Sam Proulx 00:01 | Hello, everyone, and welcome to another extraordinary episode of The InclusionHub Podcast. I'm your host, Sam Proulx. I'm also the Accessibility Evangelist at leading accessibility testing platform Fable. And as you all know by now, I'm also blind. 

Sam Proulx 00:18 | Wow. So, we've featured some truly incredible guests and covered a lot of ground in this series so far, from internationally recognized disability rights advocates, such as Judy Heumann and Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins to Arlene Mayerson, a chief architect of the Americans with Disabilities Act, aka the ADA, and many, many more—including my very own father. We've discussed the history and ongoing struggle of the disability rights movement, and the critical importance of ensuring the vast universe of the web becomes accessible and inclusive for all. 

Sam Proulx 00:56 | Well, I want to begin this next installment of this incredible series by returning to the very discussion that launched it, because it's important, vital—when attempting to address any inequity or injustice—to know your enemy, recognize what you're up against, and call out those demons by name. From the outset, this podcast has strived to do just that, and far beyond. Only through this lens, and armed with this critical context, can we even begin to discuss what I'd like to dedicate this episode to: providing some immediate steps businesses and organizations can take to at least begin the process forward toward greater accessibility and inclusion. 

Sam Proulx 01:48 | Just a quick reminder that this podcast is made possible by the founding partners at online digital accessibility and inclusion resource directory InclusionHub[dot]com, leading customer relationship management platform Salesforce, Fable, where I work, Diamond HubSpot Partner Agency Morey Creative Studios, and free blind and low-vision app Be My Eyes, which I personally use and absolutely love. 

Sam Proulx 02:17 | So before I hand over the mic, so to speak, let's reset the table here. In our very first episode, titled 'Accessibility by Default,' our guests outlined what no one else out there seems to want or be willing to talk about: The web is broken by design, due to its hijacking by powerful corporate interests, sheer carelessness, and let's be real here, flat out greed. Its inaccessibility has birthed an extremely lucrative cottage industry that enriches itself off what has evolved into an ongoing mass scramble for businesses to comply with laws passed to help rectify these inherent disparities. 

Sam Proulx 03:05 | As our guests have explained, the disability community had no other choice but to fight for and rely on critical, critical legislation, such as the ADA and the vital international standards of the World Wide Web Consortium, (WC3)'s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). It's a truly, truly sorry state of affairs when the only impetus, or at least a major one, for businesses and developers to make their websites fully accessible to folks with disabilities is the threat of being sued. Yet we are where we are. So we might as well try and make the most of it. 

Sam Proulx 03:48 | Continuing their discussion and delving deeper into the history and current state of the web, the ADA, WCAG and consequently flawed but necessary ways businesses and organizations can help improve their online assets' digital accessibility and inclusivity immediately, are two of our inaugural episodes guests: Jutta Treviranus, director of the Inclusive Design Research Centre at Toronto's OCAD University, and an inspiration to me personally, and Laura Kalbag, co-founder of the nonprofit Small Technology Foundation, and author of the book 'Accessibility for Everyone.' 

Sam Proulx 04:29 | Here's Treviranus—a global expert on inclusive design and quite literally one of the foremost experts on web accessibility—discussing the present state of the web and genesis of these imperfect, yet necessary evils.

Jutta Treviranus 04:45 | We have legislation because we didn't do the right thing at the beginning. It's to prevent harm. And the harm is huge. And it is impactful. And so yes, now we're in this situation and we have to comply because the companies that we purchase these things from, that we pay, are not doing the right thing. It's now the public and anybody and everybody that creates any content for the web; whether it's a tweet or a Facebook page, or our own website, we now bear the burden of the fact that it wasn't done right at the beginning.

And so I don't want to denigrate the legislation, this is the necessary evil. That is our comeuppance, for not having been vigilant right at the beginning and not holding the companies to task with respect to web accessibility. And so let's comply, figure out how to comply. I mean, that's the other part of this, the technical ways of complying are all these hacks and workarounds and technically complex things that really should be taken care of by the developers of the tools. But because they haven't done it, we need to all be educated about this technology. Which has some good effects, because we become more aware of what the technology is, what it does, and—it means that we all learn a little bit more code. So there are good things. I mean, there are silver linings with the fact that we've come to the point of legislation.

Sam Proulx 06:38 | Incredible, Jutta obviously possesses a gift for breaking complex topics down, cutting through the noise and propaganda, and exposing their heart. And at the core of all of this is a web that originally was and should have remained accessible by default. Because it didn't, there's this current scramble to, in essence, retrofit its flawed infrastructure. In a way, we're all sort of forced to. Those hacks and workarounds, she mentions, I've called some of them out by name in previous episodes. Overlays: They're the cyber equivalent of slapping quick-fix Band-Aids on a terminally ill patient. They don't remedy the problem, but in fact, exacerbate it. We've stressed it before—particularly in Episode Five: 'Nothing About Us Without Us'—and we'll continue to stress a key component of this puzzle in the future. People with disabilities must, must be involved in the solution. Otherwise, the vicious rat wheel we're all trapped in simply spins on. 

Sam Proulx 07:50 | It's within this context, I promised at the top of this drop, to provide some tangible ways businesses can immediately begin to improve the digital accessibility and inclusion of their online assets and sites. This inherently brings us to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, aka the WCAG—in many ways, the most common blueprint nowadays for companies, developers, and individuals to follow, and again, in essence, retrofit sites to at least bring them closer to where they should be and should have been all along. Yet, as Jutta explains, WCAG was never meant to serve as the poster child or heal-all for making the web truly accessible. More of these rarely mentioned truths from Jutta, who explains WCAG's early days and unintended transformation, and other important guidelines that ultimately became casualties of what I call a money-making coup. Yes, I went there and said that. 

Jutta Treviranus 08:57 | I was one of the contributors to WCAG, originally. We thought it was only going to last for a few weeks, and that it would be updated. But of course, it became static and entrenched in legislation. There were three guidelines that were created back then the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines, and the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines grew an industry, and therefore it became the focus. When you think about it rationally and logically, that's not what should have been the primary focus. And that's not what should have been entrenched in legislation.

The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines did not get into there because there were very, very powerful lobbying groups, the companies that did not want to adhere to or be constrained in how they built the tools. And so even right there at the beginning, with respect to the guidelines that were created, if we were interested, really interested in people with disabilities and their concerns rather than the concerns of the corporations, then the focus would have been initially on UAAG and ATAG, the User Agent and Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines. 

Jutta Treviranus 10:18 | The other injustice that was done back then, is that there was a focus on people with disabilities as consumers of web content, not as producers. And so the Authoring Tool [Accessibility] Guidelines ensure that people with disabilities could participate in producing web content. And that was trivialized. If we had focused on authoring and insisted that people with disabilities don't only need to be passive consumers of this content but need to participate fully in the creation of the content and the creation of the tools, then we would have had a much better system right now.

Sam Proulx 11:04 | Why did WCAG ascend while other guidelines and tools that gave people with disabilities greater power and say in the fate of the web's accessibility fell by the wayside? Jutta credits the system itself. 

Jutta Treviranus 11:18 | I don't want to attribute bad intent to that group, because there are many, very, very well-intentioned individuals that are working in the Web Content Accessibility Guideline compliance industry. But whether it's intentional or not, ATAG and UAAG have never come forward as something that should be integrated into regulations. Most of the regulatory processes are done in such a way that there is representation by people with disabilities and representation by the industry—so the obligated organization, and then the disability groups, advocacy groups that need the regulations. And it's by its very nature a somewhat rigged system because the industry knows the technology; the people with disabilities and the disability groups that are there don't have the support to be fully technically literate. 

Jutta Treviranus 12:20  | And so what happens is the regulations that are good for the industry are the ones that make it through. So ATAG never made it through because if you think about who makes the HTML authoring or the web authoring or the development tools, it's several large, big companies. They don't want to be regulated. And so they know that WCAG is not going to be successful; there's absolutely no way that every person who creates web content is going to understand and comply with the whole set of criteria, which are highly technical. And so it's almost—and I'm not saying that was their intent—but it's almost like the intention in terms of the regulatory process and the evolution of the Web Accessibility [Content] Guidelines was to sabotage them and make sure that they didn't work. I'm not saying that anyone actually had that intention. But in looking back, you can see the forces that caused that scenario.

Sam Proulx 13:31 | Incredible, and truly, truly tragic. As we've covered in several previous episodes, the extremely hard-fought and hard-won Americans with Disabilities Act, aka the ADA, finally gave people with disabilities in the United States some legal standing to defend what should have been their inherent rights as citizens. It has been a complete game changer for this community, and its impact is truly impossible to quantify.

What we're currently witnessing is its ever-growing power in legally forcing the hands and purse strings of companies to make their sites accessible. Thousands upon thousands of such lawsuits have been launched in the past several years, which brings us back to the sobering fact that many, it seems, will only do so under the threat of being sued. And so to avert that, many turn to the protocols set forth within the WCAG. Yet, as our guest, Laura Kalbag, explains—echoing Jutta's insights—these are not absolutes. There are significant, inherent flaws, not just with the guidelines themselves, but in relying solely on them as the perfect remedy to a much, much larger problem.

Laura Kalbag 14:54 | Most of the time, the wide majority of these kinds of laws tend to fall back and rely on the WCAG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, so most of them will use those, especially when it comes to legal information because they have quite specific rules that are quite easy from a legal compliance perspective, to say 'this is accessible or this isn't accessible according to this specific rule.'

But I think it's easy to get caught up in sort of a checklist mentality when it comes to accessibility, like trying to tick off the different boxes. The most important thing to remember is, this is about designing for people, people who have real-life needs. And so, really, if you're caring about those people, you're considering their needs, you're testing with real people with a variety of needs, whether they're disabled or not, then you will be able to have a great website, and you won't be worrying about compliance, you won't be worrying about possibly getting sued or those legal requirements.

Sam Proulx 15:55 | As I noted at the top of this episode, we are where we are. And despite all that's up against us and the universes of technological non-inclusiveness to overcome, we must do the best we possibly can with what's at our disposal to continue pushing forward. This includes the landmark ADA and the WCAG. As Kalbag stresses, though not an absolute by any stretch of the imagination—nor replacement for involving people with disabilities, ever—they are steps in the right direction.

Laura Kalbag 16:31 | So the WCAG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, are much like the rest of these web standards. So the idea is that they are globally what browsers tend to use in order to understand how they should be interpreting the technology that we create. And so it's really useful for us as people who are designing and developing for these browsers, that we are seeing the other side of it. So we are knowing how to use those guidelines ourselves. The guidelines are very, very broad, and are not necessarily specific to specific people's specific needs or specific types of technology. But they have some quite useful rules in there.

So an example is color contrast, they have a specific ratio between your foreground text and your background color that you should try to meet in order to have high-contrast text. And so that could be a AA, which is a sort of a reasonable start, or a AAA, which is considered accessible. Now there are problems within these guidelines, there are some elements—so for example, you could say that over high-contrast text, so very, very high-contrast text—complete white text on a complete black background—it's very difficult for a lot of people to read, it might even dance or flicker for some people's vision. So these guidelines are not an absolute, but they are a good way of ensuring particular legal compliance. If you want to have very, very specific rules that you need to follow in order to say, 'I'm doing this accessible.' But they are never, ever a replacement for actually talking to people and watching people use your platform and actually understanding how disabled people can benefit or suffer with what you've built.

Sam Proulx 18:25 | Harkening back once again to the important insights Kalbag and others shared with us in Episode Five, titled 'Nothing About Us Without Us'—another not-so-subtle nudge for you to check it out—Jutta again stresses the basic fundamental truth that must reside at the heart of any meaningful conversation regarding making improvements to digital accessibility and inclusion throughout the web: the inclusion and active involvement of people living with disabilities at every stage, from design and development to implementation and maintenance. She also emphasizes just how important it is to keep this community top of mind regardless of the crises faced, whether a global health emergency, such as the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic—yes, I said that ongoing, I don't care what politicians say—or an inaccessible web. It is crucial—let me underscore that—crucial from the outset. Once again, here's Jutta.

Jutta Treviranus 19:35 | If we want insights into how we [are] going to address this, then I think we need to talk to the people that have lived experience of those risks, those vulnerabilities. And unfortunately what it requires, but I think also fortunately what it requires, is to really go back to very, very fundamental practices; how we plan, how we make decisions, how even evidence—what is evidence?—is evidence what works for the statistically largest majority, and what then happens if that's what we see as evidence to the people that are not part of the majority? Anything—any assertion you make about truth that is based upon the statistical majority means that it's wrong for those edges. Any votes that you have that is based upon the majority of votes, is not going to work for the tiny minorities. And so we need to think about and bolster our understanding and advance what we think of as democracy, what we think about as truth, how we plan, how we make decisions. This notion of there being a completeness, a best, a winning, is—it just doesn't work in an environment that's entangled and changing all the time. 

Jutta Treviranus 21:05 | So it means going back to very, very fundamental principles, and thinking long and hard about how we are going to build a world where we all can thrive because we need to all thrive. I mean, the one thing that just completely bugs me about this time is that people can say things like, 'unnecessary sacrifice of lives so that we can all survive,' which is so ridiculous. Because if we sacrifice people who are vulnerable, we lose the compunction to create a system that will work for us when we are vulnerable. And we are all going to be vulnerable. At some point or other, we're all going to be vulnerable.

And so if we lose the people that compel us to create a system that works for that human vulnerability, we're going to lose the diversity, we're going to become a monoculture. And we will be slayed with, you know, a single measure. So, in order to survive this pandemic, and the next one and the next one, and all of the accelerating crises that are coming, we have to, have to, address the needs of people with disabilities, because that is the universal human condition that we're all going to experience at one point.

Sam Proulx 22:27 | Wow, I mean, honestly, have you ever listened to such a podcast? I know I haven't. We dig deep. We expose important truths. And we truly strive to help create a more accessible and inclusive web and world for all. 

Sam Proulx 22:45 | I want to give a tremendous thanks, once again, to our two extraordinary guests on this episode, Jutta Treviranus, director of the Inclusive Design Research Centre at Toronto's OCAD University, and Laura Kalbag, co-founder of the nonprofit Small Technology Foundation, and author of the book 'Accessibility For Everyone.' They are incredible, incredible people. Learn more about their many initiatives and fantastic work in our show notes. 

Sam Proulx 23:17 | As always, thank you, dear listeners, for spending some of your precious time with us, and in doing so, participating in this critical, critical conversation about digital accessibility, inclusion, and how we can all play our part in making this crazy, messed up world just a wee bit less so. As I've stated before, we all have important roles. And I hope for some of you new to these topics and issues, yours may begin here. 

Sam Proulx 23:50 | Once again, we're brought to you by the Founding Partners at online digital accessibility and inclusion resource directory and resource site InclusionHub[dot]com, leading customer relationship management platform Salesforce, at Salesforce[dot]com, Fable, at MakeItFable[dot]com, Diamond HubSpot Partner Agency Morey Creative Studios, at MoreyCreative[dot]com, and free blind and low vision app Be My Eyes, at l. Check them out and learn more about all of their incredible, incredible work. 

Sam Proulx 24:30 | Goodbye for now, my friends. And remember, a more accessible and inclusive world is a better world.