Neil Milliken (00:01)
Hello and welcome to AXSChat. I'm really excited today because we're actually going to welcome a guest that we've been waiting a very long time to welcome to AXSChat Makoto San, welcome to AXSChat It's Makoto Ueki, he's joining us from Japan. So when we've been waiting a long time, you're one of the the like major contributors to the W3C's web.
Neil Milliken (00:26)
accessibility guidelines and the the internationalization work that you've done. So very excited to have you with us. so please tell me what first drew you to the accessibility field and and and what keeps you passionate about the work today because you know you've been working in the field a long time and and you continue to make great contributions.
Makoto Ueki (00:50)
Yeah, thank you so much for having me here at AXSChat this is a great honor. I really appreciate it. this goes back about twenty five years.
Makoto Ueki (01:02)
I had several years experience as a web design team director at a design agency in Tokyo and webmaster for a company website. I was I was struggling with how to make web content more usable, but I didn't have any underlying theory or data to back me up. I felt unsettled every day. Then
Makoto Ueki (01:30)
One day I heard about a seminar on web usability happening in Tokyo. When I attended the seminar, I was like, This is exactly what I'm looking for. So, you know, and I exchanged this business card with the speaker who was the CEO of a web usability consulting firm in Tokyo. I I ended up joining that company.
Makoto Ueki (01:58)
right away. On my first day, the CEO told me you be in charge of accessibility. I was like, what what do you mean? You know
Neil Milliken (02:09)
Yeah.
Makoto Ueki (02:11)
as I mentioned earlier, I had been working as a web design team director and as a webmaster for five or six years in total before that. But that was the first time I'd ever had a term
Makoto Ueki (02:25)
accessibility. I had no idea what accessibility means. I was there for usability. You know what is accessibility? a project to localize web accessibility testing tool into Japanese was just getting underway and CEO wanted me to manage it. That was how I first came across
Makoto Ueki (02:52)
accessibility. Once I took on the role of accessibility localization project manager, I naturally began to have opportunities to meet people with disabilities. One of them was someone who was doing accessibility at Microsoft Japan. He was legally blind. One day he told me, I'm running a computer class
Makoto Ueki (03:19)
For people who are blind. I was like overweight. Is it a class where a person who is blind teaches other people who are blind how to use computers? You know, I went to the classroom. There were about fifteen people who are blind. The the age range was wide, from high school student to the elderly.
Makoto Ueki (03:48)
Among them there was a woman over eighty years old. She had lost her eyesight after turning eighty and that was her first time attending the class to learn how to use a screen reader. It seemed she had a keyword she wanted to search for, so she was learning step by step how to use Google.
Makoto Ueki (04:15)
with a screen reader. Then when the result page such result page finally appeared, as she went through the result one by one, her face suddenly changed dramatically. Until then she was like, you know, she had been looking down and seemed down just but she raised her head and smiled brightly.
Makoto Ueki (04:44)
half face filled with joy. The moment I saw that, I was like, the web is amazing. Once I realized that, I felt I had to tell every single person who is a web designer, developer, webmaster, whatever about it, how much potential the web has, you know.
Makoto Ueki (05:08)
That was the moment I became fully committed to web accessibility. years later, I became independent and officially launched my career as a web accessibility consultant. More than more than twenty years have passed since then and I believe the reason I've been able to continue this work to today is
Makoto Ueki (05:33)
thanks to the support of my clients and my lovely wife. In Japan more people are getting involved in web accessibility every year. However, when looking at the overall landscape, they are still just a handful. So I believe this passion will not fade, you know, until web accessibility becomes much more commonplace in Japan.
Neil Milliken (05:59)
Yes. And and and I sh share your passion for what accessibility and assistive technology can can do to transform people's lives. It's a it's amazing and and it motivates me daily. Deborah, I know you have a question.
Debra Ruh (06:17)
Yes, and thank you for being on. I have been following your work for so many years. I know we met a long time ago, but I'm just so continue to be very grateful for what you've done and what you're accomplishing. How would you describe the current state of accessibility in Japan? And how do you compare it to other regions of the world? And at the same time, what accessibility challenges are unique to Japan?
Debra Ruh (06:43)
And what challenges are universal?
Makoto Ueki (06:45)
well I have a somewhat interesting insight on this topic. when comparing Japan to other countries such as the United States and countries in Europe, the biggest difference is that Japan has no laws mandating web accessibility. There are no legal requirements and lawsuits
Makoto Ueki (07:07)
related to web accessibility in Japan. That's why even though I've attended the CSAM conference every year, the A RTO conference in Toronto, Canada, and international accessibility conferences, I've I've always felt that Japan is way behind. internationally, I don't think accessibility is taken for granted.
Makoto Ueki (07:34)
And the focus of the discussion is primarily on how to do web accessibility within the organizations. In contrast, in Japan, the situation was more like what is accessibility in the first place? Why do we have to do this? Are there any business benefits and so on? Why
Makoto Ueki (07:58)
Many countries already focused on how to, Japan still had to focus on why. However, over the past few years I began to feel that the situation has changed somewhat. In in Japan, since there are no real risks or pressures, we are facing two major challenges. One is how to how to gain the understanding
Makoto Ueki (08:25)
of people and stakeholders around accessibility advocates and get the organization to take action. The other is that we tend to get stuck in a checklist mentality. First, if there were legal risks requiring compliance,
Makoto Ueki (08:48)
Companies would likely consider how to implement accessibility as a baseline requirement. However, in Japan, where such risks do not exist, people often become aware of accessibility through some personal incident and start taking action on their own. It's it's kinda grassroots agreeability. But
Makoto Ueki (09:14)
They often struggle to gain understanding and to move forward as smoothly as dead like toward organizational-wide initiatives. That's why we are always stuck in the why accessibility situation. even even if an organization were somehow able to begin work on working on accessibility.
Makoto Ueki (09:40)
accessibility checks tends to end up becoming an afterthought, resulting in a shift right rather than shift-left approach. As a result, rather than truly enhancing accessibility for real users, the process becomes just checking box on checklist. So in Japan, I believed that
Makoto Ueki (10:06)
The primary reason for this situation was the lack of legal risks or pressure. That was the that should be a de big biggest difference. However, over the past few years, I have begun to notice that the challenges people in North America and Europe have been sharing at conferences.
Makoto Ueki (10:35)
Have started to become similar to or even identical to challenges we are facing in Japan. Last December I gave my talk at a Japanese accessibility conference held in Hukoka, Japan. While presenting for that talk, I looked into the topic of burnout.
Makoto Ueki (10:59)
I've heard that in the especially in the United States, the phenomenon of burnout has been occurring frequently among accessibility practitioners for several years now. For example, that the factors include lack of understanding from people around accessibility practitioners and a tendency to put accessibility checks.
Makoto Ueki (11:24)
on the later process and a prioritization of direct sales and speed over accessibility. As a result, practitioners become isolated, exhausted, and eventually burned out. Please correct me if my understanding is incorrect. This situation echoes
Makoto Ueki (11:46)
the challenges we are facing in Japan where there is no specific legislation regulating accessibility as I mentioned earlier. At last year's A eleven YTO conference in Toronto, there was a presentation arguing that it is not accessibility itself that causes burnout. It is a struggle.
Makoto Ueki (12:11)
to promote and implement accessibility within an organization that causes burnout. Also, there were some sessions discussing the difficulties of raising awareness and promoting accessibility within organizations. It is true that Japan is behind in some areas such as
Makoto Ueki (12:36)
I would say systematic approach. there are many instances where I still feel that the United States, Canada and countries in Europe are more advanced. However, when it comes to challenges on the ground, I've been I've been feeling more and more recently that they've actually become very similar regardless of
Makoto Ueki (13:05)
real pressure. this is very, very interesting to me.
Antonio Vieira Santos (13:09)
Thank you so much for this. This is a topic that we have talked in the past on AccessChat. And today we're actually really happy to be able to have you here because we really wanted to have a voice from Japan on AccessChat for quite some time as one of the objectives of AccessChat is to bring
Antonio Vieira Santos (13:28)
for people with different experiences from all over the world. So also focus on that. What can disability organizations and accessibility professionals in other countries learn from the Japanese approach?
Makoto Ueki (13:44)
well if if I had to point out one thing, it would be to include all the users in the scope of making singles more accessible. at international conferences like CSAM, the discussion on accessibility is almost entirely focused on users with disabilities.
Makoto Ueki (14:05)
Of course there is nothing wrong with that. Accessibility is about people with disabilities and C Sun is a conference about people with disabilities. However, I believe accessibility has a significance that goes beyond that. Japan has the fastest aging population in the world. So
Makoto Ueki (14:29)
For example, as anyone gets older, their vision and hearing decline, they find it harder to perform motor tasks, their comprehension and memory decline and they need to take more time to learn new stuff. Needless to say, I believe these changes align with the needs of users with
Makoto Ueki (14:54)
various disabilities. actually weekend 2.2 also states in its introduction these guidelines also make web content more usable by older individuals with changing abilities due
Neil Milliken (15:09)
Okay.
Makoto Ueki (15:09)
to aging and often improve usability for users in general in addition
Makoto Ueki (15:16)
I think the WCC has previously published documents addressing the common user needs of users with disabilities and older users. However, I get the impression that accessibility is almost never discussed from this perspective at international conferences or
Makoto Ueki (15:39)
blogs or on social media. it's possible I'm simply missing enzo. it is clear that Japan's total population will continue to decrease. At the same time, it is also clear that the aging of the population is accelerating. In other words, while the market in Japan is
Makoto Ueki (16:03)
steadily shrinking the market and its customers are aging. So there is a major Japanese company that began taking a very proactive approach to web accessibility several years ago, for example. The company has clearly stated that given its aging customer base,
Makoto Ueki (16:29)
Improving accessibility is one of its key business priorities. So ageing population and accessibility. Perhaps it is a guiding principle Japan should present to the world. As a result, if accessibility improves, this will ultimately lead on
Makoto Ueki (16:54)
lead to an increase in content and services that are accessible to people with disabilities as well. So while it is essential to prioritize people with disabilities, I believe we can achieve greater results by broadening our perspective rather than limiting ourselves to accessibility's initial scope.
Debra Ruh (17:19)
So you're saying accessibility is for humans? Okay.
Makoto Ueki (17:22)
Yeah, it's got three.
Debra Ruh (17:23)
Yes. Accessibility is for humans at any stage in their life. And why would we not make technology fully accessible when we know how to do it?
Makoto Ueki (17:33)
Yeah.
Debra Ruh (17:34)
The disability community often talks about nothing about us without us. How can organizations better live that principle and practice? And how do we move beyond compliance towards true inclusion?
Debra Ruh (17:46)
Which is also interesting because you don't have legislation in Japan. But I do wanted to also make a comment that I know Japanese con companies, big multinational, have invested a lot in accessibility. I know I've had multiple customers from Japan, so we're seeing it, but I think your aging per s that point about aging was powerful too. Over to you.
Makoto Ueki (18:09)
I think in general what really matters is to meet users, especially users with different disabilities in person and to cultivate our imagination. I've been working as a web accessibility consultant in Japan for over twenty years.
Makoto Ueki (18:33)
I believe that usability testing with users with disabilities is the most effective way to inspire action among individuals and organizations. first of all, conducting usability testing on a website that does not meet we can standards. In other words, websites that have
Makoto Ueki (18:58)
not implemented any accessibility enhancements is very very meaningful and super effective. It has a significant impact for many web designers, developers, webmasters to watch how effectively users with disabilities who rely on assistive technologies are using laptops and smartphones. Because
Makoto Ueki (19:24)
They have no idea on how users with disabilities can use laptops and smartphones. Furthermore, when senior decision makers are present during the testing, it is quite common for them to react with Hey, is our website really this bad? Fix this immediately. We'll approve the project.
Makoto Ueki (19:54)
Do it. On on the other hand, even if
Makoto Ueki (19:57)
web page comprised with we cake that that doesn't necessarily mean it's actually easy to use and easy to understand for users with disabilities. In fact when conducting usability testing on websites that fully meet we cake standards we sometimes identify issues that that aren't
Makoto Ueki (20:23)
Mentioned in the guidelines. For example, even when sufficient color contrast is provided between text and background colors, some users may actually find the color contrast is too strong. Or while headings may be probably marked up for screen reader users.
Makoto Ueki (20:46)
Having too many headings can sometimes be counterproductive. Just for your information, in Japan, children with disabilities generally attend special schools or special education classes. So for us Japanese people,
Makoto Ueki (21:03)
opportunities to interact with people with disabilities may be overwhelmingly pure compared to the other countries. Personally, I didn't have any family members, relatives and friends who have disabilities. So if I had if I had not studied this career, I might still be living my life
Makoto Ueki (21:28)
without any contact with people with disabilities. So through my through my journeys with accessibility, I've come to realize that the web web truly has tremendous potential and there is so much things I don't know and there are many different user experiences out there that differs from my own.
Makoto Ueki (21:56)
let me share another story. I have partnerships with some web design agencies in Japan and I serve as accessibility advisor for their in-house design, development, and or UX teams. We regularly host study sessions featuring guests with various disabilities.
Makoto Ueki (22:20)
During these sessions we observe how how they actually use websites and listen to their stories and I witnessed countless moments when web designers and developers have that aha aha moment you know they were like that's why the week has
Makoto Ueki (22:43)
that specific success criteria. I was like, uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Neil Milliken (22:48)
Yes.
Makoto Ueki (22:49)
That's why I believe it's it's very, very important not just to study the guidelines, but also to meet real users. understand the reasons behind the guidelines, and then use that understanding to expand our imagination.
Makoto Ueki (23:08)
I'm still running a lot from usability testing with users with disabilities, chatting with them and even go out for drinks.
Neil Milliken (23:17)
Well, the drinks are are really important. I and I I think that that that's you know where we where we share the sort of the informal stuff around accessibility. we've talked about some of the stuff that you've you've learned over the years working with various different companies.
Neil Milliken (23:37)
What if you could give one piece of advice to the global accessibility community, what would your message be to them? What singular piece of advice would you give if you could only leave one message?
Makoto Ueki (23:53)
well when when it comes to accessibility, people often hold preconceptions and stereotypes that it requires doing something special, something they would never normally do, just for a specific group of users.
Makoto Ueki (24:14)
Most extreme example of the misunderstanding is that accessibility means making content usable with screen reader users. For example, since wik has so many success criteria, they might feel overwhelmed just by looking at the list of requirements and the number of the success criteria in the guideline. However
Makoto Ueki (24:40)
based on my experience evaluating websites over the past twenty years, the issues I couldn't I frequently identify haven't changed much whether twenty years ago or today. For instance they can be boiled down to about ten ten key points like
Neil Milliken (25:01)
Okay.
Makoto Ueki (25:02)
alternative text for images, colour contrasts.
Makoto Ueki (25:06)
keyboard navigation, heading markup, form controls, video captions, resizable content, and so on. moreover, I think these are all basic fundamentals of web design and development. interest interestingly, I could say that these fundamentals represent over 80%
Makoto Ueki (25:29)
of all existing accessibility issues on the websites. Of course, there are also more challenging cases such as super custom user interface components that cannot be addressed without without using way area or something. However, such cases represent only a small portion of the total. I'm always saying that if you
Makoto Ueki (25:54)
simply do those basic fundamentals. You can resolve around 80% of existing issues and boost accessibility to reliably higher level. I often explain those basic fundamentals in seminars, training sessions and workshops. In fact what I'm lecturing hasn't changed much over the past 20 years.
Makoto Ueki (26:19)
Participants almost always give me the very same feedback like it was almost more straightforward than than I had expected, or the difficulty has dropped significantly or I was already doing about half of these ten basic items. Perhaps that's just how deep how deeply rooted their
Makoto Ueki (26:45)
preconceptions and stereotypes are. I would like to tell them that rather than being trapped by preconceptions or stereotypes, you should first understand the reality of what guidelines exactly require to do and get started with the basic fundamentals. They are not that difficult, you know, very, very basic.
Makoto Ueki (27:13)
Just by doing that, you be able to make your websites more accessible and usable to wider range of users and you are able to provide better user experience than ever before to all users.
Neil Milliken (27:28)
Thank you. And or should I say Domo Argato?
Neil Milliken (27:32)
it's it's been a real pleasure to to learn from you today. I need to thank you for joining us finally and also thank our friends at Amazon for supporting us to keep on air. So Makoto, thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure to have you on.
Makoto Ueki (27:50)
Thank you so much. I would say web accessibility is marathon, with no finished line. So
Neil Milliken (27:56)
Yeah, yes.
Makoto Ueki (27:58)
so progress, progress over perfection to make it more accessible
Neil Milliken (28:01)
Absolutely.
Makoto Ueki (28:03)
and inclusive, we can do it. Yes we can. So let's let's make it happen.
Neil Milliken (28:06)
Yes. We and and don't be afraid to get
Neil Milliken (28:09)
started. Yes. Yes.
Debra Ruh (28:12)
Before
Debra Ruh (28:12)
we jump off, can you tell people how to contact you if they want to learn more about your work?
Neil Milliken (28:17)
Yeah.
Makoto Ueki (28:19)
I am on the LinkedIn, which is the easiest way to reach out to me. Yeah, anytime. Welcome.
Neil Milliken (28:28)
Thank you.
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