 If you try to remember to use the mic here, I have a tendency to wave my hands around, so somebody wave at me if you can't hear me. These are some thoughts that I've been working with over, really, I'd say in the last couple of months, things that have thrown out of my work as a UI specialist, as a product designer, as an activist. And serendipitously, lately, we've had a lot of stuff come up that I think is really pertinent, our conversations in the UX world, flip board. So just looking at this whole thing, let's start with experience design. It means what it says, right? We are architecting experiences. We are creating worlds. We are telling stories. I think we're probably inviting people in, unless you're just building something purely for yourself that you're never going to share. It doesn't matter if these environments, if these experiences are digital, or if they're physical, or if they're interpersonal. The same principles of design apply to each one of these. In fact, they bleed over. The way that you design any one is going to inevitably translate into the next. And there's been a big thing lately. People are saying, experience design is dead. UX is dead. Do I think that's literally true? No. Do I think we're finally at a point where we can really talk about ownership of that term? Absolutely. I think we're at a point where it is expected that everyone on a team is going to start having ownership for user experience. You know, yes, there still needs to be somebody up front. Maybe they have the title UX designer. Maybe they have the title UX developer. I mean, I am going to code these experiences. Maybe they have the title user advocate. I am the person here to speak for the users to point out things like, why do I have to click in five places instead of just once? Those are really picky things. But again, this applies everywhere. So I think we need to talk about who has that ownership and who has that responsibility. And there's a lot of ways we can think about access, too. What is access? Who has access? Are we accessing information? Are we accessing space? Do we have access to speech? Do we have access? Are we privileged to create? There's so much stuff there. And we can talk about that experience of access from every one of us. So when we're designing, when we're architecting these experiences, there is one principle that I really stand by. Our architecture should not dictate how people use what we built. It's been shown over and over again. And I usually say it a different way, but I'm going to clean it up a little because I think we do still have some kids here. People will use products in whatever way is most convenient and useful to them. This is probably not going to be the way you think they're going to use them. Role play is part of being a good designer. You need to be able to reach beyond your own world, your own experience, and envision how other people might share this. That is part of why we have to have these conversations. That is part of why we need diversity. However, even a diverse team's vision is limited. I know at my company, I tend to build product teams around four to eight people. That's a good size for us. It's very practical in terms of our process and the kinds of things we build. There is only so much diversity we can fit within eight people, so we have to recognize that people are going to have uses and applications beyond our experience in even the most diverse team. Access, accessibility, means that people can use what you build and manner their choice. So choice is another loaded word. Sometimes we hear about what a burden it is to deny people any access, to deny people when they only have one choice in how they access your product. Yeah, that's not cool. However, as designers, as developers, as engineers, we should not need to know. This is the only way someone can do something. It should be enough. It should be sufficient to us, when we're making products, to know, oh, is there a choice about how to access this? Gosh, let's look at the way this functions. And I'm going to be verging into my own experience here because I think disability is a useful lens when you're talking about different ways of accessing information because it does involve some very stark examples. I spoke earlier about accessing different things. So and I apologize, I know I'm going to be jumping around just a little bit here. So I'm jumping back to access to space for a moment. Here's a really concrete example. And it touches on space and it touches on choice and on design. If I need to use the restroom in public, I usually try to allot at least 15 to 20 minutes. You know, it doesn't actually take that long. Despite all the stereotypes, I'm not in there doing my hair for 20 minutes. However, there's usually only one stall I can go into. There is one place I can access. If there's anyone else in the restroom about 80% of the time, yeah, this is something I actually count. I'm kind of geeky that way. Somebody's already in it. Now, I can pretty much say the vast majority of the time, this is someone who has the incredible privilege of picking any toilet in the room. And if you've never thought about that as a privilege before, no seriously, people treasure it. And yeah, they perceive that this one is more desirable. This is bad design, people. This is a false scarcity or for something with a little less potty humor. Next time you're crossing the street, look down. If there's somebody else waiting to cross, odds are they're standing in the curb cut. This tells us something really important about the kind of experiences that people choose. If we give people a choice about how they do something, we can't say which choice they should take. That is not good design. And how can we take these lessons? And yes, this is a buzzword, these lessons about universal design and apply them into our digital creations. Where does that choice come in? What is the role that we're giving our users in choosing the experience they want to have? And while personally, I'm not much of a gamer. But I know that this is a conversation I'm hearing and having with colleagues who are and who are game developers about the role of choice and experience in games. So I'd also love to have that conversation later on. So we build teams, we build products. Building products builds community. Sometimes the community is product. But ultimately, the way we create any of these things is going to play out into the next. There's a very simple piece here. Diverse user bases are bigger user bases. Diverse user bases are more profitable. Ultimately, diversity in your user base is going to come from diversity in your product team. Diversity in your development environment. Diversity of lived experience. Diversity, yes, of thought. And that does not look like a room of people who take off all the same boxes. Diversity that's built in rather than, oh, we have a blind tester and we have a deaf tester and we have a quadriplegic tester. We have a black tester and an Asian tester. That doesn't count. Access to culture. We just heard a great deal about that. And this is something that's really troubling to me in terms of homogeneity and where our publicly visible culture is going. I do consulting. I visit with a lot of startups. There was one company who I'm not going to name not too long ago where I got the full tour, including a 30-minute dissertation about how all their meetings were stand-ups and how this was infinitely superior to sitting down meetings. Now, guys, I'm not bashing standing desks, but this was delivered with no apparent irony. I'm not going to be doing consulting with that company. We have this very prominent, very visible culture that looks a certain way. And again, straight, cis, pet, white. And there actually is an award for non-disabled, so not disabled, mostly men. The problem with this is that that piece isn't there of conceiving of people whose internal and external worlds are different. Now, I am actually going to cut this just a little bit because I know that we're running a little late this afternoon. We've talked about access to space. We've talked about access to culture. Access to education. We've heard a lot about that today. I will say, if you're looking for an engineer with a disability, access to education is absolutely critical. And that was my time. And it starts early. I had the incredible privilege of being ganked out of public school because they refused to educate me. I was placed in a room unsupervised and was not allowed to attend class in first grade. I'm incredibly lucky that I could be ganked out and put into private school, which came with its own lack of access, including a hell of a lot of stares. But if you're looking for somebody in tech with a disability, we are incredibly rare. You're probably not going to find one. If you have questions about creating access, please come talk to me. I sincerely wish somebody from Tech Village would do so because, by the way, guys, ATV is not accessible. I choose not to attend events there now because of that. In closing, I want you to think about what it feels like to experience access. Access comes with emotion. And ironically, only the people in here who've been denied access are probably going to understand what I'm talking about. Access should be easy. You shouldn't have to think about it. Being denied access, whether that is explicitly, whether it is more subtly, whether it's a matter of being denied speech or told you don't have enough experience, whether it's a matter of being denied education, can feel like there's not enough air. It can feel like a slap in the face. Design is a discipline of hospitality. We invite people to use what we build. And I think it's our job to be good hosts. So there is real emotion and experience for our users, for our community members, for our team members, and what we build. None of us are perfect. None of us are going to be perfect. This is a huge, huge topic. And we all have to build it together. But in closing, I hope that you'll consider whether you're building a product or community or place where you may potentially be creating or denying access to people. Thank you.