 to do this on a mainstream conference, which is actually a valid thing, than doing this kind of talks in a excluded or separate conferences related to accessibility alone. So in next, so in next 30 minutes or so, we will be talking about, I'll do, Christian has done a wonderful introduction already, but I will just do once again to talk about myself. And then we'll talk about what is currency state of today and then we'll talk about cards and wallets and digital transactions and so on. Before that, I just want to give you all a quick question I want to ask you all. If I give you all a blank paper and say it is a newspaper, what would be your reaction? So that could be the same thing, which applies to accessibility, which we're going to talk about today. And before that, I like, Srikanth has made some disclaimers yesterday. I'd also make a couple of disclaimers. Firstly, is there a sign language interpreter in this room? I believe no. And if any of you have a hard of hearing, my sincere apologies. You should, you may want to read the full text later, which will be posted on my website. If there are any visually impaired in the audience, I would actually speak out most of my slides, so you shouldn't generally having any problem. So visually impaired could be not necessarily people who have got the eyesight problem, but primarily who would be sitting in the last room. Okay, about myself, I am an accessibility advocate like Christian has mentioned and I have a day job at Informatica and I'm also founder of something called Servo Inclusion, where which is a platform that I use to raise awareness about accessibility. And not just raising awareness in a respectable way, but I'm a kind of shameless person to tell anybody, oh, we should together work for accessibility, okay? I don't mind if other person feels me saying that, oh, this guy is bugging me or bothering me, but as long as it's a consumer application, if there are people who actually use these applications, I do not hesitate to give them feedback. But what I generally do is, I try and give them a constructive feedback so that they not only find a problem statements in whatever I tell them, but also a kind of solution, how they can fix their problems. Because I personally believe accessibility is not something that developers do it intentionally. And guess, who do I blame if a, let's say if an application, if a website is not accessible, who do you blame? Who do you blame? Do you blame the developer? Do you blame the product manager? I don't blame the developer. I actually blame his or her teacher who actually taught them HTML, CSS, JavaScript, et cetera. Because unfortunately I wish if somebody would disagree with me, but most of the institutes today, which teach you HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and so on or any program in language, they do not talk about you of usability, yes, of standards, forget about AF accessibility anyway. Did you all agree or anybody who'd be happy to disagree? So there is no sound, that means everybody agrees, right? Very good. All right, so prior to my work at Informatica, I was formally, it's interesting, I started my journey into accessibility while I was working for a nonprofit organization called the National Association for the Blind, where we have actually created a beautiful website for the organization and at the end of the day, we realized our own students who are people with blindness cannot use the website. So that is which has triggered me to start working in the area of accessibility and I started working something called Barrier Break, which is an accessibility consulting firm in Mumbai. And then of course, I moved on and worked at various companies like Yahoo, PayPal, HCL, through them, I worked, we got a chance to work with Google, and so on. And since my passion is about raising awareness about accessibility, I also do a consulting activity with somebody like Pricot Solutions, Mnet, and so on, a few companies. So I'm open to help anybody who want to bring change in their culture of working, culture of building products. So I'm also an active participant at Accessibility Guidelines Working Group at W3C, and I'm also a member of something called International Association of Accessibility Professionals. Some of them are hidden because the screen size, I don't know what is going on here. But do you all remember, any of you remember this? Any of you have ever used, seen? Yes. There is a reason why I'm actually showing this old currency. If you actually notice, you will see the different dimensions and sizes in the earlier currency. May it be one paisa coin, two paisa coin, five paisa, 10 paisa, 20 paisa used to have a different design, 25 paisa used to be very small, and 50 paisa are little bigger, and one rupees altogether bigger, and two rupees has a different dimension. And five rupees is a thickness. Earlier it was easy for people to identify the currency. But off late, for some time, now this is a picture I have taken from a change.org campaign, which is being done by some of our colleagues in the industry, because if you look at the currency of today, forgot about people with blindness or low vision. I have seen my mother having a conversation with the auto driver. Hey, you're supposed to pay me five rupees, and why are you giving me 50 paisa? Poor guy actually gave her for five rupees coin, okay? And she is looking at it with her hand and saying, oh, it must be a 50 paisa coin, right? So if people who have got all the eyesight and mainstream people are getting confused with the currency, and now thanks to the new currency, like 2,000 rupees, 500, and new 50 rupees, I don't know how many have you seen, even the 200 rupees note. It's all, do you think they look like currency or they look like what, they are lottery tickets, right? So we are lobbying to work with RBI to bring back the real good currency of different sizes, because no matter how technology is evolved, there are of course applications which can recognize your currency and all, but not everyone could be afford to use the internet even today, okay? Or not, they may be aware of how to use them at all, right? So the problem today is that all the currency coins, if you look at, there is no difference between 50 paisa and five rupees coin, there is no difference between 20 rupees and 2,000 rupees note, right? So this is something which we are actively lobbying with the RBI and any government of India to see what changes can be made. If you ever got a chance to talk to anybody about this, please do so. Do your best, fight whatever you want to do. Let's all together do whatever we can. And now ATMs, ATM is, how many of you don't use ATM in your life? Everybody uses, all right? The problem with the ATMs today, there are, in spite government has the regulations, RBI and IBA has got the clear regulations to, for the manufacturers to develop the accessible ATMs. So accessible ATM does not mean only having the talking features, okay? Because accessibility is not just for blind people. Vasu is standing here and talking, being a person with low vision does not mean accessibility is only for people with low vision, right? It could be for anybody, people who are in the wheelchairs, people who are the hard of hearing, people who have the cognitive disabilities. And I'll give you an example. Now, most of these ATMs, if you see today, at some point it will tell you, welcome to Access Bank ATM. And then after some time, after a few tasks that you have done, it will tell you, please enter your secret code. Thank you for using Access Bank ATM. Is this an accessible ATM? Yes or no? Yes or no? I need an answer. No, because it is partially giving you an instructions like welcome messages and all. It should, if you're a real accessible ATM means, it should have adjustable height, it should have buttons that can be accessed by blind people, okay? And so on. So, there are the clear guidelines how to design an accessible ATM, okay? And there is also a website called TalkingATMIndia.org, which is maintained by some of our friends. So, that actually gives you, you can look at where is it talking, accessible ATM in your area, okay? They maintain the list of accessible ATMs. The data will be provided by the respective banks and but for the across the country. Okay, pay using cards and POS machines. So, you have heard a lot of things about this point of sale machines and cards and payment gateways and all yesterday and some of them are going to be today as well. And also that includes the privacy, security and all. So, let's see what are the things about these? Cards, you don't need to deal with that inaccessible physical currency, which is a good news. But, there are few things. When you go to a shop, I know in the United States and few countries where you actually do check out on your own. But, does it happen really in India? No, we just go to the counter and give them our card and they will do the calculations and they'll even take your card and they'll swipe and give you, right? So, in that there are few things involved related to privacy. Especially if you are a customer who is a wheelchair user or who happens to be blind. Okay, if you are a wheelchair user, if the counter is height is good enough that you are able to access the machine and put in your own pin, that's okay, isn't it? But, if it's not, you have to spell out your pin to the merchant, which can be had by somebody who is around you as well. And what if, after the transaction is done, if somebody just takes away your card, who got to know your code? There can be a choice, chances of misuse, right? And if it's a blind person, forget. There is no option but to tell the pin to the merchant. Because firstly, you don't know what kind of machine that person is using, POS machine. There are two or three varieties today. And you really have to trust that merchant, he has entered the right amount, okay? Because until the transaction is happened, you will not get to know what is the amount made until you get your own SMS, right? If the merchant wisely put the right amount, well and good. But accidentally or intentionally, if you put an additional amount, that's it. You only get to know after you get the SMS. Then you'll have to do all your fights. What could be solutions for it? Like somebody yesterday said, instead of the POS machines, they use the mobile applications, which is a good thing. Because in every mobile phone today, whether you're using Android or IOS, you have a screen reader. If you are using Android, you have a talk back feature, okay, which is ready to use. So you can even ask the merchant, okay, I want to turn on the talk back before I use your application, okay? And if the screen reader can come in hand, if you are using a mobile application. And if, but if the government regulates or something happens, if you still want to use only the POS machines, then you have to add a screen reader to it. So that people should be able to use on their own. And that should have the real accessible buttons. I have also added voice recognition. The reason because, as I said, it's not about only blind people, right? People who can't use their hands, how do they activate? How do they enter them out? How do they use that machines? So they should be able to dictate, right? If all these things, if you feel that it is an expensive affair, it's not going to happen. Then what you should be doing is, like how the Paytm does, okay? Unity send a OTP to the user, which also has the amount in it. So that you give back that OTP to the merchant, you will enter done, okay? So that's the technological solution that you can use. The reason why I mentioned about the card details to be sent to the user as and when needed, because if I'm shopping something online, I need to check out, okay? And what if I don't remember my card information, right? I want to retrieve my card information immediately. How do I do that? I don't have real, I'm blind. So I should be able to send some instructions to my bank using some SMS format or something like that or clicking on some option. I should be able to get my information in a secured manner, not the CVV code and all, because CVV, it's expected people should be able to remember that much at least. But the card number, the 16 digits or something that has to be sent to the user securely. Wallets, so we have so many wallets today. Pay you money with actually one of the sponsors for this event, Moby Quake, and quite a number of wallets you have. It's wallets are in a way very self-serviced. People can use it themselves, okay? But the problem here is that the interfaces are inaccessible. With due respect, since we have reached out using several channels as well and the public channel, it's good to have, send messages to as many, through as many people as possible. But if somebody from Paytm is around, Paytm Android app used to be accessible until two months ago, but now with the recent update, it is slightly broken. So if anybody from Paytm in this room, you should actually go back and alert your teams. If or if somebody has a connection with Paytm, you should actually go and do that. Because Paytm is something which commonly uses today across the board and I almost use it every day, okay? Especially when I ride on the Uber. I just prefer to use my Paytm linked with Uber. And also I use them with big basket. Yeah, now another problem with wallets is, you have a food court here, right? So how do you know what wallet do they accept? Do keep, every merchant keep telling you, I accept Paytm, I accept Moby King. When you go to the counter, will they tell you? It will actually displayed there. But what if a person who is blind, how would they know what wallets are being accepted? So there is a technological solution I'm proposing, which is actually, in fact, we're planning to do this kind of a hack, part of a hackathon, which is upcoming in the month of May. So if I'm standing around a food counter, I should get a push notification saying that, oh, there's Barista accepts, Paytm, Moby King, et cetera. I should be able to get that push notification. Using what APIs, we need to figure that out. How much time do I have? Okay, so we're talking about electronic transfers, like NEFT, IMPS, RTGS, and so on, all these things. It's again self-serviced and people, it's actually far more easier for, even for people including cognitive disabilities, because you'll have a familiar interfaces. You don't need to deal with new interfaces every day, because you might end up using one bank or two banks, but you don't, every day you don't change banks, all right? So, and thanks to whatever reasons, but nowadays, if you look at something like SBI, HDFC, HSBC, and ICICI, a lot of bank interfaces are fairly usable, if not really accessibility compliant, but they're fairly usable, but what we need to keep in mind is that, these channels are actually growing. These channels are modernizing, in the name of modernizing people are actually forgetting the basics and standards. I will tell you, accessibility is not a rocket science. Accessibility is all about writing a semantic code and adhering to the standards, okay? And now, I will tell you one simple inaccessibility problem of this conference, okay? Christian has mentioned the people who wear the red linears are not to be what? Photographed. Do you know blind people can also take the photographs? Yes, but the technology, it will tell you, there are one person, two people, three people, or hundred people, but it will not tell you which person is wearing the red linear, okay? So, if I have taken a photograph of any of the red linear, it's your choice, I can't help. So, it's all about standards and basics, right? So, what people need to keep in mind is that when they're developing the interfaces, they need to make sure they meet the web access, web content accessibility guidelines, or if they are developing the mobile applications. Interestingly, lot of these mobile developer frameworks, like if you're developing for Android or iOS, there are a lot of accessibility features which are inbuilt. All that, our developer friends has to leverage on them. With due respect, but I have seen at least two good extent of developers, their mindset is they want to complete the building the product. Can we just pause and see, am I writing the right code? Or even if I'm copy pasting a code, am I copy pasting from a right source? There is nothing wrong in copy pasting unless you are going for an exam. There is nothing wrong, okay? But you need to copy paste from the right source. That is the reason you have all these open source frameworks, open source projects. You are free to copy paste, but please copy paste from the right source. There are a lot of accessibility plugins. There are a lot of accessibility components written which people can reuse. Problem with these electronic transfers is interesting. It's not the problem of our developers or technologists. It's the problem of banks. So I have a friend who happens to be blind and who is an advocate. So if he's an advocate, practicing advocate, do you agree that he's a decently, decent educated person? He goes to a bank and let's try to open an account. And they tell him, you do use a thumb impression, so we consider you as the illiterate, so we cannot open a bank account to you. What do you do with them? Right? So there are, it's also essential that bank training institutes has to sensitize their employees in dealing with people with disabilities. They're not necessarily, they need to give them an extra banking facilities, nothing really, nobody's asking for it. But whatever you're giving it to everybody, you should actually give it to people with disabilities as well. And there was also one time banks were saying, okay, if you want to avail a bank account, you come with somebody else and we open a joint account. Well, I'm a single, not really, I'm married, we have two kids. But what if I'm a single person who is living only in my family, right? So there's the situations in the banking sector, but in the whole, if the facilities are given and electronic transfers are far more easy, assuming our interfaces are accessible, are there any developers in this room? All you need to do is, very simple thing. In the next slide, we're going to talk about using the automation tools and all that. But before that, all you need to do is that, when you actually at the testing time of your product, for 20 minutes, you let's say as good as your tea break, unplug your mouse and use your product just using the keyboard. You don't need to experience a screen reader or anything. You don't need to become blind. You don't need to become a cognitive disabled or anything. First thing you use is, use your own product just using the keyboard. And you will be able to address at least 60% of the accessibility problems, okay? The major problems are in this modern application development area is we all use model dialogues, right? The alerts, dialogue boxes and all you use, right? But do you set the really tap focus onto that boxes all the time? Though the model dialogue, firstly it cannot, if it can be accessible, activated using the keyboard well and good. Once it is activated, your focus has to come onto that model dialogue. Not, it should not remain on your parent window, right? So your first testing tool will be your keyboard. Forget your mouse for about 30 minutes and use your own product or whatever you are using. Again, the accessibility of real-time messaging. So something like, because in the gaming gateways, everything happens in the real-time. Like in between, you will also show a message saying that do not wait to refresh onto your browser. Do not use back button and all that, okay? If that messaging is not accessible to somebody who is using a screen reader and if he tries to, if he says that, okay, nothing is happening. If you use the hit refresh button or back button, the transaction is gone. Maybe his money must have detected already, whatever, right? And another thing is that when you actually showing a paid dialogue, something is happening. Even when the transaction is successful or when you're actually asking him to do an additional level of authentication, that messaging has to be exposed to assistive technologies using whatever code you're using. If it's a model dialogue or a real-time, new page or whatever, that has to be exposed. And the reason why I mentioned about accessibility of promotional material. How many of you do receive emails from all these payment gateways? 80% offer, 50% offer, 30% offer, whatever. Or 5% cashback. Did you all get these emails? Yes? Have you ever seen that email in a browser which did not load the images? What will you see? Will that be useful? Then that is how a screen reader user will see your promotional material. If you actually send out an email like that, entire content embedding onto an image and sending it to a user, and if user is blind and using a screen reader, all they will see is a one line of single chunk code that talks about a part of your image. That's it. If you call, that is a promotion. I'm sorry, I can't use that promotion. So if you want to really, I'm sure there are a lot of marketing teams also sitting out here. If you want to reach out to more customers, you have to make your marketing promotional material accessible. And let me tell you guys, to make anything accessible, either your promotional material or your website, you don't need to compromise on design. You can use as beautiful things as you want. It can be as fantastic, as beautiful, as nice looking, everything. All you need to do is use little brain, take little time, and you'll be able to produce accessible material. And it's also important to generate the accessible invoice or receipts because as the invoice is as important to you, it could be important to people with disabilities as well. It's not about only the payment gateway, a provider's to make their products accessible. It's also important, the people who are actually implementing it. Okay, if I'm using pay you money's gateway, I have to make sure that button that they provide or the interface that I create using their platform, I create a accessible interface, okay? It's not necessarily that only my cart is accessible, but the button I will just embed a image of pay you money and leave it there. It's not going to be accessible. So it's important for both the parties, whoever is using the payment gateway and whoever is providing the payment gateway. And especially the reason why I've chosen to talk about pay you money as a name is because I also see a lot of nonprofit organizations, especially working in the disability sector, do use pay you money quite a bit and especially to raise the donations and all. And I believe they have an interesting thing to use this as their payment platform. And another reason to use their name is thanks to them for sponsoring this event. Okay, and the redirection. Redirection also need to be seamless. If you are actually redirecting a page which is taking minutes and hours together, it's going to be a problem. So during that process, it has to send the messaging. Okay, what state is it? Like if you are actually installing a Windows software, you keep listening to some buzz, right? Why do they do that? Because they want everybody to know what is the status of the installation. Okay, so quickly about automated testing tools. There is something called, all of you know about JSLint, right? So similarly, there is also something called aslint.org which will let you test your code while you're actually coding on the fly. Our other simple tool is something called AXE, ax. It's by DQ systems. All you need to do is right click on the page, go to inspect element, click on ax. It's a plugin for Chrome and Firefox. Once you enable that, you use that ax from your developer console and it will show you the number of accessibility issues. Very simple format and very simple language including links to the techniques. So these are few things which you can do for the accessibility evaluation. These are the simple things. Use the WCAG checklist, which is available on many websites including mine. And run the automated testing tools, something like ax. And as I said, use the keyboard alone. Then use the screen. If possible, there's a final thing. You also can also start using some screen reading software. Like NVDA is non-visual desktop access, the free screen reader available for Windows. And if you're using Mac, voiceover comes for free. So we can have a couple of questions if you want. Or I'm available in the office hours from 11 to one. So we can also talk there. Even if you want to look at something, the demo or something, we can do that.