Blind Bargains

#CSUN14 Audio: Getting Down to Business with Accessible QuickBooks


After 20 years, one of the most popular software programs for Windows is becoming accessible for the first time. Intuit's recent accessibility efforts along with a collaboration with My Blind Spot have led to improved access to QuickBooks 2014 with screen readers. To learn more, we spoke with Intuit's Cheryl Aranha, Ted Drake, and Lori Samuels and My Blind Spot's Albert Rizzi in this extended podcast. Blind Bargains audio coverage of CSUN 2014 is generously sponsored by the American Foundation for the Blind.

Transcript

We strive to provide an accurate transcription, though errors may occur.

Hide transcript
Transcribed by Kayde Rieken

Direct from San Diego, it's BlindBargains.com coverage of CSUN 2014. The biggest names, provocative interviews, and wall-to-wall exhibit hall coverage. Brought to you by the American Foundation for the Blind.

The Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness is an essential professional resource and the journal of record on issues related to blindness and vision loss. Subscribe now and get immediate access to news from the field, current research and best practice information, and a calendar of events. For more information, go to www.jvib.org.

Now, here's J.J. Meddaugh.

J.J. Meddaugh: We are here at CSUN 2014; and I am with Ted Drake, Cheryl Aranha, and Lori Samuels from Intuit and Albert Rizzi from My Blind Spot. And we're here to talk about some of the accessibility improvements — big improvements, especially with QuickBooks. Welcome, everybody, to Blind Bargains.

Lori Samuels: Thank you.

Ted Drake: Thank you.

Albert Rizzi: Thank you.

Cheryl Aranha: Thank you.

JM: And why don't we start with, I guess, whoever wants to jump in; and tell us a little bit about Intuit and accessibility and how — and how things got started.

LS: Sure, I can talk to that. So I joined Intuit in the year 2011, about three years ago, and volunteered to take on an Intuit-wide corporate accessibility program, kicked that off and worked across all the different business units at Intuit. We have quite a few products — TurboTax, Mint, Quicken, QuickBooks are some of the most — the better known products. So we worked with all of the product leaders in the company to raise awareness around accessibility and get them to understand how to start working in — that into their development plans, provided some training classes. And so I kind of became identified as a person who knew something about accessibility in the company.

JM: Sure.

LS: And then, in the fall of 2011, I got an interesting phone call. Actually, a gentleman named Albert Rizzi, who's here, called Intuit and was asking about QuickBooks; and I called him back, and that was — that initial conversation was really the beginning of the QuickBooks accessibility project.

JM: So yeah, obviously QuickBooks and Quicken are programs that have been around for a long time.

LS: Mm-hmm.

JM: And so it probably — obviously was not an easy task to take a program that's been around for 20 years and, you know —

AR: Not at all.

JM: You know, people have been wanting accessibility to —

LS: Yeah.

JM: — to this stuff for many, many years. But — so what was the tipping point? How did —

LS: Well —

JM: Albert, I guess, was the tipping point.

AR: Well —

LS: (Laughs)

AR: Well, you know, part of it is — is when Lori and I first started talking, there was a personal need that I had, and a professional need that I had, for QuickBooks. I'd used it before I lost my eyesight and had found that there were just some issues that precluded me from being able to enjoy it again. And Lori and I started talking, and then we were joining forces to try and find ways to understand what needed to be done. And we had worked with John Martyn, a veteran — a blind veteran who was passionate, very passionate, about working on scripting solutions. And as we tried that route, we realized it wasn't the best way to resolve the problem.

LS: Yeah. We worked for several months. John volunteered time to just work on QuickBooks scripts, so John had also contacted Intuit about the same time Albert did.

JM: Yep.

LS: So initially, I think one of our missteps was — was trying to focus too much on — on scripting solutions outside of working on the core product and actually making the underlying engineering changes that we needed to make.

JM: And perhaps also focusing just on one screen reader versus a more —

LS: Right, right.

JM: — global solution.

AR: But the market demanded, you know.

JM: Sure. Absolutely.

AR: The obvious — yes. Yeah.

JM: Absolutely.

LS: Yeah.

AR: And then, as we got deeper into it, you know, with the knowledge and expertise that Lori brought to the table, we started realizing that, as many people do in the industry, scripting is not a solution for underlying programmatic issues and API issues. And then we started throwing the net a little wider, and Lori started looking internally at options. And we —

LS: So the — the turning point was actually last year about this time —

AR: Yeah.

LS: — in fact, at CSUN. We started to hear more stories from customers like Albert who were — who wanted to use QuickBooks and couldn't and hadn't been able to. Or maybe they'd found some workarounds, but it was really pretty —

JM: Right.

AR: Yeah.

LS: — pretty painful. And I came away from CSUN last year feeling very strongly that this — we — you know, we'd always known that this was the right thing to do; but there's a little bit of a difference when you finally realize that this is something we have to do. There was just a sense of — of ownership of the problem, and I — that actually gave me the courage to go and approach the executives in charge of the Small "business Division at — at Intuit and make the case for — for really investing in — in the core product, in — in QuickBooks Desktop itself, and actually ... So we scheduled a meeting; I got on their calendar, and we brought Albert out. And the critical — the critical success factor there was actually bringing the voice of the customer to the executives and making the case that this was something we needed to fix, and this was essentially our problem. So they actually — they actually heard that; they were — it was a fantastic meeting. And that was just about a year ago today.

AR: Yeah.

LS: And that really turned the tide. We got investment, we got funding, we got the opportunity to work directly with Cheryl, who's here, who is on the engineering team and had already been passionate about helping us with accessibility improvements; but now she had additional resources that she could work with in India. And we actually started to get real work done on the engineering team.

JM: So by "real work done," — I mean, let's be honest: You doing much of a rewrite of the program, that's no small undertaking to — to build accessibility into a program that's been around for 20 years. Obviously, we always say that —

LS: Mm-hmm.

AR: Right.

JM: — it's easier to do it at the beginning than it is to try to —

LS: Absolutely.

JM: — go back and build it in later. So —

AR: Well —

LS: Yeah, that's a great question. In fact, you know, the interesting thing was that we've heard often that — you know, Well, why couldn't you just rewrite it? And that really just isn't an option. You have millions of lines of code; you've got — you've got 20 years of investment sunk cost. You're just not going to rewrite it.

JM: Right.

LS: So we had to look at fixing, not rewriting.

AR: Right.

LS: And kind of surgically fixing. We had to be very careful because you also are talking about a product that's in the hands of millions of customers, so we can't — you know —

JM: Yeah.

LS: — we can't make mistakes there. We can't — we can't — you know —

AR: Yeah, they had a consumer base you can't upset.

JM: Right.

LS: — create a regression that's going to break something else. So we had to be very careful. Cheryl could probably tell you a little bit more about the — the technical work that we had to undertake.

AR: Before — if we could, before we get to Cheryl, part of the reasons we got to Cheryl were after Lori and John and I sat and we started playing and Ted got involved, there were some obvious issues we saw needing to happen. And we went out and we started looking at people who understood how to rewrite and address the issues based upon the sensitivity we were approaching a 20-year- or 25-year-old legacy.


JM: What were some of the issues that you saw?

AR: Well, Steven Clark was able to find all of those. We reached out to Steven Clark, and Steven found some areas — there was a skin around this or a skin around that and hooks that weren't in place or accessible to the screen reader — that allowed for a seamless integration of the software to reach the features in QuickBooks. And then Cheryl came on board, and she took it to a whole level that we're very, very pleased with. So Cheryl, I'll let you tell the rest of that.

CA: Yeah. So from a technical standpoint, it was a given that it was a 20-year-old product. As well, it was a mix of technical stacks. So right from C, C++ to DarkNet, it's been a variety.

JM: Mm-hmm.

CA: So when Lori was talking about actually fixing it, totally fix it, what we did was picked up the very core controls that were used on the UI and fixed them individually; so across the product, a lot of controls got fixed. So one of the problems when screen readers were going over the product, they would be unable to pick up data about the controls. For example, it would not be able to detect there was a table on the screen —

JM: Sure.

CA: — or it could not detect a control ID. So one of the major things to be fixed in there was to make sure that the control IDs were assigned internally to all these controls, which was being done; but since it was an owner-drawn control — or rather, what we call before MSA was even being used — we needed to actually go back and check those controls, the way they were coded, and make changes in them. So I would say it was done in a very clean way, at the same time, without endangering the rest of the product base. So that was —

JM: So by — so by doing it this way, were you able to go through — were these controls — the accessible controls — are they now available throughout the app or are there certain parts that are more accessible than others or —

CA: So whatever has been fixed is available across the product. So you could take it whether it's a table, whether it's a button, all the UI controls that are there. There are some exceptions which would be making it to QB 2015.

JM: Right.

CA: We have to do that based on prioritization. So given 2015, and it's a desktop product, we also have specific deadlines to meet.

JM: Sure: Yeah.

CA: So based on that, we have to reprioritize, and —

JM: Obviously, it's going to come out every year, and — yeah.

CA: — Steven helped us with that.

LS: Yeah.

JM: Yeah.

CA: We got the top things.

LS: The good — the good thing is, they focused — we were able to focus on a lot of the critical workflows in the product and begin working our way out from there. So we focused in a narrow way first —

JM: Right.

LS: — on just the invoice screen, just to really understand what had to be fixed; and then, as Cheryl said, once we were able to go in there under the hood and get to those base classes so that they could surface the control ID and reveal that they are a button or a text box, that actually propagated throughout the entire product, or a lot of the product. So fortunately, we were able to leverage that.

JM: Sure.

LS: But we got — we covered a lot of the flows. We still have more, you know, again, kind of some peripheral areas that need additional work. We also worked with, as Albert mentioned, the very talented team of Steve Clark and John Martyn, who — who worked on JAWS scripts, that — that helped smooth out some of the — that. And we are screen reader agnostic.

AR: Yeah.

LS: We're also working with the Window-Eyes team and NVDA now.

JM: And NVDA.

TD: We also — we worked with Deque to make sure that we had additional resources for Cheryl —

JM: Right.

TD: — and QA through Deque, to make sure that we were not introducing any bugs that would affect the general population. When we added the accessibility, we wanted to make sure that we didn't break anything.

LS: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

TD: So Deque's QA resources helped.

JM: Right.

AR: And Deque, that's where Cheryl really was able to direct and guide what we needed to have done at the platform level —

LS: Yeah.

AR: — with the extra assistance that we were all able to champion from Deque —

JM: Sure.

AR — and join in the project.

JM: So that's great. So understanding that QuickBooks 2014 is a product that's available now, and perhaps, theoretically, could have some use; but you have created scripts for that. So how do the scripts enhance the experience?

AR: The — the scripts basically bridge that minimal digital divide that still exists. As Lori and Cheryl had touched on, we started working on this late in the cycle, so to speak; so when we prioritize certain areas that we were going to be working on, we collected that information from customers at Intuit, basically, saying, Who calls in to — with what issues? And we looked at that 80/20 war: 80 percent of the market uses 20 percent of the program.

JM: Yep.

AR: So where we became more aware of the different areas that required more work at Cheryl's level, as opposed to scripting, was through the blind — the beta testers that we invited to the fold. We had about 40 different testers who — some of them got so deeply entrenched into the program — I think there was some areas that even the engineers didn't know existed in QuickBooks. (Laughs)

JM: (Laughs)

AR: So one of the things that I think Lori will attest to — and Cheryl and Ted and anybody on their team — we didn't believe that scripting was a solution to the problem, and we still don't. So where the scripts will be used will be to bridge where we were not able to clearly get everything in order in a time that was meeting the deadlines imposing by the corporate structure at Intuit.

JM: Sure.

LS: We basically took it out to the — the last release that we make, you know, post the — the big launch in the fall. So we're up to R5 right now —

AR: Right.

LS: — and that is our — essentially our minimal, viable product for accessible QuickBooks, coupled with the scripts for usability. And so we're pretty — we're pretty pleased with where we've gotten; we're excited about knowing what we need to do next in 2015 and being able to get an earlier start on that.

JM: Where —

TD: I think — I think the key is the scripts will be needed for usability.

JM: Mm-hmm.

TD: Because QuickBooks is a very complex program —

AR: Yeah.

TD: — and the scripts will always help make it more usable.

JM: Well, you know, and this is one of those cases where — you know, people will say, We don't want to create scripts to replace functionality. But when you're coming from a non-visual standpoint, sometimes —

AR: Yeah.

JM: — you would want an alternative interface to express some of the — the tables and data and, you know, reports that are available. So have you looked at for — you know, perhaps with the scripting, are there alternative ways to present some of that information that might be more beneficial?

LS: Mm-hmm.

TD: Yeah. Also, for instance, scripting does disable certain elements that make it more complex, some toolbars that were in the way. Scripting has helped us make it so that the user doesn't have to customize QuickBooks as much; it's doing some of that in a —

JM: That's pretty much visual candy, right?

TD: Yeah.

LS: Mm-hmm.

JM: Like, the — the functions from toolbars you get to other ways.

TD: Yeah.

LS: Mm-hmm. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

JM: Sure. So obviously, a lot of these solutions have come to QuickBooks, which is primarily a tool for a small business user.

LS: Mm-hmm.

JM: Is — is that — some of that going to extend down to — to Quicken or to some of the — like TurboTax or some of the other products, or —

LS: So the good news is — TurboTax actually Ted can speak to. Actually, it's primarily the online product.

AR: Right.

JM: Sure, which is — it worked for a while.

LS: It has got the huge customer base, has been in good shape for a while; and there's a really sustained commitment there. They've — they —

TD: Very much.

LS: Even when I came to Intuit in 2011, they had already made accessibility a — what they called a "no tradeoff priority," which is a — a really great level of commitment. So we were really pleased to see that. Quicken — the Quicken team is collocated in — in India with the QuickBooks team, so while it is a completely different code base and a different team, the good news is that we're starting to leverage the — the resource that we had from Deque, who worked on the QuickBooks project with us, to also —

JM: Yeah.

LS: — go over to Quicken and do some work there. So we're — we're — we need to — you know, Ted and I have both circled back with the Quicken team. And part of — part of what we want to do is build on success and also show people that — that it can be done, and it's not that hard; and that if you make good decisions and you involve customers early in the process and get the right kind of talent on the team, that you really can make an amazing amount of progress in a short amount of time. So that's the — that's the lesson we want to carry forward to Quicken as well.

AR: And the one thing that — that I really appreciate from a business perspective is it was word of mouth. I mean, you can do all the advertising to get people to be aware of or all of the dissemination of information; but what — what Intuit did internally, with Cheryl at the lead, was all of this information was shared organically, and now it's becoming a commonly understood discussion going forward. And it — it's just a really great way to have it all happen by itself, rather than imposing it on people.

JM: It's a really interesting model. You know, perhaps you'd think about writing a paper on this. You know, how — how do you ingrain accessibility culture in a — you know, a company that's been around for a long time and is not used to —

AR: You hire Lori Samuels.

LS, CA, JM, AR: (Laugh)

JM: Well, there you go. Really short paper, done. (Laughs)

LS: Well, I don't know about that, but —

AR: Sorry, I'm short. I'm brief and to the point.

JM: (Laughs)

AR: But you know, it —

LS: You know, it is one of the messages I had always —

AR: Yes.

LS: — kind of espoused, which was, I want to see us get it into our DNA —

JM: Yeah.

LS: — that it's basically just part of our culture. I mean, Intuit has some great things in their DNA. We — we are very concerned about our customers' privacy; we have a great reputation in the industry around that.

JM: Mm-hmm.

LS: We're very concerned about security; we're very careful with our customers' data. So we — we're good stewards of data. We — we have some — some very well-founded good reputation, well deserved, around certain principles; and I just see this very much aligned with that.

AR: Yes.

LS: And — and it just simply hasn't been something we're as aware of as we have historically needed to be, but I think that tide is turning. So —

TD: I was — I was lucky when I came into manage accessibility at Intuit that Cheryl — or Lori had already established what needed to be done —

JM: Right.

TD: — and convinced people that it had to be done. So I was able to come in and say, Here's how to do it. And I've been trying to foster more people that own accessibility within their product.

LS: Mm-hmm.

TD: For instance, Cheryl. This could not have been done without Cheryl.

LS: Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely.

AR: No.

TD: Impossible. So I've been trying to build a team of Cheryls around Intuit.

JM and LS: (Laugh)

LS: We actually were trying to — it's —

JM: You have a cloning machine?

LS: The cloning technology is really the thing we're working on next.

AR: I wish.

TD: Or at least find somebody with — I'm trying to find people within products that can be passionate about owning accessibility within the products.

LS: Yeah. I mean, the combination of grass-roots passion —

TD: Yes.

LS: — and executive sponsorship is golden.

AR: Is a good —

LS: It's just a sweet — that's a sweet spot you want to get to. And so I — you know, that's what we're working on, and we've had some good success so far.

AR: Well, one — one of the things, too, is when we all — in the — in the disabled community, for lack of a better term, we talk about a universal fix, a universal approach; and I think one of the things that really resonated with — between me and Lori was an understanding that the blind aren't the only people using assistive or adaptive technologies.

LS: It's a really good point.

JM: Right.

AR: And we really looked at a holistic inclusion of peoples —

LS: Mm-hmm.

AR: — that covered the gambit of what I — what I use — and I think it's commonly accepted — as the print disabled.

LS: Mm-hmm.

AR: And I think once we looked at that larger community of people, there was definitely that perspective of, one in five people know somebody with a disability; and at least, I think, one in six or seven of somebody we know would use an assistive tool. So in order for us to really impact the community — and I think that what really got by an — an — empathy, if you will, rather than sympathy —

JM: Right.

AR: — was understanding that this was not just for a single community, but it really impacted a larger community of peoples.

LS: One of the interesting statistics that I shared with the executives in the Small Business group was that one-third of small business owners are dyslexic.

AR: Yep.

LS: Which is kind of a fascinating statistic —

JM: Wow.

LS: — but actually sort of makes sense. And — you know, statistics — 80 percent of all statistics are not true, so — but —

JM and AR: (Laugh)

LS: But still —

AR: Unless we need them to work for us.

LS: Still, I like that particular statistic. Unless they work for us, exactly.

AR: Yes.

LS: So we use the ones we like.

JM: (Laughs)

LS: And — but this one was interesting. And if you think about it, I mean, these would — might be, typically, people who had had to kind of find their own way, make their own path.

JM: Yeah.

LS: And so the fact that they might be entrepreneurs and small business owners is not really a crazy notion.

JM: Right.

LS: So you know, when we talk about "print disability," we're talking about people who may have a cognitive issue that just makes it difficult for them to use the printed word on screen, so —

JM: Right.

AR: And the fact that, Intuit being a small business tool —

JM: Right.

AR: — we — I know maybe, as people from the community, you know that all too often a lot of these providers and rehab specialists tend to push a disabled person into small business ownership as an option because of inaccessibility in other areas. And anyone who tells — who runs a business who's successful at it will tell you that being able to manage your finances is critical. So that was one of the major reasons why, for me, aside from the universal approach to the print disabled, it was an important consideration because without being able to manage your own finances, you're lost.

JM: For those who may be new — well, I guess it would be most blind people because they aren't — you know, haven't been using QuickBooks, at least the desktop version, before. What type of help system or tutorials are available to transition someone who may have had someone else do their accounting in the past and —

LS: Yeah. Great — great question.

JM: — wants to be interested in doing it themselves?

AR: Yeah.

LS: Albert, you got that one.

AR: This is — this is where I really, really need to take my hat off to Lori and the executives at Intuit. We have been put in touch with Real-world Training, which is the third-party contractor for Intuit and have been doing all of the QuickBooks training for the past 20-some odd years. And we were put in touch with Trevor Matheson —

JM: Mm-hmm.

AR: — who has given us — My Blind Spot — unfettered access to 20 years' worth of source documentation; and we are presently working through some new people who we've hired through My Blind Spot — Vita Zavoli and Richard Kelly, who are rewriting and infusing the keystrokes and commands that complement the work that Steven and Cheryl and John and Lori and Ted have all been doing. We're about, I would say, three-quarters of the way through that project; and in addition to the tutorials, we're also creating what I like to call our self-paced virtual lessons. We've gotten a few of those on YouTube as examples of what we've done. We've showed them at almost every presentation that Ted and Lori and I have done. And basically what it's going to be — it's going to be a CliffNotes version of a feature you want to access. So if you wanted to learn how to create an invoice —

JM: Right.

AR: — you could go on, and you'll have a virtual guide talk you through — who's also blind, using the system before you —

JM: So you hear them using it.

AR: Yeah.

LS: Exactly.

AR: And it's also for — what it — we're trying, again, to be universal in our approach. There'll be a visual option for people who are low vision to do that as well.

JM: Sure. If you — I guess one of the biggest questions, of course, that everyone's going to be — small business owners are going to be wanting to know, though, is, how can they get involved with this? How can they get added to the beta or, you know, would you just buy QuickBooks 2014 now, or —

AR: Well, right now we're still — we're still fine-tuning the — the scripting because we just locked down R 5. There were some things that needed to be included in the final, final release, if I'm saying that right.

LS: Mm-hmm.

AR: And we're still — Steven and John are going to be fine-tuning the last bit of the scripting to fill that gap that we couldn't do through Cheryl and her team.

LS: But that's, like, in the next week or so.

TD: Yeah, you can —

LS: That's — it's pretty much released, yeah.

AR: Yeah.

TD: You can buy QuickBooks at a store, you can buy through My Blind Spot —

AR: My Blind Spot.

TD: Do an upgrade to get the latest version, and then the scripts would be available through My Blind Spot.

AR: My Blind Spot. So if you go to myblindspot.org, or if you write to me at info@myblindspot.org, we'll get you what you need. And one of the things that we — because Intuit's gotten so behind the project in a big way and because, as members of the community, you know how much everything costs when it comes to using it, equal to that of our peers, we're going to make sure that it's included in the price of the product as opposed to having to charge anybody extra. We're very much committed to making sure this was going to be accessible to all people, whether or not there was a financial gain.

JM: What is the — the typical cost for QuickBooks? I know it ranges between retails and —

AR: I think it's about $275 to $300, depending on where you look for it.

JM: There's different versions of it, too.

LS: Yeah.

AR: We're looking — basically, QuickBooks Pro, Enterprise, and Premiere.

LS: Yeah.

JM: And those will all be acceptable?

AR: All desktop, yeah.

LS: Yeah, all of them.

JM: So the — some of the extended features — I guess, you know, you could do payroll and things like that. Is that — was that working at this point, or is it an additional task that needs to be done?

TD: We're still working on some of the separate business units within Intuit, like payroll — what else, Cheryl?

CA: Payments.

LS: Payments. Payments and payroll, yeah.

TD: Payments. We're working on those.

JM: Yeah, there's a lot of — there's a lot of different flavors of QuickBooks

LS: Mm-hmm.

TD: Bill payment.

AR: Well, you see, once we started looking at this holistically, we — one of the things I think — and correct me if I'm wrong, Cheryl and Lori — there's a lot of, whether it's departments or third contractors or party — their stuff is first out. We realized we had to start talking to the other departments and divisions —

CA: Yeah.

LS: Mm-hmm.

AR: — that, in fact, oversee payroll and other areas. So —

LS: There's a lot of things that plug into QuickBooks, yep.

AR: Which is why it's been so — which is why it's been such an important conversation to have; and as we started having it, we started seeing areas where the conversation needed to continue. And Intuit's gotten behind that and — evidenced by the fact that we're looking at 2015, so it's a very good thing.

TD: And some of those other components are in various levels of accessibility. Like, the applications typically, for iOS and Android, are in good shape. We — we're still working and testing on the web and the desktop versions.

JM: Which apps are you talking about for the —

TD: Like payroll —

JM: Okay.

TD: — GoPayment, inventory, payments —

AR: But those relate back to the — they don't relate back to desktop.

JM: Right. But —

TD: But they're individual business units, and they're all working on accessibility in their own time.

JM: Sure.

TD: But they've all started.

JM: What — what about Mint or the QuickBooks Online?

TD: QuickBooks Online we're working on. We're still trying to make sure it's keyboard accessible throughout the program. Mint is also working quite —

LS: Mm-hmm.

TD: — quite hard on making sure —

JM: From my older recollections from using QuickBooks online, the biggest problem was just a whole bunch of unlabeled graphics here and there and everywhere.

TD: It's completely different. We're pushing a completely different code set. So the graphics issue is not as much of a problem with the new version as keyboard accessibility.

JM: Got you. And for —

AR: And then — oh, sorry.

JM: Go ahead.

AR: And, you know, taking that into consideration is where Steven Clark's involvement was very critical in pointing some of those areas out. And as we — as we open up the discussions with GW Micro, NVAccess, and Freedom Scientific, there's going to be a wealth of information that each one of those entities bring to the table to help perfect the next phase of the progression and really live up to that — that commitment we've made about making sure that everybody can use QuickBooks. Because it's a very important tool that's a global leader in the industry. So my goal is to make sure that people can run their own businesses.

JM: That's great. Looking — kind of looking at this technical support and accessibility, some of the major players that started their own accessibility departments or hotlines. Have you guys looked at doing that, or perhaps would My Blind Spot help as doing technical support for accessibility, or —

AR: (Laughs) He's, like, reading our notes at home, I swear.

LS and JM: (Laugh)

AR: Well, you know, one of the things that we're hoping to do is — eventually, My Blind Spot is going to be looking to create a training program, a pilot training program, where we train very specific end users who are QuickBooks savvy —

JM: Right.

AR: — screen reader savvy, and understand accounting; so that way, we could hopefully get them to a point where they can become QuickBooks Pro advisors, which is a certification that QuickBooks bestows upon people who are versed in every area of their product. And for that time being, in that interim, they'll be able to serve as regional support, if and when a call comes in; and we'll figure out how to escalate that up, either through Lori or to whomever, so we can find a way to — understand there's going to be a learning curve internally for customer service to address these questions —

JM: Sure.

AR: — as they're presented —

LS: Mm-hmm.

AR: — but also have a solution in place for people who are end users, who use it, who have been part of the process. So it's — it's in the works. Is that a fair statement, Lori?

LS: Yeah. No, definitely. I mean, there's definitely more work to be done on — on the Intuit side with respect to just communications and making sure that the information is out there and available to customers on where to go, how to get — you know, to your earlier question — how to get QuickBooks and scripts —

JM: Mm-hmm.

LS: — and where to — where to get support for that. So we're working through all of that.

JM: Yeah.

LS: There's something kind of — Albert's speaking to it — train the trainer kind of model.

JM: Sure.

LS: But yeah. We're —

AR: And we're also working on communication points. You know, we all — and I'll use the term we used this morning — were a little skeptical and unsure of how successful we were going to be.

JM: Right.

AR: And we also, because we were dealing with a conversation that's been in the works for over a decade or two, did not really take into consideration all the other areas that this one consideration was connected to. So as we started peeling back the layers, the Dominoes started to fall where it hit this one, that one, and that one. And the Dominoes are still falling, and there's still attention that needs to be given to other areas that are being spun off on that little —

JM: Sure.

AR: — center that was QuickBooks.

JM: Well, you know, when it comes to blind business owners, and also perhaps anybody in the accounting field, it's also going to be a —

LS: Mm-hmm, exactly.

JM: — a ramp up period because you don't have — you know, you don't have nearly as many blind accountants right now —

AR: No.

JM: — because there wasn't a —

LS: Well, and that was actually one of our really critical messages to the executives —

AR: Yeah.

LS: — is, not only are you talking about empowering business owners who happen to be —

AR: Yes.

LS: print disabled or visually impaired, but you're also talking about opening up a field of employment —

JM: For the first time.

LS: — for people who could be — who could, or were, accountants and book-keepers —

AR: Yeah.


LS: — using the industry standard product and now will be able to continue or enter that field.

AR: Yes.

LS: And that is a huge — that was actually a huge part of the message.

AR: Yeah.

LS: That this is actually an employment opportunity as well as — as direct to small business customer.

TD: I — I would love to see Intuit work with LinkedIn.

LS: Absolutely.

TD: Because we have Genison and ourselves —

LS: Exactly.

TD: — that we could maybe create some kind of network to help —

LS: I would love to do that.

TD: — small business owners and professionals.

LS: Yeah.

AR: Well, that — that's critical. And that — to Lori's point — and I'm — I just — as an educator, as somebody who had Master's degrees and trying to give education to people for opportunity, the fact that young children who are blind or visually impaired or print disabled did not have an option or were not supported in complementing their sense of numeracy and looking to accounting or book-keeping as a field —

JM: Right.

LS: Mm-hmm.

AR: There is the future for us. And that's where, when people say, "Well, there's not going to be a big ROI," there will be over time, I believe; and this is where I become the perpetual optimist. I do think that the kids behind us, the future coming behind us, will be able to then step into a career of their choosing. And if we do this the right way — like, My Blind Spot became a founding member of the IAAP. There's going to be that commitment to creating an accessible environment —

LS: Mm-hmm.

AR: — and creating a — a career path for accessibility, or at least where there is accessibility guaranteeing a career goal. That's the most important part for me. I think sometimes, people who have been blind for a long time are going to have a learning curve in accepting the fact that it's accessible and getting past their sense of disbelief. People who have lost their eyesight late in life like myself will now be able to say, "Oh, I can still do what I used to do as an accountant or a book-keeper."

JM: Right.

AR: But to the point of Lori's, the kids, for the first time, are going to be able to pursue these careers; and if we have this conversation correctly with people like Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan Chase, which has been doing fantastic work in accessibility already, people will then be able to look at becoming financial managers across the board because the conversation or the expectation of accessibility in QuickBooks, and banking at Chase, will be a seamless integration for a variety of options.

TD: J.J., I — I wanted to interact just a little bit. Cheryl — recently, we went to a conference in India about employment of people with disabilities in India, and Cheryl had some really good meetings and insights on the future of employment, the future of small businesses with people with disabilities in India. Do you want to — I'm putting Cheryl on the spot, but —

JM and LS: (Laugh)

AR: It's a global message that needs to be heard, Cheryl.

JM: Yeah.

CA: It's actually very interesting. So at Techshare, they brought in a lot of folks, you know, across the country in India who were presenting different options that they had and how they made it big. In fact, there's one institute, I think somewhere close to New Delhi which specializes in training hearing impaired and making sure that they have employment opportunities. So it was very interesting to see how they reached out to Intuit, saying, So this has been done on products; do you have any thoughts as to how you want to expand it on the employment side?

JM: Mm-hmm.

CA: So it was very interesting to see how they're bringing things into a new dimension because technology has been very good in India, but it hasn't been so widely adopted if I were to compare it, say, over here, the way people are receptive to technology. So I saw that as a very huge difference that, you know, conferences like that are making people a lot more aware of it, and that was very useful.

JM: Great. That is really cool to hear. If people want to get more information and follow the progress, what's the best way to do that?

TD: They can follow me — this is Ted Drake — with @tedDrake on Twitter. I do send out a lot of information, not specifically about this project but others. Otherwise, info@myblindspot.org.

AR: Yes.

LS: Yeah, that's a good place for it.

TD: My Blind Spot will have most of the information.

LS: Yeah. And we have an active group doing beta testing now of QuickBooks; and so Albert's been running that — that distribution list. And we definitely welcome and want to have continued customer feedback.

AR: And if I can just leave us with one thought.

JM: Sure.

AR: Or at least a thought that I want to — I really would like to take my hat off, quite honestly, to Intuit for taking the steps necessary and allowing this to happen organically. I mean, one of the things we didn't touch on here is, Lori is — sits on the Disability Council, which is —

LS: Mm-hmm. Ted also.

AR: And ted. I'm sorry. And Ted also.

TD: Yep.

AR: — which is a newly formed organization or department or committee, whatever you want to call it, within Intuit. And the commitment that they've made to really make accessibility and inclusion a part of their everyday DNA is really to be commended and something that I would like to see a lot of other corporations match, if not excel.

TD: Yeah. And we're — and part of what Lori and I are working on is diversifying our work force.

LS: Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

AR: Yeah.

TD: We're looking for programmers, we're looking for accountants, we're looking for people that want to join Intuit as an employee.

LS: Yeah. There's a huge — there's opportunities in — we hire accountants in tax. They are part of the support and the development team, so we hire people with tax accounting expertise; we hire people, obviously, all across the company, all different functional groups — human resources, you know, engineering, quality, all of those are opportunities; and we are — we are definitely looking to diversify —

JM: Where are the — where are the offices located?

LS: So there is — the company's headquarters are in Mountain View, California, in the bay area, and also an office in San Francisco and Antelope Park; so we have several offices in the bay area. Then we have a large presence in San Diego, which is where a lot of the TurboTax development happens. We have offices in Boston; Plano, Texas; Tucson, Arizona; and —

TD: Toronto, Edmonton —

AR: D.C.

LS: Yep. Up in Canada. And then our — another large development center in Bangalore, India, as well as some smaller satellite offices.

JM: Is there a specific spot where some of these jobs might be posted, or should they just contact you guys, and —

TD: Yeah. Careers.intuit.com. And I have tested it several times. It's pretty accessible.

LS, CA, AR: (Laugh)

TD: It's easy to find — it is easy to find a job.

LS: Yeah.

JM: So — right. Not necessarily even accessibility-related jobs, but even jobs —

LS: Absolutely.

AR: Correct.

TD: Specifically, you know, we want people to be part of the workforce. We're not looking for accessibility experts.

LS: Yeah, yeah. That's right.

TD: We're looking for people to be every position within Intuit.

JM: Right. And sometimes blind people get put in that box. Like, Oh, you want to work for us. Okay, we're going to make you our accessibility person.

AR: Yeah. No.

LS: Yeah, yeah. No, that's —

AR: That's the beautiful thing: They don't put the label on you that way. They look at the ability of the individual, what they bring to the table, and their physical attributes or whatever — whatever we want to call — their challenges, are secondary in nature.

JM: What's the best company perk?

LS: Best company perk. You know —

AR: Working with Lori Samuels and Ted and Cheryl.

TD: You know, we don't have — we don't have crazy perks —

LS: No.

TD: — but the fact that we beat Google as the most preferred workplace —

LS: Yeah.

TD: I mean, they — we get taken very good care of.

LS: Yeah, we — we do. It is an awesome place to work. It has a great culture, a lot to work with there. It's — it's — you know, we — our CEO, Brad Smith, has — has used this phrase that I kind of like; he says that we are "constructively dissatisfied." And that means that we — you know, we — we do appreciate our progress and when we have success; but we're always looking to do better.

AR: Yeah.

LS: And it's a — it's a great mindset, actually, in the company. So — and we also talk about our true north direction —

JM: Yep.

LS: — which is — which is about customers, employees, and shareholders.

JM: Yeah.

LS: And so we always talk about all three when we're making goals and plans and strategies. So — and accessibility fits really beautifully into that. So —

TD: I joined Intuit as the accessibility guy because Intuit is very customer-focused, and they actually mean that. It's not like a lot of companies that say they care about the customer. Intuit really does care. So it's easy for me to convince teams to be — make their products accessible because we care about customers. And I think that's one reason why a lot of us work at Intuit.

JM: Right. Hey, thank you so much for sharing all this insight. We appreciate it.

LS: Thank you, J.J.

AR: Thank you, J.J.

TD: Thanks, J.J.

LS: That was great. Thank you so much for the chance.

Blind Bargains is your home for the latest assistive technology news and reviews. Visit us at BlindBargains.com, or follow @blindbargains on Twitter for the inside scoop.

This has been another Blind Bargains audio podcast. Visit BlindBargains.com for the latest deals, news, and exclusive content. This podcast may not be retransmitted, sold, or reproduced without the express, written permission of ATGuys. Copyright 2014.


Listen to the File


File size: 33.3MB
Length: 36:24

Check out our audio index for more exclusive content
Blind Bargains Audio RSS Feed

This content is the property of Blind Bargains and may not be redistributed without permission. If you wish to link to this content, please do not link to the audio files directly.

Category: Software

No one has commented on this post.

You must be logged in to post comments.

Username or Email:
Password:
Keep me logged in on this computer

Or Forgot username or password?
Register for free

J.J. Meddaugh is an experienced technology writer and computer enthusiast. He is a graduate of Western Michigan University with a major in telecommunications management and a minor in business. When not writing for Blind Bargains, he enjoys travel, playing the keyboard, and meeting new people.


Copyright 2006-2024, A T Guys, LLC.