Ableism in Tech: Building Accessible Products with the Founders of Dateability

Ashley Sims
Good morning and welcome back to Disability@Work, a quick ten-minute podcast delivering news, insight and a safe space to learn about disability inclusion. I'm your host, Ashley Sims, and today we're diving into a topic that affects every corner of the digital world: ableism in tech. Joining me today are Jacqueline and Alexa Child, founders of Dateability, the first dating app built specifically for people with disabilities. Welcome, Jacqueline and Alexa.

Jacqueline Child
Thank you.

Alexa Child
Thank you so much for having us.

Ashley Sims
Well, let's get into it. So you recently joined Julie Sowash on our sister podcast, Changing Minds and Changing Lives, where you shared the emotional and personal side of your guys's story. Today I wanted to zoom in a little bit more and talk a little bit about why a Dateability-type app was needed on the market. Jacqueline, you were dealing with a lot of ableism in mainstream dating apps. When did it hit you that those experiences weren't just personal, but actually like a reflection of a systemic ableism issue in tech design?

Jacqueline Child
Oh, I don't even know if I realized how pervasive it was until we launched Dateability and all these people would tell us how needed it was and how just really overlooked disabled people have been. And prior to creating I just was not in touch with my fellow disabled peers and I didn't know how to be. I didn't know, like, just how to insert myself. And so, yeah, I hadn't really been able, I was not able to communicate with people and get all these different perspectives until Dateability was launched and we had people with so many diverse disabilities come to us and say how necessary an app like Dateability is.

Ashley Sims
Yeah. One of the stats that we talk about all the time is 1 in 4 people in the US has a disability, yet so many products, apps out there don't have any sort of accessibility built in or it's treated like an afterthought. Why do you think that is?

Alexa Child
That's a good question. I think that there's, listen, being disabled, it can happen to anyone at any point in someone's life. It's not a minority that you are born into. You can be, but not necessarily. So if you're not born disabled, it doesn't mean you're not gonna become disabled. In fact, most people age into disability, if they don't become disabled earlier. And I think that scares people. I think they'd rather not think about it. I think that there's also this incorrect stereotype that disabled people don't work, or they're on government benefits, and so they don't have spending power. And so it doesn't matter if I'm not making my product accessible because they're not gonna buy it anyway or spend money or make me money. And so I think it's a combination of those things. 

Jacqueline Child
Yeah. And I also add that I think that accessibility in the tech space, at least, is it's very difficult to achieve. And there have not been really like, for lack of a better word, accessible solutions for to implement to easily implement accessible tech. And that it can be a barrier. You have to be very skilled to, make sure your tech is accessible. And I'm specifically referring to screen readers. It's really hard. We, you know, our engineers are really, really skilled and meticulous, and it is still a very tedious process. And there's we often make mistakes that we have to fix and improve upon. And also accessibility is always changing too. And so it's never like, oh, check it, check this and you're done with it. It's this really rigorous, you know, process of always making sure that you maintain accessibility and I mean, just despite how hard it is, it needs to be done from everyone.

Ashley Sims
Yeah, absolutely.

Jacqueline Child
I mean, I think, like, finally the world is coming around to realizing why we need, like, closed captionings and stuff. But, I mean, as far as, like, image description goes, we get comments from people all the time saying like, hey, you left, like, you left an AI prompt on the bottom of your post. And I'm like, one, this was not created by AI, but also, no, this is just an image description. And here's what this means. And so it's just, like, it's not mainstream.

Alexa Child
No.

Jacqueline Child
The mainstream, they don't know about it.

Ashley Sims
Yeah, yeah. Ok, so you guys decide to build your app. Of course building it is one thing which I'm sure there were many struggles along that journey. But also funding is a big thing when you're starting a tech company or building a tech product. And the reality in the startup world is that it's more difficult for disabled founders. So Forbes has reported that disabled founders are up to 400 times less likely to secure VC funding. And Fast Company found that 92% of disabled entrepreneurs say investors overlook disability-centered products. Given that landscape, you you guys made the decision to go a different route. So you went with securing different angel investors, grants. Can you talk a little bit about that experience, why you went down that route? And what kind of led to that decision?

Alexa Child
Yeah, the gap is pretty incredible. Also, women get less funding to begin with. So we're a double whammy. We're a women founded and, you know, a disabled founded with Jacqueline and then a disability-centered app. And we did try to get that VC money. I really underestimated how difficult it would be for us. But we were often told to shift to a platonic friendship app because intimacy and disability make people uncomfortable. Or we were given praise, but like, it's just not, like, the time because it's not something that they, like, seems like, you know, like, the sexy product. They don't view it that way. And so after being, you know, turned down time and time again, we finally found angel investors who really believe in our mission and value what we're doing. And in hindsight, I think that was better. I think that VCs often will pressure companies and startups to push profit, profit over people. And we don't want to do that. Of course we want to have a successful, profitable company, but we want our users to be first, and we want the product to be quality. And so I'm glad that we don't have to deal with that pressure. But it was staggering to find out, like, how much discrimination there is in the startup tech investment world. 

Jacqueline Child
Yeah, and even like minority-driven VCs, they are often forgetting about disability. You'll see a forum and it's like, which minority do you belong to? And it lists everything and disability is nowhere to be found. And it just adds to the fact that we are the forgotten minority, despite being the world's largest.

Ashley Sims
Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. Despite these barriers, you guys built Dateability with a lot of accessibility in mind, including, I think it's Dateability Deets, which is a function where you can basically disclose your disability neutrally or in a safe way. And you have a bunch of other accessibility features that you've talked about a little bit earlier. So why do you think more tech designers don't include those features? I mean, we talked a little bit about it earlier where it's about, you know, it's not super easy, but we've also talked about the fact that it benefits more than just the disability community. You know, a lot of people use captions. So why do you think that's not more mainstream?

Alexa Child
I mean, we use captions when anyone with an Irish accent is on TV. I need subtitles to make sure I'm understanding them correctly.

Jacqueline Child
Yeah, but I mean, like, captions benefit literally everyone.

Alexa Child
Right.

Alexa Child
And I think that that is why it has become adopted into the mainstream is because non-disabled folks use that. And so I really think it comes from a place of ignorance and not even knowing one, like what these things are and, two, how people benefit from them. I think that, like, everyone should definitely use the VoiceOver app, and use a screen reader to realize that that is how people rely on their devices. And people I think are not interested. 

Alexa Child
And I think even if there was, you know, an engineer at one of these big tech companies that was willing to implement these accessibility features, there's no one, you know, letting them know why they're important or what is necessary. And so I know with our engineers, they're incredibly dedicated to making Dateability accessible technically. But they might not have known, like, what exactly that entails until they partnered with us. And we hear from our users and we pass along the messaging. And so that's also, you know, I think part of the problem is that there's no one at these big companies saying, we need to perfect this. Our users need this feature. And this is why.

Jacqueline Child
Yeah. Which just adds to the point that disabled people deserve to be hired and be involved in these workplaces.

Ashley Sims
Yeah, for sure. What kind of a difference has it made? Like what kind of feedback have you heard from your community about those accessible features? 

Jacqueline Child
Well, people really love, like, the image description that we have on our photos. And so, people say that it was a big surprise to have that on a dating app and that they're grateful for it. And also just knowing that we are committed to it and that although there will be hurdles along the way, that we work really hard to fix those things has been really well received.

Alexa Child
Right. You're never gonna achieve perfection right out the gate. But we are, you know, we're working towards it. We're so open to our users feedback. We're easily reachable. And so I think that that really helps. And you know, disability is so diverse and tech needs are so different among people. And so we want to hear from our users. We encourage that feedback so that we can, you know, try to make Dateability the most accessible dating app.

Jacqueline Child
Yeah. Because unfortunately one, something that is accessible to one person may make it inaccessible to another person. And so when there's these competing needs that can be really tricky to navigate. But we do the best we can.

Ashley Sims
That's awesome. For disabled entrepreneurs out there listening, especially those facing some of those funding barriers, what advice would you give them to stay on course?

Alexa Child
I think you have to remind yourself why you're doing this. I think you have to keep going. I think that rejection is redirection and that you will find the person or the funder that, like, meets your needs. I mean, of course, that sounds like really idealistic. And sometimes people are building things, but there isn't a need for. And so I don't know at what point you take a step back and, you know, figure out if this is the necessary product, if there's a market need or if it's just discrimination that’s preventing you from getting funding. You know, our success stories from the app are proof that it is working and it is needed. But I think that we, you know, we have hard times. We never give up. And I think having a team or a co-founder by your side that pushes you is good. I can't imagine doing this alone.

Jacqueline Child
I totally agree.

Ashley Sims
Awesome. Jacqueline, Alexa, it has been great. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today. To our listeners, thank you for joining us for Disability@Work. If today's conversation resonated with you, share it. Keep the dialog going and support disabled creators and founders wherever you can. Until next time.