft and leveraging how you’re

How you know people on the other end of whatever it is that you’re building can receive it in the best way. And so I don’t know, I kinda it’s I kinda like think like we’re in a a good sweet spot with returns. I think we could be a better. I think I think I think we could we can improve

Mark Miller (41:04)
I think we can do better. Yeah. But I don’t know

that we’re far off, you know? And maybe Jeff should look and tell us. Maybe he should be our…

Justin Stockton (41:09)
I don’t think so. I think we do Or someone’s

gonna come someone’s gonna see this, listen or hear it, read the transcripts and go, You

Mark Miller (41:16)
Yeah, do it.

Justin Stockton (41:19)
guys are crap And here’s all the places where you should have done better.

Mark Miller (41:20)
Yeah, and by the way, I’ve had people email me about

mistakes in the transcript and I go correct them. And because that’s

Justin Stockton (41:28)
good.

Mark Miller (41:28)
the other thing is, is I’m the guy doing it.

Justin Stockton (41:31)
Uh-huh.

Mark Miller (41:31)
I’m also the guy with dyslexia. Like I don’t proof read anything well. Like you’re asking me to do a that is very specifically the kind of challenge and it like I know it because when you do the same activity,

You come back and you’re like, don’t know this. And I saw it. I’m like, really? it’s like people without dyslexia or like magic to me when it comes to, look at this mistake. Look at that mistake. I’m like, how do you, I don’t even understand how you do it. So it’s not a great skill set for me, but I try.

Justin Stockton (42:09)
Ironically,

the way that I do it is kind of the opposite of the dyslexia, like the some of the dyslexia parts of the brain work. Like I’m pattern matching and when I see something that doesn’t match a pattern for a particular word, that’s what c cues me in and how allows me to speed read through when I’m checking things. I’m just looking for a word.

Mark Miller (42:26)
Hmm. I’m gonna kind of do

I kind of do that but I don’t That pattern matching that you do doesn’t do in my brain You

Justin Stockton (42:33)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mark Miller (42:35)
know what I mean? Cuz That like my theory living within it dyslexic brain is that Whatever that thing is that allows you that causes brains to ignore non important information You know, I’m you know what I’m talking about. Like you take in all this information and your brains very good at

filtering most of it out and going, is the pertinent thing.

I think particularly when it comes to small detailed activities like reading and writing.

My brain’s in overdrive doing that. So one of the things that if your kids reading and they can read, but they skip a lot of words or they replace words with other words, that’s a flag.

Justin Stockton (43:20)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Miller (43:20)
And that’s the brain sort of going, I got this. You don’t need to worry about that. I’m going to put this in place of that. It’s in it’s in overdrive doing that. Kind of.

Corrective activity that it thinks it’s supposed to do. So when I try to proofread That piece of my brain is is Extra active in trying to make sure I see what it thinks is important to me and not what is actually there That’s my theory. That could be a bunch of crap, but that’s my theory You know

Justin Stockton (43:51)
Interesting. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Mark Miller (43:54)
One of the one of the one of the factors so anyways, all right, I think we did it Justin

Justin Stockton (43:59)
Did we? Did we do it?

Mark Miller (44:00)
I think we did. I think we did.

Justin Stockton (44:03)
my god. I do there was one other thing I need to back up real quick about

Mark Miller (44:06)
Okay.

Justin Stockton (44:08)
the Jeff Adams’ article. Jeff, if you do hear this at some point, I am going to go back. I am not a gay man, but the fact that there w was at one point in the history of the world a big gay fiction podcast.

Mark Miller (44:27)
What a great title.

Justin Stockton (44:28)
I gotta go I gotta go I gotta go find it. I gotta go find it and listen to it. Four hundred and seventy episodes. I gotta go listen. I gotta go s see what it was about.

Mark Miller (44:37)
That’s

so it’s so South Park. I’m going to talk to Jeff. They had to. They had to be watching South Park when they came up with that title.

Justin Stockton (44:41)
Yeah. Really? Because of big AL?

Mark Miller (44:45)
Big A.L. Yeah.

Justin Stockton (44:47)
my gosh, that’s ridiculous. Well, that’s w that’s where my head went, yes.

Mark Miller (44:48)
You didn’t make that tie, you didn’t tie that together? I just…

Justin Stockton (44:55)
and but I would not yeah, I wouldn’t think that they would have shut them down because of a podcast.

Like there’s gotta be

Mark Miller (45:03)
No, I don’t

think that they shut them down. just think that they it’s just such a great title. It was a great thing to call that guy and then to tie. So to. Yeah, or not after, but was inspired, but inspired by. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Justin Stockton (45:11)
they named it after Big Gay Al, not South Park came around and said like you gotta stop the podcast. Okay, okay. Cool.

Mark Miller (45:21)
yeah. No, I’m not. I’m not saying anything nefarious was going on or I think they

Justin Stockton (45:24)
Okay.

Mark Miller (45:24)
I think that if I had to guess, I think like all podcasts that ran its course and they thought, well, we should put our time somewhere else. This has probably done its job, you know.

Justin Stockton (45:32)
Boarding so many

episodes, that’s a that’s a good course.

Mark Miller (45:34)
Yeah, yeah, I’ve talked to him about it before and they really did run that for a long time but four hundred and seventy seven whatever episodes down the road like I can see where you go. Okay, let’s let’s switch it up. Spend our time

Justin Stockton (45:47)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mark Miller (45:49)
somewhere else. I think that’s probably what happened.

Justin Stockton (45:52)
That’s a lot.

Mark Miller (45:54)
What’s up?

Justin Stockton (45:55)
That’s a lot of reading. If you’re doing like a book an episode,

Mark Miller (45:58)
So we will go back to the subject of dyslexia. There’s a reason why I’m not doing a podcast on books. Don’t read fast enough. I’m sorry. That novel you read in, you you go on vacation and you read two or three novels on the beach. Each one of those takes me six months to get through if I read every night. So. Yeah, so.

Justin Stockton (46:19)
Yeah. The

Mark Miller (46:21)
I like to listen.

Justin Stockton (46:23)
Yeah. It’s I don’t know. I love reading books, so and my my little my Yeah. I yeah. I’m I’m

Mark Miller (46:27)
I like reading, I just don’t do it quickly. I just don’t onboard.

Justin Stockton (46:33)
a very f careful reader, so I have high comp reading comprehension but low speed.

Mark Miller (46:38)
Mm hmm.

Yep, me too. My reading comprehension is actually pretty good when I settle into it. But there’s no part of me that can read quickly. That’s kind of the lasting effects. So that’s why I one of the many reasons I was never invited on to Jeff’s podcast. One of the reasons why I don’t do a podcast about reading and books. And one of the reasons why I appreciate.

Justin Stockton (47:01)
But articles. So more more posts.

More less less articles, more posts on the accessibility breakdown.

Mark Miller (47:09)
Mm-hmm. Well, all those are reasons why I appreciate Jeff Adams and his content is because he does all that that I don’t do and he talks about it and he talks about Captions and all sorts of wonderful stuff. So Like all of the people that create content and contribute that we talk about I really appreciate it All right, are we done now?

Justin Stockton (47:33)
We are done now.

Mark Miller (47:34)
One two, three were finished. Okay

Now that we have broken down accessibility for you, we hope you go forth and keep it accessible.