I received two ads this week from accessibility-related vendors, one in the mail and one via Facebook on my phone. The one in the mail was from Nuance and was an ad for Dragon Professional, the speech recognition product that enables people to dictate documents and use their computers hands-free. The ad features a very comfortable man in a dress shirt, reclining in a comfortable chair in an all-white office with his hands locked casually behind his head.
The second ad was from 3Play Media, a company that provides video captioning solutions. Their ad, like the Nuance ad, features a very comfortable man in a dress shirt, reclining in a comfortable chair on the beach with his hands locked casually behind his head, gazing out across a peaceful water/mountain landscape as the sun sets.
At first I thought the man pictured in these ads was identical, a stock photo pasted onto two different backdrops. However, on closer inspection I see that the indoor Nuance guy is wearing a light blue dress shirt and a wristwatch, whereas the outdoor 3Play guy is wearing a white dress shirt and no wristwatch. Also the outdoor 3Play guy is extending his right pinky finger ever-so-slightly, not true of the indoor Nuance guy.
In any case, both guys are extremely relaxed. And for both, the reason they’re so relaxed is that they’re using accessibility-related products.
As someone who works in the accessibility field, creating, deploying, or using solutions just like the ones in these ads, I’m imagining myself now in that same pose. I am that guy, a very comfortable man in a T-shirt, reclining in a comfortable chair with my hands locked casually behind my head, soaking in the warm vibrant hues of the setting sun. On my ad, the overlay says:
RELAX. Everything is accessible.