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spk01: Good morning everyone and welcome to the latest in Q4's e-learning series. My name is Jay Vaidya. I'm a Solutions Engineer here at Q4. As always, we invite you to review our past events at .q4inc.com under videos and share any questions for our panelists or the Q4 Solutions team by following contact information in the footer. Today's discussion will be chock full of insights, tips and guidance around website accessibility, how it operates on a site, and why it's critical to keep this a focus in 2023 and beyond. We're excited to bring together a group of undeniable accessibility experts from both Q4 and our partner, Essential Accessibility. I'll run through some introductions. First Emily Olmsted, our Senior Manager in Client Success at Q4, our Manager in Web Development and Q4's Champion of Web Accessibility, Al Romano. From Essential Accessibility, Peter Loftus, the Program Management Lead at Essential. And lastly, Prolific Speaker, Accomplished Executive and Absolute Maven in the Accessibility with Data Randall. First we'll meet up with Al Romano to discuss accessibility as a strategy here at Q4 and the role Essential Accessibility plays within that framework.
spk00: Thanks, Jay. So at Q4, we understand that the best approach to accessibility is an ongoing and proactive strategy and the main benefits of this strategy are in the four boxes you see before you there, build inclusion and trust in your brand, mitigate business risk and improve SEO, improve the overall experience for your visitors, and the ability to deliver your story on assistive technology. To achieve these, we partnered with the industry leader, Essential Accessibility, to audit our website offerings on an ongoing basis in compliance with our WCAG 2.1 AA standards using both automated scanning and manual remediation methods. We also utilize EA's accessibility training courses to help upskill our teams on accessibility best practices across various business units where accessibility intersects with the various roles we play in our web delivery pipeline. So what the main partnership, what this partnership means for Q4 clients is the multiple benefits that we provide from those four major tenants. So helping build inclusion and trust in your brand, accessibility, improving the overall visitor experience, including users of assistive technology, or people simply experiencing a various stage of a disability, whether it's temporary or permanent. Having an accessible website helps to mitigate business risk while also improving your search engine optimization rankings on Google. Google crawlers kind of use your website much like someone who uses a screen reader would. And lastly, being able to deliver your story on assistive technology so that you can get the most amount of people interacting with your message. And so these are the main reasons why we've partnered with Essential Accessibility to help move forward our accessibility offerings. And now over to Dana over at EA.
spk03: Thanks. So to kick off today's conversation, I'd like to start with what is accessibility? So to understand that accessibility is really about ensuring that there are no barriers in providing an equitable user experience to all, regardless of disability or the way that they access technology. So when we talk about accessibility, it's important to understand the difference between accommodation and accessibility. On the screen, we have three different versions of the same scene. And the three pictures are labeled inaccessibility, accommodation, and accessibility. So the first picture to the left shows three people at a board. And one is shorter and can only reach a small area of the board. One is tall and can reach almost the entire board. And the third is in a chair and they cannot reach the board at all. And in this case, this is inaccessible because this design excludes people. Now in the second picture, we show the shorter person standing on a box. The seated person has a ramp and that helps them get onto a taller riser. And now they can all reach the board. This is an example of accommodation. And accommodation provides reasonable alternatives and assistance to give each person equivalent access. But the third picture shows where all three people are on the ground using the board. In this picture, the board has been made lower and larger and there's no need for boxes or risers and this environment has no barriers. So this is a demonstration of true accessibility. So on the screen, I'm now showing a statistical graph or a normal curve. And the reason we're showing this is to understand the concept of universal design. So universal design is a broader concept. And we'll also talk about accessible design and sort of how these two play together. So universal design is the creation of an environment that can be accessed and understood and used by the greatest extent possible, by as many people as possible, regardless of their age, size, ability, or disability. So in universal design, we serve the broadest range of users possible rather than trying to address individual accessibility or inclusion objectives. So a real world example of this could be, for example, when selecting a brand color. And I'll use the example of blue here. So, for example, blue is a color that's preferred by the widest demographic and also can be perceived by the widest demographic. Now, on the next slide, I'm showing a picture of many people standing and they're in the shape of a fingerprint. Now I want to sort of touch on inclusive design or accessible design. So inclusive design considers the range of human diversity and understanding their abilities, their language, their culture, their gender, their age, and all other forms of human difference. And inclusive design recognizes that people's needs are diverse and what works for the average person doesn't meet the needs of many individuals. So inclusive design focuses on exploring ways of serving the full spectrum of people who make up a diverse market. So while I use the example of blue in the previous slide, where accessibility comes into play is understanding if you've selected blue, understanding how that blue works alongside other colors and is the contrast of that blue next to other shades of blue or perhaps black or white or dark blue are perceivable by people with low vision. And that would be an example of accessible design.
spk04: So you might be wondering why is it so important to adopt these accessible and inclusive design principles? Well, in terms of reach, more than eight and ten people with disabilities will disregard a business provider because of barriers encountered in engaging with their core content. Barriers like this can stem from oversight of issues like a lack of keyboard functionality. And when core content is made operable by a keyboard, they become operable by a variety of assistive technologies used by other users. When users or customers have a frustrating experience with the brand's website, it's a major factor compelling them to walk away and doesn't align with an inclusive mentality. Further, the global market of people with disabilities is estimated to be about 1.3 billion people. Or put in perspective, that's roughly the population of China. When you consider friends and families of people with disabilities, that number climbs as high as 2.2 billion. So combined, that's 53 percent of the consumer market whose purchase decisions are influenced by a disability or lack of accessibility considerations. The disability market, along with baby boomers, who are still one of the biggest spending demographics while aging, are willing to spend their money with brands who make a tangible commitment to a consistent digital experience. While it's important to understand how frequently disability personas are affected by the barriers encountered, it's also important to recognize how common disability is in the general population. On average, about one in five people or 20 percent of the global population lives with at least one disability over the course of their lifetime, be it temporary or permanent, major or minor. Impairments like low vision, motor impairment, or hearing loss are exceedingly common, right? And many more still have someone special in their lives who lives with a disability. So 20 percent is a huge share of users across demographics that may need additional accommodation to complete the core business objective of digital properties. If we think about that 20 percent statistic in terms of your customers, that's potentially as much as 20 percent of lost revenue, lost traffic, or missed engagement. If your core content poses barriers to users with disabilities, that's a hard stop for almost 20 percent of the audience. And disabilities can impact anyone at any time. As we age, we typically pick up more age-related usability issues, things like reduced vision, impaired hearing, mobility loss, and more. In an average lifespan, it's estimated that approximately 11.5 percent of your life or roughly eight years is spent with at least one disability on average. Danny, you want to talk through some design criteria? Sure.
spk03: You can jump to the next slide. Thanks. So in today's presentation, it's also important to understand the tenets behind WCAG. And for the audience to understand, WCAG stands for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. So WCAG is organized around four core principles. The first is perceivable, how people can perceive digital content. The next is operable, how they can interact or operate it. Next is understandable, if they can understand it. And then the fourth one is robust. And that's a little bit more complex of a concept, but it's really understanding, can they access the content using a variety of devices? And that can include devices like mobile applications and laptops, but also inclusive of things like assistive technologies. So with that, and we talk about, you know, perceivability and operability, it's very important to not assume and to be inclusive in this thinking. Just because a person's abilities are different doesn't mean that they can't experience or participate in what in the product or experience that you're putting out there. They might just use different senses or abilities in order to engage. So I'm going to use some kind of real world examples because I think it helps really bring this concept to life. So around the category of disability around hearing, I'm going to use the example of I might not hear, but I use sight and vibration to feel the music. Or around vision, blindness or low vision, someone might say, I may not see, but I use touch and sound, in this case, to experience art. Or someone may have limited mobility, but they do love to dance. They might just dance in their chair. Around cognitive disabilities, and that can be ranging from things like autism to dyslexia and ADHD. You know, someone might say, my brain may be different than yours, but I love making friends and connecting with people, shared interests. And last, around speech and verbal abilities. I may not speak with my words, but I use expression and movement to talk to you. So it's very important to understand the diversity of how people use their available abilities in order to engage and experience.
spk04: When we talk about accessible design process in practical terms, we think of a typically waterfall design to developer handoff, right? So we're talking about accessibility from UX and UI and the wireframe stages being designed, passing off to content designers who would fill those wireframes, and finally to development for production. Accessibility typically happens too slowly and taking place at the very end as a QA process. This posture is quite slow, often too cumbersome to be proactive and efficiently and can't efficiently counteract accessibility bugs as well as generating more cost in the process. So instead, what we want to try to adopt is a framework in which we consider accessibility throughout the development lifecycle. So instead of a reactive posture, we want to adopt this proactively. So shifting those accessibility considerations leftwards as early as the design phase to counteract accessibility issues and reduce the amount of bugs that may be deployed into a living system in the wild. We refer to this movement of accessibility considerations further upstream as a shift left. This is particularly important in the development lifecycle because so many of the success criteria in WCAG 2.1 AA have a creative element, almost 94%. 82% of those success criteria lean on the design phase themselves. So these are specific to UX and UI designer responsibility tracks. Things like color contrast, font and legibility, visible focus indicators, et cetera, can be headed off in the design process. Another 12% relate back to content, things like alt text for images, creating a viable alternative for a visual-based design system. And then this leaves only remaining 6% to developers. So by taking a more proactive approach to accessibility and asking the right questions to consider disability personas as early as the design process, we can really reduce the amount of numbers of potential variables in the creative process downstream. So in summary, when we think about shifting left, a shift left really means embedding accessible design thinking, tools and processes into the everyday workflows of creatives. In shifting accessibility considerations earlier in the development lifecycle, we can winnow and reduce the number of accessibility defects introduced in the environments and reduce risk. Ultimately, why shift left, right? Put simply, prevention is always better than cure. When on the screen we can see the results of an IBM defect prevention study looking at the cost of bug detection at different stages in the production lifecycle. We can see that issues caught in development can be more than 30 times more costly than issues caught during the maintenance of a deployed asset. So if we consider accessibility as an afterthought, those costs begin to multiply when we have to pull up the tracks, make those fixes and lay them back down again. It's worth noting briefly that the findings and litigation and accessibility compliance are trending upwards with almost 330 lawsuits filed in October of 2022 alone. This trend is sure to continue as DOJ guidance has mapped to ADA compliance and we can success criteria in the digital space. So it's really a dollars and cents argument. In addition to a cost saving measure, prioritizing accessibility really produces an exceptional user experience that can generate a long lasting emotional impact. On this slide we've linked a recent Forrester report on accessible user experience design where we see the research on an investment in digital accessibility really translating as an investment in equality and inclusion. By designing an experience that's inclusive and accessible, brands can authentically show their commitment to these social values. And across industries we see more and more leading organizations investing in accessibility and seeing real returns on winning and retaining customers, employees and other users.
spk01: Back to me, it's Jay from Q4. In my role I speak with lots of current potential Q4 clients just starting their migration project or redesign project with Q4. In many cases there's limited experience with web accessibility beyond basic compliance understanding. Maybe they've heard of WCAG or they've heard of potential threats of lawsuits, the UNRWA Act, things like that. Just what's in the news. Are there any additional considerations for those just starting their journey into accessibility or working with Q4? Maybe Emily Olmsted could share her thoughts here.
spk02: Absolutely. We've heard some really great information on website accessibility today. And I'll provide more context into how this became a focus for the IR community as well as how it applies to our clients in the real world as well as some benefits to prioritizing accessibility. Website accessibility, as Jay mentioned, has recently become a focus in the IR community as a result of some law firms targeting IR websites, which can result in unbudgeted hours and costs. While this is at a less than ideal avenue to bring accessibility to the forefront, it has resulted in a positive focus on website accessibility. So Q4 has a few different options for a continued focus on website accessibility so our clients can feel comfortable with their accessibility plan moving forward. And again, to recap some of those benefits of prioritizing website accessibility, you can mitigate business risk, you can improve SEO. So Google incorporates accessibility elements into SEO and search rankings, build inclusion and trust in your brand, improve overall user experience, regardless of ability, and deliver your story on assistive technology. So accessibility really is an ongoing topic of focus and your Q4 team is here to support and guide you. And through our partnership with Essential Accessibility, take the worry of the changing landscape of accessibility and provide an easy and convenient solution for you. You can reach out to your dedicated client success manager to receive more information on website accessibility, as we're always here to help and answer any questions you may have.
spk01: From a real world perspective in terms of building websites, this is an example that we see every day. So during the actual implementation of a site, we might run into scenarios where assets come across to us that may be overlaid with text and your Q4 implementation manager, their job is to coordinate those pieces but keep a thought to accessibility and compliance. So if we see an asset come in and we know that there's going to be text overlaid on top, and it's an area on the right, we can see that the overall experience for sighted and non-sighted people is elevated through the use of alternate images, so high contrast relating, switching out white text over top of that image and using an overlay to darken the background of it, making it a little more legible. And then for those using screen readers, the button at the bottom, so moving from learn more or learn more about our solutions, it provides more context for those using screen readers, it would provide them more detail in terms of where they're going on their journey. But like a lot of these things that we're changing with accessibility, it enhances the overall experience for all of our users, not just those using assistive devices. So these are some of these are common sense. The what I want to leave you with is that it's from it's a the right thing to do from as a corporate citizen, from an investment perspective, doing the right thing for your investors and your analysts. But for those anyone using your website, it enhances that experience. It's just a it's a thoughtful thing to do. We hope this was insightful and informative for you today and do appreciate you taking the time to join us today. We'll move into the Q&A. And it looks like we're clear there. So do thank you for joining us today.
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