This is Not Your Parent’s Internet

Have you ever been online on your phone and been frustrated by pop-ups you can’t click out of? We have! “The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protects people with disabilities from discrimination,” and while most people know it in reference to building accessibility, it’s equally as important on the web.[1] In this episode, Daniel Russo, Technical Director at Catalyst, joins us to discuss why accessibility online is important and how it can be achieved — to a degree, at least. With trends changing daily and the constant desire for businesses to have the most cutting-edge look and feel, accessibility is something that’s not one and done — you have to regularly retest to ensure everyone is able to use your website. After all, it’s 2023 here, people! 
 

Daniel Russo

Daniel is the Technical Director for Catalyst, overseeing our interactive department. In addition to developing websites, Daniel works closely with a team of developers and our search engine optimization (SEO) specialist to deliver beautiful websites combined with an excellent user experience. His goal is to always surprise and delight, using his nerd magic to turn tons of aggregated data into valuable intel. In his time at Catalyst, Daniel has helped manage the launch of more than 50 websites for our clients while simultaneously developing dashboards for clients to see live data results at the touch of a button.

[1] “The Americans with Disabilities Act.”ADA.gov, https://www.ada.gov/.

Transcript

Katie Degutis:

Welcome back to another episode of Good Mood Marketing. As always, I’m here with Christy and Thomas, and today we’re joined by special guest, Daniel Russo. Welcome, Daniel. Daniel is the Technical Director here at Catalyst, and I’m really excited to hear him talk a little bit about himself today. In general, every time I talk to Daniel, I find out some new random fact, so I’m looking forward to this. So with that being said, no pressure or anything, but can you give us a little background prior to Catalyst and your role here at Catalyst?

Daniel Russo:

Sure. Before Catalyst, I’ve had several hats. I’ve done everything from bartending to mortgage fraud investigation, real estate, sales, social work. You name it.

Katie Degutis:

It is all over the place.

Daniel Russo:

And coding.

Katie Degutis:

I’ll never forget when Daniel told me that he was in a copywriting program in college.

Daniel Russo:

Yeah, I did study advertising at UT and went through their creative program and focused on copywriting. So not just writing code, but writing taglines and body copy.

Christy McFerren:

Very robust background there.

Katie Degutis:

Do you want tell us a little bit about what you do here at Catalyst?

Daniel Russo:

Yes. I’m the Technical Director here at Catalyst. So I oversee the web development team and building our websites, some internal tooling, and just overall user experience, lead generation. I think we’ve joked that anything that kind of clicks or refreshes is under my domain.

Christy McFerren:

That’s a good way to say it. Here at Catalyst, we’ve really been on the cutting edge of, I would say, looking at ADA compliance with our websites, and Daniel’s not only helped us lead the charge with his knowledge, but with his heart. He’s one of the most huge-hearted web developers I’ve ever met. So we’re super proud to have him on our team. From that respect, can you talk to us a little bit today about why we care about ADA online, and whether our website’s compliant, and kind of go into that a little bit?

Daniel Russo:

Sure. The main reason we care is because an ADA-compliant website is really an inclusive website. It’s all about making sure that as many people as possible are able to consume your content, interact with your business, and try to remove as many barriers as possible, and just create a great user experience all around. At the end of the day, if you’re creating a solid user experience for somebody that relies on assistive devices, then more than likely, you’re also creating a solid user experience for everybody else just because it means your content is really intuitive.

Thomas Demiranda:

Would you say your answer right now, is that the main goal of what ADA is? To be inclusive and allow everyone to access it? Is there anything else that you would include as far as the main goal of the site being compliant and technology that’s related to ADA?

Daniel Russo:

No, the main goal is definitely just to make it as inclusive as possible. There’s a wide array of things to keep in mind — from people with visual impairment, cognitive issues, people who can’t hear. There’s just a lot of different ways to consume the web that most people don’t consider.

Christy McFerren:

What kind of accommodations are made for people with different abilities? Is there something there for kind of anybody with any sort of challenge, or what’s the array in the coverage of ADA compliance?

Daniel Russo:

I’d say the coverage is really, for the most part, provided by the devices that they have access to. I’d say, for the most part, the coverage is pretty extensive. They have Braille readers so that if you can’t see and you can’t hear, there’s something you can hook up to your computer that will spit out the Braille underneath your fingertips.

Katie Degutis:

That is incredible.

Daniel Russo:

Our goal is to make sure that we build things in a way that those devices are able to make sense of our content, to be able to provide the feedback that the users need.

Katie Degutis:

And when we’re saying ADA, just for listeners’ benefit, we’re talking about the Americans with Disabilities Act and just the kind of the difference between how ADA compliance with building versus with technical stuff. Can you speak a little bit to that?

Daniel Russo:

Yeah. ADA is a law that says if your business is available to the public, then you’re not allowed to discriminate against people who have disabilities. And when it comes to the web, the law can be a bit fuzzy and gray depending on the state that you live in. So what we mainly focus on is the WCAG, which is a set of guidelines. It’s the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines that have been developed by a big team of experts that study this stuff day in and day out. It’s just basically a set of principles to follow to make sure that your content and your applications will be usable to the greatest extent possible.

Christy McFerren:

So the WCAG is really the best guidelines we have to go by so far?

Daniel Russo:

So far. I believe there are several other sets of guidelines that have been published, but the WCAG seems to be the one that is referenced most often, at least in the United States.

Christy McFerren:

We’ve had our own sort of interactions in the recent years with California-based projects. Do you want to talk a little bit about what those have been in terms of what’s been coming to our desk in terms of what the attorneys have said versus the efforts we’ve made? And can you dig into that a little bit about the California perspective?

Daniel Russo:

Sure. So California did pass some laws that state that any business that has a brick-and-mortar location does have to specifically follow the WCAG. I think it’s just whatever the latest kind of version that’s been published. And they have different [ones] — there’s AA and AAA, and they require that you follow the AA guidelines. Since that law has been put in place, there have been some attorneys that have just been blanket sending out letters to companies telling them that their website’s not compliant and that they now owe money.

Katie Degutis:

It’s kind of like that ambulance-chaser mentality.

Christy McFerren:

Where on one hand it is that, but on the other hand, as a company, our values are to align and to be inclusive. And so we’ve done our due diligence to go back anywhere we think there’s been an oversight and correct those things and make sure that our sites are compliant. Daniel’s done a fantastic job of helping us figure out where that line is of being in compliance but also still having a great user experience. So, I know if you were to strip a site there down to full compliance, are you making any kind of trade-off in terms of the user experience? Or is there an alternative universe in which somebody’s device reads that they’re on a special device? How does that work?

Daniel Russo:

Well, there has been some discussion about should we be able to detect that somebody is using an assistive device so that we can give them an alternative format.

Katie Degutis:

Kind of like a mobile version?

Daniel Russo:

Exactly. And that gets into some privacy issues. There’s obviously a lot of people that don’t want to broadcast that they have a disability.

Christy McFerren:

That makes sense.

Daniel Russo:

So really, what it comes down to is if you follow these guidelines, then you don’t have to know — your content will just work if you do things correctly. And it’s been said that the web is accessible by default, and we go and mess it up by overcomplicating things.

Christy McFerren:

True.

Daniel Russo:

At the end of the day, pretty much anything could probably be made accessible if you have the team and the budget and the time to put in the research and test it like crazy; eventually, you’ll get there. The question is, is what you’re building really that valuable? Do the users really need it? Do they want it? Or are you just creating more complication because it might look cool but doesn’t necessarily solve the problems that you need to solve.

Katie Degutis:

I think that’s something we’ve talked about a lot internally. There are different ways that you can do a floor plans page, but most likely, if someone’s looking for an apartment, you are not the only website they’re looking at, and you don’t want to completely recreate the wheel where they don’t have any idea how to even find the information they’re looking for, and they count you out from that standpoint. So kind of simplifying back to what people are used to seeing sometimes can make a big difference with it.

Daniel Russo:

Unfortunately, just as with anything else, there’s trends in the web. Somebody will create something and then everybody else says, “Oh, we have to have that, too.” And a lot of times, nobody stops to say, “Is that really providing value?” Do the users want that or, is it just something that everybody’s jumping on all of a sudden?

Thomas Demiranda:

What would you say is the first step of gaining compliance?

Daniel Russo:

The first step is testing. I would start with automated testing. There’s a lot of tools out there. IBM has published a free extension for the browser that can run through your site and tell you pretty quickly where all the low-hanging fruit is, and some of it can actually get pretty detailed. There’s other extensions that will go through and test your color contrast and your font size. And then most computers also have a screen reader built in. The Mac operating system has a pretty user-friendly one built in that makes it pretty simple to just go through your site and see what are you hearing as you go through the site. And if you could even just turn off your screen and see if you’re able to navigate your website using the voiceover technology.

Katie Degutis:

Oh, that would be wild. I would not be able to.

Christy McFerren:

I can’t even use Siri.

Thomas Demiranda:

I imagine these things are changing quite quickly because just technology in general just changes at such a fast pace. Like how often does someone managing a website have to go consistently to the WCAG website and check the compliance rules if things have changed, have been updated? How often should someone look at that to make sure that their website’s compliant?

Daniel Russo:

The standards, I don’t know how often they get published —it’s not like a daily thing — but I would say every year it might change a little bit. It’s definitely something your team should be just keeping up with. Subscribe to some news, that’s when they make a change. It’s usually published through the proper channels; they don’t keep it a secret. And as far as testing the website goes, if the website changes frequently, then you need to test frequently. If it’s pretty static and heavily text-based, then maybe not as often as you would need to, but web applications change all the time. They’re always adding new features; they have to test constantly — probably with every single release of every feature you have to do testing beforehand.

Christy McFerren:

So speaking of that, how does somebody who’s just like a layperson go to a website and maybe you’re on a team and you’re supposed to be the one updating blog posts or you’re updating little pieces of articles, the SEO to optimize them. How do you know if you’re breaking it, and what should you be looking for to know if the site is optimized and to not do or to do while you’re in there making updates?

Daniel Russo:

There’s definitely a training component. Depending on your relationship with your content creators, if they’re on staff, then you can train them directly and go over some of the basics. If you have a site that has a lot of contributor content, then it might not be as simple. I would say basic training over the document structure, teaching that different HTML elements have different semantic meetings, like the heading levels need to be nested properly and making sure that links are used in places where you need to have links, and buttons are used in places where you should have buttons and vice versa. And aside from that, you probably just need regular vetting of content that has been added after the fact just to make sure that nothing’s been broken.

Katie Degutis:

And I think that we’ve had this come up a couple of times from different clients or from people that we’re talking to about creating a new website. You mentioned that really it just comes down to having the time, the right people, the budget — all of that. Why wouldn’t someone just use a plug-in that claims that it’s going to make your site ADA compliant?

Daniel Russo:

I think basically, if those plug-ins worked, I don’t think anybody would fight against them. I would use one tomorrow if it really solved the problem. But a lot of times, those plug-ins are not solving the problem. Sometimes they’re making the problem worse. Sometimes they’re just providing features that are already built into the browser and into the operating system that a lot of users already know how to use, or maybe they don’t, in which case, education should be the big focus. Typically, it just slows down the site and really makes things more challenging instead of actually solving the problem. The technology has not gotten to a place where AI or machine learning or anything can really truly just go in and make sense of your entire website or web application and make it compliant with a little extra code. It’s just not feasible.

Katie Degutis:

I would also love sometimes if those plug-ins worked to just be the quick solution that they proposed.

Daniel Russo:

Maybe in the future. AI seems to be full steam ahead, but right now, it’s not there.

Thomas Demiranda:

Trust me, I’ve sent a couple to Daniel, “Hey, are we able to use this. right?” Two seconds later, “Nope.”

Katie Degutis:

I think that even we’ve seen where some of them in their own documentation say that they’re not guaranteeing that you will be fully compliant by using that plug-in. And like they have all kinds of legalese loopholes so that it’s not on them if someone were to come and try to sue a website.

Daniel Russo:

I’ve seen fine print that said, “We’ll make your site compliant if it’s already compliant.”

Christy McFerren:

So let’s just weigh it down with more code. So is there any such thing as being truly compliant, or is it just a target that’s kind of moving and you have to keep going for it?

Daniel Russo:

I would say, for the most part, we look at it as a target — something to aspire to there. You could be fully compliant at a point in time, but because most websites and apps change, there’s no guarantee that tomorrow it will be that way, which is why ongoing testing is required. You know, federal agencies are required by law to be AA compliant, and so they do regular testing. And if you don’t have somebody really digging into your application or your website and who not only knows the guidelines inside and out, but also knows these technologies inside and out, I don’t think you can truly say we are 100 percent compliant. From what I’ve read, as a non-lawyer, a lot of the rulings — the spirit of the law — is that you need to be inclusive and make sure that people can use your site. And it’s not that they’re trying to force everybody to be AA compliant or else.

Christy McFerren:

If you could give a list of your top five or top three things you wish people would stop doing to make sites more compliant. Let’s name names.

Katie Degutis:

I was going to say Lauren should not be listening to this right now.

Christy McFerren:

What elements on websites or anything really would you say, “Please just quit doing this.”

Katie Degutis:

I’m excited!

Thomas Demiranda:

For reference, Lauren is our Creative Director.

Daniel Russo:

I would say carousels are definitely the most overused component. It’s not something that’s impossible to make compliant, but it is challenging, and it definitely doesn’t always solve the problem in the best way. There are certainly use cases for it where carousels can be great, but a lot of times, they’re used in situations where people don’t want to make a decision, and say like, this is what’s important and this is what we need to display. It’s like, we want to have everything, so we’ll just hide it in this carousel that nobody’s ever going to click on because it’s not like a shopping browsing context or it’s not super interesting.

Katie Degutis:

It’s not obvious that it’s a carousel even.

Christy McFerren:

Why do carousels break compliance? What is it throwing off for people?

Daniel Russo:

Anything that has a high degree of interactivity and context change is going to be more challenging to implement in an accessible way. So if somebody’s using a screen reader, they need to know why does this carousel exist. What am I going to be browsing in, and where am I within the slideshow? What’s in the slides? So if you have images, you need to make sure they have alternative text. How is that text going to be read as you’re clicking through all that stuff? It’s all custom so it’s not something that the browser is able to implement out of the box for you, so you have to handle all of that for the user.

Christy McFerren:

Got it. What’s another offender?

Daniel Russo:

Tab interfaces can be really challenging. Even if you do make them accessible, there’s a debate — I’ve seen both sides of it — should you be able to navigate them using arrow keys or should it be tab keys? And I think when you get down to the technical level, it should be arrow keys, but a lot of users don’t think that arrow keys are going to work, so they don’t even think to try them, even if they use the keyboard all day long for their navigation. So it’s like, who are you designing it for? And so at the end of the day, do you really need that tab interface? Are all of your users really happy with it, or does it just look cool?

Christy McFerren:

Any others?

Daniel Russo:

Modals. That’s another thing that kind of yanks you out of the context of the document.

Christy McFerren:

So for those who don’t know, a modal is a pop-up box, right?

Daniel Russo:

Yeah, a pop-up box.

Katie Degutis:

Good, I was going to say because I didn’t know. Pop-up I know very well.

Thomas Demiranda:

I didn’t want to ask.

Daniel Russo:

I’d say those are the big offenders that a lot of times are not necessary and are challenging to use. There’s other ones that are really challenging to implement but can also provide a great user experience if you’re a mouse user, like date pickers, range sliders, any type of like flashier form inputs. If you’re a mouse user, it can provide a lot of value but can be really difficult to implement for somebody that’s on a keyboard or a screen reader.

Christy McFerren:

It’s interesting that everything that you’ve just named also makes for really crappy mobile experiences.

Katie Degutis:

I was thinking the exact same thing.

Christy McFerren:

They’re all things that people do and don’t mobile optimize. And when I’m on my phone, if I’m on a website that has a modal that I can’t click the X to get off the pop-up, I have to leave the site and start over and don’t go down that path again. It’s interesting. Seems like, correct me if I’m wrong, but if you design mobile first, you’re also kind of designing maybe ADA first.

Daniel Russo:

A lot of times, yeah. It’s because you’re often on a smaller device and relying on touch, you typically do have to simplify things a bit. You can’t rely on hover, so you can’t have a bunch of hidden content. You can’t have real small buttons that are easy to click with a small mouse pointer; instead, you’ve got a finger. And there are a lot of people that don’t use a mouse when they navigate your website.

Katie Degutis:

I would think even just from a laptop standpoint, when you’re on a touchpad or anything like that, that immediately kind of takes away some of that functionality you would normally get using a mouse.

Daniel Russo:

Yeah.

Christy McFerren:

I think it’s interesting. To go a little deeper with the mobile comparison because ADA, if you’re not a person with different abilities, it kind of is like, well that’s for other people. But, when you have a bad experience on your mobile device, because everybody surfs on their mobile mostly, and you get pissed off about a website that you’re really trying to get something done on, it’s like legitimate anger there sometimes.

Katie Degutis:

I don’t go grab my laptop, that’s for sure.

Christy McFerren:

Well, so then, that translates if you need a springboard for empathy into ADA, that experience or experiences you have on your bank website or whatever it is that you’re really trying to do some serious work and you’re having a terrible experience, welcome to the whole internet for the rest of people. And I think that’s what can help bring this issue into greater relief for those who are designing websites and building websites. You have to consider some of your own worst experiences online, and that’s the entire experience for other people.

Daniel Russo:

Yeah, it definitely is a question of empathy I’d say most of the time. There are certainly some products that are very complicated and I’m sure are very expensive to make as accessible as possible. Anything where the user is really becoming the creator and not necessarily consuming something, I can imagine that’s extremely challenging. But, for standard, for most websites where you’re consuming content, it really comes down to empathy.

Thomas Demiranda:

Let me ask a question. It’s not on here, but I was just thinking about it. In 10 years, do you think we’ll have AI tools that will just like detect this stuff and be able to just do it automatically?

Daniel Russo:

I don’t know about 10 years, but I can certainly see a situation where maybe, not where you could just plug it into your computer or plug it into your website and it makes code you’ve already written become compliant. But I could definitely see AI where you can just say in natural language, “I need this and I need it to be accessible,” and it spits out the code you need and you’re done. I mean, that’s already possible in simpler situations.

Thomas Demiranda:

Excuse my ignorance here. If you’re creating websites on WordPress and these other platforms, do they make it easier or harder to code and to make a website ADA compliant? And can those platforms maybe help coders be more ADA compliant in the future?

Daniel Russo:

With WordPress, I would say if you’re building your own theme, it doesn’t really hurt or help you because, at the end of the day, you’re still writing all the code. I would say that the themes that you’re using can probably make it more difficult, but a lot of people who use WordPress are not coding their own site — they’re picking a theme and they’re adding content. And if that theme itself is not built with compliance in mind, it’s either going to be impossible or very difficult to make it compliant.

Katie Degutis:

Override it into becoming.

Daniel Russo:

Exactly.

Christy McFerren:

So kind of going back to some of those interactions we’ve had with the attorney offices…

Katie Degutis:

Oh, good times.

Thomas Demiranda:

Better call Saul!

Christy McFerren:

We’ve got a couple of projects out in California and we’ve heard from them, but to Katie’s point, some of them are ambulance chasers. How do you know the difference? What’s the content of an attorney’s letter, and do you have any examples of that?

Daniel Russo:

I’d say if the attorney has an actual client, somebody who has legitimately tried to use your application or your website and they weren’t able to and they’re letting you know, I would take that very seriously. And not just from a legal perspective, but that’s a real user that is having a problem. You should want to solve the problem and make it better for them. That’s one of the reasons why it helps to have an accessibility statement, [which] typically that includes a way to reach out to you and say, “Hey, I can’t use your site, here’s problems I’m having,” and then you can fix it without having to hire a lawyer to get that done. I wouldn’t provide any actual legal advice, but if you’re getting a letter from a lawyer who says that they’ve tested your site and it’s not compliant and they’re suing you, they’re not representing a real actual user. Those are lawyers I would say who are definitely hurting more than helping. In my opinion, they’re just looking to make money, and they’re not really looking to make the web more accessible.

Christy McFerren:

And maybe sometimes they’re suing you for $8,000 for the time they spent to run your site through the reader and call you?

Daniel Russo:

Yeah.

Katie Degutis:

I feel like also that, in those cases, they don’t really give you examples of the issues that they came across. It’s just, “We ran a test and you’re not compliant.”

Christy McFerren:

Yeah, sometimes. So is the internet becoming more inclusive?

Daniel Russo:

It’s definitely become more of a focus, especially for larger companies. I don’t have the exact numbers, but if I had to guess, I’d say the vast majority of the web is still not accessible. It’s a long road ahead, but it does seem like the bigger companies have taken notice. The more lawsuits there are, the more rulings there are. And the more clarity we get on what standards should be followed, I think you’ll start to see some change. One of the biggest, maybe not the biggest, but one of the landmark cases was the Domino’s lawsuit where they got sued by somebody who alleged that they couldn’t order a pizza because they were using a screen reader and it didn’t work with their application. And the route they went was that they said, well, “Our web application doesn’t fall under ADA, so, sorry, it’s going to be too expensive and we’re not going to spend the money to fix it.” And so they fought it and the courts ultimately ruled that no, because they do have a brick-and-mortar location, they do fall under ADA. And there was merit there. I think it eventually settled out of court. It’s probably all confidential, but ultimately what they said was not that they weren’t at fault because they weren’t WCAG compliant. They were at fault because somebody with a disability wasn’t able to use their business.

Christy McFerren:

Interesting.

Katie Degutis:

And then they didn’t seem to care to fix it, either.

Daniel Russo:

And they decided that if they made their website WCAG compliant, then that would be a sufficient remedy. So it’s a bit of a twist of the words, but at the end of the day, if it really did come down to somebody can’t use your business, that’s all we really care about.

Christy McFerren:

Interesting. So Daniel, this is all really good information, but what do you see big picture? I know Thomas is asking about AI, but big picture, broad technology even beyond the web, what do you see about the future with ADA compliance?

Daniel Russo:

I think the next big hurdle is probably going to be related to VR and augmented reality. There’s some pretty big hurdles there. A lot of VR, just by its nature, is not accessible. There are a lot of people that can’t use it just because they get motion sickness and they’ll throw up.

Katie Degutis:

That’s how I am with it.

Thomas Demiranda:

Like the roller coaster ones?

Katie Degutis:

I’m also afraid I’m going to punch my TV, though.

Daniel Russo:

So if you had a company that decided to do everything in VR and hold all their meetings in VR, how is somebody supposed to do that if they can’t wear the headset? Are they going to be at a huge disadvantage? Same question at the end of the day: Do people want that?

Christy McFerren:

No.

Katie Degutis:

No, I don’t.

Thomas Demiranda:

We all agree.

Katie Degutis:

Anything else for the future that you see coming around?

Daniel Russo:

I do think AI is going to continue to progress and that could, hopefully will, solve a lot of problems, and that’d be great. But aside from that, I think just as people become more educated and the laws become more clear, then we’ll start to see more progress.

Katie Degutis:

Awesome. Well, one of the things that definitely came up while we were having this conversation, kind of internally, was that we really should be doing transcriptions of the podcast. So that’s something that we’re going to get started this year and really looking forward to so that even that can be more inclusive — something that I think maybe just completely slipped by us and didn’t even think about it. It’s definitely great to have your insight and to be able to keep those things top of mind.

Katie Degutis:

Outside of that, we do like to close every episode with what has us in a good mood for the day. So, we wanted to ask you what has you in a good mood?

Daniel Russo:

Chips and queso and carne asada.

Katie Degutis:

Fair point.

Christy McFerren:

Went to a team lunch. I guess I’ll go. What has me in a good mood is, just recently, we rehired one of our old and golden favorites. Kristy Bright aka Johnson now is back on our team. We took her out to lunch with the team today, and I’m back from maternity leave, so just being with everybody and in the good weather, it’s been spring-like weather here in the middle of January and I’m hoping it sticks around.

Katie Degutis:

It was wild going out earlier; it was like 80 degrees. I would say, for me, probably just kind of kicking off 2023. I’m excited for what this year has to come, and I am looking to hopefully, in the next day or two, book a trip to Paris and London for coming up.

Christy McFerren:

Nice.

Katie Degutis:

Cannot wait.

Thomas Demiranda:

All of you stole a little bit of my good news, so I’ll piggyback what Katie said. We’ve been thinking about going to Barcelona in March, so we’ve been kind of prepping for that this week and very excited because I’ll get to see my soccer team, FC Barcelona, play Real Madrid, so that’s a bucket list. That’s the excitement for the year.

Christy McFerren:

Nice. Cheers, everybody!

Thomas Demiranda:

Thanks, everyone. Bye.

Christy McFerren:

If these podcasts are putting you in a good mood, we would really love for you to rate and review us on whatever platform you listen to podcasts.