Accessibility Ally

00:00
So I want to welcome Garth Holmes and Kirsten Dodd to this episode where we really focus on digital accessibility. And so Garth, I'll turn over to you and ask you to introduce yourself and a little bit about your company. My name is Garth Holmes. I'm one of the co-founders at uh Be Responsive Media. We're based here in uh Bedford, Nova Scotia. We are a bit of a niche digital agency. We've done a little bit of everything in

00:29
Along the lines of accessibility, my background is I started doing web development over 30 years ago and something that I was extremely interested in. So that's really where I'm approaching some of this. We, we, do a lot of digital and traditional marketing at be responsive, but accessibility is becoming much, much more prominent. And obviously it's something that's needed. It's something that we need to.

00:58
continually educate our clients on so they understand the why behind and understanding the impact that it has on their end users. absolutely. Thanks, Garth. Kirsten, over to you to introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Kirsten Dodd. I'm the owner and CEO of Haynova. We're a digital services agency. in simple terms, we do websites and apps. But we specialize in that connection with

01:28
uh digital accessibility. We work with other tech teams on how to kind of holistically weave it in so it's not a giant thing to be added on later. Also, working with different teams on how it can be incorporated into your practices. And then also just consulting and auditing different websites and supporting on how to bring those things up to standards and help people.

01:55
Wonderful. So both of you are really em sort of in that tech world. So we, you know, we really are talking about kind of that digital accessibility focus. em So Garth, what do you see as the biggest barriers right now in making digital content accessible? I would say from my perspective, one of the largest barriers beyond education and people actually understanding what it means is

02:24
In the digital world is a lot of the third party tools. So we can develop a website that is fully digital accessible, but then I'll pick on something like an LMS platform or learning management. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Learning management system. Um, a lot of them are way behind the times and you talk to some of these developers and they give them suggestions. They're able-bodied people. They have no understanding whatsoever. And to them, it just works.

02:53
And you're trying to let them know like, this, actually needs to be improved. Sometimes it's very small changes that they need to do. it's they, they don't understand. So I'm going to come back to the education piece. need more education. need to constantly be showing examples and coming alongside, especially these third party developers to help them bring their platforms up to the proper and not just standards, but.

03:23
functioning in a way that people with disabilities can actually access them and you know function within those platforms Just the same as everyone else. Yeah and Kirsten I know you have a lot of experience in across Canada and Ontario and BC as well as Nova Scotia And so what do you see as the biggest barriers? Kind of building on what Garth has already shared. Yeah, I definitely align with what he was saying

03:52
A big piece of it is that education piece. think a lot of developers don't know what they are, they don't know what they don't know, um, in a lot of the cases. And then a lot of the time when it is introduced, it introduces this compliance list and WCAG is, I'm sorry, the, I always forget what that actually stands for the web accessibility.

04:19
The web accessibility guidelines. um They often, those are, they're hard to interpret on their own. I always joke that the accessibility guidelines are not that accessible because they're kind of convoluted to read. um So I find developers often, or tag teams, just feel like it's more of this rule you have to do and not coming from that empathy piece. So when we try and work with teams,

04:48
We like to showcase studies and put a face to this experience. there's so many, there's such a varied amount of different experiences. And if you, if people understand it from an empathetic point of view, not just like my checklist and clients that I'm being told, but to do it, it changes the way they feel about working on it. um I also think there's a bit of a disconnect with um if you companies that have a website, they have so they don't really know.

05:15
if it is accessible or not. So you kind of, have to trust your tech team to be doing that in a lot of the cases. And then the tech teams don't know what they're, a lot of them just again, back to the education piece, don't know the impact or hasn't been holistically kind of blended in. schools are still not teaching it in coding thing. that's very true. em Kirsten, I'm really curious about the empathy piece you're talking about.

05:45
And so how do you work with clients to build that empathy so that they're not just seeing it as a checklist or a compliance piece? We, depending on the size or the type of project it is, but we always start when we do a workshop or an audit, we do user personas. So a breakdown of here is.

06:07
a character, here's how they experience the world, this is their job, this is the impact of these items being done this way. And then when you bring it back to you, okay, so if we're telling you that you should format things in this way for a screen reader, here is how that impacts this person that has a face and has a story. And so people start to really understand it's not, we're not just telling you that you're not coding something properly, we're showing you that it makes like it's

06:37
a giant impact on people's lives to make that difference. And it doesn't actually take very much longer to do after you know how to do it. It's just learning how to incorporate it and make that kind of shift. um And so Kirsten, I'll kind of stick with you here. I know you talked about the impact on people with disabilities. And as we know,

07:00
27 % across the country. And we in Nova Scotia have the highest rates of people with disabilities at almost 40%. And so can you share an example where accessible communication maybe made a real difference, uh you know, for clients or in your community? Yes. So I can give an example of how it can impact in a positive way. And then can also give an example of someone we spoke to where

07:27
lack of accessibility was a giant barrier for her. So, well, I can give an example of myself. I'm very ADHD and I realized like going through university, things like that, there were, I didn't know, there wasn't enough, uh being able to, oh my gosh, sorry, being able to use a screen reader has made a giant impact.

07:54
on how I can take in content that's really dense content. I somehow made it through university winging a lot of that without doing the readings because they were too difficult to take in. now with being able to use a screen reader on things and being able to take in that content in a way that is easier for me to take in specifically. In this case, it has made a huge difference on what I, like things I can, like spaces I can go into or things I can learn, reading actual

08:24
documents that are very dense and heavy. And then on another example, we had spoken with someone during around COVID and she was very high risk and she lived in a community that was all really high risk and she had very limited use of her hand by the end of the day. She would be in crippling pain and so her couldn't

08:51
She didn't really have any movement of her fingers by the end of the day. she had, there's all of these things that everyone was using during COVID for grocery delivery and food delivery and skip the dishes, things like that. And those things were so helpful for so many of us to not have to leave our house and she couldn't use them because they weren't accessible. Her grocery store app wasn't accessible. Her skip the dishes wasn't accessible.

09:20
I think they'd done work since then, but they weren't. so she, was, it was like oh an extreme case for her that she could be at risk to go out in public. And there's these tools that are so easy for a lot of people to use that were impossible for her to use. that's a really great example of how that, that lack of accessibility creates a barrier to things like food security.

09:49
or housing, for example, so some of those basic needs. Yeah, thank you, Kirsten, for sharing that. um Garth, we had the pleasure at C Change and through our ACE project of working with Be Responsive on our new ACE website, theaceproject.ca, and we wanted to ensure that that was a fully accessible experience for our users. um Can you talk to us a little bit about how that went on your end and what you did to really ensure

10:19
a fully accessible digital experience. Sure. em So this website project, mean, since you're doing accessible training, we needed to make sure that obviously we did the best job that we possibly could. And m I also want to mention something that Kirsten said, you know, around actually having empathy and seeing things through the,

10:47
the lived experience to eyes, not just checking off boxes, because we've done many websites in the past where we have done audits. And in the past, those audits have primarily been performed by I'll say able-bodied people who are making sure that all the boxes are checked. And this time after we built the website, we followed all the standards. We ensured that, you know, the, the platforms, um,

11:16
plugins, know, all the different tools that we were using were as accessible as possible. The check boxes were all checked. We thought things were at a very good place, which they were. But then we had it audited um through a company and this company, they employ people with disabilities. So people with real disabilities, not just going through a checklist actually went through and audit the website.

11:44
And what I will say is it opened up my eyes to some different areas of actually properly communicating, you know, the user experience. And one great example was there's a resource hub and each button was something like access. So let's say there was an accessibility checklist resource. You could click the button to say access now. Well, one of the great pieces of feedback.

12:14
Okay, number one, this page would have passed all the standard accessibility test checklist. It was compliant. But the people with disabilities said, okay, there's so many buttons like this on the page. When my screen reader is going through them, I don't know, like after a while, you know what I mean? There's just too many access now or access resource.

12:38
And they said, you should put the title back in there so that when it's reading it back, it's letting me know that I am going to access the accessibility checklist. So just making those small tweaks and getting that feedback is very, it's, it's invaluable. And I, you know what I mean over time, when you, once you get that feedback and you're implementing it across all the projects and the different things that you're doing. Um, I think that that's just.

13:06
going to make a huge impact long-term, but actually having it assessed by people with disabilities, um, that it took it to the next level. And, know, I, I really think that that's something that be responsive. We're going to be working in, you know, to our workflow now, um, after you've made the connection for us. Um, it's just, it's, it's, it's something that, you know, it's not just a nice thing to do. It's something that everyone.

13:36
should be doing to just see that lived experience and they get that real feedback. Even in, I'll say, just everyday run of life outside of the digital world, it really annoys me when the checklist is completed, it's checked off. Yes, it's physically accessible. And I'm thinking like, okay, it met some sort of standard, but no, it's not truly accessible. Yeah, and I know that

14:04
we worked with Lisa Snyder of Access Changes Everything. um Lisa's doing really great things in terms of accessibility audits. And the fact that she employs people with disabilities who use screen readers, who are deaf, who to really go through and review from their lived experience is, I think, a big bonus. um And I know that, you know, as an organization working on accessibility, we, of course,

14:33
received feedback on our previous website, oh, it's great that you're doing this, but for example, the resource hub has limitations, right? So now that you explained that example and I read it in the audit, I can imagine you're on a page that just says like, click here, like 12 times and you don't know what you're clicking to. So that idea um of really understanding from a different experience and that lived experience is so key. uh

15:02
Kirsten, and so thanks Garth for sharing that. Kirsten, I know that sometimes there's this myth, I think, that maybe you'll limit creativity because you need to make things accessible. How do you respond to that myth? Absolutely. It's one of my favorite things to talk about because I feel like I can counter the argument in all the different areas of how it actually adds impact.

15:30
It adds, mean, in general, just being inclusive to everyone. There's also business cases for almost all of the different reasons for those different things. So from a creative side of digital accessibility. um So I notice often you will see someone put up a slide deck at a conference or somewhere and they're talking about inclusivity and then the color contrast is really light. And I'm always like, I know they don't know this, but it's...

15:59
I see it all the time in social media too. it's especially right now with like those kind of lighter colors are very in but outside of in general that if there's someone who is colorblind that they won't be able to see your content. It's also in general we there's a level of eye strain when you can't take in the content quickly. So even if you aren't colorblind, you are actually losing impact to your audience.

16:27
and they're more likely to detach from your content. is your brand really improving if you need the balance between that creativity and the ability to take it in? so you have to balance those two things to actually create action or to have a successful brand. So in general, think the accessibility is really, we like to call it just an extreme lens on usability.

16:56
And it just improves it for everyone across the board. And there's not a case of anything in accessibility that I've seen yet that I'm like, that is really going to negatively impact what you're doing, or that's going to make your brand be boring. Because think color contrast, there's a very wide variety of things that contrast. um But it's just really knowing what that is. um

17:25
knowing the tools you can use to start checking those color contrasts as one example um on that side. Yeah, thanks, Kirsten. I noticed that too a lot, in particular in presentations. So I'm in the learning and development uh field and I was just at a national conference. And of course, equity, accessibility, everyone's talking about that. And yet so many of the presentations uh weren't super accessible on many levels.

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um And once you know, I'm on my own learning journey, we probably are all on a continuous learning journey. But once you know a few things, when you notice things on social media or in presentations or on websites, you begin to say, it's not really that hard to add the closed captions or the alternative text or an image description or to uh make sure there's color contrast in your presentation.

18:19
The one I find interesting too is that we're moving to very visual presentations. And again, I'm someone who identifies as neurodivergent and people can put a visual in it can be helpful, but when they don't have words to go along with the audio that they're sharing, I'm like, I can't take it all in, right? um that idea of like, oh, creativity put a visual up on the PowerPoint, but you're not describing the visual.

18:49
And there's no words so that I can even brief text so that I can connect the kind of audio to the text I'm seeing. So yeah, really appreciate that. Is there anything Garth that you want to add on that sort of, you know, creative, any creative kind of limitations in terms of, you know, branding, marketing, that sort of thing? Kirsten basically said almost everything that I would have said, but I will say that sometimes we are now dealing with clients that come.

19:18
to us and we have to completely redo their brand standards. So because sometimes they come to us, they're like, well, we want our website to be accessible. Well, the first thing we need to do is change your brand colors because your your brand colors that you've chosen are never going to be accessible. so yeah, there's a lot of, again, it's back to educating people and because a lot of times they're like, well, what do you mean it's not accessible? And, you know, to also

19:46
go along with what you're saying. I I used to think that closed captioning was for, you know, elderly people or, you know, for, for deaf people, but I use it all the time because again, you know, the way my, my, my, my brain is working, that text is reinforcing everything that I'm seeing on the screen, making sure I'm not missing things. And it is so easy to do today with the tools that are available. We just need to do it. And, but again,

20:16
it's educating people as to the why and to the impact that it's having. Yeah, so if anyone, thank you so much, Gareth. If anyone is listening to this thinking, okay, great, now, like, you know, where do I start? So there are the, you know, website content accessibility guidelines, WCAG, I guess, as people call them. And so you can look those up. In Nova Scotia, uh

20:41
There is the information and communication accessibility standard is in development. ah I know there's a committee working on that and they have put forward their recommendations to government. It will likely take a couple of years still for that to be enacted. The accessibility standards hopefully will all be enacted by 2030 in Nova Scotia. However, I would say that that doesn't mean

21:09
that people can't find resources. um There are many out there. But when you're working with clients or organizations, what's your advice for like, how can they get started on their own kind of digital accessibility learning journey or action journey? Where do you point them to or what advice do you give them? Kirsten, do you want to go ahead? Sure. So we get a variety of questions in this.

21:39
depending on the size of the organization. So for smaller places, I've talked to people who they're like, just seems like it's really expensive. How am I going to do this? I care about it, but where do I start? How do I afford this? And it's a hard answer. In general, there is a lot of grants out there. We have worked with a couple different organizations that have got grants to do that work.

22:07
So there is quite a bit out there in that kind of space right now. um Then also you can start by, there's a lot of browser extensions that you can add and they only catch about 30 % of the possible accessibility thing, but it is still a really good indicator of how many things come up just from that. So if you're seeing a lot come up from, so like I like the Wave browser extension, it's one that's very commonly used.

22:36
And so if you, can add that just to your browser and then open it up and it will give you a list of things. will at minimum tell you color contrast, where you're missing alternative text and things like that. So at minimum, you can see some of those things. I think a big thing too, is that starting the, starting to improve the digital accessibility space, people feel overwhelmed by how many things there are, but micro improvements are still improvements. So you don't have to like be

23:06
decide that you need to fix every single one up like right away or you can't do any any little micro things make a big difference. So um use that wave extension. Try and listen to the page from a screen reader is the thing I like to recommend as much as possible because it is the first time you go on your website and you realize that someone has come to the website and all they heard was image, image, image, link, link, link. You're like, okay, I get it now.

23:35
Um, so that's kind of like a baseline of where that, that if, if you're really overwhelmed by where to start and then like for bigger organizations, there's lots of companies that are supporting that. And then it's again, it's holistically weaving it in through the stages when you add it at the end or you put it all of that pressure on the end testing, it does make it a bigger thing.

24:02
But if you're thinking about it while you're in strategy, while you're thinking, if you're thinking about it during design and designers are listing out like excess, like alternative texts, right from that kind of content curation piece, then you're not putting as much pressure just on the development team to hold that. Cause it is a blended effort between all of the different areas. Then that it kind of just, it becomes just part of the user experience of your

24:30
your general web development work and not a big extra cost or a big extra effort. Yeah, absolutely. Kristen, we talk at CChange and through the ACE project, we talk a lot about proactive um accessibility. And so we talk about it on a continuum of proactive to responsive. So when you are proactive and you're able to build, as you say, those features into design before you or even brainstorming and

25:00
before you get started into development and then, you know, things like accessibility checks. It's so much easier, so much less expensive. um And that is so key. I think the other thing I heard you talking about was funding. So just for our listeners to know, we were able to get funding to work with Be Responsive in Nova Scotia through the Business Accessibility Grant Program. There's also a Community Accessibility Grant Program and often

25:30
When I see the list of organizations and businesses that are being funded, they're often implementing more physical accessibility features, so ramps and doorways and washrooms. But the information and communications platforms and audits are, again, impacting a really large number of people. um So from branding to a website, for example. So just to kind of highlight those programs,

26:00
that exist in or out there. Garth, is there anything you want to add to, yeah, just that question of like, what are some things that you, what advice do you have to give to clients or organizations? So it's mostly in line with what Kirsten was saying. mean, start with the basics. Doing something, you know, like you said already, the small incremental change is what's going to have an impact long-term. A lot of times it overwhelms them. It's scary.

26:28
We're like, how, can we even accomplish this? It's like, you know what, let's just take this one step at a time and. You know, just start with, you know, adding, you know, alt tags and, know, describing things, making sure the color contrast is, is, is correct. Um, I was going to say, where would I point them out? Actually point them to your resource hub because there's so many great resources there for them to, you know, start. again, it's, I'm going to go back to education.

26:57
Once they understand and once they see the impact, that's when they're going to want to change. But there's also key people within organizations that we try to identify, you know, who actually needs to be educated the most there, who's actually creating presentations or who is maintaining that website long-term and, you know, uploading images. there are some key people that we try to go after to say, all right,

27:24
When you're making these updates, when you're making these presentations, keep these things in mind. This is what's going to take your presentation from being totally inaccessible almost to something that is going to have the greatest impact. Because at the end of the day, we're communicating things and we don't want to leave anyone out. So we want to be able to communicate to as many people as possible and to communicate as effectively as possible.

27:53
Yeah, absolutely. And thanks Garth for bringing up the resource hub. So at the ACE project.ca, we do have a resource hub where not only do we have training around an introduction to digital accessibility and accessible communication, ah we also provide things like tip sheets. So Kirsten, having this conversation today really ah inspires me to really think about even the idea of user profiles, right?

28:22
What is someone experiencing when they go to a website that's inaccessible when they use a screen reader or when they are deaf or, for example, to really provide that more empathetic lens, I guess, that you've been talking about. Is there anything else either of you would want to share? uh You know, we've covered a lot today from websites to presentations to some of the tools out there that uh people might be able to start using.

28:51
Is there anything else you'd like to share about digital accessibility and its importance? I mean, I really like to say that in general, there is a very high percentage of people with disabilities and being inclusive to everyone is, I mean, above everything else that is very important. It's also the one thing that we will all age into. It is a universal thing that we will all have as an impact.

29:21
some point and in general. That is all good. Yeah, I love that notion that we are all temporarily abled. And so whether it is able-bodied, I guess. so if you, even if you're not someone who identifies, you know, as deaf or neurodivergent or with a disability now, there will come a time in your life that you will experience that. So um Kirsten, yeah, just that idea that this does impact all of us in some way.

29:50
I would say keeping pressure on third-party digital providers and also the government. I really think that we just need to advocate for change and for just doing what's right and what's going to have the greatest impact for our community. Because again, as I stated in one of the previous questions, that's one of our large challenges that we see. ah

30:18
outside of the ecosystem that we can control. em It's just, again, back to educating, letting them know why, and sometimes gently showing them the why. Once they see it and once they buy into it, then when it clicks for them, then now we've got more people that are advocating for change and greater accessibility for all people.

30:47
Great, well, I want to thank both of you, Kirsten Dodd from Haynova, Garth Holmes from Be Responsive, just again for leading the way for being champions of this work. And thanks so much for all of your uh input on this valuable discussion today. Thank you, it was a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me.