Saavuta 2024 event took place today

I attended the Saavuta seminar today live in Iiris Centre. I had taken part of the seminars before online. This was my first time live and I got to also participate in a workshop. What a fun experience! There is just something so warm about the accessibility community that it makes it so much easier to attend the events.

The event was superb this year. The topics were great as well as the speakers. I also got to spend the day with two friends, one current colleague and one former one, which made the day even better. And I got to meet a few new faces at well!

Session 1: Older people in the accessibility mire

The day started with Vappu Taipale talking about older people and accessibility. The talk was excellent as a whole but there were a couple of things that stayed with me.

Vappu mentioned that things are designed for children and older people - but neither group gets asked about them. Someone just comes to them with a readymade product and asks if they are able to use it. Not the way things should go, right?

I freely translated a quote from her into English. In Finnish it is: "Saavutettavuus on syvintä inhimillisyyttä". What a wonderful sentence.

Accessibility is the ultimate humanity.

Accessibility is about shared joy, knowledge, skill and culture. I couldn't agree more.

Session 2: Strategic choice - reactive or proactive accessibility work

The second talk was by Heli Jeskanen, who is the digital accessibility lead at OP Financial Group. Yet another very inspiring talk. A lot of pointers I can use in my work. Here are some of them.

A few pointers about the benefits of accessibility from the perspective of costs.

• Clearer code is cheaper.
• Proactivity is cheaper than fixing.
• Search engine visibility improves.
• A wider customer base.

If accessibility skills are not at an adequate level, new technical debt is constantly being created, at high cost.

Accessibility testing should be a part of the development process and not an afterthought after release. This was highlighted in a few example graphs. The "Don't do it like this" example was pretty much the model I've seen a lot of companies use. There is still much work to be done, that's for sure!

Ensuring accessibility is a team effort. Solutions are usually best found through teamwork.

I wholeheartedly agree with both these sentences. I think teamwork also brings in a bit of safety and the possibility of sparring with someone.

And then we saw four points about what it takes to succeed:

• Management commitment and strong support.
• Metrics and monitoring.
• The commitment of front-line staff to ensure competence.
• Active leadership of change.

Indeed. We are all in this together.

Session 3: Proactive accessibility in the work of the supervisory authority

Next, we had Juha Suomalainen and Erik Lenkkeri talk about the work of the supervisory authority.

Juha mentioned the accessibility specialist network that I'm also a part of as one way the supervisory authority takes part in the community.

There are a lot of benefits to proactive accessibility work. They shared four:

• Service providers are more aware of their responsibilities.
• Service users are more aware of their rights.
• Reaching a wider audience.
• More accessible services for all.

They also mentioned that the supervisory authority will be centralised under Traficom at the start of next year. So both digital and real-world accessibility will then be monitored by Traficom. Luckily the current AVI accessibility personnel will move under Traficom so we still get to ask our questions from the same familiar faces.

Another thing they reminded us about is that from 1.1.2025 onwards our accessibility statements should have the new contact information for the accessibility feedback. This is an important thing to check. Also they did tell us that the accessibility statement contents should be checked at least once a year. I took a screenshot of the slide so now I have it in black and white that the statements should be monitored at least yearly. This is something I constantly get challenged about so it's nice to have some backup.

Workshops

There were several workshops live at the event after lunch. I took part in the Pimé Café event where we got taken to a pitch-black room for an interesting session about AI. I found myself getting slightly anxious even before going in but then when I had to try to find my way in the darkness, I got really scared. I was so afraid of bumping into someone I didn't know (if it were a friend, then it would be much less scary) and causing problems that I moved slowly. So slowly, that the hosts were guiding me maybe a bit more than others even. In the end, I found my seat with the guidance of the host and having them walk me felt much safer.

Then it probably took me over a minute to understand the chair - I had no idea where I was supposed to sit. But after using my hands to try to figure the shape out, I was able to sit down and focus on the workshop.

The examples shown to us were really good. And the experience was really powerful. Though I could have lived without the pain in my eyes after exiting the darkness after almost an hour. But if you are ever near the Iiris centre and have the possibility to go to the Pimé Café, I can't recommend it enough!

After the workshops, we got to hear more talks.

Session 4: Could accessibility feedback be more effective?

Essi Suominen from Cludo and Tero Pesonen from Q-Factory dove into the topic of accessibility feedback and how hard it is to both give it and get it.

We can't force to provide the "correct" type of feedback. Should the user be able to differentiate usability and accessibility feedback from one another? How to get users to give feedback?

The topic of the accessibility statement was also quite naturally part of this discussion. Quite often the accessibility statements are very WCAG criteria-focused. The accessibility statement is a tool for the user (and not e.g. the supervisory authority). Making the accessibility statements easier to understand would help us all.

Session 5: A panel discussion about accessibility and AI

The event ended with a panel discussion about the benefits and use cases of AI. We had Aapo Latvala, Tero Avellan and Ville Lamminen sharing their insights on the topics.

There were a lot of interesting topics, one of which was how we could make sure AI would be available to the users who would really benefit from it. Maybe in the future there could be some kind of AI support, like we now have IT support. AI cannot be forced on people.

Some people might have concerns when it comes to AI. The internet is not a very safe place - there are constant threats and news about hackers and scammers. No wonder some people are worried.

One interesting point was brought up that have we actually done enough to instruct and guide people with new devices and technology usage? The same can be said for AI.

I again translated one quote:

If anything is a matter of opinion, it's the alt text.

Ville Lamminen

The discussion was about whether AI could be used to create alternative texts for images. The consensus was yes and a comment was thrown that it's not like the alt texts are something people have been happy with so far either. The comment was said jokingly but it is also true. The alt texts are so subjective. What I think would be a good alt text to describe an image might be the opposite for you. No matter whether or not we can see the image or not. People are very different in their preferences.

Afterthoughts

I feel super inspired. Each of the talks had something for me. I still have to (well, I don't have to but I do want to) watch the online talks when they get published.

According to the organisers, there were 900 people attending the event either live or remote. While that is a really good amount of people, I sometimes wonder why there aren't more people attending online. The events always have interesting and important topics that should be something we'd all want to learn about.

I can't wait for the event again next year - this time it will be the tenth event so I really hope it will happen. And I hope I can attend it live again.