May 14, 2024 • 47 mins
In this episode, Matisse chats with Sandi Gauder, a web accessibility specialist, about everything PR and communications professionals need to know about web accessibility.
About Sandi Gauder
Sandi Gauder focuses on removing barriers in the digital learning environment, starting with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and incorporating usability and humanizing learning strategies to ensure all digital environments are accessible for all students and staff. This includes education to support the accessibility and compliance of public-facing websites, internal applications, learning management systems, etc.
Sandi is a co-founder of CMS Web Solutions Inc. As a web accessibility specialist, she has been developing modern, accessible websites for over 15 years. She also coaches designers, developers, and content producers on best practices for meeting web accessibility guidelines.
Sandi is a curriculum designer and instructor for accessible web and social media content. She has led workshops on web accessibility and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) for businesses, municipalities, and web development firms. She has spoken at conferences and appeared as a web accessibility expert in webinars. Management and technical audiences welcome her clear, common-sense approach.
Connect with Sandi:
LinkedIn
CMS Web Solutions Inc.
AccessibilityConsulting.ca
Connect with PR & Lattes:
Website: PR & Lattes
Instagram: @PRAndLattes
Host: @MatisseNelis
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (00:02):
Hello and welcome to PR & Lattes, the
podcast where you can fill upyour cup on everything PR and
communications. I'm your hostMatisse Hamel-Nelis. And I am so
happy to have you join me todayfor another special episode of
the podcast in honour of GlobalAccessibility Awareness Day.
Before we get started, make sureyou subscribe to this podcast
wherever you're listening to itto get notified when a new
(00:24):
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visiting our websitePRandlattes.com. On the website,
you'll find our podcastepisodes, plus our amazing blogs
with new ones being uploadedevery Monday morning. And of
course, make sure you'refollowing us on Instagram at
@PRAndLattes and on LinkedIn PR& Lattes. On today's episode,
(00:45):
I'm chatting with webaccessibility specialist Sandi
Gauder. Sandi is a co-founder ofCMS Web Solutions, Inc. As a web
accessibility specialist, shehas been developing modern
accessible websites for over 15years. She also coaches
designers, developers andcontent producers on best
practices for meeting WebAccessibility Guidelines. She's
(01:06):
also a curriculum designer andinstructor for accessible web
and social media content. Shehas led workshops on web
accessibility and theAccessibility for Ontarians with
Disabilities Act or AODA forbusinesses, municipalities and
web development firms. I am sothrilled to be chatting with her
about all things webaccessibility today. So grab
your latte, sit back and enjoy.
(01:29):
I am so excited for today'sepisode. Sandi, who was one of
my teachers at Mohawk Collegewhen I took the Accessible Media
Production program is our guestfor today. Welcome, Sandi.
Sandi Gauder (01:39):
Thank you, Matisse. Thank you for asking me
to join you.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (01:43):
Very excited, this is going to be a
good chat and something that Ithink our listeners are
definitely eager to learn moreabout. We're going to be talking
about accessible websites,something that sometimes scares
folks when it comes toaccessibility and not really
understanding or knowing thebeginnings or where to go when
it comes to it. So I'm soexcited to have this
(02:04):
conversation with you today. Butlet's start off with the basics.
Can you tell me about your ownjourney in web development and
how you became an expert andaccessible websites?
Sandi Gauder (02:13):
The word expert just makes me cringe. So I don't
like to I don't like to callmyself an expert. I like to call
myself a specialist orprofessional because we all have
things to learn, and I stillhave so much to learn. But we've
been in the web business, myhusband and I we started a
company many moons ago. And wemoved into web development
(02:38):
probably about 15 or so yearsago. And at that time, I had no
idea what web accessibility was.
I hadn't come across it in anyany of the circles that I was
in. But we had a colleague whowas doing customer service
training for the AODA so theAccessibility for Ontarians with
Disability Act. And she said,hey, you need to know about
(03:01):
this, you need to start buildingaccessible websites. And we
said, well, of course we need tobe doing this because why
wouldn't you? And so since thattime, I have been working on
building accessible websitesstill not perfect, still make
mistakes. But it's been aprimary focus from that point.
When clients approached us, foran accessible website, we'll
(03:27):
build it. But if they have noidea what it is, we'll still
build an accessible website forthem. It's just become second
nature. It's how how we do it.
So that's how I stumbled uponit. Like so many things in this
internet world, you you don'tknow where you're headed, you
(03:47):
don't know what's out there. Andit was a natural fit for us.
Because we don't understand whyyou would want to leave, you
know, 15% of your potentialrevenue on the table because you
don't have an accessiblewebsite. It just it doesn't make
sense. As a business owner, youdon't give away cash. It's hard
enough to get the other 85% Whywould you give up that 15?
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (04:12):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And like you
said stumble upon and a lot ofcases, those who specialize in
digital accessibility, it was astumble into it. For the most
part, like I share the story formyself, or it was a tweet that I
put out for a large nonprofitusing the acronym D.Y.K. You can
(04:34):
listen to that episode anotherday. And what it reads out as by
assistive tech, and that wassort of my aha moment in terms
of if I don't know this, and Iam communicating for an
organization. What else do I notknow? And that just opened the
door for me.
Sandi Gauder (04:52):
Yeah.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (04:52):
That's how I stumbled into it. And I've
loved I loved learning andcontinuing to grow my knowledge
on it ever since. Yeah. Sospeaking of knowledge and
sharing, let's dive into thegood stuff. Could you? Could you
start by explaining what websiteaccessibility means and why it's
critical for businesses today?
You mentioned that leaving 15%of that revenue on the table.
(05:14):
But what is what is websiteaccessibility? When we say it?
What does it mean?
Sandi Gauder (05:20):
Well, I think you probably get about 57 different
answers if you asked 57different people. But for me, it
means that anybody can use awebsite, it doesn't matter if
they require assistivetechnology, like a screen
reader. Or if they can only usea keyboard because they can't
navigate with the mouse. Anybodyand everybody can engage with
(05:44):
your website, if you're ane-commerce site, anybody can put
products into your shoppingcart, check out and they don't
run into any barriers along theway. And I think that's really
what an accessible website isabout it, it removes any and all
barriers whenever possible foranybody trying to engage with
(06:08):
your site. So that's sort of thethe baseline to me, but I think
it goes a bit beyond that, inthat you can have a perfectly
accessible website as defined bythe Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines. But that doesn'tnecessarily mean that it's
(06:28):
usable, it could still take alot of effort, extra effort
because of how you've designedthe interaction. So web
accessibility at its base meansremoving the barriers. But we we
generally try to go beyond thatto make it a more...to make it
(06:50):
efficient, I guess, you know,whether it's can I use your
website efficiently andeffectively, without running
into any bumps?
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (06:57):
So in a lot of cases, when folks hear about
website accessibility, it getstied into legal requirements,
and you don't want to get sued.
So let's let's get that out inon the table right off the bat.
So what are the legalrequirements for website
accessibility is that PRprofessionals and communicators
should know?
Sandi Gauder (07:17):
Well, it depends, I guess, on your where you doing
business. So you and I are bothin the province of Ontario. So
we are bound by the Ontariolegislation, which is the AODA,
the Accessibility for Ontarianswith Disabilities Act. So that
guides organizations in thisprovince to have an accessible
(07:40):
website. Now, mind you, thatlegislation points to old
guidelines that are extremelyout of date. So complying with
that legislation really doesn'tbring you into the 21st century.
The guidelines that thatlegislation wants you to adhere
to, doesn't consider my mobilephones. I mean, it's how we live
(08:05):
with mobile phones now. So itdoesn't really talk about that
doesn't point to that it doesn'taddress people who may have a
cognitive disability. So there'sa lot of things missing with the
legislation that regulates ushere in Ontario. There is the
Accessible Canada Act that kindof bridges the whole country,
but that's more for federallyregulated organizations. So
(08:30):
think airlines, transportation,banking, that kind of thing. But
if you're a PR professionalworking in those kinds of
environments, then absolutely,you need to be paying attention
to accessibility legislation.
And those web contentaccessibility guidelines are
going to guide you from thatperspective.
(08:51):
There are other provinces thatare working on their
regulations. So it's essentiallygoing to be something that if
you do business in Canada, youneed to be aware of this stuff.
And we often say why wait untilthe legislation comes into
effect, just start doing it now.
Learn the little things that youneed to be learning. And by the
time the legislation is ineffect, you're going to be ahead
(09:12):
of the game. And it's just makessense to do that. And of course,
there's legislation around theworld if you're in the US,
people usually refer to theSection 508 for organizations
that do business with thegovernment. Europe has their
EN-301548. I was get thosenumbers all mixed up, but they
(09:36):
have their own legislation. Ifyou're in the EU, so each
country and sort of geographicarea has some sort of
legislation in place. Almost allof them come back to walk egg or
the web content accessibilityguidelines. So if if you don't
(09:58):
You have legislation whereyou're doing business now.
That's where I would start, Iwould go to the W3C.org.
website, look for the webcontent accessibility guidelines
and start getting familiar withit. Because if you're not
impacted by it now, you're goingto be impacted by it eventually.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (10:18):
That's an excellent, that's a great way of
putting it. That's that's reallya great way of putting it when
it comes to the WebAccessibility Guidelines, Web
Content AccessibilityGuidelines, or WCAG. Do you
think...you mentioned how thecurrent legislation, at least
here in Ontario is very dated interms of which version is used?
If a company or organization hasalready said, Well, we're
(10:41):
accessible to WCAG 2.0? Or 2.1?
Now we're at 2.2? Do you thinkthey should be going back and
building it out or tweakingthings to be at the 2.2 calibre?
And if they're just startingout? Do you recommend that they
go for 2.2 to more future proofthan the 2.0.
Sandi Gauder (11:04):
Yeah, always go with the most current
guidelines, because they'rethey're always evolving, always
changing. The guidelines are,they're working on the next
version, just like everything inthe internet, there's always
another version coming down theroad. But it's probably a few
years before we'll see that kindof an update, it's gonna be a
major shift in the guidelines.
But yes, if the websites, inthis day and age tend to be
(11:29):
dynamic. So content is alwayschanging, you might be putting
in new themes. To changetemplates for your website, you
might be coming up with a brandnew website. So because websites
are always evolving, andparticularly the content that is
in those websites is alwaysevolving, you might as well be
(11:50):
making your website adhere tothe most current guidelines that
you possibly can. And that cutin the other thing about that,
that people, people often thinkthat it's it's the web
developers that are entirelyresponsible for making sure that
a website is accessible. Andyes, we web developers play a
(12:12):
big part, we make sure that theinfrastructure is accessible.
But there's designers who aremaking the site look pretty, and
organizing it. They'reresponsible, and anybody who
touches content that goes inwebsite is just as responsible.
When you think about videos thatget posted to a website, do they
(12:33):
have captions?
Are they using integrateddescribed video? If you're
posting podcasts on yourwebsite, do you have a
transcript for that podcast, ifyou're posting images, have you
written alternative text, sothat people who can't see the
picture, know what that pictureis all about? So content
producers, in my mind play amuch bigger role, because they
(12:57):
tend to be the people that arekeeping the site alive by
producing new content all thetime. So it's those. And I would
imagine that PR professionalsplay a big part in that driving
the content that goes on websiteand on social media platforms.
So PR professionals inparticular need to pay attention
(13:20):
to the content they produce, andmaking sure that that content is
accessible for everybody.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (13:26):
Yeah, that's so true. And I think what
sometimes gets people stuck intheir thinking is that once
we've made our website, let'ssay they start fresh, or they've
just done a whole new refresh ofthe website, it's accessible
from here on out. But it's notit because it's a it's
essentially a living, breathingthing. At that point, it's
(13:46):
always evolving, you're alwaysadding new content. As soon as
you forget alternative text toan image or you upload a video
without captions, as youmentioned, then you have now
made the website inaccessible.
In apart, there's anaccessibility. So it's being on
top, keeping it always top ofmind versus saying, well, that's
somebody else's job to check it.
(14:07):
And from the PR perspective,like you mentioned, we're the
ones who are creating thecontent, or the ones who are
dictating what that contentneeds to be. So we need to be
sort of the leaders in that insaying that it needs to be
accessible. And this is how todo that we need to understand
the guidelines that are put outby the W3C. So I love that you
brought that up.
Sandi Gauder (14:27):
Exactly. We often get asked by clients to give
them a checkmark or a rubberstamp to say my site's
accessible when we say well, atthis second in time, it is but
the minute you make a change, itmight be broken again. So there
is no such thing as a stamp ifyou want to make sure that...I
(14:49):
guess if you want to announce tothe world that your site is
accessible on nobody, mostpeople don't do that. But if you
want the world to know that youcare about accessibility then
you need to be monitoring it.
And you need to be checking, youknow, having a plan to say,
"Okay, we post content every dayof the week. So we should be
checking at least once a monthto make sure that what we're
(15:11):
posting is still accessible. Anddo we need to fix it, then,
okay, let's go back and fix it.
Do we need to train people onour team, maybe you bring a new
hire on, and they've never heardabout accessibility." So you
have to teach those people whatthis is all about. They may be,
they may buy into the idea, butthey still need to know how to
(15:32):
do it. So they're, it's anongoing, constant training,
constant checking, constantfixing, because none of us are
perfect, we all make mistakes,and we have to fix what we put
out there. But I think it allstarts with just actually caring
and wanting to do it. Andsometimes that's the biggest
(15:54):
piece that's missing is peoplejust don't care. And they say,
Okay, we're done. We don't needto worry about it anymore.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (16:01):
So that's definitely one of the pitfalls I
find, at least in talking withorganizations and companies
where I like to say they, theyjust aren't aware, I tried to
think positively about it, thatmaybe they're just not aware, or
they're afraid to ask, but it'sa big pitfall when it comes to
accessibility. Right? And sowhat are other common
(16:23):
accessibility pitfalls that youtend to see in business
websites, when you're workingwith clients or just in general?
Sandi Gauder (16:30):
Well, certainly the fact that they, they have no
idea. They just don't know theimpact that they're making. We
often do these. It's not a webaudit, but it's a live review
of, of a client's website. Sowe'll get on a Zoom call, or
whatever platform you want touse. And we'll say, okay, so
(16:50):
what do your visitors typicallydo on your site? Are they
looking for information? Arethey trying to buy something? So
let's go through that process,as if we were a person with a
disability. So we don't try tobe a person with a I'm not a
person with a disability. But Iwill show them what it's like to
try to navigate their site justusing a keyboard. Can I see
(17:12):
where I am? Can I figure it out?
Can I put something into theshopping cart and checkout just
using a keyboard...or...And it'samazing to me the reaction,
people, the reactions we getfrom people when they go, Oh, I
had no idea. And as soon as theysee it in action, and they see
(17:32):
the roadblocks that they'vecreated with their website,
they're generally ready to say,Okay, we need to fix this, this
is not good. This is not how wewant our organization
represented to the world. Wedon't want to lose potential
business, because we're puttingup these barriers. So I think
that the pitfalls are, as yousaid, it's awareness, people
(17:55):
just have no idea. They don'tunderstand the different ways
that people try to engage with awebsite. Most people immediately
think screen reader user, sosomebody who's blind can't see
the screen, and uses assistivetechnology to have a website
read to them. That's usuallywhat people think about when
they think about webaccessibility. But as you and I
(18:17):
both know, there are so manyother facets to it, it's people
who can see the screen, butcan't use a mouse.
becomes it's all thesefrustrations that get put up for
people because somebody justdoesn't know that. That's
(18:43):
something they need to be awareabout. And so I think awareness
is certainly the first part. Theother is just the genuine
commitment from an organization.
You can say, oh, yeah, we wantour website to be accessible,
it's a good thing to do. Butnext week, they've moved on to
something else, they'vecompletely forgotten about it.
And there's no whatever momentumwas there gets lost. So I think
(19:07):
without a champion, and notreally a fan of that word, but
somebody who's willing to carrythe torch and say, Yes, we need
to do this. Generally, you wantit coming from the top, because
it's it's a cultural thing. Butyou need somebody who's going to
take the responsibility formaking sure that everybody on
(19:28):
the team is producing accessiblecontent and building an
accessible website experiencefor users.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (19:36):
Yeah, that's very true. And one thing
one thing that comes to mind forme is when you said you know,
it's sort of the they look at itas this is this week's project
then next week, they forgetabout it. I always relate it
back to a lot of companies andorganizations nowadays have
their inclusion, diversity andequity statements or their DEI
(19:56):
statements, where accessibilityisn't really thought of. So if
they're saying and proclaimingthat we are inclusive, and we
are diverse and we areequitable, but their website is
inaccessible to me that comesacross as performative. Right?
Because you're not really beingholistic about what the E and I
really stand for. Because you'renot thinking about the
(20:19):
accessibility component inthere. Yeah, so I like that you
call that out for sure. Whatabout documents on a website? Do
they need to be accessible?
Sandi Gauder (20:30):
Well, yes, they do Matisse. That wasn't a leading
question. Like I said, before,any content that resides on your
website needs to be accessible.
If you're posting PDFs, thenthat PDF better be accessible.
So you're using colours thatprovide good contrast. So people
can differentiate text frombackground, you're using a font
(20:54):
size that no people can actuallyread, you're not using a teeny
tiny font that, you know, veryfew people can read, you're
using and you've tagged itappropriately so that it is
accessible for somebody who usesassistive technology. So yes, if
you can't post an accessible PDFto your website, then don't post
(21:15):
the PDF. If you can't post avideo with transfer with
captions, and don't post thevideo to your website, you're
better in my mind not to postthe content, if it's not
accessible than posts posted,and open yourself up to some
grief. Because people aresaying, Why are you doing this?
(21:35):
I can't do it. I can't do it. Ican't do it. So just just be
proactive about it.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (21:42):
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I'm a PR
professional, I want to starttaking the basic steps to figure
out where I stayed in my digitalcontent for my organization.
What are the basic steps that wecan start to take to evaluate
the accessibility of our currentdigital presence? What would you
recommend?
Sandi Gauder (22:02):
Well, first, I would suggest that you go to the
W3C.org site and look at it readabout accessibility. There, the
the walk egg, the guidelinesare, you know, they're pretty
tough to read, they're prettydense. But the website does have
overviews summaries, there'ssome really excellent videos
(22:25):
that demonstrate what it's liketo interact with a website with
different kinds of disabilities.
So just get a generalunderstanding of the kinds of
disabilities or how peopleinteract with websites just so
you can put things into contextwhen you're trying to make a
site accessible, or the contenton the site accessible. There's
lots of great tools out there.
(22:47):
Once you've got that sort ofunderstanding. In your toolkit,
there's lots of great tools outthere that are free. My
favourite tool is your keyboardand putting your mouse aside
burying it somewhere in a box, Idon't care what to do with it.
But just use your keyboard totry and navigate your site,
navigate your competition sitenavigate amazon.ca, it doesn't
(23:09):
matter to me. But just to get anunderstanding of what it's like
to try to navigate a websitewith a keyboard. It's free, it's
easy. It's available to you allthe time. And it a site that
works with a keyboard is usuallygoing to work for somebody who
uses assistive technology like ascreen reader. So if you can
(23:32):
navigate know where you are,interact with things using your
keyboard, then you're probablyin good shape for screen reader
user, not maybe not perfect, butyou're in a good place. There's
lots of tools that let you checka website to see what it's like,
from a code standpoint, likedoes the code make sense. And
(23:55):
there's things like WAVE fromWebAIM. So wave.webaim.org has a
great free tool, you drop in awebsite address, and it will
scan it and say yes, it's goodon these counts, but maybe not
so good here. And there's acolour contrast tool built into
that WAVE. So that's a greatplace to start. It helps you
(24:19):
identify where some of theissues are on your site, talk to
your web developer to fix someof them. Some of them could be
you know, up to you to fixalternative text. So those are
some pretty good tools. Thereare so many resources out there.
It's just a matter of searching.
Really. I always go back toWebAIM because I think they are
(24:40):
probably to my in my mind a goldstandard and their information
is easy to digest. They're auniversity in Utah. They've been
in the web accessibilitybusiness for I don't know how
many years probably from the getgo. And you have all sorts of
great resources, and theyexplain what a web accessibility
(25:04):
is in pretty basic terms. So ifyou're new to it, that's a great
place to start.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (25:12):
I would agree with that. Now, in a lot
of cases, there is this when itcomes to websites, people, we
we've mentioned this already,people don't know what they
don't know. Right. And so whenthey're when a company or
organization is starting to do asearch for a web developer or
vendor, to enhance their webaccessibility, what are those
(25:34):
essential questions, they shouldbe asking of the vendor to make
sure that they actually know howto make your website accessible?
Sandi Gauder (25:41):
Yes. First thing I would, the first leg is if
somebody says we'll fix it withan overlay. Run as fast as you
can. So an overlay is is like awidget or a plugin that you
would add to a website. It'ssome script, and it provides all
(26:02):
of these magical tools thatapparently will make your
inaccessible site accessible.
And they actually cause moreproblems than they solve. They
interfere with assistivetechnology. And there's a whole
bunch of other issues with it.
So if that's their answer,that's then run as fast as you
can away from them. Ask themabout WCAG, you know the
(26:24):
guidelines. Ask them what theyknow about, ask them about
legislation, ask them whatlegislation your organization
needs to commit to, if theydon't know the legislation in
your particular jurisdiction,then they're probably not going
to know about web accessibility.
Ask them what other clientsthey've done websites for or
(26:45):
remediation for. And ask if youcan talk to those clients and
your testimonials and referencesare probably the most probably
one of the most valuable thingsyou can get from any vendor
saying that they can do businessfor you whether you're looking
for web accessibility or not, totalk to previous clients talk
(27:07):
about the experience, talk aboutany bumps that you hit with
respect to accessibility, howdid that vendor handle those
things? And if you're talking toa vendor that is providing some
sort of software, they're notnecessarily building a website
for you, but they're providingsoftware they might you might
use for your website or inconjunction with it. Do they
(27:31):
have a VPAT? So voluntary? No, Inever get the VPAT. But it's
it's letters. I hate acronyms.
So it's it's a voluntarydocument where they say we've
we've run through our software.
This is what where we stand froman accessibility standpoint,
these are the things that we'reworking on. Do they have an
(27:52):
accessibility statement on theirown website? Do they say that
our website is accessible?
Except for these sorts ofthings? Do they have an
accessibility strategy? Youknow, the more questions you ask
about where they are, forthemselves around accessibility,
the better sense you'll getabout what they can do for you,
(28:14):
when it comes to accessibility.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (28:16):
I love those questions and what you've
proposed there. I think, like Isaid, we don't know what we
don't know. And knowing sort ofthe starting questions is always
a great start. For proceedingwhen you're working with a
vendor, but also having thateducation yourself, right. So
like you said, researching andgoing on to the W3C.org website
(28:39):
and reading about WCAG, and youdon't have to be an expert in
it, but just sort of getting anunderstanding of what it is that
you'd be looking for. So whenyou ask the question, you sort
of know what the answer shouldbe. And that sort of thing is so
important as well.
Sandi Gauder (28:53):
Yes.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (28:54):
So shifting things a little bit we only hear
about AI lately is what it feelslike. That's the buzzword.
That's the trend that iseverything. How is AI being used
to improve or maybe not improvewebsite accessibility? And what
should we be cautious about whenusing it? For our own websites?
Sandi Gauder (29:17):
So I'm not the AI guru in this organization. My
partner is he's just he's soabsorbed in it. But...so I
learned by osmosis, mostly. SoAI I think if you think about AI
has been around for a long timein the world of accessibility,
all these automated testingtools in a way you could say,
(29:38):
are using artificialintelligence. There are
different with AI, anybody thatis in the digital world is
trying to find ways to use it tomake things better, make work
easier, all that kind of stuff.
And even around webaccessibility that is happening.
I think the best biggestcaution, though, is it's like
(30:00):
anything to do with artificialintelligence, it's garbage in,
garbage out. So if..if we'rerelying on artificial
intelligence to crawl the web,and come back with answers
around accessibility, that mayor may not be correct, they may
or may not be good solutions. Soit's like anything, if you don't
(30:24):
understand the context of whatyou're asking AI about, you'll
accept whatever answer givesyou. So you still have to have
that baseline understanding of,of websites and web
accessibility to say, okay, yes,that tool that AI gizmo is
giving me valid information. AndI can trust it. If you don't
(30:48):
know anything about it, thenyou'll take whatever comes
along. So it's, you still needto have that basic
understanding. I see AI andaccessibility working as ways to
monitor a site that is alreadyaccessible, help developers who
already know accessibilitysolve, you know, a specific
(31:13):
problem, or an interaction,building an accessible website.
That's pretty what like acontent driven website is
usually not too complex. And ifyou use semantic, HTML, you can
generally build a site. Well,it's when you get into fancy
interactions, complexinteractions, that you have to
(31:36):
get a bit more creative andspend more time developing
solutions that are accessible.
And I think that AI might beable to support that. Because
you if you're already at thatlevel of building something
that's accessible, but don'tknow how to solve this
particular interaction, you'regoing to recognize the pitfalls
(31:58):
that that come back to you withan answer from AI.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (32:01):
Yeah.
Sandi Gauder (32:02):
And we need more accessible websites out there so
that AI can scour accessiblewebsites and build a better
dictionary of what an accessiblewebsite actually looks like, and
how it's built.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (32:15):
Again, like you said, garbage in, garbage
out. But if we can give it gold,there'll be gold in gold out.
And then that will be beneficialfor everybody, when they're
trying to build their websitesand other accessibility
components. How can PRprofessionals with their teams
ensure that inclusivity andaccessibility are integrated
into the web design process fromthe start versus, versus usually
(32:36):
what I like to say is that youcan't necessarily fix you can't
necessarily take the eggs out ofa baked cake, right already
baked cake. So how can theyreally think about accessibility
from the beginning of theprocess versus as an
afterthought when they'realready halfway through the
project?
Sandi Gauder (32:51):
So PR professionals need to make sure
that everybody else that they'reworking with within the
organization or the externalagent agencies that might be
supporting them everybody's onthe same page, everybody has an
understanding of accessibility,and they're all committed to
(33:11):
creating an accessible productor project at the end of the
day, at the end of the day. Soyou have to start with that, I
think, define defining, butidentifying the roles that
everyone's going to play in aproject. So who's responsible
for the content? Who'sresponsible for design? Who's
responsible for any of thetechnical stuff? Who's
(33:32):
responsible for checking thework? Do you have a QA team or
somebody on the team have to beresponsible for it? Where
everybody on the team has a roleto play in building something
that's accessible. But there'seach role has its has a
predominant part to play. Sounderstanding who's doing what
(33:53):
is essential, and making surethat you're talking about
accessibility right, from thevery beginning at every stage,
reviewing where you're at, is itaccessible? Have we thought
about this? Have we thoughtabout that? Can we fix this? Can
we fix that? What do we need toavoid? Who needs to do what it's
just making? Sure that's part ofthe conversation all the way
(34:13):
along? I think when you're doinga project where you're always
worried about colours, so are weusing our brand colours properly
here? You know, those kinds ofconversations happen all the way
along, but you also have to makeaccessibility that's at that
same level, same part of theconversation. And if you're
doing that, then you're the oddsthat you're going to produce
(34:36):
something that's successfulskyrocket. I mean, you're have
much better odds of creating anaccessible product, you're
talking about it, you have totalk about it. You can't wait to
the end. Because if you wait tothe end, sometimes you're just
throwing the whole thing out andstarting from scratch and nobody
wants to do that. You it's awaste of time and resources.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (34:55):
Yeah.
Sandi Gauder (34:56):
So the earlier you talk about it, the less
expensive it becomes and theeasier it is to do.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (35:01):
So let's say we we've done all these
steps, we have an accessiblewebsite, we've done it, we've
talked about it, we've workedthrough throughout the entire
process, what strategy should weimplement to ensure that it's
continually compliant? Versuswe've dropped the ball?
Sandi Gauder (35:18):
Yeah, well, it's, like I said earlier, you need to
create some sort of a process tofor ongoing monitoring. If
you're, you have to create the,by the time you've got this
website, and brand new websiteor new project that is
accessible, you've probablylearned some tips along the way,
(35:39):
you've probably created newhabits. So your the odds that
you're going to create PDFs thatare accessible have gone up, the
odds that you're going to post avideo with captions have gone
up, but we all slip up. Sohaving a plan in place to say
we're going to monitor thingsonce a month, once a quarter,
whatever it's suitable for, forhow dynamic the content is on
(35:59):
your website, then that's whatyou do. You may assign somebody
on your team to do that, you mayhire an outside service to
monitor and support you, reallydepends on the size of your
organization, how much how muchmoney you have to dedicate to
it, what kind of resources youhave. But the only way that
you're going to make sure thatyou're continually compliant is
(36:22):
to check every once in a while,you don't have to check every
single day of the week, orevery, every time you you change
a word on a website, but you doneed to have some sort of plan
to monitor to make sure thatyou're you're doing what you
said you were going to do.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (36:36):
And how does training come into play to
ensure that people know whatthey're doing? Where can they go
for training, if they would liketraining? Or, you know, what are
the basics in training, asidefrom just looking at the the W3C
website to ensure that differentmembers of the team know what
they can do to be accessible?
Sandi Gauder (36:55):
Now, there's all sorts of intro courses online,
EdX, those kinds of things willoffer introductory courses,
depending on what you're lookingfor. I guess it all depends on
your team, how many people onyour team? What kind of work
they're doing? Is it one personthat's responsible for
(37:18):
everything? Or do you actuallyhave a team of like 10 people
that that work on this stuff? Soit could be ongoing coaching,
mentoring, you know, maybesomebody's working on a project,
and they just need to touch basewith somebody who's an
accessibility specialist to say,Hey, am I on the right track?
Are we doing things right? Orworking without sort of side
(37:38):
organizations to do themonitoring of your web
compliance? And then when theycome back to you with a report,
they help you understand what,where you went wrong. So there
are different ways depending? Italways depends on time and
money, right? It's like, howmuch do you have to spend on it?
(38:01):
The web is always free, you haveto be careful what you get from
the web. But there are lots ofconsultants out there that are
able to provide that kind ofcoaching and mentoring and
training, you know. Maybe yourteam, maybe you are starting on
a new project, and nobodyunderstands accessibility, or
(38:21):
maybe one or two people on theteam do, but they're not really
sure. You do a workshop andaccessibility workshop right at
the beginning to say, hey, whatdo we need to know? What do we
need to be thinking about? Andmaking sure everybody's got that
same baseline understanding ofwhat this whole web
accessibility things all about.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (38:39):
So we've talked about the pitfalls. We've
talked about the legislation,we've talked about how you can
incorporate accessibilitythrough every step of the way.
Let's talk about the thing thattends to get folks the most
interested, if you will, inaccessibility on their website,
the potential for reputationaland financial impact.
Sandi Gauder (39:02):
Oh, yeah.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (39:05):
What does that look like if you're
inaccessible? What does thatmean? What does that look like
for them?
Sandi Gauder (39:09):
Well, it depends on where you are, where you're
doing business in the provinceof Ontario, the EO da
legislation has a series offines that you know, the the
board, the directors could getfined a tremendous amount of
money every day until we getthings fixed. But we haven't
really seen those fines beinghanded down to any organizations
(39:31):
in this province. The usuallythe the fines, knowing the
fines, but the money comes inthe States. It's a very
litigious society. So there arelawsuits happening all the time,
around inaccessible websites.
And we're also starting to seethe agencies that build those
(39:53):
websites getting sued. So it'snot just the site owner, but the
people that help build thewebsite that are getting sued.
And that can be very, veryexpensive, it's just going
through the legal process itselfis expensive. And then if you're
on the losing side, then there'sa lot of money to be, it's gonna
cost you right to fix it orpossibly in in fines as well. So
(40:15):
there's that whole government,legal side of things that cost.
But there's the whole, thereputational side, to me is
probably the bigger side.
You...I don't think I've met acompany that doesn't want the
world to see them in a goodlight. So it's when you put up
(40:40):
roadblocks for people to useyour site and you, you annoy
somebody who might be vocal, orhave a good following on social
media, your reputation could bedamaged overnight, because you,
you didn't do the right thing.
And again, as a PR expert, I'msure you know, this all depends
(41:03):
on how you respond to that. Ifyou respond quickly, and you do
it properly, and say, "Oh, wescrewed up, we had no idea,
thank you for bringing it to ourattention for on it," and you
actually are on it, and you fixit, then your reputation is
potentially going to be savedand might get better. But
there's so many peopleorganizations that just ignore
(41:24):
it. So I guess from areputational side, if someone
brings something to yourattention about your site that
is inaccessible, pay attentionto it. Thank them for the
feedback, figure out what youneed to do to fix it and make
sure you do it don't just likeleave it lingering, don't look
for ways to avoid it. Don't usean overlay to solve the problem.
(41:47):
So yeah, it's it's just it'slike any other PR crisis, it's
you deal with it and deal withit properly, and effectively in
a timely fashion.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (42:01):
Exactly.
What comes to mind thinkingabout the reputational damage a
few years back with Domino's,with their inaccessible website,
and it was for them would havebeen a nominal fee to get their
website, remediated and madeaccessible. And they decided to
say no, no, we're gonna fightthis, we're gonna keep fighting,
and they kept losing. And allthe money that went into that,
(42:23):
versus using a fraction of themoney that went into the legal
fees to just make it accessibleand make it a like a learning
story, if you will, an evolvedstory where we had a mistake, we
fixed it. Here's what we did.
Here's so everyone can betterthemselves versus Nope. We don't
see a point. This is not quiteright.
Sandi Gauder (42:46):
X and Twitter, Twitter, formally X formerly
Twitter. Yeah, you know, theyhad an accessibility team until
the current owner took over andgot rid of the accessibility
team. And a number of people inthe accessibility community.
Were quite active on on Twitterwhen that that accessibility
team was around. But the minutethe team left, or was asked to
(43:09):
leave, hold, a lot of peopleleft that platform specifically
because of that, because it saidit spoke about the reputation
and the view of accessibility ofthat particular platform. And so
they lost a lot of peoplebecause of that. So yeah, people
pay attention to this stuff,especially people who live in
(43:29):
this accessibility field. Wedon't like seeing people ignored
like that, or treated like that.
And and we'll walk we'll leaveif we have to.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (43:41):
That's very, very true. So this has
been a phenomenal conversation.
Sandy, like I said, I could talkto you for hours about this. But
to wrap things up here.
Sandi Gauder (43:52):
Yeah.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (43:52):
for PR professionals who are just
starting in understanding webaccessibility, what is that one
piece of advice you would givethem to get them going in the
right direction?
Sandi Gauder (44:02):
One piece of advice. Just start learning.
Just start reading. Learn abouthow people with disabilities
interact with the web. I thinkthat's that's probably the best
place to start. Because once youknow how all our users interact,
(44:26):
then you know what to payattention to. Don't read the
guidelines. I wouldn't wish thaton anybody who doesn't need to
read them. But definitely go tothe W3C and look at those videos
because they are probably thebest way to get an understanding
of what accessibility is aboutand why we do what we do. And to
(44:46):
remember that we are allcurrently able bodied. Not all
but some of us we may be ablebodied now. We're all going to
get old. We're going art we'regoing to get arthritis or
hearings going to go or sitesgoing to go, we might end up
with tremors in our hands. Sowe're all going to be impacted
as we age. And so just remember,if you're if you're 25 Now, and
(45:10):
perfectly healthy and can run amarathon, you may not be doing
that for the rest of your life.
So what you're doing in thefield of accessibility, you're
doing it for your future self.
So it's not just about everybodyelse. It's also, you know,
you're doing it for yourselftoo, because you're going to be
that someday, I break the news,we all get old and something
(45:32):
goes wrong.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (45:34):
I love that we're future proofing. That's
what we're doing suitability tofuture proven. Exactly. Amazing.
Well, Sandy, thank you so muchfor being on today's episode.
Before I let you go. I have onefinal question. This is PR &
Lattes. So I have to ask, whatis your favorite go to
caffeinated beverage that getsyou through the day?
Sandi Gauder (45:52):
I am a simple girl. I like my coffee and I
like it black.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (45:55):
Love it.
Love it. We've had so manyguests that will say that and
then they're like, Is that weirdthat I like black coffee? I'm
like, No. Easy, it's great. Justpour the cup and you're good to
go.
Sandi Gauder (46:05):
Exactly.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (46:06):
Amazing.
Thank you so much, Sandi, againfor being on today's episode. If
people want to contact you orfollow you on social media,
where can they find you? Well,they can find me on LinkedIn,
Sandi Gauder, S-a-n-d-iG-a-u-d-e-r. That's the only
platform I live on. My companyis CMS Web Solutions. And I'm
also a member ofAccessibilityConsulting.ca,
(46:27):
we're a collective ofaccessibility educators.
Unknown (46:32):
Perfect and we'll make sure to have all those links in
the description of the podcastas well. Thank you again, you
have been fantastic. Thank youMatisse. It was it was
wonderful. You've been listeningto a special episode of the PR
and lattes podcast. Make sureyou stay up to date on all
things are happening with PR &Lattes by visiting our website
prandlattes.com. You can alsofollow us on social media
(46:55):
@PRAndLattes on Instagram and PR& Lattes on LinkedIn. Thank you
so much for listening to thisspecial series in honour of
Global Accessibility AwarenessDay. We'll have a new episode
for you each day this weekfocused on a different aspect
around digital accessibility andcommunications. So, make sure
you're following PR & Lattes,wherever you listen to your
podcasts. I've been your hostMatisse Hamel-Nelis. And I can't
(47:17):
wait to share our next episodewith you with a brand new latte.
Until then, bye for now.
Hello and welcome to PR & Lattes, the
podcast where you can fill upyour cup on everything PR and
communications. I'm your hostMatisse Hamel-Nelis. And I am so
happy to have you join me todayfor another special episode of
the podcast in honour of GlobalAccessibility Awareness Day.
Before we get started, make sureyou subscribe to this podcast
wherever you're listening to itto get notified when a new
(00:24):
episode drops. You can alsosubscribe to our newsletter by
visiting our websitePRandlattes.com. On the website,
you'll find our podcastepisodes, plus our amazing blogs
with new ones being uploadedevery Monday morning. And of
course, make sure you'refollowing us on Instagram at
@PRAndLattes and on LinkedIn PR& Lattes. On today's episode,
(00:45):
I'm chatting with webaccessibility specialist Sandi
Gauder. Sandi is a co-founder ofCMS Web Solutions, Inc. As a web
accessibility specialist, shehas been developing modern
accessible websites for over 15years. She also coaches
designers, developers andcontent producers on best
practices for meeting WebAccessibility Guidelines. She's
(01:06):
also a curriculum designer andinstructor for accessible web
and social media content. Shehas led workshops on web
accessibility and theAccessibility for Ontarians with
Disabilities Act or AODA forbusinesses, municipalities and
web development firms. I am sothrilled to be chatting with her
about all things webaccessibility today. So grab
your latte, sit back and enjoy.
(01:29):
I am so excited for today'sepisode. Sandi, who was one of
my teachers at Mohawk Collegewhen I took the Accessible Media
Production program is our guestfor today. Welcome, Sandi.
Sandi Gauder (01:39):
Thank you, Matisse. Thank you for asking me
to join you.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (01:43):
Very excited, this is going to be a
good chat and something that Ithink our listeners are
definitely eager to learn moreabout. We're going to be talking
about accessible websites,something that sometimes scares
folks when it comes toaccessibility and not really
understanding or knowing thebeginnings or where to go when
it comes to it. So I'm soexcited to have this
(02:04):
conversation with you today. Butlet's start off with the basics.
Can you tell me about your ownjourney in web development and
how you became an expert andaccessible websites?
Sandi Gauder (02:13):
The word expert just makes me cringe. So I don't
like to I don't like to callmyself an expert. I like to call
myself a specialist orprofessional because we all have
things to learn, and I stillhave so much to learn. But we've
been in the web business, myhusband and I we started a
company many moons ago. And wemoved into web development
(02:38):
probably about 15 or so yearsago. And at that time, I had no
idea what web accessibility was.
I hadn't come across it in anyany of the circles that I was
in. But we had a colleague whowas doing customer service
training for the AODA so theAccessibility for Ontarians with
Disability Act. And she said,hey, you need to know about
(03:01):
this, you need to start buildingaccessible websites. And we
said, well, of course we need tobe doing this because why
wouldn't you? And so since thattime, I have been working on
building accessible websitesstill not perfect, still make
mistakes. But it's been aprimary focus from that point.
When clients approached us, foran accessible website, we'll
(03:27):
build it. But if they have noidea what it is, we'll still
build an accessible website forthem. It's just become second
nature. It's how how we do it.
So that's how I stumbled uponit. Like so many things in this
internet world, you you don'tknow where you're headed, you
(03:47):
don't know what's out there. Andit was a natural fit for us.
Because we don't understand whyyou would want to leave, you
know, 15% of your potentialrevenue on the table because you
don't have an accessiblewebsite. It just it doesn't make
sense. As a business owner, youdon't give away cash. It's hard
enough to get the other 85% Whywould you give up that 15?
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (04:12):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And like you
said stumble upon and a lot ofcases, those who specialize in
digital accessibility, it was astumble into it. For the most
part, like I share the story formyself, or it was a tweet that I
put out for a large nonprofitusing the acronym D.Y.K. You can
(04:34):
listen to that episode anotherday. And what it reads out as by
assistive tech, and that wassort of my aha moment in terms
of if I don't know this, and Iam communicating for an
organization. What else do I notknow? And that just opened the
door for me.
Sandi Gauder (04:52):
Yeah.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (04:52):
That's how I stumbled into it. And I've
loved I loved learning andcontinuing to grow my knowledge
on it ever since. Yeah. Sospeaking of knowledge and
sharing, let's dive into thegood stuff. Could you? Could you
start by explaining what websiteaccessibility means and why it's
critical for businesses today?
You mentioned that leaving 15%of that revenue on the table.
(05:14):
But what is what is websiteaccessibility? When we say it?
What does it mean?
Sandi Gauder (05:20):
Well, I think you probably get about 57 different
answers if you asked 57different people. But for me, it
means that anybody can use awebsite, it doesn't matter if
they require assistivetechnology, like a screen
reader. Or if they can only usea keyboard because they can't
navigate with the mouse. Anybodyand everybody can engage with
(05:44):
your website, if you're ane-commerce site, anybody can put
products into your shoppingcart, check out and they don't
run into any barriers along theway. And I think that's really
what an accessible website isabout it, it removes any and all
barriers whenever possible foranybody trying to engage with
(06:08):
your site. So that's sort of thethe baseline to me, but I think
it goes a bit beyond that, inthat you can have a perfectly
accessible website as defined bythe Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines. But that doesn'tnecessarily mean that it's
(06:28):
usable, it could still take alot of effort, extra effort
because of how you've designedthe interaction. So web
accessibility at its base meansremoving the barriers. But we we
generally try to go beyond thatto make it a more...to make it
(06:50):
efficient, I guess, you know,whether it's can I use your
website efficiently andeffectively, without running
into any bumps?
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (06:57):
So in a lot of cases, when folks hear about
website accessibility, it getstied into legal requirements,
and you don't want to get sued.
So let's let's get that out inon the table right off the bat.
So what are the legalrequirements for website
accessibility is that PRprofessionals and communicators
should know?
Sandi Gauder (07:17):
Well, it depends, I guess, on your where you doing
business. So you and I are bothin the province of Ontario. So
we are bound by the Ontariolegislation, which is the AODA,
the Accessibility for Ontarianswith Disabilities Act. So that
guides organizations in thisprovince to have an accessible
(07:40):
website. Now, mind you, thatlegislation points to old
guidelines that are extremelyout of date. So complying with
that legislation really doesn'tbring you into the 21st century.
The guidelines that thatlegislation wants you to adhere
to, doesn't consider my mobilephones. I mean, it's how we live
(08:05):
with mobile phones now. So itdoesn't really talk about that
doesn't point to that it doesn'taddress people who may have a
cognitive disability. So there'sa lot of things missing with the
legislation that regulates ushere in Ontario. There is the
Accessible Canada Act that kindof bridges the whole country,
but that's more for federallyregulated organizations. So
(08:30):
think airlines, transportation,banking, that kind of thing. But
if you're a PR professionalworking in those kinds of
environments, then absolutely,you need to be paying attention
to accessibility legislation.
And those web contentaccessibility guidelines are
going to guide you from thatperspective.
(08:51):
There are other provinces thatare working on their
regulations. So it's essentiallygoing to be something that if
you do business in Canada, youneed to be aware of this stuff.
And we often say why wait untilthe legislation comes into
effect, just start doing it now.
Learn the little things that youneed to be learning. And by the
time the legislation is ineffect, you're going to be ahead
(09:12):
of the game. And it's just makessense to do that. And of course,
there's legislation around theworld if you're in the US,
people usually refer to theSection 508 for organizations
that do business with thegovernment. Europe has their
EN-301548. I was get thosenumbers all mixed up, but they
(09:36):
have their own legislation. Ifyou're in the EU, so each
country and sort of geographicarea has some sort of
legislation in place. Almost allof them come back to walk egg or
the web content accessibilityguidelines. So if if you don't
(09:58):
You have legislation whereyou're doing business now.
That's where I would start, Iwould go to the W3C.org.
website, look for the webcontent accessibility guidelines
and start getting familiar withit. Because if you're not
impacted by it now, you're goingto be impacted by it eventually.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (10:18):
That's an excellent, that's a great way of
putting it. That's that's reallya great way of putting it when
it comes to the WebAccessibility Guidelines, Web
Content AccessibilityGuidelines, or WCAG. Do you
think...you mentioned how thecurrent legislation, at least
here in Ontario is very dated interms of which version is used?
If a company or organization hasalready said, Well, we're
(10:41):
accessible to WCAG 2.0? Or 2.1?
Now we're at 2.2? Do you thinkthey should be going back and
building it out or tweakingthings to be at the 2.2 calibre?
And if they're just startingout? Do you recommend that they
go for 2.2 to more future proofthan the 2.0.
Sandi Gauder (11:04):
Yeah, always go with the most current
guidelines, because they'rethey're always evolving, always
changing. The guidelines are,they're working on the next
version, just like everything inthe internet, there's always
another version coming down theroad. But it's probably a few
years before we'll see that kindof an update, it's gonna be a
major shift in the guidelines.
But yes, if the websites, inthis day and age tend to be
(11:29):
dynamic. So content is alwayschanging, you might be putting
in new themes. To changetemplates for your website, you
might be coming up with a brandnew website. So because websites
are always evolving, andparticularly the content that is
in those websites is alwaysevolving, you might as well be
(11:50):
making your website adhere tothe most current guidelines that
you possibly can. And that cutin the other thing about that,
that people, people often thinkthat it's it's the web
developers that are entirelyresponsible for making sure that
a website is accessible. Andyes, we web developers play a
(12:12):
big part, we make sure that theinfrastructure is accessible.
But there's designers who aremaking the site look pretty, and
organizing it. They'reresponsible, and anybody who
touches content that goes inwebsite is just as responsible.
When you think about videos thatget posted to a website, do they
(12:33):
have captions?
Are they using integrateddescribed video? If you're
posting podcasts on yourwebsite, do you have a
transcript for that podcast, ifyou're posting images, have you
written alternative text, sothat people who can't see the
picture, know what that pictureis all about? So content
producers, in my mind play amuch bigger role, because they
(12:57):
tend to be the people that arekeeping the site alive by
producing new content all thetime. So it's those. And I would
imagine that PR professionalsplay a big part in that driving
the content that goes on websiteand on social media platforms.
So PR professionals inparticular need to pay attention
(13:20):
to the content they produce, andmaking sure that that content is
accessible for everybody.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (13:26):
Yeah, that's so true. And I think what
sometimes gets people stuck intheir thinking is that once
we've made our website, let'ssay they start fresh, or they've
just done a whole new refresh ofthe website, it's accessible
from here on out. But it's notit because it's a it's
essentially a living, breathingthing. At that point, it's
(13:46):
always evolving, you're alwaysadding new content. As soon as
you forget alternative text toan image or you upload a video
without captions, as youmentioned, then you have now
made the website inaccessible.
In apart, there's anaccessibility. So it's being on
top, keeping it always top ofmind versus saying, well, that's
somebody else's job to check it.
(14:07):
And from the PR perspective,like you mentioned, we're the
ones who are creating thecontent, or the ones who are
dictating what that contentneeds to be. So we need to be
sort of the leaders in that insaying that it needs to be
accessible. And this is how todo that we need to understand
the guidelines that are put outby the W3C. So I love that you
brought that up.
Sandi Gauder (14:27):
Exactly. We often get asked by clients to give
them a checkmark or a rubberstamp to say my site's
accessible when we say well, atthis second in time, it is but
the minute you make a change, itmight be broken again. So there
is no such thing as a stamp ifyou want to make sure that...I
(14:49):
guess if you want to announce tothe world that your site is
accessible on nobody, mostpeople don't do that. But if you
want the world to know that youcare about accessibility then
you need to be monitoring it.
And you need to be checking, youknow, having a plan to say,
"Okay, we post content every dayof the week. So we should be
checking at least once a monthto make sure that what we're
(15:11):
posting is still accessible. Anddo we need to fix it, then,
okay, let's go back and fix it.
Do we need to train people onour team, maybe you bring a new
hire on, and they've never heardabout accessibility." So you
have to teach those people whatthis is all about. They may be,
they may buy into the idea, butthey still need to know how to
(15:32):
do it. So they're, it's anongoing, constant training,
constant checking, constantfixing, because none of us are
perfect, we all make mistakes,and we have to fix what we put
out there. But I think it allstarts with just actually caring
and wanting to do it. Andsometimes that's the biggest
(15:54):
piece that's missing is peoplejust don't care. And they say,
Okay, we're done. We don't needto worry about it anymore.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (16:01):
So that's definitely one of the pitfalls I
find, at least in talking withorganizations and companies
where I like to say they, theyjust aren't aware, I tried to
think positively about it, thatmaybe they're just not aware, or
they're afraid to ask, but it'sa big pitfall when it comes to
accessibility. Right? And sowhat are other common
(16:23):
accessibility pitfalls that youtend to see in business
websites, when you're workingwith clients or just in general?
Sandi Gauder (16:30):
Well, certainly the fact that they, they have no
idea. They just don't know theimpact that they're making. We
often do these. It's not a webaudit, but it's a live review
of, of a client's website. Sowe'll get on a Zoom call, or
whatever platform you want touse. And we'll say, okay, so
(16:50):
what do your visitors typicallydo on your site? Are they
looking for information? Arethey trying to buy something? So
let's go through that process,as if we were a person with a
disability. So we don't try tobe a person with a I'm not a
person with a disability. But Iwill show them what it's like to
try to navigate their site justusing a keyboard. Can I see
(17:12):
where I am? Can I figure it out?
Can I put something into theshopping cart and checkout just
using a keyboard...or...And it'samazing to me the reaction,
people, the reactions we getfrom people when they go, Oh, I
had no idea. And as soon as theysee it in action, and they see
(17:32):
the roadblocks that they'vecreated with their website,
they're generally ready to say,Okay, we need to fix this, this
is not good. This is not how wewant our organization
represented to the world. Wedon't want to lose potential
business, because we're puttingup these barriers. So I think
that the pitfalls are, as yousaid, it's awareness, people
(17:55):
just have no idea. They don'tunderstand the different ways
that people try to engage with awebsite. Most people immediately
think screen reader user, sosomebody who's blind can't see
the screen, and uses assistivetechnology to have a website
read to them. That's usuallywhat people think about when
they think about webaccessibility. But as you and I
(18:17):
both know, there are so manyother facets to it, it's people
who can see the screen, butcan't use a mouse.
becomes it's all thesefrustrations that get put up for
people because somebody justdoesn't know that. That's
(18:43):
something they need to be awareabout. And so I think awareness
is certainly the first part. Theother is just the genuine
commitment from an organization.
You can say, oh, yeah, we wantour website to be accessible,
it's a good thing to do. Butnext week, they've moved on to
something else, they'vecompletely forgotten about it.
And there's no whatever momentumwas there gets lost. So I think
(19:07):
without a champion, and notreally a fan of that word, but
somebody who's willing to carrythe torch and say, Yes, we need
to do this. Generally, you wantit coming from the top, because
it's it's a cultural thing. Butyou need somebody who's going to
take the responsibility formaking sure that everybody on
(19:28):
the team is producing accessiblecontent and building an
accessible website experiencefor users.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (19:36):
Yeah, that's very true. And one thing
one thing that comes to mind forme is when you said you know,
it's sort of the they look at itas this is this week's project
then next week, they forgetabout it. I always relate it
back to a lot of companies andorganizations nowadays have
their inclusion, diversity andequity statements or their DEI
(19:56):
statements, where accessibilityisn't really thought of. So if
they're saying and proclaimingthat we are inclusive, and we
are diverse and we areequitable, but their website is
inaccessible to me that comesacross as performative. Right?
Because you're not really beingholistic about what the E and I
really stand for. Because you'renot thinking about the
(20:19):
accessibility component inthere. Yeah, so I like that you
call that out for sure. Whatabout documents on a website? Do
they need to be accessible?
Sandi Gauder (20:30):
Well, yes, they do Matisse. That wasn't a leading
question. Like I said, before,any content that resides on your
website needs to be accessible.
If you're posting PDFs, thenthat PDF better be accessible.
So you're using colours thatprovide good contrast. So people
can differentiate text frombackground, you're using a font
(20:54):
size that no people can actuallyread, you're not using a teeny
tiny font that, you know, veryfew people can read, you're
using and you've tagged itappropriately so that it is
accessible for somebody who usesassistive technology. So yes, if
you can't post an accessible PDFto your website, then don't post
(21:15):
the PDF. If you can't post avideo with transfer with
captions, and don't post thevideo to your website, you're
better in my mind not to postthe content, if it's not
accessible than posts posted,and open yourself up to some
grief. Because people aresaying, Why are you doing this?
(21:35):
I can't do it. I can't do it. Ican't do it. So just just be
proactive about it.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (21:42):
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I'm a PR
professional, I want to starttaking the basic steps to figure
out where I stayed in my digitalcontent for my organization.
What are the basic steps that wecan start to take to evaluate
the accessibility of our currentdigital presence? What would you
recommend?
Sandi Gauder (22:02):
Well, first, I would suggest that you go to the
W3C.org site and look at it readabout accessibility. There, the
the walk egg, the guidelinesare, you know, they're pretty
tough to read, they're prettydense. But the website does have
overviews summaries, there'ssome really excellent videos
(22:25):
that demonstrate what it's liketo interact with a website with
different kinds of disabilities.
So just get a generalunderstanding of the kinds of
disabilities or how peopleinteract with websites just so
you can put things into contextwhen you're trying to make a
site accessible, or the contenton the site accessible. There's
lots of great tools out there.
(22:47):
Once you've got that sort ofunderstanding. In your toolkit,
there's lots of great tools outthere that are free. My
favourite tool is your keyboardand putting your mouse aside
burying it somewhere in a box, Idon't care what to do with it.
But just use your keyboard totry and navigate your site,
navigate your competition sitenavigate amazon.ca, it doesn't
(23:09):
matter to me. But just to get anunderstanding of what it's like
to try to navigate a websitewith a keyboard. It's free, it's
easy. It's available to you allthe time. And it a site that
works with a keyboard is usuallygoing to work for somebody who
uses assistive technology like ascreen reader. So if you can
(23:32):
navigate know where you are,interact with things using your
keyboard, then you're probablyin good shape for screen reader
user, not maybe not perfect, butyou're in a good place. There's
lots of tools that let you checka website to see what it's like,
from a code standpoint, likedoes the code make sense. And
(23:55):
there's things like WAVE fromWebAIM. So wave.webaim.org has a
great free tool, you drop in awebsite address, and it will
scan it and say yes, it's goodon these counts, but maybe not
so good here. And there's acolour contrast tool built into
that WAVE. So that's a greatplace to start. It helps you
(24:19):
identify where some of theissues are on your site, talk to
your web developer to fix someof them. Some of them could be
you know, up to you to fixalternative text. So those are
some pretty good tools. Thereare so many resources out there.
It's just a matter of searching.
Really. I always go back toWebAIM because I think they are
(24:40):
probably to my in my mind a goldstandard and their information
is easy to digest. They're auniversity in Utah. They've been
in the web accessibilitybusiness for I don't know how
many years probably from the getgo. And you have all sorts of
great resources, and theyexplain what a web accessibility
(25:04):
is in pretty basic terms. So ifyou're new to it, that's a great
place to start.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (25:12):
I would agree with that. Now, in a lot
of cases, there is this when itcomes to websites, people, we
we've mentioned this already,people don't know what they
don't know. Right. And so whenthey're when a company or
organization is starting to do asearch for a web developer or
vendor, to enhance their webaccessibility, what are those
(25:34):
essential questions, they shouldbe asking of the vendor to make
sure that they actually know howto make your website accessible?
Sandi Gauder (25:41):
Yes. First thing I would, the first leg is if
somebody says we'll fix it withan overlay. Run as fast as you
can. So an overlay is is like awidget or a plugin that you
would add to a website. It'ssome script, and it provides all
(26:02):
of these magical tools thatapparently will make your
inaccessible site accessible.
And they actually cause moreproblems than they solve. They
interfere with assistivetechnology. And there's a whole
bunch of other issues with it.
So if that's their answer,that's then run as fast as you
can away from them. Ask themabout WCAG, you know the
(26:24):
guidelines. Ask them what theyknow about, ask them about
legislation, ask them whatlegislation your organization
needs to commit to, if theydon't know the legislation in
your particular jurisdiction,then they're probably not going
to know about web accessibility.
Ask them what other clientsthey've done websites for or
(26:45):
remediation for. And ask if youcan talk to those clients and
your testimonials and referencesare probably the most probably
one of the most valuable thingsyou can get from any vendor
saying that they can do businessfor you whether you're looking
for web accessibility or not, totalk to previous clients talk
(27:07):
about the experience, talk aboutany bumps that you hit with
respect to accessibility, howdid that vendor handle those
things? And if you're talking toa vendor that is providing some
sort of software, they're notnecessarily building a website
for you, but they're providingsoftware they might you might
use for your website or inconjunction with it. Do they
(27:31):
have a VPAT? So voluntary? No, Inever get the VPAT. But it's
it's letters. I hate acronyms.
So it's it's a voluntarydocument where they say we've
we've run through our software.
This is what where we stand froman accessibility standpoint,
these are the things that we'reworking on. Do they have an
(27:52):
accessibility statement on theirown website? Do they say that
our website is accessible?
Except for these sorts ofthings? Do they have an
accessibility strategy? Youknow, the more questions you ask
about where they are, forthemselves around accessibility,
the better sense you'll getabout what they can do for you,
(28:14):
when it comes to accessibility.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (28:16):
I love those questions and what you've
proposed there. I think, like Isaid, we don't know what we
don't know. And knowing sort ofthe starting questions is always
a great start. For proceedingwhen you're working with a
vendor, but also having thateducation yourself, right. So
like you said, researching andgoing on to the W3C.org website
(28:39):
and reading about WCAG, and youdon't have to be an expert in
it, but just sort of getting anunderstanding of what it is that
you'd be looking for. So whenyou ask the question, you sort
of know what the answer shouldbe. And that sort of thing is so
important as well.
Sandi Gauder (28:53):
Yes.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (28:54):
So shifting things a little bit we only hear
about AI lately is what it feelslike. That's the buzzword.
That's the trend that iseverything. How is AI being used
to improve or maybe not improvewebsite accessibility? And what
should we be cautious about whenusing it? For our own websites?
Sandi Gauder (29:17):
So I'm not the AI guru in this organization. My
partner is he's just he's soabsorbed in it. But...so I
learned by osmosis, mostly. SoAI I think if you think about AI
has been around for a long timein the world of accessibility,
all these automated testingtools in a way you could say,
(29:38):
are using artificialintelligence. There are
different with AI, anybody thatis in the digital world is
trying to find ways to use it tomake things better, make work
easier, all that kind of stuff.
And even around webaccessibility that is happening.
I think the best biggestcaution, though, is it's like
(30:00):
anything to do with artificialintelligence, it's garbage in,
garbage out. So if..if we'rerelying on artificial
intelligence to crawl the web,and come back with answers
around accessibility, that mayor may not be correct, they may
or may not be good solutions. Soit's like anything, if you don't
(30:24):
understand the context of whatyou're asking AI about, you'll
accept whatever answer givesyou. So you still have to have
that baseline understanding of,of websites and web
accessibility to say, okay, yes,that tool that AI gizmo is
giving me valid information. AndI can trust it. If you don't
(30:48):
know anything about it, thenyou'll take whatever comes
along. So it's, you still needto have that basic
understanding. I see AI andaccessibility working as ways to
monitor a site that is alreadyaccessible, help developers who
already know accessibilitysolve, you know, a specific
(31:13):
problem, or an interaction,building an accessible website.
That's pretty what like acontent driven website is
usually not too complex. And ifyou use semantic, HTML, you can
generally build a site. Well,it's when you get into fancy
interactions, complexinteractions, that you have to
(31:36):
get a bit more creative andspend more time developing
solutions that are accessible.
And I think that AI might beable to support that. Because
you if you're already at thatlevel of building something
that's accessible, but don'tknow how to solve this
particular interaction, you'regoing to recognize the pitfalls
(31:58):
that that come back to you withan answer from AI.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (32:01):
Yeah.
Sandi Gauder (32:02):
And we need more accessible websites out there so
that AI can scour accessiblewebsites and build a better
dictionary of what an accessiblewebsite actually looks like, and
how it's built.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (32:15):
Again, like you said, garbage in, garbage
out. But if we can give it gold,there'll be gold in gold out.
And then that will be beneficialfor everybody, when they're
trying to build their websitesand other accessibility
components. How can PRprofessionals with their teams
ensure that inclusivity andaccessibility are integrated
into the web design process fromthe start versus, versus usually
(32:36):
what I like to say is that youcan't necessarily fix you can't
necessarily take the eggs out ofa baked cake, right already
baked cake. So how can theyreally think about accessibility
from the beginning of theprocess versus as an
afterthought when they'realready halfway through the
project?
Sandi Gauder (32:51):
So PR professionals need to make sure
that everybody else that they'reworking with within the
organization or the externalagent agencies that might be
supporting them everybody's onthe same page, everybody has an
understanding of accessibility,and they're all committed to
(33:11):
creating an accessible productor project at the end of the
day, at the end of the day. Soyou have to start with that, I
think, define defining, butidentifying the roles that
everyone's going to play in aproject. So who's responsible
for the content? Who'sresponsible for design? Who's
responsible for any of thetechnical stuff? Who's
(33:32):
responsible for checking thework? Do you have a QA team or
somebody on the team have to beresponsible for it? Where
everybody on the team has a roleto play in building something
that's accessible. But there'seach role has its has a
predominant part to play. Sounderstanding who's doing what
(33:53):
is essential, and making surethat you're talking about
accessibility right, from thevery beginning at every stage,
reviewing where you're at, is itaccessible? Have we thought
about this? Have we thoughtabout that? Can we fix this? Can
we fix that? What do we need toavoid? Who needs to do what it's
just making? Sure that's part ofthe conversation all the way
(34:13):
along? I think when you're doinga project where you're always
worried about colours, so are weusing our brand colours properly
here? You know, those kinds ofconversations happen all the way
along, but you also have to makeaccessibility that's at that
same level, same part of theconversation. And if you're
doing that, then you're the oddsthat you're going to produce
(34:36):
something that's successfulskyrocket. I mean, you're have
much better odds of creating anaccessible product, you're
talking about it, you have totalk about it. You can't wait to
the end. Because if you wait tothe end, sometimes you're just
throwing the whole thing out andstarting from scratch and nobody
wants to do that. You it's awaste of time and resources.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (34:55):
Yeah.
Sandi Gauder (34:56):
So the earlier you talk about it, the less
expensive it becomes and theeasier it is to do.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (35:01):
So let's say we we've done all these
steps, we have an accessiblewebsite, we've done it, we've
talked about it, we've workedthrough throughout the entire
process, what strategy should weimplement to ensure that it's
continually compliant? Versuswe've dropped the ball?
Sandi Gauder (35:18):
Yeah, well, it's, like I said earlier, you need to
create some sort of a process tofor ongoing monitoring. If
you're, you have to create the,by the time you've got this
website, and brand new websiteor new project that is
accessible, you've probablylearned some tips along the way,
(35:39):
you've probably created newhabits. So your the odds that
you're going to create PDFs thatare accessible have gone up, the
odds that you're going to post avideo with captions have gone
up, but we all slip up. Sohaving a plan in place to say
we're going to monitor thingsonce a month, once a quarter,
whatever it's suitable for, forhow dynamic the content is on
(35:59):
your website, then that's whatyou do. You may assign somebody
on your team to do that, you mayhire an outside service to
monitor and support you, reallydepends on the size of your
organization, how much how muchmoney you have to dedicate to
it, what kind of resources youhave. But the only way that
you're going to make sure thatyou're continually compliant is
(36:22):
to check every once in a while,you don't have to check every
single day of the week, orevery, every time you you change
a word on a website, but you doneed to have some sort of plan
to monitor to make sure thatyou're you're doing what you
said you were going to do.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (36:36):
And how does training come into play to
ensure that people know whatthey're doing? Where can they go
for training, if they would liketraining? Or, you know, what are
the basics in training, asidefrom just looking at the the W3C
website to ensure that differentmembers of the team know what
they can do to be accessible?
Sandi Gauder (36:55):
Now, there's all sorts of intro courses online,
EdX, those kinds of things willoffer introductory courses,
depending on what you're lookingfor. I guess it all depends on
your team, how many people onyour team? What kind of work
they're doing? Is it one personthat's responsible for
(37:18):
everything? Or do you actuallyhave a team of like 10 people
that that work on this stuff? Soit could be ongoing coaching,
mentoring, you know, maybesomebody's working on a project,
and they just need to touch basewith somebody who's an
accessibility specialist to say,Hey, am I on the right track?
Are we doing things right? Orworking without sort of side
(37:38):
organizations to do themonitoring of your web
compliance? And then when theycome back to you with a report,
they help you understand what,where you went wrong. So there
are different ways depending? Italways depends on time and
money, right? It's like, howmuch do you have to spend on it?
(38:01):
The web is always free, you haveto be careful what you get from
the web. But there are lots ofconsultants out there that are
able to provide that kind ofcoaching and mentoring and
training, you know. Maybe yourteam, maybe you are starting on
a new project, and nobodyunderstands accessibility, or
(38:21):
maybe one or two people on theteam do, but they're not really
sure. You do a workshop andaccessibility workshop right at
the beginning to say, hey, whatdo we need to know? What do we
need to be thinking about? Andmaking sure everybody's got that
same baseline understanding ofwhat this whole web
accessibility things all about.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (38:39):
So we've talked about the pitfalls. We've
talked about the legislation,we've talked about how you can
incorporate accessibilitythrough every step of the way.
Let's talk about the thing thattends to get folks the most
interested, if you will, inaccessibility on their website,
the potential for reputationaland financial impact.
Sandi Gauder (39:02):
Oh, yeah.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (39:05):
What does that look like if you're
inaccessible? What does thatmean? What does that look like
for them?
Sandi Gauder (39:09):
Well, it depends on where you are, where you're
doing business in the provinceof Ontario, the EO da
legislation has a series offines that you know, the the
board, the directors could getfined a tremendous amount of
money every day until we getthings fixed. But we haven't
really seen those fines beinghanded down to any organizations
(39:31):
in this province. The usuallythe the fines, knowing the
fines, but the money comes inthe States. It's a very
litigious society. So there arelawsuits happening all the time,
around inaccessible websites.
And we're also starting to seethe agencies that build those
(39:53):
websites getting sued. So it'snot just the site owner, but the
people that help build thewebsite that are getting sued.
And that can be very, veryexpensive, it's just going
through the legal process itselfis expensive. And then if you're
on the losing side, then there'sa lot of money to be, it's gonna
cost you right to fix it orpossibly in in fines as well. So
(40:15):
there's that whole government,legal side of things that cost.
But there's the whole, thereputational side, to me is
probably the bigger side.
You...I don't think I've met acompany that doesn't want the
world to see them in a goodlight. So it's when you put up
(40:40):
roadblocks for people to useyour site and you, you annoy
somebody who might be vocal, orhave a good following on social
media, your reputation could bedamaged overnight, because you,
you didn't do the right thing.
And again, as a PR expert, I'msure you know, this all depends
(41:03):
on how you respond to that. Ifyou respond quickly, and you do
it properly, and say, "Oh, wescrewed up, we had no idea,
thank you for bringing it to ourattention for on it," and you
actually are on it, and you fixit, then your reputation is
potentially going to be savedand might get better. But
there's so many peopleorganizations that just ignore
(41:24):
it. So I guess from areputational side, if someone
brings something to yourattention about your site that
is inaccessible, pay attentionto it. Thank them for the
feedback, figure out what youneed to do to fix it and make
sure you do it don't just likeleave it lingering, don't look
for ways to avoid it. Don't usean overlay to solve the problem.
(41:47):
So yeah, it's it's just it'slike any other PR crisis, it's
you deal with it and deal withit properly, and effectively in
a timely fashion.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (42:01):
Exactly.
What comes to mind thinkingabout the reputational damage a
few years back with Domino's,with their inaccessible website,
and it was for them would havebeen a nominal fee to get their
website, remediated and madeaccessible. And they decided to
say no, no, we're gonna fightthis, we're gonna keep fighting,
and they kept losing. And allthe money that went into that,
(42:23):
versus using a fraction of themoney that went into the legal
fees to just make it accessibleand make it a like a learning
story, if you will, an evolvedstory where we had a mistake, we
fixed it. Here's what we did.
Here's so everyone can betterthemselves versus Nope. We don't
see a point. This is not quiteright.
Sandi Gauder (42:46):
X and Twitter, Twitter, formally X formerly
Twitter. Yeah, you know, theyhad an accessibility team until
the current owner took over andgot rid of the accessibility
team. And a number of people inthe accessibility community.
Were quite active on on Twitterwhen that that accessibility
team was around. But the minutethe team left, or was asked to
(43:09):
leave, hold, a lot of peopleleft that platform specifically
because of that, because it saidit spoke about the reputation
and the view of accessibility ofthat particular platform. And so
they lost a lot of peoplebecause of that. So yeah, people
pay attention to this stuff,especially people who live in
(43:29):
this accessibility field. Wedon't like seeing people ignored
like that, or treated like that.
And and we'll walk we'll leaveif we have to.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (43:41):
That's very, very true. So this has
been a phenomenal conversation.
Sandy, like I said, I could talkto you for hours about this. But
to wrap things up here.
Sandi Gauder (43:52):
Yeah.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (43:52):
for PR professionals who are just
starting in understanding webaccessibility, what is that one
piece of advice you would givethem to get them going in the
right direction?
Sandi Gauder (44:02):
One piece of advice. Just start learning.
Just start reading. Learn abouthow people with disabilities
interact with the web. I thinkthat's that's probably the best
place to start. Because once youknow how all our users interact,
(44:26):
then you know what to payattention to. Don't read the
guidelines. I wouldn't wish thaton anybody who doesn't need to
read them. But definitely go tothe W3C and look at those videos
because they are probably thebest way to get an understanding
of what accessibility is aboutand why we do what we do. And to
(44:46):
remember that we are allcurrently able bodied. Not all
but some of us we may be ablebodied now. We're all going to
get old. We're going art we'regoing to get arthritis or
hearings going to go or sitesgoing to go, we might end up
with tremors in our hands. Sowe're all going to be impacted
as we age. And so just remember,if you're if you're 25 Now, and
(45:10):
perfectly healthy and can run amarathon, you may not be doing
that for the rest of your life.
So what you're doing in thefield of accessibility, you're
doing it for your future self.
So it's not just about everybodyelse. It's also, you know,
you're doing it for yourselftoo, because you're going to be
that someday, I break the news,we all get old and something
(45:32):
goes wrong.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (45:34):
I love that we're future proofing. That's
what we're doing suitability tofuture proven. Exactly. Amazing.
Well, Sandy, thank you so muchfor being on today's episode.
Before I let you go. I have onefinal question. This is PR &
Lattes. So I have to ask, whatis your favorite go to
caffeinated beverage that getsyou through the day?
Sandi Gauder (45:52):
I am a simple girl. I like my coffee and I
like it black.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (45:55):
Love it.
Love it. We've had so manyguests that will say that and
then they're like, Is that weirdthat I like black coffee? I'm
like, No. Easy, it's great. Justpour the cup and you're good to
go.
Sandi Gauder (46:05):
Exactly.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (46:06):
Amazing.
Thank you so much, Sandi, againfor being on today's episode. If
people want to contact you orfollow you on social media,
where can they find you? Well,they can find me on LinkedIn,
Sandi Gauder, S-a-n-d-iG-a-u-d-e-r. That's the only
platform I live on. My companyis CMS Web Solutions. And I'm
also a member ofAccessibilityConsulting.ca,
(46:27):
we're a collective ofaccessibility educators.
Unknown (46:32):
Perfect and we'll make sure to have all those links in
the description of the podcastas well. Thank you again, you
have been fantastic. Thank youMatisse. It was it was
wonderful. You've been listeningto a special episode of the PR
and lattes podcast. Make sureyou stay up to date on all
things are happening with PR &Lattes by visiting our website
prandlattes.com. You can alsofollow us on social media
(46:55):
@PRAndLattes on Instagram and PR& Lattes on LinkedIn. Thank you
so much for listening to thisspecial series in honour of
Global Accessibility AwarenessDay. We'll have a new episode
for you each day this weekfocused on a different aspect
around digital accessibility andcommunications. So, make sure
you're following PR & Lattes,wherever you listen to your
podcasts. I've been your hostMatisse Hamel-Nelis. And I can't
(47:17):
wait to share our next episodewith you with a brand new latte.
Until then, bye for now.
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