ATU639 – DateAbility App with Jacqueline and Alexa Child

Hi, this is Jacqueline and Alexa Child and we’re the founders of Dateability.

And this is your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project that Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 639 of Assistive Technology Update. It’s scheduled to be released on August 25th, 2023. On today’s show, we’re very excited to welcome Jacqueline and Alexa Child. They’re here to talk about the Dateability app. We also have Amy Berry on from Bridging apps with an app worth mentioning. But folks, before we get into all of that, let’s start off with this.

Hello and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, your weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. You may notice that my voice is slightly different as I am your new host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 378 of Assistive Technology Update. It’s scheduled to be released on August 24th, 2018. On today’s show, we have a very special guest, the one the only, Wade weer. He will take some time out to talk about his experience on the podcast and offer some advice to the new host. So let’s go ahead and get into the interview. Listeners, you might be wondering why you heard two openings to the show today. Well, the main reason is because the opening you just heard was actually my first, I guess, opening as a solo host, even though my guest that day was our previous host, Wade Weer.

That was still actually my first show and that was actually five years ago yesterday. Sometimes it’s very hard to believe that I’ve now been hosting this show for five years, and today’s show makes 261 shows that I have actually hosted independently, and I got to admit, sometimes I cannot believe that it has been that many and yet other times I feel like I’ve kind of been doing this forever. First of all, I wanted to take a little bit of time today just to thank each and every listener just for listening to this show. I am in no means a well-trained, professional podcaster, radio personality, any of those kind of things. What I guess I do have is just a passion for this work and just any time that you get to have a job, a position with an organization that has a mission that goes with yours to really make the world a little bit more accessible for well everyone.

And then you get an opportunity to do something like this where I get to learn about new things every single week. I get to approach this and talk to folks who use their skills and their abilities to do some really and truly amazing things. And our guest today, Jacqueline and Alexa Child, are no exception to that. They saw a need, there was an issue out there that did not have an accommodation or a way to fix it, so they went out and made one themselves. And hopefully you’ve noticed over the course of the years that many of our guests are that way. They’re individuals that see problems, that see barriers, and instead of talking about those barriers or really even seeing them, I guess as barriers, they instead come up with solutions. And I think that’s really what assistive technology and accessibility and all these things boil down to is instead of talking about problems, it’s individuals that just find solutions, that find ways around things.

As I’m kind of handing out, thanks, of course, I do have to thank the 261 guests, although I suppose we’ve had some folks on more than once, so I did not go back through and actually figure out exactly how many guests, but all the guests who have taken time out of their days, out of their work schedules, which I can only imagine are probably as full and absolutely hard to maintain as mine is. I just really appreciate them taking the time to come on this show to talk to me and to really let our listeners find out about the different things that they offer and how those different devices, tools, and other things can really help to overcome barriers. I am absolutely humbled every single week that I get to talk to our guests. It’s amazing. I often joke with my team on our clinical assistive technology team that any meeting I’m in with any of them, I’m never the smartest person in the room.

And here when I’m recording this podcast, most of the time it’s via Zoom remotely. And even though I’m sitting in a room by myself, I’m still not the smartest person in the room and I swear that I learn something every single interview that I do. I usually end up reaching out to someone that I know or that I’ve met, not so much just to get another listener, but to say, “Hey, this show’s coming out at X time and I found out about this accommodation or this kind of app, this program, this cool new thing that I really and truly think you’d be interested in. So definitely give it a listen and here’s some information on it.” Our guests today are here to talk about the Dateability app, and I have already forwarded information from this podcast onto a couple of folks I know who’ve been looking for something like this for quite a long time.

And even after five years after 261 episodes, I still have a little bit of, I guess what’s called imposter syndrome of why in the world am I the one doing this. I feel sometimes that, “Oh man, what if someone else could do this better? What if the questions would be better? The interviews would be nicer, more information would get out.” The real purpose of this podcast is really just to get the word out about assistive technology. Hopefully someone listening can find out about something that can help them with a barrier maybe they’ve experienced or maybe they can just hear that someone else has went through this and this is what they have used. That is really and truly the goal. I know we’re never going to reach the numbers of a Joe Rogan or a true crime podcast, but I promise we won’t go to true crime unless I suppose there’s an accessibility feature or assistive technology that can help solve true crimes.

If you know of one of those, let me know. That’d be a great kind of crossover. But really and truthfully, the purpose of this podcast in and of itself is just to get the word out. So that individuals can know that there are these things out there that can help either themself or a friend, a family member, or if you’re a provider, maybe someone that you serve. You can sit there and pass this information on and hopefully find some things that can help folks. I mean, all of us are just going through this experience of life together and anything that can make it a little bit more enjoyable and make it just a little bit better is always a great thing in my book. So again, I did just want to take a little bit of time as I looked at the calendar and realized that, wow, it’s been five years that I’ve been doing this show, 261 episodes.

And again, whether it’s your first time listening, whether you’ve been with us for those full five years or for the full 12 years or however long this show has been on the air, I thank you. I thank you for sharing some of that experience called life and taking a little bit of time out of it to give our show a listen. And whether you’re a first time listener or been with us since the beginning or since the beginning of me being on here, I really hope that you just continue to listen for many, many more years to come. Hopefully we can continue to put out something that’s worthy of your time, something that you really enjoy, and something that hopefully gives you the ability to find some things that can really and truly help to enhance your life or the life of someone that you know and/or love.

So again, folks, I cannot thank any of you enough. I know I may have said that quite a few times and hopefully I say it just enough that it. Again, I am in no way shape or form a professional podcaster, a professional editor, a professional interviewer, or any of those things. But five years ago, leadership here did kind of take a chance on me and hand it over to me. And at that point, I still sometimes come in here and have no idea why in the heck I’m the one doing it, but as long as I keep doing a decent job, hopefully I will still be able to continue to sit here and be your host. And it just means the world to me. I’m a huge fan of assistive technology and the things that it can do. I love sharing the word. I love getting information from folks.

I love the people that we get to talk to here. And really, I cannot thank you enough to our listeners, to our guests, to our leadership here at Easterseals Crossroads, again, for hopefully putting this out. We hope you find it useful. We hope you find it as a resource and we hope after five years you’re not tired of hearing my voice on here, but I’ll say it just one more time, thank you so much for listening, and here’s to the next five years. Next up on the show, please join me in welcoming back Amy Berry from Bridging Apps with an app worth mentioning.

This is Amy Berry with Bridging Apps, and this is an app worth mentioning. This week’s featured app is called Reminders. Visual scheduling and checklist apps have proven to be effective resources for individuals with autism, cognitive disabilities, and more. This is the Apple Reminders app and it features a very simple user-friendly interface, and it’s an ideal tool for individuals all abilities. The app makes it easy to remember the things you need to do. You can use it for all of life’s to-dos, including grocery lists, projects at work, or anything else you want to track. And with iCloud, you can keep all your devices in sync, so you’ll have your reminders with you. iOS updates to reminders include pen list, list templates, and the completed smart list brings some notable improvements for those who use the Reminders app on a regular basis. Reminders is currently available for iOS devices and is free to download. For more information on this app and others like it, visit bridgingapps.org.

On today’s show, listeners, we take a look at a tough subject for anyone really, regardless of ability, dating. At its best, dating is a wonderful time of meeting people and finding love and friendship. At its worst, well, it’s really neither of those things. For individuals with disabilities, there can be other challenges to dating, including ableism, misconceptions and well, some people out there are just jerks and that’s not lie. Well, our guests today are here from Dateability and they’re going to tell us about how their app can assist individuals with disabilities with finding connections. Alexa, Jacqueline, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having us.

Yes, thank you so much.

Yeah, ever since I found out about this, I’ve been really excited to have you on and really be able to find out kind of all about it. But before we get into Dateability, the app and everything else, could you tell our listeners a little bit about yourselves?

Yeah, so hi everyone. I’m Jacqueline. I am 29 and I am a disabled woman. I became disabled due to chronic illness as a young teenager, and so the last 15 years I’ve really just been trying to learn life as a person with a disability. And I’m here with my sister.

And I’m Alexa. I’m Jacqueline’s older sister, I’m 33. I’m a public interest attorney and also co-founder of Dateability with my sister and ally and advocate to the disability community. And I’m really excited for this venture that we’ve embarked on in this past year.

And I am excited to learn about it. So I guess let’s start with just kind of at the top. What is Dateability?

Dateability is the only dating app for disabled and chronically ill people and we are aiming to make love accessible by creating an inclusive and safe space for people with disabilities and chronic illness and of course non-disabled allies and to find love.

Awesome, awesome. So tell me, I unfortunately don’t have a… Maybe fortunately or unfortunately don’t have a lot of experience with kind of dating apps, kind of hear horror stories and things like that. But just from a user perspective, what does the user experience kind of look and feel like on the Dateability app?

Yeah, it’s very similar to the other dating apps if you’ve ever used one, so Hinge, Bumble, Tinder. We wanted to make it a modern app, just have the experience be different and better than the other apps because right now, those other apps are not safe, they’re not inclusive. People, including Jacqueline, face a lot of discrimination and harassment on there due to their disabilities or chronic illness. And so we wanted to get rid of that, get rid of all the noise basically. But a user will sign up. There’s a safety tutorial on there, which is also different than the other apps, really teaches our users what red flags to look out for, how to report a profile if it seems suspicious or somebody is being inappropriate. They upload profile photos, enter in their information bio.

And the one thing that makes Dateability different besides its mission is the Dateability deets profile section, and that’s a section on the profile that goes under basic information. It’s an extensive list of broad terms used to describe oneself. So wheelchair user, immunocompromised, food allergy, permanent medical device, no diagnoses. It is optional. There is a type in option if we fail to miss something because it’s so diverse that I’m sure there’s something out there that we didn’t include, but we did try to include pretty much everything. And that goes on there as a way to reduce the anxiety one may feel when having to disclose, to use their bio to talk about other parts of their lives and their hobbies and interests and passion.

And so that was really important to us and it was important to us to send a signal to our users that we don’t view disability as a negative, we don’t think it’s something anyone should be ashamed of. So go ahead and put it on your profile. And so then once you go through all of that, you get on your profile, you can verify, which is a newer addition to the app, and we strongly recommend, it reduces catfishing, helps make the platform safer. And then you go on and you set your age and gender and sexual preferences and you start swiping on users. And when two users like each other and there’s a match, they can begin messaging on the app and take it from there. And hopefully soon we have some Dateability weddings. We are very excited to hear all of the stories.

Nice. And we’ll get into hopefully hear a little bit about that kind of later. But I like the way you put in the guardrails and the safety and kind of… Because I know mean everyone hears horror stories or if there’s anything that happens, every news outlet picks it up and runs with it, so you think everybody’s out to get you, but I like you put it in there. I also really like the way that folks can disclose if they want to. Just getting that out of the way, I know for a lot of individuals really relieves that kind of anxiety, but then for others I like that it’s optional that you don’t have to really put that on there. Giving them the choice on how much they disclose is always kind of a nice thing or it just keeps it open for folks and lets them do it at their kind of pace and in their kind of way.

We want to empower disabled people and amplify their voices. We have a blog now. We really want to create this online community for romantic relationships, eventually friendships, and that’s really what we’re looking to do. We don’t want to force somebody to disclose because that kind of is contrary to Jacqueline’s experiences, which she can talk about more, but we want to give people the ability to disclose in a safer way, less pressure, less intense, less anxiety inducing. And so that was important to us.

Excellent. You kind of led me into into my next question, where did the idea for this come from?

Yeah, so unfortunately I had some traumatic experiences on the mainstream dating apps, all related to my disabilities. And one in particular was when I was asked out on a date and asked to go for a walk in the park and I said I could not because I was recovering from a knee surgery and I was still using crutches. And he asked me what I did to injure my knee and I responded that there was no injury, I have a connected tissue disorder. And he then said, “I hope you aren’t planning on having kids because it would be extremely selfish to pass on your genetics.” And tried to explain to me how genetics work. And that was just mind-blowing to me. We had exchanged about three messages prior to this, and I had never had anyone discuss those things with me. And it was very eye-opening.

And while that was the most traumatic and most blatant, I’ve also had a lot of subtle ableism and discrimination. People’s family telling my perspective partners not to date me because of my medical history or people ghosting me after I’m forced to disclose my chronic illnesses. And so I struggled with dating a lot and I really began to internalize those feelings and start thinking, “Okay, yeah, maybe disabled people don’t deserve love. Maybe no one’s ever going to love me because it’s going to take someone really special to love someone like me.”

And it was a difficult time in my life and I would constantly look for a dating app for people with chronic illnesses or disabilities and nothing ever existed. And then back in October of 2021, I had to get a feeding tube, a J-tube placed in my abdomen and I panicked and I thought, who is going to understand what life looks like with a feeding tube? If they already don’t understand my limitations, there’s no way I’m going to be able to find someone who does. And Alexa said, “Let’s make our own dating app because you’re not alone.” And throughout this process we’ve learned that absolutely I am not alone, and this has been a rampant problem and people are looking for a safe and inclusive space to date.

And I know unfortunately what you experienced isn’t uncommon. I know I’ve talked to some other folks. I definitely hope that first guy’s still single somewhere out there, hopefully not on dating apps anymore or talking to anyone at all, but hopefully he’s definitely still kind of single. So I hate that you had to have that whole experience, but I love that you made something to help other folks out of it. Instead of looking at the problem, you actually found something that can be a solution and I think that’s really great.

Because as I said, I know I’ve talked to other folks either that I’ve worked with here, either as colleagues or as consumers or anything, and it’s been an ongoing issue for a lot of individuals just because, yeah, there is a lot of ableism out there and for some folks it’s just the ignorance of not knowing. And for some folks, they’re just, well, the first guy, kind of jerks, and unfortunately, they’re probably going to probably make their way onto any app, but hopefully a little lesser as we look at it on here. So again, I am glad that you did take that experience and turn it into something that can help a whole lot of individuals in the long run. As far as the app itself, is it available pretty much on every platform?

It is. It’s available on iOS, Android, and then it’s also available on web application. And accessibility is of course the foundation of Dateability, and we really wanted it to be accessible for everyone, which is why we created a web application version of it so that people can use their computers or their browsers on their phones, so that people can find love no matter what. And the best part about it is that Dateability is also free.

Nice. And that was going to be my next question. Sometimes you can make something totally accessible, but if it’s still cost prohibitive, then it’s still not accessible to the folks who can actually benefit from it, so very, very awesome. So it’s free on all the platforms to kind of use and be a member and everything else?

Yes, it is free. Eventually we’d like to add a subscription service and have a free version and then an enhanced version while still keeping that cost more accessible than the other apps. That’s really important to us. They can run anywhere between 40 and a hundred dollars a month now. That’s not in our pipeline, but for now and for the time being, it will be free. We really launched at the end of October 2022, so we’re new and we’re growing steadily, but we really want to create a large and robust user base before asking people to potentially pay for the enhanced version.

For sure. Yeah, for sure.

And our future plans also include expanding globally, because right now we are available in the United States and Canada and Mexico, but we really want to expand globally. We get messages all the time saying that the UK needs this and Australia needs this. So that that’s our goal.

Awesome, awesome. Well, we can’t wait to hear as everything expands. One of my favorite parts of this show is to ask guests to tell me a story about, oh, has someone’s found success using their technology? Do you happen to have any success stories of someone maybe finding love or friendship on your app?

We have really realized that we’re building this big community, and while we aren’t aware of any relationships that are current, within the first two months of launching, a couple had already found each other, and that was just the coolest experience. We were taken aback and we almost couldn’t believe it at first. We were like, wow. I mean, I spent five years on a dating app and I could get two dates out of it. So it was really nice to see that people are meeting and connecting. And we’ve also heard of people finding friendship on the app. While we don’t have an official friendship feature, we have a lot of people who are on there looking for Platonic relationships and friendships are being made. And I did see, I was perusing Reddit earlier and I saw somebody on a chronic illness that I think that said, “Anybody have any luck on any of the apps out there?”

And somebody said, “I did on Dateability”. I messaged them, [inaudible 00:23:36]. So if you happen to be listening to this, please [inaudible 00:23:40] because I’d really like to know more. But they’re out there. And I think while we are so new, so it does take time for success stories to come about, we’re at least giving the world’s largest minority a space to feel safe and comfortable and hope and to create these connections. I think that for a lot of people and a lot of our users, they kind of gave up on the other apps and they’re like, okay, I’m done with this. And so we’re giving them hope, Jacqueline hope, anyone who wants a little hope and optimism, I think we’re providing that, hopefully. That’s our intention.

Yeah, you brought up some great points there. Yeah, I mean, finding love is kind of I guess the end kind of goal, but finding friendship isn’t always a bad thing either. Just because you don’t really connect in that kind of way doesn’t mean you can’t find some friends, especially with been through some common experiences or kind of understand some of those things. Sometimes just having somebody to talk to about that can be nice as well.

And even personally, I’ve been able to connect with the community, which I really hadn’t been connected with before Dateability, and so it’s been a wonderful experience, finally talking to other people with similar experiences and just feeling like I’m a part of this movement that changes so many people’s lives.

And I must admit, I was surprised when I started doing research that this wasn’t out there sooner. I mean, there’s farmer dating apps, there’s some very, very specific, and you said it yourself, this is 25% of the population out there that wasn’t quite kind of served. And I do really love that you do have this as a service and as a resource for folks to be able to find folks to really find love, friendship, and just really connections with. Well, if our listeners want to find out more, what’s a great way for them to do that?

You can find out more by checking out our Instagram, it’s @dateabilityapp. We have a great info page, which is info.dateabilityapp.com, and you can sign up via the web app dateabilityapp.com or download us on iOS or Android.

All right. We’ll put links to all that stuff down in the show notes. Well, Alexa, Jacqueline, thank you both so much for coming on the show, for telling us all about the Dateability app, just the great features that are built into it and the wonderful thing it can do to really help folks in the disability community be able to meet each other and really find hopefully some lifetime partnerships and friendships out of.

Thank you so much.

Yes, thank you so much.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at (317) 721-7124. Send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAProject. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation or InTRAC. You can find out more about InTRAC at relayindiana.com. A special thanks to Nicole Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show was produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly the opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners, or this host. This was your Assistive Technology Update, and I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.