Digital Accessibility is Good for Business

Listen in as Greg speaks to Brigitta Norton, Co-Chair OZeWAI (NFP professional association for Australian digital accessibility specialists and organisations).
Digital accessibility is a human right and identifying and removing barriers to participation is essential for some and useful for all. Bri talks about the design and implementation of inclusive digital information, services, experiences and policies that enable people to participate with dignity on an equal basis. It is important for businesses to realise that design decisions can either enable and include or disable and exclude people, particularly those with permanent disabilities. 

Transcript

Greg- Host (00:09)
Welcome to the Canberra Business Podcast all the news and views about business here in the ACT brought to you by the Canberra Business Chamber in association with the University of Canberra. I'm Greg Harford from the Business Chamber and I'm joined today by Bree Norton. And I'm joined today by Bree Norton, chair of Australia's web accessibility initiative, aussiewiorg. But Bree is a user experience and accessibility specialist based here in Canberra and has worked for both state and federal government. She's currently also the digital accessibility consultant for AbilityWorkscomau and is here to tell us all about digital accessibility. So, bree, welcome to the podcast. 

Bri- Guest (00:50)
Thanks for having me, Greg. 

Greg- Host (00:52)
So let's start with some background. What is AussieWi and what's the problem that you're trying to solve? 

Bri- Guest (00:59)
Yeah, great question. So I'm co-chair actually of Aussie Way. I co -chair with someone called Amanda Mace. She's based in Perth, so we're a global Australian global organisation. We started off actually as a annual conference so digital accessibility experts could learn from each other. We still encourage that kind of thinking. But we've actually changed. We did a bit of research ourselves into what our organization should be and we moved ourselves into a professional membership, I think. Originally we thought we should be doing ourselves out of a job. Everyone should understand what digital accessibility is. That hasn't really happened. The tech world has gone, you know, is faster and there's all new things that are happening all the time. So we we, yes did a bit of research and started to look into how we could build the consistency and the quality of expert advice around digital accessibility. So now we're a professional membership organisation. 

Greg- Host (01:56)
And what is digital accessibility for the uninitiated? 

Bri- Guest (01:59)
Yeah, well, it's an interesting one. So tech, particularly like you think of the web and you think of the internet it was actually made already accessible. It has a basic foundation of HTML and some presentation code. One of our first speakers 20 years ago at Aussie Way was Tim Berners-Lee. So digital accessibility is making sure that anything that technology enabled software products, websites, apps, nowadays, anything that you use digital Word documents, pdfs, that can be coded in some way actually are made more accessible for people with disability or more so, who use a variety of different assistive tech. So the technology that's based underlying technology, if coded correctly, has standards that can meet proper accessibility for all those technologies. And unfortunately in the industry now people are skipping some of those steps and what they're doing is putting the barriers in place in the technology. So Aussie Way is there to advocate, to think about the accessibility of our technology and make it more usable for everyone. 

Greg- Host (03:17)
So there'll be some people listening to this who are perhaps thinking well, what's wrong with technology? What's inaccessible about? A website, for example, and obviously there are things going on there that might not be apparent to many people. But what are the big problems that you often see? 

Bri- Guest (03:33)
Yeah, so I think, unfortunately, people are not learning the right code or learning how to code correctly to make that more accessible. You understand what that underlying code is. There's some frameworks and things that you can learn quite quickly. People are putting those in place, and I'm thinking of a tool. A lot of people use Canva just as an example those kinds of products that are put out there that are digital products but are not actually made with digital accessibility in mind, so they're all there for the visual aspects. I want to make something pretty. 

Greg- Host (04:09)
But what makes them inaccessible, though? 

Bri- Guest (04:11)
They're not coded in a way. So when you develop something, for example, like in Canva, you can generate a PDF that's not coded in a way that an assistive technology can use. Right. 

Greg- Host (04:26)
So when you say assistive technology, though, what are we talking about? Screen readers, so something that's reading something back to you, that sort of thing. 

Bri- Guest (04:33)
Yeah, exactly, and a lot of these tools come naturally on your phone these days voiceover on iOS or TalkBack, or there's some tools that you can use to test, called NVDA and JAWS, and a variety of people use different types of assistive technology. The Global Standards Organization, w3c, has some wonderful information about how people use different types of assistive technology. Some of them could just be like zooming in on a page because they can't read it properly. The font's too small, so there's some standard baselines of what that font size should be and the elements around it. That is a set standard and people are just not understanding what they are or implementing them that way. It's unfortunate. 

Greg- Host (05:18)
So why does this matter? Obviously it matters because some people need help to read what's on the screen. But are there other issues going on there? 

Bri- Guest (05:26)
Yeah. So one of the things why I'm so passionate about digital accessibility is it is an enabler, it's a way to include people in workplaces, in schools, in environments. Digital is, you know, if you think about it, it's still all still quite new in the scheme of things. You know, if telecommunication communicating with each other, if you can make all that accessible and inclusive, then you're including more people. For business, people, that means more customers. There's a 20%, you know, chance that someone that wants to come to your website and your website is inaccessible and they can't access the, you know, the shopping cart. They're just going to leave. So it's actually you know a couple of things. I think for my passion, it's around that it's an enabler. It can actually build an inclusive workplace, it can build inclusive processes if all those things are in place and accessible for everyone to use, because the code is there and everything is there to be used and it's just that some organisations and some products and those that are creating them are choosing not to use those standards. 

Greg- Host (06:43)
So ultimately, it's all about driving a better customer experience and driving business for your firm. 

Bri- Guest (06:49)
It exactly is so for any businesses out there that would like to learn more about how to build their customer base. Well, there's a lot of people in the disability community who want to come to your website or want to buy your products or use your services, and they can't even get to you. Or you might want to buy your products or use your services and they can't even get to you. Or you might want to hire like I know one of the events I attended, hotel Etico, I think it is hire a lot of people with disability. Ability Works, who I work for at the moment, do that as well. So ensuring the internal processes for an organisation are also accessible. The tools they use for recruitment or to pay people, you know all those kinds of things should also be accessible, and they're all digitised too now. It's not like you get a paper pay slip anymore and you might need a braille, you know. So why not make it all accessible for people? 

Greg- Host (07:40)
So you started out Aussie Way, started out as a conference how long ago was that? And kind of how did it morph into a membership association? 

Bri- Guest (07:48)
Yeah, so 20 years ago it started a small group in La Trobe University. I started to meet and talk about digital accessibility. There were some changes that were coming into place in the digital environment, in the internet, on the web that you know. More of these W3C standards were set up. That's now across the board. But, as I said, the technology is working faster and people are coming up with new types of technology vr, um, even these, these tools that we're using for podcasting now is all all kind of um. You know, are these accessible? We don't. You know, you'd have to do an assessment against that um. 

(08:27)
So what happened is, covid, we weren't meeting regularly, or the annual. We were actually trying to move it online. That became quite popular. So now we run online monthly Ask the Professional events specifically on topics to do with digital accessibility. 

(08:44)
And what we do now as well is we actually go out to events globally or sorry, more so in Australia, to demonstrate what assistive technology and digital accessibility is. So we might go to an event that's to do with travel conferences with GetAboutable, I know, yasmin. So we'll go to one of those events and demonstrate and be there to talk to people who would like digital accessibility advice rather than just having our own conference where we're trying to get you know the same group of people together. We do a bit of both and we're trying to support local meetups as well and also just reach out to some of those conferences that should be talking about accessibility. I will actually be on a panel in Melbourne at the Australian Internet Governance Forum next Tuesday to talk about digital accessibility. Even though they'll be talking about cyber security and AI and all those kinds of things, digital accessibility should be on that agenda as well. 

Greg- Host (09:40)
Yeah, so it sounds like there's some good business logic in behind looking at this. 

Bri- Guest (09:44)
Yes. 

Greg- Host (09:44)
What sort of reception have you had from businesses here in Canberra when you raised the issue? 

Bri- Guest (09:49)
Well, not even just Canberra, across Australia. Obviously, the increase in business is useful. I had a call today with my colleague who said that their website that we've been starting to improve abilityworkscomau and it's not perfect. We're getting there. We're working with an external provider A lot of us do that, I guess, with businesses. We're working with an external provider A lot of us do that, I guess, with businesses. So we're trying to get them across digital accessibility. But one of the things that came up was we'd fixed a couple of new pages and a new client had come to my colleague and said can you help us do this new bit of inclusive design work? And my colleague asked how did you find us? Oh, I found you on your website, because the more accessible your content is on your website, the more it comes up in search. 

Greg- Host (10:43)
Do you think businesses are aware of the challenges around accessibility generally? 

Bri- Guest (10:50)
No, I don't think so, maybe because they still don't understand who their users are. We have conversations, unfortunately, where people say, oh no, none of my customers are disabled, you don't know. With the now the growth in a lot of hidden disabilities, people are not going to disclose, they're just going to leave and you're never going to know that they're not coming to your website. But also, I think, the organisations that you are going to, to the digital agency organisations that are doing your websites, as long as you know to ask can you meet the accessibility standards? Wcag put it in the requirements from the start, because you will end up having to pay for it later if you do want to fix it, if they don't do it straight away from the start. So you may as well pay it and do it right. 

Greg- Host (11:41)
And this is obviously an issue for people with a visual impairment, but are there other disabilities that benefit from digital accessibility? 

Bri- Guest (11:49)
Oh, totally so. Yasmin, for example, from GetAboutable. She uses a lot of voice control mechanisms. She's not vision impaired, she uses the voice control because she's unable to use the keyboard and the mouse, so that voice control is really important. And so having something coded correctly so that it can understand the structure of the voice and that's where TalkBack and some of those other voice-to-tech, voice-to-text can help you out, and all of those need to be coded properly. We're very lucky that the mobile devices have some pretty good quality accessibility features in there, and a lot of the computers do already. 

(12:35)
What happens is that some of the products that people are selling don't consider those kinds of technologies that are already in there and just assume that no, I can just put my pictures up and it doesn't matter. Yeah, and I think some of the things that um can cause those problems, uh, can affect a lot of different people in a lot of different ways. And then you've got your intersectionality of someone who um may be um slightly vision impaired or uses zoom, but they might be hearing impaired as well. And as we age and as we get older, there's more than a likely chance that we'll um end up with a disability of some kind of our own, even if it's temporary or situational you might only have one arm because you've broken your arm Then you want to be able to use all those technology tools as well. So, yeah, making sure your products and services work with them is important. 

Greg- Host (13:26)
So things are obviously pretty tough in the economy at the moment and many business budgets are squeezed. Is this stuff expensive? 

Bri- Guest (13:34)
Not really, not if you start from the beginning. I think one of the key things in our inclusive research and inclusive design space is that you should be testing with people with disability on your products. Test with two or three people. You know organisations like Aussie Way have some professionalisation in doing the baseline for you doing those initial audits, those kinds of things and then you can bring in the expertise from the people with lived experience. You know who are your customers or your potential customers to do some of that testing for you. And if you do use people in the public and you're doing it as part of a project, pay them. There's a lot of different ways you can pay them and you can start small two or three people to get going. You should be talking to your users anyway to understand how they use your products and services. 

Greg- Host (14:27)
So what are the easy wins for businesses? If you've got someone listening to this who thinks, oh, I might have a look at that, but I don't have a lot of time, what are kind of the top three or four things that you think they should be looking at? 

Bri- Guest (14:37)
Yeah. So we get this a lot and I think you know the WCAG guidelines are very detailed. Some people say they're a little bit scary, but I think there's some top ones out there that you can do. There's some checks you can do about colour contrast, you know. Just making sure that there's already rules. There's tools, there's amazing tools browser plug-ins, extension tools all free that you can test your colour contrast, test your branding. 

(15:06)
Also, making sure that you, even if you don't understand the WCAG guidelines, put those requirements into when you're buying a digital product or service and kind of start to teach yourself a little bit about it. Or even go to some of the accessibility events. I mean Aussie Way runs these online ones monthly. They're all free and there's opportunities to join at an advocacy rate. There's lots of free YouTube videos on it. You can educate yourself on it for a very cheap price. I think the other way, the other thing to look at, is small things. So if you are, you know, finding that you're not hiring the right, you know you want to widen your recruitment options. Just check the processes of how you recruit and is there a way that you can make one thing in that recruitment process more accessible? All the tools to do Microsoft Word or Excel or PowerPoint, all those things all come with accessibility checkers. Just start using them, I guess, and you know making sure your templates are all set up. Start small, and you'll soon find that you can reuse what you've learned. 

Greg- Host (16:11)
Now, this sort of the drive towards accessibility isn't something that's mandated by government. It is actually. It is Yep, okay. 

Bri- Guest (16:22)
Yep. So there's a standard. It's EN 301549. It's an Australia standard for accessible ICT procurement and also at the Digital Transformation Agency at a federal level and most state levels they have these as well. They have these standards called the Digital Service Standard and some supporting policies. So, from the government level, yes, there are standards that they're supposed to meet. Unfortunately, it's the checks. It's the checks that need a little bit more work and that assessment and that risk assessment of people checking, because unfortunately, some of these companies are saying, yeah, we meet, we can, we're fine, but no one checks. 

Greg- Host (17:07)
So there will be people listening to this in our membership who perhaps might be web designers or working in that sort of space. What's your message to them? 

Bri- Guest (17:18)
I would say please join AussieWay or join your local meetup. Like I said, we have a variety of different levels. We're working with the Future Skills Organisation to get digital accessibility because it's a gap in our education system, so start to educate yourself. We think that some of the changes that are coming through the Australian Human Rights Commission's new advisory note maybe hopefully at the end of the year is going to drive more of this digital accessibility compliance, and to do that then we're going to need people that are trained and have the good quality and consistency in being accessibility experts to share their advice and learn, and it's actually probably a business opportunity for a lot of these digital agencies as well. Start becoming more accessible and you'll be ahead of the game. 

Greg- Host (18:06)
And on that expertise question, are there a lot of people around the country who are kind of experts in this space who can help. 

Bri- Guest (18:13)
Yes, there are. So Aussie Way does have a consultant directory. It was another reason why we changed to a professional membership. No one could find digital accessibility people. They're usually in your organisation in some way. They might be pretty quiet and they need support. I know there's small teams Coles, telstra in the government there's small teams as well. They're slowly growing. They're going to be looking for more, you know, expert people to join those organisations. So, yeah, there's potentially job opportunities here. But there's also the other side of this is that you can then hire people to build your digital accessibility products and sell those products and you'll be again ahead of the game and have an added extra benefit because you meet the standards and if the idea of compliance comes out a little bit more and there is a bit more of a stick, you'll be up there already and be able to meet the compliance. 

Greg- Host (19:15)
So, you're obviously pretty passionate about digital accessibility. How did you get involved in the first place? What was your background? 

Bri- Guest (19:22)
Yeah. So I think there's a few of us in the digital accessibility space who had that light bulb moment at a conference or something where someone showed you know someone using a screen reader or some kind of assistive tech, using a website and them getting stuck. And why wouldn't you want to do the best job you can do? If you're building a digital product or service, why not make it the most user-friendly and accessible that you can? I don't see any reason and I'm not saying you can do it overnight. You probably need to learn the skills around it. It is a learnable skill. 

(20:01)
There's wonderful training courses out there to do it. We need to get it into our education system. But there's definitely some opportunities, and I think that was some of the drivers. For me was just seeing some people talk about it and sharing those, and I took it back. I was working in government at the time and there were some more of the band-aids coming through with the National Transition Strategy, and I have since worked at the Digital Transformation Agency where I helped, you know, build some of those digital products and services and making them more accessible, and I'm very excited about that. 

Greg- Host (20:32)
Fantastic. So is this a space that's constantly evolving? I guess that's one of the questions people might have. Well, I'm going to invest in my website or in a new website and put a lot of effort into making it accessible. Do the requirements change? 

Bri- Guest (20:50)
So, the standards themselves, the WCAG standards, get added to. So there might be some changes. It's a long time in the future, but currently the WCAG standards it's at 2.2. The Australian government says to try and meet at the, the latest standard, and there's different levels. There's an A, a AA and a AAA. Aaa would be that you would. It's a more specialized so you would want to make sure that your website has on their videos. They might have not just transcripts and captions but they might have Auslan interpreters. So that's to that triple A level. A lot of us think that that should be a double A level and the idea is that you start to build on those levels. So you start with an A and you try and do the best you can at A and then you try and get to AA and improve and learn as you go. So the standards themselves have been pretty. They've been tested with a lot of people with disability already. So, they're already a baseline that you can work towards. It's not like you have to start from scratch. 

Greg- Host (21:52)
So yeah, so is there anything else you want to share with us about digital accessibility and what the future might look like? 

Bri- Guest (22:01)
Yeah, so I mentioned a little bit about, you know, an ageing population. There's a good chance. We're all. We all use tech. We're all using digital. I know I was helping my aunt who had lost her eyesight. Fortunately it was temporarily and she had no way to. You know she loved reading her books and all that kind of thing. So understanding how to use your tech is really important. There's some wonderful videos that we've just put up on our YouTube channel around how to set up, turn on your accessibility features on your phone. Start to learn about them now, before you need them you know, practice them, use them if you want to get your recipe and you want to ask. I mean, we do a little bit already with Siri and Alexa and those voice controls but start to learn the tools that you have and get comfortable with what you've got. I think that's going to be the most important thing. 

Greg- Host (23:00)
Good advice there and we'll go and check out your YouTube channel. So that's the Aussie Way YouTube channel. You just find it by Googling Aussie Way. 

Bri- Guest (23:09)
Exactly. Or just go to our website ozewaiorg, so not the um, and then at the bottom of the page we have all our social media channels as well. 

Greg- Host (23:22)
All right, I'll have a look and I'm sure many of our listeners will as well. Bree Norton from Aussie Way, it's been lovely chatting to you. Thank you so much for joining me here on the podcast. This has been the Canberra Business Podcast, brought to you by the Canberra Business Chamber with the support of the University of Canberra. Uc produces some of Australia's most employable graduates, and any business can benefit from fresh ideas and new perspectives by using student interns. So just email careers at canberraeduau for more information. Bree, thanks again for joining us. It's been great having you here and don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast platform to keep up to date. 

Bri- Guest (23:57)
Thank you very much for having me.