May 18, 2024 • 45 mins
In this final episode of the Global Accessibility Awareness Day series, Matisse chats with Lisa Riemers, an independent communication, content, and digital workplace consultant who specializes in digital accessibility.
About Lisa Riemers
Lisa Riemers is an independent communication, content and digital workplace consultant who helps organizations connect their people and tell their stories. She helps teams create accessible, user-centred content that makes information easier to understand and gets the best out of their intranet and collaboration tools. She builds inclusive communities online and offline. She works with large organizations like the UK government, G4S, Veolia, FirstGroup and the British Red Cross, as well as more niche B2B companies. A member of the IABC UK&I board, Lisa is also an artist who brings her creative flair to the workplace.
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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
excited to have you join metoday for our final episode on
our special series in honour ofGlobal Accessibility Awareness
Day. Before we get started, makesure you subscribe to this
podcast wherever you'relistening to it to get notified
(00:24):
when we launch our next seasonin late June. You can also
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prandlattes.com. On the website,you'll find our latest podcast
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following us on social media onInstagram at @PRAndLattes, and
(00:45):
on LinkedIn PR & Lattes. Ontoday's final episode, I'm
chatting with accessiblecommunication specialist Lisa
Riemers. Lisa is an independentcommunication content and
digital workspace consultant whohelps organizations connect
their people and tell theirstories. She helps teams create
accessible user centered contentthat makes information easier to
(01:07):
understand. As well as gettingthe best out of their intranet
and collaboration tools. Shestrives to build inclusive
communities both online and off.
I'm eager to chat with her aboutwhy she feels and why we feel
that professional communicatorsneed to change their game and
start thinking aboutaccessibility and everything we
do. So grab your latte, sit backand enjoy.
(01:29):
I am so happy for today'sepisode. It is the last in our
series for the GlobalAccessibility Awareness Day
campaign if you will here at PR& Lattes and I am joined by
Lisa, a dear friend andprofessional communicator. Lisa,
welcome to PR & Lattes!
Lisa Riemers (01:44):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really
excited to be here as well.
Thanks, Matisse.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (01:50):
This is going to be a great
conversation. And we've heardall week in these different
podcast episodes about digitalaccessibility from various
facets, right from the livedexperience, to website
accessibility to be quoteunquote, accessible overlays,
accessible documents, you nameit, we've talked about it. But
Lisa with you, we're gonna havea chat, we're going to have a
(02:11):
chat about why should we care asprofessional communicators? Yes,
we get all this information. Butwhy should we care? That is
really what we're trying tofocus on today. But before we
get into that, can you tell thelisteners a little bit about
yourself and your own journeyand communications and what led
you into the digitalaccessibility space?
Lisa Riemers (02:27):
Okay, so I originally started as a
marketing person. I resume broadmarketing communications, which
touched on PR, external commshelping the organization I was
working for communicate theproposition to their customers.
(02:49):
And we had a massive websiteproject. It was a global
organization, I was working atG4S for us at the time, which I
think is now Allied G4S or justAllied. And there was this
enormous project to get 106different country websites into
one content management system.
And I was quite new to the sideof things. And I was working in
(03:10):
the UK, one of one of thedivisions in the UK. And
everybody else took a bit of astep backwards. And I really
enjoyed I took a big stepforwards to help represent our
region, as it were, as part ofthat project. I really enjoyed
understanding how everythingworked and making sure that
everything was formattedappropriately, and really trying
(03:33):
to understand the nuts and boltsof how the website worked. And I
remember having this a lightbulb moment where when I had my
personal development review witha manager and I was thinking,
Well, I'm an externalcommunications executive, where
do I want to go from there? AndI didn't really know what I was
doing. And then I thought,actually, no, I want to
(03:54):
specialize in digital. Because,I mean, at the time digital was
a separate specialism ratherthan being a channel that
everybody uses as part of theircommunication because like, you
can't avoid it really now. So IYeah, so I jumped into digital
generally, I did a bunch of workwith a number of clients working
(04:17):
with internet's which areinternal websites to help make
everyone in the organization,feel connected, find the right
information that they need to dotheir job.
And also looking at websites.
And since then I've donecommunity management, I've done
accessible content design, whichis something that I can't that's
(04:40):
kind of evolved as I've gonebecause there's something about
web content that peopleeverybody uses nowadays, but
people don't necessarily if theywere classically trained as a
journalist or as a marketingperson. There are certain rules
was about communication thathaven't necessarily been taught
(05:01):
as that transition into digitalfor people. And that's something
that I've done a lot of work in.
And I really enjoy it. And Ifind that as I've been working
with clients and talking tocolleagues and working with
other employees, reallyunderstanding what it is that
people need, making sure thatthat information meets their
(05:24):
needs, especially if they've gotparticular needs around
accessing that information, issomething that I feel really is
an important part of my job. Andit's something that I love to
help other people do more aboutit.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (05:40):
Yeah, I love that you want...it's sort
of like you want to meet peoplewhere they're at, right? If
they're wanting to access theinformation, so be able to
provide them the information ina way they can access it.
they
Lisa Riemers (05:51):
They don't even always want it this information,
you know, we get bombarded withso much information working in
an organization like nobody,nobody says they don't have
enough emails, they might saythey didn't hear about something
and get upset that they weren'ttold about something, but that
you're trying to provide himeverybody is busy. It's not like
(06:13):
anyone sitting around twiddlingtheir thumbs thinking I know,
I'm gonna go and browse. And I'mgoing to dig into this really
difficult to use internalsystem, because I've got nothing
else to do. People are coming todo a thing. They want
information. They're busy, theywant to get on with their day.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (06:30):
Yeah, exactly one of my biggest pet
peeves, and I want I want yourperspective on this is when I'm
working with a client or anorganization, and they say,
well, nobody with a disabilityor with sight loss accesses my
website or has applied for a jobhere. And it's like, well, how
do you know? And why wouldn'tyou make things accessible so
(06:52):
that they can? Maybe that's whythey haven't done that? How do
you manage those sorts ofconversations and dialogues, if
you will, with clients, whenthey're like, Oh, we don't have
anybody with, you know, sightloss, who's accessing our
content.
Lisa Riemers (07:05):
I've had so many conversations along those lines
recently. I went to a tech showa couple of weeks ago, and I was
talking to these vendors aboutthese cool new technologies that
they were using. And there wasone which had like an immersive
virtual meeting spaces, youcould build like a little bit
(07:27):
like Second Life used to be youcould build an entire conference
center and walk around. And Iasked him, it's like, how would
a blind or partially sightedperson use this? Is that what
I'm pretty sure they justwouldn't, I don't, I don't think
anyone any of my customers haveblind employees. That's such a
difficult...So the conversationthat we had, as I was explaining
(07:51):
how when I worked for...I wasdoing some accessible content
training at a governmentdepartment in the UK. And a
couple of minutes before thatsession, I got informed that we
one of our blind colleagues wasjoining. Um, so luckily, my
presentation was accessible. ButI was able to, you know, there
(08:15):
were steps that we tookthroughout that trading session,
which was in person to make surethat he had access to the
materials that all of the imageswere described to him clearly.
And that his feedback alsohelped improve the latest
iteration. But sorry, jumpingback a bit, I pointed out to
this guy at a tech show. It'slike, so I did this training
session for a blind person whowas able to navigate to my
(08:38):
physical meeting room, he used astick to be able to walk around,
he had feedback to know whenthere were curbs when there were
walls, he could see some things,but he wasn't he didn't have he
didn't.
He wasn't able to see any of thedetail. And there was a little
light that went on in his mindbecause oh, we could actually do
(08:59):
we could almost do a virtualequivalent of that stick. Like
somebody, if they walked into awall, you could get some
feedback to say this is a wall,like a digital version of it.
Like he just hadn't thought ofhow of what the challenge might
be, and, and that there might bepeople that who would be using
it. But it was really nice. Idon't know whether he's taken it
(09:21):
away and made any improvementsto the software yet, but he
definitely saw it as a thing.
And I think being able to tellthis, you know, you can you can
there's so many statisticsavailable about the number of
people with disabilities, thenumber of people that use
assistive technology, which wecan dig into in a little bit,
but I think being able to helptell, tell stories about the
statistics because people don'tnecessarily believe numbers they
(09:42):
liked as, as well as hearingstories and other people's
experiences. There's obviouslythe importance of having actual
users with lived experiencebeing able to test your content,
test your comps and test yourservices. I think getting that
real feedback from people canreally help people understand
(10:02):
that.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (10:04):
That is so true. And I think, in the
digital space, there's alwaysthat Reliance or fall back on
Well, an automated system saidit worked. That's my checkmark.
And yes, maybe from a technicalperspective, you have checked
all those boxes. But I like tosay, if it's not usable, it's
not accessible. If the end usercan't explore and navigate the
(10:28):
content you're putting outthere, then you're not really
being accessible, right, andyou're not being accessible if
it's not usable. And so you sortof have to ensure that you're
meeting both fronts, beingcompliant, but also is the
compliance is done in a way thatcan actually be utilized by
whoever you want it to use. So Ilove that you brought up your
(10:50):
experience. And then he waslike, oh, light bulb moment,
maybe we could do somethingthere. Right. But you know,
without that end user experienceor that end user feedback, it's
just sort of an assumption oflike, I think we're on the right
track. And that's something Ifind really interesting with
organizations as well is, whenyou work on a project, a lot of
(11:13):
companies just want thatautomated checkmark versus
putting it through and usertesting. How do you manage? How
do you work along those lines toensure that end users are
actually testing the productsthat you're working with, to
with these organizations, sothat you can say we have checked
it from a manual perspective andautomated perspective?
Lisa Riemers (11:35):
So I think, involving real users at every
port, every port every part ofif you're, if you're looking at
a new internal system, say likea new intranet, making sure
you've got users at every stepof the way from that very first,
we think we've got an issue withour existing platform. So let's
do some user research as part ofthe discovery to understand what
people's genuine pain pointsare, and understand what their
(11:58):
needs are. And then getting themout getting them involved in the
decisions or the discussionsabout how that how that should
actually be structured. Whatterms make sense to people? What
if you were to do a card sortingexercise, how would you group
this information in a way thatmakes sense to you, it's very
(12:20):
easy to do things that makesense to, if you just work in
head office, or if it's a globalsite, if you just work in the
head offices country. And theremight be cultural variations,
there might be terms thatjargony that people don't
necessarily understand, even ifthey've been in the organization
a long time. Or there might beterms that mean a completely
(12:42):
different thing, if youdepending on which framework
that you've you've worked with.
So I think getting userfeedback, actual users looking
at the things, being able totest the products and services,
feeding back on yourcommunications, being able to
sit with them, if you're ableto, or ask them to share their
screen with you is also helpful.
(13:06):
Because there might be as wellas the as well as the user's own
needs. There might be technicallimitations with that setup,
that means actually, thisdoesn't work in the way you want
it. One of the things that Ifind useful, you know, we talk
about ot texts, being able toput descriptions on images, if
someone hasn't got a decentinternet connection where they
(13:26):
are, they won't be able todownload the images, they need
that alternative format, theyneed to see what they're
missing, they might not be ableto stream video. So if they've
got the transcript of thatvideo, then they're still able
to consume that information. AndI think I remember quite a
notable example of a lady who Iworked with years ago when we
(13:48):
were launching our new intranet.
And she said, Well, it doesn'twork. It's terrible. I can't see
it, you know, it's not workingfor me. And it's only when I sat
at her desk, that I realizedthat she had her screen
resolution set. So it was theminimum, you could make it. So
it's like, so every all thepixels were enormous, basically.
And that homepage only showedlike a, I think, in 1/9 was the
(14:11):
full page because it was zoomedright in. And her perception was
that the entire intranethomepage was the Quicklinks
because that's all she could seeon her screen. So if I hadn't
sat with her and looked at herscreen, I'd have had, I could
just been having loads ofconversations via the Help Desk
(14:32):
via phone calls, emails back andforth. actually meeting people
where they're at. I think it'simportant.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (14:41):
Yeah. And I think another part of this is,
you know, as professionalcommunicators are listening to
this and thinking how can weincorporate end user testing
into our, you know, processes.
You have to pay the end users aswell. It's not free insights.
Right? If you are looking forindividuals with disabilities to
use assistive technology toshare their insights and
(15:04):
perspectives, you should paythem it is it's a job that
they're doing for you. And Ithink there's that misconception
of, well, they should be doingit because it's an it's good to
do. And it's like, well, if Iwere to ask you to write a comp
plan for free, just because youcan, right, I'm not gonna pay,
it doesn't work, it doesn'twork. How do you balance that
(15:25):
understanding of, you know, whenwe're going through this, there
is a budget towards it. And Ithink that's also something that
companies fear, when it comes todigital accessibility is the
cost that can be associatedpotentially with it, the how do
you level set? And how do youmanage the expectation around
how much it may cost to makesomething accessible versus just
(15:48):
it being left as is and notbeing accessible at all?
Lisa Riemers (15:53):
I think, what do you look at the cost of things
not being accessible. I've seenexamples where it's really,
genuinely affected the bottomline, I was doing some work for
a company who launched they hadto update, they had to update
their content to make theinformation more understandable
to explain what some terms andconditions been. But by making
(16:18):
that T's and C's update, theymade this window pop up, which
depending on the device youused, actually didn't close. And
let's so if you use inparticular kind of tablet,
unless you turned it round, youweren't able to close the
window. And they genuinely sawquite a substantial bottom line
until that was fixed over acouple of days, they saw a drop
(16:41):
in their insurance quotes. And,you know, not making things
accessible, can have such a bigimpact your finances, you know,
according to scope, which is acharity in the UK, there's 274
billion pounds a year is thetotal estimated spending power
(17:03):
of families with at least onedisabled person. If you're
excluding those people, that's amassive amount of money that
you're potentially missing outon for your, from customers. And
I think those also, if you'rethinking about from an internal
comms point of view, we'realways looking at ways to
(17:23):
increase the impact of ourcommunications, we want to make
sure that our messaging is niceand crisp and clear. But if one
in four people live in the UK,one in four people are
classified as disabled. Andwhilst that may not reflect the
exact numbers in yourorganization, you could
potentially be excluding 25% ofpeople from being able to
(17:45):
actually completely understandand fully appreciate the effort
that you put into yourcommunications, they might get a
bit of it. But that has animpact on people's time. If
they're then kept trying to findanother mode of that
information. It could impact onthe engagement. How does this
(18:09):
affect people's you know, longerterm, if they don't feel like
they're included in anorganization, they might go
somewhere else. So this could beaffecting people's retention
rates, people's retention rates,company retention rates and
actually having to, it's muchmore expensive to try new stuff
than it is to keep your existingones. So you want to be doing
(18:30):
everything you can to not getnot let the good people leave.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (18:35):
That's true. And I think something else
that people forget about isthese stats are those based on
individuals who identifiedabilities, right? If I look at
my dad, for example, love him,don't get me wrong, but it can
be really annoying sometimeswhen he forgets to put in his
hearing aids because he doesn'tconsider himself having hearing
(18:55):
loss. But without the hearingaids, we are screaming, and then
he wonders why we're mad at him.
And it's like, no, it's just putthem in. But he wouldn't
identify himself as havinghearing loss. If given a census
or given a survey to say, youknow, do you have a disability,
I for one wear glasses, and myglasses are pretty thick without
my glasses, I can barely see infront of me. But my glasses are
(19:16):
my assistive tech. But when Ifill out a census or survey, I
don't consider myself as havingthat type of disability. Right.
And I think that's something butif I broke my glasses, and I'm
on campus, or I'm out and about,I'm, I'm stuck, I can't drive. I
can't, you know, I can barelysee in front of me and
everything's really reallyblurry. So it's understanding
(19:38):
that these numbers are deflatednumbers. They are not the
accurate representation.
And
Lisa Riemers (19:47):
And I think the World Health Organization
estimates that one in three ofus will need assistive
technology at some point in ourlives. And that ranges from as
you said, from glasses, it couldbe mobility scooters like I...I
love the thought I can't, I wishI knew who to attribute it to.
But that idea that we're onlyever temporarily not disabled. I
(20:09):
had a I injured my footrecently, which meant that my
mobility was severely hampered.
And I went to my local hospitaland got checked in seen by the
doctor and they said, right,you're gonna have to go to the X
ray department, which annoyinglythey've closed the door that
linked to the two buildingstogether, and I had to take the
(20:31):
longest route around theoutside. And then I went around
the outside, and I got to thelift. And I was looking at this
really long list of departments.
And there were 30 departments onthe list, and none of them were
called X ray. And then I lookedagain, and I realized that there
was one called imaging, andsomeone had taped up the word X
ray next to it on a post itnote. And it's like, this is a
(20:54):
perfect example of where thehospital is not using, they're
not using the terms that theirmembers of staff use, let alone
the terms that members of thepublic are going to use. So and
I found also, when I remembergetting into a lift, I'm
thinking back to when I broke myfoot a few years ago, and the
(21:16):
signage was only on one side ofthe doors. But if I'd been in
there in a wheelchair, Iwouldn't have been able to
actually read which level Ineeded to. Because if you
depending on which way you goin, I wouldn't have been able to
turn to actually pick the rightbutton. And I think it's quite
interesting. Like, you know,we're going a bit off the topic
from communications, but thatkind of the positioning and the
(21:38):
physicality of our environment,you know, people are much more
familiar, I think, with thelegislation about making
reasonable adjustments to makesure that people can physically
get into a building. But eventhen it's not right. And that
positioning of signage even issomething that unless someone's
thinking about that otherperspective, they just might
not. You might not see it.
Unknown (22:00):
Yeah,
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (22:00):
Yeah, yeah.
And I think you brought up agreat point there being that
quote about being temporarilynot disabled.
Lisa Riemers (22:08):
Yeah
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (22:08):
Right? And, and I think to during the
pandemic, when everybody washome, though, you know, ever,
everybody doesn't like talkingabout the pandemic anymore. But
this is a great example, yourhome, everybody is home, you're
stuck with your, but you have towork, but you're stuck with your
kids and your dogs, and youknow, your pets and your birds,
and whoever else is in thehouse, your husband and you
know, whatever. And you have tobe in a meeting, but you can't
(22:31):
hear what's being said, becausethe kids are playing dogs
barking, husband's got the TVtoo loud, whatever the case is,
and you're just sitting there, agetting angry, let's be real.
But realistically, you needcaptions to hear what's
happening on the screen. Right.
And it was fascinating to seehow quickly captions and the
accessibility of meeting spacesrapidly changed because of the
(22:53):
pandemic. And we got on boardwith... Oh, it doesn't just help
people with disabilities, ithelps everybody.
Lisa Riemers (23:01):
Right.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (23:02):
And I'm, I'm one of those people who when
I'm at home, I have my two dogswho during these podcasts you
sometimes hear in thebackground, you know, they'll
bark at the most inopportunemoments. And so having captions
really helps when you're tryingto follow along. And it doesn't
necessarily mean that that'sbecause I have a disability, I
have a temporary disability,which is the dogs barking or my
(23:23):
situation has changed in someway. And I think that is
something that organizationsseem to continually forget. You
know, like all the strides wemade during the pandemic, in the
digital accessibility space nowthat the pandemic is, quote,
unquote, over everyone is like,wow, you know, we're back in
person. So we don't need toapply things. But now it's we
have to rethink what we're doingto apply new methods, right?
Lisa Riemers (23:46):
Yeah. And I think it's not just new things,
either. You just reminded me ofa conversation that I had many
years ago with our in housegraphic designer, who made the
most incredible lookingbeautiful posters, which worked
super well if he had aprofessional printing service,
because they were able to giveyou a lovely, multicoloured,
(24:07):
high-quality print. But we werethen asking, we were sending
these out via email, and thenasking depots and sites to print
these off and put them on theirnotice boards. And, you know,
we're talking sort of 15 yearsago, thinking about the quality
of printers that you get inoffices in their local waste
disposal facility. It's just itdoesn't work for the users that
(24:32):
need it. So a full colourbackground will use up all the
ink. You know, if it prints atall, it will be streaky. It
completely undermines yourmessaging. So whether you're
dealing with remote staff whohave to deal with a terrible
printer, or you might havefrontline staff who have that,
as we've said before, like poorinternet connection I've been
(24:55):
I've been talking to a clientrecently who's a really a really
big company. They who have gotit, I was really surprised that
the poor connectivity they'vegot in their offices, like this
is still a current issue. It'snot something that's going away.
And I think trying to understandthe limitations of what users
are working with, helps get yourmessage across more clearly.
(25:19):
I help volunteer, I used tovolunteer for our very local
beer festival that's just moved.
It's moved to another town now.
But again, thinking about theflyer design and the poster
design, we did not have a bigbudget, we were going to be
getting stuff printed as cheaplyas possible. So most of the
artwork was purely black andwhite, something that works
nicely nice and clear. It can beprinted out by even a even a not
(25:45):
great quality printer, becausethe text is nice and easy to
read in large font. And yeah, Ithink it's it's not a new thing.
But there are newer challenges,particularly where we're trying
to rely on either fewerchannels, or we've got less time
and we've got to put our messageout across more channels. It's
(26:06):
making sure that as we makemedia for different ways of as
we as we're creating the thesecommunications for our various
audiences, making sure that theformat works for the for that
channel.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (26:22):
Do you find that, from your experience and
working with various clients andorganizations? That there's more
appetite to be digitallyaccessible? Or is it been? Has
it been more a fight for you tobe like, No, but you need to
there's legislation?
Lisa Riemers (26:40):
I think both. I was working the public sector in
the UK recently, there was areal scramble to meet, there was
some new legislation introduced,which essentially emphasized
existing legislation, there wasa 2018 public public sector
accessibility regulations, whichmade it really explicit that any
(27:02):
public sector, so digitalservices, whether that's
websites or apps or intranet,they must be accessible for
people so that they are notexcluding any of their uses. And
having that additionallegislation in place and a
deadline that things had to bemade accessible by was that
brilliant, I say brilliant. Itwas quite a scramble in a lot of
(27:26):
organizations at the time to tryand become at least compliant
and get but it's a shame thatit's being seen as well, we've
got to just meet the law, ratherthan necessarily. That's the
spirit of the law, which isthere because you're making
services for everybody.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (27:43):
Yeah. Do you find it...Not difficult. But
do you find that when you areworking with these clients and
organizations, and your input,implementing these
accessibility, best practices,and so on and so forth, that
they're eager or willing to alsolook at it from a cultural
perspective and creating thatcultural shift within their
(28:04):
organization to be moreaccessible, and then in turn
being more inclusive, diverseand equitable?
Lisa Riemers (28:12):
I think it depends on the individuals involved. And
I think for all of us, it's ajourney. I thought I knew what I
was talking about. Well, severalyears ago, I thought I got what
accessibility meant until Istarted talking to users and
testing things with users. And Irealized that what I thought was
good wasn't. And it's one ofthose things that people often
(28:34):
see as somebody else's problem.
It's like, oh, that must besomeone else's responsibility.
We were using this software,that must be the vendors
responsibility we're using, youknow, we're using these tools.
And we've got some limitations.
But that's it is responsibility,or, you know, it's always seen
as somebody else's thing. And Ithink, wherever you are on that
journey, understanding that itis a journey, that there's
(29:00):
something that we can alwayslearn.
And we're mate, we're leavingthings better than they were
before. I think it's somethingto to take on board. And
especially if you know thatthings aren't perfect, but they
are much better than they were,feels like progress. And I think
I've had conversations withpeople recently. And they said,
(29:22):
Oh, it's the first time I'veheard of this. However, I
haven't got time for this. I'malready too busy. And it's that
first that shock. And it's like,well, what if if there was one
thing I could do? What wouldthat be? And I think, again,
depending on what it is you'redoing, it's like, well, at least
acknowledging that there arethings to do. Maybe you could
understand it a bit more. Thereare quicker ways of doing things
(29:44):
as well. But trying to build itinto your process and trying to
make people understand it's,it's not just one person in the
organization. Hopefully you canmake a network out of it.
There'll be advocates and alliesthat you can speak to that
aren't necessarily anywhere nearcommunications, but finding
you're finding a tribe of peoplewho want to help with it. So
(30:08):
that it is actually embedded into the processes of how people
work. And how we do business, Ithink is ultimately the goal.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (30:17):
And you mentioned, you know, when
communicators in particular,given this conversation are
brought to, to the light, if youwill, in terms of digital
accessibility, like, Hey,there's this stuff. And they
feel like, well, you know, Idon't have the, I don't have
enough time in a day to do thisand all that. What would be the
one low hanging fruit, that onepiece of advice that you would
(30:40):
say, okay, you don't have enoughtime in the day to do maybe all
of it all at once, because youalso have to learn and all that
stuff, what is that one pieceof, you know, one task or one
item that they can startimplementing today, listening to
this to say, alright, I can nowbe one step closer to being
accessible. What would you thinkwhat would you say that would
be?
Lisa Riemers (31:01):
Having a simple format for is, if you're, if
you're, you know, the, the mostcommon thing that communicators
do is they write, so making surethat your writing is in plain
language and isn't leaning onjargon, and isn't using longer
sentences where possible, andmaking using fewer words where
(31:27):
you can, you know, there's thatjoke about, I'm sorry, I wrote
you a long letter, I didn't havetime for a short one. When
you're communicating with youraudience, they also probably
don't have time to read the longletter. So getting that
important information right atthe beginning of whatever it is
you're writing, and making surethat it is clear, and it is in
(31:49):
plain language. If you can dothat as a starting point, then
everything else can follow.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (31:55):
Yeah, I love that. I love that. I feel
like plain language doesn't getenough credit, or it's used or
looked at, I should say, sorry,not used, but it was looked down
upon as if like, oh, wow, youknow, that means I'm after
really dumbed down is sort ofthe language that gets used, and
I hate that language. But I'mnot using the type of wording or
(32:18):
phrasing that I would love todo, because I think it's going
to make it sound much moreelite, perhaps. But plain
language expands your reach. Somuch. So, right, it opens it up
to everybody can be at the samelevel playing field and
understand and accept and ingauge with the content that
you're preparing. Right. And nowthere's the ISO standards, one
(32:42):
for plain language and one thatthey're coming out for legal
plainly, which I'm lookingforward to, because legalese.
That's a whole other beast.
Lisa Riemers (32:52):
Well, I think there's something in that, you
know, plain language iscommunication that your audience
can understand the first timethey read it. So you might be
using some technical terms, butthat's okay. As long as your
audience does understand thoseterms. And the only way you know
if they understand them or not,is if you've done user testing,
really. But you know, there's somuch research, the Nielsen
(33:14):
Norman groups written about howexperts prefer plain language.
There's an MIT article thatlawyers prefer plain English.
And I've done work with thecontent design agency
Quickstart. And Christine fromRockstar did some research that
shows that you know, people doprefer reading plain language
it's not, you know, people doworry that it's it is doubling
(33:36):
down, but it doesn't have to bethat you know, nobody isn't
busy. In your when you're whenyou're communicating with
people. And you can write anarticulate things clearly
without it being seen as beingdumbed down.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (33:55):
Yeah. And I hate that phrase, absolutely
hate that phrase. And, but Iuse, like, I sometimes get
stuck, and I use it, and then Ijust kind of gut reaction to it.
But anyways, when we're talkingabout plain language, there
seems to sometimes be thisdisconnect, or misunderstanding
that plain language is inclusivelanguage and inclusive language
(34:17):
is plain language, but they worktogether. Right? How do you help
organizations? Or how have youworked in your own practice, to
ensure that what you're doing isnot just plain language, but
also inclusive? And it'slanguage that's being used?
Lisa Riemers (34:35):
That is a great question. And I've been reading
a lot more about inclusivelanguage recently, because
honestly, it's something that itwasn't part of the training that
I used to deliver years ago andit's not something that I've
delivered any training onmyself, but I think I'm never
(34:57):
really conscious of the wordsthat we're using as we're
speaking like dumbing down isnot an inclusive term. Like,
there is so many words and thinkthat we need to be aware of when
we're communicating. And youknow, there are I believe that
there are now tools available tohelp you identify if you're
(35:20):
using gendered language, or ifyou're using words that might be
ableist, or discriminatory inany of the other protective
characteristics. And I thinkit's really important that, you
know, words, words matter words,as communication professionals,
we know how important words are.
And making sure that we useinclusive language when we're
(35:44):
communicating with people Ithink, is something that we
could all be better at. And I'mlearning myself.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (35:52):
Yeah.
Likewise, likewise, it's it'sconstant learning. I use
Grammarly for some of the stuffthat I do to assist with, you
know, when I'm writing, makingsure it's plain language, so on
and so forth. But they also havethat feature where inclusive
language comes into play whereit'll flag, this might be, you
know, seen as a negative for acertain group of people are
whatever the case may be, and itflags it, you're like, oh, maybe
(36:13):
I didn't realize that. And gofrom there. One word that I was
that I learned recently wasempowered to empower somebody.
So the thought is, or the theunderstanding is that you are
giving power to somebody, whenas if you have taken it away
(36:35):
from them already. So to use theword Empower means that like,
Okay, well here will give youpower back. It's okay. That's so
interesting, right? Yeah, right.
And I used to use that word allthe time. And now every time I
try to write it, I'm like, oh,no, no, no, I can find a
different word. I can totallyfind a different word to fill
(36:57):
that in. But it's one that youknow, I used to think so, so
highly of, if you will, butreally know when you think of
it, when you think it through alittle bit more, not so much.
Lisa Riemers (37:07):
Yeah, and I think, you know, one of the
conversations that's come upfrequently is like referring to
groups of people as guys. Itmight not be it's not intended,
it's some people say that it's agender neutral term, but
actually, using something is mypreferred term is probably folks
or everyone all, I try and avoidit. Occasionally, I slip into
(37:31):
it. And it's really, I find itreally jarring now, when I see
other people using it, but atthe same time, you know, it's
one of those things, it's supercommon still.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (37:40):
It really is. And it's, again, progress
over perfection across theboard, whether it's inclusive
language, plain language,digital accessibility, we're all
learning. We're all trying to bebetter at what we're doing. We
may make mistakes, we may slipup. But as long as we are being
as long as we're putting thepriority in trying to do better,
(38:02):
and really focusing on you know,yes, I'm we messed up and we
said this, but I now know, Ihave learned I will not do it
again. And I will learn fromthat mistake and learn and do
more about that. I think that'sthe key thing. And I think with
a lot of companies andorganizations, no matter if it's
inclusive, plain language, ifit's digital accessibility,
(38:23):
there's that fear. If I don't doit 100% correctly, as soon as I
start this, then there's nopoint in us doing it because we
did do it perfectly, or wedon't. How do you manage that?
That's a conversation when Ihave it with clients. It's like,
okay, so progress overperfection, like, but we need to
be perfect, but there is noperfect.
Lisa Riemers (38:45):
I think sometimes I've seen people, if they always
claiming ignorance, like, well,I didn't know about that. I
didn't hear about it. So how canI possibly implement it? Because
I just didn't know it was athing. And it's so difficult
sometimes, because you know, aspeople are busy and trying to
(39:05):
learn something or admittingthat you don't know something
can be scary. You don't want youdon't want to acknowledge that
you might not have all theanswers. You don't want to
necessarily show any weakness orvulnerability. But I think
unless we, unless we are open tolearning and to continually
(39:28):
developing professionally, Ithink you we end up stagnating
and, you know, inclusivelanguage is certainly something
that has changed over the years,you know, society changes
thinking about what we can andcan't say it's very, it. There
were terms that were frequentlyused 50 years ago that weren't
(39:51):
necessarily acceptable then butthey weren't inclusive them. But
the level of tolerance was youAt different, I've always been
offensive to marginalizedgroups. But, you know, I think I
like to have I, you introducedme as an accessibility
(40:13):
specialist, but I don't think Iam there are people that know a
lot more about this area than Ido. And what I'm trying to do is
share all of the stuff that I'velearned from my work as a
content designer, with peoplethat have just the pure
marketing communicationsbackground, because it's just
the user centered design aspectsor something that good
(40:34):
communication is audiencecentered, it's targeted, it's
aimed with the end people inmind, but their needs aren't
always seen as the priority. AndI think that's the biggest
difference between contentdesign and communications is
whose needs have the priority,because I think traditionally,
with the marketing terms, youknow, the businesses need to
(40:57):
make more money, the businesseswant to make sure that their
products are chosen over otherpeople's, from an internal
communications point of view,there's a business need to make
sure that employees need tounderstand, you know, the core
corporate objectives, theyunderstand what their
obligations are, that theyunderstand what they need to be
able to that, what benefitsmight be available to them. And
(41:21):
there's just this slight pivotto thinking, what do they need
to know to do their jobs? Andcan they get that information
easily, it's that pivot to useto making it about the users.
And sometimes in that case, thebusiness is a user, the business
does need to make sure thateveryone understands.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (41:39):
I totally agree, what I like to say,
usually at conferences, or whenI do speaking, is design or
create for the outliers. Becausewhen you create for the
outliers, you capture everyone.
Lisa Riemers (41:49):
Absolutely. And it's not an edge case, you know,
there are so it's such a highnumber of people. And I'm sure
everybody listening to thispodcast has had, has had
experiences themselves wherethings haven't been accessible
for them. And there was a great,I've got a great example of this
after a recent IABC meeting,where we went out for a dinner
(42:10):
to a fancy restaurant, and themenus that the text wasn't tiny,
but the menus were a beige textor a cream background. And the
light was really low. And I'vespoken designers in the past
that say that we you know,they're trying to get a
particular aesthetic, they wantto make sure that the men you
(42:31):
know, there's a whole set,there's a whole part of design
about menu design. But you know,it completely kills the vibe in
a restaurant, if four of you getyour phone can't your phone
torches out, because you can'tread read it. Like even even if
you've got your reading glasses,it was really difficult. It was
one of those situations ordisabilities where the light is
(42:53):
low. It has not been designedwith the end use case in mind.
So you know, whether it's yourkids books that you're trying to
read, and the text is thatthere's low contrast text, and
it's in the trees, and you'retrying to, you're trying to find
the words on the page, and it'sdark by the bed, whether it's
(43:13):
you know, you're trying to catchup with an email and your phone,
the screen on your phones a bitdamaged. So you can't quite read
it very easily. You know, thereare so many situations where
it's everybody. It's not just anoutlier.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (43:27):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. This has been
a faint, fantastic chat. I wasabout to go with the southern
accent there for a secondfantastic. Don't know where that
was coming from. But I can'tthank you enough for this. Lisa,
this has been absolutelyamazing. And a wonderful way to
sort of wrap up our focus onGlobal Accessibility Awareness
Day, which just passed onThursday. What would be your
(43:50):
last piece of advice, if youwill, for professional
communicators and marketers whowere, you know, wanting to start
their journey like you did. Interms of being more inclusive,
more accessible and what theydo?
Lisa Riemers (44:03):
Talk to your users understand who it is you're
communicating for. So that youcan take their needs into
account for any futurecommunications activities.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (44:14):
Love it.
And my final question, and Ipromise this hopefully isn't a
doozy. This is PR & Lattes. So Ihave to ask, what is your
favorite caffeinated go tobeverage?
Lisa Riemers (44:25):
Oh, it depends on the place. And I've got a local
coffee shop who does a lovelychai latte. But if I'm out and
about in London, I'll probablyget flat white.
Unknown (44:36):
love
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (44:36):
Love everything about it. Alright,
Lisa, I don't want to take upany more of your time. Thank you
again for being on the podcasttoday. If people want to connect
or follow with you, how can theyget in touch?
Lisa Riemers (44:47):
You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on the
artist formerly known asTwitter. And you can find my
website which is Lisa Freeman'sdot com. And I'm Lisa Roma's on
all of the channels.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (45:00):
Perfect, and I'll put all that in the
description of this podcast soit's easy for everyone to
access. Thank you again so much,Lisa. This has been fantastic.
Lisa Riemers (45:06):
Great. Thank you so much for having me.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (45:08):
You've been listening to a special episode
of PR & Lattes. Thank you somuch for your support this week
as we honored a GlobalAccessibility Awareness Day
otherwise known as GAAD. Tolearn more about gat its
foundation and digitalaccessibility, you can visit
their website accessibility.day.
As for us here at PR & Lattes,you can check out the episodes
you may have missed, access thetranscripts, or read our blogs
(45:30):
by visiting our websiteprandlattes.com. You can also
follow us on social media, onInstagram at @PRAndLattes and on
LinkedIn PR & Lattes. We'll beback on Thursday, June 20th with
a new season of the PR & Lattespodcast. I've been your host
Matisse Hamel-Nelis And untilnext time, 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
excited to have you join metoday for our final episode on
our special series in honour ofGlobal Accessibility Awareness
Day. Before we get started, makesure you subscribe to this
podcast wherever you'relistening to it to get notified
(00:24):
when we launch our next seasonin late June. You can also
subscribe to our newsletter byvisiting our website
prandlattes.com. On the website,you'll find our latest podcast
episodes plus our amazing blogswith new ones being uploaded
every Monday morning. And ofcourse, make sure you're
following us on social media onInstagram at @PRAndLattes, and
(00:45):
on LinkedIn PR & Lattes. Ontoday's final episode, I'm
chatting with accessiblecommunication specialist Lisa
Riemers. Lisa is an independentcommunication content and
digital workspace consultant whohelps organizations connect
their people and tell theirstories. She helps teams create
accessible user centered contentthat makes information easier to
(01:07):
understand. As well as gettingthe best out of their intranet
and collaboration tools. Shestrives to build inclusive
communities both online and off.
I'm eager to chat with her aboutwhy she feels and why we feel
that professional communicatorsneed to change their game and
start thinking aboutaccessibility and everything we
do. So grab your latte, sit backand enjoy.
(01:29):
I am so happy for today'sepisode. It is the last in our
series for the GlobalAccessibility Awareness Day
campaign if you will here at PR& Lattes and I am joined by
Lisa, a dear friend andprofessional communicator. Lisa,
welcome to PR & Lattes!
Lisa Riemers (01:44):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really
excited to be here as well.
Thanks, Matisse.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (01:50):
This is going to be a great
conversation. And we've heardall week in these different
podcast episodes about digitalaccessibility from various
facets, right from the livedexperience, to website
accessibility to be quoteunquote, accessible overlays,
accessible documents, you nameit, we've talked about it. But
Lisa with you, we're gonna havea chat, we're going to have a
(02:11):
chat about why should we care asprofessional communicators? Yes,
we get all this information. Butwhy should we care? That is
really what we're trying tofocus on today. But before we
get into that, can you tell thelisteners a little bit about
yourself and your own journeyand communications and what led
you into the digitalaccessibility space?
Lisa Riemers (02:27):
Okay, so I originally started as a
marketing person. I resume broadmarketing communications, which
touched on PR, external commshelping the organization I was
working for communicate theproposition to their customers.
(02:49):
And we had a massive websiteproject. It was a global
organization, I was working atG4S for us at the time, which I
think is now Allied G4S or justAllied. And there was this
enormous project to get 106different country websites into
one content management system.
And I was quite new to the sideof things. And I was working in
(03:10):
the UK, one of one of thedivisions in the UK. And
everybody else took a bit of astep backwards. And I really
enjoyed I took a big stepforwards to help represent our
region, as it were, as part ofthat project. I really enjoyed
understanding how everythingworked and making sure that
everything was formattedappropriately, and really trying
(03:33):
to understand the nuts and boltsof how the website worked. And I
remember having this a lightbulb moment where when I had my
personal development review witha manager and I was thinking,
Well, I'm an externalcommunications executive, where
do I want to go from there? AndI didn't really know what I was
doing. And then I thought,actually, no, I want to
(03:54):
specialize in digital. Because,I mean, at the time digital was
a separate specialism ratherthan being a channel that
everybody uses as part of theircommunication because like, you
can't avoid it really now. So IYeah, so I jumped into digital
generally, I did a bunch of workwith a number of clients working
(04:17):
with internet's which areinternal websites to help make
everyone in the organization,feel connected, find the right
information that they need to dotheir job.
And also looking at websites.
And since then I've donecommunity management, I've done
accessible content design, whichis something that I can't that's
(04:40):
kind of evolved as I've gonebecause there's something about
web content that peopleeverybody uses nowadays, but
people don't necessarily if theywere classically trained as a
journalist or as a marketingperson. There are certain rules
was about communication thathaven't necessarily been taught
(05:01):
as that transition into digitalfor people. And that's something
that I've done a lot of work in.
And I really enjoy it. And Ifind that as I've been working
with clients and talking tocolleagues and working with
other employees, reallyunderstanding what it is that
people need, making sure thatthat information meets their
(05:24):
needs, especially if they've gotparticular needs around
accessing that information, issomething that I feel really is
an important part of my job. Andit's something that I love to
help other people do more aboutit.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (05:40):
Yeah, I love that you want...it's sort
of like you want to meet peoplewhere they're at, right? If
they're wanting to access theinformation, so be able to
provide them the information ina way they can access it.
they
Lisa Riemers (05:51):
They don't even always want it this information,
you know, we get bombarded withso much information working in
an organization like nobody,nobody says they don't have
enough emails, they might saythey didn't hear about something
and get upset that they weren'ttold about something, but that
you're trying to provide himeverybody is busy. It's not like
(06:13):
anyone sitting around twiddlingtheir thumbs thinking I know,
I'm gonna go and browse. And I'mgoing to dig into this really
difficult to use internalsystem, because I've got nothing
else to do. People are coming todo a thing. They want
information. They're busy, theywant to get on with their day.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (06:30):
Yeah, exactly one of my biggest pet
peeves, and I want I want yourperspective on this is when I'm
working with a client or anorganization, and they say,
well, nobody with a disabilityor with sight loss accesses my
website or has applied for a jobhere. And it's like, well, how
do you know? And why wouldn'tyou make things accessible so
(06:52):
that they can? Maybe that's whythey haven't done that? How do
you manage those sorts ofconversations and dialogues, if
you will, with clients, whenthey're like, Oh, we don't have
anybody with, you know, sightloss, who's accessing our
content.
Lisa Riemers (07:05):
I've had so many conversations along those lines
recently. I went to a tech showa couple of weeks ago, and I was
talking to these vendors aboutthese cool new technologies that
they were using. And there wasone which had like an immersive
virtual meeting spaces, youcould build like a little bit
(07:27):
like Second Life used to be youcould build an entire conference
center and walk around. And Iasked him, it's like, how would
a blind or partially sightedperson use this? Is that what
I'm pretty sure they justwouldn't, I don't, I don't think
anyone any of my customers haveblind employees. That's such a
difficult...So the conversationthat we had, as I was explaining
(07:51):
how when I worked for...I wasdoing some accessible content
training at a governmentdepartment in the UK. And a
couple of minutes before thatsession, I got informed that we
one of our blind colleagues wasjoining. Um, so luckily, my
presentation was accessible. ButI was able to, you know, there
(08:15):
were steps that we tookthroughout that trading session,
which was in person to make surethat he had access to the
materials that all of the imageswere described to him clearly.
And that his feedback alsohelped improve the latest
iteration. But sorry, jumpingback a bit, I pointed out to
this guy at a tech show. It'slike, so I did this training
session for a blind person whowas able to navigate to my
(08:38):
physical meeting room, he used astick to be able to walk around,
he had feedback to know whenthere were curbs when there were
walls, he could see some things,but he wasn't he didn't have he
didn't.
He wasn't able to see any of thedetail. And there was a little
light that went on in his mindbecause oh, we could actually do
(08:59):
we could almost do a virtualequivalent of that stick. Like
somebody, if they walked into awall, you could get some
feedback to say this is a wall,like a digital version of it.
Like he just hadn't thought ofhow of what the challenge might
be, and, and that there might bepeople that who would be using
it. But it was really nice. Idon't know whether he's taken it
(09:21):
away and made any improvementsto the software yet, but he
definitely saw it as a thing.
And I think being able to tellthis, you know, you can you can
there's so many statisticsavailable about the number of
people with disabilities, thenumber of people that use
assistive technology, which wecan dig into in a little bit,
but I think being able to helptell, tell stories about the
statistics because people don'tnecessarily believe numbers they
(09:42):
liked as, as well as hearingstories and other people's
experiences. There's obviouslythe importance of having actual
users with lived experiencebeing able to test your content,
test your comps and test yourservices. I think getting that
real feedback from people canreally help people understand
(10:02):
that.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (10:04):
That is so true. And I think, in the
digital space, there's alwaysthat Reliance or fall back on
Well, an automated system saidit worked. That's my checkmark.
And yes, maybe from a technicalperspective, you have checked
all those boxes. But I like tosay, if it's not usable, it's
not accessible. If the end usercan't explore and navigate the
(10:28):
content you're putting outthere, then you're not really
being accessible, right, andyou're not being accessible if
it's not usable. And so you sortof have to ensure that you're
meeting both fronts, beingcompliant, but also is the
compliance is done in a way thatcan actually be utilized by
whoever you want it to use. So Ilove that you brought up your
(10:50):
experience. And then he waslike, oh, light bulb moment,
maybe we could do somethingthere. Right. But you know,
without that end user experienceor that end user feedback, it's
just sort of an assumption oflike, I think we're on the right
track. And that's something Ifind really interesting with
organizations as well is, whenyou work on a project, a lot of
(11:13):
companies just want thatautomated checkmark versus
putting it through and usertesting. How do you manage? How
do you work along those lines toensure that end users are
actually testing the productsthat you're working with, to
with these organizations, sothat you can say we have checked
it from a manual perspective andautomated perspective?
Lisa Riemers (11:35):
So I think, involving real users at every
port, every port every part ofif you're, if you're looking at
a new internal system, say likea new intranet, making sure
you've got users at every stepof the way from that very first,
we think we've got an issue withour existing platform. So let's
do some user research as part ofthe discovery to understand what
people's genuine pain pointsare, and understand what their
(11:58):
needs are. And then getting themout getting them involved in the
decisions or the discussionsabout how that how that should
actually be structured. Whatterms make sense to people? What
if you were to do a card sortingexercise, how would you group
this information in a way thatmakes sense to you, it's very
(12:20):
easy to do things that makesense to, if you just work in
head office, or if it's a globalsite, if you just work in the
head offices country. And theremight be cultural variations,
there might be terms thatjargony that people don't
necessarily understand, even ifthey've been in the organization
a long time. Or there might beterms that mean a completely
(12:42):
different thing, if youdepending on which framework
that you've you've worked with.
So I think getting userfeedback, actual users looking
at the things, being able totest the products and services,
feeding back on yourcommunications, being able to
sit with them, if you're ableto, or ask them to share their
screen with you is also helpful.
(13:06):
Because there might be as wellas the as well as the user's own
needs. There might be technicallimitations with that setup,
that means actually, thisdoesn't work in the way you want
it. One of the things that Ifind useful, you know, we talk
about ot texts, being able toput descriptions on images, if
someone hasn't got a decentinternet connection where they
(13:26):
are, they won't be able todownload the images, they need
that alternative format, theyneed to see what they're
missing, they might not be ableto stream video. So if they've
got the transcript of thatvideo, then they're still able
to consume that information. AndI think I remember quite a
notable example of a lady who Iworked with years ago when we
(13:48):
were launching our new intranet.
And she said, Well, it doesn'twork. It's terrible. I can't see
it, you know, it's not workingfor me. And it's only when I sat
at her desk, that I realizedthat she had her screen
resolution set. So it was theminimum, you could make it. So
it's like, so every all thepixels were enormous, basically.
And that homepage only showedlike a, I think, in 1/9 was the
(14:11):
full page because it was zoomedright in. And her perception was
that the entire intranethomepage was the Quicklinks
because that's all she could seeon her screen. So if I hadn't
sat with her and looked at herscreen, I'd have had, I could
just been having loads ofconversations via the Help Desk
(14:32):
via phone calls, emails back andforth. actually meeting people
where they're at. I think it'simportant.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (14:41):
Yeah. And I think another part of this is,
you know, as professionalcommunicators are listening to
this and thinking how can weincorporate end user testing
into our, you know, processes.
You have to pay the end users aswell. It's not free insights.
Right? If you are looking forindividuals with disabilities to
use assistive technology toshare their insights and
(15:04):
perspectives, you should paythem it is it's a job that
they're doing for you. And Ithink there's that misconception
of, well, they should be doingit because it's an it's good to
do. And it's like, well, if Iwere to ask you to write a comp
plan for free, just because youcan, right, I'm not gonna pay,
it doesn't work, it doesn'twork. How do you balance that
(15:25):
understanding of, you know, whenwe're going through this, there
is a budget towards it. And Ithink that's also something that
companies fear, when it comes todigital accessibility is the
cost that can be associatedpotentially with it, the how do
you level set? And how do youmanage the expectation around
how much it may cost to makesomething accessible versus just
(15:48):
it being left as is and notbeing accessible at all?
Lisa Riemers (15:53):
I think, what do you look at the cost of things
not being accessible. I've seenexamples where it's really,
genuinely affected the bottomline, I was doing some work for
a company who launched they hadto update, they had to update
their content to make theinformation more understandable
to explain what some terms andconditions been. But by making
(16:18):
that T's and C's update, theymade this window pop up, which
depending on the device youused, actually didn't close. And
let's so if you use inparticular kind of tablet,
unless you turned it round, youweren't able to close the
window. And they genuinely sawquite a substantial bottom line
until that was fixed over acouple of days, they saw a drop
(16:41):
in their insurance quotes. And,you know, not making things
accessible, can have such a bigimpact your finances, you know,
according to scope, which is acharity in the UK, there's 274
billion pounds a year is thetotal estimated spending power
(17:03):
of families with at least onedisabled person. If you're
excluding those people, that's amassive amount of money that
you're potentially missing outon for your, from customers. And
I think those also, if you'rethinking about from an internal
comms point of view, we'realways looking at ways to
(17:23):
increase the impact of ourcommunications, we want to make
sure that our messaging is niceand crisp and clear. But if one
in four people live in the UK,one in four people are
classified as disabled. Andwhilst that may not reflect the
exact numbers in yourorganization, you could
potentially be excluding 25% ofpeople from being able to
(17:45):
actually completely understandand fully appreciate the effort
that you put into yourcommunications, they might get a
bit of it. But that has animpact on people's time. If
they're then kept trying to findanother mode of that
information. It could impact onthe engagement. How does this
(18:09):
affect people's you know, longerterm, if they don't feel like
they're included in anorganization, they might go
somewhere else. So this could beaffecting people's retention
rates, people's retention rates,company retention rates and
actually having to, it's muchmore expensive to try new stuff
than it is to keep your existingones. So you want to be doing
(18:30):
everything you can to not getnot let the good people leave.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (18:35):
That's true. And I think something else
that people forget about isthese stats are those based on
individuals who identifiedabilities, right? If I look at
my dad, for example, love him,don't get me wrong, but it can
be really annoying sometimeswhen he forgets to put in his
hearing aids because he doesn'tconsider himself having hearing
(18:55):
loss. But without the hearingaids, we are screaming, and then
he wonders why we're mad at him.
And it's like, no, it's just putthem in. But he wouldn't
identify himself as havinghearing loss. If given a census
or given a survey to say, youknow, do you have a disability,
I for one wear glasses, and myglasses are pretty thick without
my glasses, I can barely see infront of me. But my glasses are
(19:16):
my assistive tech. But when Ifill out a census or survey, I
don't consider myself as havingthat type of disability. Right.
And I think that's something butif I broke my glasses, and I'm
on campus, or I'm out and about,I'm, I'm stuck, I can't drive. I
can't, you know, I can barelysee in front of me and
everything's really reallyblurry. So it's understanding
(19:38):
that these numbers are deflatednumbers. They are not the
accurate representation.
And
Lisa Riemers (19:47):
And I think the World Health Organization
estimates that one in three ofus will need assistive
technology at some point in ourlives. And that ranges from as
you said, from glasses, it couldbe mobility scooters like I...I
love the thought I can't, I wishI knew who to attribute it to.
But that idea that we're onlyever temporarily not disabled. I
(20:09):
had a I injured my footrecently, which meant that my
mobility was severely hampered.
And I went to my local hospitaland got checked in seen by the
doctor and they said, right,you're gonna have to go to the X
ray department, which annoyinglythey've closed the door that
linked to the two buildingstogether, and I had to take the
(20:31):
longest route around theoutside. And then I went around
the outside, and I got to thelift. And I was looking at this
really long list of departments.
And there were 30 departments onthe list, and none of them were
called X ray. And then I lookedagain, and I realized that there
was one called imaging, andsomeone had taped up the word X
ray next to it on a post itnote. And it's like, this is a
(20:54):
perfect example of where thehospital is not using, they're
not using the terms that theirmembers of staff use, let alone
the terms that members of thepublic are going to use. So and
I found also, when I remembergetting into a lift, I'm
thinking back to when I broke myfoot a few years ago, and the
(21:16):
signage was only on one side ofthe doors. But if I'd been in
there in a wheelchair, Iwouldn't have been able to
actually read which level Ineeded to. Because if you
depending on which way you goin, I wouldn't have been able to
turn to actually pick the rightbutton. And I think it's quite
interesting. Like, you know,we're going a bit off the topic
from communications, but thatkind of the positioning and the
(21:38):
physicality of our environment,you know, people are much more
familiar, I think, with thelegislation about making
reasonable adjustments to makesure that people can physically
get into a building. But eventhen it's not right. And that
positioning of signage even issomething that unless someone's
thinking about that otherperspective, they just might
not. You might not see it.
Unknown (22:00):
Yeah,
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (22:00):
Yeah, yeah.
And I think you brought up agreat point there being that
quote about being temporarilynot disabled.
Lisa Riemers (22:08):
Yeah
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (22:08):
Right? And, and I think to during the
pandemic, when everybody washome, though, you know, ever,
everybody doesn't like talkingabout the pandemic anymore. But
this is a great example, yourhome, everybody is home, you're
stuck with your, but you have towork, but you're stuck with your
kids and your dogs, and youknow, your pets and your birds,
and whoever else is in thehouse, your husband and you
know, whatever. And you have tobe in a meeting, but you can't
(22:31):
hear what's being said, becausethe kids are playing dogs
barking, husband's got the TVtoo loud, whatever the case is,
and you're just sitting there, agetting angry, let's be real.
But realistically, you needcaptions to hear what's
happening on the screen. Right.
And it was fascinating to seehow quickly captions and the
accessibility of meeting spacesrapidly changed because of the
(22:53):
pandemic. And we got on boardwith... Oh, it doesn't just help
people with disabilities, ithelps everybody.
Lisa Riemers (23:01):
Right.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (23:02):
And I'm, I'm one of those people who when
I'm at home, I have my two dogswho during these podcasts you
sometimes hear in thebackground, you know, they'll
bark at the most inopportunemoments. And so having captions
really helps when you're tryingto follow along. And it doesn't
necessarily mean that that'sbecause I have a disability, I
have a temporary disability,which is the dogs barking or my
(23:23):
situation has changed in someway. And I think that is
something that organizationsseem to continually forget. You
know, like all the strides wemade during the pandemic, in the
digital accessibility space nowthat the pandemic is, quote,
unquote, over everyone is like,wow, you know, we're back in
person. So we don't need toapply things. But now it's we
have to rethink what we're doingto apply new methods, right?
Lisa Riemers (23:46):
Yeah. And I think it's not just new things,
either. You just reminded me ofa conversation that I had many
years ago with our in housegraphic designer, who made the
most incredible lookingbeautiful posters, which worked
super well if he had aprofessional printing service,
because they were able to giveyou a lovely, multicoloured,
(24:07):
high-quality print. But we werethen asking, we were sending
these out via email, and thenasking depots and sites to print
these off and put them on theirnotice boards. And, you know,
we're talking sort of 15 yearsago, thinking about the quality
of printers that you get inoffices in their local waste
disposal facility. It's just itdoesn't work for the users that
(24:32):
need it. So a full colourbackground will use up all the
ink. You know, if it prints atall, it will be streaky. It
completely undermines yourmessaging. So whether you're
dealing with remote staff whohave to deal with a terrible
printer, or you might havefrontline staff who have that,
as we've said before, like poorinternet connection I've been
(24:55):
I've been talking to a clientrecently who's a really a really
big company. They who have gotit, I was really surprised that
the poor connectivity they'vegot in their offices, like this
is still a current issue. It'snot something that's going away.
And I think trying to understandthe limitations of what users
are working with, helps get yourmessage across more clearly.
(25:19):
I help volunteer, I used tovolunteer for our very local
beer festival that's just moved.
It's moved to another town now.
But again, thinking about theflyer design and the poster
design, we did not have a bigbudget, we were going to be
getting stuff printed as cheaplyas possible. So most of the
artwork was purely black andwhite, something that works
nicely nice and clear. It can beprinted out by even a even a not
(25:45):
great quality printer, becausethe text is nice and easy to
read in large font. And yeah, Ithink it's it's not a new thing.
But there are newer challenges,particularly where we're trying
to rely on either fewerchannels, or we've got less time
and we've got to put our messageout across more channels. It's
(26:06):
making sure that as we makemedia for different ways of as
we as we're creating the thesecommunications for our various
audiences, making sure that theformat works for the for that
channel.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (26:22):
Do you find that, from your experience and
working with various clients andorganizations? That there's more
appetite to be digitallyaccessible? Or is it been? Has
it been more a fight for you tobe like, No, but you need to
there's legislation?
Lisa Riemers (26:40):
I think both. I was working the public sector in
the UK recently, there was areal scramble to meet, there was
some new legislation introduced,which essentially emphasized
existing legislation, there wasa 2018 public public sector
accessibility regulations, whichmade it really explicit that any
(27:02):
public sector, so digitalservices, whether that's
websites or apps or intranet,they must be accessible for
people so that they are notexcluding any of their uses. And
having that additionallegislation in place and a
deadline that things had to bemade accessible by was that
brilliant, I say brilliant. Itwas quite a scramble in a lot of
(27:26):
organizations at the time to tryand become at least compliant
and get but it's a shame thatit's being seen as well, we've
got to just meet the law, ratherthan necessarily. That's the
spirit of the law, which isthere because you're making
services for everybody.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (27:43):
Yeah. Do you find it...Not difficult. But
do you find that when you areworking with these clients and
organizations, and your input,implementing these
accessibility, best practices,and so on and so forth, that
they're eager or willing to alsolook at it from a cultural
perspective and creating thatcultural shift within their
(28:04):
organization to be moreaccessible, and then in turn
being more inclusive, diverseand equitable?
Lisa Riemers (28:12):
I think it depends on the individuals involved. And
I think for all of us, it's ajourney. I thought I knew what I
was talking about. Well, severalyears ago, I thought I got what
accessibility meant until Istarted talking to users and
testing things with users. And Irealized that what I thought was
good wasn't. And it's one ofthose things that people often
(28:34):
see as somebody else's problem.
It's like, oh, that must besomeone else's responsibility.
We were using this software,that must be the vendors
responsibility we're using, youknow, we're using these tools.
And we've got some limitations.
But that's it is responsibility,or, you know, it's always seen
as somebody else's thing. And Ithink, wherever you are on that
journey, understanding that itis a journey, that there's
(29:00):
something that we can alwayslearn.
And we're mate, we're leavingthings better than they were
before. I think it's somethingto to take on board. And
especially if you know thatthings aren't perfect, but they
are much better than they were,feels like progress. And I think
I've had conversations withpeople recently. And they said,
(29:22):
Oh, it's the first time I'veheard of this. However, I
haven't got time for this. I'malready too busy. And it's that
first that shock. And it's like,well, what if if there was one
thing I could do? What wouldthat be? And I think, again,
depending on what it is you'redoing, it's like, well, at least
acknowledging that there arethings to do. Maybe you could
understand it a bit more. Thereare quicker ways of doing things
(29:44):
as well. But trying to build itinto your process and trying to
make people understand it's,it's not just one person in the
organization. Hopefully you canmake a network out of it.
There'll be advocates and alliesthat you can speak to that
aren't necessarily anywhere nearcommunications, but finding
you're finding a tribe of peoplewho want to help with it. So
(30:08):
that it is actually embedded into the processes of how people
work. And how we do business, Ithink is ultimately the goal.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (30:17):
And you mentioned, you know, when
communicators in particular,given this conversation are
brought to, to the light, if youwill, in terms of digital
accessibility, like, Hey,there's this stuff. And they
feel like, well, you know, Idon't have the, I don't have
enough time in a day to do thisand all that. What would be the
one low hanging fruit, that onepiece of advice that you would
(30:40):
say, okay, you don't have enoughtime in the day to do maybe all
of it all at once, because youalso have to learn and all that
stuff, what is that one pieceof, you know, one task or one
item that they can startimplementing today, listening to
this to say, alright, I can nowbe one step closer to being
accessible. What would you thinkwhat would you say that would
be?
Lisa Riemers (31:01):
Having a simple format for is, if you're, if
you're, you know, the, the mostcommon thing that communicators
do is they write, so making surethat your writing is in plain
language and isn't leaning onjargon, and isn't using longer
sentences where possible, andmaking using fewer words where
(31:27):
you can, you know, there's thatjoke about, I'm sorry, I wrote
you a long letter, I didn't havetime for a short one. When
you're communicating with youraudience, they also probably
don't have time to read the longletter. So getting that
important information right atthe beginning of whatever it is
you're writing, and making surethat it is clear, and it is in
(31:49):
plain language. If you can dothat as a starting point, then
everything else can follow.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (31:55):
Yeah, I love that. I love that. I feel
like plain language doesn't getenough credit, or it's used or
looked at, I should say, sorry,not used, but it was looked down
upon as if like, oh, wow, youknow, that means I'm after
really dumbed down is sort ofthe language that gets used, and
I hate that language. But I'mnot using the type of wording or
(32:18):
phrasing that I would love todo, because I think it's going
to make it sound much moreelite, perhaps. But plain
language expands your reach. Somuch. So, right, it opens it up
to everybody can be at the samelevel playing field and
understand and accept and ingauge with the content that
you're preparing. Right. And nowthere's the ISO standards, one
(32:42):
for plain language and one thatthey're coming out for legal
plainly, which I'm lookingforward to, because legalese.
That's a whole other beast.
Lisa Riemers (32:52):
Well, I think there's something in that, you
know, plain language iscommunication that your audience
can understand the first timethey read it. So you might be
using some technical terms, butthat's okay. As long as your
audience does understand thoseterms. And the only way you know
if they understand them or not,is if you've done user testing,
really. But you know, there's somuch research, the Nielsen
(33:14):
Norman groups written about howexperts prefer plain language.
There's an MIT article thatlawyers prefer plain English.
And I've done work with thecontent design agency
Quickstart. And Christine fromRockstar did some research that
shows that you know, people doprefer reading plain language
it's not, you know, people doworry that it's it is doubling
(33:36):
down, but it doesn't have to bethat you know, nobody isn't
busy. In your when you're whenyou're communicating with
people. And you can write anarticulate things clearly
without it being seen as beingdumbed down.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (33:55):
Yeah. And I hate that phrase, absolutely
hate that phrase. And, but Iuse, like, I sometimes get
stuck, and I use it, and then Ijust kind of gut reaction to it.
But anyways, when we're talkingabout plain language, there
seems to sometimes be thisdisconnect, or misunderstanding
that plain language is inclusivelanguage and inclusive language
(34:17):
is plain language, but they worktogether. Right? How do you help
organizations? Or how have youworked in your own practice, to
ensure that what you're doing isnot just plain language, but
also inclusive? And it'slanguage that's being used?
Lisa Riemers (34:35):
That is a great question. And I've been reading
a lot more about inclusivelanguage recently, because
honestly, it's something that itwasn't part of the training that
I used to deliver years ago andit's not something that I've
delivered any training onmyself, but I think I'm never
(34:57):
really conscious of the wordsthat we're using as we're
speaking like dumbing down isnot an inclusive term. Like,
there is so many words and thinkthat we need to be aware of when
we're communicating. And youknow, there are I believe that
there are now tools available tohelp you identify if you're
(35:20):
using gendered language, or ifyou're using words that might be
ableist, or discriminatory inany of the other protective
characteristics. And I thinkit's really important that, you
know, words, words matter words,as communication professionals,
we know how important words are.
And making sure that we useinclusive language when we're
(35:44):
communicating with people Ithink, is something that we
could all be better at. And I'mlearning myself.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (35:52):
Yeah.
Likewise, likewise, it's it'sconstant learning. I use
Grammarly for some of the stuffthat I do to assist with, you
know, when I'm writing, makingsure it's plain language, so on
and so forth. But they also havethat feature where inclusive
language comes into play whereit'll flag, this might be, you
know, seen as a negative for acertain group of people are
whatever the case may be, and itflags it, you're like, oh, maybe
(36:13):
I didn't realize that. And gofrom there. One word that I was
that I learned recently wasempowered to empower somebody.
So the thought is, or the theunderstanding is that you are
giving power to somebody, whenas if you have taken it away
(36:35):
from them already. So to use theword Empower means that like,
Okay, well here will give youpower back. It's okay. That's so
interesting, right? Yeah, right.
And I used to use that word allthe time. And now every time I
try to write it, I'm like, oh,no, no, no, I can find a
different word. I can totallyfind a different word to fill
(36:57):
that in. But it's one that youknow, I used to think so, so
highly of, if you will, butreally know when you think of
it, when you think it through alittle bit more, not so much.
Lisa Riemers (37:07):
Yeah, and I think, you know, one of the
conversations that's come upfrequently is like referring to
groups of people as guys. Itmight not be it's not intended,
it's some people say that it's agender neutral term, but
actually, using something is mypreferred term is probably folks
or everyone all, I try and avoidit. Occasionally, I slip into
(37:31):
it. And it's really, I find itreally jarring now, when I see
other people using it, but atthe same time, you know, it's
one of those things, it's supercommon still.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (37:40):
It really is. And it's, again, progress
over perfection across theboard, whether it's inclusive
language, plain language,digital accessibility, we're all
learning. We're all trying to bebetter at what we're doing. We
may make mistakes, we may slipup. But as long as we are being
as long as we're putting thepriority in trying to do better,
(38:02):
and really focusing on you know,yes, I'm we messed up and we
said this, but I now know, Ihave learned I will not do it
again. And I will learn fromthat mistake and learn and do
more about that. I think that'sthe key thing. And I think with
a lot of companies andorganizations, no matter if it's
inclusive, plain language, ifit's digital accessibility,
(38:23):
there's that fear. If I don't doit 100% correctly, as soon as I
start this, then there's nopoint in us doing it because we
did do it perfectly, or wedon't. How do you manage that?
That's a conversation when Ihave it with clients. It's like,
okay, so progress overperfection, like, but we need to
be perfect, but there is noperfect.
Lisa Riemers (38:45):
I think sometimes I've seen people, if they always
claiming ignorance, like, well,I didn't know about that. I
didn't hear about it. So how canI possibly implement it? Because
I just didn't know it was athing. And it's so difficult
sometimes, because you know, aspeople are busy and trying to
(39:05):
learn something or admittingthat you don't know something
can be scary. You don't want youdon't want to acknowledge that
you might not have all theanswers. You don't want to
necessarily show any weakness orvulnerability. But I think
unless we, unless we are open tolearning and to continually
(39:28):
developing professionally, Ithink you we end up stagnating
and, you know, inclusivelanguage is certainly something
that has changed over the years,you know, society changes
thinking about what we can andcan't say it's very, it. There
were terms that were frequentlyused 50 years ago that weren't
(39:51):
necessarily acceptable then butthey weren't inclusive them. But
the level of tolerance was youAt different, I've always been
offensive to marginalizedgroups. But, you know, I think I
like to have I, you introducedme as an accessibility
(40:13):
specialist, but I don't think Iam there are people that know a
lot more about this area than Ido. And what I'm trying to do is
share all of the stuff that I'velearned from my work as a
content designer, with peoplethat have just the pure
marketing communicationsbackground, because it's just
the user centered design aspectsor something that good
(40:34):
communication is audiencecentered, it's targeted, it's
aimed with the end people inmind, but their needs aren't
always seen as the priority. AndI think that's the biggest
difference between contentdesign and communications is
whose needs have the priority,because I think traditionally,
with the marketing terms, youknow, the businesses need to
(40:57):
make more money, the businesseswant to make sure that their
products are chosen over otherpeople's, from an internal
communications point of view,there's a business need to make
sure that employees need tounderstand, you know, the core
corporate objectives, theyunderstand what their
obligations are, that theyunderstand what they need to be
able to that, what benefitsmight be available to them. And
(41:21):
there's just this slight pivotto thinking, what do they need
to know to do their jobs? Andcan they get that information
easily, it's that pivot to useto making it about the users.
And sometimes in that case, thebusiness is a user, the business
does need to make sure thateveryone understands.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (41:39):
I totally agree, what I like to say,
usually at conferences, or whenI do speaking, is design or
create for the outliers. Becausewhen you create for the
outliers, you capture everyone.
Lisa Riemers (41:49):
Absolutely. And it's not an edge case, you know,
there are so it's such a highnumber of people. And I'm sure
everybody listening to thispodcast has had, has had
experiences themselves wherethings haven't been accessible
for them. And there was a great,I've got a great example of this
after a recent IABC meeting,where we went out for a dinner
(42:10):
to a fancy restaurant, and themenus that the text wasn't tiny,
but the menus were a beige textor a cream background. And the
light was really low. And I'vespoken designers in the past
that say that we you know,they're trying to get a
particular aesthetic, they wantto make sure that the men you
(42:31):
know, there's a whole set,there's a whole part of design
about menu design. But you know,it completely kills the vibe in
a restaurant, if four of you getyour phone can't your phone
torches out, because you can'tread read it. Like even even if
you've got your reading glasses,it was really difficult. It was
one of those situations ordisabilities where the light is
(42:53):
low. It has not been designedwith the end use case in mind.
So you know, whether it's yourkids books that you're trying to
read, and the text is thatthere's low contrast text, and
it's in the trees, and you'retrying to, you're trying to find
the words on the page, and it'sdark by the bed, whether it's
(43:13):
you know, you're trying to catchup with an email and your phone,
the screen on your phones a bitdamaged. So you can't quite read
it very easily. You know, thereare so many situations where
it's everybody. It's not just anoutlier.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (43:27):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. This has been
a faint, fantastic chat. I wasabout to go with the southern
accent there for a secondfantastic. Don't know where that
was coming from. But I can'tthank you enough for this. Lisa,
this has been absolutelyamazing. And a wonderful way to
sort of wrap up our focus onGlobal Accessibility Awareness
Day, which just passed onThursday. What would be your
(43:50):
last piece of advice, if youwill, for professional
communicators and marketers whowere, you know, wanting to start
their journey like you did. Interms of being more inclusive,
more accessible and what theydo?
Lisa Riemers (44:03):
Talk to your users understand who it is you're
communicating for. So that youcan take their needs into
account for any futurecommunications activities.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (44:14):
Love it.
And my final question, and Ipromise this hopefully isn't a
doozy. This is PR & Lattes. So Ihave to ask, what is your
favorite caffeinated go tobeverage?
Lisa Riemers (44:25):
Oh, it depends on the place. And I've got a local
coffee shop who does a lovelychai latte. But if I'm out and
about in London, I'll probablyget flat white.
Unknown (44:36):
love
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (44:36):
Love everything about it. Alright,
Lisa, I don't want to take upany more of your time. Thank you
again for being on the podcasttoday. If people want to connect
or follow with you, how can theyget in touch?
Lisa Riemers (44:47):
You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on the
artist formerly known asTwitter. And you can find my
website which is Lisa Freeman'sdot com. And I'm Lisa Roma's on
all of the channels.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (45:00):
Perfect, and I'll put all that in the
description of this podcast soit's easy for everyone to
access. Thank you again so much,Lisa. This has been fantastic.
Lisa Riemers (45:06):
Great. Thank you so much for having me.
Matisse Hamel-Nelis (45:08):
You've been listening to a special episode
of PR & Lattes. Thank you somuch for your support this week
as we honored a GlobalAccessibility Awareness Day
otherwise known as GAAD. Tolearn more about gat its
foundation and digitalaccessibility, you can visit
their website accessibility.day.
As for us here at PR & Lattes,you can check out the episodes
you may have missed, access thetranscripts, or read our blogs
(45:30):
by visiting our websiteprandlattes.com. You can also
follow us on social media, onInstagram at @PRAndLattes and on
LinkedIn PR & Lattes. We'll beback on Thursday, June 20th with
a new season of the PR & Lattespodcast. I've been your host
Matisse Hamel-Nelis And untilnext time, bye for now.
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