<b>Welcome to the All Districts 2023</b> <b>Conference and Session Inclusion in the</b> <b>digital world. On the right hand side of</b> <b>your screen you will see a window with</b> <b>the Chat, Q&A, Feedback</b> <b>and Notes tab. You can use the chat</b> <b>box to chat with other attendees, but</b> <b>please use the Q&A box to send questions</b> <b>in for the presenters.</b> <b>You can also upvote questions in the Q&A</b> <b>panel if you would like to see the</b> <b>question answered. At the end of the</b> <b>session, we will answer as many questions</b> <b>as possible. The Notes tab is there for</b> <b>you to keep your own notes during the</b> <b>session if you would like to. We also</b> <b>ask that you complete the brief</b> <b>evaluation found in the Feedback tab at</b> <b>the end of this session. We use the</b> <b>session feedback to continue improving</b> <b>what we offer, so we truly appreciate you</b> <b>taking the time and without further</b> <b>ado, please join me in welcoming our</b> <b>presenter, Brian Barnes.</b> <b>Hello everybody. I am</b> <b>really pleased to be joining you today to</b> <b>speak about accessibility and my</b> <b>presentation today is called Inclusivity</b> <b>in the Digital World. And</b> <b>a common theme that we're going to share</b> <b>today is that accessible design. It's</b> <b>better designed for everyone.</b> <b>And what I wanted to do was really think</b> <b>about the roles that you all are in</b> <b>and how accessibility might touch some of</b> <b>the work that you do. A</b> <b>presumption is that many of you are not</b> <b>web managers on this call and that</b> <b>you. Even if you</b> <b>don't maintain the website, you</b> <b>definitely rely on them to do a lot of</b> <b>the work for you. So. Um, today what I</b> <b>wanted to do was here's a little bit of</b> <b>an overview. I want to talk about why,</b> <b>why this matters and why it matters to</b> <b>you, Someone Like You. I want to go over</b> <b>some of the real really sort of key</b> <b>topics that we think about in digital</b> <b>accessibility. We're going to get into</b> <b>some of the nitty gritty just so you get</b> <b>an example of when we talk about</b> <b>accessibility and digital spaces, what</b> <b>are the actual items we're thinking about</b> <b>very specifically that we know affect</b> <b>people?And at the end I'm going</b> <b>to give you some resources for your from</b> <b>your journey and I'm going to hope that</b> <b>you'll keep learning and keep keep going</b> <b>on this journey towards better</b> <b>accessibility.</b> <b>So before we get into the presentation, I</b> <b>just wanted to introduce myself. My name</b> <b>is Brian Barnes. I'm the Director of</b> <b>Digital Strategy at University of</b> <b>Maryland, Baltimore County. Otherwise</b> <b>known as UMBC, We're just outside</b> <b>of Baltimore, MD and.</b> <b>My experience with web accessibility goes</b> <b>back a long way. Not my cats, Those are my</b> <b>2 cats, Taco and Cholula. But</b> <b>I began my career at</b> <b>Baltimore Tourism and so I worked at a</b> <b>place called the National Aquarium and we</b> <b>worked a lot on digital accessibility,</b> <b>both in person as folks would</b> <b>explore exhibits, but also on the online.</b> <b>And I got really excited about it. From</b> <b>there I went to the Baltimore Orioles and</b> <b>ran their social media for a while, and</b> <b>I've landed at UMBC, which is my first</b> <b>time. In higher Ed.</b> <b>So when we talk about accessibility.</b> <b>What we talk about is a focus on</b> <b>making products and services or</b> <b>environments physically or</b> <b>technologically accessible.</b> <b>When we talk about inclusion, we talk</b> <b>about. And creating a welcoming and</b> <b>accepting culture that values diversity</b> <b>and promotes a sense of belonging for</b> <b>everyone. And both of these</b> <b>are mindsets, not checklists. So the idea</b> <b>is that. Year in your works in these two</b> <b>topics isn't the checklist. It cannot be</b> <b>written out in one checklist that you can</b> <b>check off. It is work that will evolve</b> <b>and grow and continue with youth for the</b> <b>for as long as you work on a topic.</b> <b>So it's not what needs to be done, a list</b> <b>of tasks and finalizing. It's why</b> <b>something needs to be done and the</b> <b>choices that you need to make based on</b> <b>what your audience needs.</b> <b>All right, so why does this matter to</b> <b>you? Have broken it down into what I</b> <b>think are four. Key topics.</b> <b>Of why? Why you should care about this.</b> <b>So the first one is. It's the eye.</b> <b>In inclusion, right? So in diversity</b> <b>inclusion, a lot of times we see that</b> <b>when diversity inclusion are</b> <b>combined, sometimes inclusion doesn't get</b> <b>as much attention. And it's really</b> <b>important that you know that making</b> <b>digital experiences accessible ensures</b> <b>that everybody, including people with</b> <b>disabilities, can fully participate and</b> <b>contribute to the fundraising efforts of</b> <b>the institution. So the first</b> <b>reason is. This is about inclusivity and</b> <b>if you have any words like inclusivity in</b> <b>your mission or value statements for your</b> <b>university. You ought to be practicing</b> <b>what you preach. Reason</b> <b>#2. This is a pretty funnel. It's the</b> <b>law if you are.</b> <b>Especially if you're a public higher Ed</b> <b>institution. You're</b> <b>required to comply with accessibility</b> <b>standards under Section 508 of the</b> <b>Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with</b> <b>Disabilities Act. Failure to comply with</b> <b>these legal standards can result in legal</b> <b>action. Why do I have</b> <b>target dominoes? Why do I have Beyoncé on</b> <b>screen? Because these are some of the</b> <b>brands that have</b> <b>been served with lawsuits. By</b> <b>not being accessible. Umm.</b> <b>These are some of the biggest brands out</b> <b>there. I don't know if it's a shock to</b> <b>you that Burger King and Nike.</b> <b>Had lawsuits because they weren't doing</b> <b>enough and accessibility, but if you</b> <b>think that you're somehow not.</b> <b>Umm. Not a part of this,</b> <b>you know. They'll go after someone as as.</b> <b>Someone as popular as Beyoncé, so there's</b> <b>no reason why it wouldn't happen for you.</b> <b>And and so anyway, that's that's reason</b> <b>#2. Reason #3</b> <b>is your reputation.</b> <b>Here's a quote from someone that</b> <b>I talked to who has an impairment when</b> <b>I was preparing this presentation, she</b> <b>said. I will not take any organization</b> <b>seriously who makes a type of statement</b> <b>about inclusion, who can't do something</b> <b>as basic as web accessibility, especially</b> <b>when you're asking me for money. And so I</b> <b>wanted to include that because that's a</b> <b>prospective donor who's probably thinking</b> <b>about donating to you</b> <b>and if you are not doing things the right</b> <b>way. It might. It might be offputting.</b> <b>And that sort of leads into reason</b> <b>#4. What we're all</b> <b>here for is to expand the donor pools for</b> <b>our institutions and then to</b> <b>grow the amount of giving per person</b> <b>that donates to us, Right So. If</b> <b>you and grow, this is a very</b> <b>accurate chart to your future timeline,</b> <b>right. So we're starting in the bottom</b> <b>left now. You might not be super</b> <b>accessible tomorrow. You're going to be</b> <b>really motivated after seeing this</b> <b>presentation and and you'll start to work</b> <b>on this three weeks from now. Maybe that</b> <b>dips off a little bit and you don't feel</b> <b>as motivated but. The</b> <b>point of this little graph is to show you</b> <b>that the more accessible you are. The</b> <b>greater the donor pool that you can draw</b> <b>from would be. And</b> <b>we're going to talk a little bit about</b> <b>the numbers now in terms of the donor</b> <b>pool. Umm.</b> <b>Here's a Here's a quick stat so 20 or I'm</b> <b>going to go into a bunch of stats right</b> <b>now. So 26%. Of</b> <b>adults in the United States have a</b> <b>disability, and I imagine many of the</b> <b>donors that you're looking to reach are</b> <b>in the United States. This number is</b> <b>huge when we look at the actual number of</b> <b>people. We're talking about 61</b> <b>million people who have reported that</b> <b>they have a disability. And if you're</b> <b>thinking about your donor pool, think</b> <b>about how many of these people might be</b> <b>in this group to give you some more</b> <b>perspective on this number. That's more</b> <b>than the entire population of Italy.</b> <b>Are people who have identified that</b> <b>they're disabled in America.</b> <b>When it comes to college students, 19%</b> <b>of undergraduates. Identify as</b> <b>having a disability and 12% of graduate</b> <b>students identify as having a disability.</b> <b>And when we ran out the stats with. This</b> <b>one from Abilitynet.</b> <b>You have all these people who need</b> <b>accessible technology and yet</b> <b>90% of websites are</b> <b>inaccessible. So I think</b> <b>we're trying to get get you to see the</b> <b>problem and and maybe the potential</b> <b>solution for you is that</b> <b>by doing design, going back to the very</b> <b>beginning statement, by doing accessible</b> <b>design, it's better for everyone,</b> <b>including you.</b> <b>Um, next I want to shift</b> <b>to the second part of this presentation.</b> <b>Just really diving into some of the nitty</b> <b>gritty. About really, what are the</b> <b>topics that we think about in</b> <b>accessibility?I don't know if</b> <b>anyone from Indiana University is on the</b> <b>call, but.</b> <b>This is my stand moment. I'm a huge fan</b> <b>of everything that Indiana University</b> <b>does and their work and accessibility is</b> <b>no different. And this overview</b> <b>graphic that I have in this presentation.</b> <b>I just wanted you to to take a look at it</b> <b>Accessibility. Boils down to sort</b> <b>of four principles. Things need to be</b> <b>perceivable. Operable.</b> <b>Understandable. And robust and</b> <b>we're going to dive into a little bit of</b> <b>how these play out in specific</b> <b>situations as we move through these</b> <b>slides. Please.</b> <b>I do want to make a quick note that this</b> <b>presentation is available with clickable</b> <b>links. The last slide that I have here</b> <b>will give you the link to the</b> <b>presentation. Because I'd love for you to</b> <b>continue to explore some of the work that</b> <b>I have done and there's a bunch of links</b> <b>baked in through this presentation.</b> <b>Umm. So the first thing I want to want to</b> <b>talk about is captions and</b> <b>transcriptions. If I if I could see you</b> <b>all right now, I would be saying.</b> <b>Could I have a quick poll of anybody who</b> <b>um. Has been using captions in</b> <b>the past couple of years. And then I</b> <b>would ask you to.</b> <b>To tell me how many of you are doing that</b> <b>because you are hard of hearing or have</b> <b>deafness?</b> <b>For me, in my experience, I'm using</b> <b>captions a lot more now. It's started</b> <b>during the pandemic, but I'm using them</b> <b>on everything and I'm I can hear pretty</b> <b>well. And so the reason that</b> <b>I wanted to just bring this up is this is</b> <b>a great example of how if you're</b> <b>designing for accessibility. You're</b> <b>captioning things, and you're</b> <b>transcribing them. It's great for people</b> <b>who can't hear you, but it's also really</b> <b>good for people like me who just like to</b> <b>have captions running when I watch</b> <b>things, because I like to make sure I'm</b> <b>hearing things correctly or understanding</b> <b>what is trying to be communicated to me.</b> <b>So captions provide a text based</b> <b>transcript of audio content, allowing</b> <b>individuals who may not be able to hear</b> <b>audio to still understand what's being</b> <b>conveyed. For major</b> <b>things, definitely don't rely on just</b> <b>auto captioning. Auto captioning will</b> <b>get. You know 6070% of the way there,</b> <b>but when it comes to spelling people's</b> <b>names and communicating the right name of</b> <b>your building or place or time,</b> <b>it might not have all the details right.</b> <b>You can download SRT files from YouTube,</b> <b>edit them, re upload them so you can make</b> <b>corrections to auto captions, but don't</b> <b>rely on those. Directly.</b> <b>Um, for live video only</b> <b>YouTube, Twitch and Facebook really have</b> <b>the ability to do automated captioning,</b> <b>so. And it's</b> <b>our goal to really steer things to places</b> <b>that can accommodate live captioning.</b> <b>Um. Next I want to turn to.</b> <b>All my VIP's. My</b> <b>visually impaired people, that was a big</b> <b>joke. It went over really well and I hope</b> <b>you're laughing behind your computer</b> <b>screen right now. So we talked about</b> <b>people who have visual impairment.</b> <b>We talk a lot about screen readers and</b> <b>how screen readers are used to navigate</b> <b>websites, digital properties throughout.</b> <b>Someone's work. And</b> <b>a lot of screen readers are now just</b> <b>built into software, so if you have an</b> <b>iPhone, for example. And you can go into</b> <b>the Accessibility tab in your settings</b> <b>and you can toggle on Voiceover and it</b> <b>just comes with an app. It it comes with</b> <b>your iPhone, so this is something that is</b> <b>way more used now now that it's a part of</b> <b>operating systems. And it's a way that</b> <b>people navigate through websites.</b> <b>So what do screen readers read well?</b> <b>They read the item content itself, but</b> <b>they also let you know a little bit of</b> <b>the context. So if we were looking at a</b> <b>list. Of fruits that</b> <b>we're going to buy at the grocery store.</b> <b>It'll let us know that we're looking at a</b> <b>list item. Apples.</b> <b>And it'll let us know there's a link to</b> <b>the kind of apple that we want to go to.</b> <b>So it's not only reading the content on</b> <b>the page, it's telling you about the</b> <b>elements that you're navigating to by</b> <b>touching or clicking or tabbing forward.</b> <b>It also reads things like titles and</b> <b>alternative descriptions for images.</b> <b>I'm not sure if anybody's ever heard of a</b> <b>skip to content link, but when you're</b> <b>using a screen reader, you're tabbing</b> <b>through essentially top to bottom of a</b> <b>web page. And let's say you were going</b> <b>to a university home page, but you wanted</b> <b>to get to their academic section. So you</b> <b>would go to the University home page and</b> <b>you'd tab through the menu system until</b> <b>you get to the Academics page and then</b> <b>you would click on the Academics page and</b> <b>when that page loads again.</b> <b>The person tabbing through that content</b> <b>would have to navigate through all of the</b> <b>menu content again before they can get to</b> <b>the part that they're looking for, the</b> <b>academics part. So what has been</b> <b>introduced to get around this is a skip</b> <b>to content button that allows people who</b> <b>are using screen readers who are using</b> <b>tabbing through a website or a keyboard</b> <b>to navigate through a website. This</b> <b>button comes up before the menu, and it</b> <b>lets them jump through all of the menu</b> <b>content and go straight to the content of</b> <b>the page rather than the navigation</b> <b>system, Because if you have to click</b> <b>around to a few different pages, you'd</b> <b>hear the entire navigation system for as</b> <b>many pages as you've loaded. That's just</b> <b>a lot of stuff to listen through to get</b> <b>to the point of the content that you're</b> <b>looking for. So let's skip the content.</b> <b>Many sites if you don't see skip the</b> <b>content up here on the site. You might</b> <b>want to try toggling the tab key on your</b> <b>computer sometimes.</b> <b>Developers have it programmed to only</b> <b>show when they can detect that someone is</b> <b>using a keyboard to navigate through a</b> <b>website.</b> <b>All right. Next I want to show</b> <b>a little bit about page</b> <b>page structure.</b> <b>So. When you're making a</b> <b>document, either in Google Docs,</b> <b>Microsoft Word. Or on the</b> <b>web, there's a specific section</b> <b>of formatting classes.</b> <b>So in this example I'm showing that</b> <b>there's a title formatting class, there's</b> <b>a heading one, heading two, and heading</b> <b>three, and a paragraph. And</b> <b>increasingly, it's really important that</b> <b>you use these in order that they're</b> <b>designed. So what I find when I work with</b> <b>different folks on my team is that they</b> <b>liked the look of, say, title, heading</b> <b>three and paragraph. So they use just</b> <b>those 3. They're like, I want to put my</b> <b>title, top, heading, three of the size of</b> <b>my heading, and then the paragraph is</b> <b>where I put all my content. But screen</b> <b>readers get confused by this because.</b> <b>What it's looking for is a linear order</b> <b>to go from title to Heading one, heading</b> <b>one to heading 2, heading two to heading</b> <b>three, and then finally to the paragraph.</b> <b>And if you if you have a heading two then</b> <b>it would look for a heading one.</b> <b>But if you only have heading 3, it's</b> <b>missing the key information about heading</b> <b>one and two. And again I</b> <b>asked myself as making this presentation,</b> <b>why would anyone here need to know this?</b> <b>Well, going back to my original</b> <b>statement, accessible design. It's</b> <b>better for everybody. I don't know if</b> <b>anybody has gotten to play around with</b> <b>the page list view of Google Docs, but</b> <b>this is just one example of how. A</b> <b>tried and tested page</b> <b>structure. A format</b> <b>like this is now being rolled out into</b> <b>the Google Docs page list view, and so if</b> <b>you make if you use the structure</b> <b>that exists in Google Docs, you know,</b> <b>normal text, title, subtitle, heading.</b> <b>In the page list view, it will it will</b> <b>make that an automatic outline for you,</b> <b>right? So you've got this this clickable</b> <b>outline on the left side of Google Docs</b> <b>where you can jump right into a subtopic.</b> <b>But the only way any of that works is if</b> <b>you're using the right heading order and</b> <b>you're saying heading 2 belongs as a</b> <b>child of heading one. Heading one belongs</b> <b>as a child of the title of the document.</b> <b>And so if you were doing this all along</b> <b>and structuring things all along.</b> <b>Now, when Google brings this feature</b> <b>online, all of your documents</b> <b>retroactively have a great outline</b> <b>applied to them.</b> <b>Next, I want to just shift to some really</b> <b>basic things that we probably see</b> <b>throughout many websites. This is an</b> <b>example of a breadcrumb. So this</b> <b>is a break from I just pulled from a</b> <b>specific accessibility website, but we've</b> <b>seen bread crumbs on many websites we've</b> <b>used. When I go to ESPN and I look up</b> <b>scores, it's telling me, OK, you're in</b> <b>the score section now, you're in the</b> <b>baseball section, and now you're looking</b> <b>at the Orioles dominating the entire</b> <b>league. You're looking at those scores,</b> <b>but it's going to tell me how to get back</b> <b>to all the baseball scores. And So</b> <b>what this does is it really gives people</b> <b>a little bit of a placement placeholder,</b> <b>a little bit of a sign. It's like</b> <b>signage. It's how you get.</b> <b>It's how you got to where you are and how</b> <b>you might navigate to another spot of the</b> <b>website. Often things</b> <b>like bread crumbs and table of contents</b> <b>are designed out of solutions that we</b> <b>work on because they take up room</b> <b>and that takes up room before when we</b> <b>would ask you to give us money, right?</b> <b>And so sometimes we deprioritize things</b> <b>that make you scroll a little bit</b> <b>further, but I'm here to tell you that.</b> <b>The future generations that are coming</b> <b>online are future donors. They have</b> <b>no problem scrolling web pages and</b> <b>omitting things like bread crumbs and</b> <b>table of contents. Does more to</b> <b>interrupt people trying to use your web</b> <b>services than it does to distract them</b> <b>from the content you want them to get</b> <b>them to. So</b> <b>here's my appeal is to keep that, keep</b> <b>that apart of your web pages.</b> <b>Next, I want to talk about color</b> <b>contrast. This is another.</b> <b>Topic that just comes up a lot, so. The</b> <b>first thing that we need to just</b> <b>acknowledge and be honest about is that</b> <b>not all school colors make good web</b> <b>colors. It's</b> <b>really tough, but we got to talk about</b> <b>this with our creative services team.</b> <b>And and what we can do is work with them</b> <b>to pair different color combinations so</b> <b>that it works. And I'm going to give you</b> <b>a very specific example of UMBC</b> <b>where our colors are black and gold.</b> <b>And if I would have you all in person, I</b> <b>could see you and interact with you. I</b> <b>would say I would ask you which one is</b> <b>easier for you to read on my screen and</b> <b>it's it's pretty obvious to me, but. Umm.</b> <b>When I came to UMBC, I saw a lot</b> <b>of white text paired with</b> <b>our.</b> <b>The example of that is the button on the</b> <b>right side, right? It's really hard to</b> <b>read that text, especially from a</b> <b>distance. With</b> <b>white text on a black background or on a</b> <b>gold background. What what really works</b> <b>super well though is that left side going</b> <b>black text on a gold background works</b> <b>super well. And so</b> <b>this is about color contrast, but it's</b> <b>also really about. Do you want people to</b> <b>read your messages or not? And do you</b> <b>want it to be easy for them to understand</b> <b>what you're sending them or not?</b> <b>So. I would encourage you</b> <b>to look at your color palette and there</b> <b>are some tools that I've provided.</b> <b>Uh, at later in this presentation where</b> <b>you can measure yourself and make sure</b> <b>that your colors are passing at least</b> <b>minimum contrast thresholds.</b> <b>For people to use it, we also have to</b> <b>think about people who can't see color at</b> <b>all. And if we were to make this black</b> <b>and white only, it would. It</b> <b>would make it even more difficult toread.</b> <b>So one of the things we talk about a lot.</b> <b>What we do, communications and marketing,</b> <b>especially with donors, is images.</b> <b>And I wanted to just spend a quick second</b> <b>to talk about why images are so important</b> <b>to begin with.</b> <b>So the human brain can identify images.</b> <b>That have been seen for as little as 13</b> <b>milliseconds and the idea is that.</b> <b>And they've done experiments where they</b> <b>show someone an image for 13 milliseconds</b> <b>and take it away and then ask them</b> <b>questions about the image. And what they</b> <b>found was that even if your eyes only see</b> <b>something for 13 milliseconds, that your</b> <b>brain can continue to process it for like</b> <b>up to two seconds. Don't quote me on</b> <b>that. I believe it's up to two seconds.</b> <b>And so your brain is generating all of</b> <b>this additional information from times</b> <b>that it didn't have with the image.</b> <b>That's why images are so effective.</b> <b>That's why we say an image is worth 1000</b> <b>, wordsbecause in 13 milliseconds you can</b> <b>only get a couple of words across, but in</b> <b>a couple of seconds, your brain come up</b> <b>with a lot more context about an image.</b> <b>Here's another experiment that showed why</b> <b>images are so. Important.</b> <b>There was an experiment where.</b> <b>On medication, people had</b> <b>text only instructions.</b> <b>And then they had text only with</b> <b>very minor</b> <b>graphics, so a poison icon,</b> <b>A+ and A minus icon. And when they</b> <b>paired the text with just minor icon.</b> <b>This isn't sophisticated design, it's</b> <b>printed on the side of a medication</b> <b>bottle. So we can't do a full color</b> <b>picture, but just by adding some glyphs.</b> <b>Along with the text, it improved people's</b> <b>rate of understanding to 95% from</b> <b>70%. So there's</b> <b>no doubt. That images are really</b> <b>important for the work that we do in</b> <b>communication. It helps people understand</b> <b>and it increases engagement.</b> <b>But we have to make images accessible.</b> <b>Umm. And</b> <b>yeah, let me jump now to all descriptions</b> <b>for images. So what?What are all</b> <b>descriptions?I'm sure that you've heard.</b> <b>I hope you've heard the term before, but</b> <b>if you haven't, that's OK. And alt</b> <b>description describes what an image is</b> <b>and essentially it's used for people who</b> <b>are using a screen reader who are not</b> <b>able to visually see what's on a page or</b> <b>in a document. And it</b> <b>describes what the image is.</b> <b>It it also displays if an image doesn't</b> <b>load on a page, for example if</b> <b>maybe a server is down or you know</b> <b>somebody can't connect to the Internet at</b> <b>that time. Um, it would load the alt text</b> <b>in place of it, and so it would say that</b> <b>in instead of. Maybe a file name, and</b> <b>that may come down to some specific</b> <b>browser settings, but for the most part</b> <b>that's true. And</b> <b>in social now each platform has</b> <b>added their own way to add</b> <b>alternative text to images. So Facebook</b> <b>and Instagram allow you to add and edit</b> <b>alternative text after you've posted an</b> <b>image. Umm. And</b> <b>Twitter, you have to do it</b> <b>before you post.</b> <b>Try to avoid posting text heavy images.</b> <b>We'll talk a little bit more about this,</b> <b>but text on an image is not a good</b> <b>practice either. So all my canvas people,</b> <b>people that use Canva all the time, I</b> <b>love it too. It's a great tool.</b> <b>But let's think a little bit more about</b> <b>what text actually needs to be</b> <b>represented as a part of the image versus</b> <b>what could be a part of a description.</b> <b>Couple of best practices are just that.</b> <b>You shouldn't make it too long because as</b> <b>people navigate a page, this is extra</b> <b>content that will be read to them through</b> <b>their screen reader. But it</b> <b>shouldn't be too short. You need to give</b> <b>the context to the image that</b> <b>that made it be included in the page.</b> <b>Included in the in the beginning.</b> <b>Alt descriptions are also really great</b> <b>for SEO and there may be some people on</b> <b>the call who do a little bit of web work</b> <b>and think about search Engine</b> <b>optimization. That's what SEO stands for.</b> <b>The idea of search engine optimization is</b> <b>that. Google is</b> <b>always changing the algorithm for how its</b> <b>search works. And it is now rewarding</b> <b>people that use good alt text.</b> <b>Well, here's an example of how that</b> <b>works. This is from</b> <b>Amazon, right? So you go on to Amazon and</b> <b>you're going to buy some Doritos, because</b> <b>why wouldn't you go to Amazon to buy</b> <b>Doritos? That's not a thing I would ever</b> <b>do. On this page, while</b> <b>it while it does describe, while the</b> <b>title does describe what it is, the image</b> <b>itself is saying what</b> <b>what the product it is through through</b> <b>the alt description and so when</b> <b>Google indexes this page, it's now</b> <b>finding these keywords in the alt</b> <b>description as well. And it's going to</b> <b>rank you higher as a result of that.</b> <b>As a as opposed to not having all</b> <b>descriptions with keywords baked in.</b> <b>While we're talking about Google, I</b> <b>wanted to just sort of call attention. I</b> <b>mentioned this briefly, but if you look</b> <b>at Google, so Google search central, this</b> <b>is where they communicate the changes</b> <b>that they make to Google's algorithms.</b> <b>And this is where they tell you exactly</b> <b>what to do to make your page show up</b> <b>first. And on this</b> <b>page, creating for a great user</b> <b>experience, don't embed important text</b> <b>inside images, right? Because when you</b> <b>compress that into an image, it's not</b> <b>readable by Google. Google cannot</b> <b>understand any text that's a part of an</b> <b>image. But if you keep it as text, if you</b> <b>keep it as an alt description, if you</b> <b>keep it in HTML, then all of a sudden</b> <b>Google knows what you're talking about</b> <b>and it can surface you your links higher</b> <b>up.</b> <b>All right, so we've gone through some of</b> <b>the nitty gritty. And I wanted</b> <b>to share a quote from a colleague of</b> <b>mine. Here at UMBC,</b> <b>so accessibility is not the sole</b> <b>responsibility of a single unit or a</b> <b>staff member. There is not. There</b> <b>shouldn't be a single accessibility</b> <b>department that takes care of all</b> <b>accessibility for your institution.</b> <b>There should be a set of individuals or</b> <b>teams that can provide guidance and</b> <b>support. But everyone has a level of</b> <b>responsibility within their own work to</b> <b>make sure that they're not contributing</b> <b>to accessibility barriers, whether</b> <b>they're internal or external.</b> <b>But I don't make our websites. So this is</b> <b>a lot of what I was thinking about in</b> <b>working in this presentation. And what</b> <b>came to mind for me were. You might have</b> <b>an e-mail signature. That has an image in</b> <b>it. Or you might have</b> <b>a lot of documents that you share</b> <b>internally and externally that you're not</b> <b>using the right heading order. Or you</b> <b>might. Write an e-mail and dropa</b> <b>lot of gifts in it and don't describe</b> <b>what they are, and you might have</b> <b>somebody who's visually impaired. Who</b> <b>might not be able to see it, but I've</b> <b>also seen cases where broadcasting</b> <b>newsletters are going out to thousands</b> <b>and thousands of people without all tags</b> <b>on an image, and sometimes e-mail clients</b> <b>thatyou might use like Apple Mail.</b> <b>It has an option to block all images by</b> <b>default, and so a lot of people are doing</b> <b>that and if you're not alt tagging them,</b> <b>you're not conveying any meaning with</b> <b>those big square boxes that didn't load</b> <b>in their e-mail. We already covered a</b> <b>little bit about social media posts and</b> <b>how you can Add all text there.</b> <b>And things like event invitations, the</b> <b>list goes on. And so I'd love to hear</b> <b>more about situations where you're</b> <b>creating content that is used to achieve</b> <b>your goals, and we can talk about how</b> <b>maybe accessibility might come into play.</b> <b>It's OK, but it's not OK.</b> <b>No one's going to give you an award for</b> <b>doing the work that you should have been</b> <b>doing all along.</b> <b>But everybody's in this position.</b> <b>If someone says they're 100% accessible,</b> <b>, compliantthey're not.</b> <b>Accessibility is a journey and they'll</b> <b>they'll sort of never end. We're always</b> <b>going to try to make things more</b> <b>accessible and inclusive of our</b> <b>audiences. So if you communicate that</b> <b>you're doing this, that you're starting</b> <b>to to look at this in earnest and</b> <b>trying to take a new look at the work</b> <b>you're putting out. And make sure that it</b> <b>is meeting the needs of people who</b> <b>have a disability. People</b> <b>will support you and they'll grant you</b> <b>time to do that work. Umm.</b> <b>But don't Um.</b> <b>Don't think that that sort of granting of</b> <b>time means that people won't care about</b> <b>you producing outcomes, because theywill.</b> <b>Another tidbit from my colleague Teresa</b> <b>is that it's easier to create content</b> <b>that's accessible from the start. Than to</b> <b>try to like retroactively fit it</b> <b>together. And that's the position a lot</b> <b>of folks in digital like me are in. You</b> <b>know, we get the, we get the copy for the</b> <b>article at the very end before it has to</b> <b>go live. And then we discover all of the</b> <b>accessibility problems and try to fix</b> <b>them at the very last second. But</b> <b>inevitably, it would be easier to have</b> <b>done if it was sort of baked in through</b> <b>the entire process.</b> <b>You should sort of assume that everybody</b> <b>who comes across your content, it's kind</b> <b>of learning about you from the first</b> <b>time. So, you know, really</b> <b>approaching people and trying to meet</b> <b>them where they are is sort of in line</b> <b>with where accessibility work is headed.</b> <b>For for things like UMBC, where we go by</b> <b>UMBC, we need to make sure we</b> <b>accurately define that at some point so</b> <b>people know what those acronyms mean.</b> <b>And sharing content across a variety of</b> <b>channels. And formats</b> <b>really helps us meet people where they</b> <b>are. I think that's not a surprise to</b> <b>folks who are you know developing TikTok</b> <b>strategies and and and</b> <b>also printing a magazine for alumni.</b> <b>We're used to that. We're used to this</b> <b>idea that we need to bring our content</b> <b>where people are and not everybody's in</b> <b>the same place.</b> <b>All right, so part three resources for</b> <b>your journey. Umm.</b> <b>Here are just a few resources that came</b> <b>to mind and if we get any Crest</b> <b>questions, I'll add to this section of</b> <b>the presentation if there are any</b> <b>specific other resources that we need to</b> <b>call out, but. In order here, we've</b> <b>got a guide to inclusive language and</b> <b>that we, you know, we just want to throw</b> <b>out as an example from UMBC. You're</b> <b>welcome to steal it, absolutely.</b> <b>And the Wave Web Accessibility Scanner</b> <b>comes with a browser extension and a</b> <b>color contrast checker. So if you wanted</b> <b>to take a look at your school colors and</b> <b>how they pair, and if everybody can see</b> <b>them, OK, there's a link to to be able to</b> <b>test those colors. There</b> <b>is a link here to accessible social</b> <b>design and this was a former Case</b> <b>presenter Alexa, so I wanted to call her</b> <b>out, especially the connection to case.</b> <b>If you're not good at writing all text, I</b> <b>found an alt text generator that you can</b> <b>use to write alt text for you, so you</b> <b>don't even have to write it for yourself.</b> <b>If you just know you have an image, you</b> <b>can upload it into this tool and it will</b> <b>spit out alt text for you. And along that</b> <b>line, same line. There are situations</b> <b>where you don't need all text and So what</b> <b>I put here was a decision tree. It lets</b> <b>you lets you go through and determine do</b> <b>I need all text on this image or not.</b> <b>And finally, this is my homegrown little</b> <b>W tag checklist example. This is a little</b> <b>bit of, it's an, it's an excel sheet that</b> <b>will let you just sort of go through and</b> <b>measure any web page and really get into</b> <b>the nitty gritty of what are the letter</b> <b>of the law, what does it say and how can</b> <b>I measure how we're doing against against</b> <b>that. And</b> <b>finally part 4.</b> <b>There's so many experts in this topic and</b> <b>anyone that cares about this topic really</b> <b>cares. Keep learning. There is</b> <b>a couple of really wonderful conferences</b> <b>that I've listed here. If anyone works</b> <b>with people in person, if there are event</b> <b>planners, if there are performance</b> <b>planners, that will lead.</b> <b>Kennedy Center conference is great and</b> <b>there are plenty of scholarships and they</b> <b>want people to do. Better work</b> <b>in this topic. The Web Aim annual</b> <b>conference. That's a really, really huge</b> <b>one. That's one of the oldest tools that</b> <b>we use for testing color,</b> <b>contrast, Axicon</b> <b>and Deck webinars. There are webinars you</b> <b>can take on demand. And then there's a</b> <b>high end Web Summit really focused on.</b> <b>Higher Ed web accessibility. So it's it's</b> <b>as nitty gritty as you can get and really</b> <b>focused on our our worlds.</b> <b>So with that, I will now open this up for</b> <b>questions and then share this link out</b> <b>to to grab the presentation. Again,</b> <b>if there are some resources I need to add</b> <b>because of the questions today, I'll add</b> <b>them at this link so that you can grab</b> <b>them there. But thank you very</b> <b>much.</b> <b>Thank you. So question number one. One</b> <b>thing that has come up for me is the</b> <b>difference between accessible design as</b> <b>per WC AG</b> <b>standards and looking at best</b> <b>practices for neurodivergent</b> <b>users. How do you address those</b> <b>conflicting accessibility needs?</b> <b>Yeah, and looking at the</b> <b>new proposed WK</b> <b>standards. There</b> <b>are there are aspects of it that speak to</b> <b>the narrative divergent community. So for</b> <b>for folks that aren't really familiar</b> <b>with what this question is asking, a</b> <b>simple way for me to describe this would</b> <b>be perhaps someone</b> <b>that. Has.</b> <b>A disability that makes it hard for them</b> <b>to read text if there's like a</b> <b>moving image behind it or or a video</b> <b>behind it. So if if you were to think</b> <b>about maybe like a university home page</b> <b>and you and you, you get that drone</b> <b>video shot of the campus at the</b> <b>top of the, you know, home page</b> <b>and over top of it, it says something</b> <b>like, you know, you can learn here or</b> <b>something like that, but it's a video</b> <b>playing as you get to that page. And</b> <b>just the idea that you're not giving the</b> <b>user the choice of whether that plays or</b> <b>not. Is enough to distract someone so</b> <b>they couldn't use your website. So</b> <b>in specific cases like this, we add a</b> <b>pause button to that video so that if</b> <b>someone were using the website. And</b> <b>they were having trouble reading</b> <b>text on top of a moving image. They could</b> <b>pause the moving image and then hopefully</b> <b>get the answer that they're looking for.</b> <b>And of course, it's actually preferred to</b> <b>never auto play any video, and</b> <b>as I've looked at some of the draft</b> <b>standards, I'm.</b> <b>I can definitely look further into this</b> <b>if there are more questions, but a lot of</b> <b>this is being built into the updated and</b> <b>oncoming WKG standards.</b> <b>Umm, so I don't think there is</b> <b>this. I don't think there will be a</b> <b>disconnect between these two topics. I</b> <b>think they're coming together. As we move</b> <b>forward. And I could be wrong.</b> <b>All right, last question. This is more</b> <b>for social post marketing. How do you</b> <b>handle the balance of not putting too</b> <b>much text in an image versus knowing a</b> <b>lot of people tend to skim or skip</b> <b>text and rely on what's in the image,</b> <b>especially with social media posts?People</b> <b>just don't read captions and</b> <b>descriptions. It's a great point.</b> <b>Yeah. People don't read anything, right.</b> <b>I mean, I think that's where we should</b> <b>just start is like people are. I'm not</b> <b>sure if anybody is sort of familiar with</b> <b>that the F reading pattern, but if you</b> <b>think of the capital F the way</b> <b>that looks, that's how people read web</b> <b>pages and social media. They're looking</b> <b>for a title. Then they're skimming down,</b> <b>and if there's a list, they might read</b> <b>the list. And then that's it. Like</b> <b>there's there. People are mostly skimming</b> <b>in, and what they're skipping are</b> <b>paragraphs. And so I think</b> <b>that's what I would. I would sort of lean</b> <b>on the idea that. Using your</b> <b>image is a way to get people in, and I</b> <b>think allowing your captions for</b> <b>once you've got them to do the legwork</b> <b>of. For example, if it were if it were an</b> <b>event, we were throwing a beach party</b> <b>cookout. Maybe the image that I</b> <b>share is of cooking out and</b> <b>at a beach, right?But then maybe my</b> <b>caption talks about when it is. And</b> <b>how to RSVP for it and what to</b> <b>bring and so I think that.</b> <b>While that's a really rudimentaryexample.</b> <b>The best thing I can say is just that the</b> <b>less text that you bake into an image,</b> <b>the better. Umm.</b> <b>Your point is well made though. People</b> <b>aren't reading, so usually using a</b> <b>visually engaging image using not stock</b> <b>imagery which people are more prone to</b> <b>disengage from. Umm.</b> <b>These are ways that you can absolutely</b> <b>call people's attention and.</b> <b>My feeling and gut instinct are that the</b> <b>more that you start putting. Actual</b> <b>text as captions. The</b> <b>more that people start expecting it to be</b> <b>there. And we'll start to plan to review</b> <b>it and so. At the</b> <b>aquarium where I used to work, we knew</b> <b>that it took us 24 months to</b> <b>train our audience to do something.</b> <b>So if we moved our big buy tickets button</b> <b>on the home page. We would expect a a</b> <b>learning curve for where people would</b> <b>find that new buy tickets button and I</b> <b>think that all of what we do and and you</b> <b>know there was a quick quote in the</b> <b>presentation about the way you do</b> <b>anything is the way you do everything so.</b> <b>You know. Even even minor social</b> <b>posts, if you're starting to reduce the</b> <b>inaccessible content, even if you're</b> <b>just pulling out one or two small</b> <b>statements and making those texts, you're</b> <b>doing a great job and you can keep moving</b> <b>in that direction. So I hope that</b> <b>helped. There is not a hard and fast</b> <b>rule. I think we can get one more</b> <b>question in here if you answer it in the</b> <b>next 3 minutes, OK. Do you</b> <b>have any gold standard websites we can</b> <b>share with other teams as well?</b> <b>Um, at at risk of being the</b> <b>IU fanboy, I just think they do</b> <b>everything so well and I don't know</b> <b>anyone that Indiana University, so no one</b> <b>'s paying me to say it. I am just like a</b> <b>a stalker of Indiana University stuff.</b> <b>They're design studios are mind blowing</b> <b>like. Yeah,</b> <b>so I I really do. I I also</b> <b>Cornell has been a really, really great</b> <b>example for a lot of folks in</b> <b>doing accessible web design. Our previous</b> <b>web developer came from Cornell and</b> <b>brought a lot of this with him. Uh, so I</b> <b>I often look to Cornell as well.</b> <b>Wonderful. Well, thank you, Brian, for a</b> <b>great presentation and thank you</b> <b>attendees for joining. Before you go, if</b> <b>you haven't yet completed the session</b> <b>evaluation, please do so.</b> <b>You can return to the agenda to find your</b> <b>next session. Thanks everyone.</b>

accessibility

digital world

accessible design

captions and transcriptions

screen readers

color contrast

alt descriptions

continuous improvement