Can Digital Inclusion Be the Hidden Path to Corporate Learning Success

00:00.00

Rishi

Welcome everyone to the Tech in EdTech Podcast. It's a pleasure to welcome you once again into our newest episode. Today we dwell into a thought-provoking discussion - Can digital inclusion be a hidden path to corporate learning success? I'm your host Rishi from Magic EdTech, and our guest for today's podcast is Parampreet Singh, Digital Inclusion Leader from Guardian Life. He's an evangelist with thirteen-plus years of experience and his efforts are pivotal toward designing and implementing programs aimed at making digital learning products accessible. Param, thanks for joining me, and welcome to today's show. Param, why don't we start today's session with how you got into education and your journey since then?

00:41.38

Parampreet Singh

Absolutely! Thank you Rishi for having me. It's a pleasure to be on your podcast. Taking you back to my background Rishi, over the last thirteen years I have had multiple teams but inclusive experiences. And if I take you back in time to the year 2010, the year I graduated as a computer engineer from Punjab, I took a job as a frontend developer. However, I left within fifteen days, because at that time I was too naive to believe that only backend developers solve the real-life complex problems and frontend developers do the cosmetic updates to an application. My real journey to build inclusive experiences began when I joined Infosys in 2011. Very good. A new perspective on the importance of creating usable experiences. You and I agree, Rishi, that without a great user experience, which I believe begins the moment a user visits your website; a potential user will become your consumer mostly based on how the application looks and feels. And how easy it is for a user to use it. Then I made another move in 2017, and I'm thankful to Deloitte for giving me the opportunity to work with one of their major healthcare clients; wherein we fully revamped their website making it responsive and accessible, bringing a positive impact on the lives of more than 1.3 million users which to me is very special. And currently at Guardian as the Lead User Experience Engineer and a Co-Lead of Equally Enabled Employer Resource group, I am responsible for leading the efforts towards inclusion and equitable digital access. Every day we strive to build inclusive experiences, bridging the gap of the digital divide.

02:58.69

Rishi

That's an interesting journey! I would say from your move from Deloitte to Guardian Life and you know the whole history around it, it's really pivotal. So thanks for bringing that perspective. I believe our audience will definitely value that out. I want to pivot into trends and disruptions in edtech with taking your views on you know “born accessible”. So what does this word “born accessible” mean in the context of digital content and what benefits does it bring to corporate learning?

03:34.73

Parampreet Singh

Sure Rishi. Interestingly, I was listening to a podcast the other day on the importance of having the right vision, wherein the guest asked the host a question, “How many times a house is built?” And the host answers, “Only once”. And then the guest says that it is built twice. Once in the mind of the architect and then actually by the builders. He was trying to emphasize the notion of conceiving the idea first before making it a reality. And to me, being born accessible means you first conceive the idea of creating and publishing content from the very beginning in a way that is fully accessible to all individuals. Including those with disabilities. And then you follow the right approach in making it a reality.

04:30.54

Magic EdTech

That's an interesting view and perspective. 

04:36.95

Parampreet Singh

Right, Rishi. And to continue on my thought-born accessible approach will ensure that the digital content such as documents, your websites, or online courses are designed and developed with accessibility in mind from the start. Rather than attempting to retrofit after the content has been created. The second part - the answer to your second question - What are the benefits right? There are numerous advantages to following the born-accessible approach. The top 3 that are my favorite are - Inclusivity - born accessible content is designed to be inclusive by default. Accessible content benefits all learners, not just those with disabilities and as a byproduct, it often leads to more user-friendly and efficient learning experiences for everyone. Secondly, Compliance - By adopting a born accessible approach corporations can proactively meet the legal requirements and avoid potential legal lawsuits. Thirdly, Cost Savings - Preventing accessibility issues from the start can save you costs associated with retrofitting and remediations. People mostly ask me - What's the cost of digital accessibility? And my answer to them is that it's much more cost-effective when compared to the cost of addressing a lawsuit, and the follow-up PR to improve the brand image. Apart from these 3 top advantages of being born accessible, there are some of the byproducts; like you get more efficiency, improved learning experiences, enhanced organizational reputation, and better employee engagement.

06:35.40

Rishi

So what is, you know from your experience, the most practical advice you can share with the learning and design teams and organizations looking to ensure their digital content being born accessible?

06:47.19

Parampreet Singh

Great question Rishi! And I would like to address it with the assumption that you have a buy-in from your leadership. Firstly, I would start with creating awareness. Explain what's the need for digital inclusion and how digital accessibility can bridge the gap of digital divide. There are numerous ways we can create awareness. First, we can conduct digital accessibility focus labs. Letting your employees step into the shoes of people with disabilities and understand how they use assistive technology to interact with the digital content. Secondly, invite external speakers especially with disabilities, to share their experiences and perspectives and what impact they are bringing to society because of digital inclusion. And thirdly, by celebrating inclusion regularly. Especially for events like Global Accessibility Awareness Day or International Days of Persons with Disabilities; emphasizing its importance so that your employees feel the pull to it of the born accessible approach. The second approach that I would suggest is to develop and communicate clear accessibility policies and standards within your organization. This will help your product owners or procurement team to be aware when partnering with external vendors for accessibility compliance. Furthermore, I will equip our team with accessibility training. Familiarity with assistive technologies and user experiences of people with disabilities is crucial. We must invest in accessibility training for our L&D teams. Ensure that the team members understand the principles of accessibility, what tools to use, and the industry best practices for accessibility. Additionally, implement an in-house design system. Design systems will ensure consistency across assets and should be your single source of growth for both brand and accessibility compliance. And to further strengthen the process incorporate accessibility from the beginning or commonly known as take accessibility into the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Make accessibility an integral part of your content creation process. Ensure your product owners, designers, developers, and testers are considering accessibility from the very start of any project. Taking ownership of delivering an accessible asset is everyone's responsibility. Apart from these 5 practical tips to implement a born-accessible approach, Rishi, I would recommend conducting regular accessibility audits because you can only improve what you can measure and regular audits certainly keep you in check. Partner with accessibility audit vendors who can perform stringent accessibility audits. These audits can be clubbed with usability studies with people with disabilities. Because, at the end, you create content for people and it must be tested for usability and performing usability studies definitely provides insights on what's working well and what can be improved.

10:44.87

Rishi 

That's a good perspective and would you like to share what should be the frequency of the audits out over here?

10:51.31

Parampreet Singh

That can vary Rishi, depending upon how frequently your UI is getting updated. If you are updating it every quarter then that's how the audit should be performed at that cadence. However, what we have seen from our recent audits is that if the team has been audited and they are not updating - there are no major updates to their UI, they only work on the remediation processes wherein, they fix the identified gaps and they go for the validations instead of the actual audits.

11:30.73

Rishi

And how do you think AI is influencing digital inclusion? Does AI technologies, you know, reduce the efforts such as making content more accessible?

11:45.10

Parampreet Singh

I know some people are scared that AI might replace them. But I stumbled upon another great statement by Mr. Kareem Lakani who is a professor at Harvard Business School and specializes in workplace technology. Particularly in AI, and he said ‘AI won’t replace humans but humans with AI will replace humans without AI.’ It's all about upskilling yourself and adopting AI to influence and enhance the inclusion efforts. I believe AI technologies are the game changers and will play a significant role in advancing digital inclusion efforts, particularly in making digital content more accessible. To list a few examples - we have automated captioning. Not all, most of the Youtube videos provide closed captions. AI-driven speech recognition and natural language processing enable automatic captioning of audio and video content. It benefits everyone to consume content via multiple sensors. Second example would be natural language interfaces. AI-driven chatbots are everywhere and voice assistance devices with natural language understanding make it easier for individuals with cognitive or communication impairment to interact with digital devices and platforms. In summary, I would say AI is everywhere and is empowering digital inclusion efforts by automating the accessibility features, personalizing content, and improving the overall user experience.

13:37.21

Rishi

You know this is the overwhelming view on the solutions which can be drawn upon by the industry. I want to know that, as you mentioned, people have different views on using AI and not using AI; but what are the typical potential challenges and ethical considerations associated with using AI in digital inclusion?

14:02.82

Parampreet Singh

Yeah again, a great question Rishi! I believe the 3 biggest challenges are biases, privacy, and security concerns. Why biasness or fairness? Because AI algorithms can inherit bias present in their training data. If the data used to train the AI models are biased, the outcomes can sustain or even compound the existing inequalities. And this is a major ethical concern. Particularly when it comes to accessibility and inclusion efforts. It's essential to ensure that AI is trained on diverse personas, and representative data to avoid reinforcing biasness. And why privacy concerns? AI often involves collection and analysis of personal data. Organizations must handle this data with care and respect for individuals' privacy rights. As of today, I'm sure there's no way to find out if the user used any assistive technology hile interacting with the application and this was done intentionally keeping individuals' privacy rights intact and not to let the data drive the accessibility initiatives. Because a team might say that they have less people with disabilities using their application, so they might not invest time or money into it. And lastly, security vulnerabilities. Organizations must ensure the security and integrity of AI systems to protect sensitive data. Particularly, when AI is used in the context of accessibility or personal systems. It's essential, Rishi, for organizations to adopt responsible AI practices, adhere to data ethics guidelines, and prioritize diversity and inclusion in AI development. It's a shared responsibility among technology developers, organizations, and policymakers to ensure that AI contributes to greater accessibility and inclusivity, rather than hindering it.

16:29.80

Rishi

Thanks for that perspective. So I would, you know, like to move away from the trend of baking accessibility into the Software Development Life Cycle. As you mentioned that the role which the developers play is very critical, so what factors need to come together to have accessibility baked into the typical SDLC?

16:50.43

Parampreet Singh

Rishi, it's really simple and everyone on the team has to contribute and should be held responsible for it. Start by creating a playbook that lists all the roles on your team - What their responsibilities are? What we expect from them? and provide helpful resources for them to refer to. Start with product owners or train leads. They must ensure that adequate time, budget, and resources are allocated. They should ensure that their team is trained for accessibility and accessibility should be included within the definition of done for a user story. Second, designers must work on personas, creating accessible designs that have accessibility annotations. Schedule design walkthrough sessions with the dev. team to provide them with clear guidance on how to read the designs and address any accessibility annotations, questions that they might have. So for developers, they must ensure they adhere to the WCAG requirements mentioned in the user story and they must use accessibility tools and plugins while developing a page or a component. Then come our testers. They must follow a great accessibility testing routine. Because without a great testing process, there are high chances of missing corner case scenarios. And lastly, audits - they are critical because they provide a benchmark for you to improve on. By combining these five factors Rishi, organizations can successfully bake accessibility into their Software Development Life Cycle - or SDLC we call it - ensuring that the tested products and services are more inclusive and user-friendly for everyone, including individuals with disabilities.

19:50.10

Rishi

So given your perspective on the Software Development Life Cycle, you know we see you know new developers joining enterprises and they start beginning coding and developing the product in its own life and shape. Can you talk about the importance of training and raising awareness among the developers and stakeholders about the need for accessibility?

20:21.89

Parampreet Singh

Yep, sure, Rishi. Raising awareness for the need of digital inclusion is of the utmost importance because it helps your employees understand the ‘why’, and that creates a pull rather than a push among them to take accountability of building inclusive experiences. Training to me is enabling and equipping your employees with the right tools and knowledge to achieve the task at hand. It upskills them with the right knowledge on how to make content accessible. Both training and awareness contribute to the creation of an inclusive culture within an organization. And this culture values diversity and accessibility, making it a more attractive place for both employees and customers. By investing in accessibility education and fostering a culture of awareness, organizations can positively impact their reputation, audience reach, and the overall experiences. Digital inclusion Rishi, and the creation of ‘born accessible’ content can significantly enhance the quality of corporate learning initiatives in several ways. Firstly, by providing greater access for all employees. Remember, it's all about widening the spectrum of your user base, and born accessible content ensures that all employees regardless of their abilities or disabilities can access and benefit from corporate training material. This inclusivity fosters a more diverse and equitable learning environment. Secondly, accessible content is designed with accessibility in mind. It enhances the learning experience for all employees leading to a better retention of information, increased engagement, and improved learning outcomes. Born-accessible content is better suited for global audiences as well. It can be easily translated into different languages and adopted by Diverse Cultural Contexts. Thirdly, accessibility features can accommodate different learning preferences and needs. For instance, text-to-speech options benefit auditory turners, while alternative formats like transcripts and captions cater to various learning styles. Furthermore, ensuring accessibility means complying with their relevant disability laws and standards. This helps protect organizations from legal challenges related to inaccessible content. Organizations that prioritize accessibility gain a competitive edge in attracting a diverse workforce and customer base. And lastly, addressing accessibility from the beginning reduces the need for costly retroactive fixes and ensures that the organizational resources are used efficiently.

23:44.35

Rishi

Param, I'm sure this is definitely going to add a lot of value to our audience. So looking at the future of tech in edtech, do you think there are tangible ways to measure these benefits and demonstrate their impact?

24:49.49

Parampreet Singh

Oh yeah, of course, there are tangible ways to measure the benefits of digital inclusion. Start by tracking the data usage. Analyze the user data to track the engagement and interaction with accessible learning materials. Look at metrics such as number of users, the frequency and duration of access, and completion rates. Then compare this data to non-accessible content to demonstrate the impact of accessibility on usage. The second way would be to conduct assessments and quizzes to measure the learning outcomes. And knowledge retention among employees using accessible content compared to those using non-accessible content. This can provide insights into the effectiveness of accessible materials. You can build on top of it with surveys to gather feedback from employees regarding the accessibility of learning content. Question them about their experience, the ease of use and look for the wow factor. Furthermore, examine dropout rates and the duration of user engagement. Accessible content should idly lead to lower dropout rates and longer engagement times indicating that employees find the content valuable and engaging. In the worst case, if an organization had a class section lawsuit track legal compliance by monitoring the number of accessibility-related complaints, lawsuits, or regulatory finds. A reduction in legal issues related to accessibility demonstrates the impact of prioritizing accessibility. By collecting and analyzing these metrics Rishi, organizations can demonstrate the tangible impact of digital inclusion and born accessible content on corporate learning initiatives.

29:18.14

Rishi

So, you know, summing it up I believe we are nearing the time of this podcast. Any parting thoughts or advice for your peers and the developers of corporate edtech which you like to give Param?

29:27.75

Parampreet Singh

Yeah, absolutely Rishi. Digital inclusion is a collective effort and it takes a village to achieve it. In the beginning, it might look like a daunting task but believe me, it's easier when you get started with the right training, tools, and expert help. My advice would be to practice empathy because accessibility is not a ‘good to have feature’ but an essential functionality for people with disabilities. Approach accessibility with the goal of creating more inclusive and equitable learning experiences. Secondly, embrace accessibility as a core value. Make accessibility an intrinsic part of your development process. Treat it as a fundamental value, not just a checkbox to be ticked. Take ownership and ensure that everything that you touch is fully accessible. And lastly, keep upskilling yourself because digital accessibility is an evolving space. Stay informed about the latest accessibility standards, technologies, and best practices. Invest in ongoing training and education to keep your skills and knowledge up to date. Remember digital accessibility is not just a compliance requirement. It's a moral and ethical imperative that can lead to improved learning experiences, enhanced inclusivity, and a more equitable education system. 

31:10.84

Rishi

Param, I can tell, you know you are a great evangelist and I believe the insights what you brought to the table are really, definitely valuing. I would like to thank you for joining us today for the latest Tech in EdTech podcast. Really appreciate your insights. I hope our audience will really drive a lot of value from it and we look forward to you and them joining us in future podcasts too. Have a great day ahead. Thank you.

31:40.61

Parampreet Singh

Yep, Thanks again for having me and giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts.