 All right. Hello, everyone. It seems that we need to get started and I'm bidding against the lunch. So I really appreciate that you've chosen my session, even though the lunch is happening right now. So today we're going to talk about the voice assistance and how exactly we can use them in order to help people with disabilities to get things done and all the things that accessibility is a really important topic of this Drupal Con and I see a lot of people are interested in that. So my name is Alex. I'm a CEO of Five Jars and I came here from Ukraine. In Ukraine, you know, that's the next door from Seattle, just 12 hours' flight and I'm here. So it's like nothing, right? My contact information, if you'd like to contact me, just use Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, any other things that you would like to use. So you may be curious who we are, so who is the Five Jars Water Team? So basically we are a young digital agency, so we're almost like two years old. We are using Drupal. We are a Drupal expert. We are a Drupal community for a long time, but basically Drupal is the only core of our services and web development and we are doing a lot of innovations. We're building a digital ecosystem around the Drupal. We are building such things out, like digital screens, voice assistance, mobile applications and all those things. But at some point, we and our clients were curious like how the new user experience changed the way how we built the web. So there were a few really important milestones in the history that completely changed the way how we do develop development. The first one was the actual invention of the internet, the first web browsers, HTTP requests, HTML markup, CSS and all those things. So basically we use a lot of those things right now, but that was the starting point of the web development. Another one, another huge milestone is the smartphones. So when smartphone has been introduced with a touch screen, it completely changed the way how we interact with the web sites. They became responsive. We started to use touches and swipes and all those things. So that was a huge breakthrough in the industry of web development. So next, and I am jumping from smartphones to voice assistance, and we think that the next big thing might be the voice assistance. So many of us have the Alexa or Google Home or we like use Siri. So the voice assistance might be a big thing like in comparison to the invention of the web and smartphones. And there are a lot of devices like smartwatches and all those things, but let's take a look at the voice assistance today. So and it could be a huge life changer for everyone. So we interact with the laptops and PCs, but we can interact with voice assistance. Let's say on the morning you wake up, you go to the kitchen, you make coffee, you have breakfast, you might be in a hurry for some meetings and all those things. So that the morning might be stressful, but let's take a look at the guy who have the voice assistant. So how his morning looks like. Playing jazz. Smoothie. Making smoothie. Calendar. No meetings today. Remember and test at 9.30. Fire off. Open door. Door open. So that's my usual morning. I'm kidding. But given that, given that we have the voice assistance right now in the industry, and if we get the voice assistance and apply them to people who have some sort of disabilities, how this will look like. So right now there is approximately 56.7 million people in the United States who have some sort of disabilities. Overall, it's approximately 15% of the world's population. Just imagine how many people like might get some values and benefits out of using voice assistance. But first let's take a look at the types of disabilities. So the first one and probably the biggest one is the visual impairments. Those are the people who might struggle with partial vision or color blindness or they are blind at all. So they might use screen readers, rail readers or any high contrast features and maybe zooms and all those things. So basically it depends on their disability. The next one is the mobility impairments. So those are the people who struggle with physical disabilities. So those are the people with some kind of paralysis or hand injury or leg injury. So they physically cannot use the devices. They cannot use the smartphone or keyboard or mouse. So they may have some switch devices or eye tracking devices, but like this is a separate category. Next one is auditory impairments. Those are the people with partial or complete loss of hearing. So they may use the videos with subscriptions or audio devices to just improve the quality. But this is the category that we will be looking at today. And the last one is a cognitive impairment. This is the biggest one and this is the type where people have impairments of the mind like some dyslexia, ADHD. Basically they might or might not have a direct impact on how they consume technologies and VAP, but this is the last category that I wanted to highlight today. But given that we know all these categories, right, we can like differentiate the people. Let's take a look what we do in the VAP. And I'm pretty sure that you all know what we do in the VAP, but first we'll look for information. We'll look for better places, traffic, all those things. So we read the information like we're learning a lot, reading articles, blog posts and medical information and all those things. So we make the purchases. We like purchasing products online and use a lot of e-commerce websites. So we use the online banking in order to track transactions, in order to like control our funds. And the last category that I would like to like separate is the VAP for funds that we are using on YouTube, any other websites just to have some fun with kids, with families. And there are more activities that we can do so that these are just examples. But how exactly would fill the VAP, right? So we use smartphones, we use PCs, laptops, but what doesn't mean to use the VAP? So we thought about it and it all ties down to like visual contact, right? We see the websites, we read the text, we see media assets, we watched videos. Like we may have some audio content, but it's all about, all those things are visually. So we consume the VAP visually. So here is an example. This is the website of one of our clients, a brandy wine. It has pretty simple set up, right? We have header, we have some user menu, call to action, manual banners and all those things which we usually have on the home page. So I have a really important request to you. Just remember how this page look like. And now I would like to ask you to close your eyes in order to just imagine how people use these websites. People with problems with vision. So close your eyes. I will do the same and let's just hear what we will see. Okay, now you can open your eyes and thank you to those who closed the eyes. Basically, was it easy to understand what's going on? It wasn't easy at all, right? So basically this is an example how people with visual impairments use the voiceover in order to navigate through the websites. This is an example of a website where we applied accessibility best practices. Just imagine how people might struggle with websites which are not accessible at all. And we spend one minute just to understand what's going on in the header. So in order to figure out the link that we would like to use and we should spend a lot of time just exploring the whole home page and then decide where we should go. Who would like to browse the schedule or go to join page. And if we compare that to voice assistants, so the voice assistant might significantly reduce the time for browsing this information. I guess we can provide the content throughout the voice assistants. So another example, this is the device for people who struggle at the same time with visual impairments as well as with audio impairments. So those are the trail keyboards. It's a separate device that may be connected to tablets and mobiles and PCs and laptops. And it helps to enter the text as well as understand what's going on on the screen. So basically you can enter and read the information from the screen. You can browse the applications on your iPhone. So this is a separate device for people with disabilities. And we thought what if we bring the voice assistant instead of these devices and voiceovers and all the things. So basically people can talk with Alexa, for example, or Google assistant just to get the content faster in the better way in comparison to what you saw right now. So basically how the voice recognition and voice powered devices can actually help us. We reviewed the type of disabilities. We reviewed a lot of things. But let's get to the point how they can help us. So first voice recognition helped one guy from Los Angeles to do the stand-up committee. And I'm not kidding. So basically he did some research and experiment. He took Alexa, Google Home, Cartana and Siri, asked a simple question to tell a joke. Then took the best jokes, went to Los Angeles stand-up committee and did a stand-up. And it was terrible. But that's the way how voice assistants can help people. But if we get back to the web development, so basically content delivery. We have laptops, PCs, smart watches, mobiles, tablets, screens and all those things. But voice assistants might be just as alternative channel for delivering content. So we call it device powered web because all these devices, they are using web. They are connected to web services, to APIs. So web is everywhere and why we are not using the voice assistants at full power right now, especially for people with disabilities. So we take a look at the market. From Amazon we have the Echo Dot, Echo Echo Plus, Echo Auto, which is not released yet, but will be released as a separate device, separate voice assistant. Then we have an application that may be installed. So from Google we have Home Mini, Home Max, Home and again application that may be installed on the smartphone. From Apple we have HomePod and Siri, which you may use but I don't recommend. Siri, this is the last voice assistant in my list. And from Microsoft we don't have any devices but we have the Cartana which may be installed and is available only in the United States. So it's not available in many countries and basically Microsoft doesn't have a device but all devices which are powered by the latest version of Windows have built-in Cartana there. And again, all the things might be in your smartphone so you don't need to purchase something in order to use it. You can just install Google Assistant, Google Home, Alexa, Cartana on your smartphone and start using it and play with it. But what if we make information actually available through the voice assistant? So we have built a prototype for Limesear with Rendewine how the voice assistant can work for their websites. So here is the video demo of this process. Alexa, open Limesear skill. Welcome to the YMCA skill. I can locate the closest association. Find basic information and browse schedule. Which would you like to try? Tell me more about YMCA or Greater Brandywine. YMCA of Greater Brandywine is an association of eight YMCA's that offer live-changing programs and it has eight branches. Well keep the closest YMCA branch. Please let me know your index and I can locate the nearest YMCA branch. My index is 19380. The closest location is Westchester Branch. Let me know the working hours of the Westchester branch. It works from Monday to Friday from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. and from Saturday to Sunday from 6 a.m. till 7 p.m. However, branch will be closed on Christmas holidays. Can I somehow help you? I have two hours tomorrow morning. Please find a class. You can attend the gentle yoga with Karen in Mind Body Studio at 9 o'clock to 9.55 a.m. Do you want to receive registration link on the email? Please send it to me. You should have a registration link in your inbox and an appointment for a calendar. Thank you. So this was just an example of delivering static information about YMCA, right? We've had some basic questions, basic answers. Alexa did some calculations and all those things, but there are way more actions that we can do through Alexa. So we can make purchases. We can even send the push notifications to the smartphone. Let's say something to Alexa and Alexa, instead of sending an email, she can send the push notification right to the smartphone and then you can go from there. So there are more actions. Just take a look what Amazon offers through the Alexa and that's pretty long list of actions. And basically, with that, if we compare this experience to the experience that we've had with voiceover, so just imagine how we can reduce that level of frustration of using these websites which are not accessible, which are built without best practices for accessibility and how we can make information available through the voice assistance. In terms of the implementation, so this is the technical part. There was session yesterday in regards to Alexa and integration with Drupal. I won't dig into technical details today because that's the topic of completely separate session. But check out the yesterday's session in regards to this if you're interested. From the high level, we have JSON API. So under Drupal, everything that you have to do is just enable JSON API, open endpoints, make information available through the endpoints and APIs, and then consume this information with the voice assistance. So with Alexa, we can build a skill. With Google, we can build an action. With Cortana, we can build a skill and deploy all those things to the markets. With Apple, that's tricky because that's Apple. Because of the closed ecosystem, but basically there is a way how actually you can integrate websites with Siri. You can build a native application, then build an integration with shortcuts, which has been released one year ago or so, and then you can build commands and do marketing and promote this to the end users. So the shortcut, that's the solution for Apple devices. But also there is a service, IFTTT, for everything. Basically, this service has integration with all these voice assistants. So we can even build the commands there, which will be available on your voice assistants. And you can build some sequence of actions that you would like to perform from different services and combine them into single command. So looking beyond the web. So I think it's straightforward how we can use the voice assistants with the websites. So technical details in the other session, but that's the overview how we can use it. But looking beyond the web, where we can use voice assistants. I personally use voice assistants in order to control lights in my home and also a robot vacuum, I just say. Start the cleaning, and he starts the cleaning. That's nice. I don't care about cleaning the vacuum, we'll care about that. But there are way more actions that we can do. So we can control locks, we can control the security, we can control the blinds, thermostat, irrigation, all those things. Now just imagine, you don't need to have a kid in order to ask to bring the remote control. You can control TVs through the Alexa. That's nice. That's the main thing that I like in the voice assistants. Another great use case in Los Angeles, in one of the hospitals, they installed Alexa in the wards for the patients. So patients with physical problems, they can use the voice assistant in order to ask for a nurse, to ask for a medicine, to turn on and turn off TVs, to go through the channels, to control the lights and all those things. And I've had a surgery in January and I know how painful it is to turn off the TV or turn off the lights in your wards. So that's the real use case like where we can use the Alexa in comparison to all the offensive things in your home where you invite friends and just say, hey, I can control the lights by my voice. That's the real example. The voice assistant might be helpful in hospitals and that's true. And again, it's still in your phone. So it's still in your phone. You don't need to purchase HomePod in order to play with the technology. You can install the application from the market and go from there. And you remember that guy who was enjoying the smoothie, listening to jazz, wonderful morning, but at some point something might went wrong. So let's see what might happen. Playing jazz. Smoothie. Making smoothie. Calendar. No meetings today. Remember and taste at 9.30. Fire off. Open door. Door open. And we're going to do one more. Open door. Wrong voice command. Open door. Wrong voice command. Open door. Repeat that. Open door. I didn't understand that. Hey, open door. Play on the floor. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Hey, William. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Hopefully it will not end up like this guy. Hopefully at some point there will be like alternative things. But that's the example that we shouldn't rely on technologies, right? At some point you cannot enter your home, like if you cannot speak to Alex or your voice assistant. So my statement for today, let's start using voice assistants right now. It's simple because it brings a lot of values, especially for people with disabilities. And it's pretty simple to start with just delivering static information. Like you don't need to spend 100 hours just to build a skill. You can spend 5 or 10 hours to build a basic skill and go from there. So let's use voice assistants. It's simple. There are going to be contributions printed on Friday. You can join if you would like to make the world a better place and improve the loophole. Important request for you. Please evaluate the session. That's really important. Let's help Alex to get to the top of the list of sessions. Please, please, please. Link is pretty simple. Seattle-VA. So please leave your feedback. Thank you very much. Alex from Five Jars from Ukraine. Thank you for coming. And I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Alex, thanks for the presentation. That was really good. I'm curious. One of the issues I always wonder about is the security issue with having all of your information going through, you know, being available at that point. Yeah, basically the information, the security of information, it's on the developers developers exposed information through the EPI. So that's their job in order to secure that, to have some sort of authentication, tokens, and all those things. But the companies which create devices, they care about the security as well. So they will ask if you would like to expose your location. So Alexa right now is struggling with this. And that's one of the reasons why in Europe the voice assistants are not so popular. Because of the security rules that they have. So it's all about the developers who cares about the security. And it's all about using best practices from the vendors and devices that you are building integration with. So we are right now, we are only building the prototype. So maybe hopefully in one year, maybe in a year, I will have more to share in regards to the security. Thank you for a great question. So no question, thank you. I have a question for you. So looking at the YMCA example, it seemed like the user had to have some sort of pre-knowledge of what was available on the site in order to navigate effectively. I'm curious about how this will help with sites that are unknown to the user. So the first time they get there, they still have to kind of navigate that menu for the first time. Do you have thoughts about that? So do you mean in terms of using voice assistants that they should know about the website and the skills? Correct, yeah. Well there is a kind of welcome comment in the Alexa and other voice assistants. You just say open the skill and the skill will tell you what you can do with the skill. For example, I will say Alexa, open the YMCA skill and as a welcoming message Alexa will say, hi, this is YMCA skill, you can do the following. You can ask me for like schedule, you can ask me for that thing or this thing. So basically, and then these instructions, you can outline all the commands and basic shortcuts that users can use. So that's kind of the entry point for users how to learn about the website. So yeah, if you know nothing about YMCA, you should at least know that they provide some health care and schedules and swim lessons and all those things. So some knowledge is required. I'm just curious, like mega menu type situations and things like that, it gets tricky. Yeah, I think if you have a lot of actions, so it's important to start from the small steps. What's the most important part of the YMCA, is that you can fill in that page because all purchases go through the join page. It doesn't make sense to expose the blog posts, it makes sense to implement the join workflow through the voice assistant and it's like make the pre-order of blog posts pretty well. That's how we can narrow down all actions for voice assistants. Thank you.