Technology

Every piece of clay has a purpose. But the clay has to choose to be shaped. When I decided to have joy in my deafblindness, I stopped asking why the technology around me wasn't built with me in mind, and started asking how I could help build it for everyone else too.

Live, in front of you, I'll shape a piece of clay while I walk you through the pieces of technology that shaped my life: hearing aids that helped me participate before I could fully hear, glasses that centered me in a classroom, magnification that kept me reading after I went legally blind, and the white cane, later the See Me Cane, that gave me the independence to keep moving.

Then, at twenty-eight, I lost more of my vision and had to start using a screen reader. That's when the real shock hit: much of the internet had never been designed for people like me. Buttons with no labels. Forms I couldn't fill out. Menus my screen reader couldn't even find. The technology that promised to connect the whole world was quietly squeezing people like me out of it.

Perseverance is what carried me through every one of those losses, including that one. But somewhere in the middle of that shock, I realized the problem was never my blindness. The problem was technology that had never been shaped with people like me in mind. That realization is what built the character behind everything I do now: I stopped trying to survive technology, and started asking how to help design it.

The question is: are you willing to trust the potter through the process?

Here's the hope in it: solve for the hardest case first, and you solve for everyone. Curb cuts were built for wheelchairs, and now everyone with a stroller or a suitcase uses them. Captions were built for the deaf, and now most people watch video with the sound off. Voice control, audiobooks, and text messaging all started as access solutions, and now the whole world uses them. Solve for one, you solve for all.

I'd love to bring my pottery wheel into your conference, your team, or your classroom, and while I shape a piece from start to finish, show your people what it looks like to design for the hardest case first, so they walk away asking one question about everything they build: can everyone participate?

That's how it becomes a beautiful piece.