Hear! Hear! An accessibility tale from a hearing-impaired Senior Software Engineer (DevOxx UK 2024)

I’m very excited to speak at DevOxx UK for the first time! This will also be my first time visiting the UK, so I’m really excited about everything what is coming! ❤ The conference runs from May 8 to May 10 at Business Design Center in London (Islington). If you’re attending, please find me and say hello – I'm a huge extrovert and I'd love to meet you!!!

The story behind this talk

How did I get the idea?

This talk has an interesting backstory, very different from my usual topics. I’ve always been open about my partial hearing loss (I’m 55% deaf in both ears since I've been born). 🦻🦻 But I didn’t plan to give this talk at first because I didn’t know if people would find it interesting.

That changed about a year and half ago. A newspaper wrote about one of my friends Josip Ivanković who is completely deaf. He graduated from Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER) just like me and he has a very inspirational and powerful story that shows that only sky's the limit. Josip shared the article about him on LinkedIn and I wrote a comment on his post. I noticed that my comment got an unusually high number of likes. So, when I talked with some of my friends and colleagues, I realized how interested and unaware people were about this topic. That’s what inspired me to consider doing this talk.

How easy was it to prepare the abstract and talk?

When I started to work on this talk, getting ready for this talk was a real challenge. First, writing the abstract took me 3 whole weeks. I kept asking myself – how can I summarize a topic that's so personal, about my own disability? 🤔 It's something I know inside out because I live it my whole life.

The next big challenge was preparing a talk that would be insightful, informative, powerful, impactful, and different. I wanted it to really stand out. Since this isn't a typical development topic you usually hear at conferences, I knew the personal angle would give this experiential accessibility topic an unique twist.

But I'm really happy with how it turned out!!!! ❤️❤️❤️ I've revised and polished the talk multiple times already, and I'm also working on a more technical version. At Infobip Shift 2023, attendees even told me they really enjoyed the talk because it was so different from what they usually hear.

So, I'm excited to present an updated version at DevOxx UK in just a few weeks! Getting to share my personal accessibility experience in a way that resonates with developers is really rewarding.

A fresh take on a powerful topic

I've talked about this topic before at events like the WeAreDevelopers World Congress 2023 (which I did remotely) and Infobip Shift 2023. But listen up - I never just repeat the same old talk word-for-word. Nope, I put in the hard work to mix things up and make sure there's brand new content for you every time, at least 20-30% different content.

Why am I doing this? Well, this topic means a lot to me personally since it's something I deal with every day my whole life. I don't simply recite the same dry material mindlessly. For each event, I carefully craft and tailor my talk to fit that specific audience and vibe. So even if you've seen me present this topic before, get ready! You're about to hear fresh insights and examples you haven't heard from me yet.

I really try to avoid that boring, cookie-cutter approach. Keeping it fresh and tailored to the audience is key for me. This won't just be a rehash or condensed version. It's going to be a unique, energetic take designed specifically for all of you here today!

An insider's perspective

I'm going to talk about what it's like using technology and products when you have hearing loss. I was born with about 55% hearing loss in both ears, so this is something I deal with every single day.

Instead of just giving a boring technical talk, I want to share my personal experiences - the real struggles and successes of living life with this condition. I'll give you a glimpse into the annoying little problems that come up constantly when you're hard of hearing.

But I'm not just venting here. The bigger point is to highlight areas where we can improve product design and technology. Making things more accessible for people like me actually benefits everyone (even if you don't have hearing loss!). I'll explain how innovative thinking around accessibility can create a more inclusive world, not just for websites and apps, but across all kinds of products and services.

Overall, you will get an inside look at hearing loss, along with some ideas for how we can all build a future that works better for everybody.

Goals of the Session

Over 1.5 billion people globally have trouble hearing and experience some degree of hearing loss. Experts predict this will rise to 2.5 billion – about one in four people – by 2050. Hearing loss is often called an “invisible disability” because there are usually no obvious visible signs. This phrase reflects the unfair negative view society has long had, preventing many from getting the help and accommodations they need. I know very well why it is an “invisible disability” because most of people I meet don’t know that I am 55% deaf until they spend time with me and hear me talking.

With my talk, I have some very specific goals in mind:

1. Raise awareness and change mindsets: We need to raise awareness and work on changing the mindsets of everyone, so that they can factor in people with hearing loss. We need to consider accessibility for people with this “invisible disability” because more and more people are affected.

2. Inspire better product design: This lesser-known aspect of accessibility usually has a lot of surprise factor to the listener. But this is good in my opinion because it ensures that you will learn a lot from the talk! I want to inspire everyone to build better products by making this accessibility topic experiential and sharing my own experience about this disability. If we make our Web applications better and with accessibility in mind, they will just be better for everyone!

3. Apply accessibility beyond Web apps: We can apply accessibility effectively beyond building Web applications! For example, did you know that 75% of mobile videos get watched on mute and that 80% of captioning users are not deaf at all? In my opinion, this shows us that we don’t think about only making Web applications more accessible. If we for example make videos better by providing quality live captions, we will achieve a lot and get more of our videos watched to completion.

4. Think for the future: This is a disability that affects more and more people – mainly because hearing loss can now be detected at a very young age due to hearing checks within the first few weeks of birth. But it’s also something that challenges us to be innovative about solutions. There are amazing examples of accessibility that aren’t even related to Web development, and we’ll mention some of them in my talk!

I hope to see you at my session on Wednesday, May 8th from 17:50-18:40 in Room B at DevOxx UK! If you can’t make it, don’t worry – recordings will be available soon after. 😊 Let’s work together to build a more inclusive digital world!