Be an Accessibility Anti-Hero

Presenter: Thank you for joining the session. I always want to start out with assumptions, because I am a big fan of assuming positive intent. The assumption is that you are attending the session because you want to be more accessible. Maybe some of the work you're doing isn't there yet, because it's hard or expensive, or there's a big list, and you're trying to walk the tight rope between the timeline, budget, what the stakeholders want, etc. You want to do well. We are an industry of people-pleasers, and we want everyone happy. We are always juggling. We assume that you are here because you want to make accessibility more accessible.

Before we get into all of that, who am I to talk about that? My name is Donna Bungard, a client lead at Kanopi Studios. I love to continue to grow and really expand my understanding and my empathy, and, overall, just my ability to really provide more for my clients, their end-users, and so on.

I work over at Kanopi Studios. I am fortunate to work with an amazing team as we partner with fantastic clients that do so much good in the world. I am proud to be part of this team, to focus on incremental growth and website evolution.

Accessibility is really not an optional thing, anymore. Years ago, I would think, "We should add that on." It's not an add-on, it's not something we can put in there, it's not something optional. But by building empathy, and by building accessibility into your KPIs, you can make it easier. You can make accessibility part of the process.

Growing up, I was the only in my immediate family that didn't have some kind of disability. We had everything covered. At the end of the day, being accessible, making sure everyone had the accommodations they needed wasn't about being a good person. It was about the fact that, if I couldn't make my hard-of-hearing sister (that's how she identified) — my hard-of-hearing sister wasn't going to help me carry vast amounts of holiday groceries upstairs, if I didn't present information in a way for her to receive and account for information.

Accessibility and building things in isn't just an add-on. It's a part of what we do every day. For a while, it took me to get to the bridge between understanding websites and be in my life.

Today, we will talk about a hero and an anti-hero. We will talk about what accessibility is and how it is not charity. We will talk about how it makes sense, where we're beginning, and where we are in this world we are living in today. Then, there is some question-and-answer time at the end.

A hero is a person who comes in and saves the day. That is a person idealized for their courage, selflessness, and other qualities. An anti-hero does things for their own benefit. They're not going to really have that complete idealistic point of view.

So, with that, without the understanding of a hero and an anti-hero, let's take a step back. People with disabilities don't need you to save them. You're not doing things on your website to cater to a community. They need your respect, just as any user group should. But you're not going to be their hero. Your team designers and developers and marketing people and all of these strategic, brilliant people are not going to save anyone. Your website needs traffic from this community. In order to get their traffic and build their trust, you need to respect them and meet them where they are.

Because, each user, regardless of their ableness or what-have-you, regardless of how they identify, disabled or not disabled, they are the heroes of their own stories. All content strategists should tell you that an effective strategy is to have the user be the hero of their own story.

If you go to Amazon to buy a pair of socks, your ability to navigate the site and purchase what you want and get it days later makes you part of your own story. You are able to accomplish your goal.

Therefore, why do we want to be the anti-hero? What are we going for?

You need a little selfishness to be an anti-hero. You need to take care of your organization's bottom line. Your team needs to promote accessibility, just because your team needs to know that you're doing the right thing, not because they want you to save them, but because that's the right thing and that's what you do.

Finally, you need to be able to sell it upstream. You need to be able to tell your stakeholders the positive impacts, the return on your investment, by being accessible.

So, you've got to be an anti-hero.

So, a quick recap on accessibility. Accessibility is about removing the barriers. There are about a quarter of U.S. citizens and slightly less Canadian adults that self-identify as disabled. That does not include minors. If you're working with teens looking at schools, all those individuals who may identify as ADD, ADHD, ASD, all of those users who may have challenges of physical, visual, mobility challenges, they're not in those numbers. So, we need to use the POUR principles to look at our sites and make sure we're breaking down those barriers so we are inclusive.

I touched a little on what these are. With disability, we break it down into one of four categories: cognitive, audio, visual, and mobile. With that, we need to also keep in mind that, of those quarter of your users coming to your site with a self-identified challenge, you also have individuals looking at your site on a cracked phone screen, with low bars, in a crowded place where they can't hear anything, and maybe they're holding their backpack, groceries, or purse in one hand, and they're doing these things. They're distracted, they have a hard time with mobility, and maybe they're a glare in the screen. There are reasons that all users benefit from the accessible site.

When we think globally, beyond North America, we're talking about one in seven people. So, because of that, we follow the guidelines, brought by the W3C and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. WCAG 2.0 were the original collection of more than 40 guidelines to break down those barriers. WCAG 2.1 was released later, and this is the industry standard, because it includes line height, orientation, and other things, things that are becoming more important in barriers that we're seeing.

Then we have the different levels, A, AA, and AAA.

Accessibility is not charity.

In the UK, the music industry loses $2.5 pounds of ticket sales per year. U.S. customers with vision loss have an estimated $175 billion of disposable income. Meanwhile, two percent of total e-commerce transactions are completed by those who are blind.

We have 50 billion pounds a year being lost on e-commerce sites in the UK alone.

Combined, the disabled community has a disposable income of $8 trillion.

This is not a community that needs to be saved. We need to respect them. We need to bring these numbers to our stakeholders and show that, overall, these numbers matter. This is a viable market, because it makes sense.

We understand the budgets matter. We're all trying to balance our task lists. We're all sitting around and looking at things we want to improve on our websites. What will produce the greatest impact? What will be able to do this month or this year? If you build it into the practice, it stops being a list on a separate bucket at the end where you say, "When I have free time, I'll have time for that."

Let's look at more statistics. Two out of three Internet transactions are abandoned because of the low accessibility for vision. Call companies — Internet users who are blind have call services . . .

Basically, you get two out of three people will not be able to check out or go through a process, or interact with your site, your forms, or your individual site, because they can't see.

You will have more people calling in more, which means more people manning the phones, and more likelihood of misinformation.

Fewer than one in three sites had clear contact information.

Then there is SEO.

When it comes down to it, search engines drive almost all of our traffic to our sites. But search engines can't see your pretty pictures. They can read the alt-text, they can read the meaning and derive the important information, they can scan captions and transcripts. They have learned so much, their algorithms are so advanced, that words have greater value.

Search engines aren't going to hear your cool videos. But they're learning. Those algorithms are advancing. Every new one tries to bring relative content, it's trying to diversify content. Google is making it so you can't have all of the ten posts; it breaks it out so that the same domain is less likely to own them on page one. They're paying attention, they're growing, and you're using the same code and information to make things accessible.

The 411 . . . There are alt-text, captions and transcripts, and a unique page title. I don't want to be sitting on a train and hear, "Subway stop, subway stop, subway stop." I want it to be meaningful. That's what the page titles do.

The heading structure is so important. It helps people navigate a page, whether they're using assistive technology, or it's a power user who wants to use their keyboard.

Reading level matters. Typically, they say either a sixth- or ninth-grade reading level for sites. It's not that the readers are necessarily at that level. But maybe there are sites for a specific task. Maybe you have people coming to learn about the different types of microscopes available. Maybe you have a site where you're doing research about memory, and you want to understand the effects of Alzheimer's on the brain, and how that progresses, and how different artistic areas light up and other areas don't as much as they used to. You don't need to necessarily judge that sixth- to ninth-grade reading level. But if you have someone in the general public, scrolling through a page, trying to get the gist, "Is this for me?" that's when you need to pay attention. It's not always about the reading level of the user, but the reading level and the attention span of the user at that time.

Then, of course, there's the legal piece. The USA has the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 508, WAG 2.0 AA.

Twenty-three percent of U.S.-related litigations and settlements have happened in the last three years. Winn-Dixie was a trend-setter. A gentleman was unable to get a prescription online. The court ruled the website was a gateway to a brick-and-mortar organization. Just like any other doorway, it has to be accessible.

Domino's tried to push back, saying there was too much gray area. They weren't heard when they tried to appeal it.

Looking at the numbers . . . It's huge. There was a 177-percent increase over one year. And it's still growing.

So, where do we begin? I keep saying we need to bake it in. What does that mean to you, right?

Measure twice, cut once. Let's start with statistics. Let's start with the data. You heard about the money people are potentially losing internationally.

Echo Dot will be responsible for about 50 percent of searches sometimes this year. Fifty-one percent of B2B marketers are creating visual assets. That will not be very different from B2C. There are 100 million hours of video content hours on Facebook. The aging population will increase to about 1.5 billion by 2050. That's me! I will be part of that 1.5 billion, and I want to be able to use websites. If you can say you will not be one of the aged population in 2050, hey, go, you. But, if you're like me, that means I need to work now to make the standard operating procedure so I can use the Net later. Anti-hero.

Start with the branding. Are the colors accessible? Maybe it's a light-gray box that doesn't offer value. Maybe it doesn't need a high contrast, but make sure the text on top of it does so the text is readable or perceivable. You want the colors to have enough contrast, so that users are able to perceive them.

You need to write your words in a clear and concise way, to make sure that your meaning is easily understood.

You need to be consistent. I am not saying to use the same tone over ever medium. When I am at the dinner table with my husband, there is a very different tone than when I'm calling from the grocery store, "Hey, quick, do we have eggs?" You don't need the same tone, but you need to be consistent, and you need to think about the words to use or avoid.

And then, you have representation. Representation matters. People need to see things that are meaningful to them. It's simple. There's an advertisement in a magazine, on TV, or online. People want to understand that it's for them.

So, how do you do that? You build these pieces into your personas. You already have them. You already have personas. You know who the student would be, who the parent would be, who the influential teachers or guidance people would be, in that type of setting. You know who your alumni would be. You know who all of these people would be in the higher-ed world. Regardless of where you are, you know who you're talking to, you already have this information.

So plug it into this tool by Cornell that references the CDC data. It will help you learn, if I have a man between 65 and 74, what disability am I looking at? This will give you the percentages broken down, where they are, and how likely they are to have to these types of disabilities. You don't make a big deal out of it. No! No! No. You just build it in as part of his personality. This is Howard Williams, a 65-year-old gentleman who's a sales executive, married to his partner Jeffrey, a high-school music teacher . . . You move on. It's not a big deal. I referenced my family growing up. It's not a big deal. It's part of how we lived our lives.

Use the data, and build the potential of someone having barriers in . . . Think beyond someone's scope and perspective.

And then, user testing . . . There are a couple of waves to do this. This is the first wave, to test as you go. Do a wireframe analysis. There was a mega-menu. Out of the box, it was not screen-reader-accessible. It was hard to use out of the box. It was a mess. But, it was the best solution for a lot of other reasons.

So we started saying, well, our team will need four hours to make this accessible after we install it. We treated it as another installation. Since that extension has been made accessible out of the box — at the time, we added four hours to our estimates. The agency I was working with at the time, we were making accessible sites, so that's what we did.

Then we have the designer look at it. Maybe your comps are being done by a different group. Have a designer look for color contrast, line height, and keyboard traps. The designers and specialists look for spacing and other issues. Give them the power to look for these potential errors. Someone with a tremor in their hand might hit the wrong button if they're too close together. Have them test that.

Be prepared for the challenges that you can't see — I should say detect.

Whenever possible, test with native users. There's a beautiful community of people who are willing to help. And they should be paid to help out. A native user uses assistive technology all the time. They will be able to perceive challenges, or, better yet, not perceive the fact that they're missing content, better than anyone.

I would check to make sure that these are moderated tests, because, for example, if you have a sound play, someone who is unable to hear may not realize that they missed that audio cue. If you're using a service that has individuals who are unable to see testing your site, if the screen reader skips a whole section, well, then, they may not perceive that. Have those moderated, and include native users.

And then, content strategy . . . You want to give context to your users. You want to make sure your verbiage is inclusive, with captions and alt-text. Everything on your page should provide meaning.

You should keep it focused. Allow for videos to be turned off. Never auto-play videos, especially with users with ADHD or on the spectrum. A moving background or another thing could distract them from what they were going for. That is frustrating. They were there for a reason.

Empower your users to next steps. You want users to stay on your site or engage with your site. Not every conversion is a "Buy Now" or "Donate Now" button that websites have. Sometimes it's "Watch a Video," "Sign up for a newsletter," or go to the next video. Empower them.

Internally, train for empathy. Whenever I'm discussing accessibility with content managers or content editors, I always say, "Train for empathy." Learn to understand what the challenges are, more than learning about or stressing about the individual tools that you're going to use.

If you are thinking about how this will be perceived by somebody, the tools matter, but they don't matter. When I'm talking to my sister, I never noticed, but she pointed it out to me, I annunciate more, my lips move more exact; I am more facing her, making eye contact, emphasizing my facial structure, so she can read my lips. I didn't think about it any more than that my father was blind in one eye. If I wanted something, I would go to his right eye. I was empathetic to them, so I could understand how they would perceive my communication.

This is no different. Train for empathy first. Use simulators. Funkify is a beautiful simulator. Use simulators to understand what your users are experiencing.

And then, well, I wrote this a while back, pre-COVID. Then, the last few months hit, and I'm seeing more, and reading more, and hearing more, about how COVID has changed. Seven percent of us could work remotely prior, in the U.S., and ten percent of Europeans. Now, nearly 62 percent of people are working remotely, and 59 percent of them prefer to stay remote after.

We need to not only make our websites accessible, but our everyday lives. It's how we'll get our work done. It's how we'll get though the rest of 2020. It's how we're going to do this.

How do you apply it? Use captions on your cools. Zoom has auto-captioning. Google Hangouts and others have captioning. Whatever you're using, find it. Again, this is not only for people who identify as disabled. I have children home a lot. Well, in the last five months. Very often, I'll be listening carefully, but I'll also be aware that, in the basement, somebody is very happy about a particular Xbox game. Turning captions keeps me focused, because I can hear and read it.

Avoid acronym and idioms. Make is clear and concise, be descriptive, and be accommodating. Ask your team what will make it accessible.

As a client lead, I say, at the end of a call, "This is great, we've got a plan. What do I need to give you to accessible?" What accommodations do you need to be successful, now that we are in this existence? Do you need a different captioning? Do you need things written differently? Do we need to communicate via Slack for this kind of information but document it differently for another? Talk to each other, and assume positive intent.

I can't stress that last part enough. There are going to be times when you're not able to perceive the information in this world the way you would want to or the way you felt you did in person. Communicate is being relearned by so many people. And it's not only for those who are adjusting to working from home. My working environment is more crowded than it used to be. That's fine, I love my family. But I'm used to them not being around quite so much.

I sometimes am going to say things quickly, or type it quickly, because I'm trying to get a thought out to a team member while I'm not interrupted. And I need them to assume positive intent, just like when they're speaking to me and juggling their own existence. If someone can't see, or they don't find something descriptive enough . . . Maybe there is a meeting that I need captioned. I can communicate my needs in a respectful, positive way. We can work together to get this done.

So, next steps . . . Keep in mind that accessibility, in any form, but especially online, is a cycle. It's never done. This is not a task that you do once, check all the boxes, and move on. Even the most accessible sites over time will drift. Why do they drift? Maybe a content editor is in a hurry and they miss something. They're human. Maybe you have a lot of content editors and things are lost in translation. Maybe technology has changed. There are countless variables that can take a site and have it slowly drift out.

Truth be told, like all support, it's going to be always incrementally improved, the evolution of a website. The same can be said about the focus on accessibility; there is always improvement.

Where do we start? We analyze. Some people call it an audit, but I call it an analysis. We find strategic improvements. Maybe you start with the biggest gain and the lowest risk. You go through what the user experience will be, what the customer decision journey is. Develop the solution. Educate the content-editing team. Then, after a month or two, reanalyze and see how it works.