How to be more inclusive, in design and life. (With guest Scot Whitney)

In this episode we talk to Scot Whitney, Podcast Host – The All4Inclusion Pod, an advocate for inclusion and wheelchair user looking to help others see society's boundaries. Find him on Linkedin, https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottjwhitney/

Scott founded All4inclusion with their amazing philosophy: “We believe everyone is born equal and every person should be able to access the same education, job opportunities and be able to socialise in the same ways.” Find out more and support them here: https://www.all4inclusion.org

We talk about inclusion and accessibility, how we can all be more inclusive and how small changes can make a big impact.

🐎 80% comedy, 20% UX, 0% filler

👕 Get stickers and tees at https://www.paulwilshaw.com/shop/ 

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🎙 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5wF48uFWHs5a7gpr3eNwrC
🎙 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/faster-horses-a-podcast-about-ui-design-user/id1496787723

🎥 Watch: https://youtu.be/GYjaKrOt1VE

PEACE!

Produced by:
Paul Wilshaw
Nick Tomlinson
Mark Sutcliffe
James Medd
Anthony Jones
Chris Sutcliffe
Title music: James Medd

Sound effects: https://www.zapsplat.com 

Transcript

Mark: 0:00

Hello, Paul,

Paul: 0:01

Hello?

Mark: 0:02

It feels weird that just being the two of

Paul: 0:04

know it does. Doesn't it

Mark: 0:05

it's hard.

Paul: 0:06

It's a

Mark: 0:06

Are we actually friends? Do we know

Paul: 0:08

yeah, it's a bit

Mark: 0:10

Do we know each other? You

Paul: 0:15

harsh. So regular listeners will know. We usually have myself mark and Nick and Nick can't make it today.

Mark: 0:23

Yeah.

Paul: 0:24

probably,

Mark: 0:26

Probably in a meeting right now wishing he was here dreaming of us.

Paul: 0:30

A hundred percent.

Mark: 0:32

quite right.

Paul: 0:33

so yeah. Nick, when you listen back to this stop accepting fucking meetings and just join us. Yeah.

Mark: 0:40

we have this scheduled like all week

Paul: 0:44

stop.

Mark: 0:44

that's it. Last minute drops out. It's unacceptable, Nick. So not acceptable. It must.

Paul: 0:49

But the show goes on. We haven't done one for a while

Mark: 0:52

It must. Yeah, no, it's been a while.

Paul: 0:54

So let, she would kick in the intro

Mark: 0:57

Yeah, let's do it. Let's do Fire up the in let's do the do

Paul: 1:00

let's do

Mark: 1:03

There we go.

mediaboard_video: 1:06

Welcome to faster horses. Your house will show I've led the design and development teams of Barclays. Another well-known brands will not have awards and a few Nick Tomlinson and the digital illustrator lead UX designer, Manchester best investment company. And I'm Mark's lead UX designer in the digital automation sphere coming up. We'll be talking about design for experience and technology followed by UX. Tombola where we pick apart the experience of a random product objects. Service will play nice and a special address from stealer fruit Bolton. Okay. Hello, thank you all with the show. If you want to be part of the show, you can send us questions on Twitter with the hashtag faster horses pop now on to the show.

Mark: 2:08

For some reason that really sounded like it was like slaughtered by about 15%.

Paul: 2:13

dunno what you mean? Yeah. It was yeah, I think it's, cuz we've not done it for a while.

Mark: 2:18

so long that can't remember, I sound a stone sore hungover on that, but it's just cuz it was in the morning and I probably was hungover, I had a bit to drink last night, so I sound exactly the same right now. At least I'm consistent.

Paul: 2:34

yeah. Why? Why

Mark: 2:37

Oh no. Yeah. It's a shame Nick isn't here today, but we heard his voice in the intro, so not all he is lost. He's here in spirit. I.

Paul: 2:46

It's he's you're talking about like he's dead

Mark: 2:50

remember him fondly in memorandum.

Paul: 2:55

alright, Pete. No,

Mark: 2:56

R I P in

Paul: 2:57

yeah, he'll be back on the next episode. But yeah. What are we talking about today?

Mark: 3:03

I believe it's inclusive. It's yeah. What are you talking about down under

Paul: 3:08

D dunno why I went Australian , but

Mark: 3:12

we're doing inclusivity today. Aren't we?

Paul: 3:15

yeah,

Mark: 3:15

Which is a pretty big topic. Isn't it?

Paul: 3:18

massive. Yeah. Yeah. And I think yeah, a few questions. How can we be more inclusive as designers? Oh, here we go. And I joined by a special guest.

Mark: 3:28

at the 11th hour. I are with us. Scott, are you there?

scott_whitney: 3:32

Yeah. How

Mark: 3:33

Here he is. Very well, thank you. Do speak of the devil and he shall appear.

scott_whitney: 3:38

you doing? Yeah.

Mark: 3:39

you say inclusivity three times into the mirror, Scott, Whitney appears behind you.

scott_whitney: 3:46

Few things going on this morning, trying to sort my camera out. I haven't got a clue what's going on with

Mark: 3:51

oh, don't worry about it. I just imagined imagine a handsome third man appearing.

scott_whitney: 3:58

Yeah. I'm like buff,

Mark: 4:00

Yeah. Yeah. Adonis

scott_whitney: 4:02

big, solid chin, one of go

mark: 4:06

proper cleft chin

Mark: 4:07

A jawline you could open a safe with

scott_whitney: 4:09

Exactly.

Paul: 4:11

amazing. So Scott, welcome to the show. Welcome to faster horses. In fact you came at a perfect time. We just rolled the intro. So that's really nice. So Scott, do you wanna just give us a quick intro, who you are, what you do and anything else you wanna tell us?

scott_whitney: 4:28

Yeah. Obviously for those who've never seen me. I am the perfect Adonis for those who have no, I'm a liar. Yeah, I I, I. Founded a company called all well, a CIC community and dress company called all for inclusion in February. So when we went into into lockdown, is healthy, getting into probably one of the best bits of shape that I've been in for a while. And and then came to the summer.

Mark: 4:50

Oh,

scott_whitney: 4:50

Came ill. Initially it was just like a so back. And then, if you fast forward, lots of trips to a and E lots of, I dunno hand me offs, mess up screwups whatever I've had, I was then in with sepsis, so I had, different parts of my body. Just Twitch. Can. Weight bear on my left leg anymore. And permanent wheelchair user now I've had heart issues. Non-epileptic seizures been diagnosed with something called F and D functional neurological disorder, which is a more common than I thought of uncommon thing.

Mark: 5:24

Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm,

scott_whitney: 5:24

found a, quite a good community around it. I guess it's got to happen to someone. So why not me? I guess I look at things I can't do now. Can't get things off like high shelves. What can I do? I can free wheel down a hill. And I guess you guys can,

Mark: 5:41

not as a default position. Like

Paul: 5:43

no.

Mark: 5:44

that reminds me of I saw footage of the the cheese rolling. Competition down in where is it? Is it doer or someone

Paul: 5:52

Gloss, Glosser.

Mark: 5:54

Is it? I don't know. I don't know. And I feel like you might be an unfair advantage there, Scott,

scott_whitney: 5:59

The thing is, if I go faster than my cheese

Paul: 6:02

yeah.

scott_whitney: 6:02

gonna cause a few issues.

Paul: 6:04

Oh,

Mark: 6:05

it reaches 72 miles an hour peak velocity. Like how fast are you capable of going now? Free wheeling down a

scott_whitney: 6:12

probably 0.7 miles per hour, fast enough. So when I try to use the rims to stop it, it can take skin off my

Mark: 6:23

Oh that's a thing they don't want you about as a wheelchair user.

scott_whitney: 6:27

yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Mark: 6:29

Oh, that's a real, that's a real pain right there. I just thinking about it's making my hand tingle. Oh so you're quite the story there. What over, what kind of period of time did that all this happen? Was that okay? Yeah.

scott_whitney: 6:43

started maybe end of July, 2020.

Mark: 6:49

Yeah. So pandemic wise as well, it was all around pandemic time as well, which I imagine presented some unique challenges.

scott_whitney: 6:57

Yeah. There was, there was one time, it was probably about January 21 where where I had some accelerated heart rate and was taken into a and E put into recess and didn't use them. But. Position the paddles ready next to to my bed. And, I saw cues and cues of people in ambulances just waiting to get in the beds were everywhere. And and yeah they said to me really, we should be keeping you in, but you're way safer at home.

Mark: 7:27

Bloody hell.

scott_whitney: 7:28

out then similar thing happened the month after. And I was in for a few days, it was quite a time for them. It was yeah, that's definitely slowed things up. Yeah.

Mark: 7:37

definitely. Definitely. Okay. So inclusivity then you mentioned you started what you, during this time as well, you started your own

Paul: 7:46

Outfits

Mark: 7:47

outfit, that's it? I know WhatsApp for the firm over you. No. You started your own company. Was it go on, tell us a bit about that.

scott_whitney: 7:54

Yeah, so it's a social interest company, community interest company. There's, I've got lots of awesome ideas that I can't get outta my head. But what I am doing at the minute we've got what I call disability and wellness conversations. They're 90 minutes, peer tope mentoring, and they happen once a fortnight on a Tuesday evening. That came about because I, the first time I was using my kind of wheelchair on my own as a responsible adult because a taxi was taking too long.

Paul: 8:26

nice,

scott_whitney: 8:27

I had to get down a paper and I thought, how do I do this? I just wish I had someone that I could have asked before. It runs almost like a business networking, but it's designed for people with disabilities, people who care for people with disabilities or people who offer services to people with disabilities. We get some people. That come dipping and out a little bit. We've got some that are regular, that are there all the time. So yeah, so that's really good. It I think everyone comes needing support, but they, everyone also comes having given support to someone else. And I think. The power of actually providing support to someone else gives a real feel good factor for people. So that's the first thing. I've got my podcast, which goes out weekly on a Wednesday, the all for inclusion, pod. Yeah.

Mark: 9:15

that's that's a bit more regular than ours, I don't think ours is the podcast, a video with a show to

scott_whitney: 9:21

Yeah. So if you, yeah, so if anyone's listening to this in six months time, it's to that. But yeah, no that's pretty cool. I enjoy doing that and getting different people on for me. I just, I, haven't in January gone. I'm not an expert. And now I've got awful inclusion, light switches, flicked, and suddenly I'm the be all and end all of the fountain

Mark: 9:39

Yeah.

scott_whitney: 9:39

I think I come in with just an inquisitive attitude and just wanting to learn and by me learning and having it recorded and out there, it's gonna help other people learn. So that's so that's that. And then once a month I'm doing. Webinars. So I've done three so far. So the next one's in July 12th of July, and that's all about reasonable adjustments in the workplace. So I've titled it reasonable adjustments, a tick box exercise. So I'm

Mark: 10:10

Okay. Ooh, I like the sound of this.

scott_whitney: 10:13

but yeah, that's the controversial title

Mark: 10:16

yeah. I love it. I love it.

scott_whitney: 10:17

Yeah, so that's, what's out there at the moment. There's a few other things in the pipeline, I'm just trying to see if I can pull them off cuz I, I do all of this around my nine to five.

Mark: 10:26

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

scott_whitney: 10:27

It's fitting it in whilst fatigue lets me to whilst fathering. Three children. And I say that in a really loose sense because because step, my girlfriend is like 1.8, 5% of the parents

Paul: 10:46

oh, I didn't say.

Mark: 10:50

Yeah.

scott_whitney: 10:51

kind cool stuff.

Mark: 10:53

Yeah. The cool parent. Are you?

scott_whitney: 10:55

No, she's probably still the

Mark: 10:56

Yeah. Yeah. All

scott_whitney: 10:57

but I'm just, she's also got the other bows to the string

Mark: 11:01

Yeah. Yeah.

scott_whitney: 11:02

to the bow. Isn't it. But

Paul: 11:03

Yeah. And Scott, you mentioned quite an easy cuz I I do talk and I quite often mention public toilets and people who regular listens to this show will be sick of me talking about public toilets

Mark: 11:16

We have a, we have done a UX Tom baller on, on

Paul: 11:20

Yeah, we did.

Mark: 11:21

toilets as well. Yeah. And we just scratched the surface that, that turned very quickly into an accessibility discussion. Didn't it?

Paul: 11:27

And even as a, a fully able person I'd find public toilets, the, one of the most frustrating public spaces in the entire world. So when you first started using your wheelchair, What was the most surprising thing you found that just doesn't happen?

scott_whitney: 11:46

About public toilets or

Paul: 11:48

anything? About anything?

Mark: 11:49

That's just, Paul's go to

Paul: 11:51

my, yeah, it's just my go to

scott_whitney: 11:54

start whilst I'm thinking about something I'll I'll talk about public toilets for you, Paul.

Mark: 11:59

Yeah. Yeah. We got to hit, this is the real tick boxing tick box exercise.

scott_whitney: 12:04

The thing that frustrates me most about public toilets is if I go to a public toilet in a hospital and I'm being very specific here, public toilets in a hospital, they generally have enough room to, to wheel a route in a wheelchair, not all do. And and some disabled toilets can't even really fit a big wheelchair in, but that's another topic, you go toilet and they've got the metal toilets where you've got a foot pedal,

Paul: 12:30

We got there in the end. I know. Yeah. Yeah. yep. Yeah.

scott_whitney: 12:31

but they've built the sides up. So you can't get it open unless you use the foot pedal. That's brilliant for someone in the

Mark: 12:39

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. That's, that's free leg use is it's up there. Isn't it? Jesus.

scott_whitney: 12:44

So I often find, wash my hands afterwards and I've got no option, but to take then the paper towel in my pocket,

Mark: 12:51

Oh, no,

scott_whitney: 12:53

use the

Mark: 12:54

you can't use the bin

scott_whitney: 12:55

The bin. Yeah. So that's probably my frustration on your public toilets. I dunno, is fattest the right word to use.

Mark: 13:03

kink. We don't kink shame at faster horses.

Paul: 13:06

Yeah. We can call that fetish. Yeah. I

Mark: 13:08

all kinks are, all fetishes are equally, but

scott_whitney: 13:10

But yeah, I guess the thing that really pees me off the most is is people drop parking in front of drop I've gone before and there's been, I've had to almost go half a mile out my way to be able to get off a pavement, to get on the other side, and that's probably. The biggest extreme, looking out my window now which obviously, is big ocean and things

Paul: 13:34

right. Yeah.

Mark: 13:35

Beautiful view

Paul: 13:35

yeah.

Mark: 13:36

Mediterranean Vista.

scott_whitney: 13:38

Yeah. But in reality it's a small close end and it's, it's permit parking only. And then just beyond that, there's some double yellow lines just before. In that difference between that permit parking and the double yellow lines, there's a gap for a car

Mark: 13:56

All right.

scott_whitney: 13:57

where they put the drop curb.

Mark: 13:59

Okay. yeah

scott_whitney: 14:00

just planning is can be awful.

Mark: 14:03

say, cuz this touches on. Quite a few things. Like at what point do you put the responsibility there? Like you could put it on, obviously people not being dickhead, weather parking, but there's the urban planning aspect of it. Because as you mentioned, then Scott, specifically that drop curve could be anywhere else and could have a synergy with the other, either the permit parking or the double years yellows to make things more accessible. But then you could also, is the answer a better designed wheelchair somehow? That means you can, you don't need to use drop chairs at drop chairs, drop curves anymore and stuff like that. So where would, I was just throwed out to the room where do we think that responsibility should lie?

scott_whitney: 14:45

Yeah. I would take away from this high tech wheelchair. I guess 20, 20 twos vision of a hover board. Yeah, let's take that aside because you gotta think there's gonna be people who can't afford to go in though. So you're gonna have to look at that bin as a minimum standard. And then what about wheelchair use? Wheelchair users, sorry, push chairs mums and push chairs, things like that. So yeah, so let's take, I think, take that one out. I think. Yeah. Let's stop being Dick. Let's not park there, but. I've got absolutely no problem. And I'm sure there's other people who are listening to this will go, nah, I've got a problem with this, but I've got no problem if someone's in that car. If I'm coming up, someone's in the car, it happened the other day. And someone just looked at me and just waved and just drove forward a little bit. So I could get down the drop curb and went back, not an issue That. But again, the other day I had it where someone was on that drop curb. went around the car to obviously get to the next drop curb and a complete, I dunno, tool of a driver reverse back at high speed. I used my hands as well as I could to stop and go back. There was a lot of beeping by other cars. And anyway, like my daughter was with me and I said to her, People have stopped to say you are right. You are right. I said, how close was that? And she went centimeter, the guy was oblivious to it in the car. I was a little bit oblivious to it. But who caused that? Was it the person who parked, blocking that first drop curb? Was it the tool of a driver or was it the planning

Mark: 16:28

How far back does it go? You can

scott_whitney: 16:29

Yeah, so I would probably try to the planning should be better. I think that's in my opinion, the focus point then if you've still got people parking there and they're parking there on double yellows or whatever, then they're just dickhead

Paul: 16:44

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting mention cuz this Skype, cause I think this falls into a lot of problems we see in user experience and you can design things and make it amazing. But what a lot of designers I see, they miss out like that use case and they miss out the user. Of what's. How is someone gonna use that? So you can put in like a thousand drop curbs, but if people are just gonna park there or, and I see it all the time and it grinds my gears that when I do do the school run and drop off people just park in front of the school gates, they park on double yellows. They park in not letting even like a car's width go there. And you're thinking like there's no common sense, but I think if you, in the design or the planning, it allow for that and then allow for those user experiences. The world becomes a bit of a better place. And I think there's a bit of education where people are just super lazy or park anywhere and park on double yellow lines, as long as, they're sitting in the car and they don't care about it. But I think if there was some, they had a thoughts and process, awesome process into that and some better user experience, then a lot of those issues would go away. And I think we mentioned in the past, like what like the Nordic and the Netherlands did, they did this elephant path. So before making a proper tar act or paved path, they let people just walk. And then this warm trodden path is. The path that everybody's gonna take. So let's put our efforts and pave that rather than paving around the area. And then people just do the shortcut anyway, the do the lowest common denominator, the lowest entry barrier to entry. And, there is a bit of education, but I think with design and a lot of that is about inclusion, about thinking about those people about including, and maybe getting feedback from different user groups and not just kinda going oh, this looks like a double yellow line area. This looks like a, we should a drop curb here, cuz like we did it in the last hundred curbs. And it, it's that little bit of thought can make all the difference. And again, not just to people in wheelchairs, but to everybody. And I think. We often talk about like the user needs and the acceptance. And we say and when it boils down to it that only 21% of the world's population have no accessibility needs whatsoever, which then when you go to a company and they say they don't care about about accessibility, they don't care about inclusion. They don't care about those things. You think you don't care about 79% of the world which you always quite staggering to

Mark: 19:42

Yeah. Yeah,

Paul: 19:42

think and feel about.

Mark: 19:44

And the O the other, this is always my angle of attack. When addressing accessibility with stakeholders, TM is that, 79% of the world is a lot, but that's also 79% of your market. And if you are if you are in something like urban planning or something where your work is affecting a huge demographic, that. Has such a broad set of needs and they're doing something they're engaging with whatever you are designing on such a day to day basis then. Yeah, you absolutely need to understand the breadth and depth of the problems you're trying to solve. And I do think that doesn't happen properly. It, the path least resistance idea really does have legs. Everyone will will take the shortest route to our park where they can, because it's easy for them and people are fundamentally selfish. But I think if you are able to design a space or a product, whatever it is, or a service, whatever you're doing, but design a space that intrinsically engenders that kind of consideration, then it can also become something more something part of a Of the culture of that particular environment as well. So people naturally start to be more considerate and stuff because that kind of falls into the zeitgeist. But I think that takes a lot of time to bring about. Yeah,

Paul: 21:02

Yeah. Change of

scott_whitney: 21:04

Yeah, so much that needs to be done on kind of the education piece and the more people talk about it, the more people understand, because, I guess from the planning point of view, they've probably got two drop curbs in a. For meter space. But they're both not really the most accessible drop curbs or actually just have the drop curb right. In the middle of the double yellow line when no one parks that would, that would fix it. But yeah, I mean on everything when it comes to accessibility, there's so much that people don't know, there's so much, I haven't got a clue about. So if you don't know how you're gonna, how you're gonna fix this, bring a solution

Paul: 21:40

Yeah, exactly.

Mark: 21:41

that's it. It's one thing Nick says a lot is, and it sounds he says you don't know what you don't know, and that's often the case with things like this, but that's where the research comes into it. That's where the conversations and going back to what you were saying earlier, Scott, about the the support con conversations and, giving and receiving any amount of support, I think gives you that perspective. And even if you don't have the answers, it allows you to think about what it is you don't know and, encourages you to investigate that.

scott_whitney: 22:13

Yeah. And having the right people at the table as well, because if you've got

Mark: 22:18

I

scott_whitney: 22:18

10 able bodied men at the table They aren't going to think like a wheelchair user or think like someone who's got autism or hard of hearing or, vision impaired. So it just needs to be a diverse table and you can have it as diverse as you like. And there's probably still something you will

Paul: 22:43

Yeah,

scott_whitney: 22:44

but it, you will be in a better situation, a better position.

Paul: 22:47

Yeah. Definit.

Mark: 22:49

there's a certain element of flexibility, then that's required that to be able to respond to new information as it comes in. And I'm thinking about the planning space again, this urban design kind of area, because that's the kind of place where change happens very slowly. And I wonder what more can be done to, to make it so that. You finally have the right people running table or when they're coming and going and you're getting that information. Can you be responsive to that? Can, as a, as an individual, as a professional, can you implement that new information? If you've got a system that allows you to do that, which I think is a crucial part to this conversation as well.

Paul: 23:29

Yeah,

scott_whitney: 23:29

Yeah, definitely.

Paul: 23:31

definitely. Scott, I if you were anybody new to inclusion and they didn't quite know. What it was or how they could get involved or know more about it. What, have you got any kind of like tips or things we can throw at our audience and say go here, or, you know what's your go to places to say, this is what you need to do

scott_whitney: 23:56

I find that I get tagged in a lot of things on LinkedIn's my kind of social media of choice. I'm on Twitter. I have an Instagram account whether I use it or not, it's a different thing and I have a.

Mark: 24:11

Yeah. That's like me.

scott_whitney: 24:12

And we're briefly on Facebook, but for me, LinkedIn's the kind of big one, but I guess what I would say is you will learn a lot by following three or four people who are disabled, who have. A, a decent amount of followers, I'm not saying you need to follow the person. Who's got the most followers, they might not be the best person, if you follow somebody, who's got a decent amount of followers you, you will learn because. They will look hopefully to share and educate. And that's what it's about. A lot of people I know. And I know this because they've said to me that are scared to, to talk about. Disability. It's a kind of taboo topic. Let's not mention it. Or I see someone who's disabled and I want to speak to them and I want to ask some questions, but I don't want to offend them. So because of that, I will tread on eggshells and I will I'll think of three or four different things that they, that I could say. And then. I'll end up just backing away because I'm, I'm, I don't, I'm trying so hard not to offend and kind, I guess my advice there and is that. You could speak to three people with disabilities, you could use three different terms or you could use the same term to three different people, and you might get a really positive reaction from someone. You might get a really negative reaction from someone else. And then a third person may educate you or give you like a little bit of tips or just really engage. And I think as long whatever language you're using, you won't offend or upset me. But what would, make me make me a little bit more abrupt with my answers and responses to you would be the tone and if you are using it like in a derogatory manner yeah. You expect to have expect to have some kind of backlash. But if you say something that if you say words, Could be deemed to be completely offensive. I've got thick skin. So what I'll do is I'll I'll educate you in a probably. type of way, because I wouldn't want to offend you either. I don't wanna offend you. So I'm gonna, make light of it, educate in a sense. And then hopefully once we then part conversation, you'll go away thinking. Yeah, actually it probably shouldn't say that, but I'm so glad that I've now got two or three different things that I can say. And, actually I'm probably not the best person to. To have that conversation with, because yeah, I'm fairly newly disabled. People will say, I'm disabled. People will say, I'm a person with a disability. People say I'm a wheelchair user. People will say I'm in a wheelchair, I'm on a wheelchair. I say 'em all

Mark: 27:16

Yeah.

scott_whitney: 27:17

So just,

Mark: 27:18

you just go the broadest palette to play with I like that.

scott_whitney: 27:22

Basically I'm Scott

Mark: 27:24

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Paul: 27:26

and that's a good point, cuz that you are still a person. And I think sometimes that. Gets taken away. And I kinda like when you were talking, I was just thinking, a lot of the times, you, there's the representation of people with a disability isn't there, it's like we were, we keep meaning to talk about inclusion and illustrations and things like that. And when I was at Barclays, I was keen to put illustrations of people with different accessibility needs, like someone with a guide dog, somebody in a wheelchair, and then putting a mix of people in, into the illustrations and everything I did. And and I don't see that very often around any, I don't see it in advertised and I don't see it in Mo even movies or things like that. Like if anyone's gonna see top Maverick, No, nobody here with a disability in there, in fact what they've done with Val Kilmer, they've given him an AI voice because he's, he is got cancer of the throat and he can't speak properly. So they've used some old footage and given him AI voice and made him as normal

Mark: 28:33

Okay, basically. Yeah. Jesus

Paul: 28:35

And it

scott_whitney: 28:36

covering up as disability in a

Paul: 28:38

his disability. Yeah. Which,

Mark: 28:41

Christ.

Paul: 28:42

Which could have, they could have do, and they could have put that in the store and they could have

Mark: 28:46

Yeah, good. Yeah. I was gonna say they could have turned that into more of a powerful character point, that it could have become a, an aspect of the artistry as it were, as opposed to AR erasing it. And, because it didn't fit with a very clearly narrow vision of a narrow interpretation of the story. Yeah. That's it.

Paul: 29:06

Definitely. So how could we, Scott, how could we as designers, as technologists, as product people, how could we make sure that, that representation's there, do you think?

scott_whitney: 29:20

I've looked, if you, if, when you're talking about adverts, I've looked at kind of lots of job ads and and they're all, they've got a, they've now got a mixed agenda. Great. They've now got a mix of race. Great. But hang on. If I'm looking at a job ad and there's you've got 15 people of mixed kind of race, mixed gender, but you haven't got a single person in a wheelchair or with a stick or any kind of thing. What does that say? Does that say you're open to working with me? Nah, I don't. But yeah, when it comes to design technology I think we got some, some amazing advances. Do you remember when you used to have a mouse and it was obviously plugged into to the USB of port, but you would take it out and you got the ball And you used to clean off the fluff on the little rollers. I,

Paul: 30:09

Yeah.

Mark: 30:10

Yeah.

scott_whitney: 30:10

I think I need one of them because because like I can Twitch as you like, so my phones will beat up because I've gone to pick it up and I've just twitched and I've thrown it across the room and the same with the wireless mouse. So I use now the mouse pad on the laptop, which is a right note there because it's not as good

Mark: 30:28

track pad.

scott_whitney: 30:29

mouse, is it. It just gets flowed across the room. So if someone can get one of those and also when you a kid, did you used to have footballs an

Paul: 30:36

oh, yes.

Mark: 30:37

Yeah.

scott_whitney: 30:39

So mouse that across the

Paul: 30:43

Scott. Scott, I've got the there's some solutions out there. Get, look Google mouse plunge, and I think that

scott_whitney: 30:52

mouse sponge.

Mark: 30:53

an actual thing?

Paul: 30:53

this is an actual thing gain.

Mark: 30:56

The

scott_whitney: 30:56

was thinking, I just thought of it and I was thinking, this is Dragon's D material, but it's.

Paul: 31:01

this mate, I'm sorry, Scott. Someone's made it. Sorry.

Mark: 31:06

boom romance. Yeah. Yeah. That's more representative. That's not gonna cause problems.

scott_whitney: 31:14

No, but but yeah, I think, I know, like my website, there's so much more that can get done to it. And I sent out a newsletter this week and it was purple background with white writing and someone messaged me. He sent me a screenshot because when I've opened it on my laptop, it's fine. When I've opened it on my phone, it's fine. Every everywhere I've opened it, he's opened it. And that white writings turned. Into black or blue writing, but on a kind of let's go CAARE purple. Whisper purple kind of background. It just makes it unreadable. So I'm gonna, now you have to go back to let's take away from brand color because I'm gonna have to have white background with black writing on it or blue writing or purple writing or something. Yeah, you learn all the time and I've got some accessibility functions on my website, but I know there's definitely a lot more and that's something that I'll be working on with the person who looks after my website, cuz. I haven't got a clue, but obviously you gotta look at, on colorblind as well. That's a big feature on, on websites having the size of the print that can change like I said, colorblind, you can have the different sort of color features. There's so much there, and I'm probably not the best person to speak with about that. But another thing captions on videos.

Mark: 32:35

Oh, yeah. Yep., there's a lot of tools out there now that can generate those as well. Cause I know Paul, you did a recording for faster horses and you transcribed that using

Paul: 32:47

A program called descript. Yeah. Which is brilliant. And you can even put speakers on I'll be doing it with this episode. Tactually yeah, there you

Mark: 32:55

there you go. There you go.

Paul: 32:56

So you can put it put and then it, and it's so easy to do. Yeah, it's a

scott_whitney: 33:01

yeah, on a transcript one, I use one called Otta

Mark: 33:05

I've used OTA before. Yeah.

scott_whitney: 33:07

And that one that's not bad. And actually that's I find that's my favorite bit now about doing the podcast is going through the transcript and changing the words. I wrong. And I've got a, I've got a Southern accent that absolutely hates transcription. And I might start mumbling a little bit more just to give you a bit of fun with that, Paul, but seriously, I think it's, that's my favorite bit, cuz it, may I relive the

Paul: 33:37

Yeah. Yeah.

scott_whitney: 33:38

Cause when you're in the, when you woman recording. I don't think we take everything in that's being said, cuz we're in the moment. And I think when you're then going back and doing the transcript, I start hearing the person's voice. I start feeling the emotions that I felt at the time and some of the topics that I can be discussing it can be when people were in situations when they're, close to death. Or they're talking about their children and, it can be quite emotional, quite upsetting. And it really takes me back to to that moment. And I didn't have transcripts on my first few episodes. And so someone told me about them. So obviously I've, I've used them straight away and I thought it's gonna be more kind of people who are hard of hearing or deaf that are gonna be using them. But a lot of people who've got neurodiverse conditions like ADHD, autism, they prefer. To read the podcast instead of watch it. So it's just opened up an extra audience. And that's what being inclusive is about, is being open to as many people or I guess the ideal is to everyone, but but being open to as many people as you can be.

Paul: 34:46

Yeah. Definitely. In interesting fact that I learned the other day you forget 40% of what you've just heard within the within 10 minutes.

Mark: 34:56

Oh, my God.

Paul: 34:57

yeah, I know. Sorry.

Mark: 34:58

I think I, I feel like that might be slightly higher for me.

Paul: 35:02

Yeah,

Mark: 35:03

yeah, I'm not sure if it's probably like 85% and then it's what, where am I? Who am I, Scott? Who? Another interesting thing. Just a little anecdote we were using dovetail to that's got a transcription narrative to it. It's I dunno if you're aware of dovetail Scott, but it's a a kind of a research repository tool and really interesting problem, is that the transcription misheard something and put a racial slur in instead. No, we're thinking, I was thinking at the time, how is this even possible? Surely you could just flag certain words so that it gets CED out or, but then again, if it's a research software, what, who knows what you're gonna be researching, and if you're researching something which has a particularly sensitive vocabulary own it, is it proper to C that in any way where do where's the line with that? and I thought that was a really interesting problem to have. It was, it was quite funny at the time, the very shocking it was, but when you break it down, what where is the line there? What's proper, what's the proper approach for something like that? Oh,

Paul: 36:11

mark. I need to know the word. It was supposed to be email.

Mark: 36:13

I don't know myself actually. Like I just got told if I did, I wouldn't be saying good on faster horses. I just.

Paul: 36:23

The word it was supposed to be,

Mark: 36:24

Oh, okay. Yeah. I have no idea. No idea.

Paul: 36:28

Okay.

Mark: 36:31

yeah. That's a good part. Something to do with automation. Apparently. I dunno how I dunno where the ven diagram is between, racial slurs and automation vocabulary, but apparently it exists.

Paul: 36:41

quite merged about apparently so

Mark: 36:43

Yeah. It's just a circle.

Paul: 36:44

Scott, I think we're almost at time have you got kind of anything you you know what can we do better? What can we do more? And yeah. And where can people find you to get more information?

scott_whitney: 36:56

They definitely can't find me on this video. You keep going back. You said about that 40% and And a minute ago, when you was saying these these

Paul: 37:05

I

scott_whitney: 37:05

I was nodding. So obviously like my 40% that's missed. I keep forgetting that I'm not on video. So yeah. What can we do better, so much more,

Paul: 37:16

done.

scott_whitney: 37:17

Yeah, I just think mindset is the key. Don't go into things with a closed mindset, have an open mindset and try to approach things from different angles. If you are, if you're setting up something that's physical try to engage and just look, here's a question. Do you mind if. You can gimme the answer to this, to anyone I've done it before. And I've just, I just learned so much and I pick on random people that I've never met and normally,

Mark: 37:51

Is a question why

scott_whitney: 37:55

Yeah but no, I go through like LinkedIn and it always insults your connections in the newest ones first. So it's generally someone I've connected with three days ago. And I can just give them a really personal question that might help me understand something. And it's probably why I've only got 12 connections.

Paul: 38:15

you're doing yourself in a justice. Go.

scott_whitney: 38:18

Yeah, but no, I would say. If you're gonna do something physical, ask some, someone who's got a physical disability and say, look, will this, how will this impact you? If you're doing something that's online, it's techy, reach out to someone who's got autism, who's hard of hearing or visual impaired, and just say, what can you recommend that can help me because. Th, if they want something to succeed and they want change in improvements. If you are the only website that is all singing, all dancing, you're STR against your competitors, you're straight away. You're gonna get. Whatever those stats were that you threw out earlier, one website's gonna help 21% of people. One website's gonna help 79% of people and which one is gonna get the most traffic gonna get the most sales. If you're looking at it from a selfish point of view, who's gonna get the most sales and who's gonna get the most engagement. And I guess it's not necessarily. The way you want people to be looking at it. Yeah. Hey, let's look at it from a selfish point of view, but hang on, there's got to be some sort of carrot for someone to, to do it. And what is that carrot saving time? Is it yet right? They'll do it. Is it gonna make them more money yet? They'll do it. So yeah, just start engaging start engaging with people.

Mark: 39:41

I find that often when we talk about accessibility or inclusion in any form, we always boil down to fucking talk to someone as basically the solution. We've mentioned it a couple of times now, but if you are assuming. You know about other situations, people of other demographics. And then you obviously don't, it's just, you're making an ass out to yourself. But doing that, whereas the alternative is to ask a question on LinkedIn, which takes two minutes. If you get, if you don't get a reply, you don't get a reply. You can still say you've done it.

Paul: 40:16

Yeah.

Mark: 40:17

And that will give you so much more insight stuff that you can actually carry on to your future projects as well. But it always boils down to talk to the person, using it, talk to the people who have to deal with it, who have, who are of different races, different abilities, different sexualities, all this. And it'll give you just so much more insight.

scott_whitney: 40:36

Yeah, market research. Shouldn't be ask people like me

Mark: 40:41

Yeah. Yeah.

scott_whitney: 40:42

Gives you the same answer as what you're thinking. You wanna challenge other people. I've just finished reading a book by John Barnes and it's about Understanding race problems and things like that. And you could almost get, I could get a tip X and I could, every time he's wrote something about race, I could change it to disability and just put disability in there and it would still fit what he says. Does it make a lot of sense? Yes. The key principles are the same, whether it's about race, whether it's about gender equality, whether it's about disability, the key principles are there. And a lot of it's just common sense. But not common practice all the time.

Paul: 41:28

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. What a great note to end that on

Mark: 41:33

There we go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. Are

Paul: 41:34

Scott now, it's the time we do what is the UX Tombo Ebola?

Mark: 41:39

You ready? Are you ready? Scott? Have you got your design thinking? Head on things

Paul: 41:42

Scott if you need to drop off, more than welcome. But if you

Mark: 41:47

go a bit random

Paul: 41:49

Stay on, enjoy the randomness again.

scott_whitney: 41:53

my, again, we come back to the camera. It's not I've

Mark: 41:56

yeah. Yeah. That's it?

Paul: 41:57

Yeah,

Mark: 41:57

Your AI generated voice.

scott_whitney: 42:02

just prerecorded.

Mark: 42:03

Yeah. Yeah. It's

Paul: 42:03

Yeah,

Mark: 42:06

a skill. It's a skill a little bit. No, it's usually NICU as a Tombo machine. Have you got the topics to hand? Cuz I don't.

Paul: 42:15

no, what we need we need to spin the wheel.

Mark: 42:19

We need to spin the wheel, but we need to make sure we got a wheel to spin. Have you got

Paul: 42:22

I've got a wheel here. I've got a

Mark: 42:25

right? Okay,

Paul: 42:26

Just off camera.

Mark: 42:27

Yeah.

Paul: 42:28

unless Scott, have you got like a Tombola machine

Mark: 42:31

Knocking a boat.

Paul: 42:32

in your OSHA Vista kind of luxury complex of

scott_whitney: 42:36

being installed next

Paul: 42:37

Oh no. Oh

Mark: 42:38

Oh shit. Not again. This happens all the time.

Paul: 42:41

Does. cool. I'm gonna run the, run, the clip introduce the section

scott_whitney: 42:46

this is fancy.

mediaboard_video-1: 42:48

That sound means it's time for UX. Tombo

Paul: 42:53

Yeah.

mediaboard_video-1: 42:54

the segment of the show where we pick a random product object, service our place from the Tom boiler machine and discuss its terrible or grit UX. Spin the wheel, Nick.

Paul: 43:06

or me I'll spin it. Oh yeah, we go. Cool. It's a bit dusty actually the wheel. I've not used it in a while. There we go. Cool. So what mark, are you going to pick out a topic?

Mark: 43:21

I would do, if I had any way to

Paul: 43:23

Shall I just dip

Mark: 43:24

you'll have to, you'll have to pick something out.

Paul: 43:27

out in the, it's just written down

Mark: 43:29

Yeah

scott_whitney: 43:29

Yeah.

Paul: 43:30

it's not made up at all. The,

Mark: 43:31

no, very professional

Paul: 43:33

Thing we're gonna talk about today is

Mark: 43:35

tires.

Paul: 43:36

tires.

Mark: 43:37

All right. As someone who doesn't drive

Paul: 43:39

tires or because we've got Scott wheelchair tires.

Mark: 43:44

Oh yeah. Yeah. There we

Paul: 43:46

what I did there. Not planned at all.

scott_whitney: 43:50

could also be tires that they use, like in

Mark: 43:52

Yeah. But that's exercise and I'm again that on principle, so yeah. Yeah. just, that's not happening. Yeah, exactly. To be honest, Scott, you'd probably be better than I would at this point, so I wouldn't worry about it. Yeah.

Paul: 44:08

Roll that one out, straight away.

Mark: 44:09

yeah,

Paul: 44:11

tires. Yeah. Yeah to give you a kind of a tires weird, cuz tires have been around for bloody ages. They yeah.

Mark: 44:19

yeah.

Paul: 44:20

In, they're prone to, I'm

Mark: 44:23

Is this the Oxford

Paul: 44:24

Yeah. This is yeah. Yeah. Prone to punctures. Pretty annoying in general

Mark: 44:30

Yeah. Yeah, there are a few solutions out there. Aren't there. You've got your track instead, your tread, your tank tread that's so that though you can't puncture a tank there is recent innovation for like airless tires isn't there but that, that still have the suspension and the the bones, of your aerated rubber tire. But I do, we have a problem we wanna solve then with the,

Paul: 44:52

Yeah. Why do tires exist? That's this is where we need Nick to kinda

Mark: 44:56

Yeah. The existential dread

Paul: 44:59

yeah, like

scott_whitney: 44:59

Is it, they exist because they're still trying to work out the best type of cheese to use.

Mark: 45:06

instead.

scott_whitney: 45:07

Instead

Mark: 45:09

So you asking the real questions now? which cheese would, a cannon bear is pretty that's it? That too soft? Are we?

Paul: 45:17

angry.

scott_whitney: 45:18

wouldn't use a blue

Mark: 45:18

No, that's got there's repercussions there. A rock foot blue man. and

Paul: 45:22

Oh, God although,

Mark: 45:26

em, and tile. Already's got holes in it

Paul: 45:28

although if you've ever changed a tire on a bike bicycle it's got like a weird, fishy cheese smell

Mark: 45:34

oh no.

Paul: 45:35

it's it's. I don't know what it is.

Mark: 45:37

Is that the product? We're suggestion here. A wheel of cheese

Paul: 45:41

of cheese

Mark: 45:41

that smells better than attire. Yeah.

Paul: 45:44

yeah. And Scott, when you are free wheeling, kinda like down, down a hill and kinda beating us all to the bottom of the hill, me

Mark: 45:52

Hear you.

Paul: 45:52

with our lack of physical exercise, just

Mark: 45:55

Yeah.

Paul: 45:59

you can just be at the bottom of the hill, just having a bite of cheese, a celebration.

Mark: 46:05

There we go. This problem solved itself.

scott_whitney: 46:10

was quick. Are we gonna do another one now?

Paul: 46:14

Sucker for punishment.

Mark: 46:16

hello? Yeah. Yeah. Round one, the cheese rounded

Paul: 46:22

the cheese round. Yeah. U usually we invite Boltons own

Mark: 46:27

mark Steeler to, to advertise a product.

Paul: 46:31

the product. Yeah.

Mark: 46:32

Yeah. Where is he? oh, there he is.

Paul: 46:35

here he is. Come on.

Mark: 46:37

I mark. Oh, I'm mark Steeler at bolted arcade. He is work. He is been working at Bolton services

Paul: 46:41

Oh

Mark: 46:42

Hasn't he? Yeah. Which yeah, I think so. And he seems to be descending further and further into madness. And now. I think his, the final bell has told, because he's about to try and sell you. You're at vaulted services your tires, Fox mate. But I've got this wheel of cheese.

Paul: 47:01

which fit into this new venture. Quite nice. Per

Mark: 47:03

and that'll be 420 pounds please. P per wheel.

Paul: 47:07

per wheel. Oh,

Mark: 47:09

of course. He's only got the one you've gotta slice it thinly and, make it last

Paul: 47:15

sold.

Mark: 47:15

Sold

Paul: 47:16

I love two. I love two for my car

Mark: 47:19

Yep. Perfect. Perfect. Just don't use it in warm weather. they all prone to sweating slightly smell smells like a bicycle tire and there you go. That's UX. Yeah.

Paul: 47:40

a nutshell.

Mark: 47:42

Yeah. Sorry, Scott. I feel like we should apologize to just for exposing you to that.

scott_whitney: 47:47

dunno, I think it was going quite sensible until I

Mark: 47:50

Yeah, I dunno. Yeah. Yeah. It was inevitable. It was inevitable. We always start. Yeah. You just cut the corner.

Paul: 47:59

That's where we go.

Mark: 48:00

Went straight to trees.

Paul: 48:01

Yeah. We one of our more popular products was chop sips,

Mark: 48:05

Chop sips.

Paul: 48:06

Yeah. Where we combine straws and chopsticks to for that sushi gravy.

Mark: 48:11

Yeah, I think we should actually, we should, if you got a 3d printer poll,

Paul: 48:16

no, but no a person has.

Mark: 48:18

there we go. We should. I think we should pre 3d print some chop sips. Yeah. Make it happen. And we don't need to 3d print a wheel of cheese. We could just go to a stockist, get a wheel of cheese and sell it as a tire with quite a lengthy disclaimer about the, inevitable accidents that are gonna occur when you try and attach

Paul: 48:37

NASA. Yeah. NASA are experimenting with printable food. So maybe, yeah. So you could print like a pizza in space.

Mark: 48:47

Okay.

Paul: 48:48

take up the bags of powder or

Mark: 48:52

Yeah. Ink.

Paul: 48:53

yeah. It's like a crap version of, the in star Trek when they

Mark: 48:58

Yeah, the fabricators.

Paul: 49:00

yeah. Be like that. And you wait 24 hours for it.

Mark: 49:04

Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

scott_whitney: 49:07

Not great when you've got that, those real

Paul: 49:10

Hello?

Mark: 49:10

Oh yeah. You might be enjoying a moon cake or something, you know that, and it's oh, fancy, a bag of crisps right

Paul: 49:16

yeah. Just come back to it

Mark: 49:22

now. real a anniversary. You could never have a warm meal. You'll always, never have a cold meal. It's always gonna be room temperature, whatever you go room for. It's been waiting so long

Paul: 49:36

Oh, so that's it. That's

Mark: 49:38

that

Paul: 49:38

a nutshell. Yeah. Yeah. Scott, in, in the we'll put some links to your website to, to get in touch with you. Anything else, but it's been an absolute pleasure to have you

Mark: 49:47

yeah really insightful stuff cuz don't think about it if you're not if you don't have those physical. Accessibility requirements and it just doesn't tend to occur. And the amount of situations that emerge where you find yourself being a genuinely unhelpful person, just cuz you don't know better. But yeah, it's been, it is been an absolute pleasure Scott to crack open that, that thought process.

scott_whitney: 50:10

Yeah, no, thank you. Thank you very much for having me

Paul: 50:12

I our pleasure.

Mark: 50:13

Yeah. Yeah.

Paul: 50:14

come back another time.

Mark: 50:15

Please do. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Do we have a outro?

Paul: 50:18

we do have aro.

Mark: 50:20

Hey

Paul: 50:20

Hey,

Mark: 50:21

can never remember. We are

Paul: 50:24

here we go. More cheese. Cool. Nice. That

mediaboard_video-2: 50:24

That's it for this episode of faster horses. If you like the show, please like subscribe and leave a review. It really does help. You can join us on patreon.com/faster horses from one pound a month. For more check out UX tombola and the hottest new products from bolt Malkins on Fox dealer. Special. Thanks to James Manchester. I think. I'm mark Sutcliffe. I'm Nick Tomlinson. Follow us on Twitter at faster horses, UX, and we'll catch you in two weeks for more faster horses.

Mark: 50:55

go. that then?

Paul: 50:59

is that.

scott_whitney: 51:00

those little hearts going up

Paul: 51:02

Yeah.

Mark: 51:03

Isn't it? It's lovely. We've got an aesthetic.

Paul: 51:10

definitely. Ah, cool. Yeah.

Mark: 51:12

peace.

Paul: 51:13

Peace. Oh yeah. Peace. That's it. Poo.

Mark: 51:16

where it ends.