August 15, 2024 • 35 mins
In this episode, Matisse chats with Eugene Woo, the CEO of Venngage, about easy ways to create accessible documents while comparing the various platforms used today.
About Eugene Woo
As an engineer with a passion for visual storytelling, Eugene Woo recognized the challenges many faced in design. This inspired him to master infographics and subsequently create Venngage, a platform that empowers you to transform your ideas into vibrant visuals without any design experience.
Follow Eugene and Venngage:
Website (Affiliate link)
LinkedIn: Eugene Woo
Instagram: @Venngage
YouTube: @VenngageVids
Connect with PR & Lattes
Website: PR & Lattes
Instagram: @PRAndLattes
Host: @MatisseNelis
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
[Music]
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (00:02):
Hello and welcome back for another episode
of PR & Lattes, the podcastwhere you can fill up your cup
on everything PR andcommunications. I'm your host,
Matisse Hamel-Nelis, and I am sohappy to have you join me today
for another brand new episode.
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(00:25):
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& Lattes.
(00:49):
On today's episode, I'm chattingwith Eugene Woo, the CEO of
Venngage, an online platformthat empowers users to transform
their ideas into vibrant,accessible visuals without any
design experience as an engineerwith a passion for visual
storytelling, Eugene recognizedthe challenges many faced in
design. This inspired him tomaster infographics and
(01:11):
subsequently create Venngage forfull disclosure to the
listeners. I was provided withaccess to the platform before
the episode so I could playaround with the software and get
a sense of what it was allabout. And after playing with it
for a couple of weeks, I'mreally excited to chat with
Eugene about Venngage and otherdesign platforms, their ease of
use and creating accessible andcompliant content. So grab your
(01:34):
latte, sit back and enjoy.
Welcome back to the PR & Lattespodcast. I am so excited to have
today's guest on the podcastEugene. Welcome to PR & Lattes.
Eugene Woo (01:48):
Thank you very much, Matisse. I'm excited to be here.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (01:51):
Let's dive into this good stuff by starting
off with the easy questions. Canyou tell our listeners a little
bit about yourself and your roleat bengage, where you are the
CEO, and what inspired you tofocus on accessibility and
document design and creation?
Eugene Woo (02:06):
Sure, simple question. So my name is Eugene.
I'm the CEO and founder ofVenngage. Venngage is easy to
use design tool. It's you know,very similar to a Canva, if
people are familiar with that,we have a very big difference.
We are very specialized onmaking the documents and the
(02:30):
designs you create accessible,and the tool itself, obviously
it's also accessible. So we havea very and we have a very, I
want to call it still veryniche. I hate to use that word,
but it's still a very niche setof features that enables anyone
to easily create and exportaccessible designs and documents
(02:51):
and a little bit of background,you know, I was a software
engineer, so I came from a sortof a technical background, kind
of, you know, like...Like manysoftware entrepreneurs, kind of
wrote the first version of thetool, and kind of, you know,
stumbled upon, to be honest,kind of stumbled upon
accessibility. As our as ouruser base grew, we got a lot of
(03:15):
requests from governments.
Actually, the Canadiangovernment, I'm based in Canada,
was one of them got cut and fromhigher ed. So universities and
colleges started asking us aboutthings like, Do you have an
accessibility checker? Can weexport this, you know, in an
accessible PDF? And initially,to be honest, I we were like,
what does that actually mean? Sowe're talking about like, you
(03:37):
know, five years ago and changeand so so slowly, it was a slow
process. We began to learn alittle bit, you know, a little
bit as we dug into it andrealized, like, wow, this is
essentially something that we'veignored. And the entire
industry, for the most part,have ignored these and, you
know, the whole the wholedigital accessibility point of
(04:01):
design. So we know we this, madethis decision where we rebuild
our product, or two years ago tofocus and to commit to it, and
you know, two years later, herewe are, like, we have a product
that's very focused onaccessibility, that actually
helps users create accessibledesigns easily.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (04:23):
Amazing, amazing. And you mentioned how
governments and higher ed wereasking for this. How important
is accessibility in the designindustry, from your experience
and what you've been hearing,and how are platforms like fan
gage and competitors like Canvaand InDesign, and how are they
addressing this need?
Eugene Woo (04:43):
Sure, I would say, I mean, the honest answer is,
outside of like federal agenciesand state agencies and
universities who are kind ofgoverned by by government, you
know, by federal and stateregulations. Outside of those,
we do not see a lot of demandfor our accessibility feature.
So that's the honest answer. So,and that's probably, you know,
(05:04):
90 plus percent of our userbase. So it's a, still a small
minority who are, who really arepushing it. And it's mainly, you
know, again, it's mainly from,from those that have either a
compliance issue, sort ofcompliance I have, you know, a
compliance mandate all theiruniversities and and all
(05:25):
nonprofit I would say there aredefinitely some non-profits as
well. It's, you know, the honestthe honest answer is, as much as
I would like to say, oh my gosh,accessibility is such a
widespread, you know, awidespread thing that people
know. The answer is they don'tknow that's not true. So I would
say it's still a small minorityof our user base who are asking
(05:47):
for it and who are using it,because we do track who uses our
tool and that, you know, it'sslowly growing, but it's still a
small percentage of our userbase. And as far as our
competitors are concerned, Idon't, you know, look at like
our competitors all the time,but, but, but, from the last
time we looked at ourcompetitors, you know, they,
they're not really focused onit, right? It's not something
(06:08):
that it's, you know, I'll giveyou an example of Canva. I'm
sure Canva had this the samerequest as they were much bigger
than us. For many, many years,they've only started to build,
you know, they've only begunthat that process. They have
very minimal accessibilityfeatures that, you know, I would
say, compared to us, and westarted much later than them.
And other design tools, likeInDesign, it's sort of an
(06:30):
afterthought. You have to have aplugin. You kind of have to,
kind of, it's very, verydifficult. And all of the Adobe
tools is quite difficult to makeanything accessible. You can,
it's obviously, but it's a it'sa different skill level it
needs, it requires a lot oftraining and all that. So
typically, you have to be aprofessional, what we call
professional accessibilityremediator, or a document
(06:53):
remediator, to be able to handlethose tools. So, so that's the
difference, I think, withinwithin our market, which is the
kind of do it yourself, simpleto use tool like we're the only
tool right now. Venngage is theonly tool right now that has
these built in accessibleaccessibility features.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (07:09):
Yeah, and I find it interesting that it's,
as you said, it's still arelatively small market, or a
small component of businessesand organizations that are using
things like Venngage andthinking about accessibility,
when here, at least, where I'mbased in Ontario, we have the
AODA that, you know,significantly more businesses
actually need to comply withthis. And so it's really
(07:33):
interesting that I think there'sgoing to be a shift, and people
maybe the panic will set in, andthey'll start saying, oh, we
need, we need a quick tool. Weneed the tool that's going to
get us to where we need to be tobe compliant, right? So...
Eugene Woo (07:45):
Yeah, I think there's a lot of, I mean, the
regulations have been around fora while. It's not like, it's not
like it's new, right? Like, it'saccessible, accessibility, even
in the US ADA and in Ontario,yeah, they've been around for a
while, like, from like, decades,yeah. And so I would say that
it's an, it's definitely anawareness problem, and, and, and
(08:07):
a lot of the regulations don'thave any kind of enforcement on
them. They're...
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (08:11):
yeah,
Eugene Woo (08:12):
...except for the ones that you, you know, I think
some of the European ones nowhave some enforcement, which may
change things in Europe, but inNorth America, it's, I think
it's a little different,although, although there is a
change now in the in the US, theADA Title II there is some,
there's going to be someenforcement there, yeah, and I
so, so you're right, so maybenext year, everyone you know
(08:33):
panics, and I personally don'tthink so, but we'll see.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (08:38):
Yeah, we'll see. And especially in Ontario,
with the AODA coming into fulleffect come January 1. That's
where I think, you know thereare, there are some
repercussions for not beingcompliant. So perhaps at that
point, it'll be warning thatcome through first with like,
All right, well, you've had now25 years to do this. Where are
we at and kind of going fromthere and seeing what they can
(09:00):
do, so that'll be interesting.
But from your perspective,you've already mentioned, sort
of how Venngage, Canva andInDesign compare in terms of the
user experience, right? WhereVenngage...and Venngage has it
basically all built in, from anaccessibility perspective, and
it's easy to use, Canva easy touse, but doesn't necessarily
have that accessibility woveninto it, and then InDesign being
(09:21):
its own beast, where it's a lotof training to really know the
nuances, the ins and outs of howto make your document
accessible. But how does thatuser experience compare for a
user with disabilities who'strying to create content in an
accessible manner, and what arethe strengths and weaknesses
from either Venngage or from theother platforms as well.
Eugene Woo (09:45):
So, so I can't, I cannot speak, no, I about the
other tools I have not, youknow, tested them in that
manner, and, and, and, you know,I'm not a disabled person, so I
don't know what the experienceis. So I cannot speak for the
Adobe tools or Canva, but on ourtool, we do test our tools, both
(10:05):
with, you know, we we used tocontract out to a third party to
test because we didn't have backthen, we didn't know, we didn't
have the capability of testingit with with a diverse set of
users, including users who aredisabled, and so we take that
feedback in and and so we knowthat our tool can be used by
(10:27):
someone with, you know, withdisabilities, someone who's
using a screen reader. We'vebegun to do it ourselves now in
house. In house is in like wehire people with disabilities to
test our tools, and we also testour tools. It's part of our
regular QA process now to testour tools with screen readers.
(10:47):
So, so a user can use a screenreader to sort of manipulate
the, you know the app, or youknow the design, or the editor,
as we call it, and can makechanges and and all that.
Unknown (11:01):
amazing,
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (11:01):
Amazing, amazing. And how well does
Venngage comply withinternational accessibility
standards, like, what wellguideline, WCAG 2.2 or the Web
Content AccessibilityGuidelines, or, you know, AODA,
or ADA in the States, that sortof thing.
Eugene Woo (11:17):
Yeah, so, so we comply, we comply with WCAG 2.1
so that's the internationalstandard that all the other
standards sort of refer to. Solike, either if it's European,
the ADA in the US or in Canada,at the end of the day, it's
WCAG, you know, 2.1 that is thestandard, and we are compliant
(11:38):
with that. Like we we put a lotof effort into making sure that
we looked at all of, all of whatcompliance means, and, and,
yeah, and we have some, youknow, what we call a RECAD,
which is a sort of a statementof a compliance that that was
done by a third party, not, notby us. Yeah, we have that
published in our site as well.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (11:56):
Amazing, amazing. And what best practices
does Venngage recommend whencreating an accessible document.
So I log into Venngage.
Eugene Woo (12:03):
Right.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (12:04):
I'm starting to create a poster for
an event, and now I'm like,okay, so what do I need to do?
How do I make this accessible?
This is going to live online.
What do I got to do?
Unknown (12:14):
got to
Eugene Woo (12:14):
So if you're...So, I'll speak about general and
then I can talk about, like,Venge. So in general, I mean, it
doesn't matter if you useVenngage or any tools at the end
of the day, if a document isaccessible, if you know it has
what we call a good structure.
So the the the all the all theheaders and the paragraphs and
the subheaders are properlytagged and structured and
(12:35):
ordered. So that means, youknow, if I'm using a screen
reader, it will kind of read itthe way it will understand that
this is a title. And if the userwants to skip to the you know,
users are all the same, like wedon't read a lot of times. We're
just kind of what we call skim,and they want to skip to the
next header, and they'll say,All right, I'm not interested in
this. I'll skip to the nextheader. So we want to make sure
(12:56):
that the headings and thestructure and the order are all
correct. And how do you do that?
For the most part of you, inVenngage, for the most part, a
lot of it is built in, if you'rejust using it as you would. If
you if you tag, you know, if youadd something as just like in
Word, if something's a title, itwill have to correct tag. If
(13:17):
something is in h1 or in h2 aheader, one hit or two, all of
it will just naturally have thecorrect tagging structure. And
in Venngage, we allow you tochange the order. So if you
wanted something on the side,you know, if you had a document
that wasn't just going, youknow, wasn't just, sorry,
vertical, you have, like,something on the side. You
wanted that read first, youcould change the order by just
(13:39):
dragging and dropping what wecall in the order. We have this
order panel that you can justdrag and drop very easily. So,
so I would say the number one isthat making sure that it has
that order tag structure. Andthen number two is, if you have
any images or any visuals thatare not text like have that you
want the screen reader to readso they're important or
(14:00):
informative. Informative. Youwant to have alt text. So that's
pretty obvious. I think youknow, most people know that,
like, add alt text if you haveimages, especially if you have a
complex image, like, like agraph or a chart, you want to
make sure that it has it justdoesn't say something simple,
like chart, right? You want to,you want to actually describe
(14:21):
what's in it. And then third,third is colour contrast. So you
have colour contrast. Again,again. Colour contrast is a
thing that most tools don'thave. It built in. Most tools
use, you know, require you to goto, you know, to use a colour
contrast checker outside of thetool. And there's a lot of them,
(14:41):
like WebAIM. There's like adozen of them out there, but
it's very cumbersome. You haveto kind of work in the editor,
go out and or you have to add aplugin in there. In vanguage, is
all seamless. Every colour,every time you change a colour,
you essentially we tell you, wesort of automatically check the
contrast and tell you, hey, isthere enough contrast or not.
Does it meet the there actuallyis a requirement as a number
(15:04):
depending on what the text is.
Did you meet the requirement ornot? And, and, so, yeah. So, so
that's some of the, I would say,very high level features that
that you would do as you'redesigning. I mean, there's like,
a gazillion more. Those are thevery high level things I would
say as you're designing, youknow, your your document or your
design, that's what you wouldthink of.
Unknown (15:27):
of.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (15:28):
I love the fact that bengage will sort of
flag, particularly with colourcontrast, because that's an area
where I find, with a lot of myclients, they'll say, "Okay, but
what is, what is compliant? Whydoes this work? Why doesn't this
work? Oh, I have to get another,a secondary app, or whatever the
cases go elsewhere." The factthat Venngage sort of flags it
for you right off the bat tosay, "Ah, you need you're going
to have to change this to becompliant," I think, is
(15:50):
fantastic, and it helps the enduser really understand, okay,
now I get why I have to do this.
Eugene Woo (15:56):
Yeah, one of the things that I think that we
really stand out is that weactually incorporate the whole
colour, not just colourcontrast, but a lot of the what
we call accessible designprinciples, into your natural
workflow. So it's not like thisextra thing that you have to do
at the end of the process. It'ssomething that you're just kind
(16:16):
of doing as you're designingright as you're picking a color,
we say, hey, we show you thecolor contrast, and we give you
and if it's not enough, it'll bered. It will say, like, you pick
a color, like, it's great, butit's not, you know? So we kind
of nudge you to accessibility asyou're designing, as opposed to,
hey, just fix it at the end, youknow, run the run the checker
(16:38):
and fix it at the end, which is,you can be done, but it's now
you have to rework your design,right?
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (16:43):
So yeah, and, you know, in a lot of
cases, a lot of PR and commspeople are sort of becoming the
jack of all trades for theirbusinesses and organizations.
Where it's we have a very smallteam, we're all doing multiple
different types of content andwork and what we're creating. So
having those checkers sort ofbuilt in, instead of being an
afterthought and just alwaysbeing top of mind, I think, is a
fantastic way to make sure thatwhat we are creating is always
(17:05):
compliant, and that way we'resharing good things.
Eugene Woo (17:10):
Yeah, it's so one of the things, you know, it's
accessibility. Is a veryreactive work, I would say, Oh,
it's a very it's like anafterthought. It's very
reactive, right? Like, if youlook at the industry as a whole,
oh, we got sued. And then let'snow go hire something, right? Or
it's like, "Oh, I've createdthis document." And then they
hand it over to anaccessibility, you know, someone
(17:32):
with an accessibility title, andgo like, please help me fix it.
And then they so it's then andthen, and then the person will
be like, Oh my gosh, thisdocument is completely
inaccessible. It's got no tech,like a screen reader. It says an
image or whatever it is, right?
And then they have tocompletely, you know, basically,
spend hours and hours fixingthat document. And that's the
industry as a whole. It'sextremely reactive. And what we
wanted to do was make it moreproactive. And that's, that's
(17:54):
basically the main differencebetween Venngage and all the
other tools, is that youactually address the problem
proactively and as you're doingit, as opposed to kind of doing
it at the end and beingreactive.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (18:07):
Yeah.
Eugene Woo (18:08):
So, yeah. So we kind of, I was, I'm a big fan of,
like, the whole nudging and, youknow, put guardrails in at your
users, as opposed to, like, oh,fix it at the end.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (18:18):
Yeah, yeah, especially if you're not sure
what you have to fix, right? Sohaving those safeguards in place
and those prompts ensures thatthe person who's creating the
content knows, "Oh, okay, I haveto do this now. Oh, I have to do
this now," versus at the endbeing like, Okay, I have to fix
it. I don't know what I'msupposed to fix though.
Eugene Woo (18:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, it's it. That's
one of the, that's one of thebig challenges that we've heard
like when, when we were, when wewere designing our features,
like when and when we looked atwhat was out there, we realized
that, oh, there's a big offer.
None of the tools, none of thedesign tools, actually do that.
Nothing. You know, they're stilldoing the reactive kind of
method. Fix it at the end, runthe big checker, and then you
(18:59):
get like, 50,000 errors, andthen you have to be like, "Oh my
gosh, it's overwhelming." I'vegot so many errors, I don't even
know what to do now.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (19:08):
Yeah, exactly. And does Venngage, if
you're creating a PDF, forexample, when you're exporting,
does the does it pass the PDFAccessibility Checker 2024?
Eugene Woo (19:21):
It it does. If you do all the things that will tell
you so, so obviously, there's nomagic here, like it is, it is
all, it all depends on the user.
If you're adding an image andand you didn't add alt text,
and, yeah, it will obviouslyfail. But we're very good at,
again, we're very good at kindof nudging you, yeah, nudging
the user towards accessibility.
(19:42):
And there is an accessibilitychecker at the end. So if you,
if you, if you do all that likeit will pass. So Venngage gives
you the tools so that you caneasily pass the accessibility
checker without remediation. Soif you do everything in the
document does not need to beremediated. You just export it
(20:02):
and it's and it's good, right?
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (20:04):
Amazing, amazing. And what resources,
aside from, you know, thoseprompts or training does
Venngage provide to help usersunderstand how to create the
accessible documents, or is itjust simply open up the app on
your browser and you're good togo?
Unknown (20:19):
go?
Eugene Woo (20:19):
So some of it is open up. Your browsers just do
the natural things, you know.
But we do have, we do make thejob a lot easier. We have
assessed. We have templates thatare tagged accessible. So
basically what, what that meansis that these templates are kind
of more, you know, foolproof.
They're kind of more foolproofaccessible. It like everything,
(20:41):
all the structure, everythingis, is kind of already done for
you. And if you're just lookingfor something really quick, like
a poster or flyer infographic,if you use one of those
templates, you know, the amountof extra work that you'll have
to do is minimal. So we haveaccessible templates where,
where the template just, youknow, lends itself to being, you
(21:03):
know, they're just, you know,very, very, very accessible in
the because we've done the workup front. And then, you know,
like I said, in the tool itself,there's a whole bunch of like,
nudges and all that. And thenfinally, there is an
accessibility checker where, andevery time you you hit one of
the errors we do, you know, sendyou to a page and say, Hey, if
you want to learn more, here'swhy, you know, here's why it
(21:26):
fails. Like, "Why? Why did thisimage fail?" And then we'll
explain it failed because itdidn't have the alt text, or
it's, you know, it has text init. You should, like, probably
just type the text in there, butyou don't use an image, you
know, stuff like that.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (21:39):
Excellent, excellent. What upcoming
features or updates can usersexpect from engage to improve
accessibility?
Eugene Woo (21:48):
So we are, we're doing forms, which I think forms
is...
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (21:54):
A game changer!
Eugene Woo (21:56):
Huge problem in the you know, as far as a PDF
accessible, a documentaccessibility is concerned. So I
would say forms is probablythere are obviously, like,
improvements. You know, the toolis constantly being improved.
And we also, unfortunately,constantly break things. It's
part of software. We addsomething and then we break
(22:17):
something that was reallyworking before, and then we were
like, Oh, gosh. Now whatever. Webroke something. Now we to go
back and fix it. So I would sayforms is a pretty big one. You
know, being able to build formsand make them accessible.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (22:29):
Yeah.
Eugene Woo (22:29):
And, and then we're always improving the complex
visuals, making the complexvisuals more accessible. So
these are, like, the charts todiagrams that is actually very,
very challenging. We've madevarious, to be honest, very
small steps there. And sothere's a lot more to do with,
with these complex visuals.
They're, they're, you know,they're not as straightforward
(22:51):
as, I'll just add an alt text,which is what we kind of do
right now, although they,although, you know, we do
something, you know, a littlebit more than that, but, but the
ideal scenario is, you know,depending on what the visual is,
is to to be, you know, toactually make that information a
lot more accessible.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (23:06):
yeah.
Eugene Woo (23:07):
And the navigation of them a little more accessible
as well.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (23:10):
Yeah, you had mentioned before as an
answer to a previous questionaround complex charts and graphs
and or visuals. And you know,when you're writing alt text for
it to be more than just a chartor a graph. Does Venngage
provide assistance in like, howcan you best represent that alt
text for something that complex?
Eugene Woo (23:31):
Yes, we do. So we, we actually generate, so if it's
a chart, so it's a chart or agraph, we actually help you
generate the alt text, becausethat can be, you know, with AI.
Now, that can be done. It's,it's quant, it's quantitative,
right? It's that, that one'sactually a science the numbers.
You can't get the numbers wrong.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (23:52):
Yeah.
Eugene Woo (23:52):
So the AI does a fairly good job in describing
and summarizing the chart. So weSo, yeah, just one click of a
button, and it will kind ofdescribe, you know, give you a
very good summary of the chartand, and the summary of that
chart is accurate, and, youknow, it's and you you can,
obviously, you can, you should,and you should edit it to give
it a little bit more context.
But for the most part, like 90,you know, 90% of it is done for
(24:15):
you.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (24:17):
I think that's absolutely amazing,
because usually people, whenthey are trying to remediate or
trying to write their alt textfor the complex images, they get
to a chart or a graph, and theypanic, and they're like, "I
don't know what, how in depthI'm supposed to go," you know?
So the fact that the AI is ableto generate a very decent
starting point, but then, likeyou said, you can add in a bit
(24:38):
of context in addition to it, Ithink, is definitely a game
changer for a lot of people whocan then say, I know how to
write the alt text for this withthe assistance, obviously, of
the AI tool that's built in.
Unknown (24:50):
That's
Eugene Woo (24:50):
That's...yeah, that's that's that. I mean, AI
doesn't solve your problem 100%but it gives you a great start.
And a lot of cases, like I said,it gives you 90%...you're 90%
there, just kind of add the last10%.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (25:03):
Yeah, exactly. Can you share some
success stories of organizationsthat have used Venngage for
accessible document creation toinspire our listeners to be
like, yes, we need to get onthis.
Eugene Woo (25:14):
Sure. So we, we, we have a few community colleges.
I'm not sure I, I'm not sure ifI can mention their name, like
the details of the contract, butwe have one fairly large
community college system signedon recently, like, this is,
like, I don't know, 50,000student, you know, kind of a
fairly large community collegein the States. Yeah, they were,
(25:38):
they were, they were, they wereusing Canva before, and they
switched over to us. Andobviously the process prior to
that was relying on aremediation team of, like a few,
you know, two or three people,and they were just being
overwhelmed and and they werenot compliant. I think the most
important thing was because theywere overwhelmed, they were not
compliant. And it was alwayslike a red flag that they knew
(26:01):
that this was one area that theywere not compliant, and they
would get in trouble. And also,you know, the director really
wanted, she really wanted tomake sure that that everything
was not only compliant, but itwas the right thing to do. So,
yeah, so they moved over to usand started this year, and it's
(26:21):
been great, yeah. I mean, thetransition is very seamless.
Like I said, the tool isn'tquite similar from a user
experience point of view. It'sas easy to use. We've got
templates, we've got all thefancy widgets and the icon
libraries and illustrations, andon top of that, we have all the
accessibility features. So Sowe've signed on, you know, after
(26:42):
that, we've signed on a fewother fairly large universities
and some governments as well.
But, yeah, but I like to use auniversity example, because
those are kind of easier forpeople to understand.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (26:53):
Love that.
I love that. And that's thething, when people can hear the
success stories on how it's madeother communications and
marketing teams lives easier.
That's when they're like, "Okay,how can it make my life easier?"
And sort of jump into it, right?
So instead of having to thenbuild in a budget line for a
remediation team to do it forthem, they can now do it all in
one go with this product. So Ithink that's fantastic,
(27:16):
absolutely.
Eugene Woo (27:17):
Yeah. I also think that that solution, there's only
so many documents you canremediate, so maybe, maybe the
high stake ones like that youcan remediate. But the everyday
document that's created by staffand by faculty...
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (27:31):
Yeah.
Eugene Woo (27:31):
There's, there's no way that you a small team can,
you know? And it happens everyday, like, it's kind of like a
whack a mole, Game of Whack aMole. Like they're posting them
on sites and post them, puttingthem on the on the LMS and...
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (27:42):
Yeah.
Eugene Woo (27:43):
...and whatnot.
Sometimes on social media, youbasically cannot control it,
unless you say no one can. Canpost anything like that's
probably the only way, yeah, orthey can only and all they have
to go through like thisremediation team, which that
will just overwhelm that team.
So the only real ways that youhave to educate everybody and
(28:03):
give them the right tools, rightthat will allow them to do it
themselves.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (28:06):
Exactly, exactly. Looking at industry
trends, how do you see documentaccessibility evolving within
design, PR, communications,advertising, the whole shebang?
Eugene Woo (28:19):
So I think you know, as you mentioned, there are some
regulatory pressures coming,coming in. So, so I do think
that the tools have to evolve.
There really is the kind of theyhave no choice, because users,
you know, will want, will wantthese features. And I think
they, you know, and we areseeing it. So even, even even
(28:40):
something like figma, we areseeing that, you know, figma,
you know, has accessibilityfeatures. Now there, you know.
And you know, for example, weuse Typeform, which is a form
survey tool, they haveaccessibility features. Now, I
mean, not, not, you know, notgreat, but it's there. And so I
do so we're seeing your everydaysort of tool sets around design
(29:02):
and content creation, adoptingaccessibility new features,
whereas I would say, you know,even, like, two or three years
ago, like it's it wasn't there.
And so I would say the trend is,you know, the trend is, and you
know they are, you know, good,you know, like, vangage is a
good case study. Like, there arecase studies out there, out
(29:22):
there of tools, who have these,who have these features and and,
you know, I would expect peoplebuilding similar features, or
just, you know, kind of justcopying what we do. So.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (29:32):
Yeah, yeah.
And what advice would you giveto somebody who is in PR
communications or marketing onchoosing the right design tool,
when creating, when needing tocreate these accessible types of
documents?
Eugene Woo (29:43):
So I think the first thing is edcu...education, I, I
don't know. Like, maybe you,like, how many PR people or
marketing people actually knowabout digital accessibility? I
don't know, right? Like, it's I,my, my guess it's low. My guess
is fairly low, just from our ownuser base. Uh, just from our own
management. So I think evenbefore they choose the tool, I
(30:04):
think just, they kind of justneed to be aware. In general,
there's the awareness, awarenessproblem that, hey, let's not,
you know, in order for yourdocuments to be accessible, you
know, they you can't just writesomething in Word or do it in
any and it just, and just exportit, or just, you know, export an
image and expect everyone to beable to read that image. That's
(30:25):
not how it works. There arecertain things you have to do.
So, so I, you know, I don't knowhow to solve that problem, to be
honest. Like, I think regulationis one of them. So everyone's
kind of aware. Oh, gosh, but,but once, once we pass that
hurdle. Then, then, yeah, thenthere is definitely, look at the
tool sets right, which are thetools that allow you to do it
easily and then have built infeatures, as opposed to, oh, now
(30:47):
I gotta do this extra reactivestep after I'm done.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (30:51):
Yeah. And if you could offer one piece of
advice to organizations who arestarting to evaluate their
accessibility solutions, whatwould it be?
Unknown (31:00):
be?
Eugene Woo (31:01):
So, from a doc from so typically, there are two
things you got to worry about.
One is your website, right? So,so we're, we're, you know, one
is your website, the other oneis documents. And most people
will, you know, it's theirwebsite that's a bigger concern.
And I have no kind of horse inthis, in this race. I'm not a
we're, no, we're not in that. SoI would say the first thing to
look at is they are, you know, alot of people sell what we call
(31:24):
overlays. I see it everywhere.
Those are kind of the it's afairly affordable solution. I
would not be drawn too much intothat solution, because,
typically, that's what peopleadopt, because it's such a it's
sold as a quick fix, a cheap andquick fix, I would say, like,
you have to understand this thesolution better. Well, yeah,
(31:48):
understand the requirementbetter. The overlays typically
don't solve the problem. Itpresents a solution that doesn't
solve the problem. So I guessit's not even a solution. So, so
my big one advice is that, like,you know, just be a bit very
about overlay solutions, ifthat's presented to you know,
because that's usually what'spresent to you from a website
point of view that you you know.
So, so do it the right way.
(32:11):
That's the that's that will bemy, my advice. And then for the
document point of view, don't,don't rely on remediators like,
get a tool that you know. Get atool that can you know that way
your people, whoever's creatinga content, can create them and
make them accessible from fromthe beginning.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (32:27):
Amazing.
This has been a fantastic chat.
Eugene. I really, reallyappreciate it. But before I let
you go, this is PR and latte, soI do have to ask this one
question, what is your favoritego-to caffeinated beverage?
Eugene Woo (32:41):
So I'm a pour over guy.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (32:44):
Oh!
Eugene Woo (32:44):
Yes, I yeah, I have been doing pour overs for, like,
more than a decade, and so Ilike premium coffee, and premium
coffee, I mean, I'm going goingtoo many details. So more on the
lighter roast more on thelighter, roast and pour over,
yeah, just, just, you know, pourover on a very simple filter.
(33:07):
No, nothing fancy, no, and it'sblack. Like, I don't put
anything.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (33:13):
You'd be amazed at how many guests I've
had that said black coffee istheir go to. And everyone's
like, really?
Eugene Woo (33:20):
So, yeah, yeah. I think, you know, getting a
tangent. I think a lot of peopleput stuff in their coffee
because they're drinking likecoffee that isn't good, so you
kind of have to mask it byputting sugar or milk. But if
you, if you buy good coffee, it,you know, the coffee actually
tastes really good. It's notbitter, it's not dark, it's not
(33:41):
over, it's not doesn't have thatburnt taste to it. It tastes
great.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (33:45):
So good to know. I probably have some bad
coffee because I put milk inmind. So Haha, I will up up my
game on the coffee side. Well,thank you so much Eugene for
being on the podcast. If peoplewant to contact you or follow
Venngage on social or thewebsite, where can they find
you?
Eugene Woo (34:01):
LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm active on
LinkedIn. It's, you know, Eugenewoo at Venngage. And, you know,
check us out on Venngage. It'sspelled with a, you know, it's
spelled with two, ns, V, N, N,like, like, a Venn diagram, G,
A, g.com, and on social media.
We're on YouTube. We're onInstagram, at Venngage, that's
that's where you should followus.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (34:23):
Amazing.
And we'll make sure to have allthose links in the description
of this podcast so it's easy tofollow. Thank you so much,
Eugene for being on the podcasttoday.
Eugene Woo (34:31):
Thanks a lot. Had a good time.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (34:35):
You've been listening to the PR & Lattes
podcast. Make sure to subscribewherever you listen to podcasts
so you can get notified eachweek when a new episode drops.
You can also subscribe to ourweekly newsletter by visiting
our website, PRAndLattes.com onthe website, you'll find our
podcast episodes as well asamazing blogs with new ones
being posted every Mondaymorning. And of course, make
(34:58):
sure to follow us on social, onInstagram, at @PRAndLattes and
on LinkedIn. I've been yourhost, Matisse Hamel-Nelis, thank
you so much for listening, andwe'll see you next week with a
new latte and guest bye for now.
You.
[Music]
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (00:02):
Hello and welcome back for another episode
of PR & Lattes, the podcastwhere you can fill up your cup
on everything PR andcommunications. I'm your host,
Matisse Hamel-Nelis, and I am sohappy to have you join me today
for another brand new episode.
Before we get started, make sureyou subscribe to this podcast
wherever you're listening to it,to get notified each week during
the season when a new episodedrops. You can also subscribe to
(00:25):
our newsletter by visiting ourwebsite, PRandlattes.com. On the
website, you'll also find ourpodcast episodes, plus our
amazing blogs with new onesbeing uploaded every Monday
morning. And of course, makesure you're following us on
socials, on Instagram, at@PRAndLattes and on LinkedIn, PR
& Lattes.
(00:49):
On today's episode, I'm chattingwith Eugene Woo, the CEO of
Venngage, an online platformthat empowers users to transform
their ideas into vibrant,accessible visuals without any
design experience as an engineerwith a passion for visual
storytelling, Eugene recognizedthe challenges many faced in
design. This inspired him tomaster infographics and
(01:11):
subsequently create Venngage forfull disclosure to the
listeners. I was provided withaccess to the platform before
the episode so I could playaround with the software and get
a sense of what it was allabout. And after playing with it
for a couple of weeks, I'mreally excited to chat with
Eugene about Venngage and otherdesign platforms, their ease of
use and creating accessible andcompliant content. So grab your
(01:34):
latte, sit back and enjoy.
Welcome back to the PR & Lattespodcast. I am so excited to have
today's guest on the podcastEugene. Welcome to PR & Lattes.
Eugene Woo (01:48):
Thank you very much, Matisse. I'm excited to be here.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (01:51):
Let's dive into this good stuff by starting
off with the easy questions. Canyou tell our listeners a little
bit about yourself and your roleat bengage, where you are the
CEO, and what inspired you tofocus on accessibility and
document design and creation?
Eugene Woo (02:06):
Sure, simple question. So my name is Eugene.
I'm the CEO and founder ofVenngage. Venngage is easy to
use design tool. It's you know,very similar to a Canva, if
people are familiar with that,we have a very big difference.
We are very specialized onmaking the documents and the
(02:30):
designs you create accessible,and the tool itself, obviously
it's also accessible. So we havea very and we have a very, I
want to call it still veryniche. I hate to use that word,
but it's still a very niche setof features that enables anyone
to easily create and exportaccessible designs and documents
(02:51):
and a little bit of background,you know, I was a software
engineer, so I came from a sortof a technical background, kind
of, you know, like...Like manysoftware entrepreneurs, kind of
wrote the first version of thetool, and kind of, you know,
stumbled upon, to be honest,kind of stumbled upon
accessibility. As our as ouruser base grew, we got a lot of
(03:15):
requests from governments.
Actually, the Canadiangovernment, I'm based in Canada,
was one of them got cut and fromhigher ed. So universities and
colleges started asking us aboutthings like, Do you have an
accessibility checker? Can weexport this, you know, in an
accessible PDF? And initially,to be honest, I we were like,
what does that actually mean? Sowe're talking about like, you
(03:37):
know, five years ago and changeand so so slowly, it was a slow
process. We began to learn alittle bit, you know, a little
bit as we dug into it andrealized, like, wow, this is
essentially something that we'veignored. And the entire
industry, for the most part,have ignored these and, you
know, the whole the wholedigital accessibility point of
(04:01):
design. So we know we this, madethis decision where we rebuild
our product, or two years ago tofocus and to commit to it, and
you know, two years later, herewe are, like, we have a product
that's very focused onaccessibility, that actually
helps users create accessibledesigns easily.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (04:23):
Amazing, amazing. And you mentioned how
governments and higher ed wereasking for this. How important
is accessibility in the designindustry, from your experience
and what you've been hearing,and how are platforms like fan
gage and competitors like Canvaand InDesign, and how are they
addressing this need?
Eugene Woo (04:43):
Sure, I would say, I mean, the honest answer is,
outside of like federal agenciesand state agencies and
universities who are kind ofgoverned by by government, you
know, by federal and stateregulations. Outside of those,
we do not see a lot of demandfor our accessibility feature.
So that's the honest answer. So,and that's probably, you know,
(05:04):
90 plus percent of our userbase. So it's a, still a small
minority who are, who really arepushing it. And it's mainly, you
know, again, it's mainly from,from those that have either a
compliance issue, sort ofcompliance I have, you know, a
compliance mandate all theiruniversities and and all
(05:25):
nonprofit I would say there aredefinitely some non-profits as
well. It's, you know, the honestthe honest answer is, as much as
I would like to say, oh my gosh,accessibility is such a
widespread, you know, awidespread thing that people
know. The answer is they don'tknow that's not true. So I would
say it's still a small minorityof our user base who are asking
(05:47):
for it and who are using it,because we do track who uses our
tool and that, you know, it'sslowly growing, but it's still a
small percentage of our userbase. And as far as our
competitors are concerned, Idon't, you know, look at like
our competitors all the time,but, but, but, from the last
time we looked at ourcompetitors, you know, they,
they're not really focused onit, right? It's not something
(06:08):
that it's, you know, I'll giveyou an example of Canva. I'm
sure Canva had this the samerequest as they were much bigger
than us. For many, many years,they've only started to build,
you know, they've only begunthat that process. They have
very minimal accessibilityfeatures that, you know, I would
say, compared to us, and westarted much later than them.
And other design tools, likeInDesign, it's sort of an
(06:30):
afterthought. You have to have aplugin. You kind of have to,
kind of, it's very, verydifficult. And all of the Adobe
tools is quite difficult to makeanything accessible. You can,
it's obviously, but it's a it'sa different skill level it
needs, it requires a lot oftraining and all that. So
typically, you have to be aprofessional, what we call
professional accessibilityremediator, or a document
(06:53):
remediator, to be able to handlethose tools. So, so that's the
difference, I think, withinwithin our market, which is the
kind of do it yourself, simpleto use tool like we're the only
tool right now. Venngage is theonly tool right now that has
these built in accessibleaccessibility features.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (07:09):
Yeah, and I find it interesting that it's,
as you said, it's still arelatively small market, or a
small component of businessesand organizations that are using
things like Venngage andthinking about accessibility,
when here, at least, where I'mbased in Ontario, we have the
AODA that, you know,significantly more businesses
actually need to comply withthis. And so it's really
(07:33):
interesting that I think there'sgoing to be a shift, and people
maybe the panic will set in, andthey'll start saying, oh, we
need, we need a quick tool. Weneed the tool that's going to
get us to where we need to be tobe compliant, right? So...
Eugene Woo (07:45):
Yeah, I think there's a lot of, I mean, the
regulations have been around fora while. It's not like, it's not
like it's new, right? Like, it'saccessible, accessibility, even
in the US ADA and in Ontario,yeah, they've been around for a
while, like, from like, decades,yeah. And so I would say that
it's an, it's definitely anawareness problem, and, and, and
(08:07):
a lot of the regulations don'thave any kind of enforcement on
them. They're...
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (08:11):
yeah,
Eugene Woo (08:12):
...except for the ones that you, you know, I think
some of the European ones nowhave some enforcement, which may
change things in Europe, but inNorth America, it's, I think
it's a little different,although, although there is a
change now in the in the US, theADA Title II there is some,
there's going to be someenforcement there, yeah, and I
so, so you're right, so maybenext year, everyone you know
(08:33):
panics, and I personally don'tthink so, but we'll see.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (08:38):
Yeah, we'll see. And especially in Ontario,
with the AODA coming into fulleffect come January 1. That's
where I think, you know thereare, there are some
repercussions for not beingcompliant. So perhaps at that
point, it'll be warning thatcome through first with like,
All right, well, you've had now25 years to do this. Where are
we at and kind of going fromthere and seeing what they can
(09:00):
do, so that'll be interesting.
But from your perspective,you've already mentioned, sort
of how Venngage, Canva andInDesign compare in terms of the
user experience, right? WhereVenngage...and Venngage has it
basically all built in, from anaccessibility perspective, and
it's easy to use, Canva easy touse, but doesn't necessarily
have that accessibility woveninto it, and then InDesign being
(09:21):
its own beast, where it's a lotof training to really know the
nuances, the ins and outs of howto make your document
accessible. But how does thatuser experience compare for a
user with disabilities who'strying to create content in an
accessible manner, and what arethe strengths and weaknesses
from either Venngage or from theother platforms as well.
Eugene Woo (09:45):
So, so I can't, I cannot speak, no, I about the
other tools I have not, youknow, tested them in that
manner, and, and, and, you know,I'm not a disabled person, so I
don't know what the experienceis. So I cannot speak for the
Adobe tools or Canva, but on ourtool, we do test our tools, both
(10:05):
with, you know, we we used tocontract out to a third party to
test because we didn't have backthen, we didn't know, we didn't
have the capability of testingit with with a diverse set of
users, including users who aredisabled, and so we take that
feedback in and and so we knowthat our tool can be used by
(10:27):
someone with, you know, withdisabilities, someone who's
using a screen reader. We'vebegun to do it ourselves now in
house. In house is in like wehire people with disabilities to
test our tools, and we also testour tools. It's part of our
regular QA process now to testour tools with screen readers.
(10:47):
So, so a user can use a screenreader to sort of manipulate
the, you know the app, or youknow the design, or the editor,
as we call it, and can makechanges and and all that.
Unknown (11:01):
amazing,
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (11:01):
Amazing, amazing. And how well does
Venngage comply withinternational accessibility
standards, like, what wellguideline, WCAG 2.2 or the Web
Content AccessibilityGuidelines, or, you know, AODA,
or ADA in the States, that sortof thing.
Eugene Woo (11:17):
Yeah, so, so we comply, we comply with WCAG 2.1
so that's the internationalstandard that all the other
standards sort of refer to. Solike, either if it's European,
the ADA in the US or in Canada,at the end of the day, it's
WCAG, you know, 2.1 that is thestandard, and we are compliant
(11:38):
with that. Like we we put a lotof effort into making sure that
we looked at all of, all of whatcompliance means, and, and,
yeah, and we have some, youknow, what we call a RECAD,
which is a sort of a statementof a compliance that that was
done by a third party, not, notby us. Yeah, we have that
published in our site as well.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (11:56):
Amazing, amazing. And what best practices
does Venngage recommend whencreating an accessible document.
So I log into Venngage.
Eugene Woo (12:03):
Right.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (12:04):
I'm starting to create a poster for
an event, and now I'm like,okay, so what do I need to do?
How do I make this accessible?
This is going to live online.
What do I got to do?
Unknown (12:14):
got to
Eugene Woo (12:14):
So if you're...So, I'll speak about general and
then I can talk about, like,Venge. So in general, I mean, it
doesn't matter if you useVenngage or any tools at the end
of the day, if a document isaccessible, if you know it has
what we call a good structure.
So the the the all the all theheaders and the paragraphs and
the subheaders are properlytagged and structured and
(12:35):
ordered. So that means, youknow, if I'm using a screen
reader, it will kind of read itthe way it will understand that
this is a title. And if the userwants to skip to the you know,
users are all the same, like wedon't read a lot of times. We're
just kind of what we call skim,and they want to skip to the
next header, and they'll say,All right, I'm not interested in
this. I'll skip to the nextheader. So we want to make sure
(12:56):
that the headings and thestructure and the order are all
correct. And how do you do that?
For the most part of you, inVenngage, for the most part, a
lot of it is built in, if you'rejust using it as you would. If
you if you tag, you know, if youadd something as just like in
Word, if something's a title, itwill have to correct tag. If
(13:17):
something is in h1 or in h2 aheader, one hit or two, all of
it will just naturally have thecorrect tagging structure. And
in Venngage, we allow you tochange the order. So if you
wanted something on the side,you know, if you had a document
that wasn't just going, youknow, wasn't just, sorry,
vertical, you have, like,something on the side. You
wanted that read first, youcould change the order by just
(13:39):
dragging and dropping what wecall in the order. We have this
order panel that you can justdrag and drop very easily. So,
so I would say the number one isthat making sure that it has
that order tag structure. Andthen number two is, if you have
any images or any visuals thatare not text like have that you
want the screen reader to readso they're important or
(14:00):
informative. Informative. Youwant to have alt text. So that's
pretty obvious. I think youknow, most people know that,
like, add alt text if you haveimages, especially if you have a
complex image, like, like agraph or a chart, you want to
make sure that it has it justdoesn't say something simple,
like chart, right? You want to,you want to actually describe
(14:21):
what's in it. And then third,third is colour contrast. So you
have colour contrast. Again,again. Colour contrast is a
thing that most tools don'thave. It built in. Most tools
use, you know, require you to goto, you know, to use a colour
contrast checker outside of thetool. And there's a lot of them,
(14:41):
like WebAIM. There's like adozen of them out there, but
it's very cumbersome. You haveto kind of work in the editor,
go out and or you have to add aplugin in there. In vanguage, is
all seamless. Every colour,every time you change a colour,
you essentially we tell you, wesort of automatically check the
contrast and tell you, hey, isthere enough contrast or not.
Does it meet the there actuallyis a requirement as a number
(15:04):
depending on what the text is.
Did you meet the requirement ornot? And, and, so, yeah. So, so
that's some of the, I would say,very high level features that
that you would do as you'redesigning. I mean, there's like,
a gazillion more. Those are thevery high level things I would
say as you're designing, youknow, your your document or your
design, that's what you wouldthink of.
Unknown (15:27):
of.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (15:28):
I love the fact that bengage will sort of
flag, particularly with colourcontrast, because that's an area
where I find, with a lot of myclients, they'll say, "Okay, but
what is, what is compliant? Whydoes this work? Why doesn't this
work? Oh, I have to get another,a secondary app, or whatever the
cases go elsewhere." The factthat Venngage sort of flags it
for you right off the bat tosay, "Ah, you need you're going
to have to change this to becompliant," I think, is
(15:50):
fantastic, and it helps the enduser really understand, okay,
now I get why I have to do this.
Eugene Woo (15:56):
Yeah, one of the things that I think that we
really stand out is that weactually incorporate the whole
colour, not just colourcontrast, but a lot of the what
we call accessible designprinciples, into your natural
workflow. So it's not like thisextra thing that you have to do
at the end of the process. It'ssomething that you're just kind
(16:16):
of doing as you're designingright as you're picking a color,
we say, hey, we show you thecolor contrast, and we give you
and if it's not enough, it'll bered. It will say, like, you pick
a color, like, it's great, butit's not, you know? So we kind
of nudge you to accessibility asyou're designing, as opposed to,
hey, just fix it at the end, youknow, run the run the checker
(16:38):
and fix it at the end, which is,you can be done, but it's now
you have to rework your design,right?
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (16:43):
So yeah, and, you know, in a lot of
cases, a lot of PR and commspeople are sort of becoming the
jack of all trades for theirbusinesses and organizations.
Where it's we have a very smallteam, we're all doing multiple
different types of content andwork and what we're creating. So
having those checkers sort ofbuilt in, instead of being an
afterthought and just alwaysbeing top of mind, I think, is a
fantastic way to make sure thatwhat we are creating is always
(17:05):
compliant, and that way we'resharing good things.
Eugene Woo (17:10):
Yeah, it's so one of the things, you know, it's
accessibility. Is a veryreactive work, I would say, Oh,
it's a very it's like anafterthought. It's very
reactive, right? Like, if youlook at the industry as a whole,
oh, we got sued. And then let'snow go hire something, right? Or
it's like, "Oh, I've createdthis document." And then they
hand it over to anaccessibility, you know, someone
(17:32):
with an accessibility title, andgo like, please help me fix it.
And then they so it's then andthen, and then the person will
be like, Oh my gosh, thisdocument is completely
inaccessible. It's got no tech,like a screen reader. It says an
image or whatever it is, right?
And then they have tocompletely, you know, basically,
spend hours and hours fixingthat document. And that's the
industry as a whole. It'sextremely reactive. And what we
wanted to do was make it moreproactive. And that's, that's
(17:54):
basically the main differencebetween Venngage and all the
other tools, is that youactually address the problem
proactively and as you're doingit, as opposed to kind of doing
it at the end and beingreactive.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (18:07):
Yeah.
Eugene Woo (18:08):
So, yeah. So we kind of, I was, I'm a big fan of,
like, the whole nudging and, youknow, put guardrails in at your
users, as opposed to, like, oh,fix it at the end.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (18:18):
Yeah, yeah, especially if you're not sure
what you have to fix, right? Sohaving those safeguards in place
and those prompts ensures thatthe person who's creating the
content knows, "Oh, okay, I haveto do this now. Oh, I have to do
this now," versus at the endbeing like, Okay, I have to fix
it. I don't know what I'msupposed to fix though.
Eugene Woo (18:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, it's it. That's
one of the, that's one of thebig challenges that we've heard
like when, when we were, when wewere designing our features,
like when and when we looked atwhat was out there, we realized
that, oh, there's a big offer.
None of the tools, none of thedesign tools, actually do that.
Nothing. You know, they're stilldoing the reactive kind of
method. Fix it at the end, runthe big checker, and then you
(18:59):
get like, 50,000 errors, andthen you have to be like, "Oh my
gosh, it's overwhelming." I'vegot so many errors, I don't even
know what to do now.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (19:08):
Yeah, exactly. And does Venngage, if
you're creating a PDF, forexample, when you're exporting,
does the does it pass the PDFAccessibility Checker 2024?
Eugene Woo (19:21):
It it does. If you do all the things that will tell
you so, so obviously, there's nomagic here, like it is, it is
all, it all depends on the user.
If you're adding an image andand you didn't add alt text,
and, yeah, it will obviouslyfail. But we're very good at,
again, we're very good at kindof nudging you, yeah, nudging
the user towards accessibility.
(19:42):
And there is an accessibilitychecker at the end. So if you,
if you, if you do all that likeit will pass. So Venngage gives
you the tools so that you caneasily pass the accessibility
checker without remediation. Soif you do everything in the
document does not need to beremediated. You just export it
(20:02):
and it's and it's good, right?
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (20:04):
Amazing, amazing. And what resources,
aside from, you know, thoseprompts or training does
Venngage provide to help usersunderstand how to create the
accessible documents, or is itjust simply open up the app on
your browser and you're good togo?
Unknown (20:19):
go?
Eugene Woo (20:19):
So some of it is open up. Your browsers just do
the natural things, you know.
But we do have, we do make thejob a lot easier. We have
assessed. We have templates thatare tagged accessible. So
basically what, what that meansis that these templates are kind
of more, you know, foolproof.
They're kind of more foolproofaccessible. It like everything,
(20:41):
all the structure, everythingis, is kind of already done for
you. And if you're just lookingfor something really quick, like
a poster or flyer infographic,if you use one of those
templates, you know, the amountof extra work that you'll have
to do is minimal. So we haveaccessible templates where,
where the template just, youknow, lends itself to being, you
(21:03):
know, they're just, you know,very, very, very accessible in
the because we've done the workup front. And then, you know,
like I said, in the tool itself,there's a whole bunch of like,
nudges and all that. And thenfinally, there is an
accessibility checker where, andevery time you you hit one of
the errors we do, you know, sendyou to a page and say, Hey, if
you want to learn more, here'swhy, you know, here's why it
(21:26):
fails. Like, "Why? Why did thisimage fail?" And then we'll
explain it failed because itdidn't have the alt text, or
it's, you know, it has text init. You should, like, probably
just type the text in there, butyou don't use an image, you
know, stuff like that.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (21:39):
Excellent, excellent. What upcoming
features or updates can usersexpect from engage to improve
accessibility?
Eugene Woo (21:48):
So we are, we're doing forms, which I think forms
is...
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (21:54):
A game changer!
Eugene Woo (21:56):
Huge problem in the you know, as far as a PDF
accessible, a documentaccessibility is concerned. So I
would say forms is probablythere are obviously, like,
improvements. You know, the toolis constantly being improved.
And we also, unfortunately,constantly break things. It's
part of software. We addsomething and then we break
(22:17):
something that was reallyworking before, and then we were
like, Oh, gosh. Now whatever. Webroke something. Now we to go
back and fix it. So I would sayforms is a pretty big one. You
know, being able to build formsand make them accessible.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (22:29):
Yeah.
Eugene Woo (22:29):
And, and then we're always improving the complex
visuals, making the complexvisuals more accessible. So
these are, like, the charts todiagrams that is actually very,
very challenging. We've madevarious, to be honest, very
small steps there. And sothere's a lot more to do with,
with these complex visuals.
They're, they're, you know,they're not as straightforward
(22:51):
as, I'll just add an alt text,which is what we kind of do
right now, although they,although, you know, we do
something, you know, a littlebit more than that, but, but the
ideal scenario is, you know,depending on what the visual is,
is to to be, you know, toactually make that information a
lot more accessible.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (23:06):
yeah.
Eugene Woo (23:07):
And the navigation of them a little more accessible
as well.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (23:10):
Yeah, you had mentioned before as an
answer to a previous questionaround complex charts and graphs
and or visuals. And you know,when you're writing alt text for
it to be more than just a chartor a graph. Does Venngage
provide assistance in like, howcan you best represent that alt
text for something that complex?
Eugene Woo (23:31):
Yes, we do. So we, we actually generate, so if it's
a chart, so it's a chart or agraph, we actually help you
generate the alt text, becausethat can be, you know, with AI.
Now, that can be done. It's,it's quant, it's quantitative,
right? It's that, that one'sactually a science the numbers.
You can't get the numbers wrong.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (23:52):
Yeah.
Eugene Woo (23:52):
So the AI does a fairly good job in describing
and summarizing the chart. So weSo, yeah, just one click of a
button, and it will kind ofdescribe, you know, give you a
very good summary of the chartand, and the summary of that
chart is accurate, and, youknow, it's and you you can,
obviously, you can, you should,and you should edit it to give
it a little bit more context.
But for the most part, like 90,you know, 90% of it is done for
(24:15):
you.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (24:17):
I think that's absolutely amazing,
because usually people, whenthey are trying to remediate or
trying to write their alt textfor the complex images, they get
to a chart or a graph, and theypanic, and they're like, "I
don't know what, how in depthI'm supposed to go," you know?
So the fact that the AI is ableto generate a very decent
starting point, but then, likeyou said, you can add in a bit
(24:38):
of context in addition to it, Ithink, is definitely a game
changer for a lot of people whocan then say, I know how to
write the alt text for this withthe assistance, obviously, of
the AI tool that's built in.
Unknown (24:50):
That's
Eugene Woo (24:50):
That's...yeah, that's that's that. I mean, AI
doesn't solve your problem 100%but it gives you a great start.
And a lot of cases, like I said,it gives you 90%...you're 90%
there, just kind of add the last10%.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (25:03):
Yeah, exactly. Can you share some
success stories of organizationsthat have used Venngage for
accessible document creation toinspire our listeners to be
like, yes, we need to get onthis.
Eugene Woo (25:14):
Sure. So we, we, we have a few community colleges.
I'm not sure I, I'm not sure ifI can mention their name, like
the details of the contract, butwe have one fairly large
community college system signedon recently, like, this is,
like, I don't know, 50,000student, you know, kind of a
fairly large community collegein the States. Yeah, they were,
(25:38):
they were, they were, they wereusing Canva before, and they
switched over to us. Andobviously the process prior to
that was relying on aremediation team of, like a few,
you know, two or three people,and they were just being
overwhelmed and and they werenot compliant. I think the most
important thing was because theywere overwhelmed, they were not
compliant. And it was alwayslike a red flag that they knew
(26:01):
that this was one area that theywere not compliant, and they
would get in trouble. And also,you know, the director really
wanted, she really wanted tomake sure that that everything
was not only compliant, but itwas the right thing to do. So,
yeah, so they moved over to usand started this year, and it's
(26:21):
been great, yeah. I mean, thetransition is very seamless.
Like I said, the tool isn'tquite similar from a user
experience point of view. It'sas easy to use. We've got
templates, we've got all thefancy widgets and the icon
libraries and illustrations, andon top of that, we have all the
accessibility features. So Sowe've signed on, you know, after
(26:42):
that, we've signed on a fewother fairly large universities
and some governments as well.
But, yeah, but I like to use auniversity example, because
those are kind of easier forpeople to understand.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (26:53):
Love that.
I love that. And that's thething, when people can hear the
success stories on how it's madeother communications and
marketing teams lives easier.
That's when they're like, "Okay,how can it make my life easier?"
And sort of jump into it, right?
So instead of having to thenbuild in a budget line for a
remediation team to do it forthem, they can now do it all in
one go with this product. So Ithink that's fantastic,
(27:16):
absolutely.
Eugene Woo (27:17):
Yeah. I also think that that solution, there's only
so many documents you canremediate, so maybe, maybe the
high stake ones like that youcan remediate. But the everyday
document that's created by staffand by faculty...
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (27:31):
Yeah.
Eugene Woo (27:31):
There's, there's no way that you a small team can,
you know? And it happens everyday, like, it's kind of like a
whack a mole, Game of Whack aMole. Like they're posting them
on sites and post them, puttingthem on the on the LMS and...
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (27:42):
Yeah.
Eugene Woo (27:43):
...and whatnot.
Sometimes on social media, youbasically cannot control it,
unless you say no one can. Canpost anything like that's
probably the only way, yeah, orthey can only and all they have
to go through like thisremediation team, which that
will just overwhelm that team.
So the only real ways that youhave to educate everybody and
(28:03):
give them the right tools, rightthat will allow them to do it
themselves.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (28:06):
Exactly, exactly. Looking at industry
trends, how do you see documentaccessibility evolving within
design, PR, communications,advertising, the whole shebang?
Eugene Woo (28:19):
So I think you know, as you mentioned, there are some
regulatory pressures coming,coming in. So, so I do think
that the tools have to evolve.
There really is the kind of theyhave no choice, because users,
you know, will want, will wantthese features. And I think
they, you know, and we areseeing it. So even, even even
(28:40):
something like figma, we areseeing that, you know, figma,
you know, has accessibilityfeatures. Now there, you know.
And you know, for example, weuse Typeform, which is a form
survey tool, they haveaccessibility features. Now, I
mean, not, not, you know, notgreat, but it's there. And so I
do so we're seeing your everydaysort of tool sets around design
(29:02):
and content creation, adoptingaccessibility new features,
whereas I would say, you know,even, like, two or three years
ago, like it's it wasn't there.
And so I would say the trend is,you know, the trend is, and you
know they are, you know, good,you know, like, vangage is a
good case study. Like, there arecase studies out there, out
(29:22):
there of tools, who have these,who have these features and and,
you know, I would expect peoplebuilding similar features, or
just, you know, kind of justcopying what we do. So.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (29:32):
Yeah, yeah.
And what advice would you giveto somebody who is in PR
communications or marketing onchoosing the right design tool,
when creating, when needing tocreate these accessible types of
documents?
Eugene Woo (29:43):
So I think the first thing is edcu...education, I, I
don't know. Like, maybe you,like, how many PR people or
marketing people actually knowabout digital accessibility? I
don't know, right? Like, it's I,my, my guess it's low. My guess
is fairly low, just from our ownuser base. Uh, just from our own
management. So I think evenbefore they choose the tool, I
(30:04):
think just, they kind of justneed to be aware. In general,
there's the awareness, awarenessproblem that, hey, let's not,
you know, in order for yourdocuments to be accessible, you
know, they you can't just writesomething in Word or do it in
any and it just, and just exportit, or just, you know, export an
image and expect everyone to beable to read that image. That's
(30:25):
not how it works. There arecertain things you have to do.
So, so I, you know, I don't knowhow to solve that problem, to be
honest. Like, I think regulationis one of them. So everyone's
kind of aware. Oh, gosh, but,but once, once we pass that
hurdle. Then, then, yeah, thenthere is definitely, look at the
tool sets right, which are thetools that allow you to do it
easily and then have built infeatures, as opposed to, oh, now
(30:47):
I gotta do this extra reactivestep after I'm done.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (30:51):
Yeah. And if you could offer one piece of
advice to organizations who arestarting to evaluate their
accessibility solutions, whatwould it be?
Unknown (31:00):
be?
Eugene Woo (31:01):
So, from a doc from so typically, there are two
things you got to worry about.
One is your website, right? So,so we're, we're, you know, one
is your website, the other oneis documents. And most people
will, you know, it's theirwebsite that's a bigger concern.
And I have no kind of horse inthis, in this race. I'm not a
we're, no, we're not in that. SoI would say the first thing to
look at is they are, you know, alot of people sell what we call
(31:24):
overlays. I see it everywhere.
Those are kind of the it's afairly affordable solution. I
would not be drawn too much intothat solution, because,
typically, that's what peopleadopt, because it's such a it's
sold as a quick fix, a cheap andquick fix, I would say, like,
you have to understand this thesolution better. Well, yeah,
(31:48):
understand the requirementbetter. The overlays typically
don't solve the problem. Itpresents a solution that doesn't
solve the problem. So I guessit's not even a solution. So, so
my big one advice is that, like,you know, just be a bit very
about overlay solutions, ifthat's presented to you know,
because that's usually what'spresent to you from a website
point of view that you you know.
So, so do it the right way.
(32:11):
That's the that's that will bemy, my advice. And then for the
document point of view, don't,don't rely on remediators like,
get a tool that you know. Get atool that can you know that way
your people, whoever's creatinga content, can create them and
make them accessible from fromthe beginning.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (32:27):
Amazing.
This has been a fantastic chat.
Eugene. I really, reallyappreciate it. But before I let
you go, this is PR and latte, soI do have to ask this one
question, what is your favoritego-to caffeinated beverage?
Eugene Woo (32:41):
So I'm a pour over guy.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (32:44):
Oh!
Eugene Woo (32:44):
Yes, I yeah, I have been doing pour overs for, like,
more than a decade, and so Ilike premium coffee, and premium
coffee, I mean, I'm going goingtoo many details. So more on the
lighter roast more on thelighter, roast and pour over,
yeah, just, just, you know, pourover on a very simple filter.
(33:07):
No, nothing fancy, no, and it'sblack. Like, I don't put
anything.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (33:13):
You'd be amazed at how many guests I've
had that said black coffee istheir go to. And everyone's
like, really?
Eugene Woo (33:20):
So, yeah, yeah. I think, you know, getting a
tangent. I think a lot of peopleput stuff in their coffee
because they're drinking likecoffee that isn't good, so you
kind of have to mask it byputting sugar or milk. But if
you, if you buy good coffee, it,you know, the coffee actually
tastes really good. It's notbitter, it's not dark, it's not
(33:41):
over, it's not doesn't have thatburnt taste to it. It tastes
great.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (33:45):
So good to know. I probably have some bad
coffee because I put milk inmind. So Haha, I will up up my
game on the coffee side. Well,thank you so much Eugene for
being on the podcast. If peoplewant to contact you or follow
Venngage on social or thewebsite, where can they find
you?
Eugene Woo (34:01):
LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm active on
LinkedIn. It's, you know, Eugenewoo at Venngage. And, you know,
check us out on Venngage. It'sspelled with a, you know, it's
spelled with two, ns, V, N, N,like, like, a Venn diagram, G,
A, g.com, and on social media.
We're on YouTube. We're onInstagram, at Venngage, that's
that's where you should followus.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (34:23):
Amazing.
And we'll make sure to have allthose links in the description
of this podcast so it's easy tofollow. Thank you so much,
Eugene for being on the podcasttoday.
Eugene Woo (34:31):
Thanks a lot. Had a good time.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (34:35):
You've been listening to the PR & Lattes
podcast. Make sure to subscribewherever you listen to podcasts
so you can get notified eachweek when a new episode drops.
You can also subscribe to ourweekly newsletter by visiting
our website, PRAndLattes.com onthe website, you'll find our
podcast episodes as well asamazing blogs with new ones
being posted every Mondaymorning. And of course, make
(34:58):
sure to follow us on social, onInstagram, at @PRAndLattes and
on LinkedIn. I've been yourhost, Matisse Hamel-Nelis, thank
you so much for listening, andwe'll see you next week with a
new latte and guest bye for now.
You.
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