Introducing the Practical Accessibility Insights Podcast

Episode Transcript

David:

Hello and welcome to Practical Accessibility Insights, a podcast that brings you important information about tips, secrets, and wisdom about accessibility in the workplace. I’m David Best, co host with Sandi Gauder. Hi, Sandi.

Sandi:

Hi, David. Hope you’re having a good day so far.

David:

Yes, absolutely. You know, as we’re recording, this is August 29, 2024, and I can’t believe how fast summer has passed by.

Sandi:

No kidding.

David:

You know the old saying that time flies when you’re having fun. I was wondering, does that mean that you can have more fun when you’re older?

Sandi:

Oh, geez. Maybe it does. I don’t know. And there’s the wisdom folks right there. Wait till you get old.

David:

Well, for our younger viewers They have something to look forward to.

And for our senior listeners, keep having fun. There you go.

Okay. So in this podcast, our very first podcast, I’m going to introduce ourselves and then we’ll get into basically what the purpose of the podcast is and discuss a few items that should be considered if you’re a small business. Okay, I’m David Best and I’m totally blind and have been for most of my life.

I lost my vision in my late teens. And I went on to university, uh, university of Western Ontario to get a software engineering degree. I started my career with Air Canada, and then through a series of mergers and takeovers and IT fiascos I ended up retiring from IBM. I spent most of my career in the IT sector for the travel and transportation sector.

After retiring from IBM, I started my own consulting business because I found that there was a lot of confusion in the Ontario environment where people were struggling to understand what the Accessibility for Ontarians Disability Act was all about and how you implement it in the business. And I found that a lot of small businesses were misled with a lot of false information because we live in a very competitive environment.

So I set up my own consulting business and everything just grew from that. I’m very much involved with small business associations for entrepreneurs. I’ve served on the Accessibility Standards Advisory Council for the Ontario Government Disability Regulations. And I look forward to, um, working with Sandi in this podcast to share our experiences over the years with people wanting to make their small business grow and be competitive in the global market.

So how about you, Sandi?

Sandi:

So my name is Sandi Gauder. I am a owner and partner in a company called CMS Web Solutions. My partner happens to be my husband, Richard. We started this business well over 20 years ago, and like many businesses where we started is not where we ended up.

So we started as a marketing company, just general marketing. And by happenstance, Richard was consulting, providing marketing consulting to a software firm that was developing, uh, a content management system and content management systems at that time were a relatively new concept. And they were trying to sell it to web designers and web designers weren’t buying into it because they saw it as taking away from their revenue.

So we saw the opportunity, thought this made total sense. And that’s how we ended up in the web business. It certainly wasn’t what I went to school for, didn’t exist at the time that I was in university, but it was something that came fairly easily to me. So we started in the web. And then along the way, one of our clients introduced us to this concept of web accessibility.

We had not really stumbled across it. We weren’t all that familiar with the AODA, which is the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disability Act. So we had a chat with her and said, well, of course we have to do this. So we started focusing our business on accessible websites, which eventually evolved into accessible WordPress websites.

We built custom accessible WordPress themes. And along the way, I was invited to teach in a new program at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario. And it was an Accessible Media Production Postgraduate Certificate. And I taught the, uh, Web Accessibility course in that program. I absolutely loved it. Loved teaching. Loved sharing whatever wisdom I have with people who are interested in learning. And so over the years, our Accessible Web Development has now evolved into, um, education, consulting, coaching around accessibility. And like David said, we, you, we, we really want businesses to understand why accessibility is so important.

Uh, David and I talk almost every week and it always comes back to how do we get businesses to get on board? And this is just another way of trying to communicate the message, I guess, and share with, uh, business owners, big and small, why it’s important and why it’s not as scary as they might think it is.

David:

I think that’s really what brought us together. A few years ago, I had a client that was frustrated with developing their website. They hired a local website provider, but although they claim to, uh, understand web content accessibility guidelines, they failed miserably to make the website accessible and after spending thousands of dollars and trying to get them to do it, they gave up.

And I had brought them to you somehow. I think where our paths had crossed and you ended up rewriting the website completely and making it very accessible and they were, were happy with it. And I think that experience seems to be a very common experience with organizations in Ontario. Have you had any real direct experiences with some frustrated clients?

Sandi:

Oh yes. Yes, that’s for sure. The thing that I think we’ve learned as a company over the years In dealing with those situations is that people who hire developers and designers to build websites for them don’t understand what web accessibility is all about. They don’t know how to make sure a site is accessible.

They don’t necessarily know what questions to ask. So they’re relying on the expertise of these agencies that they hire to do it for them. So if If a business owner doesn’t understand accessibility, they’re going to say, sure, you know what you’re talking about. You sound like you know what you’re talking about, so I’ll hire you.

And then they only find out after the fact that maybe they don’t really know what they’re talking about. And maybe I should know a bit more so that the next time I hire somebody, I know what to look for and what to ask. I don’t think we can expect website owners to understand what web accessibility is all about in detail, but I think we need to help, uh, business owners, decision makers know what questions to ask and know how to determine who knows what they’re talking about and who doesn’t.

It’s really no different than hiring a contractor to finish your basement. Uh, there’s tons of contractors out there, but how do you know which one can do the job well? And it’s, it’s usually a case of referrals. You know, who do you know that knows how to do this? Um, and so your reputation in this industry certainly carries a lot of weight.

If you’re good at what you do, people will let people know. If you’re not good at what you do, people will also let people know. It’s really tricky. And I don’t know that, you know, in all the discussions you and I have had, David, over the past few years, if we’ve really figured out, uh, the best way to get people who are non technical to know what questions to ask around something that is really quite technical. And there are certainly are some quick things that you can do, even if you’re not technical to see if a website is accessible. And, and I always tell people, first thing I do when I land on every website that I’ve ever landed on, it just has become a habit for me, is to use my keyboard.

Can I tab through the website with my keyboard, put my mouse aside? And if I can, and I can figure out what’s going on and interact with the website, then I feel like I’m going to have a pretty good experience or that the people who built this website have a bit of an idea of what they’re doing. But if I can’t even tab through a website, then I know for sure that the developers who built it have no idea what accessibility is all about.

And that’s one of those simple, easy things that anybody can do to see if a website is accessible. So if you’re out there looking for web developers to build a new site for you, and you want it to be accessible, can you even tab through that agency’s website? If you can’t, then I’d just dismiss them right then and there. Because they, they, they don’t understand the basics of web accessibility.

What’s the first thing you do when you visit a website? What’s your clue when you land on a website for the first time, whether it’s going to be a good experience or a frustrating experience for you?

David:

The first thing I do is look at the page structure.

I can’t believe, you know, how badly websites are structured. If, if the page structure, you know, just the layout of the page, if it doesn’t have region landmarks, it doesn’t have a hierarchy of headers. You know, if it doesn’t have the proper layout, it’s extremely difficult to understand the content relationships and how to find information.

And I find that’s the number one problem with most websites is just a, a very clean and easy to navigate web page structure. That’s a good segue into the purpose of our podcast. And our purpose is to help provide practical accessibility insights, tips and tricks, and how people can make sure their website is not only accessible to also make sure that people are meeting your expectations.

Small businesses are very dependent on external vendors for a lot of their services and a website developers is one of those services, you probably hire someone to do, and it’s really helpful if you know what they’re doing. And if you can understand what the basics are for your website, you can make sure they’re doing what you want them to do and not what they want you to have.

So, we have four basic questions that small organizations should ask themselves. And this is basically what the podcast is going to be built on over the next few months. So, Sandi, what’s, what’s our first question that people should consider?

Sandi:

So it’s the business case. Should my business case for the organization that I work for or own, the business case for disability be based on legal compliance or inclusion best practices?

David:

Yeah. And that’s a big question because here in Ontario, small businesses have to be aware of the legal compliance. You know, it may be a building requirement, may be a regulations for food and it could be regulations for product safety. But all these rules and regulations is, it can be a burden to a small business.

And then we add on the AODA on top of all those. And I really think that if you build your business on a best practice, a value proposition that focuses on people, you don’t need to really be concerned about the legal values because it’ll just come automatically. And, uh, best practices are those practices that help you to build relationships with, with your clients and those clients and customers are the best marketing tool you can gain.

What’s your thoughts on it, Sandi?

Sandi:

Yeah, that it’s, it’s a tricky one because I think yes, legal compliance is important, but don’t make that your primary reason for considering making things accessible, I guess, is where I would come from. I mean, you need to have that information in your back pocket.

We talk about AODA a lot, David and I, because we’re both in the province of Ontario, and that’s the legislation that governs us. But there’s legislation across the country. We have the Accessible Canada Act. All the provinces are starting to get on board. And there’s international legislation. Europe has its own legislation. U. S. has some legislation around it. But there’s also all the human rights codes that exist across all these jurisdictions.

So legal, legal compliance is it’s just like, you know, making sure that you comply with tax laws. You, you, as a business owner, you don’t need to know the intricacies of it, but you need to be sure that your accountant is guiding you the right way around all these, the tax legislation that exists in your area.

I think one of the things that sticks out for me in all the conversations you and I have had, David, over the years is about how accessibility is a measure of productivity. And for as a business owner myself, I know that productivity is important for the bottom line. And when you think about how challenging it can be for somebody to use a website or software, or even try to access a business service in a physical environment, if it takes twice as long for somebody to do it, because disability or accessibility has not been considered, then productivity goes down the drain and no business wants that to happen.

David:

Productivity is really something people need to focus on and I think the legal aspects is important, but it tends to be a fear strategy that a lot of advocates use.

Sandi:

Yes, absolutely.

David:

So what’s our second question?

Sandi:

So for business management, are legal accessibility requirements a business burden or a growth strategy?

David:

That’s a good question because it can be a burden. Initially it can be a burden because whenever we start on a journey, we have to learn something new. And learning the legal requirements of the provincial, the national, and international accessibility, disability laws can be overwhelming.

And not only that, the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines can be overwhelming. Here again, I think, you know, understand the basics and understand what the purpose is and let your team or your partners build your business on the strategies that you want. Your mission, your vision, and make sure that you understand the basics and allow you to focus on the, the market growth.

Sandi:

Yeah, I think that it’s, it is absolutely a burden. I mean, it’s a burden for web developers who are new to, um, the guidelines. It’s, it’s a lot of learning to be done, but I think if you step back and just think about who it impacts, how it impacts people, the different ways that, uh, your website or your software, your digital products can impact people.

I think it’s, we forget the human element to all of this. I think that’s the piece that gets missed so many times. You get rules and regulations, but how does it impact individual human beings? And I don’t think that there’s too many businesses out there who want to make life miserable for their clients or their prospects.

I think we all want to make sure that we’re giving them a great experience. But these, when you put, bring legislation in, I think it, it shifts our focus away from the individual and the human that we’re trying to serve and not getting fined hundreds of thousands of dollars because you haven’t complied with the piece of legislation.

David:

Right. Absolutely. And I think that highlights the importance of connections. It’s important for a small business to be a member of an entrepreneur association, or to be a partner with a disability organization within the community. Those partnerships, sharing information will provide a lot of learning experience.

So what’s our third one?

Sandi:

Do universal accessibility requirements introduce operational challenges or business opportunities?

David:

Yeah, here we get to the technical aspect of the business, whether it’s the website or whether it’s marketing communications or social media. So operational challenges are those where you implement uh, maybe some office technology, digital tools, and your staff struggle with using it.

Operational challenges are when, you know, you’re challenged with your website being non accessible. Like I come to you and I say, I can’t use it. And you have to figure out how you can fix the problem. So these are challenges, but they’re like challenges with any other operational expectation that people have on your business.

So, I don’t think that universal design has to be an overwhelming challenge, though, because like anything, once you learn the basics, and once you learn what the purpose is for universal design, you can build your own strategy around that. And in the long run, It actually saves you time and money because there are reports out there where they say that organizations that built their business on universal design with the thought of accessibility, their revenue is much higher, their growth is much faster, and it’s a proven fact.

It’s not deniable. Even search engines on the web will elevate the websites that have those standards implemented. So in the long run, it is something to build into your value proposition.

Sandi:

Yeah, it’s the one thing, sometimes we have to, and we have, tried to sell clients on accessibility from a different angle.

So, an accessible website is always going to rank better on search engines, is more likely to rank better on a search engine than an inaccessible website, and that’s because it’s built with proper structure, like you talked about earlier. It’s got proper headings. It’s got proper link text. It’s usually a better performing website.

And so, yeah, search engines love all those things. And, oh, by the way, it happens to be accessible. There are advantages to doing this that go beyond making it easy for everybody to use your products. There’s all these offshoots. And, and when you’re talking about organizations that are profitable because they focus on universal design and accessibility, Apple is the first company that comes to mind.

I mean, they’ve been going down this road for many, many years. Siri is a great example of a useful tool that just about everybody uses, but it’s also an accessibility feature. There are so many things that are built into Apple products that come from an accessibility perspective, but that most Apple users use and don’t even realize that it’s actually an accessibility feature.

It’s done them good. It hasn’t caused them to lose money. It’s actually, they’re making money hand over fist.

David:

Yeah, that is so true, and I think that highlights the point that, you know, a lot of technologies that we enjoy today had their origins in finding a solution for a disability. I don’t think people realize that, like, even the telephone itself, you know, was developed by Alexander Graham Bell for the deaf originally, and it’s commonplace now.

Same with audio books. You know, audio books back in the thirties first started for people who are blind. And today people enjoy audio books all over the place. So a lot, a lot of the technologies we enjoy really stem from those needs that people have. So if you build into your website, those accessibility standards, you, you know, you’re you’re leading the way because it becomes the norm in time.

So what is the fourth question that we want business owners to think about?

Sandi:

What is the cultural impact on a business, an organization, for those that view disability as a normal human condition that is to be accepted and integrated versus those organizations that say no, disability, this is a problem, I am not going there. I want to avoid it. I’m not going to bother accommodating it. What’s the cultural impact of those two different views of disability?

David:

I think there’s a big impact difference because we have in Ontario, which the fourth AODA review states, we have a crisis of disability in Ontario. And it’s because in Ontario, we have ignored the fact that disability is not a discriminating condition against people.

Disability is really just a human limitation. Whether, whether you have an accident or whether you’re growing old, everybody experiences some human limitation at some time. And if you don’t acknowledge the human aspect of your business, the human aspect of your technology, then you’re denying yourself a huge market that is not able to benefit from your, your products and services.

And the benefit is that when you consider the various needs that people have, that you actually become more in tune with the community that you live in, is your business built on serving what people want, or is it built on serving what people need?

So for example, in education, you know, when we create an education program, everybody wants education. So you, you create the program and you get the materials. Does it actually reach the need? So I have a need to be educated as well. And can you provide me with it in braille or accessible digital format?

And the same with physical buildings, you know. I always, wondered why are grocery stores and plazas set way back from the road and I have to walk through acres of parking lot just to get to the store.

Everybody has a need to shop. I have a need just like you to get into the store. So understanding the wants and the needs I think really distinguish the business when it comes to accepting people with disabilities and considering them a burden or a problem.

I think in, in society, in North America particularly, we haven’t really extracted ourselves from the charity model of disability.

Back in, you know, the 1800s, we didn’t have the technology. We were very dependent on people providing us with help and services. And then moving into the 19th century, we, um, had medical advancements and innovations that helped us with a lot of the, things that we needed people to help us with. So we, we entered the medical model of disability during the last century.

And people thought disabilities was something you could fix. It was a condition where you were broken. However, in, in the 21st century, we, we now have a social model of disability where we’re moving to the fact that society is responsible for social conditions. It’s not the person with the disability to solve the problem or to be accommodated.

We now are adopting that social model, which is a very slow transition. I see that especially in government, municipalities and provincial governments, they still think along the charity model of disability where you have to accommodate people, rather than focusing on the integration of people. When you build a building, when you build a website, it should be fully integrated.

Uh, there should be no need to accommodate people with special needs.

Sandi:

My husband and I go for walks many days in our town. It’s a, you know, town of about 25, 000 people. And as we were walking through the parks, and you see all the work that’s being done on paths that didn’t exist through these parks.

There was a bridge over a river in town that was just recently completely rebuilt, and they’re both done in a way that’s made them accessible. So the, the old bridge used to be a steep hike up this very narrow rickety old wood bridge that I hated walking across. But now, I mean, they totally redid the landscape around both sides of the bridge.

So it’s a gentle ramp up to the bridge, and it’s paved, it’s wide, um, it’s, it’s perfectly accessible. And there’s, there’s these odd little blips on the ramp on one side going up to the bridge and, and, you know, walking with my husband and some of our friends, you know, you notice it because it’s kind of, it’s not a perfectly straight, um, ramp and I said, Oh, that’s, it’s got to be because of accessibility, because there’s a certain grade that, you know, if you’re using a mobility device, you don’t want the grade to be too much because it’s tricky.

So they probably put this little blip in to give kind of a, a, um, easier access up the side of this, this hill. And they go, Oh, okay, I guess that’s it. Yeah, that makes total sense. I understand that now and so it’s, it’s to notice those things that it’s taken a long time for municipalities and many organizations to get to that point where if you’re going to do something, why wouldn’t you do the accessibility piece at the same time?

If you’re going to build a new bridge, why not make the whole thing accessible? Instead of after the fact, somebody says, well, I can’t get to the bridge in my mobility device. And they go, Oh crap, guess we should have thought about that. And then spend hundreds of thousands of dollars remediating. It’s the same thing as a website.

You talked about the experience at the very beginning of the podcast of the organization that spent a lot of money on a website that thought was accessible only to have to throw all that money out and start all over again. And that’s the thing I think about viewing it as something that is just, yeah, we just have to do it.

It’s, it’s, it’s always cheaper to do it at the beginning when you’re starting out a project, whether it’s physical environment, digital space, doesn’t matter what it is. If you consider the human element at the beginning and the variety of human elements that come into play, it’s always going to be a better experience for everybody.

And it’s so, I, I imagine that bridge and the ramp was built with, um, people who use mobility devices in mind, but think about all the parents pushing kids in strollers. Makes it a lot easier for them [00:29:00] too, and that’s, it goes back to that whole idea of, um, the telephone being built for the deaf community, but it actually, we all end up using it.

It’s, you know, that whole bubble up effect of it. What’s good for one is good for many.

David:

Thank you, Sandi. So that sort of outlines the purpose of our podcast and where we’re going to go with the future episodes in talking about practical accessibility insights in helping you to build your business to be a vibrant and community based organization that can compete globally.

So do you have any closing comments you’d like to make Sandi?

Sandi:

What is one quick tip that you can leave our listeners with so that they feel like there’s something, I guess it may be something that’s within their control, something that they can do that’s pretty easy, isn’t onerous, but gives them some sense of understand accessibility a little bit more today because I’ve done this.

David:

Well, that’s a good question. And I would say the first, most important tip I can give is education. Nelson Mandela said that education is the best tool in changing the world. And I really believe that’s true. In education, I mean, taking time to step back and look around your environment and how are you interacting with your team, your customers, because being able to interact with people allows you to learn a great deal about how others perform basic daily duties and tasks.

So having a connection with a group of people like a, an entrepreneur association, or having a partnership with a local community disability group where you can participate in some of the webinars or activities is a tremendous learning experience.

And I know that, uh, people that have a small business often say they’re too busy, they’re, I have too much to do. I really believe that if you don’t take time to educate yourself, you’re going to be spending an awful lot of time and energy on reinventing the wheel every time you want to do something on your business to make your business grow.

Sandi:

There’s two things that come to mind, and the one thing is that I don’t think a week goes by that you and I have a conversation where I don’t leave going, oh, never thought of it that way.

Because we come from two very different worlds and I, I learn something from you every time we have a conversation, and it might be some tiny little thing that or a different perspective and it gets embedded in my brain and it becomes part of how I do things and it’s one of the things that I really enjoy about the conversations that we have.

And the other thing that comes to mind is pay attention to your parents and grandparents because the aging population is a good example of the kinds of disabilities that exist out there. Because as we age, we’re all gonna end up with a disability of some sort. So, look at the challenges that your parents and your grandparents are facing.

So, they can be kind of your in-road into understanding what accessibility is all about.

David:

Okay, there you have it. So, we uh, look forward to continuing on with this dialogue. And if any of our listeners have questions or, um, information to pass on to us with regard to tips and practical, uh, insights, please share them with us.

You can reach me at info, I N F O, at david dot best, and Sandi, they can reach you?

Sandi:

Sandi, S A N D I, at cmswebsolutions dot com.

David:

Thank you for listening and we look forward to sharing more information with you on our next episode. And Sandi, thank you for your participation in this podcast and helping me to be a part of the learning experience for many of our listeners.

Sandi:

Thanks, David. And thanks to you again, another great, uh, chat with you. And it’s actually nice to be able to share some of these conversations with the larger world. So looking forward to the future episodes.

David:

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed on this podcast are the speaker’s own and do not necessarily represent those of the podcast team and partners. This podcast is for information and learning purposes only. The Practical Accessibility Insights podcast is hosted by CMS Web Solutions. The intent of this podcast is to raise awareness for practical advice and strategies for making digital and physical environments more accessible to everyone.

Thank you for joining us in this time of discovery and sharing for a more inclusive society. If you have questions or comments, you can email us at info, I N F O at david dot best or Sandi s a n d i At CMS web solutions dot com. For more information and resources, go to www.cmswebsolutions.com or www.bestaccessibility.consulting.