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Designing a user experience (UX) and ensuring accessibility in XR boils down to basically the same task; addressing the needs of the user. We have Dylan Fox and Devin Boyle from XR Access on to talk about designing with accessibility in mind from the start, and discuss the upcoming 2020 XR Access Symposium.

Julie: Hello, my name is Julie Smithson, and I am your XR for Learning podcast host. I look forward to bring you insight into changing the way that we learn and teach using XR technologies to explore, enhance and individualize learning for everyone. Today, my guests come from XR Access. Dylan Fox is a user experience designer, specializing in design for emerging technologies. He brings together user needs, technological capabilities, and stakeholder requirements to design accessible products. And his master's thesis was on augmented reality for the visually impaired, exploring Microsoft Hololens as an assistive device. And Devin Boyle is an advisor to XR Access, working groups and emerging technology lead for the Partnership on Employment & Accessible Technology -- otherwise known as PEAT -- supporting efforts to ensure emerging technologies are born accessible. She has more than 10 years of experience in policy analysis and development, stakeholder engagement, strategic communication, and advocacy and partnership building. Thank you both for joining me today.

So, Dylan, can you give me a little bit of an outline of the work that you're doing in building a better user experience for those with accessibility challenges?

Dylan: All right. Thanks, Julie. I'm Dylan. I'm a user experience designer. Just recently finished up my Master's at UC Berkeley, and now working in accessible design for bridging technologies for all sorts of things. So for me, I see my role initially as a UX designer, which is a user experience designer and somebody who understands user needs; what people need out of technology, what people expect from technology, how they understand it, and how we can design it to better work for them. And I worked for as a UX designer for a couple of years, but only recently have I really realized just how much UX can learn from the field of accessibility, because accessibility is fundamentally about addressing user needs. Some of the work I've been doing lately is with XR Access, of course. We've been trying to understand what those user needs are, across a wide spectrum when it comes to virtual and augmented reality. I've also been doing some work with UC Berkeley, doing some research with private companies who want to make their work more accessible, and make sure their users get everything that they need out of their software.

Julie: We'll dive a little bit more into the UI and the work that you're doing at XR access. But I wanted to allow Devin to just give a little bit of an introduction, and how you got involved and what your involvement is with XR Access and working with Dylan and accessibility.

Devin: Sure. Thanks, Julie, for having us on. I'm Devin Boyle. I am an adviser to XR Access and emerging tech lead for the Partnership on Employment & Accessible Technology. And I came to this space in a little different road from Dylan, a little bit different path. I actually come from a background of being a convener. So one of my roles within XR Access is to bring together these six different working groups -- that we'll likely get into in this conversation -- but to bring folks together and also to support communications, communicating internally and externally why industry needs to ensure different technologies, emerging technologies are accessible.

Julie: Let's kick off with what are those working groups? And then we can go over and talk about it with Dylan. How about