Accessibility and Inclusion in Voice

The Future is Spoken

The Future is Spoken presents Marco Pasqua as this week's guest. Marco is Co-founder of LIKE ventures and an award winning speaker and Entrepreneur.

Starting with their own experiences, they end up discussing the act of accessibility and inclusion in Voice Design.

Tune in Now!

Conversation Highlights:

[00:02:11]: 2008 Lay off which lead to a career in Accessibility

• Learn Marco's journey from the video game industry to evangelizing Accessibility.
• During the 2010 recession, losing job opened new avenues for Marco in the world of accessibility expert, public speaking and entrepreneurship.

[00:06:06] LIKE Venture and Marco's Journey towards building an accessible future

• Marco talks about LIKE Ventures all virtual Accessibility conference scheduled for October 14th
• Discusses ways to make online events and conferences accessible for everyone

[00:13:02] Accessibility and Meaning Access are two different things

• Marco explains Accessibility is not about making different products for different people and making one that everyone can use.
• Marco's interesting example for explaining difference between accessibility and meaningful access:

"for example, for a building to have a ramp outside a door and then say, Oh, people can get inside the front door. Right. But then ask yourself, where is that ramp located? Is it actually at the front door or is it at the back of the building near a trash can or near the dumpster? So that you're saying, well, by the way, we have accessibility, but it means that you have to come through a different entrance, but thats ok.

Right. Because you're just like everybody else. No meaningful access is when every single person who's expected to use a product or service can use it in exactly the way it's intended without having to feel like they have to adapt themselves to meet the function of the product. But rather that the product is already thinking about how everyone, whether you're nine or 90 can use it."

[00:18:22]: Accessibility by Design

• Marco explains Accessibility is always an afterthought for many
• Accessibility is more of a money minting machine for the government
• He explains how there is a lack of accessibility awareness with many companies and individuals

[00:23:04]: Making Voice Application more accessible

• Knowing user personal circumstances and preferences how we can make voice interactions more accessible
• Using dialogues and conversation design how we can make show empathy and guide disabled users

[00:45:11]: Must Listen

• How Voice technology is helping Marco prepare for the arrival of his baby

Learn more about Marco at

● LinkedIn

● Twitter

If you enjoyed this episode of The Future is Spoken Podcast, then make sure to subscribe to our podcast.

Follow Shyamala Prayaga at @sprayaga

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shyamalaprayaga.substack.com