Glassbox chief technology officer Yaron Gueta Talks digital Accessibility, Automation, more in interview

When I connected recently with Yaron Gueta, the co-founder and chief technology officer at Glassbox explained to me his company is devoted to “how we can make the life of our customers simpler” and we discussed how that ethos pertains to accessibility. On its website, Glassbox boasts its mantra is to “[reveal] the insights that empower organizations to deliver better digital customer experiences.” In terms of disability inclusion, the heart of the matter lies in Glassbox’s next sentence: “When we help our customers create better experiences for their customers, everyone wins.”

According to Gueta, serving the disability community vis-a-vis accessibility extends further than complying to Americans with Disabilities Act regulations or WCAG standards. Indeed, he pointedly mentioned the elderly population for whom, he said, consuming digital content can be hard due to elements like small font sizes. Aging, Gueta went on to tell me, isn’t often thought of as needing accommodation(s); but many people who are older have disabilities and, as such, could benefit from things like larger, more accessible text on the web. Gueta himself even acknowledged, as someone of a certain age, he has trouble at times reading smaller print on websites.

“While we [at Glassbox] were looking at the customer experience domain, we noticed that there are troubles that is actually from accessibility—but it’s not [exclusively] for people who are considered disabled,” Gueta said.

It was upon this realization that, Gueta said, the company began uttering a refrain popular amongst many accessibility-minded organizations: prioritizing accessibility isn’t merely the moral thing to do… prioritizing accessibility is savvy business practice too. Gueta noted that Glassbox began educating its customers on how, if they invested in good accessibility, “you are going to help between 25% to 30% of your audience.”

To illustrate his point, Gueta pointed to one of “a dozen examples” of struggle that makes up what he described as “rage click.” Rage click, he explained, occurs when a user repeatedly clicks a button, expecting it to do something, and it fails to do anything. The same goes for something he called “dead zoom,” whereby a user attempts to zoom in on a page to no avail. The website (or app) doesn’t support zooming APIs, he added.

In both cases, most people wave the proverbial white flag.

“They abandoned what they were trying to do,” Gueta said.

The reason Gueta can cite such detailed information is because Glassbox’s software works continuously in the background, churning away 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This automation is more conducive to not only providing better accessibility for end users, but for quality assurance staffers as well. Rather than a human using what Gueta called “widgets” to manually check for accessibility every time, Glassbox makes those checks more accessible unto itself by using technology to handle the grunt work.

As a practical matter, Gueta said while major enterprises such as financial institutions and whatnot do employ teams dedicated to sniffing out accessibility, human curation goes only so far—which is precisely where Glassbox comes in to flex its muscle. Its software, he told me, is able to detect “dozens and dozens” of accessibility problems that, bless their hearts and hard work, a human team was bound to overlook. But with Glassbox’s technology in tow, Gueta said these companies’ teams have the ability to “have visibility” to unearth more issues and fix them accordingly. In other words, Gueta said Glassbox gives enterprises the chance to move their mindsets beyond sheer legal compliance into more moral, do-right-unto-others action. Glassbox provides a clearer pathway for such a shift. It’s about intrinsic motivation versus extrinsic motivation.

When asked about the feedback Glassbox receives from its customers, Gueta said he believes the company is gaining “very good traction” with its product. Interest is high “across the board,” he added, and the overarching mission resonates deeply with all.

Looking towards the future, Gueta expressed enthusiasm for—what else?—artificial intelligence. He was effusive in his praise for generative AI’s capability to extend the work of companies like his. It will help make spotting problem even easier and more efficient, while giving teams the opportunity to address issues “on the fly,” he said. The use of artificial intelligence will also prove more budget-friendly to companies as well.

What’s next for Glassbox? “Autonomous fixes for accessibility issues,” Gueta said.