APlus June 2022 Q&A

Lori Litz
Hi, Tomi.

Tomiyo Stoner
Hi. How are you doing?

Lori Litz
I'm doing excellent. How are you today?

Tomiyo Stoner
Fabulous.

Lori Litz
Oh, that's one of my standard answers as well. Thank you for being here. Just... everyone that's on the call... Thank you so much for being here today. We have a very active chat and Q&A. I don't know if you took a look at that at all, Tomi, but there's some great questions in there. Hi, Susan. How are you?

Susan Mazrui
Good.

Lori Litz
Good. Thank you so much for being here. Craig was hoping to be able to come back and join us. He had to step away for a second. And Andrew is not able to come back today. But so happy to have you both here. Great presentation today. A very active group. And let's step back for a second, because I did not introduce myself.

My name is Lori. I am the Director of Conferences at Accessibility.com. I'd like to apologize for some of the Zoom issues today. They've made some updates we we weren't prepared for such as this back stage and a few other things, but I think we got through them. OK, And great conversations going on out there.

Craig did go through the Q&A and answer quite a few questions that were out there. But there are some good ones. I'd like to two of you to kind of open a discussion on. And they're centered around small businesses and overlays because it's not always so affordable for a small mom and pop shop to be able to do all of the accessibility.


So a lot of them are asking what should they do? Right? How should they start?

Tomiyo Stoner
Sure. And in terms of my recommendation, there is a legal standard called the undue burden defense So, for example, if your business only made $1 a year in revenue and you were asked to provide a sign language interpreter, which costs $70 a year in revenue, you would you would have an undue burden defense potentially. But I would be very cautious about that because when you think about what's an undue burden to you, you should be thinking about all of your expenses overall, not just your marketing budget.

Or not just your website budget. So sometimes people will say something like, well, my website budget is $2,000. How could I possibly afford to get some advice on how to make this compliant? That's not what you should be looking at. That's not a good undue burden defense. What is your overall budget for your organization? Now, there may be some companies out there that are just actually so small, and then I would recommend that what they do is they if they use a service like they use a service that will do most of the design for them that they just make sure they're working with the right kind of vendor and make sure that they've selected a vendor that has the you know, that has the mechanisms in place So that's what...

Susan Mazrui
I find that contract language, too, is important when they're working with a vendor. So that they are setting the expectations for the site will be developed in a way that is acceptable I'm always cautious about overlays in terms of being a panacea. I think that when you're desperate, you want to believe what you're told. It's not going to prevent you from getting a lawsuit, per se, because it doesn't necessarily address all the issues and there's nothing that's going to prevent everything. But there certainly are steps you can take to be proactive. I think being responsive to customers is really important as well. And then you can also go out to disability organizations and reach out to them for guidance. And they may have some suggestions as well.

Lori Litz
That's a great point. And this question popped in prior to Andrew's presentation that we just watched from Adobe and it was wanting to know, like they are using Vistaprint to help create their website. And it's not ADA complaint. And I think if you listen to what Andrew's said, there are certain things that the vendors can do to help you get those check points.

As far as... Hi Craig!

How are you?

Craig Leen
Busy room.

Lori Litz
Good to see you. And Andrew pointed out there, there are things that the vendors can do as far as like amd you guys went through this in your presentation as well. Automated testing, like it can say, yes, there is alt text in the field, but it doesn't know whether that alt text is properly describing what the image is.

So I'd like to just kind of say to answer that question about which vendors are ADA approved. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there aren't any that the ADA would come out and say this is approved or WCAG would say this vendor is approved because there are a lot of things that the content creators need to do to make sure that your site and your digital content is accessible. Correct on that one?

Excellent. So, Craig, you went through and answered quite a few questions in here, which was fantastic. So if you haven't... our audience here, if you hadn't had a chance to open the Q&A box, go ahead and do that. Craig answered quite a quite a few of those questions. One of them was brought up about... for years. Accessibility overlays were evil.

And I do know this because I update this section of our website. The last two months it doesn't appear that any of the digital lawsuits that we're tracking have been as a result of a third party overlay. I don't know if that's just a coincidence or if that's a trend you're seeing out there for our attorneys on here that...

Susan Mazrui
I wouldn't count on it. I've certainly been engaged a lot with finance organizations. And there's still serious concerns. I don't think having one alone will draw a lawsuit as a potential to prove the case out. But I think that I think I would be very cautious. If you can build it in as opposed to bolting it on, that's the way to go.

Craig Leen
And I would agree. I mean, certainly for bigger companies. I would... You're going to... you're not going to have an undue hardship defense, because those are big. And you have money, and you have... And you use your website probably for commerce. So you're probably not going to fall into some of the exceptions. You probably have to have an accessible website.

So I would just make it accessible. It's worth the investment. For smaller companies who might have an undue hardship... You know, an overlay is better than nothing. But I would still, you know, the goal is to build an accessible website, something that you're going to be using for a long time. And I and I can almost you can never make a guarantee, but the way the law is moving, I think it's eventually going to be required, or at least...

Tomiyo Stoner
I do think there is something to the adage and of course, it's not completely bulletproof, but I do think there's something to the adage about not having to run faster than the bear, just having to run faster than the other guy. And I think for smaller businesses, you know, you can... One of the things you can do that's better than an overlay, if you're in a situation where you really feel that you looked at your revenue and your budget is truly tiny and you truly have no marketing spend, not a lot of revenue, maybe, maybe a purpose that would have you exempted, then what I would recommend is also just you can do a lot

by hand looking at the WCAG standards and they're all available for free online. And you can kind of go through and do some of your own. I mean, obviously that's not the preferred way of doing it, but that's an option that will help you run faster than the guy next to you.

Susan Mazrui
And I think things...

Craig Leen
And I saw someone disagree with me. I'll tell you know, depends on the overlay. But, you know, when you're looking at these sort of issues, someone said that they disagree that they think an overlay can be worse. The the issue is what efforts have you made? Have you made reasonable efforts to address this? I mean, ultimately, that's going to be a big part of any sort of assessment.

If you do nothing, I think that's the way, I do. I think doing nothing is [inaudible].

Susan Mazrui
I think also asking for feedback. If you say, you know, you provide an opportunity, an accessibility company dot com for people to write in to talk about concerns we have, then at least you can go and fix those concerns. It won't guarantee that will catch everything, but at least you're signaling that you do care and you want to do the right thing.

It's not going to be a great, necessary legal defense, but it make your customers happier if you fix those issues that come up or you work with the customer around it as well.

Lori Litz
That's a great point.

Susan Mazrui
It, but it does not substitute doing practical assessments of what you can do, putting in accessibility from from the ground level, doing automated and then manual testing and all those really best practices doesn't substitute for that. So if you're a large company, I would definitely not but not rely on that because it doesn't always you don't always find out that way.

But if you're a smaller company, I think people tend to be a little bit more understanding. It's true.

Tomiyo Stoner
It may not be a... I'm sorry. You go. I'm sorry. It may not be a defense legally in a lawsuit, but it may defend you against being one of the people that's chosen. And I also actually think that if you're terribly, terribly small, you may not be as attractive of a defendant as a larger company that would have not only the resources to comply, but also the resources to pay a judgment if awarded.

Craig Leen
I mean, if you ask I agree with that. And if if you ask us as lawyers, you know, we're going to tell you, you should have an accessible website. And that's definitely the best practice, no matter where you are. Legally compliant, you know, is legally required in a lot of places. But the point is, you know, even in like the Ninth Circuit, which I talked about, you know, the Ninth Circuit said that if you're doing points of sale from your website, it should be accessible.

That's basically what you can draw from that opinion. You know, that's probably not the final word. You know, DOJ's position on this is important. It can lead to regulations eventually that might resolve the circuit split and Supreme Courts out there going to other circuits. But, you know, if you ask me where is the law moving, it's moving more toward accessibility.

So the best practice, like I mentioned in my speech, even the company that lost the Gil case, they they immediately put out a statement that they have a fully accessible website. So, you know, it's not good business to to try to avoid having a fully accessible website. It'll come back to get you either in a lawsuit or by complaints or people just being unhappy and not, you know, not being a best practice, not following the DEIA principle. I agree.

Lori Litz
Absolutely. So we have on here a question that says knowing that a website can never be 100% accessible, what is the level of accessibility you suggest focusing on? But I'd also like to add to that is where do you think a small business with limited funds should start with their website? What should they look at first when examining their website?

And this might have been a better question for Andrew, but I think you all have a good idea of what needs to be done.

Susan Mazrui
I think I would look at buy through so the where people go to use your service. What are the site pages they're most likely to go on, not necessarily the human interest story, but how do I determine what products or services you have? How do I select those products and services and how do I communicate with you as a company?

Lori Litz
Great points.

Craig Leen
I would say, you know, you can have pretty close to 100% accessible website. I mean, you really can follow the standards. There's there's companies that will come and audit your website take a look at it like my firm does that even. So, you know, and they'll tell you where you have problems, you know, but at least having, you know, the basic captioning, screen reading, and some of the other at least the WCAG 2.0, the 2.0, you know, is where you should be.

But, you know, go for 2.1. I would say. This is something you can advertise. It's a positive thing. It's part of accessibility, DEIA. It can be very positive. I agree.

Tomiyo Stoner
I agree. And I think another place, navigations, screen reader accessibility. I think also just one thing that gets really overlooked is making sure the content is accessible for a variety of variety of disabilities so that it's understandable to everyone. That's pretty easy one to do. And frankly, it also helps with the fact that most people are very busy and don't have a lot of time to read. So...

Lori Litz
Yeah, so great points. And my background is mainly in marketing and you know, heading levels are not just for fonts, right? So a lot of times in marketing you pick your heading level based on the font that you want to use because you weren't taught that a heading level actually had... So I'm talking H1's, H2's, H3's... those different items actually serve a purpose in accessibility.

And it's how the screen readers and different assistive technology devices navigate through your website, your documents. So get familiar with what those are. And having those captions added, all of those different things and then making sure anything on your website that is an image also has a text replacement. And then if you're not aware, most of your computers and devices do have some sort of screen reading technology built in.

So even if you're just a one person shop, you can pull up that device or that assistive technology right on your own computer and have it read through your website to see if it works or not. It takes a lot of work, right? But I think in the long run, we all agree that it's best to be accessible and make your customers happy.

Craig Leen
Lori, Lori. I have to go and I apologize. I'm getting a little late.

Lori Litz
Oh, that's OK. That's OK.

Craig Leen
This is why I did try to answer during this thing, but I thought your speeches were excellent. And it's an honor to be here with you. And thank you again, Lori.

Lori Litz
Thanks, Craig. See you... Talk to you soon.

All right. So here's a here's a good question. Any insights on liability and compliance related to people with complex disability? For example, with people with multiple impairments? Most reasonable accessibility guidelines do not address their accessibility needs. Are organizations liable in this case?

Tomiyo Stoner
That's a really good question, because I think that both the WCAG standards and the guidance, the technical assistance guidance that we have is... may not be sufficient for certain people. And it's a little bit frustrating because it's almost as if each disability has been looked at and some specific recommendations have been implemented. But I'm not sure if there's like almost an intersectional approach. I can't tell you if there's some point at which... there are going to be some people that are not reached by the current regulations.

And I would really strive that you go to accommodate every single person. Particularly, you know, one thing that gets overlooked a lot is, is deafblind users. Or sometimes someone could have, you know, multiple disabilities that make it more standard accommodations inappropriate. But I would just say strive to be as accessible as possible. It's not likely that... like the way that your compliance is assessed is not necessarily I have checked all these boxes, therefore I am compliant.

Therefore, I cannot not be sued. The way it's assessed is from the perspective of the user. And then you have the defense of an undue burden. And if you're a very small organization and you've checked through the standards and you've got someone with an unanticipated, extremely complex disability, you might be OK. But if you're a large multinational corporation or a governmental entity that's extremely well resourced, which is I guess, becoming less and less common, but you are then going to be tasked with going beyond the minimum and you could you could lose a lawsuit where you met the minimum standards.

Susan Mazrui
I think also we're looking at a development in the area around web accessibility where we're looking at having better guidance around cognitive disabilities. There hasn't been a set, set of guidelines except in Europe, and they're not as strong as we'd like. But I think that they're looking at ease of which, I mean, following obviously the WCAG guidelines. That's the baseline. But also the ease of which that you can interact with a product or service or understand what's on the website.

Having language that's plain language. And and there are tests that you can do on your own in development of content. Sometimes people will post here's the document in its entirety and here is the plain language around it. And I have to say the plain language around it, If it's a completely new area for you is wonderful when you don't have a cognitive disability because it gives you the here's the setting, here are the key points, and then you can go into the more nuanced thing.

So there's a benefit that goes beyond just people who happen to have cognitive disabilities. It kind of benefits everybody, a new user as well. So that is is one approach. But I would say do your best and make sure you're looking at it from a user perspective as well as all the technical guidance that's out there.

Lori Litz
That's a great way of looking at it. Another question is in what is the best resource for those that need to learn how to become accessible? Do you guys have any favorite places that you like to look at for learning how to make your digital assets accessible?

Susan Mazrui
There are several organizations that work on this. I like for [inaudible] IAAP, which is I think is International Association of Accessibility Professionals. They have lots of coursework from basic to more complex. Teach Access works with universities. They provide accessibility. A lot of vendors who provide content development tools like Microsoft have accessibility websites and information built in.

So there. Obviously WCAG is a great resource. If you're looking at an organization as a whole, DisabilityIN provides a number of resources. The National Association of the Deaf, excuse me, the National Association of Disability, Organization on Disability, has a checklist that's free that you can go through if you're looking at more broadly than just websites. So there are a ton of resources out there.

Tomi, do have some additional ones that you like?

Tomiyo Stoner
I was just going to say the WCAG. Unfortunately, I don't. I'm not up to speed on vendors and I wouldn't necessarily be in a position to make a recommendation on that, but it sounds like that's a great list of resources. I would also just say when you're assessing a vendor, because I know not everyone, like if you're a medium size organization, you can't do the from scratch testing, all the things that we've talked about, but you probably also are in a position where you don't just need to kind of delegate it. When you have to use an organization to help you, assess how many people with disabilities they employ. Assess the depth of experience, how long they've been in the field. And just remember sort of the "nothing about us without us" mentality of like if you're going to use a vendor, just make sure that the vendor has good representation. That's not the only thing you need to do. But that's something that I've seen time and time again. And I also think it can be... a vendor that can be very good on one type of accessibility, may not be good on another.

So maybe consider a couple of different, and consider the cross representation of disabilities as well.

Susan Mazrui
And I think that the fact of the matter is you can test with assistive technology, but if you're not having users, we use it on a daily basis. The testing is not going to give you the results you need to develop your website in an accessible way. One of the things that we hear frequently is that all the chatter is not good, and this is from people who can see and they find it annoying or they think it's too fast.

And for a blind person, fast might be good and it might be more important to be able to shut off the speech than for a sighted person. So you really need to have people with disabilities engaged. And the same things when you're doing captioning or sign language for videos, the length of the video can be an issue. How the person is capt- signing, might be an issue.

You may need regional representation depending on what your topic is. So there's working with people with disabilities is like Tomi said absolutely necessary.

Lori Litz
Yeah, well, and we all learn differently right? I'm a visual person. I don't take audio queues well at all. So a lot of times I'll have to tell someone, hey, you need to show me. Like... and there are people that don't do well with the pictures. They'd rather that audio. So everyone has that and you got to, you got to make sure that everything you're doing is accessible for everyone in some way.

So you mentioned the speed. When we did our October conference, I had somebody reach out to me because the setting on the video wasn't set to allow them when they watched it on demand to watch it at like two, three times the speed. And that's how they digested information. So I went, let me figure out how to do it? And got it figured out.

And they were able to watch it at three times the speed while everyone else could watch it at regular. So it's it's just having all of those different options in there just to make everyone happy.

Susan Mazrui
It's not an obvious thing, but it can be critical.

Lori Litz
Yeah. I'm going to step back for one second. A question came in just about a few minutes ago that said what exactly is an overlay? And, you know, I think sometimes when we get on these discussions, we all assume everyone knows what we're talking about. So do either of you want to take a stab on describing an overlay?

Susan Mazrui
I wish Andrew were here, but Tomi? Do want to give it a shot.

Tomiyo Stoner
Someone more technical to me would would be much better. I mean, essentially, a lot of what overlays promise is that they slap on some code to your existing website. And the code is allegedly supposed to make it compliant. But really what it does... is at the best... actually it usually I feel like it usually does almost nothing.

But what it can do sometimes is direct you to... like it, almost like redirects the ADA queries, like the different software that can be used to run to see if a site is compliant. And a lot of what an overlay does in my understanding is redirect that query. Does that does that sound right?

Susan Mazrui
That sounds right. I think that you really need a technologist to give you a good answer on it, but it is something you put on after the fact. It is something that takes information from the site and places it elsewhere. So it's not necessarily sort of interpreted in the way... sometimes it provides feedback to the to the vendor about accessibility issues.

Tomiyo Stoner
And I thought I saw someone in the chat just responded with something about it. Thank you, Quentin. Overlays are broad term for technologies that aim to improve the accessibility of a website. They apply third party source code. Thank you.

Lori Litz
Yeah, that was good. I can't have all the windows open, so... I know... I get distracted. I appreciate that. Thank you.

So there are a couple more technical questions in here as well. And for those I'm going to attempt to get you answers back from those that can say it in a more concise way than the three of us, because we've already admitted that we're not on that.

Susan Mazrui
But I think it's noteworthy that we have great tech, non-technical people who know about overlays because there have been problems with them.

Lori Litz
Yeah, yeah.

Susan Mazrui
And or concerns raised by disability organizations about them.

Lori Litz
Right, right. And there's a couple of questions in here about a list of reputable companies that can audit your site and several of our sponsors for today's event. They do website audits, so you can reach out to them. I know Jasmine from Monsido was offering a free website check so you can click the link that she put out in the chat there.

As far as fix your site, it depends because they're also asking part B, if companies that will fix your site. That goes back to, and Susan, you've mentioned this a couple of times. Getting a contractor and making sure that that vendor in the contract has the right language in there... So depending on who you decide to go with, make sure that the language is written and the right way and...

Susan Mazrui
Make sure there's automated testing. Make sure there's manual testing. Make sure that people with disabilities are engaged in the in the testing of the development.

Lori Litz
Right.

Susan Mazrui
And like in any contract, be really aware of anybody who promises too much. If it's too good to believe that, you know, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Probably. And the other thing is talk to disability organizations and often off the record they'll say, maybe I would avoid them for now. They just had a shake up and we know people were moving to this other group or, you know, something more informal that will give you a sense of whether they're known or not.

That would that would be my my best suggestion, because you're also approaching the people who are most likely to do a lawsuit if there's a problem so they know who the problem players are.

Tomiyo Stoner
Absolutel. I, totally agree. And I also would add to that, you know, the more you can tap in, a lot of what's known is known in kind of informal networks. And the more you can tap into these organizations, they will all say, off the record, you know, what practices they like or practices they don't like. Sometimes we'll even have formal guidance from the organizations on the best practices that you can tap into.

And then, you know, that way, if you do have to use a developer that does not have a disability or does not have a deep understanding of disability, they can give more specific and concrete guidance.

Susan Mazrui
And when you're looking at disability organizations, really look at organizations that are of people with disabilities rather than for. Not at all the ones that are for people with disabilities aren't. But a lot of those organizations will have a better sense of what the biggest concerns are within the community and where the problems have come up.

Lori Litz
Absolutely. And then just like to caution on the fix your site part, because I think we could all agree that maybe at one point in time your site can be perfectly accessible, but as soon as you add a new piece of content to your site or an update is made by your vendor, that puts your website out there, that could change the accessibility. If everything wasn't tested, if the content wasn't tagged appropriately, that can change whether or not you're, you know, that 100% accessible that everyone strives for.

Susan Mazrui
I think of a website like a garden. You have to plant them appropriately. You have to make sure that there's appropriate shade and sun and the layout is good. And then you have to go in and you have to prune. And you have to make sure that the plants are interacting, and there's no disease that's coming in or something that's different.

It's really an ongoing process. The planning is really important.

Lori Litz
OK, yeah. Wonderful analogy right there on a on a website. So that's fantastic. I got two more questions and we'll wrap it up. This person is asking about... and you guys brought this up in your presentation. So if a site is fully accessible but one button is named orange button and not doing what it's supposed to do, right?

The orange button, the company could theoretically be sued and lose.

Susan Mazrui
Oh, yeah.

Tomiyo Stoner
I mean, I think I think in fairness, like that is kind of a theoretical way it's kind of a theoretical question. So if it's if it's a big company and that's the purchase button that's not working on their e-commerce site yet, that's that's going to be a big problem if you're like if you're like a Etsy seller and you have one button that was mistagged, like, I mean, just fix it but but if you if you couldn't fix it, I mean, I don't I don't know that I think you're a major target.

I think sometimes people in other words, I think sometimes the perfect can be the enemy of the good and that people can get so overwhelmed thinking my website will never be perfect. I'm just going to get sued. I'm just going to give up. I would really caution against that because it is possible to make a compliant site. Yes.

Technically, it is true that you could be sued for some tiny violation, even if you're a small organization. It's just kind of less and less likely. The smaller you are, the the smaller the issues. Of course...

Susan Mazrui
People who feel it's because the button says orange, it's because there's some process in place that's failed. That's probably not the only issue. But again, even a large organization, if you provide an opportunity for feedback and you have a process to respond to it quickly, that's helpful because I mean, even a very large company can have a contractor come in and put in code at three in the morning.

They're tired. They're not following all the guidance you've given them. So allowing customers to come back and say, you know, this is a problem, we are fixing it, thank you so much. You know, as a courtesy, you know, we'll give you five days free service or whatever the situation is or send a thank you card, send cookies, it doesn't matter, but have a good relationship.

And probably that person is going to be like 99% of the cases. It's going to be a person who's going to come back and you're going to have as a friend because they're going to be someone who knows you care. You've made a difference. They made a difference. And it's OK.

Lori Litz
Yeah, absolutely. That's one of the things I always like to say about marketing and your customers. I'm not afraid of the customers that complain. I'm afraid of the customers I never hear from because they're done. They have moved on. They're not even going to open that door to give you the effort to make things right. So I'll take a complaint over a quiet person, for the most part, any day.

Right?

Susan Mazrui
But don't rely on just having that as don't expect people with disabilities to police or fight responsibility because that will not work.

Lori Litz
Right. All right. So ultimately the question of the day is are platform providers liable? Or are you as the company? You know, does a platform take on any of the responsibility or is it, you?

Tomiyo Stoner
Yes. Yes. So that's true. So I have actually I have a third party app on my own website. Everybody a lot of people will need to, by the nature of their business, utilize third party platforms in order to make their website functional for anyone at all.

If if you got sued, absolutely. You would be named in the complaint. You would 100% be responsible for defending the suit if that party goes bankrupt, if that party for some reason, the attorney in question that's bringing the suit or the customer in question doesn't want to sue that third party could be a variety of reasons why you could be left holding the bag.

There's no reason to think that you can delegate your compliance to other parties. So that's why you have to be proactive in your contracts, thinking about the vendors you work with. You know, I'm not saying there's a situation. There could never be a situation where you could be excused from a third party because it's an undue burden to do any process, any other system.

Like I know certain industries, there might be only one vendor that does a certain type of process, and that's the only one in the industry. Like I'm thinking of specifically like realtors or specific programs that they have to use and they don't have alternatives. If it's something hyper specialized like that, could you argue an undue burden defense? Maybe. Does it prevent you from getting sued?

No. And will the lawsuit get dropped the moment that you point to the third party? No.

So absolutely, you want to work with reputable vendors and you may end up being held accountable if you don't.

Lori Litz
Excellent. Well, thank you both so much for your time today and your presentation. To our entire audience here, thank you so much for being here today. Our next event in August is... kind of continues this discussion. It's Add to Cart: Creating an Accessible e-Commerce experience. So if you go out to AccessibilityPlus.Live, you can register for that event.

Give me a couple of minutes, hour, maybe... to get all the on demand pages published and I'll email everybody to let you know where you can find that. And if you have any questions, don't hesitate to email me at Lori@Accessibility.com. Thank you, everyone. Have a great rest of your day.

Tomiyo Stoner
Thank you so much, Lori. Thank you, Susan.

Susan Mazrui
Bye-bye.