Bet Hannon [00:00:00]:
So much now, we do our online banking. We do, you know, all of those things that we're we buy stuff off of Amazon and have it delivered. And if you think about it, all of those the convenience that a lot of us sort of assume for that, is even magnified by people with disabilities. Right? Depending on the state of the accessibility on a site, it can take 6 to 9 months or longer, especially for really large sites to get to get to the place where they're compliant. So it it's good to get started sooner rather than later.
Maciej Nowak [00:00:29]:
Hello, everyone. My name is Maciej Nowak and welcome to the Osom To Know podcast where we discuss all things related to building great websites. And this is one of the most important episodes I have ever recorded. Because in little less than a year from now, European accessibility law will come to life. Which means businesses which operate website which is not accessible will face financial penalties. Or even as in Ireland, even 18 months of jail time. I repeat, 18 months of jail time.
This doesn't sound as fun at all. So we sit with Beth Hannan of AccessiCard and talk about what it all means for businesses. What can you do to make your life easier by making your website more accessible? And if you can reach full accessibility compliance.
If you want to keep learning more about WordPress, please subscribe to our newsletter at osomstudio.com/newsletter. This is osomstudio.com/newsletter. If you watch this on YouTube, give us a thumb and subscribe to the channel. This means a word to us. Without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Beth Hennen.
Lector [00:01:46]:
Hey, everyone. It's good to have you here. We're glad you decided to tune in for this episode of the Osom to Know podcast.
Maciej Nowak [00:01:53]:
Hi, Beth. How are you?
Bet Hannon [00:01:55]:
Hey, Maciej. I'm good. How are you? It's early for me, but
Maciej Nowak [00:01:59]:
Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate this. I really appreciate this. You know, the time zone is brutal. The time zone difference is brutal. And today we'll be talking about accessibility, and I'm curious about that because I have a feeling it's like European regulations like GDPR. And so we are early in the process where there is a coming regulation success regarding accessibility coming. And let's start from that. How to treat this? How to prepare? And in a words, all what was the fuss all about? Tell us.
Bet Hannon [00:02:36]:
Yeah. Yes. The European Accessibility Act, is kind of like GDPR. So it's, your need to comply is based on having European customers. So there will be lots of US based businesses or Canadian businesses that will have to comply, and, it will start enforcement in June 28, 2025. So we're coming up just, you know, 10 months or so now. And so, it it's gonna take a little bit longer to put that compliance altogether, so it's a good thing to gets get started now. But, it it is a little different in terms of, all of those, sort sorts of, compliance things.
Bet Hannon [00:03:19]:
So
Maciej Nowak [00:03:20]:
Yeah. It sounds like a a plenty of time to get ready. And then do it 1 week before. Right? I start doing this one week before the migration is kicking.
Bet Hannon [00:03:30]:
Well, everybody waited on GDPR for sure. Right? And, it it's gonna take a little bit longer. It can take, you know, depending on the state of the accessibility on a site, it can take 6 to 9 months or longer, especially for really large sites to get to get to the place where they're compliant. So it it's good to get started sooner rather than later.
Maciej Nowak [00:03:49]:
Alright. And who who should get started?
Bet Hannon [00:03:51]:
So there is there is a, an exemption for micro enterprises. And so that's businesses that are making less than β¬2,000,000 in annual revenue or who have less than 10 employees. And so if you're a small small business, you know, there's you you are exempted for now, but everybody people do kinda speculate that those thresholds will come down. And so as you do a new site redesign, that's a good time to start incorporating some accessibility along the way. But if you're making over those thresholds, you you have to, yeah, you have to comply if you have European customers and you meet those thresholds.
Maciej Nowak [00:04:32]:
But that 8 employees doesn't sound like a a lot, you know, depending on type of business, you know, you will have I don't know. It's, like, extremely easy to to to be for for to to fall into to be counted again.
Bet Hannon [00:04:47]:
That's a a very massive change, and and actually the law is, so the accessibility act really covers a lot more things than just websites. It covers a lot of products and services. It covers things like check-in kiosks at the airport or, the apps for, controlling certain products and so, ebook readers and mobile phone it's really very wide reaching and the intent is really to more broadly help people with disabilities to more fully participate in society, you know, remove some of those barriers for folks to fully participate in society and, you know, our social and political economic life together. And so, so there are things that are products and services that have to have some barriers removed, and then ecommerce websites in particular are called out. And so, you would want to if you if your website talks about your services, it does probably fall into compliance, but really, especially if you were running an ecommerce site that has EU customers, you'll need to Mhmm.
Maciej Nowak [00:05:54]:
Alright. And what's the reasoning behind that? Well,
Bet Hannon [00:05:58]:
the reason I mean, think about how much has changed and even just since COVID. Right? How much everything is online, everything is digital. You know, my mom and dad who are in their mid eighties, you know, order groceries online and have them delivered. You know, I would have never thought that they would do that, but so much now, we do our online banking. We do, you know, all of those things that we're we buy stuff off of Amazon and have it delivered. And if you think about it, all of those the convenience that a lot of us sort of assume for that, is even magnified by people with disabilities. Right? Who it may take them a long time or might be hard for them to get out and get transportation and get to the store. And so so really just, really trying to make, you know, an independent, life with some human dignity for people with disabilities.
Bet Hannon [00:06:48]:
Mhmm.
Maciej Nowak [00:06:48]:
Yeah. I yeah. I I was, thinking especially why why ecommerce because it allows you to get by, when you can't get get out. Right?
Bet Hannon [00:06:57]:
Exactly. Exactly. But, you know, it's it's not and we we talk about the the law is really, count well, it's you know, it it kinda grows out of human rights law, and so it's really focused on making life better for people with disabilities. And we think of this as a compliance, but there are a lot of benefits for the site owner to make their website accessible. Right? Estimates are that 20 to 25 percent of all adults have a have a disability. So potentially you're expanding your audience by 20 to 25%. You know, I don't know the number in in Europe, but in the US, people with disabilities, you know, control $400,000,000,000 of disposable income. Is there you know, why would you not wanna be angling for some of that, you know, revenue? You can make your you improve your SEO.
Bet Hannon [00:07:45]:
You can improve the usability for the for everybody on your website. So there's a lot of good benefits to to doing this even while there are some compliance aspects to it. Mhmm.
Maciej Nowak [00:07:56]:
And that that's, that's interesting because it might be shown us, okay, we are tapping into that untapped potential. But I guess all of those people have to do what they are already doing, but with struggles. Right? They are struggling because websites are being are not
Bet Hannon [00:08:15]:
So there are some interesting yeah. Right. There's so there are some interesting studies that came out, one out of the UK, and it's been actually, like, 3 or 4 year even before COVID, that websites that are accessible are are more profitable, are driving they they figured out a way to, like, they're they're beating their inaccessible or the the their competitors that have barriers. Right? And so it it can be, you know, it can be a great way to gain a competitive advantage.
Maciej Nowak [00:08:45]:
I can't not ask if it is not, you know, is it causation or color correlation? Because, you know, it might be the case that they have a surplus budget to address these issues. And on the survey, it's a it it turns out that they are out out competing whereas they are out competing on the product level and can invest thanks to a better product and better revenue to to make it better.
Bet Hannon [00:09:09]:
If you think about just that argument about when you make your website more accessible for people with disabilities, you improve the user experience for everyone. Is it just that bounce from that click rate optimization? Right? Is it I mean, it's hard to know. But we just we do know that there there's some correlation there and that, you know, you're you're, you know, making your website accessible, you know, makes business sense for the bottom line. Right.
Maciej Nowak [00:09:33]:
Mhmm. Yeah. And you mentioned that it might be, you know, we we have that year, but it will take in some cases up to 9 months, you know, and, you know, the high like, you know, sky is the limit if the website is really, you know, convoluted, let's say. But, you know, why are we looking at such long, like, like, phases to get your website to being, you know, in match with the expectations to low low cost.
Bet Hannon [00:10:04]:
It just it takes a long time sometimes. Right? And so so it it it could be done quickly, but a lot of times, you know, the businesses that are doing this, it just there's just a little bit of bureaucracy there. So for instance, you know, if you've gotta get if you have issues with the color contrast in your brand palette, then you've gotta, like, work through all the marketing people. And you've gotta get those color like, you gotta fix that color contrast. But that's gotta be fixed in all kinds of places. Right? If you have if it's a big ecommerce site and they have, let's say, you know, 7,000 products and so that means probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 product images and none of them have alt text, you've got to go through and write and insert alt text for all of those images. Right? So it doesn't have to, but it just tends to. And and partly because when you're trying to make the website accessible, that doesn't mean that you're trying to stop all the other initiatives that are going on on the website.
Bet Hannon [00:11:07]:
There's a sale or we're getting ready for Black Friday or, you know, whatever. All these other things that are happening. And so, it just takes a long time to, just, you know, I I suppose if you stopped everything else, you and really only did that for 2 or 3 which is what I imagine will happen for some of those businesses as we get close to the deadline. They'll just
Maciej Nowak [00:11:29]:
Yeah. It's like
Bet Hannon [00:11:29]:
stop everything else
Maciej Nowak [00:11:30]:
and Either this on either this or that. Right? Like and because what you will hire more people just to get the company, you know
Bet Hannon [00:11:40]:
Well, it's the most expensive way to do it. Right? You know? It's kind of like, putting things off till the last minute. It it'll take it. And you're losing control over, like, how like like, some of the quality, some of the making the decisions. Right? And some of the getting user feedback, getting some testing done, getting, you know, testing with users with disabilities, all of those things. Just take time to put together. So
Maciej Nowak [00:12:03]:
Mhmm. Alright. So maybe let let let's step a little bit back and define what are we even talking about. What what is accessibility in terms of, you know, web presence?
Bet Hannon [00:12:13]:
Yeah. So, if, we tend to think about people with disabilities are, you know, represent all kinds of different limitations with how they can use the web. So one example would be someone who's totally blind. So they have a screen reader, have a tool on their machine that reads out loud to them pieces of the website and how it's formatted, but it has to be formatted correctly to for them to do that. For example, you have to have the the heading structures, you know, the one and only h one, that's the page or post or product title, and then h twos and then nested, because people are scanning through the content using that. It has to have link text that's not ambiguous. Right? So some of those things that help help a person who can't see the content to still understand and perceive and move through the content, get the benefit of the content. A lot of people can't use a mouse.
Bet Hannon [00:13:15]:
So if you can't use a mouse on a on a desktop or, you know, can't can't, don't have a steadiness on your phone to tap the the the buttons, you know, or the links, how do you begin to use use those tools? Well, you have some magnifiers, you have some, you can keyboard navigate, and that comes back for the screen readers too. People use keyboard navigation. So if you've ever used like control s, that's one keyboard shortcut, but but there are 100 and you can navigate through your site using just the tab and enter keys, maybe sometimes the arrow keys too. But if you can't navigate through all the functions of your website using your keyboard, that's a problem. So for instance, you know, you and I both come from the WordPress community. If you're in WooCommerce, there are some plugins for WooCommerce that are giving, like, variations. Right? You're gonna buy, let's say, a gift card, and the gift cards have different faces. But but because of the way that plug in is constructed, nobody can select an option.
Bet Hannon [00:14:19]:
Nobody can select the the the face of the gift card, which means they can never put it in the cart and never buy it. Right? So you've just prevented someone from purchasing your product because they can't navigate do it by keyboard. But we think about things so those are kind of 2 of the big ones, but we think about things even like people who are color blind, you know, about 10% of, 8 to 10% of all men are color blind. And so, you know, do you do things on there with the design that are, that only indicate things by color? Do you, you know, do you have captions on your videos for people with hearing impairments, hearing limitations? You know, all of those things that help people experience and understand, perceive your content, is what we're talking about. Remo and removing the barriers for for people. Mhmm.
Maciej Nowak [00:15:14]:
And for our listeners who might have, for example, let's say, they operate an ecommerce platform. Where do they where can they find any information? Like, is there a list that, contains all of the stuff that you have to make right on your ecommerce, let's say?
Bet Hannon [00:15:30]:
Yes. So the place to go for the fullest information about what you need to do is called the website content accessibility guidelines, WCAG. We sometimes say WCAG, and, it the most recent version is 2 point 2 and then there are 3 levels, single a, double a, triple a, double a is the most common focus of effort, for accessibility, and there are some checklists related to that. There's some it's from the w three, consortium. So, it that is the most widely it's the global standard for accessibility. That's what the, European Accessibility Act is referencing. It references 2.1 double a, but we know that's gonna be shifting to 2.2 eventually. You should just follow 2.2.
Bet Hannon [00:16:17]:
There's not that much more that you're doing. And then, in the states, we are gradually moving toward, the WCAG guidelines as well. So it's just that that's the fullest place of information to to look for.
Maciej Nowak [00:16:34]:
You you mentioned that you are transitioning into into 2.2 version and in the states. So is what was it like, 2 point, the previous versions were used or was it, like, a different standard because of I don't know. Maybe government had the
Bet Hannon [00:16:49]:
In the US guidelines. Government websites, there is a little bit different standard, but it's pretty functionally close. I mean, it it's pretty there's pretty wide agreement about what those things are, but it is kind of a different technicals I mean, a technically different standards, although they have a lot of overlap. And so, in the in the EU, for the new law, it's the the the WCAG 2.1 double a is the the law. There are a few places. So for exam as you probably know, you know, in the EU, there's the directive that comes out from the from the from the overarching body and then each nation implements their own laws. So some nations are choosing to be a little more strict than others. So, for example, the Germans have 2 point, WCAG 2.1 double a, but then some additional pieces that are, you know, you you'll you'll be pretty close.
Bet Hannon [00:17:48]:
I mean, I think the that gets so far into the technicalities. The the big problem is that 99.99% of the web doesn't even come close to the low hanging fruit. Right? So if you start on your website, accessibility and accessibility is a journey. Right? You need to think about it as a really long journey. It's not going to be over and done. It's something that you're going to have to continue to pay attention to. But if you do things like pay attention to the heading structure, pay attention to the color contrast, fix your, alt text on your images, and fix your ambiguous links, that will be a huge portion of the accessibility issues on your site. Now it doesn't fix every it everything, but but those are that's, you know, fixing just those basic low hanging fruit, that that's the place to start.
Maciej Nowak [00:18:40]:
It doesn't sound like a like a lot of hassle and, like, you know, it's not a lot
Bet Hannon [00:18:44]:
of hassle. 10,000 product images, it can be a hassle, but, you know, it's not Mhmm. And it's it's not super technical in a way. Right? A lot of times, this is the, you know, the thing that the content creator can fix for you.
Maciej Nowak [00:18:57]:
Yeah. But, you know, if you have 10,000 product products on your page, you know, you had to do much more stuff 10000 times even if you are automate things, you know, than to update the the ads, for example. But this sounds like really low low hanging fruit. What when it gets more messy, let's say?
Bet Hannon [00:19:20]:
Yeah. I would say it gets harder when you start having problems with keyboard navigation. So if you if you're using a WordPress theme, for example, and that typically the functionality not always, but a lot of times the functionality for the WordPress theme is in the or for the WordPress menu is in the theme. So, if if it doesn't have if it's not keyboard navigatable through the theme, that's a big problem, but it's very hard to kind of retrofit that sometimes. Right? There are a number of mega menu, plugins that you could put into the site, but only I've only found one of them that is accessible. So really have to think, you know, do do some due diligence to test for things like that. That gets a little harder. Mhmm.
Bet Hannon [00:20:11]:
Yeah.
Maciej Nowak [00:20:12]:
I I've seen those sometimes, like, you know, I've seen a couple of mega menus which were built on h ones within, you know, the the menu entries were 8 ones. And
Bet Hannon [00:20:25]:
And and the problem is not only is that a problem for accessibility, that's a problem for SEO too. Right? It's it's
Maciej Nowak [00:20:32]:
It show you look. It was exposed this way because, you know, we we were doing the SEO audit, but, from accessibility, I guess this is as big a problem as, you know, or h two's. I don't remember. Maybe I maybe not not h one's, but h twos, you know, which is also a problem.
Bet Hannon [00:20:50]:
Yep. Yep. Yeah. Be because people who use screen readers, they're they often will tell they will ask the screen reader to, they'll go to a page, and they'll ask the screen reader to read out to them the h twos on the page. And it and the screen reader will just read out loud each of the h twos, which is what they're doing is scanning through the content just like people who are visual are scanning it visually. Right? It's a way to to use their ears to scan through the content. Or the then they'll get through to an h two and they'll say, okay. Read me all the h threes under that.
Bet Hannon [00:21:27]:
So they're really trying to get to the the thing that they're looking for, they're searching for, right, by just reading those out. The other way that they do this is by reading out loud the link text on the page. So this is a really common problem is that people will make the you know, they'll they'll describe something and then they'll say, click here. And so the screen reader will just read out loud, click here, click here, click here with no context, and so people are lost. Right? So if part of it is starting part of accessibility is starting to learn how people with, disabilities are using the web, which is really just, you know, it's just an extension of our other kinds of usability and user experience kind of, you know, essentially, you know, accessibility is really just being more expansive with your personas and thinking about user experience.
Maciej Nowak [00:22:19]:
It's like it's hard to feel this way unless you really try to do this on your own. And your examples is great because, you know, if you listen to and nothing comes on click here, you can feel the pain. And then, you know, you want to apply this, building a new website, you know, or working with with the website. If you have designers, you have developers, you have product, managers, you know, where this responsibility falls within the organization?
Bet Hannon [00:22:49]:
Yeah. And, well, it the the true answer is that it falls at almost every level in an organization. So if you don't have the c suite folks who are on board, who are providing resources and, you know, kind of the direction for making something accessible, then it's not gonna happen. Right? You're always kinda come down to stuff. But, within the kind of responsibility for the website, there are portions of a lot of times, I think people think about accessibility as something that only rests with the developers, And there is a portion that rests with developers. Right? Does the menu does the menu that we're, choosing or the the plugins that we're choosing to do this particular functionality, are they accessible? But there's a good portion of accessibility that rests with designers in terms of things like color, color contrast, sizes of font, the space for the clickable targets, all of those things that rest with designers. And then there's another whole part of the prod, accessibility that rests with the content creators. And when I say creators, I don't just mean, like, people who are putting it together, but the people who are in putting the content into the site.
Bet Hannon [00:24:01]:
And that often may not be a person that's either a developer or in in a big organization, either a developer or a designer. It's somebody who it really is just receiving the content from somebody else and they're putting it into the site. But if they don't do that in an accessible way, it it kind of, you know, can create barriers unintentionally. And so it's really kind of across the board, and the more people understand that, the more they can begin to think about how can we, how can we educate all of those different teams so that they don't keep creating new accessible content? I mean, that's really the first step is really educating people to the point where they stop creating new accessible inaccessible content, new barriers. And so if you can stop them, creating new things, then you can begin to go back with, you know, kinda deal with what's there before. And that the other piece of that is also that accessibility is never attained. It's never a checkbox that you're done because anytime the website changes, whether that's new content is added or no. It doesn't happen often, but occasionally, when a plug in is updated or WordPress is updated even.
Bet Hannon [00:25:18]:
Right? That can introduce new barriers. And so it's something that you have to be vigilant about over time.
Maciej Nowak [00:25:26]:
With that, checking off a chat box, this reminds me of, security compliance. And there are platforms which helps you maintain the security or you can have SOC 2 certification one time or, you know, across like 3 months. And then, okay, I am am I compliant? No. You got to, it's like it's a way of doing things instead of an event on a timeline.
Bet Hannon [00:25:51]:
Yeah. That's a great analogy. The other great analogy is SEO. Right? You can, I I think that's a it's a good analogy because there's a kind of basic level of best practices for SEO, but then you can kind of begin to keep working at this to keep improving it, but it's something that you have to keep paying attention to over time? So but security is good too. I like that.
Maciej Nowak [00:26:14]:
Mhmm. Yeah. Like, at the same time, I'm thinking if if it's not a checkbox to to to to to tick, it doesn't look doesn't sound very promising. It's like, always not I don't want to use our burden, but it's always something that you have to ask. You do this and then you have to oh, did we, like, did we go through a checklist for accessibility to, like, like another layer of doing things, within, you know, business as usual. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Bet Hannon [00:26:49]:
Exactly. We we've already done that. I mean, think about when, when we started paying attention to making sure that websites were mobile responsive on different sizes of screens. We just do that now. That's just a part of our process. Right? Is making sure that as we're making changes to we're building sites, but as we're making changes to them that we're paying attention to how it looks on mobile as well as desktop, maybe even as well as the big, you know, big monitors. So it's just it's just a part of building websites today that we have to keep paying attention to. And it does become you know, I think it's not it's not an undue burden, really.
Bet Hannon [00:27:27]:
I mean, it's really just thinking more about your users as you're putting this all together. So yeah. It'll it becomes secondary.
Maciej Nowak [00:27:36]:
I'm I'm thinking about this from, like, from a perspective that with the mobile, a lot of stuff is done automatically by the technology. With more and more mature technology, all of those solo developers in the makers building JavaScript libraries, you know, templating libraries to make your life as a developer easier. A lot of stuff for the mobile is done automatically. Like, screens fold nicely unless you do something crazy. 90 90% of stuff is good enough or very good enough, and I'd say, not to pay attention to it. I'm curious if this if this is going to be with the, with the accessibility tool. Is it also achievable through the through through automation, let's say?
Bet Hannon [00:28:23]:
Not at the moment, but there are some good tools that you can use. So one of them is the accessibility checker plugin from Equalize Digital and there's a free version of that in the WordPress repository directory. And it is, automated tools will find about 30% of issues. So you just need to know the sound
Maciej Nowak [00:28:43]:
great. 30% is not great.
Bet Hannon [00:28:47]:
I mean, yeah, that's where we are now. I mean, I think we may get to a point where we're, but it is not in the foreseeable. It's not in the quick future. So we're gonna have to learn to do this better, but but use that automation when you can. Right? 30% is better than 0, and so, using a tool like, like, the equalized digital's plug in, but also, and so it primarily and those automated tools are primarily focused on content. And, of course, that's the thing that's happening all the time that's introducing new issues. And so, you know, while it's only 30%, it is finding the 30% that are most likely to be created as you're kind of making those day to day changes on the website. And so it, that plug in introduces a screen in the page and post editor, kinda down in the bottom just like the, you know, like the SEO plugins do at the bottom, and it gives you feedback about what what you need to do.
Bet Hannon [00:29:44]:
The paid version of the plug in will run scans on everything you've ever done, be you know, all the content created before if you, without having to open every page and post. But, you know, there and there's some great tools when there are a lot of content creators. Right? And so that's a piece, like, if you are running a big organization, and you have multiple content creators, you have to also track who's who's creating inaccessible who's creating business directories. And and how do you hold them accountable to doing that? Because it can, you know, it can be costly to the business. The business has, you know, those fines for the European accessibility act can be β¬60,000, β¬100,000. It can cost way more than that for US businesses if they're, you know, they get caught it. So making sure that that you're training your folks, but that are they're also kind of doing it. And so finding some some tools to to kind of work with.
Bet Hannon [00:30:41]:
Use the tools when you can. There are some tools for there there are people that are working with, AI generated alt text. And, you know, that that example that we've been talking about where you've got just a massive number of images that are missing alt text, and, it can be a great tool to generate the drafts, but you absolutely wanna have a human being read and check everyone because, a, if you think about how those large language models are learning, right, they're the alt text that's out there currently is not all that great. And so, you know, the the it those kind of large language models are not, you know, they're not magic. They're they're they're just gathering from what's out there, but what's out there currently is not great. And so, a, that's 1. 2, they hallucinate, and sometimes they're just really wrong, and and that can be embarrassing and bad for your business. Right? And, including some that are, like, really, really politically, you know, just wrong.
Bet Hannon [00:31:53]:
And so you wanna take some great care with that and just have human beings check those. There are people who talk about, oh, you know, and it won't be long before all all of us will be seeing such personalized content and the browser will know how to adapt it. We we're not anywhere near that. Not not in a way that's meaningful for people with disabilities, at the moment.
Maciej Nowak [00:32:15]:
Mhmm. And this is from perspective of checking if you're, let's say, compliant. How about from, like, first principles, like, from ground up? When I'm building a new website, is there anything that would help me and assist me in not making the mistakes in the first place rather than looking for them and fixing and, you know, bug fixing as well as them, addressing this from the get go?
Bet Hannon [00:32:36]:
Yeah. Yeah. So, so all, when we talk about design, almost all the design tools that developers you that web professionals use, so, Figma or, Adobe or all these tools have some accessibility, modules or plugins that you could put into them, and those will help you begin to check things quite, quite well. Give you the feedback on things like the color contrast and the sizes of things and and that can be really amazing. The the thing that, and then the content creators again, that's just learning how to do it in the in the accessible way. And it's not it's really not complicated. You just have to start, you know, like, remembering to do it. For developers, it's really a little more tricky because everything really comes I mean, so often the well, we tend to have a plug in stack that we use, don't we? Right? You have you have the, you know,
Maciej Nowak [00:33:36]:
favorite
Bet Hannon [00:33:37]:
tools tend to yeah. Your favorite tools of things, right, that you use when you need this kind of a functionality, use this tool. So I think for for books like that, it's good to start getting those evaluated. You're gonna want to evaluate anything that has front end output. Right? You're gonna wanna make sure that those things are working well. And and I would say, you know, some of that is really you may have to consult an accessibility professional. We haven't talked about that yet, but, you know, there's a lot of ways that you can start. You could DIY.
Bet Hannon [00:34:10]:
You could get some things going. But at some point, you may need to consult, you know, accessibility professionals to kind of bring this over the finish line. And so it it may be I mean, this is a piece of what our team does is do consulting for devs about, you know, particular features. Right? And so, they need to put in an events management thing and it needs these these things. So we say, okay. Use this plug in, but you're then you need to watch for these items to make sure that they're, given the rest of your theme, there's not gonna be a conflict. Or we've we've used this mega menu plugin before. This one is probably the better better choice for you.
Bet Hannon [00:34:48]:
So, some of those kinds of consulting, if you're not up for doing the testing yourself can happen. And then, you know, over time you build up, you now you know, oh, I should pick that plug in or this plug in, and now you have a a more accessible stack. But, you know, learning to do some of that testing yourself is not a bad problem, you know, thing. Right? The the keyboard navigation especially. Right?
Maciej Nowak [00:35:12]:
I I I have a feeling that, you know, like, again, searching back to that example with ClickShare, unless you blindfold your team, whoever this is, and forced to use, you you know, your favorite or their favorite website to to to go through the whole purchase process. I think no one will feel it. I don't feel it. You know, I'm in the business of building websites. I don't feel it. Right?
Bet Hannon [00:35:40]:
I have a I have a team member who's doing a who's doing a a training thing, and she said they've encouraged her to do mouseless Mondays. Like, just put your mouse away on Monday and try to do everything through the keyboard. I was like, oh, that's really that's that's really good. Right? You know, thinking about regularly learning to do that and, and so that you get good at navigating, via your keyboard. You know, there are a lot of people without disabilities that like doing that because it's fast. Right?
Maciej Nowak [00:36:09]:
Yeah. The the developers especially, you know, I I don't I don't like, I'm on Mac and I don't use the doc, you know, on Mac. I I only use, you know, Keeper to launch applications. And, this is the the easiest way for me to gain a lot of workspace this way. But I'm thinking also about if I see there are 2, let's say, main players. And this is the law addresses this from the perspective of the business. So there's a business owner. Let's assume for the big enough organization, this is CEO.
Maciej Nowak [00:36:39]:
This is on his shoulders, and he's responsible as, you know, the leader of the organization to be, accessible and maintain that accessibility. On the other hand, there is that whole development world who implements this so that that CEO can can have that accessible website. Now I'm thinking, you know, where is the overlap except where the organization has enough developers to have their own development team? Where's the overlap between the business and the the implementation?
Bet Hannon [00:37:13]:
Yeah. Ultimately, it's going to be the business owner, the c suite leaders there say understanding that they will be hit with fine I mean, the the penalties for doing that means they will insist. And it's the developers who can provide that, who are able to deliver that, who will end up, you know, winning out. And the the the the one of the difficulties is, you know, it's there's kind of like SEO, anyone can hang out a shingle to say they're they do accessibility. And there are certainly, folks who, you know, use only an automated scan and that's the passing that is the only thing they worry about. And so, I think there will be some rude awakenings at at some point, right, where this development agency wasn't able to deliver you accessibility because they didn't they didn't know, they didn't understand, they didn't have experience with it. And and I think as as all of this begins to take off, we will see people demanding it, but people not being able to deliver it quite yet until we kinda move together over time. Right? But, so looking for things like I think as I mean, one of the things that we talk about is how can how can an agency let's say your agency.
Bet Hannon [00:38:49]:
Say you want you're building this project. It needs to be accessible. You know you want some help. How can you choose wisely to get a consultant to help you? So one thing is to ask about their auditing and testing. Do they only use do they only use automatic automated testing? Do they do any manual testing? And look at their reports. Do they, get an example of a report? Do they, do they identify the issue? Do they explain it in a way that helps you understand it? Or is it just some, like a checkbox on a complaint on the, you know, on the on the guidelines? Right? Do they explain it to you? Do they help you figure out how to fix it? And, you know, you can look. There are some certifications. So the International Association of Accessibility Professionals, IAAP, has a certification, and so you can look for that connection with that organization and and and those folks too.
Bet Hannon [00:39:48]:
So, we haven't talked about though, the overlay plug ins. So there are plug ins out there, and they're getting a little more savvy, but they do try to say, just install our plug in or our single line of code and you'll all your accessibility issues will go away. It's like just like magic. And the problem is that they don't. First of all, those plug ins are using the same automated tools that a lot of the checkers are using, so they can only fix 30% of issues. So they can never fix anything that's keyboard navigation related. They don't even fix the color contrast very well. And then, additionally, they they create more problems because they create new barriers for people with disabilities.
Bet Hannon [00:40:35]:
So the people who use a screen reader, for example, have that tool on their machine. But the overlay is also got a screen reader, but they they conflict and neither tool works then. So I know lots of people who are blind who will, block the IP for these services, at the router level so they don't have to deal with it. Right? And so, that should tell you all you need to know right there that the the people you're trying to help are blocking the tool that it's a problem. And there's some privacy concerns, some other things too. So, big problems, overlay fact sheet.com. That's the place to go for, much more detailed information about how those overlays work and why they're problematic. Signed by over 800 accessibility professionals, in terms of a statement about why they're Why
Maciej Nowak [00:41:22]:
why do they even exist? Because thinking about blind people going to through all of the hassle to get to the root rooter and then black list the IP IPs sounds brutal. You know? It's not
Bet Hannon [00:41:33]:
You know, they're I mean, we've already talked about people who wanna use automated tools, and we should use them. And so it's just kind of another step to talking about using an automated tool for people that are not very tech savvy, and, they got tons of money invested in them from venture capitalists who thought this was gonna be the the thing to solve the, you know, compliance issue, and they're just not. They're just not. And they they claim that they will stand with you in a legal, they're they market themselves in the US as helping you make legal compliance. They're backing off of that. They got, there's one of them, called AccessiBe that got has been sued by their customers in a class action lawsuit this this summer. So, they're they're kinda you know, you'll see some mitigation of that, I think, but, you know, it's just kind of being careful about chew you know, there's no easy button to it, unfortunately. Right? At the very least, if you use those tools, know that you have to do more than what they do for you.
Bet Hannon [00:42:38]:
Right? Mhmm.
Maciej Nowak [00:42:39]:
Then though those overlays, plugins are still on stuck in the face of fake it. They didn't get to make it face yet.
Bet Hannon [00:42:49]:
Well, sometimes people put them on because they're were they're worried about a lawsuit in the US. And the sad reality is that those predatory lawsuits in the US where people are suing just suing people, they're actually become a target. They know that the sites that are using those plug ins, those tools are not accessible. And so now 25% of the lawsuits last year was was were, sites that were using one of those overlay tools.
Maciej Nowak [00:43:18]:
It's like like a flag. Please sue me.
Bet Hannon [00:43:20]:
It's like, please sue me. Exactly.
Maciej Nowak [00:43:23]:
Yeah. Yeah. Because there are tools that will very easily crawl you know, you you you can filter out these technologies or plugins websites are using. So there's like a read ready list to for for
Bet Hannon [00:43:34]:
Exactly. Exactly. You could find them. And, yeah. So Nice.
Maciej Nowak [00:43:39]:
Nice. This is this is like you you you want to avoid the problem and look like putting out the fire with gasoline. Right? Creating more more problems. I'm thinking also that, like, resonates with me that, mouseless Monday. I'm I want to answer ask about that. Does does it's your friend company of your friends. Do they spend the whole day without a mouse doing their own work, or is it like an exercise they go through once
Bet Hannon [00:44:10]:
This is this is one of my my team members who's doing some additional training. And so she told me this just last week, so I don't know yet what
Maciej Nowak [00:44:19]:
Oh, right. Okay.
Bet Hannon [00:44:20]:
The the that's the theory is that she's supposed to put her mouse aside today and see how it goes. Right?
Maciej Nowak [00:44:26]:
Oh, this Monday. Alright. We will we will record the sequel then, or I will get the the info because we are recording. We're recording Monday morning for very very morning for you.
Bet Hannon [00:44:36]:
But, you know, it's a it's a even if you just put it aside for an hour and just try to do what you need to do by by mousing through or by by using your keyboard, you know, it's it's an eye opening experience. And, you know, I think, people who wanna understand more about how this works for users who have who, you know, depend on keyboard navigation or depend on screen readers. There are a ton of examples. Well, there's a bunch out on YouTube of just how screen readers work for people, right, and how people use them. But one place that you can go that's a great resource for people who do WordPress is the WordPress accessibility meetup, and that's, you can go to meetup.com and join that group and they meet twice a month. They meet only online. They have great presentations, but some of them have been sort of live audits of plugins, by, Amber Hines and Alex Stein. Alex is blind and, and so then they're just sort of you can see out what what happens when Alex is trying to navigate through, some plug in screens.
Bet Hannon [00:45:41]:
So I went back and watched one about a membership plug in that they did maybe almost a year ago, but I was interested in this plug in. And, just, you know, you can see how Alex they ask Alex to do certain tasks. Right? Go to this. Sign up for the membership. Here's the coupon code, you know, and, where did he encounter barriers? And where and and, so it's really kind of interesting to get a sense for how folks do navigate through using keyboards and screen readers. And
Maciej Nowak [00:46:12]:
It's very inspiring, you know, in terms of how you can educate your team. And this sparked an idea for me. We are going for a company get together in a month time, like 4 weeks from now. And we during those events, we we tend to have some kind of, like, team building activities, but also some workshops so that we can, you know, get back, you know, wiser. Let's not only have some fun, but I'm thinking about an exercise where we would draw no. You know, from from from the team that will be there. Draw people and draw tasks, like assign random tasks for them. Like, let's draw a website, draw an action, like, buy a pair of shoe, and, you know, and then draw the disability, like, you know, you can't use the mouse.
Maciej Nowak [00:47:00]:
You can't use your eyes, for example. Like, you know, how I'm like, what's your opinion? It's, like, very hot take, you know, how such a build team building activity plus education could be done on a company get together?
Bet Hannon [00:47:14]:
You know, I wanna be careful about about, emulating disability. I mean, I think we do that to try and help raise the level of accessibility, but we always need to come back to those, you know, testing our sites with people who have disabilities. But, I think your time might be better spent learning more about the basics of accessibility and thinking about how could you, you know, not like some grand huge change, but how could you begin to introduce some changes to your process that would make your end the the sites you're delivering more accessible? Right? Can you, can you learn a little a little bit about accessibility and brainstorm about where could you start to just put some small checklist items in your other pieces. Right? So that you can start growing by doing things a little more, accessibly. And, you know, it's not, I think, helping your folks understand that it's not it's not this onerous, huge, complex thing that's, like, preventing, you know, like security things that are preventing these things we hardly understand how they're happening. Right? It's just some small pieces of the the checklist and making sure that we're we're going through. How could we begin to be more accessible?
Maciej Nowak [00:48:45]:
I like how you, phrase this, that my time would be better spent as a very gentle, very hard hard slap on my on my hands on the on the reason.
Bet Hannon [00:48:57]:
Risk people just feeling frustrated. Right? And then and then it's and then it's creating more of a barrier for wanting to work on accessibility if people are frustrated. Right? I think, helping people I do think helping people understand your your team members, understand how users you that have disabilities navigate the web. Right? Or or use content. Right? How does a purse how does the screen reader work and how is it different than we might assume, you know, from the outside just by trying it out. Right? So
Maciej Nowak [00:49:35]:
I have that feeling that unless you feel the pain of interacting with such a website, it's very hard to internalize that and think in an like, in emphatic terms with you know otherwise, it's just no like, unless you feel the pain is like a task, you know, for its own. Like, they said, I do. You have to
Bet Hannon [00:49:56]:
be respectful. You know what might be better though? Is to, is to have find a way to get someone to test some things that you've built recently and show show what it's like for how if there are barriers for people with disabilities. Right? So that now and, a lot of times you can do this testing and it can be done, where it's recorded. Right? So, yeah, this thing that, you know, your team member built for this functionality, nobody can get into it. A blind person can't use it. Or a a person who needs to keyboard can't get into it. They can't they can't make a selection. They can't use it.
Bet Hannon [00:50:39]:
Or, you know, get some feedback about some of those things and help them learn why those issues are important. But seeing somebody have the barrier is almost as empathetic as as having it. Right? As as experiencing it yourself. But I think you're right. The place that we need to kind of think about is creating empathy. Right? And and it's really about doing small things, making relatively small changes to what we do. Right? Adding alt text, making sure the heading structure is proper. Like, relatively small things can make a real difference for whether a person with a disability can use this or not.
Bet Hannon [00:51:29]:
It can be about whether they are able to to buy this product. Right? And and when you stop to think about that, that it's really makes a real felt difference for people when we do it right, that kind of begins to be the the the kind of turning point. We wanna make it's a it's a it's being a good human to other people. Right? It's treat treating people how we would like to be treated. And the reality is all of us are just one accident or illness away from needing this kind of accessibility.
Maciej Nowak [00:52:08]:
Does the law differ differentiate between is it, consumer centric website? There's an emphasis on ecommerce, obviously, but for services. And then if you are b to b only company, is there any difference from the law standpoint?
Bet Hannon [00:52:27]:
Not not so much legally, but, you know, you wanna not legally so much, but you wanna think about, but in reality, so, like, in the US, b to b websites don't really get sued as much. It's just not as many users, I think, in that kind of way. Right? If you have a service, if it's a SaaS service, then more. But, right, you get, it's it it just kinda comes down to the economics of where there are more users. Right? And so and in terms of your products and services. But if your target market is people over 50, you would do well to pay attention to accessibility. Because as we all you know, as we age, you know, you probably have you're not maybe old enough to know this. Right? You know, the the fine print the small print gets smaller, and, and also our color perception changes.
Bet Hannon [00:53:27]:
So as the lens of the eye begins to yellow with age, that changes our color perception. And so our hearing starts to go. We start to, you know, so it's not just people with disabilities that are, you know, somehow have a, you know, a doctor's note, but a lot of people begin to have more and more trouble with things. And making sure we're paying attention to accessibility means that we get to keep those customers or get gain them in the first place. Right? Mhmm.
Maciej Nowak [00:53:57]:
So what you're saying basically means that the law doesn't differentiate. But if you worry about the lawsuit from that, let's say, predatory lawsuit, it's harder to get if you are very b to b market than if you're more the consumer market. And but wait. Wait. Wait. I will just finish. So by this, I want to say, like, I want to ask, the people are mainly driven by fear of that predatory lawsuit instead of, like, normal lawsuit or being com com compliant with the accessibility. So they they are fearing not their regular policemen, let's say, but that but that, you know, private army police or whatever that will hunt you until they get get you.
Bet Hannon [00:54:46]:
Yeah. It's unfortunate because that's the, that that we're kinda left with that. Right? So, in the US, the all of these website lawsuits are being driven by the Americans with Disabilities Act. That's our human rights law for people with disabilities. It was signed in 1990 before there really even was a real you know, websites were not really a big so it doesn't really have anything about websites, but it's being used, because it talks about having equal or equivalent experiences. You know, accessible or equivalent experiences. And so that's where we get that piece. In terms of, when ADA was first signed, the big focus was on making stores and restaurants and pea places, what they call public accommodation.
Bet Hannon [00:55:38]:
You wanna go to the bank and you need to, you know, the counter you if you were in a wheelchair, you couldn't even reach the counter. Right? So all of those kinds of things that where we wanted to make it open for people with disabilities were focused on kind of brick and mortar storefronts. The the our, the department of justice in the United States, kinda came out with all these guidelines about how you need to do it. Your ramp needed to be only this you know, have this much slope or you needed to have a ramp and you needed to have handrails in the bathroom and a parking place and all those things that you like, you had clear guidelines and then you could be sued around it. We don't have those kinds of things, and so it's kind of a little bit of a wild west. The the court cases all keep coming back to the WCAG guidelines, but it's not really the, you know, it it's really a lot of ambiguity, and that's part of what drives that there's that that kind of room to have those predatory lawsuits, those serial plaintiffs, driving the whole thing. And what they're after is they want to get you to settle the court, the the lawsuit, because that's how they get money. They don't there there's no damages.
Bet Hannon [00:56:50]:
They don't get there's no damages for the thing. They want it settled. So when they first started these lawsuits, they went after companies that were big, the enterprise folks, The, you know, the Microsofts and the Amazons and all. They'll those people got their act together and they have internal teams making all this work. Right? And they're kind of working their way down. You can still get sued if you're a fairly small business, but it's less likely. It's more likely that you're gonna get sued if you are, ecommerce. That's about 80% of all the lawsuits are ecommerce.
Bet Hannon [00:57:22]:
It has to do with where there are a lot of users and where users are gonna find barriers. So ecommerce, membership sites, media sites, all of those kinds of things, restaurants, hotels, all of those kinds of, industries find themselves focused on a lot. If you are the local plumber in a small town, it's not likely that you're gonna get sued, but you might. And so I I really hate it that it's the fear that motivates people to do this because I think there are so many benefits for doing it. But it's kinda human nature. Right? We don't as as business owners, we don't wanna spend any especially if we're small, we don't wanna spend any more than we have to to to make things work. Right? We just really wanna cospise, you know, kind of minimize our expenses. And so yeah.
Bet Hannon [00:58:14]:
I don't know. That was a long thing. But you you'll still need to, you know, eventually make your site accessible.
Maciej Nowak [00:58:21]:
Mhmm. And, for example, when you're designing a new website, do do you have a feeling that that sometime sometime ago, there was very popular, like, a minimalistic approach to be to designing websites. Is it any more friendly, to build in a minimalistic fashion than, you know, any other fashion?
Bet Hannon [00:58:43]:
Well, you can, and I think, you know, the the the more you keep it simple, the less there are issues with accessibility there can be, but that doesn't mean that accessibility has to be ugly by any means. Right? It can be we we've we've, we don't do as much development projects anymore because we try to focus on more of the consulting and testing pieces, but but, but we've built some, you know, just stunningly beautiful websites that were accessible. Right? If you're paying attention, it's really about unleashing your creativity. Right? So you can, you know, it's sort of like yeah. You can do, you know, you can be really creative when you're building sites. But if you know you've got this constraint, then it means that you've gotta be even more creative in terms of putting that together. I think, for example, you wanna make sure that you're you're minimizing, not eliminating, but minimizing the ways that you use JavaScript. A lot a lot of people, including people with disabilities, but a lot of people, browse the web with JavaScript turned off in the browser.
Bet Hannon [00:59:52]:
So that's one thing. Right? So you wanna have some fallbacks. But, but JavaScript can conflict with some things. You wanna just make take care and you may need to take extra steps, for instance, if you have error notifications that may get blocked because you're using JavaScript. So you would just we're just taking care with it, but a lot of times, you know, developers may not be aware of what's needed, but may also not have that next set level of skills of knowing how to really override or or use the JavaScript in a way that is gonna help help them create accessible features.
Maciej Nowak [01:00:31]:
Is there anything like, for example, we we talked about alphabet about the penalties. But is there anything else you should be worried about losing market, losing, getting penalty, getting in Ireland, getting giant dime even. Yes.
Bet Hannon [01:00:51]:
So, so in the European Accessibility Act, you know, the the European Commission comes out with their kind of overarching and then every country does their own interpretation of the law. They have their own national laws around it. And so the penalties and, and requirements are just a little bit different in each one. So, they were supposed to come out with all of these laws at the end of last year and it has still still some of them are kind of working on it. It's just just that's the way all these laws developing, works out. But now we're beginning to kind of see more of the and we're all looking to see like who will be the most strict because, of course, if you're selling to all of Europe, you'll need to meet that standard. Right? So, Germans and the Dutch, tend to be, pretty high on those. Other countries may be a little more lax.
Bet Hannon [01:01:42]:
But in, every country has their own penalties and enforcement schemes. Right? So some of them are using, some kind of an enforcement group, a committee, or, you know, an agency that already exists. Some of them are creating new ones. And then there are typically fines. So the fines range from, β¬60,000 is really common. Some of them goes 100,000. I've seen somewhere that Luxembourg said a $1,000,000 as their fine, and some of the fines are, for every instance. So you can have multiple kind of can start to add up.
Bet Hannon [01:02:22]:
In, in some places, at least one, there's a there is a trigger where it can be a percentage of your gross global revenue. So it can they're trying to equalize the pain, right, between small and large businesses. And then in Ireland, you can get up to 18 months of jail time. Now to get jail time, you have to either refuse to make your website accessible or you have to lie as a part of the investigative process. So you, you know, you're really probably not gonna get jail time, and I doubt that they're gonna extradite people from other countries to go to to jail in Ireland. But it's kinda trying to help people understand and take it seriously because it kinda goes back to that piece we were talking about. You know, the fear is really what motivates people to have really taken the action. Right? And so, that's sad because I think there are so many benefits and you can gain so much from doing it, but it's really getting people to commit to doing it.
Bet Hannon [01:03:20]:
And so, the the yeah. The penalties can be quite and you know, there's some interesting twists on these. For instance, most of them have, this agency that's enforced and they that agency in some of them can be proactive. It can go out looking for for, you know, sites that are not accessible
Maciej Nowak [01:03:41]:
or products that
Bet Hannon [01:03:42]:
are not accessible. Almost all of them allow for, consumer groups, either consumer groups or disability groups to report things to them. In Germany, they allow for your competitors to report you. And so that gets to be a little sticky. Right? And, and the rationale is if if I, as the business owner, took this all seriously, I spent time and money and people, you know, people resources to make my site accessible, but my competitor didn't. They have a competitive advantage in breaking the law. So I should be able to report them to kinda even the point.
Maciej Nowak [01:04:22]:
That's very nice and kind Yeah. And everything. Like, I I buy this. I buy this because there is a big investment to make, you know, buttons accessible. I read on Twitter, like, between, like, today and last 2 weeks, let's say, in that period, a little bit of, like, I think this was reached table showing how much codes took to create a button and access very, very extremely accessible button. And it was 4 time more code it took 4 time more code space, let's say, to do that. Like, it it
Bet Hannon [01:04:58]:
probably But once you do once you do that once, you're just gonna
Maciej Nowak [01:05:01]:
repeat it. Right? It's not like
Bet Hannon [01:05:03]:
it's not it's not a cumulative, piece. Right?
Maciej Nowak [01:05:07]:
Very true. That's why I was asking if the technology is for is following to make this, like, about that automation because, okay, this is not automation. You write the code once, but then you can reuse that. And if you will build some some kind of, like, not in in Hudson, but if you build from from one instance to many more instances, you build framework for being more accessible. That's where I was thinking the code might help and being more and more mature. And not like you build the website, then it does what you have to do once once again. Right? But rather build, with this with with accessibility in mind, building from accessible components, let's say. This is where I was getting with my my previous question.
Maciej Nowak [01:05:53]:
But getting back to the German law, I totally buy it because you don't spend a truckload of money. You spend that truckload of truckload of money on ads, and you get more business even though you lose 20% of that business, you know, if if it is really being closed. You know, you you didn't invest in being compliant. You you invest in in ads. So, you know, this is this is actually making this a difference in, you know, what advantages you have.
Bet Hannon [01:06:28]:
Right. It's try it's trying to equalize that that, you know, recognizing that it is an investment and that but that, you know, we need to kind of, like, get everybody on board. That that's the hard part at the beginning is that there would be these inequalities. Right? The the goal is that in another 10 years or or so that everybody's just doing this, and it includes people with disabilities. And we're we're all on board, and it's just the way we build things. It's just the way we, you know, create products and services and all that that we're thinking about this as we go
Maciej Nowak [01:07:03]:
forward. We look. We are talking about this because German, lawmakers put this explicitly, let's say, in writing in the law. That's why this is a case that's okay that the competitor can, like, you know, initiate this claim. But but, you know, should it differ, you know, who claims, like, for the like, who how how do how do you call this process when you go to the police and say, sorry. Misappointment. Yeah. Turn them in.
Maciej Nowak [01:07:42]:
Yeah. Yeah. So that so that matter who is initiating this this this process? Because I'm also curious. How do you determine, who is chasing you? You know, under which law under which country law are you following? Is it based on the, address of registration of the company or, who turns you in?
Bet Hannon [01:08:06]:
It's the customer. But the potential customer. Right?
Maciej Nowak [01:08:09]:
That's wonderful. Everyone will then move to Iran.
Bet Hannon [01:08:12]:
So it's like so it's like I don't know if everybody moved idle, but but it's, you know, it it's it's, at least in theory, built on where the customers are based. Right? So I I don't know how that works when it's your competitor turning you in, but it's so maybe that's, you know, where the businesses are based. But but in theory, most of this is really about a customer experiencing a barrier and then reporting that in. So, you know, if you create if you create an inaccessible ecommerce website and you sell across Europe, you could have customers that file a complaint in Italy and France and Spain and I mean, you can have all of these different, people complaining in different jurisdictions and different you know, you have to kind of they they want to kinda harmonize that so that the standards are relatively the same or at least the same minimum standards are in place all through the European Union. But but, yeah, if you if you're not, you know, moving forward with it, then, you could get complaints in all these different jurisdictions based on where the customers land. And and, frankly, you know, I think I I think that some of what's going to happen and so well, let's back up. So so the European Accessibility Act is not just about that your website has to be accessible. The products and services have to be accessible too, and you have to have an accessibility statement on the website, and it has to refer to ongoing regular testing.
Bet Hannon [01:09:48]:
We don't know what regular means. Right? How often that really means. But they're they have to refer to regular testing. And so the assumption is that you're gonna keep working at this, and that's kind of where we're going in the states too, is that if you get sued, really I mean, anybody can sue anybody. We know we do that a lot in the United States. Right? That's just nobody can nobody can promise you that you won't get sued. Right? But if you have evidence that you've been working on accessibility over time, that should minimize your liability. And I think that that's probably what also will be happening in the European Union.
Bet Hannon [01:10:27]:
Right? That it's that it's really just something it's like security, like as you know that, or privacy. Right? Are you working on it over time? Can you show that you've been working on this over time? So that no website is ever a 100% accessible. So when somebody does find something and reports it, you have a mechanism to say, oh, thank you for reporting that issue. We will prioritize that as we're moving, you know, in the next month or 2, and we'll get back to you. And then you get back to them and you ask them, did this solve your problem? Right? And so when you have that kind of responsiveness, that is gonna minimize your penalties, and that's really what they wanna see. They really wanna see, you know, are you responsive to customers, and are you working at this over time?
Maciej Nowak [01:11:15]:
Mhmm. But because what I'm hearing about all of the all of the all of these EU regulations is that they are very vague. They leave a lot of for individual interpretation, which is double edged sword. But whereas you mentioned in the US, you have this this this and this. You have to have this, angle of of the slope for the, wheelchairs and so on.
Bet Hannon [01:11:40]:
For physical brick and mortar
Maciej Nowak [01:11:42]:
Yes.
Bet Hannon [01:11:43]:
But not for websites. We are left without any kind of guidance for the websites, and that's what drives all these lawsuits. And so, yeah, you're right. And even if you go to the to the WCAG, to the content guidelines, and you start reading, a, a lot is really contextual. Accessibility is often very contextual. What else is going on? What else is there? What's what's happening with how this one feature is a part of this bigger kind of experience on the web page. And a lot of those things are really left to human judgment. There's something really an equivalent experience.
Bet Hannon [01:12:26]:
Right? And so even even having the WCAG is not like having a a a cut and dried law, you know, cut cut and dried kind of thing. This is part of why accessibility will never be no website will ever be a 100% accessible. And if you stop to even just think about the logic. Right? If if 100% accessible really means a 100% of the people who have disabilities or any combination of disabilities, any level of disabilities will never ever have any kind of barrier whatsoever on a website. There's just no way that anybody can promise that. It just it's it's logically impossible. No website is able to meet that standard, but you can take care of a lot of the low hanging fruit. You can be, you know and that's true for brick and mortar, you know, physical accessibility too.
Bet Hannon [01:13:20]:
Even even though you've met all of those legal requirements, there are still people who may not be able to get into your property because of their specific disabilities or combination of disabilities. And so, it's kind of the same thing. Right? Nothing is a 100%, but if you are working at the low hanging fruit, the the very basics in the guideline, you're gonna you're you're moving forward. You're gonna do that. You know, you're gonna be accessible to more people. Most people, maybe even eventually. And then you can deal with some of those, you know, specific complaints of I I came and I wasn't able to do x y z on your website. Then you can begin to to see what could be there, what could be done.
Bet Hannon [01:14:06]:
If you approach it in that way as a instead of trying to, like, do the bare minimum, but you, you know, you'd you you do this low hanging fruit and then you you keep working at it slowly over time. You'll just be in a much stronger position to to minimize your fines, but also be accessible to your customers.
Maciej Nowak [01:14:24]:
Mhmm. And this is where the remaining 70% of, let's say, gray gray area, which automatic tools are not finding lies because it's contextual and, requires a human judgment.
Bet Hannon [01:14:39]:
Yes. And that I mean, that's why people need to hire people like us eventually. Right? To begin to sorta, like, help them sort out, well, this this fixes, this solution that you've provided or you've you've you've you're proposing does fix the problem for these people with disabilities, but it may create problems for these people with disabilities. Right? And so sometimes just knowing having, experts, consultants that can help you sort out what's gonna be the better choices among several. Right? There may be several ways to do this, but you may need to choose and it may need to be based on your particular customer base. Right? If your customer base is over 50, as we talked about, you may may wanna make some different choices than if your, you know, the website is really intended for, you know, high school students. Right? That's a real different kind of, situation. You don't want any high school students with disabilities to be, you know, have barriers, but it's you have to think about things differently based on who the who the users of the website really are.
Bet Hannon [01:15:47]:
Mhmm.
Maciej Nowak [01:15:47]:
And then when you are sued, let's say, hypothetically, you can argue that the way the website is built is because the majority of your users are is this group of, of users. So to
Bet Hannon [01:16:00]:
You don't get to you you don't get to sort of use that as a get out of jail free card. I mean, I don't think I don't but you can you can certainly say, hey. We we want this to be accessible. We've been working on these things. We, thank you for pointing out this barrier for us. Let us work to help you to help you, remove that barrier for you. Right? And so, you you wanna as as much as you can. Right? You know, the the the law all of these laws, I think, at some level do give a kind of it is just too costly or too, complex to create a special, you know, create access for this person who has, you know, multiple layers of, very unusual disabilities.
Bet Hannon [01:16:49]:
Right? Just the cost piece of that. So I think there are there are ways that people do that, but you you don't wanna rely on that. Right? That's not gonna be that, that's not a good look for the business either. Right?
Maciej Nowak [01:17:02]:
And do you get involved in in this suit when when, for example, I don't know, you you your clients are reaching out or not yet clients, like, potential clients reach out to you and ask, please help me because I got sued, for example?
Bet Hannon [01:17:17]:
Yes. We we get people who are after they're sued, typically. Yeah. A lot. Although some people are concerned and they wanna work on things. And so, we, we do do so we we get those folks that come, and so we can help. We do the testing and then kind of prioritize those issues because while they are fixing things and it may be you know, say it's gonna be at least 6 to 9 months, maybe a year or more before they're getting things fixed, they can still be sued by other people. So you wanna make sure you're getting the the the issues that are the most barriers for people with disabilities, but also being sued over, get those fixed first so we can prioritize those.
Bet Hannon [01:17:58]:
And then, we we typically come alongside an agency, and so we're doing the testing and kind of, prioritizing of issues. The agency is fixing. We are retesting and certifying those. So we do that, when people are being sued. We come alongside agencies also when people are know they want to do, include accessibility as a part of the build. And so then we will help them, you know, vet plug ins and choose plug ins or custom features that they're gonna build. We could talk about things they need to pay attention to. We can help with looking at design and mock ups and give them feedback about that, and then doing some QA and testing, to make sure that they're delivering on accessibility at the end.
Bet Hannon [01:18:40]:
And then we also do a plan where, you know, you need to maintain over time, and it's that piece of, you know, helping the business know that they need to keep paying attention to accessibility. And so we have, accessibility maintenance plans where we just give 5, 3, or 1 issue per month. And then, to the team, they're fixing it. We're retesting it, but then we're documenting all of that. And that's what becomes then the legal proof for either, US compliance or in the EU. Right? What what will be that you've been working on accessibility? And you can kind of show document that you've been, fixing things over time, that you've got a commitment here. You're not you didn't just, like, just blow it off to save money or something.
Maciej Nowak [01:19:25]:
What I was also curious about is you mentioned that to sue someone, you the the the suitor. Right? The the person that sues has to be associated with, you know, with with an organization or go through that organization?
Bet Hannon [01:19:42]:
No. An individual cons in the EAA, in the European Accessibility Act, it can be an individual consumer, but, a lot of times it's cost prohibitive to do that for for people, and so it can be a an, a consumer group or a disability group who could do it on behalf of consumers.
Maciej Nowak [01:20:00]:
Alright. Yeah. Alright. Yeah. Because I was thinking, like, how do you do that if you run these predatory suits? Like, do you have to or do you hire, like, people with disabilities to go to the US side and document everything?
Bet Hannon [01:20:15]:
The the predatory suits is a uniquely US thing.
Maciej Nowak [01:20:18]:
Mhmm. Yeah.
Bet Hannon [01:20:18]:
And what happens is one person with a disability, typically a blind person, but one person with a disability and one attorney will together sue dozens and dozens and dozens of websites. And a lot of them are just, kind of like the they're just boilerplate cookie cutter. You know? Like, the the the the letter that they send is the same to everybody, and they haven't really maybe even looked that much at your site. And then what they want is for you to come and settle, and that's where they get they're getting money. If they if they go to court, they do go to court. If you don't if you don't respond and, move forward, they will go to court. And, we know that, like last year, 46100 of those cases went to court, at the federal level, federal and some states. And then, we think that 3 to 4 times as many settled.
Bet Hannon [01:21:17]:
We we don't know because that's the the companies tend to settle be, before it goes to court because then they can keep the publicity you know, there's no publicity. Nobody knows that they were sued. Mhmm.
Maciej Nowak [01:21:29]:
But it it it makes, what, 20,000, like, suits, like or or or or cases, let's say, where 1 fourth is going to to to court. Right? Wow. It's like with patents. Like patent trolls. Right? Who sue everyone. Very similar
Bet Hannon [01:21:49]:
very similar to that. It's unfortunate because, you know, in the in the US, it's the, it's those laws that allowed people to sue that in the I think it was in the 9 in the late eighties, early nineties, you know, when ATMs started becoming ATMs were not accessible to people who were blind. And it was a group of blind consumers suing the banks that that, they they then went into kinda more of a, of a collaborative process working together. And that's why you see braille on ATMs today is because there was that lawsuit that kind of forced the bank into engaging with their blind consumer their blind customers. And so, you know, on the one hand, it's predatory and it's it it's it kinda feels scammy. But on the other hand, you know, having the ability for individual consumers to to actually initiate those lawsuits is what really has led to some real accessibility kind of milestones for us. Right? Mhmm. I
Maciej Nowak [01:23:00]:
I think that's only with this case, with ATMs, but with many, many, many other cases. You know, you big organizations wouldn't do anything without these lawsuits, threatening their p and l's. Let's alright. Thank you, Ben. It was pleasure to have a chat. And I learned a ton, a lot about predatory suits, but also about, you know, how to make things better for the customers. Thank you, and it was a pleasure.
Bet Hannon [01:23:31]:
You're welcome. And then, yeah, if people wanna reach out, I they can find me at accessicart.com, and I'm happy to keep chatting with folks. So
Maciej Nowak [01:23:40]:
Perfect. Thanks.
Lector [01:23:42]:
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