Thank you so much to everyone who was able to join the second AFB Town Hall held October 29, 2020 on the impact of COVID-19 on access to employment and technology for Americans who are blind or have low vision. The archive is now available, for anyone who missed the live conversation or wants to revisit the information. Resources from the second AFB Town Hall are also available.
These reports contain a wealth of information on timely topics important to those with visual impairments, family members, educators, employers, policymakers, and anyone else who is invested in accessibility and inclusivity for those with vision loss. You can read the entire report at www.afb.org/FlattenInaccessibility.
John Mackin: Hello, everyone. This is John Mackin, Public Relations Manager with the American Foundation for the Blind. I'm sitting here at my laptop in my office. I am a Caucasian male with brown hair and beard, green eyes, and I'm wearing a light blue button-up shirt. Welcome to AFB's second town hall, intending to engage in dialogue sparked by the Flatten Inaccessibility and Access and Engagement reports. Today's topics are employment and technology. Okay, we have with us today Director of Research, Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum, and Public Policy and Research Advisor, Sarah Malaier. We also have with us Tony Candela, rehabilitation specialist and consultant, and he's involved with AFB employment-focused programs like the Blind Leaders Development Program and our employment summits. And with that, let's jump right in. Take it away, Dr. Rosenblum.
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: Thank you so much, John. And you'll noticed John described himself, and the three of us will also do that. And providing audio description is something that makes it an equal playing field here in our distanced world. So my name is Penny Rosenblum, as John said I'm the Director of Research here at AFB. And I am a white middle-aged female with graying hair, blue eyes, glasses, and I'm wearing a multicolored blazer over a black shirt, and I'd like my colleague Sarah to introduce herself.
Sarah Malaier:: Thank you, Penny. I'm Sarah Malaier. I am a younger white woman with brown hair. I am wearing a blue sweater over a white shirt with my AFB "no limits" pin, and I will let Tony introduce himself.
Tony Candela: Thank you, I'm Tony Candela. I have a long career as a Rehabilitation Counselor and I do work with AFB on employment and leadership development programs today. And I am dressed in a brown motif, I'm a white male with mostly gray hair. And I'm turning you back to Dr. Penny Rosenblum.
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: Well, thank you so much, Tony and Sara for joining me and our participants today in our second town hall. Let's go to our next slide and talk about why we're actually here. And that is to talk about the Flatten Inaccessibility studies. And we have a research question that guided the study. How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the lives of adults with visual impairments in the United States? We have a really cute little logo. It says "Flatten Inaccessibility." It has a big curve and underneath that a little small curve that we're trying to flatten down our big curve with COVID, but also with inaccessibility of technology. And there's a little stick figure there. The website for Flatten Inaccessibility is afb.org/FlattenInaccessibility. I want to point out for those of you using vision to see the screen, notice how the F in flatten and the I in inaccessibility are both capitalized in the URL. And by capitalizing letters at the beginning of words, you're assisting somebody who’s using a screen reader program, who is listening to the text, to more easily decipher that stream of letters and numbers.
Let's go to the next slide and talk about the collaborating organizations and companies behind Flatten Inaccessibility. So if we think back to March when we were scavenging for toilet paper and still wiping down our groceries, we wanted to find out how are things going for people with visual impairment? Now a gentleman named Troy Otillio, who is the CEO of Aira, and Aira is a visual interpreting service. So if you need to see something and you're like, "Uh, I don't have somebody around to see what that is," you can pull up your Aira app on your device and you'll get a live agent. So Aira's CEO Troy Otillio contacted AFB's CEO Dr. Kirk Adams and said, "Hey, could we work together on a little survey? Because we're seeing people are contacting Aira for different reasons here in March than they did even a month ago, because of the social distancing stuff, because of this COVID stuff." And that survey grew into a big survey. Within a couple of weeks, we got 16 organizations that worked together to tweet, email, blog about the survey. I'm going to read those off.
American Council of the Blind (AER) which is a professional organization, AFB, Aira, American Printing House for the Blind, Be My Eyes, COSB, Councils of Human Services for the Blind, Humanware. And on the next slide, we have the other ones: John Hopkins University, National Federation of the Blind, National Organization of Albinism and Hypopigmentation, Objective Ed, Prevent Blindness, Professional Development and Rehabilitation Center, VisionServe Alliance, and Vispero. And so we all worked together to get the word out about this survey. Now we have on our next slide the people we want to make sure we thank for sponsoring today's town hall, our one that we had last week. I would like to tell you that our town halls, we're recording them so you can go to afb.org/townhall and can view the recordings if you miss them. And we're also putting up a blog post after each town hall that contains the resources and points that we talked about. So we already have that one up for town hall 1. We would like to thank the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and LHH.
Alright, let's get down to business on the next slide and talk about who actually took part in the study. We had 1,921 people over the age of 18 that were U.S.—lived in the U.S., representing all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. 59% of these people were congenitally visually impaired, which means they acquired their visual impairment before age 2. 74% were white, 63% were female, 42% were over the age of 55, and 45% said they had more, one or more additional disabilities or health concerns that concerned them specifically about COVID-19.
Alright next slide, please. And we're going to talk about the survey tool. Before I do that, I have two photos on the screen. The woman on the left is African-American. She has really beautiful long braids and she is working on a laptop computer. The woman on the right is older. I happen to know her, she's 86 years old. And she is actually FaceTime-ing with her daughter and grandchildren, so she has an iPad in her hands.
The survey had 11 sections: demographics, technology, healthcare, transportation, elementary, your education, education of a K-12 child, social experiences, meals, food, and supplies, voting, and final questions. Today, we're going to focus on the technology and employment section. I do want to point out that everybody was asked to complete the demographic and technology sections, though they could skip any questions they chose. And then after that, they were asked for each section if they had concerns about this topic, such as techn–I'm sorry, such as healthcare specifically due to COVID-19. They could say yes and they were willing to answer questions. They could say yes, but I don't want to answer questions on the topic. Or they could say I have no concerns about COVID-19 related to this topic. I do want to point out these data were taken at the beginning of April, from April 3rd to the 13th. I suspect more people would answer the survey if we did it today, and we might get different answers.
Let's go on to the next slide and talk about technology. So of the 1921 participants, 1,771 or 92% had smartphones, and similarly 93% or 1781 had Internet access. So again, this was a very well-connected group of participants. They knew about technology. They knew how to use technology by and large. And this is also something we need to think about when we're interpreting the data. Many people with visual impairments may not have access to the technology the way our participants did. Some of that may be socioeconomic, but some of it may also be that if you experience a vision loss, you have to learn how to do things like use a program called JAWS, which is a screen reader program. And that's not just a five-minute let-me-sit-down-and-play-around; that really takes some time and some effort.
So how did our participants get their COVID-19 information? They could choose as many as they wanted. So the top ones were local television (1,276), national television (1,158). Of the participants, news websites (by 1,049 participants), family and friends (1,034 participants), and social media (965). And I am betting if you are fully sighted and you're with us today, that these are very much the same ways you get your information when it comes to COVID-19.
Let's go on to the next slide and talk a little bit more about the technology tools and programs that our participants use. Again, this was where participants could choose more than one. And on average, participants used at least five technology tools. So the most common used one was the iPhone with 1,563. And many people who are visually impaired really like Apple products because there's a tool called VoiceOver that's built-in that reads what's on the screen. There are also some wonderful accessibility features in all iOS devices. Laptop computers by 1,269 and smart speakers like amazon Echo were used by 1,010 people. As far as what apps and programs people used, email was the number one (1,810), social media tools (1,395), and conferencing tools, just like we are here today (1,278). So this was a group of individuals who were very tech savvy and very tech connected.
Let's go to the next slide and talk about employment. Of the 1,801 participants who told us about their employment, 29% were employed full-time, 11% were employed part-ime. Now 9% of the individuals had been employed, but have lost their job due to COVID-19. 29% had not been employed prior to COVID. And we had a pretty large group of retired at 22%. Now 47% or 338 people who said they were employed, of a group of 718. So really about just under a third of our participants were answering these employment questions. They had concerns about their employment related to COVID-19. So it's that 338 people that a lot of the information that we have to share about employment is based on.
Next slide, please. All right. I'm just about done talking. Then it is going to be your turn to ask questions. So, we had 252 participants who were employed, who really shared a lot of information with us. And I think especially for those of you who are, let's say, in the HR or the I.T. world of your company, that it's important to think about these data. So 25% or 63 other people requested an accommodation that would allow them to be more productive working from home – cause remember back in March, we were in the midst of making that shift. What was interesting in this data is about 1/3 of the people who made an accommodation request had it granted. About 1/3 of the people had it denied. And about 1/3 of the people were still waiting. Now what do I mean by an accommodation request? It might be, "Hey, employer, I have a large print–I have a large monitor in my office in the building. Can I bring that home?" It might be, "Hey, employer, I use a screen reader program called JAWS in the office. It's on my desktop computer. Can I bring home my desktop or reload it on my laptop that is my personal laptop?" Or "Hey, employer, I'm used to going to the next cube or office periodically throughout the day to say, 'Hey, can I borrow your eyes, would you help me with this CAPTCHA?' Or 'Would you read me this receipt?' Well now I'm working at home and those sighted people that are around me that I tap periodically aren't there. So employer, would you pay for a subscription to Aira so I can connect with a visual interpreting person who can help me navigate the visual aspects of life that just pop up for a minute or two?"
22% or 56 of the people were not able to access technology at home needed for their job. So a lot of people talked about having problems getting into the VPN, for example. because that screen reader program like JAWS wasn't working with the VPN software. Or they were having issues with the spreadsheets that they needed to use with their screen readers. And 38% experienced an accessibility problem with at least one technology tool. So right now, we're using the Zoom. Some people have accessibility issues with Zoom, some people don't. It depends on the level of vision loss you have. It also depends on the features that you need to use. For example, if you use polling in Zoom, like that ABC poll feature, that is miserable if you are a person who is using screen reader software. It doesn't work smoothly. It's possible, but it's going to take you a lot longer and you have to put a lot of time into it to figure out the nuances. Where somebody who is sighted, the poll pops up, you click on B, and we move on.
Got one more slide to talk about employment, I believe. My slide changer. Ah, okay, we don't. So I want to remind you, as we get ready to have John move us into the questions, that you can download the AFB Flatten Inaccessibility report from afb.org/fFattenInaccessibility. I want to point out that this report is fully accessible. One way you can see what we mean by accessible is when you get to a picture, mouse over that if you're a sighted person and you're going to see a pop-up that's going to describe that picture for you, for example. You also–if you go to afb.org/fFattenInaccessibility, on the right-hand side of the screen, you'll see a menu that has the different sections of the report that we talked about at the beginning. So if you are interested in just reading about employment or you want to share with the I.T. people in your organization the information about technology, you can point them to just that section of the report.
Well, thank you for listening to me kind of ramble on quickly because we want to get to your questions to give you just a taste of the Flatten Inaccessibility report as it relates to employment and technology. I'm going to turn it back over to John Mackin, and let's see what we have for our first question, please.
John Mackin: Thanks, Penny. We have quite a few questions. I will begin with some of the ones that were submitted in advance. We also have one in the Q&A box. And...looks like we have some good stuff in the chat as well. Let's start with you, Penny. "Are the accessibility problems that individuals are facing new or pre-existing?"
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: That is a great question. So thank you for whoever sent that in because one of the things I really have been saying–and I've been doing some podcasts and actually just had an op-ed published yesterday in my local paper here, "The Arizona Daily Star." One of the things that I've been really saying all along is some of the problems people with visual impairments are having - for example, I just described the polling tool in Zoom - they were there before COVID. Hopefully, they won't be there after COVID because more people are making companies such as Zoom - I'm not picking on Zoom specifically - aware of the issues.
But some problems are new because of COVID-19. So for example, that very quick shift to working at home employment and then not having access to the accommodations that you've already worked through to get established in the office. Those are more COVID related. And when we think about technology... for example, many bus companies have apps or websites where they post schedules and stuff. Because of COVID, lots of changes have been made with transportation, and bus companies, for example, are posting on their website or their app. But if that website or app doesn't work well with my screen reader program like JAWS or VoiceOver, or somebody like me who has low vision might not see where that little button is, then I miss that information about the change in schedule. And that can be really problematic, especially when as how I'm trying to social distance and I'm minimizing my time outside the house. Thanks, John. Let's see what other questions we have.
John Mackin: We have some good ones. Let's bring one to Sarah. Sarah, someone is interested in learning if there are any current lawsuits regarding the accessibility of digital platforms.
Sarah Malaier: Yes, there definitely are lawsuits under way. I think it's actually in the thousands as it relates to website accessibility. It's a really big issue. As many of you know, the ADA has been around for 30 years, but it sort of predated the Internet. So...the law itself did not explicitly mention the accessibility of things like the Internet and web pages, applications on your computer, kiosks. But that doesn't mean that they aren't covered by the ADA. The Department of Justice has long held that websites and digital businesses are covered by the ADA, that they should be inclusive of people who are blind. There is no explicit regulation, no law that says websites have to be accessible, but they certainly are or they should be.
So a couple of important lawsuits, I think, lately. There was the Domino's, which related to a customer's ability to access the website. Domino's claimed they could call on the phone and that should be equivalent access, but of course you know a website offers so much more than what happens when you call up a restaurant on the phone. And they let the decision stand that said Domino's website must be accessible. There has also been a lot of website lately–a lot of lawsuits lately about self-checkout kiosks, health care kiosks, higher-ed platforms that are involved with instructional materials or coursework or communicating with professors. A really big one that kind of bridges the gap between employment and the consumer perspective is a lawsuit against Epic, which is a health–electronic health records firm. That actually took an approach of saying, you know, when your electronic health record isn't accessible, that is a problem for the consumer, but it's also a problem for the employees and it makes it much harder for a blind employee to participate fully in their job and it is a form of employment discrimination.
John Mackin: Thanks, Sarah. You know, I recall that Domino's case being pretty high profile.
Sarah Malaier: Yeah.
John Mackin: Let's go back do you, Penny. And I think this will be very timely/in the moment. "Have there been any active efforts to help people who are blind learn to use Zoom and other similar technologies?"
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: You know, there are. So one thing that we really want to point out is that AFB, American Foundation for the Blind, who is sponsoring today's event, we just happened to have a wonderful resource which is called AccessWorld. And it's free, it's an online digital platform, comes out once a month. We review lots of different tools and accessibility options. So we really encourage you to look at AccessWorld. There's a great book by Jonathan Mosen about how to use Zoom. And there's–if you thinking about wanting to be on a LISTSERV, the “top tech tidbits,” which is put out by Flying Blind, you can sign up for their LISTSERV. Tony may have a couple of other ideas, so why don't I bring in Tony and see if you have anything he wants to add, Tony? Let's see, you're still muted–there you go.
Tony Candela: Anyone having trouble unmuting? You know, there are a lot of publications and books out there from different places around the country. And I think a thing to do would be to see if we can't make a collection of them and make them public. Because as many as I see, they go right out of my head as soon as I see them, but there's a lot of activity out there having to do with how to gain access to these distance platforms and how to manage during this time when we are stuck at home and don't always get all of the help we can get, as Penny mentioned, when we're in an office setting. Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: Thanks, Tony. And I wanted to–throughout the report Flattening Inaccessibility, we have some quotes from participants. And I wanted to just point out that when we talk about things not being accessible, sometimes it's not so much that you can't use them at all, but by the time you figure out all the workarounds, and all the shortcut keys, and the program JAWS that reads to you has these scripts that you have to install, it takes a lot of effort. One of our participants said, "Everything takes longer and is harder to do on my tablet and my slow Wi-Fi. My eyes wear out much faster." Some of the participants were concerned they would lose their job because their productivity, because they didn't have all the tools they had at work or they didn't have all the support they had at work, had gone down. And so, am I going to be able to keep my job, am I going to get a favorable review, was a real concern of participants in the study. Alright, back to you, John.
John Mackin: Thanks, Penny. I'm gonna pivot over to the chat for a second. And I think this might be a good one for Penny or probably Tony as well. This was specific to the employment slide in your presentation, Penny. "Do you know anything about the wait time between the request for accommodations or either the wait time or denial of accommodations? When you put in the request, how long does it take to either get the accommodation or they say no?"
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: For people I know who are visually impaired, including myself, it varies based on your employer. I have in a few times in my life asked for accommodations. Sometimes I've had them in a day or two, sometimes it's taken a month or two. I want to throw that to Tony to see if he wants to add in anything.
Tony Candela: Well for as many different companies as I talk to, I see a lot of commonalities in these modern times, and way before the pandemic started, to try to use best practices on diversity, inclusion, and accommodations. So many of the larger companies have very swift-moving processes. Smaller companies and companies who have never seen a visually impaired or blind person before are often having to work in concert with the state VocRehab agency and private agencies for the blind who are helping so that they can get help. So you see variability based on the type and size and experience of the employer. Once these processes get going, there are processes to be undertaken, et cetera, but they tend to go fast. And then the person has to get oriented to the equipment and to the applications with the equipment, to the work tasks, et cetera. So there's a whole sequence that predates the pandemic by a lot.
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: Thank you.
John Mackin: Thank you, Tony. Thank you, Penny. Sarah, let's go back to you with one. "How do participants use technology to adjust to social distance during the pandemic, such as getting food or continuing their social experiences? Were these experiences accessible?"
Sarah Malaier: Thanks, John. That's a great question. I think that question really goes to the fact that even though we're here talking about kind of technology and employment, technology has really had an impact and really been a part of everybody's adjustment in all aspects of life. I'll start off a little bit with some of the examples from food security. It was really interesting to find that, I think it was about half of the participants, indicated they had used technology to access grocery shopping prior to the pandemic. That might be Amazon deliveries, Instacart, or shopping through their local grocery store. But one issue that really came up is that even though they had been using those for a while, they didn't necessarily have an accessibility issue. It was that it was no longer possible to find a delivery slot. And that really interacted with people's lack of–the decrease in the access to transportation that was really problematic at the beginning of the pandemic. So you had an access to food issue that was created because now everyone is using technology in a way that they hadn't been before and it was putting some pressures on the system.
And there are some people who rely on SNAP and WIC, which are federal programs for nutrition. And there was one participant who noted the application for SNAP was not accessible or they had difficulty collecting all of the documents because you needed paper documentation. And those are really pervasive challenges that people face, and they're unfortunate because you would think that the federal government that the state governments, that those are really the exemplars of accessibility, but they aren't always.
And then another issue with that is you can't always do online purchasing through SNAP. I think there's only 47 states that offer that, but it's great to see that is expanding. And we would encourage more retailers to take part in online purchasing. And then through other areas, people are taking advantage of Zoom and FaceTime and all these different online ways to stay connected just like anyone else would. But you know, it's not always a seamless experience. Sometimes if you have a recreational app-, maybe it's your local yoga studio offers an accessible class, is that accessible class still being offered in a virtual environment? If you're using YouTube to watch an exercise video, is everything well described enough for you to be able to participate? Those are some of the ways that participants were interacting with new technologies to maintain their social distancing through the crisis.
John Mackin: Thanks, Sarah. This is one probably for Penny, but I would like to preface it with something. The question itself, in the employment section I believe they're talking about our report, the Flatten Inaccessibility"report: "Where or how was self-employment gig work prioritized and tabulated?" And before you jump in Penny, I just want to mention that in our most recent issue of AccessWorld, the October issue which is employer-focused, there is an article about navigating the gig economy. That's afb.org/AW. You can probably find some good information there. But if you have any thoughts on the matter, Penny, please share.
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: Sure. We didn't actually ask about gig work. We asked whether people were employed full-time or part-time, whether they had shifted to working at home, whether they were already working at home before the COVID-19 pandemic, whether they were continuing to go to a place of business, which we did have. We had several essential workers who were continuing to go to wherever they worked prior to the pandemic. So we didn't delve into that.
I do want to say that AFB has launched a workplace technology study. And I just actually did my second focus group with visually impaired people about their experiences working and the role of technology in their work. And the gig concept was one that actually came up with some of my folks working at home. An example last night that one of the participants shared was: he's doing independent contract work for many different companies and they're sending him documents to sign using DocuSign, which isn't always the easiest thing to use with a screen reader program. He said, "Now I've done it a couple of times, so I've figured out the workarounds. But initially, I could do the work, but first I had to do the paperwork, and is that paperwork accessible?"
Just as a side note, we heard from some participants who had—were in the process of for unemployment or had applied for unemployment due to losing their jobs. And we're finding some of the unemployment websites were not accessible. And then we're also finding that some of the websites you go to to look for a job are not accessible. And AFB is working with Mississippi State University, the National Research Training Center on Visual Impairments and we're doing a research study with them to look at websites of companies, and that process you go through when you click on "apply for a job." Can you even find that button and is that process accessible to you? Thanks, John.
John Mackin: Thanks, Penny. I see a good one here in the chat right now. "Do any of you think that the pandemic will end up having a positive impact on employment for people who are blind since so many employers have had to transition more of their workplace, sighted or blind, to telework?" And before–I think this is good for both Penny and Tony. Before you jump in, I want to mention our own AFB president and CEO Kirk Adams penned an op-ed several months ago in which he really sees this as a moment of inclusion and a huge opportunity for employers to do just that: to make working from home more of a normalized thing for everyone. I just want to ask–
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: I'll let Tony start off–oh, sorry.
John Mackin: —I will ask my colleague to pop the link into the chat. But if you have thoughts on it, Penny and Tony, please take it away.
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: Sure. I was going to say I'll let Tony...Tony start off on that one. And remember, we will post a blog post in the next couple of days where we'll have some of these links and resources that we're talking about, like that AccessWorld and the piece that Dr. Adams penned. So Tony, what's your thoughts about how the pandemic is impacting employment for people with visual impairments?
Tony Candela: Yes. First of all, I'm glad I've read a lot of the materials that have been posted today. I'd be reading until next week. There's a lot of good information coming over your chat right now. What we've discovered is a few things. One, the physical act of getting people outfitted up in their homes so they can just do the work from their homes that they would have done in their offices has essentially not only taught everybody how to set these kinds of situations up; it's also made people much, much less afraid of things like telecommuting, for those who were shy about that in the past. And so, I think one of the problems with visually impaired folks in rural areas where transportation is not so good has been they can't always get to the job sites themselves because they're so far away from where they live. So this is going to start solving some of those problems: people not being afraid to have their workers work from home when it is possible. And essentially, what we have then is the imitation of some of the at-home gig assignments that people pick up. And as we get more and more sophisticated in using the technologies and all of us visually impaired and blind people get more and more learned about how to handle the different challenges we have to face, we're going to be much more adventurous in trying some of the gig economy jobs that are out there.
I think in the future we're going to see some kind of "new normal" in the workplace and in our society in general. It's hard for me at this point to believe that we will go back to an all in-person environment ever again. There are just too many vulnerabilities that have been brought forward from everything that we've experienced. I think employers are going to want people to work from home a lot more often.
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: I think Tony covered that one, John. Let's move on to the next question . John Mackin: I'll say. Thank you, Tony. I've got one for you, Sarah. "Are there successes to report on employment opportunities that have arisen as a result of the pandemic?"
Sarah Malaier: I guess you could take that question a couple of different ways. I think a lot of what Tony just said really is...true. There are some successes in the way that we're rethinking the ways that we do work. There's also a lot of challenges. I think one of the kind of unfortunate impacts and ways that we are not succeeding is whenever there is an economic recession or depression, people with disabilities tend to face the impacts more than people without disabilities. So it's going to be really interesting to see whether it's possible to incorporate what we've learned to make sure that we are not making the employment situation worse, and focusing on a new commitment to inclusion, a new way of thinking.
It's thinking–we shouldn't be going back to normal. We should be going back to better and really taking the lessons that we have about accessibility and flexibility, seeking accommodations, granting accommodations, and considering that there's also an understanding that there's kind of a view of disability that may be changing as a result of the pandemic because a lot more people are seeking different accommodations because while they may not have considered themselves people with disabilities before the pandemic, when you're in a COVID situation, there is a little bit of a recognition that maybe if you have a certain medical condition or you're higher at risk for COVID, you're seeking and obtaining accommodations. And so hopefully that will spark some empathy. I don't know if Tony or Penny have any other thoughts on that.
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: I think I'm good.
Tony Candela: That was good, Sarah.
Sarah Malaier: Thank you.
John Mackin: Thank you all. Thank you, Sarah, that was great. Penny: "What strategies can we use to encourage employers to employ people with vision loss during the pandemic?"
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: You know, I think many of the same strategies that we used before the vision loss, so–sorry, before the pandemic. As a person myself with low vision, I'm a very firm believer that it's on many levels the responsibility of the person who is visually impaired to help employers feel comfortable and to recognize that they have the skills and can do the job. Otherwise, they wouldn't be applying for it.
So my first thing is here if you are here and you're visually impaired, you're your number one advocate, and you need to be whether it is pandemic time or not pandemic time. I think part of also what we need to continue to do, and I think AFB's doing a great job with that as are many other organizations, is to educate employers. I can understand that it can be a little offsetting when you go to interview somebody and a cane appears, or a dog guide appears, or a braille display appears, and you're going, "Hmm, how will this person check email? Does the dog do that for them?" And not understanding how people with visual impairments function in their everyday lives. So I think employers are potentially missing a pool of great employees if they're trying to put everybody in the same box. We're all different; we need to be more inclusive in our society.
I think when employers give scenarios during interviews about a situation and let the individual interviewing talk about how they would solve that situation, how they would respond in that situation, it's a way for employers to begin to understand some of the ways that visually impaired people do things. For example, my own self, I took the position here at AFB just about 10 months ago, and I was sent a laptop. Well, a laptop doesn't work well for me as a person with low vision, and so I explained to my supervisor, "I need two large screens. I need them to be on an adjustable arm because of my low vision. Sometimes I need them up, sometimes I need them down, sometimes I need them to tilt a certain way." And since I was able to advocate and explain why I was requesting two monitors where typically sighted people get a laptop, I was able to secure that accommodation and be more effective. Thanks, John.
John Mackin: Thank you, Penny. This is kind of for the group, just kind of for all three of you. Maybe you can all chime in or some of you might have a little bit more to say than others. "What resources would you recommend for employers who are early in their digital accessibility journey, but don't know where to start?"
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: I think Sarah has some great suggestions for that one. Why don't we start off with you, Sarah?
John Mackin: You're muted, Sarah.
Sarah Malaier: Sorry about that. Well, I think there are a lot of places that employers can go. We have a great AFB consulting team that really helps companies build... a commitment to inclusion and build those practices within their organization. So reaching out to an organization like AFB Consulting or any of the other consulting organizations to help build that strategy is really important. There's also a lot of resources online. I believe reading–we've mentioned AccessWorld. AccessWorld is a great resource. We've some resources on our website. I know we built–we hosted a session through our Virtual Leadership Conference this summer on inclusion and remote work, which provided some great tips, starting with procurement, and making sure that we are procuring accessible software and technology, encouraging employees to self-identify as people with disabilities, reaching out to people with disabilities to see what they need. And then creating a commitment to hire people. I wonder if Tony has any specific resources in mind that he could direct people to.
Tony Candela: Not some specific ones right this minute, but what I would do if I was an employer who is new to visual impairment and blindness and they have a prospective employee. First thing is, there are the usual resources that every employer has in their communities. There're state vocational rehabilitation agencies and private agencies for the blind. There are the information sources like those at AFB. Based on what I've seen, a lot of companies join forces with each other in comradery. They join certain organizations together, like Disability:IN, which is one where a lot of companies talk to each other specifically on the issues of hiring people with disabilities. It's cross-disability. And so a lot of companies do very well when they talk to others who they know. That would make them feel a little more comfortable in how these things actually work in the workplace. So those are just some of the community resources that can be used and we'll start to put out there some of the actual written resources.
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: I'll just jump in and say that one thing about technology in your company and whether it's for considering for people with visual impairments or for people who, where English might be a second language or people with learning disabilities, is how important it is to go to the people who are going to be using your programs, your websites, your apps, the tools you have in the queue that you're thinking, "Do we purchase a program expert for thousands of dollars or program Y?" And so I really encourage folks to put together a user group and have people do a test drive of the tools that you're looking at.
If your company is designing a tool - let's say you're in-house and designing a tool to manage your client database. Thinking about inclusivity at the beginning. How can we make sure this is going to work with that JAWS screen reading program? How are we going to make sure somebody with low vision has options to adjust the color and the contrast? If you do it from the beginning, you're going to save yourself money in the end. And you're also going to save yourself time in addition to potentially building a wider employee base and a wider customer base. So it's that investing upfront. My husband and I own a guest house. I buy the guest house towels every year. I don't buy my house towels for my house every year, but people want to come where they have nice clean, fluffy towels. We have to invest in towels to get more people to come stay at our guest house. And it's the same thing as an employee–employer. Put that investment upfront.
John Mackin: Thanks, Penny. Thank you-all. Those were some great answers. Two things for the audience. It looks like some people are also posting resources in the chat. And so I recommend everyone to check those out. And if you missed any of them, we will be doing a blog post recap, so we'll have a one-stop shop. Before we get to the next question, I just wanted to circle back on something Sarah had mentioned. One of our virtual AFB Leadership sessions did a deep dive on the topic of inclusive remote work environments. And that can also be accessed at afb.org/remotework. A lot of good information there as well. Going back to questions. Sarah: "Do you believe more legislation is needed to help people with blindness or visual impairments in light of our current environment?"
Sarah Malaier: Yes. I think so. I think what we've seen from this study is that this pandemic is making a lot of the barriers that people who are blind previously faced even larger. And I'm sure you've heard ad nauseam that Congress has been back and forth in the throes of stimulus funding legislation, and should they add more money to the relief program for small businesses or not, should they cover education, should they...help the airlines, and all that. I think it's really important to take the needs of people who are blind seriously in legislation like that.
And it really, there's a lot of different ways that Congress could help right now. They can support education and access to assistive technology. They can support transportation funding so that essential workers who are blind can still get to their jobs, and to get there in a timely way. They can support small businesses so that people are not losing their jobs and not having to go out and find a job when so many recruitment processes are inaccessible. Supporting income security is really important because we know that economic crises impact people with disabilities more than they impact people without disabilities, you know? And if we think a little broader than legislation, the Department of Justice at some point should finalize their web access rules that would set standards and guidelines for accessible websites and applications.
And businesses can do this on their own. They should, there are standards out there. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines or WCAG exist, they're available, companies can get trained in them, and they can produce accessible technology. But they often don't and when the economy is becoming more and more digital and when the tools we use to interact with everyone to bridge the divide of social distancing are digital, then that inaccessibility really excludes people who are blind. And there's a possibility for more education and jobs legislation in the next few years and I'd would like to see inclusion of people with disabilities in those pieces of legislation.
John Mackin: Thanks, Sarah. This is–I'm going to point this one back towards Penny and Tony. So, "Let's say the employer is going to reopen or there's a job that must be performed onsite. How should the employer consider the blind employees?"
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: I think the very first thing, and I think this goes across the board, is the person who knows best what accommodations will work for them is the actual employee. So encourage in any situation that the first thing an employer should do is ask the employee. One of the challenges folks in our study who were essential workers were reporting was that because of changes in transportation, many communities either stopped public transportation, went to a Sunday schedule, eliminated half the routes in the community, stopped paratransit, which are the vans you see driving people around. Paratransit goes–provides the same access as public transit to people who don't have the ability to walk to the bus stop or ride the bus independently. So typically, it's older people or some people with disabilities that qualify in a community for paratransit. So employers have to be flexible in allowing employees to adjust their time based on when transportation is available to them.
For folks who are essential workers and were thinking about the workspace, let's say you're putting down the little footprints–or you're putting down little footprints on the floor to show everybody that where six feet is so we can stand six feet apart. If I have a visual impairment, I may not see those footprints, so can you add some type of texture to them? If I'm putting up Plexiglas barriers to keep my employees separated or my employees separated from the customers, then let's make sure that you have rounded corners so someone who doesn't see it doesn't ram it into while they're walking and end up cutting themselves. So those are some of the things that come to mind off the top of my head. I don't know, Tony, do you have anything to add?
Tony Candela: You know, some of those examples came up in my conversations with the companies that we work with in some of our employment summit projects, where they had task forces set up, because they knew eventually they'd need to have their employees back in the office in some way or other. We do have to, I guess, realize that this pandemic has caused us some disparate effects of visually impaired and blind people, especially who don't drive can't get into their secure and sealed vehicle where they feel safe and just drive to their workplace and have to use public transportation.
So in addition to the transportation not always being available the way it used to be, now it is six months now since this whole thing started, so we're a little bit safer and smarter than we were before. Visually impaired folks and blind folks have to be extra careful. I hope the employer who needs to have somebody physically on site and the person who was doing that job who is visually impaired, I hope they will be flexible, if they can be. And I hope the visually impaired employees can find their way there, and then once they are at their workplace, use all the safety techniques, including the ones that now need to be added because they've changed the environment, as Penny was saying, to make it safer for everybody so that there's no extra dangers that have been created. But the most important point I want to make, though, is please do not just write off the visually impaired employee without consulting with them and figuring out how this can be done.
John Mackin: Wise words.
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: And John, I want to add one more resource in here. I mentioned early on about Aira, which is a visually interpreting service, and Be My Eyes, which is volunteers. But basically, you download their app to your device, whether it's the Aira app or the Be My Eyes app, so you're phone or iPad. And you can get somebody with vision who then can help you with what you need to do. So many of our participants talked about either if they have to take the bus of if I am taking the bus, I use one of these persons to get a person on to tell me where's a seat on the bus that's going to put me as far away from people or are the people using masks. Or if I'm using a telehealth app that isn't fully accessible to me, where's the button I need to press to connect? Maybe once I press that button, once you help me find it, then I'm connected with my doctor and I can talk and if my doctor needs to help me position they can tell me up or down, left or right. So if employers would make Aira, which you can get five minutes free as a visually impaired person, but several of our participants were asking for a paid subscription, which gives you unlimited access, that those are tools that can maybe help someone navigate that work environment in this new normal.
John Mackin: Thanks, Penny. An interesting one came in a minute ago in the Q&A, seems to be a little bit around accommodations. "Are there any resources to help visually impaired persons working at home to get the approproate office furniture to support assistive devices? I'm using a TV stand for a CCTV because my desk is not suitable."
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: I'll taking this one, John, and then I'm noticing we're pushing up on the hour and I know folks will need to be leaving, so... I would really suggest that you reach out to your vocational rehab agency if you qualify for services and are already in their system. I know in many states that's a long, arduous process. If that doesn't work out for you, then I would reach out to my local organizations like the Lighthouse for the Blind. If that still doesn't work for you and you don't have the financial resources, I always encourage people to go to Lions Clubs or Rotary clubs. Lions Clubs especially have a mission to help people with visual impairments, as do the delta gamma sororities. And then often, if you just talk to other folks who are visually impaired through a listserv, through a Facebook group, people might have a tool that you need that they're not currently using. So those are just some ideas.
Tony Candela: Great. And as somebody who has a few resources, online shopping has saved my life. So for those who do have resources, there are ways of getting stuff without having to get to the store, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
John Mackin: Thanks, Tony. So Tony, Penny, Sarah, all participants here, it's 3:00 on the nose. We still have some good questions. We can keep going for a few more minutes if that works for our panelists. Shall I continue for a moment and then we're still going to recap everything and archive everything for those who have to do a hard stop at 3:00. So we'll have the information available on our website and elsewhere. Penny: "Were there areas of the study in which participants noted bigger problems with technology access?"
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: Well, keep in mind we were doing this study back at the beginning of April and access to COVID-19 data was a concern for many of the participants. And if you think about it, on my local news at night, they pop up a map of the state of Arizona. And they might talk about, "Oh, we have this many more deaths in this state" or "We have this many more cases." But I can't see that map to know how many cases are in each county that they're talking about. Or I go to a website and they have a map and it doesn't have a table version of it to read me that data. So COVID-19 information was a concern for people, as was shopping apps. So whether I was already was using a shopping app or I'm starting to use a shopping app, making sure that that app was fully accessible to me. Some people talked about apps where it was no problem for me to fill my cart with the things they wanted, but then the part of the app where you get a delivery slot was inaccessible. So those were some of the concerns that people expressed.
John Mackin: Thank you for that. Let's try to do one or two more, okay? This one will be for Sarah. "With wider acceptance of telework in general, how can good-paying remote tech jobs be expanded to people with visual impairments?"
Sarah Malaier: I think this comes down to employer commitment to inclusion. There are a lot of companies out there that do a really good job of making sure that their employees are fully included. But if that employer doesn't have the commitment, then we're not going to see a wide-scale increase in employment in any sector. But investment in remote work tools, like here at AFB, we use Slack, Zoom. We have in the past used Dropbox. All of these tools can be accessible. Sometimes they aren't the easiest things to learn, but committing to training is really important so that employees who are blind or have low vision are able to learn and adapt to tools alongside everyone else. And committing to procurement that is accessible, making sure that products have been audited or validated for accessibility, working with the user groups, like Penny said, makes these environments more inclusive.
From the employee side, I think it's about what I lot of what we've said on any job, is making sure you're your own self-advocate. And one other thing I will throw out there. I think this mentioned tech jobs specifically. There are programs out there to teach accessibility and computer science programs. I think tthat that's a really important part of making tech jobs are more accessible. So investing in accessibility and inclusion in the computer science profession will make those jobs more accessible.
John Mackin: Thank you. All right, this will probably close us out here. I'm going to point this one toward Penny. "How do employers respond after they've hired someone in the role and find out later that the software is not accessible?"
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum: Yeah, this can be a challenge. So for example, I might have a proprietary software for managing my patients, my clients. And my visually impaired employee is extremely competent with their screen reading program, that JAWS or that VoiceOver, another one called NVDA. That screen reader program doesn't work with–doesn't fully work with my proprietary software. So I think one thing is that there are companies out there such as AFB Consulting that can help problem solve, "Hey, what are the workarounds? Are there scripts that can be developed for JAWS that would allow the person to have access to the parts of the program that aren't working for them?"
As a short-term solution, and I say this from experience as a person with low vision, a lot of times if you look at the job tasks that somebody has to do. And if there's ten job tasks they have to do and seven of them work with the software but three of them don't, can we do a little bit of shifting around? So I'll swap off with another employee, they'll give me some of their tasks, 'll give them some of my tasks so that we're still being productive and the work is getting done in the end. If there's a part of the program that doesn't work for me, is it possible that I get a couple of hours a week of administrative support so that I can as I like to call "Rent a Set of Eyes" as we work through the challenges and find a solution? Absolutely always going back to the manufacturer to let them know what the issues are and asking for their help in the design or, are these changes that you can make, that again not just for our employee, but is going to allow more companies to purchase your product who have employees who work for them who are visually compared or are considering hiring visually impaired employees. And I think when you think about expanding your market, which in turn expands your revenue, you're going to get more buy-in for inclusivity. Tony, do you want to have any quick thoughts on that as we wrap up?
Tony Candela: Yes, just as a practical matter, if you're actually hit with a situation, and you really, really–the employee and the employer are all happy with each other, and they want to make the hire, and then they discover these inaccessibilities, working on making those inaccessibilities accessible, screen reading software, folks know how you can tailor the screens in JAWS, they call it scripting. Also, workarounds, workarounds so that things can maybe be done with some intermediary software that the blind employee handles and then someone joins the information to the inaccessible software. But thinking in terms of workarounds because we're starting with the notion that everybody is happy with the union of this employee and this employer, and it's just a matter of these mechanics. So in addition to everything else, like what Penny was saying, if you're faced with the issue, workarounds.
John Mackin: Good advice. Thank you, Tony. That's going to wrap it up. I would like to thank everyone for coming. And I would like to reiterate that today's town hall was recorded and will be archived, available on our site in about a week or two. We'll also have a recap blog post within a few days and we'll try to answer some of the questions we didn't get to here today. Special thanks to Monique and Yesenia for their interpreting work. And lastly, mark your calendars: AFB's next town hall. This will be discussing education, will take place Tuesday, November 10th, 2-3 p.m. Eastern Time. Thank you again, have a great day. END
