Episode 15

full
Published on:

25th Mar 2025

Jonathan Hassell - CEO & Founder - Hassell Inclusion

In this episode of The Digital Accessibility Podcast, we sit down with Jonathan Hassell, CEO and Founder of Hassell Inclusion. With a career spanning the BBC, ISO standards, and digital accessibility consultancy, Jonathan shares valuable insights on how businesses can successfully integrate accessibility into their strategies, products, and cultures.

We explore:

✅ Jonathan’s journey in accessibility – from shaping BBC’s accessibility standards to leading Hassell Inclusion.

✅ Why accessibility standards matter – unpacking BS 8878, WCAG, and ISO standards, and how businesses can leverage them.

✅ The biggest challenges companies face in making accessibility a business priority—and how to overcome them.

✅ How to measure accessibility success – key performance indicators, governance models, and industry best practices.

✅ Common mistakes in accessibility strategies and why embedding accessibility early saves time and resources.

✅ The future of digital inclusion – upcoming shifts in AI, regulations, and leadership mindsets.

💡 If you're looking for practical strategies to embed accessibility into your company or want to understand the business case for digital inclusion, this conversation is packed with actionable insights.

🔗 Resource Links:

🔹 PCR Digital – Digital & Technology Recruitment

🔹 Hassell Inclusion – Digital Accessibility Consultancy

🔹 BS 8878 & ISO Accessibility Standards Overview

🔹 European Accessibility Act (EAA)

📢 Follow Jonathan Hassell:

🔹 LinkedIn: Jonathan Hassell

🔹 Twitter (X): @HassellInclusive

📢 Follow Joe James:

🔹 LinkedIn: Joe James

🔹 Twitter (X): @A11yJoe

🎧 Subscribe & listen now on your favorite podcast platform!

Transcript
Speaker:

Welcome back to the Digital Accessibility podcast.

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If you're looking to learn more about the field of

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accessibility,

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how to implement it within your role or company,

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or to get advice on where to start or see how others have

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navigated complex issues that you may find along the way,

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then you're in the right place.

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I'm honoured to be able to share these insightful chats

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with thought leaders,

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advocates and practitioners of digital accessibility

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throughout this session.

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Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy the chat.

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Today I'm absolutely thrilled to be joined by Professor

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Jonathan Hassell,

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a leader in digital accessibility space and founder of

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Hassell Inclusion.

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Jonathan's had a rich career that spans working as an

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editor for the BBC for the Standards and Guidelines,

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heading up their usability and accessibility all the way to

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creating the BS 8878 standard,

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now known as the ISO 30071 and working as a visiting

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professor at London Metropolitan University and

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continuously influencing countless organisations to make

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their digital services more inclusive.

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Jonathan's a true pioneer in my eyes,

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so welcome to the podcast, Jonathan.

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It's great to be with you, Joe.

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Sorry, it took us so long to get this sorted,

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but glad to be with you.

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I really appreciate your time.

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So yeah, thank you so much on my part as well.

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I guess to start the same with every other episode,

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we always love to hear about your personal journey into the

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realm of accessibility.

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So what first drew you into the field and how did that path

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sort of lead to you founding your own consultancy in

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Hassell Inclusion?

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Yeah, so it's been like 25 years.

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So I will compress it.

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It all started for me around the turn of the century.

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So two things happened at the same time.

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I was recruited into the BBC to be that.

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editor of standards and guidelines that you mentioned

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there,

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voted the least sexy job title in the BBC at the time.

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And at the same time, my nephew Carl was born.

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He's the reason I do what I do.

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He was born with spina bifida.

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So we I had a personal link to disability and at the BBC

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within the first few weeks,

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one of the things I was asked to do was to look to see if I

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could lead efforts at the BBC in getting good at how to

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make sure that all of the viewers in, you know,

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who had been watching with captions and things like that,

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you know,

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the history had a real sort of history of making sure that

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people with a disability were getting, if you like,

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good value for their license fee.

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My job was to try and extend that into the digital world

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that we were kind of spending, you know,

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most of our time in,

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in what was then BBC future media and then turned into kind

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of new media, or it was the other way around.

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Gosh, I don't know.

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It was a long time ago.

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You know, it's the world we, you know,

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we've been living in for a very long time now.

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And it was really my job to try and work out what good look

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like, really.

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You know, the BBC is a huge organisation, also works

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with a large number of production companies.

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So the number of organisations who are creating digital

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stuff for us was huge.

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And it was my job to try and work out amongst all of the

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different teams.

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Yeah, what, you know, what were we doing that was good?

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What did it look like?

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How did we kind of capture it, codify it,

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share it so that other teams in the BBC were able to do the

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same thing?

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And one aspect of that was, was accessibility.

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So that's how I got started.

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Wow.

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Oh, wow.

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Yeah.

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And it was and it was loads of fun.

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You know, I mean, the BBC, you know,

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I haven't been there for years,

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but certainly at the time it was, you know,

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we were just coming out of the bubble bursting,

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if you remember back that far.

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And, you know, the internet bubble,

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all of those initial sort of companies that were created

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and then something went wrong and all of those companies

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sort of like, you know, cease to be.

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And a lot of those people who had a huge vision for what

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the what the internet could could bring the country,

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what the, you know, what websites could do,

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found themselves at the BBC.

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It was an amazing place, you know,

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people like Tom Loosemore, who, um,

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who started government UK, you know,

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he was one of my colleagues there, um, you know, uh,

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loads of people, you know,

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in the initial bits and podcasting, you know, we had a,

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we had a, um, a,

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a new media studio downstairs where people were doing stuff

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that wasn't broadcast TV, but also wasn't radio.

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It was kind of something a bit different.

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Um, so it was, um, it was the brave new world and, uh,

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it was a great place.

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It was my job to try and make sure, um,

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that everybody could come with us into that brave new

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world.

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Um, you know, if they, um, uh, whatever it was,

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whether it was a disability or a lack of a fast internet

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connection, um, that, um, if we were doing good things, um,

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uh, you know, people could, could go with us.

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Um, so I did that for, for a while.

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Um, my first role in accessibility, um, uh,

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was a few years later on something called BBC Jam, it was,

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um, uh,

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still one of the most interesting things I've ever done in

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my life.

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Um, um,

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it was 150 million pounds worth of public money to try and

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help kids learn via playing computer games on, uh,

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over the internet.

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Uh, so we have you to blame then.

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So yeah, I mean, so, but I mean, I mean, for example,

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I'm doing a, another podcast, uh,

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tomorrow in the education space.

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Um, and, um,

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because we were so far ahead of the whole world, you know,

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it was kind of like lots of kids didn't think they liked

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learning because they didn't like school and it was our job

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to kind of say,

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if we can help you understand how physics could help you

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escape from a desert Island, if you were marooned on it.

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And that was the game that you were playing and you were

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learning these physics skills to actually sort of like

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science, the hell out of it as it were, uh, as,

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as what was said in the Martian, uh,

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that came out after we were there at first, um, and, um,

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so yeah, we were trying to help kids, um, you know,

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five to, um, you know, to our level kind of really, uh,

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learn a little GCSE.

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You can tell how old I am.

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Um, and, um, so it was, and I had the most amazing job.

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My job was to try and make games accessible.

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Um, and that had not really been even considered very much.

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There was a few people on the planet who understood what I

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was talking about.

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And I had literally to get on planes to go and sort of like

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doorstop them at conferences and all sorts of places all

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over the world to try and work out how we took, um,

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what a generation of teachers, uh,

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so special education needs teachers have been doing one-on

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-one with kids, um, and.

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and make that kind of like digitised and gamified for how

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we could make all of this work.

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So we did some of the first signing avatars in the world.

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We got Benjamin Zephaniah to give us his entire output for

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the year,

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all focused on the ability of blind kids to be able to use

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his poetry to learn Braille.

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You know,

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we did some amazing things and then it all kind of had a

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bit of a political handbrake turn.

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And I then arrived back in other parts of the BBC and I ran

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accessibility and usability on things like the iPlayer.

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So what a huge amount of awards for.

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uh, for doing, um, you know, what,

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what was necessary to make sure that, that product was,

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was able to work for everybody.

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You know, it was the early days of video on demand.

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People had not done captions, audio description,

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those sorts of things.

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We were the first in those in the world, um, started,

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you know, I had a big team.

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We were helping to do accessibility across all of the BBC.

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We had about 400 websites at one point and about kind of

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like three or four different, um, apps.

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I had a team of about 15 and sort of like loads of

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suppliers.

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Um,

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and it was my job to try and work out how to get this stuff

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done in a strategic way.

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Um, and that was, that was, um, what I did.

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That's what ended up me leaving the BBC.

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I wrote all of that stuff down in the British standard

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BS 8878, that you kind of mentioned.

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Um, and so I kind of realised that my job was done really,

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you know, we were, you know, the BBC were the best, uh,

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you know,

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we were winning absolutely every single award when it came

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to accessibility,

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we started off as a lovely thing and ended up being a bit

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of a problem because it was kind of like,

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if we're winning every year,

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then other people aren't coming with us.

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So, um, so that was the point where I started thinking,

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I need to broaden this out, it can't be that my, you know,

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my success is that I've made the BBC accessible,

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my success needs to be beyond that.

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So that was the point where I started thinking, Hmm, yeah,

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how do we do this beyond, uh,

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and that I feel like was the first, um,

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nugget of hassle inclusion.

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Um, as I might hear.

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Amazing.

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And what an organisation as well, because of the,

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the amount of difference between like within the BBC,

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it's not just the one, you know,

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it's not just broadcasted channels is like you mentioned,

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and even into the education and game sides of things,

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and then I'm thinking back to my own, I'll say,

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GCSE, not O Level.

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Of course,

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I think about to that time when I was studying and there was

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sort of the BBC Bitesize things and that was gamified and

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I'm just thinking, oh, okay, brilliant.

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Like there was all these sort of chunks of information and

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it, yeah, it's all, and that's just, you know,

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accessible for everyone.

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Like you say,

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it's not just focusing on people with disabilities, but,

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um, no amazing insight into your sort of, yeah,

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I think it was,

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it was an amazing place because it was probably the one

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place where you could see all of that.

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You know, we had everything from the news, which was okay,

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we would love this to be accessible,

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but it needs to happen right now.

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I mean, literally, you know,

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so if you want to kind of like, if, if the,

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the captioning isn't fast enough to, um,

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for us to get this out to, to everybody right now,

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it can't wait.

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So it was kind of thing challenges like that to education,

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which was, it's not just enough to be understandable.

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It needs to be.

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you know,

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fully understandable in terms of enabling people to learn.

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You know, this is not a website that gives you information.

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This is a website that helps you learn.

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That's a that's a higher level all the way through to,

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you know, the yeah, you know, the early days of streaming,

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you know, stuff that was really, really interesting.

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Like some that we I remember the some of our radio stations

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were some of the initial sort of pushbacks on WCAG.

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You know,

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there was something in WCAG version one that I think a lot

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of us really mourn because it was right.

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And unfortunately, they got it wrong.

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But there was something in there about plain English.

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You know, your website needed to be in plain English.

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And we had like, you know, I think it was called One Extra.

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It was the black sort of urban radio kind of station on the

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on the BBC.

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And, you know, if I understood it,

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it meant it wasn't like for its audience.

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You know,

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it's an audience where people who weren't me and for me to

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come along and say that needs to be in plain English rather

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than that needs to be in the language that is being used

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with that particular audience would have just been utterly

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facile.

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So we had to go back to WCAG to say, actually,

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it's a bit bigger than just like plain English and,

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you know, because we also have the, you know, the,

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you know, services in every language in the world.

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So and unfortunately,

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their reaction was to kind of bury it in AAA.

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And we're still trying to kind of bring it back ever since.

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But yeah, I mean,

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these these were the sorts of opportunities that were

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there.

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It was it was a great place to be.

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It probably still is.

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I'm sure.

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Oh, amazing.

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I'm sure they're still doing very.

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good work at BBC, definitely.

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And it's great to hear what you managed to achieve in your

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time there as well.

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And I guess that would bring me on to the second question,

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which is about, well, you've, you've,

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you're now sort of doing that growth part and going out to

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people beyond the BBC and starting your own consultancy.

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And I mean, it could be seen as a very bold move.

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But I guess what inspired,

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we've probably had a little bit of that in your story from

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the BBC.

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But what,

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what was the inspiration for starting hassle inclusion?

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And how has it sort of evolved to address those ever

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changing needs?

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I guess you're even talking about things at the BBC those

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years ago that there was there were already so many

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different needs.

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But yes, in today's world,

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how have you had to sort of change and evolve as your own

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consultancy?

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Sure.

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So I mean, number one,

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starting your own business is something that you should

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think, like, multiple times on before you do it,

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it's not necessarily the easiest thing.

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Certainly,

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as somebody who'd kind of like worked in public sector for

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for 10 years, you know,

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I I wasn't necessarily kind of set up to understand how

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businesses work.

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So it was quite a learning curve.

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But I am for me.

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And, you know,

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this is just who I am as a person and who we are as hassle

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inclusion.

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Our mission is really, really quite simple,

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which is to to have the biggest impact that we can have for

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accessibility.

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And so that's for people with disabilities on behalf of

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people who are aging, you know, as well.

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I was in a situation where I felt that the BBC was had

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given me so many gifts over the years.

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I mean, it was it was amazing.

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You know,

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I got to spend more money on user testing with people with

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disabilities than I've I've ever experienced in any

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other organisation that we've worked with since because we

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needed to get it right.

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And we did it the right way.

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And it wasn't about WCAG.

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It was about does WCAG give us enough to actually give

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people the service they expect if they have a disability.

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And you can only really understand that if you talk to

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somebody with a disability.

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So I gained so much from it.

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But but yeah, we just saw a lack of commitment,

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a lack of understanding,

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a lack of capability in pretty much every organisation out

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there that wasn't the BBC.

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You know, a few of the banks were doing some good stuff.

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Some of the retailers, you know,

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I'd work with them on my committee at BSI so I could see

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that things were kind of happening in various places.

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And really towards the end of my time at the BBC when I was

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working on BS8878 and trying to kind of put down a kind of

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blueprint for how organisations could do the sort of stuff

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that we'd done at the BBC to get good, you know.

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It just became kind of obvious that the blueprint wasn't

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enough, that people needed expert help to make it happen.

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And, you know,

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if all of the people stayed in the organisations that they

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were working in, like the BBC or the banks or whatever,

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then who was helping the other organisations?

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And so, yeah, that was the thing, you know,

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I wanted to stop winning awards.

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It became, you know, towards the end of my time at the BBC,

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I was kind of like...

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I don't want to put us in for awards this year.

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This is how I have been able to get recognition for all of

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the great work of my team more funding internally because

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everyone's going, well,

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if you give stuff to the accessibility team,

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they do amazing things with it and they make the BBC look

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good.

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So, yeah, you know,

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so that was one of the things that I did to try and make

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sure that we were always considered a key part of what the

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BBC did.

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But, yeah, you know, my ambition was to not win, you know,

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the next Beamer and the rest of it,

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because if we were winning it,

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what on earth was happening out there in the rest of the

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world?

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So, so, yeah,

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that was that was the whole point of kind of setting up

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hassle inclusion was to say,

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we've got a British standard now.

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It's it's available.

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It's, you know, it's codified.

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You know, it's a good blueprint for people to get there.

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I'd written a book about it because the standard itself you

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had to pay for, which was not something I agreed with.

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But that's the way the British Standards Institute kind of

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work.

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You know, I would have, you know,

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I didn't make a single penny off it.

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And I tried to kind of, if you like,

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undercut the price of the standard by working right.

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British standards kind of press their books to make it kind

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of cheaper and and fundamentally more more easy to

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understand what we've been doing.

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But yeah, organisation

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s kind of needed experts to come in and help them start

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getting good at this in a kind of systemic way.

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And that was the that was the kind of the genesis of hassle

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inclusion, which initially was just me.

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And then I kind of picked up people along the way.

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And and we took that British standard to, you know,

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to international.

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And if you want to know how to say it, because, oh, yeah,

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I had I had to work on this with my marketing people.

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I must admit, when when they were, you know,

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so standards are never like, you know,

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like sensible numbers, you know,

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they're completely they're completely odd.

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The way we say it is three double seven one.

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part one.

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So it is supposed to be the first part of that standard.

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I don't know if they've done the rest of them.

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But we kind of figured that if we put 007 in the middle

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there,

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people would remember that bit maybe just a little bit

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more.

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You don't need to remember the number.

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All you really need to know is to understand they feel like

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what he does and why it's helpful.

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And that has been pretty much my sort of my masterwork as

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it were.

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That's the spine of my career in accessibility is to take

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it from something that was just a kind of like a technical

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thing to be something which is more of a managerial thing.

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So organisations can say, yeah,

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how much is it going to cost us?

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How much of this should we be doing?

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Where does it fit in the organisation?

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So all of these different things that I'm sure we can kind

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of talk through.

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That's the stuff that really kind of makes the impact.

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In reality, technical standards are useful.

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But the standards that really matter are the ones that

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actually get stuff kind of like embedded in organisation

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s. So I spent a huge amount of my family's money,

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if I'm honest, sort of like on planes and things,

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getting that standard done.

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:

No one pays you to do this sort of stuff.

440

:

We finally signed it off in Japan.

441

:

And so this was, if you like,

442

:

my family's investment in how to help the world get better

443

:

at this.

444

:

And the reason why it's so useful is because there are

445

:

other ISO standards out there, 9001.

446

:

That's quality 27001.

447

:

That's information security.

448

:

There are so many kind of standards with a one at the end.

449

:

And so what that allows allows organisations to do is to

450

:

kind of go, okay, we understand ISO, you know,

451

:

we understand that this is something that we should do as a

452

:

company to prove that we are, you know,

453

:

worth working with really, you know,

454

:

if it's a digital agency or a big kind of sort of,

455

:

you know, company that does civil engineering or whatever,

456

:

these are the things that allow us to kind of say,

457

:

we are good at this area, you know,

458

:

quality or infotech or whatever.

459

:

I helped create the version of that for accessibility and

460

:

that gave it a certain legitimacy, you know,

461

:

for years and years, you know, you know,

462

:

everybody in the accessibility community has been saying,

463

:

you know, we wanted thought about like,

464

:

you would do kind of like privacy or security or any of

465

:

those sorts of things.

466

:

The work that we did to make that ISO standard there was

467

:

doing exactly that,

468

:

was effectively saying accessibility isn't a weird thing,

469

:

you know, it's not an odd thing.

470

:

Weirdly, the accessibility world doesn't seem to get that.

471

:

So the accessibility world thinks that the important

472

:

standards organisation of the W3C,

473

:

because they were the people who created WCAG.

474

:

The rest of the world think the big standards organisation

475

:

is ISO.

476

:

So that's the, you know, for example,

477

:

the international standard on usability is the definition

478

:

of usability,

479

:

the international standard on security and all the rest of

480

:

them.

481

:

So it was quite interesting in that it's always felt like

482

:

because of the web and because of great work that was done,

483

:

you know, creating WCAG version one, version two,

484

:

people expected the important standards to come out of W3C

485

:

when in reality the place they should come to actually give

486

:

accessibility that legitimacy as an important part of a

487

:

digital thing that you do,

488

:

it actually had to come from ISO.

489

:

I still don't think a lot of the accessibility world kind

490

:

of get that.

491

:

They kind of go like,

492

:

why would ISO do an accessibility standard?

493

:

It's almost the other way around, if you like.

494

:

Okay, that's, I mean,

495

:

so that brings me into that next part, the next question,

496

:

which is the sort of difference between that and you've

497

:

explained it beautifully there about the sort of like,

498

:

again,

499

:

the WCAG and web accessibility guidelines and the difference

500

:

between the ISO.

501

:

And I guess from my perspective and from people that I've

502

:

spoken to, because a lot of the, well,

503

:

we're a tech recruitment agency,

504

:

so we're always looking at it from a technical angle,

505

:

but I suppose The key fundamental separation or the

506

:

difference is that the WCAG is purely sort of web-focused

507

:

and it's based upon what can and can't be sort of

508

:

implemented and using the poor principles, so perceivable,

509

:

operable.

510

:

Is it understandable and robust?

511

:

Robust, yeah.

512

:

Okay.

513

:

Test passed.

514

:

And then when it comes to the ISO, like you say,

515

:

it's the more, it's giving it legitimacy across the board.

516

:

It's an internationally recognized sort of way to implement

517

:

rather than sort of pointing out key elements maybe of,

518

:

or features of a site that need to be adjusted slightly

519

:

maybe.

520

:

I mean, I don't know if that's...

521

:

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.

522

:

I mean,

523

:

the way I would normally describe it is it's a solution to

524

:

a different problem.

525

:

And from my perspective,

526

:

it's a much more important problem.

527

:

So, if WCAG helps you make a website accessible...

528

:

ISO helps you make an organisation accessible and the

529

:

process for that organisation uses to create digital

530

:

products will procure them accessible.

531

:

So WCAG is really, really good,

532

:

especially if you're doing a website.

533

:

But the people who want to use WCAG are people who are

534

:

developers, designers, content authors and testers,

535

:

you know,

536

:

of digital products is the term that we normally use.

537

:

The ISO standard is the standard for the business analysts,

538

:

the product managers, the project managers,

539

:

the test managers of those things.

540

:

You know,

541

:

there are loads of different ways of testing the accessibility

542

:

of a website.

543

:

Most of them are a complete waste of your money,

544

:

if I'm honest,

545

:

because people just don't understand the opportunities,

546

:

the variety of ways of doing things out there,

547

:

and they don't understand the strategy that says, look,

548

:

you know,

549

:

how do I get accessibility into my product development the

550

:

way I would something else like,

551

:

you know, security or the rest?

552

:

And part of that is, yes,

553

:

it's nice to have a checklist of technical things that

554

:

you've got right.

555

:

But that doesn't tell you, you know, of the, you know,

556

:

at least kind of like 10 or 12 ways of testing whether

557

:

you've got things right.

558

:

Which of those test sort of possibilities are right for

559

:

your organisation and the product you're creating?

560

:

It doesn't tell you the really important stuff from my

561

:

perspective,

562

:

like if you've got a product manager who wants the product

563

:

to be accessible and they've got a team of people who are

564

:

going to be creating it,

565

:

what should they ask those people to understand whether or

566

:

not they know how to do this?

567

:

You know, or even if they do know how to do this,

568

:

what is it going to mean for the for the for the length of

569

:

time that it's going to take?

570

:

And so therefore the resources, you know,

571

:

if you look in the kind of like the, you know,

572

:

the real world,

573

:

if you ever look at kind of like a digital project and

574

:

being reported in a newspaper,

575

:

it is always the newspaper saying this particular sort of

576

:

is normally a government type thing is three years sort of

577

:

like late and it is cost five times as much as they said in

578

:

the first time.

579

:

Yeah, that's the reality of product development.

580

:

So in there,

581

:

what does WCAG tell you about how much more expensive that

582

:

product is going to is going to be?

583

:

make it accessible.

584

:

It could be that the reason it's late is because someone

585

:

came along and went, yeah, accessibility.

586

:

It can't go live until it's WCAG compliant.

587

:

How much is that actually going to cost that project?

588

:

WCAG might tell you a single thing about it.

589

:

How good are those people in your team at accessibility?

590

:

It won't tell you a single thing about that.

591

:

So the whole idea of the ISO standard is to actually put

592

:

you in the place where you can say, look, there are really,

593

:

really stupid ways of doing accessibility.

594

:

Overlays being the most obvious one.

595

:

Don't do it.

596

:

But an overlay is potentially something that you should

597

:

consider as one of the options for accessibility.

598

:

People in the accessibility world hate them.

599

:

People outside the accessibility world who are being

600

:

threatened with some sort of legal thing and just need to

601

:

get accessibility, the box ticked,

602

:

they kind of sound like a really great idea to them.

603

:

Well, hold on a second.

604

:

I don't need to be good at this at all.

605

:

We've already got our product.

606

:

It's absolutely awful.

607

:

It doesn't matter how good bad it is.

608

:

If I put this line of JavaScript on it and give some money

609

:

to these people, all of my problems go away.

610

:

Who wouldn't want to buy that?

611

:

Yeah.

612

:

Love a bit of snake oil.

613

:

Absolutely.

614

:

Yeah.

615

:

The problem is it just doesn't work.

616

:

But you have to kind of look at what we're doing in

617

:

accessibility and to say, well, is that working?

618

:

Is spending all of your money testing your product for

619

:

accessibility before you put it live and finding out that

620

:

the team who created this thing have no idea about

621

:

accessibility and you probably should have asked them at

622

:

the start of the project rather than the end of the

623

:

project.

624

:

and then gone, oh, it'll be fine.

625

:

We'll just test it at the end.

626

:

None of these things are good product management

627

:

principles.

628

:

And so a lot of what the ISO is about is to say,

629

:

let's take all of that stuff that actually makes

630

:

accessibility practical, that makes it affordable,

631

:

that makes it achievable,

632

:

and does all of that stuff in an ongoing way,

633

:

because most products do not just you don't create it,

634

:

you do versions every couple of weeks or a couple of months

635

:

or whatever.

636

:

And then how do you do that for different types of

637

:

products?

638

:

Some products are for customers.

639

:

Some products are for your internal teams.

640

:

Do people know in the accessibility community what the

641

:

difference between those two different audiences should do

642

:

to how you actually set up a project to deliver

643

:

accessibility in a kind of sensible way.

644

:

These were the sort of questions that we were talking about

645

:

when we were putting together the international standards.

646

:

And that's the thing,

647

:

that's why I'm so kind of passionate about it because it

648

:

actually makes accessibility possible.

649

:

Because if you do it the way that most organisations have

650

:

done in the past, at least, in a very piecemeal way,

651

:

it is not achievable.

652

:

And the answer is not overlays.

653

:

The answer is to actually think about this in a sensible

654

:

way that you would think about if you were actually looking

655

:

at security or privacy or all the rest of them.

656

:

That's why it has to be an ISO standard because that is the

657

:

thing that enables organisations to say, oh yeah,

658

:

there was actually a process that we need to put in place

659

:

here to make this happen.

660

:

It's really, really interesting.

661

:

And it's something, I mean, like I say,

662

:

I've always been more,

663

:

I was speaking to people about the WCAG all the time.

664

:

So it's like, it's great to actually hear it from you,

665

:

one of the authors of the ISO standard to say,

666

:

this is what it's for.

667

:

And from that,

668

:

all that keeps going around in my head is that WCAG's

669

:

great, but it's maybe a bit too late.

670

:

Or it's just, it's used too late.

671

:

Or it's not thought about and it's not really the,

672

:

and where they're guidelines.

673

:

This is where a lot of the struggles happen in that

674

:

technical world is it's hard to get by in because people

675

:

are sort of just like, yeah, but it's just a guideline.

676

:

Like, I don't actually have to do this sort of thing.

677

:

But three words that you mentioned as well.

678

:

So obviously there's the level AAA or AAA standard for

679

:

WCAG, but you mentioned affordable,

680

:

achievable and actionable.

681

:

So maybe you've got your own three A's for the ISO.

682

:

Well, yeah, I mean, we've gone through, you know,

683

:

to try and communicate why accessibility is actually worth

684

:

doing.

685

:

You know, we've gone through all sorts of things.

686

:

I've got I've got the five E's that that was the first

687

:

version of my book.

688

:

We then we can kind of move things on a little from there.

689

:

But the key thing really is that it's so important,

690

:

you know,

691

:

there is nothing wrong with WCAG other than it's not.

692

:

The only set of accessibility standards is right for some

693

:

people.

694

:

Those people happen to be developers,

695

:

designers and content authors and people who do testing.

696

:

It's not enough for them.

697

:

You know, it's it's woefully inadequate, for example,

698

:

when it comes to the news,

699

:

the needs of people who are neurodivergent.

700

:

But you have to look at it and say it's for those people.

701

:

But for those people to actually be given the time to focus

702

:

on accessibility in their jobs,

703

:

some other people who are kind of more important in

704

:

an organisation need to get bought in.

705

:

And if you tell them about WCAG, it is not going to be,

706

:

you know, it's like, yeah, you know,

707

:

I'm going to tell people,

708

:

I'm going to tell the CEO of our organisation about why are

709

:

we?

710

:

It's like, who the hell cares?

711

:

What he cares about is, so this accessibility thing,

712

:

is this good news or bad news for my businesses bottom line

713

:

this year?

714

:

You know, and if I do this thing,

715

:

who's going to benefit out there?

716

:

Can we make a good PR story of that?

717

:

You know,

718

:

does it mean that we get rid of some sort of like legal or

719

:

regulatory risk?

720

:

Yeah, that's great.

721

:

It's just about a website, right?

722

:

Yeah, we don't do websites, you know, in our company.

723

:

So, you know,

724

:

I remember our phone started bringing off the hook a few

725

:

years ago because the government asked.

726

:

So through the Crown Commercial Services who do the what

727

:

they call the well,

728

:

if you want to work for the government for the next five

729

:

years,

730

:

there is you have to kind of like prove that you're a

731

:

marketing company who have the right skills and the right

732

:

values in place and the right processes in place so that

733

:

you can deliver what the government needs all the way

734

:

through.

735

:

And you're not having to ask, you know, you're doing that,

736

:

you're doing that, you're doing that.

737

:

This is a good company.

738

:

Yes, we're going to work with them as a government.

739

:

And the Crown Commercial Services said, OK, all of these,

740

:

you know,

741

:

you don't get to be a marketing company if you don't do ISO

742

:

30071 part one.

743

:

If you're not compliant with that, we're not touching it.

744

:

I don't know where they found it from.

745

:

They didn't chat with us at all about it before they asked.

746

:

I was really, really glad that they asked,

747

:

but I would have wanted a conversation to have kind of

748

:

maybe reset their expectations,

749

:

because what they were doing were effectively going to

750

:

loads of marketing companies that don't do websites.

751

:

And they were jumping through from those organisations

752

:

going, well accessibility doesn't apply to us,

753

:

we just do video, we just do social media,

754

:

we just do PDFs or whatever.

755

:

And they were saying, yeah,

756

:

all of that stuff needs to be accessible,

757

:

here is ISO 30071 part one, go for it.

758

:

And these organisations were terrifying,

759

:

because they didn't do web,

760

:

so therefore WCAG wasn't something that they were at all

761

:

knowledgeable about at all.

762

:

And they needed to go from zero to 100 within a couple of

763

:

like months.

764

:

Now that wasn't possible.

765

:

None of those organisations could do that.

766

:

But what the government was asking for is a really sensible

767

:

thing.

768

:

The problem was was that they didn't know how difficult

769

:

that was.

770

:

And those marketing organisations were like, help,

771

:

you know, who can who can help us with this thing?

772

:

You wrote it, Jonathan.

773

:

You know, what do we do?

774

:

So, you know, so a lot of what we've been doing, you know,

775

:

over time is to try and help organisations with those sort

776

:

of circumstances where they've got somebody requiring them

777

:

to do this accessibility thing.

778

:

So how would they do that in an efficient way?

779

:

But also, if they manage that, you know, if they do it,

780

:

what are they going to get out of it?

781

:

You know, in that case,

782

:

they're going to get being able to work with the

783

:

government.

784

:

But if I'm a bank and I get good at accessibility,

785

:

how do I win?

786

:

You know, we all know how to avoid losing, you know,

787

:

if you don't do WCAG, you know, you'll get, you know,

788

:

on and you're in various different parts of Europe on the

789

:

28th of June this year.

790

:

You know,

791

:

25 countries have got people who will be coming after you

792

:

if you're in banking or travel or e-books or streaming or

793

:

you're doing stuff with an e-shop.

794

:

So organisations are going, oh, golly, OK,

795

:

we've got to do this thing because it's a risk.

796

:

You know, if we don't do it,

797

:

somebody is going to hit us with a financial stick.

798

:

So they're going to fine us if you're in an island.

799

:

Allegedly,

800

:

they might actually put somebody on your board in prison

801

:

for a year and a half.

802

:

I really hope they don't do that.

803

:

I think that would be slightly counterproductive.

804

:

But the key thing here is this.

805

:

If these are the reasons why organisations kind of like

806

:

start getting into accessibility,

807

:

they need to understand that there is an upside.

808

:

It's really quite interesting in that if you think about

809

:

accessibility in comparison to those other ISO standards,

810

:

things like security,

811

:

I don't think security buys you more customers.

812

:

I think a lack of security makes your customers all go

813

:

somewhere else,

814

:

but actually if I go from a bank that is insecure to a bank

815

:

that is massively secure,

816

:

I don't think that is a win for our bank in terms of the

817

:

bottom line.

818

:

That costs loads of money and we will continue to be able

819

:

to be a bank and we won't have a run on the money that is

820

:

in there,

821

:

but I don't necessarily think it actually wins us more

822

:

customers.

823

:

This is what we have in accessibility.

824

:

If 20% of the population who have a disability can't use

825

:

your product and you sell stuff, they can't buy from you.

826

:

If you sort that out, they now can.

827

:

The 20% of the population who are older actually have all

828

:

of the money.

829

:

You know, the baby boomers, you know,

830

:

they're the people who've got the dosh swilling around.

831

:

We did the research.

832

:

And if they can't buy from your website,

833

:

they'll just kind of like go to somewhere else that they

834

:

can.

835

:

So if you get this stuff right, you win.

836

:

Yeah, and it's, I mean, yeah.

837

:

You know, that's what we've got.

838

:

We've got, you know, accessibility is complicated.

839

:

Accessibility, you know, requires people to do some work.

840

:

But fundamentally, if you get it right,

841

:

you get return on investment.

842

:

This is what we deliver to our clients all of the time is

843

:

it's not enough for us to make them accessible.

844

:

We're there to make them successful businesses.

845

:

Because accessibility is part of the route to actually

846

:

being a successful business defined by however they

847

:

consider it.

848

:

You know, shareholder value,

849

:

whether it's minimizing the cost of customer service,

850

:

any of these sorts of things,

851

:

accessibility actually makes you win.

852

:

That's what we're here to try and do.

853

:

And, but, okay, it doesn't really kind of, you know,

854

:

tell you it's that's for the people who make the stuff

855

:

happen.

856

:

You actually need the people at the top to understand why

857

:

this stuff is worth happening,

858

:

how to do it in an effective way so that it becomes part of

859

:

what you do.

860

:

And the best organisations are the ones that have actually

861

:

got it.

862

:

this.

863

:

A lot of them work with us.

864

:

Some of them don't.

865

:

But a lot of the big organisations,

866

:

they're not doing accessibility because they want to be

867

:

nice.

868

:

They're doing accessibility because this is what actually

869

:

powers their businesses alongside all sorts of other

870

:

things.

871

:

We're not asking for charity for people with disabilities

872

:

here.

873

:

We're saying that people with disabilities are their

874

:

customer base as well as everyone else.

875

:

They are literally wasting money if they don't understand

876

:

accessibility.

877

:

It's huge.

878

:

It's the reputational risk, the legitimacy of a company,

879

:

the market share.

880

:

It's all of those things, all those terms.

881

:

Like you said,

882

:

there is a real problem in the accessibility space where it

883

:

seems as if it's something that should be a charitable

884

:

cause.

885

:

But when you put it in the way that you've mentioned,

886

:

There's so much potential for real return on investment and

887

:

for it to actually be a benefit to the companies as well as

888

:

everyone that should already have access to these services

889

:

as well.

890

:

So let's not get away from that point that it should

891

:

already be done.

892

:

Things should be, but the reality is they're not.

893

:

So it's great that you've got this in place to help.

894

:

The reason why this particular conversation is so important

895

:

to be having in February 2025 is that there are four

896

:

different categories of reason,

897

:

of benefits for accessibility.

898

:

One is legal, one is ethical.

899

:

I'll come back to that in a second.

900

:

One is financial and the other one is kind of innovation.

901

:

Okay, so the ethical one, that is at debate at the moment.

902

:

All of those organisations out there like Meta and lots of

903

:

other ones are prompted by staff happening in the States.

904

:

Let's try and keep the politics out of it.

905

:

But they're effectively saying we cannot afford diversity,

906

:

equity and inclusion.

907

:

I would argue that when it comes to at least the group of

908

:

people who have a disability,

909

:

we cannot afford not to do this.

910

:

Companies who are selling to those people cannot afford to

911

:

not do accessibility, inclusive design,

912

:

call it what you want because they're not gonna be able to,

913

:

they are literally saying to kind of 20%,

914

:

40% of their potential customer base,

915

:

we don't wanna sell to you.

916

:

That's just stupid in 2025.

917

:

But also just getting in touch political for a second.

918

:

One of the key aims of our current government here in the

919

:

UK is to get a lot of people who aren't in work back into

920

:

work.

921

:

A lot of people who aren't in work have disabilities.

922

:

Say, for example,

923

:

you wave a magic wand and everybody suddenly has the skills

924

:

to be able to do the right jobs that are there that

925

:

actually probably aren't there in industry anyway.

926

:

But if we just create the jobs, pop people into them,

927

:

they're going to need to use digital tools to be able to do

928

:

those jobs.

929

:

So if those tools aren't actually accessible,

930

:

if they don't work for them as people who have a

931

:

disability,

932

:

then it's the lack of tools that will stop people from

933

:

being able to be in jobs.

934

:

So they will not be able to do the job.

935

:

And so therefore they will just need to go back to being on

936

:

benefits.

937

:

Can you see from that perspective as a country we cannot

938

:

afford financially for accessibility to not be something

939

:

which is a fundamental part of every single digital tool

940

:

that we use every single day at the work?

941

:

Irrespective of the key point that I think we both want to

942

:

make,

943

:

which is how dare we as a society lock people with disabilities

944

:

out of employment?

945

:

Employment gives you loads of other things,

946

:

not just a pay packet.

947

:

If growth is the thing that we're trying to get at the

948

:

moment,

949

:

you get growth from people who are actually doing something

950

:

they're passionate about, are able to do.

951

:

We cannot afford as a country to be getting these sorts of

952

:

things wrong.

953

:

It's just bizarre at the moment that organisation

954

:

s are going, oh, should we not do so much accessibility?

955

:

Because DEI is wrong or something.

956

:

If you do that, we are going backwards,

957

:

not just as a planet that we would want to be citizens of

958

:

from an ethical perspective,

959

:

but we are literally saying our gross domestic product of

960

:

every country is going to go down because we are locking

961

:

loads of people who could be incredibly valuable to society

962

:

out of being able to be part of society.

963

:

That's just stupid.

964

:

That's one of those things that we're trying to get across

965

:

at the moment,

966

:

because there was a lot of stupid going around in fields at

967

:

the moment.

968

:

you know, it's really, really important that, you know,

969

:

accessibility isn't just a nice thing you do,

970

:

it's actually something that has the potential to help

971

:

everybody, not just people with a disability,

972

:

not just people who are older,

973

:

absolutely everybody on the entire planet needs us to be

974

:

really good at accessibility and not to be kind of wasting

975

:

time, effort, or money, getting things kind of, you know,

976

:

done in inefficient ways.

977

:

That's why we do what we do at Hassell Inclusion.

978

:

Amazing.

979

:

No, I really appreciate that.

980

:

And I've just realised as you were going through that,

981

:

I was like, oh, I've actually missed a question on here.

982

:

So I'm not going to,

983

:

because I don't want to take too much more of your time up,

984

:

Jonathan, I know you're extremely busy now.

985

:

But actually that question that we missed,

986

:

let's just take a little bit of time on it,

987

:

because there is stuff in there as to, so if I've just,

988

:

said why accessibility is so important,

989

:

it then becomes really important for people who are

990

:

interested in accessibility to know how they can be

991

:

effective.

992

:

That's what that question is all about.

993

:

So go for it.

994

:

Definitely,

995

:

I mean so it's it well I mean naturally as a recruiter in

996

:

the space so very familiar with finding and hiring skilled

997

:

accessibility specialists but it is a very small pool of

998

:

people as you've alluded to as well but what do you think

999

:

are the key qualities that we do need to be looking for

:

00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:36,220

when recruiting people in this space but also there's

:

00:49:36,220 --> 00:49:40,140

always the question of certification as well and could you

:

00:49:40,140 --> 00:49:43,400

let us know if there's anything in terms of ISO that is

:

00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:46,220

certification and what Hassell's doing to support that as

:

00:49:46,220 --> 00:49:46,340

well?

:

00:49:46,740 --> 00:49:50,580

Sure yeah so I mean probably the first thing is that I you

:

00:49:50,580 --> 00:49:54,160

know this used to be a very even smaller pool you know when

:

00:49:54,160 --> 00:49:56,860

I was where you know when I was at the BBC doing this in

:

00:49:56,860 --> 00:50:01,000

kind of like you know:

:

00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:04,820

everybody here in the UK in the US who was working in

:

00:50:04,820 --> 00:50:09,100

accessibility you know and so it is awesome where we've got

:

00:50:09,100 --> 00:50:14,520

to and just so we get it so I don't know if you would agree

:

00:50:14,520 --> 00:50:17,720

with this but so I've been tracking the number of people

:

00:50:17,720 --> 00:50:21,180

who have the word accessibility in their job title on

:

00:50:21,180 --> 00:50:26,020

LinkedIn for my trends webinars over the past at least six

:

00:50:26,020 --> 00:50:29,760

years we were pretty much the only part of the digital

:

00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:34,160

industry last year that got bigger there was 11,

:

00:50:34,160 --> 00:50:38,380

000 people with accessibility in their job title in January

:

00:50:38,380 --> 00:50:40,480

:

:

00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:48,140

globally in:

:

00:50:48,140 --> 00:50:55,040

and I can see that every single day of the week digital is

:

00:50:55,040 --> 00:50:57,920

going through a really hard time at the moment you know

:

00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:00,680

most digital agencies there are so many of them out there

:

00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:04,240

none of them are look that different from the other ones,

:

00:51:04,400 --> 00:51:06,580

they're all trying to differentiate themselves from each

:

00:51:06,580 --> 00:51:06,900

other.

:

00:51:07,940 --> 00:51:09,980

They're all having a really, really hard time,

:

00:51:10,140 --> 00:51:13,620

and that's really sort of problematic for the digital

:

00:51:13,620 --> 00:51:14,840

industry as a whole.

:

00:51:15,180 --> 00:51:15,980

If you like,

:

00:51:16,100 --> 00:51:18,440

we've got too many people doing the wrong sort of things

:

00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:21,600

and too many agencies, and it's troubling.

:

00:51:23,480 --> 00:51:27,440

For an agency to actually kind of differentiate themselves,

:

00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:30,000

accessibility is a really good way of doing it,

:

00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:33,480

and actually to the point where we've had quite a number of

:

00:51:33,480 --> 00:51:36,740

digital agencies who've maybe got like one person on staff

:

00:51:36,740 --> 00:51:39,360

who knows something about accessibility.

:

00:51:40,320 --> 00:51:43,020

They're now kind of like setting themselves up as kind of

:

00:51:43,020 --> 00:51:45,540

like, yeah, we can do your audits and all the rest of it.

:

00:51:45,740 --> 00:51:48,060

So we're not a digital agency,

:

00:51:48,220 --> 00:51:49,520

we're an accessibility company.

:

00:51:49,720 --> 00:51:51,180

It's kind of like, no, really,

:

00:51:51,480 --> 00:51:54,240

you're just a digital agency with one person who's been

:

00:51:54,240 --> 00:51:57,600

doing accessibility for like the last year.

:

00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:02,140

So there is some really kind of interesting things kind of

:

00:52:02,140 --> 00:52:06,440

happening in terms of everybody is trying to kind of jump

:

00:52:06,440 --> 00:52:08,960

into the accessibility thing, mostly because of the EAA.

:

00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:15,740

My perspective is this, that's okay,

:

00:52:17,640 --> 00:52:24,260

but if you really want to have an impact and you have

:

00:52:24,260 --> 00:52:29,960

thought that to be an accessibility person you have to be,

:

00:52:31,460 --> 00:52:36,180

you have to know all about HTML and CSS and JavaScript and

:

00:52:36,180 --> 00:52:38,580

ARIA and all the rest of it because that's where the

:

00:52:38,580 --> 00:52:40,160

accessibility jobs are.

:

00:52:41,560 --> 00:52:46,800

There are a lot fewer jobs in that sort of space than they

:

00:52:46,800 --> 00:52:48,000

used to be.

:

00:52:48,880 --> 00:52:51,840

If you thought that accessibility was all about audits,

:

00:52:53,520 --> 00:52:55,600

here's the kind of like the news flash,

:

00:52:56,050 --> 00:52:58,800

AI is coming along to steal your lunch.

:

00:53:00,700 --> 00:53:04,780

In:

:

00:53:05,220 --> 00:53:07,620

you should be thinking, yeah,

:

00:53:08,020 --> 00:53:09,920

where should I be kind of spending my time?

:

00:53:10,100 --> 00:53:11,800

And if you are thinking, aha, yeah,

:

00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:13,380

I can do accessibility audits,

:

00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:16,500

that's the sort of thing that we already have automated

:

00:53:16,500 --> 00:53:18,760

tools that are getting better and better and better.

:

00:53:18,880 --> 00:53:20,060

And hopefully at some point,

:

00:53:20,580 --> 00:53:23,500

maybe you won't need to be doing accessibility audits.

:

00:53:23,500 --> 00:53:24,440

Certainly in all this year,

:

00:53:24,580 --> 00:53:27,780

we're still up to about kind of like 30% of WCAG that can

:

00:53:27,780 --> 00:53:30,000

be done by an automated tool,

:

00:53:30,060 --> 00:53:32,220

but hopefully AI will improve that.

:

00:53:32,920 --> 00:53:35,180

What it can't do is to understand people who have a

:

00:53:35,180 --> 00:53:35,520

disability.

:

00:53:37,540 --> 00:53:41,180

of skills you really want in:

:

00:53:41,180 --> 00:53:43,780

if you are looking to be in accessibility,

:

00:53:44,300 --> 00:53:45,740

is actually kind of empathy,

:

00:53:46,340 --> 00:53:49,060

having spent time around people with disabilities,

:

00:53:49,180 --> 00:53:52,980

so you can actually understand why this stuff in WCAG is

:

00:53:52,980 --> 00:53:53,400

there.

:

00:53:54,900 --> 00:53:57,400

What I'm seeing out there at the moment is lots of people

:

00:53:57,400 --> 00:53:58,980

who like throwing kind of like...

:

00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:03,540

Baseball bats around and using WCAG as the baseball bats to

:

00:54:03,540 --> 00:54:06,800

hit companies with to say you're crap here crap here crap

:

00:54:06,800 --> 00:54:07,540

here Crap here.

:

00:54:07,540 --> 00:54:11,560

They don't know The impact of that stuff on people with

:

00:54:11,560 --> 00:54:14,420

disabilities They don't know which of the bits in WCAG that

:

00:54:14,420 --> 00:54:17,540

really matter and the stuff that actually really matters

:

00:54:17,540 --> 00:54:20,240

that isn't in WCAG When it comes to people with

:

00:54:20,240 --> 00:54:20,800

disabilities,

:

00:54:20,820 --> 00:54:25,280

they they literally just hot off that kind of like from

:

00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:28,980

University going I've learned some stuff on WCAG I'm going

:

00:54:28,980 --> 00:54:33,180

to kind of use this as a mechanism to hit people with and I

:

00:54:33,180 --> 00:54:37,520

wish they'd stop if I'm honest Because it's not helpful You

:

00:54:37,520 --> 00:54:41,400

know It's it's useful for people to be able to have an

:

00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:44,300

audit done But audits are done by people who actually

:

00:54:44,300 --> 00:54:47,880

understand what this stuff really means in terms of the

:

00:54:47,880 --> 00:54:51,780

impact on people with disabilities But I think from our

:

00:54:51,780 --> 00:54:56,940

point of view if you really really want to be effective in

:

00:54:56,940 --> 00:55:01,380

accessibility You have to be thinking about,

:

00:55:01,760 --> 00:55:01,800

well,

:

00:55:01,980 --> 00:55:09,620

probably the first thing is actually respect for designers,

:

00:55:09,920 --> 00:55:11,200

developers, and content authors.

:

00:55:12,020 --> 00:55:15,940

So a lot of people kind of do accessibility audits and go,

:

00:55:16,080 --> 00:55:18,140

you've got this wrong here, you've got this wrong here,

:

00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:20,340

your colors are wrong, and all of that.

:

00:55:20,500 --> 00:55:21,940

They know nothing about color theory.

:

00:55:22,260 --> 00:55:24,920

They have no idea that the color red is actually really

:

00:55:24,920 --> 00:55:25,920

great for branding.

:

00:55:26,680 --> 00:55:28,160

It brings people to it.

:

00:55:28,460 --> 00:55:29,920

It's great for calls to action.

:

00:55:30,340 --> 00:55:32,420

They might know that actually a lot of people who are

:

00:55:32,420 --> 00:55:34,200

autistic don't like the color red.

:

00:55:34,680 --> 00:55:37,120

So therefore we should just, what, like ban the colour red?

:

00:55:37,240 --> 00:55:39,360

That's the sort of thing that happens out there.

:

00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:43,020

So the first thing is nobody wants your accessibility

:

00:55:43,020 --> 00:55:47,660

advice in a product team if you don't understand what the

:

00:55:47,660 --> 00:55:49,760

product team does and respect it.

:

00:55:50,680 --> 00:55:51,460

That's the first thing.

:

00:55:52,960 --> 00:55:58,000

So you need to actually respect your colleagues around you

:

00:55:58,000 --> 00:56:01,440

and not be using the kind of accessibility baseball bat in

:

00:56:01,440 --> 00:56:02,160

the wrong way.

:

00:56:03,280 --> 00:56:05,080

If you like to be a good consultant,

:

00:56:06,120 --> 00:56:08,280

you need to be a good kind of collaborator.

:

00:56:10,140 --> 00:56:13,960

And then ideally what you would want to do is to actually

:

00:56:13,960 --> 00:56:18,800

start going more strategic and to say actually the reason

:

00:56:18,800 --> 00:56:22,680

why most of those developers and content authors and people

:

00:56:22,680 --> 00:56:26,520

aren't doing accessibility isn't because they don't care,

:

00:56:26,860 --> 00:56:30,480

isn't because there's no training materials out there for

:

00:56:30,480 --> 00:56:31,280

them to do it.

:

00:56:31,440 --> 00:56:34,740

It's because their boss doesn't think that it's worth

:

00:56:34,740 --> 00:56:35,020

doing.

:

00:56:35,740 --> 00:56:38,860

So if you really want to be sort of effective when it comes

:

00:56:38,860 --> 00:56:42,000

to accessibility, you're speaking to the wrong people.

:

00:56:44,460 --> 00:56:47,940

You need to be speaking to people at the top.

:

00:56:48,300 --> 00:56:49,580

So a lot of what we do,

:

00:56:49,680 --> 00:56:51,520

this is where we spend all of our time.

:

00:56:51,660 --> 00:56:54,760

It's why everybody comes to us and says, gosh,

:

00:56:55,340 --> 00:56:56,500

you're not like the other companies.

:

00:56:56,840 --> 00:56:58,980

You do accessibility in a completely different way.

:

00:56:59,000 --> 00:57:03,920

You know, we do accessibility based on so, you know,

:

00:57:04,020 --> 00:57:08,380

you might want to kind of like But it's sales and not like

:

00:57:08,380 --> 00:57:13,480

us selling to clients Accessibility is all about selling

:

00:57:14,280 --> 00:57:15,240

You you know,

:

00:57:15,240 --> 00:57:18,600

you need to sell yourself as an expert to the team so that

:

00:57:18,600 --> 00:57:21,340

they Go well, okay.

:

00:57:21,640 --> 00:57:25,080

Yes this this order that was done, you know,

:

00:57:25,080 --> 00:57:28,760

you're telling us we've got all of these things wrong Um,

:

00:57:29,560 --> 00:57:30,240

are you sure?

:

00:57:31,220 --> 00:57:34,480

Cuz like this is gonna be a hell of a lot of work to do if

:

00:57:34,480 --> 00:57:34,920

you're not,

:

00:57:34,940 --> 00:57:37,640

you know when did you start doing this auditing thing,

:

00:57:37,640 --> 00:57:38,760

you know,

:

00:57:38,820 --> 00:57:43,140

so a lot of the The people who are setting themselves up to

:

00:57:43,140 --> 00:57:46,480

do audits who don't really know what they're doing are

:

00:57:46,480 --> 00:57:50,280

actually causing a lot of Trouble because they do the audit

:

00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:51,540

they get paid for it.

:

00:57:51,540 --> 00:57:56,280

Not very much because they're not very good But the people

:

00:57:56,280 --> 00:57:59,960

don't actually fix things You know,

:

00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:05,800

so it's really important to have credibility and to

:

00:58:05,800 --> 00:58:09,240

actually be able to talk to people like you understand what

:

00:58:09,240 --> 00:58:09,880

they're doing.

:

00:58:10,700 --> 00:58:11,120

You know,

:

00:58:11,380 --> 00:58:15,520

the amount of times I read audit reports that say your

:

00:58:15,520 --> 00:58:16,760

color contrast is wrong.

:

00:58:18,040 --> 00:58:18,580

Don't worry,

:

00:58:19,020 --> 00:58:22,700

you can fix it by going from this hex value of the color to

:

00:58:22,700 --> 00:58:23,500

this hex value.

:

00:58:23,500 --> 00:58:25,960

And I'm like, OK,

:

00:58:26,140 --> 00:58:29,880

go and take that to the brand part of that organisation and

:

00:58:29,880 --> 00:58:33,200

see if they buy that and see if they don't just kick you

:

00:58:33,200 --> 00:58:38,220

out of the building as somebody who's totally naive about

:

00:58:38,220 --> 00:58:40,500

what branding is and how it matters.

:

00:58:41,160 --> 00:58:46,200

So you have to kind of understand the world you're living

:

00:58:46,200 --> 00:58:46,440

in.

:

00:58:46,740 --> 00:58:50,500

Everybody has some inclusion, you know,

:

00:58:50,620 --> 00:58:54,920

is loved by our clients because we understand what they do.

:

00:58:55,760 --> 00:58:58,280

So when we say, look, I'm sorry,

:

00:58:58,520 --> 00:59:00,000

you had a real problem over here,

:

00:59:00,320 --> 00:59:02,920

we're able to tell them how long it's going to take it to

:

00:59:02,920 --> 00:59:04,660

take it, you know, them to fix that.

:

00:59:04,660 --> 00:59:07,820

And we also know that they are probably going to be

:

00:59:07,820 --> 00:59:10,740

massively stressed because they were supposed to be

:

00:59:10,740 --> 00:59:12,180

spending that time on something else.

:

00:59:12,540 --> 00:59:15,500

And so somebody is making the decision to say we're doing

:

00:59:15,500 --> 00:59:16,760

this rather than that.

:

00:59:17,120 --> 00:59:19,640

And potentially that might cost them their job if they get

:

00:59:19,640 --> 00:59:19,980

it wrong.

:

00:59:21,340 --> 00:59:24,400

So you have to be a helpful kind of person.

:

00:59:24,400 --> 00:59:31,400

I think the other thing is that if you really want to get

:

00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:32,400

stuff sorted out,

:

00:59:32,520 --> 00:59:35,980

you have to understand if you like how to sell things to

:

00:59:35,980 --> 00:59:38,160

various different levels of the business,

:

00:59:38,820 --> 00:59:42,640

because if somebody comes back to you and says, yeah,

:

00:59:42,700 --> 00:59:45,440

I'd love to fix all of that stuff in that order you did for

:

00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:45,780

us.

:

00:59:45,780 --> 00:59:47,640

But actually, we've got no time.

:

00:59:48,140 --> 00:59:52,800

What they're basically saying is somebody needs to get me

:

00:59:52,800 --> 00:59:54,140

time for this to happen.

:

00:59:54,880 --> 00:59:54,900

Yeah.

:

00:59:55,740 --> 00:59:56,440

And it's not me.

:

00:59:56,600 --> 00:59:57,880

I don't know how to do that.

:

00:59:58,000 --> 00:59:59,680

as a little developer or whatever.

:

01:00:00,280 --> 01:00:02,640

So can you, the accessibility person,

:

01:00:02,740 --> 01:00:05,600

go and get me the time to do the thing?

:

01:00:05,800 --> 01:00:06,200

Otherwise,

:

01:00:06,220 --> 01:00:10,240

all of the money that we spent on that audit report is kind

:

01:00:10,240 --> 01:00:11,620

of pointless, really.

:

01:00:11,640 --> 01:00:13,440

Just wasted, yeah, yeah, yeah.

:

01:00:13,820 --> 01:00:15,720

So this is the sort of stuff.

:

01:00:16,260 --> 01:00:18,280

So, you know, I've been training,

:

01:00:19,460 --> 01:00:22,720

I haven't done it for a few years, but one of the things,

:

01:00:22,880 --> 01:00:24,380

we work with lots of different universities,

:

01:00:25,000 --> 01:00:30,140

City University on their MSc program for Inclusive Design.

:

01:00:30,500 --> 01:00:32,740

I'm the guy who kind of comes in and says, look,

:

01:00:32,860 --> 01:00:35,400

you could learn about how to do your testing of things,

:

01:00:35,640 --> 01:00:38,280

or you could learn about politics in organisation

:

01:00:38,280 --> 01:00:41,800

s. You know, how to get money, how to get buy-in,

:

01:00:41,880 --> 01:00:44,280

how to get time, how to understand politics,

:

01:00:44,660 --> 01:00:46,040

how to understand accountability,

:

01:00:46,640 --> 01:00:49,400

how to bring together consortiums of people with

:

01:00:49,400 --> 01:00:52,380

an organisation to actually kind of get this stuff right.

:

01:00:52,380 --> 01:00:53,060

You know,

:

01:00:53,080 --> 01:00:56,820

if you don't know what your organisation does to make

:

01:00:56,820 --> 01:00:57,180

money.

:

01:00:58,000 --> 01:00:58,300

you know,

:

01:00:58,680 --> 01:01:02,260

literally to make money on the bottom line to pay people,

:

01:01:02,680 --> 01:01:05,360

you won't be able to do accessibility because you won't

:

01:01:05,360 --> 01:01:09,100

know how to link between the thing that you want to happen

:

01:01:09,100 --> 01:01:12,040

and the thing the business needs to happen.

:

01:01:13,940 --> 01:01:16,320

You know, how to access funding,

:

01:01:16,460 --> 01:01:20,380

how to provide good news stories back to people who are

:

01:01:20,380 --> 01:01:24,620

actually giving you the time and money to actually make

:

01:01:24,620 --> 01:01:25,740

accessibility happen.

:

01:01:25,740 --> 01:01:28,600

You know, if you don't go back to them to say,

:

01:01:28,900 --> 01:01:33,040

because of you employing me in my job,

:

01:01:34,180 --> 01:01:35,960

these good things have happened,

:

01:01:36,460 --> 01:01:39,500

you will probably not have a job next year because they'll

:

01:01:39,500 --> 01:01:40,400

go, yeah,

:

01:01:40,480 --> 01:01:42,620

but why are we doing accessibility in the first place,

:

01:01:42,800 --> 01:01:43,180

you know?

:

01:01:43,620 --> 01:01:47,680

So everybody needs to be a kind of salesperson for what

:

01:01:47,680 --> 01:01:48,280

they do.

:

01:01:48,560 --> 01:01:49,720

So from my perspective,

:

01:01:50,160 --> 01:01:52,800

the people in accessibility that really matter,

:

01:01:52,800 --> 01:01:57,240

that have the biggest impact are, for one of a better word,

:

01:01:57,320 --> 01:01:57,920

the managers.

:

01:01:58,220 --> 01:02:02,940

They're the people who actually kind of get money and

:

01:02:02,940 --> 01:02:06,760

budget within the organisation to enable accessibility to

:

01:02:06,760 --> 01:02:07,120

happen.

:

01:02:07,420 --> 01:02:10,300

The people doing the technical stuff are completely

:

01:02:10,300 --> 01:02:11,260

beholden to them.

:

01:02:11,360 --> 01:02:17,360

If those people who are actually delivering the environment

:

01:02:17,360 --> 01:02:20,320

where accessibility can happen don't do their jobs,

:

01:02:20,640 --> 01:02:25,160

then the technical people will just not be recruiters.

:

01:02:25,520 --> 01:02:28,160

If they are, they won't have the time to do it.

:

01:02:28,340 --> 01:02:30,220

The number of people that we speak to in organisation

:

01:02:30,220 --> 01:02:32,400

s that say, oh, yeah,

:

01:02:32,500 --> 01:02:34,720

I do accessibility off the side of my desk.

:

01:02:34,860 --> 01:02:35,400

It's not my job.

:

01:02:36,560 --> 01:02:37,820

And that is the problem.

:

01:02:39,040 --> 01:02:42,860

If we're in this to actually have the right impact on the

:

01:02:42,860 --> 01:02:43,240

world,

:

01:02:43,240 --> 01:02:50,200

we have to be thinking about how to get the investment into

:

01:02:50,200 --> 01:02:52,360

accessibility in all of the companies.

:

01:02:52,960 --> 01:02:55,500

That buy-in is the most important thing,

:

01:02:56,000 --> 01:02:57,980

and it needs to be continued.

:

01:02:58,000 --> 01:02:59,360

So, therefore,

:

01:02:59,660 --> 01:03:04,760

you need to keep on reporting back to the person who gave

:

01:03:04,760 --> 01:03:05,580

you that money.

:

01:03:06,040 --> 01:03:07,760

This is the great things we've done from it,

:

01:03:07,860 --> 01:03:10,400

to come back to that stuff about awards.

:

01:03:10,660 --> 01:03:12,640

That's why I did all of that at the BBC.

:

01:03:15,180 --> 01:03:19,960

It was my job to make sure that accessibility was

:

01:03:19,960 --> 01:03:24,060

considered a sensible thing for the BBC to do and something

:

01:03:24,060 --> 01:03:28,100

for it to do more of that was really important for the

:

01:03:28,100 --> 01:03:31,940

organisation and that we were doing a great job so,

:

01:03:32,000 --> 01:03:35,160

therefore, we could be trusted with more money to do more.

:

01:03:36,120 --> 01:03:37,740

You know, that, from our perspective,

:

01:03:37,740 --> 01:03:39,220

is always the key thing.

:

01:03:39,800 --> 01:03:43,260

But to answer your question about sort of certifications

:

01:03:43,260 --> 01:03:44,580

and things like that.

:

01:03:47,000 --> 01:03:47,240

Um,

:

01:03:47,500 --> 01:03:50,780

so I was there in the room when the I double AP was created,

:

01:03:50,780 --> 01:03:55,700

um, let's see some, uh, in San Diego about sort of like,

:

01:03:55,700 --> 01:03:57,800

Oh gosh, 15, so years ago now.

:

01:03:58,040 --> 01:04:01,540

Um, I love it as an organisation trying to do good things.

:

01:04:01,880 --> 01:04:02,320

Um,

:

01:04:02,640 --> 01:04:05,720

I do think their certifications are better than nothing.

:

01:04:06,140 --> 01:04:06,580

Um,

:

01:04:06,580 --> 01:04:10,700

but I do think that they have missed what is actually important,

:

01:04:10,700 --> 01:04:13,980

you know, the, um, uh, you know, cause for me,

:

01:04:13,980 --> 01:04:16,200

what's important is just what I've been talking about.

:

01:04:16,200 --> 01:04:21,680

You know, um, and, um, so, uh, you know,

:

01:04:22,260 --> 01:04:26,660

and really when it comes down to it, um,

:

01:04:26,900 --> 01:04:29,760

I have met so many people who've got I double AP

:

01:04:29,760 --> 01:04:35,120

certifications who don't know how businesses work so that

:

01:04:35,120 --> 01:04:38,120

they, they're not able to be a good consultant or, or,

:

01:04:38,120 --> 01:04:39,000

or good colleague.

:

01:04:39,580 --> 01:04:44,160

Um, but they still don't know enough about how to, uh,

:

01:04:44,300 --> 01:04:47,240

also get it where, you know, done right in a product,

:

01:04:47,660 --> 01:04:48,920

you know, there are,

:

01:04:48,920 --> 01:04:52,220

there are lots of completely different things that you need

:

01:04:52,220 --> 01:04:56,340

to know if you are different roles and you know,

:

01:04:56,380 --> 01:04:57,520

the I double AP stuff,

:

01:04:57,520 --> 01:05:00,320

other than I quite liked some of the things they do on the

:

01:05:00,320 --> 01:05:04,360

kind of document stuff, but certainly the, um, uh, yeah,

:

01:05:04,420 --> 01:05:05,780

I mean, our training is,

:

01:05:05,780 --> 01:05:09,680

um, way past that because our training is, uh,

:

01:05:09,860 --> 01:05:13,940

is trying to make sure that people have the skills to be

:

01:05:13,940 --> 01:05:18,520

able to deliver what is necessary in their role for the

:

01:05:18,520 --> 01:05:20,600

sorts of products that they're working on.

:

01:05:21,380 --> 01:05:23,280

Um, and, um,

:

01:05:23,280 --> 01:05:26,620

that goes way beyond anything that the certifications out

:

01:05:26,620 --> 01:05:26,980

there do.

:

01:05:27,140 --> 01:05:29,120

We do do certifications, uh,

:

01:05:29,240 --> 01:05:30,880

for people who've come on our audit course.

:

01:05:30,880 --> 01:05:33,660

We do train people in how to audit because we've been doing

:

01:05:33,660 --> 01:05:37,180

it for, you know, for best part of 20 years,

:

01:05:37,460 --> 01:05:39,940

most different, most of our, uh, most of our trainers.

:

01:05:40,660 --> 01:05:40,660

Um,

:

01:05:41,100 --> 01:05:44,900

and we also understand how that properly kind of fits in to

:

01:05:44,900 --> 01:05:46,840

an organisation that doesn't want to be spending.

:

01:05:47,000 --> 01:05:48,060

of their money on audits.

:

01:05:48,300 --> 01:05:48,820

Why would you?

:

01:05:50,520 --> 01:05:52,300

So yeah,

:

01:05:53,140 --> 01:05:57,440

what we do is we provide certificates for people who have

:

01:05:57,440 --> 01:05:58,260

come on our training.

:

01:05:59,400 --> 01:06:02,700

We provide, if you like,

:

01:06:03,080 --> 01:06:08,040

stuff that properly matters on projects because the key

:

01:06:08,040 --> 01:06:14,980

certificate you actually want is a product manager who

:

01:06:14,980 --> 01:06:20,060

gives you a reference that says, because person X,

:

01:06:20,200 --> 01:06:23,400

whoever the person is, was part of my team,

:

01:06:23,720 --> 01:06:27,020

we were able to deliver accessibility on this really

:

01:06:27,020 --> 01:06:28,020

complicated product.

:

01:06:28,480 --> 01:06:33,660

That beats everything on certificates because that's the

:

01:06:33,660 --> 01:06:34,380

real world stuff.

:

01:06:34,600 --> 01:06:35,980

And that really matters.

:

01:06:36,260 --> 01:06:36,400

You know?

:

01:06:36,440 --> 01:06:40,280

If you've got somebody who's delivered accessibility on a

:

01:06:40,280 --> 01:06:44,280

software as a service, you know, over four releases,

:

01:06:44,280 --> 01:06:47,740

and has actually taken things kind of up a notch every

:

01:06:47,740 --> 01:06:50,400

single time, they are worth their weight in gold.

:

01:06:51,520 --> 01:06:58,560

And a certification just proves that you're not, you know,

:

01:06:58,640 --> 01:07:00,820

you know, you understand some of the theory.

:

01:07:01,300 --> 01:07:01,760

Yeah.

:

01:07:02,180 --> 01:07:04,800

But in practice, gosh,

:

01:07:04,960 --> 01:07:08,340

that's so far away from what you actually need to actually

:

01:07:08,340 --> 01:07:10,980

do it in practice, you know, you need, you know,

:

01:07:11,840 --> 01:07:14,920

people who are good at accessibility are people with scars.

:

01:07:16,000 --> 01:07:17,860

You know, people with war wounds,

:

01:07:18,300 --> 01:07:21,760

people who've gone through the hell of, okay,

:

01:07:21,840 --> 01:07:22,780

what do we do now?

:

01:07:23,340 --> 01:07:26,160

Because that that JavaScript library didn't work.

:

01:07:26,760 --> 01:07:29,020

You know, that date picker that we were, you know,

:

01:07:29,260 --> 01:07:32,520

we were just using on the thing isn't as accessible as we

:

01:07:32,520 --> 01:07:32,900

like.

:

01:07:33,500 --> 01:07:35,800

And the reason we used it from the JavaScript library is

:

01:07:35,800 --> 01:07:38,260

that nobody around here understands JavaScript.

:

01:07:39,040 --> 01:07:41,880

And we've now got an order that says there's a problem in

:

01:07:41,880 --> 01:07:43,460

the JavaScript in the library thing.

:

01:07:43,480 --> 01:07:44,100

And it's like, well,

:

01:07:44,180 --> 01:07:46,760

the hell do we do now that that's accessibility,

:

01:07:47,120 --> 01:07:49,740

that's proper, proper good stuff.

:

01:07:50,060 --> 01:07:54,500

Accessibility is is your product manager coming to you as a

:

01:07:54,500 --> 01:07:59,080

designer and saying, okay, you know,

:

01:07:59,080 --> 01:08:01,260

that new brand that we created?

:

01:08:01,880 --> 01:08:03,760

Yeah, we got a real problem.

:

01:08:03,980 --> 01:08:07,080

They didn't actually put somebody who knew accessibility in

:

01:08:07,080 --> 01:08:07,640

that team.

:

01:08:08,360 --> 01:08:12,240

So we're now trying to work with the brand colors that we

:

01:08:12,240 --> 01:08:13,780

need to work with in the organisation.

:

01:08:14,480 --> 01:08:17,000

And we need to kind of work it out as we go along,

:

01:08:17,200 --> 01:08:19,300

because most combinations of them just aren't going to work

:

01:08:19,300 --> 01:08:19,779

for us.

:

01:08:20,180 --> 01:08:20,819

So what do we do?

:

01:08:21,240 --> 01:08:21,359

You know,

:

01:08:21,520 --> 01:08:23,840

that that's that's the design that you want is somebody

:

01:08:23,840 --> 01:08:26,899

who's been through that, you know, a tester, you want,

:

01:08:27,560 --> 01:08:32,560

you want somebody who's who's been told that they need to

:

01:08:32,560 --> 01:08:35,779

kind of like take the time it takes them to do their

:

01:08:35,779 --> 01:08:39,180

accessibility testing and color it in half because on this

:

01:08:39,180 --> 01:08:40,100

particular project,

:

01:08:40,420 --> 01:08:41,819

that's the only way it's going to happen.

:

01:08:42,120 --> 01:08:43,220

That's the person you want.

:

01:08:44,080 --> 01:08:48,300

Your content person needs to be somebody who actually is

:

01:08:48,300 --> 01:08:53,200

going to properly understand how this stuff works with

:

01:08:53,200 --> 01:08:56,819

content management systems and what to do if a content

:

01:08:56,819 --> 01:09:00,960

management system doesn't allow you to actually embed in

:

01:09:00,960 --> 01:09:04,000

your content the accessibility that WCAG requires.

:

01:09:04,819 --> 01:09:08,920

Go and talk to them about can they put in this phrase in

:

01:09:08,920 --> 01:09:14,279

French and see if they can work that out with their content

:

01:09:14,279 --> 01:09:15,080

management system.

:

01:09:15,560 --> 01:09:17,960

These are the right exam questions.

:

01:09:19,979 --> 01:09:23,160

None of these are in, you know,

:

01:09:23,260 --> 01:09:26,160

the I double AP stuff because it's more about,

:

01:09:26,300 --> 01:09:29,660

do you understand WCAG, you know, it's to practicality,

:

01:09:29,760 --> 01:09:32,120

I guess, as well as just putting it into practice,

:

01:09:32,160 --> 01:09:33,180

like you say, and then,

:

01:09:33,439 --> 01:09:37,040

and I think Craig Abbott has said in a previous episode,

:

01:09:37,200 --> 01:09:38,560

he hated saying it, but he said,

:

01:09:38,580 --> 01:09:39,800

I think if you work in accessibility,

:

01:09:39,800 --> 01:09:41,700

you need to be resilient and it's horrible,

:

01:09:41,700 --> 01:09:44,460

we have to force resilience and say that's what it takes.

:

01:09:44,460 --> 01:09:48,040

But it sounds very similar from your perspective that you

:

01:09:48,040 --> 01:09:52,020

have to have suffered almost to be able to have overcome

:

01:09:52,020 --> 01:09:56,620

and try new things and really understand the sort of

:

01:09:56,620 --> 01:10:00,020

ingrained nature that is needed to sort of progress in

:

01:10:00,020 --> 01:10:00,480

accessibility.

:

01:10:00,480 --> 01:10:01,840

Yeah, absolutely.

:

01:10:02,420 --> 01:10:06,880

And it's, but that's life.

:

01:10:07,580 --> 01:10:08,320

That's work.

:

01:10:08,760 --> 01:10:09,420

That's jobs.

:

01:10:09,740 --> 01:10:09,840

Yeah.

:

01:10:10,100 --> 01:10:14,380

I mean, you know, I mean, I totally agree with Craig, but,

:

01:10:14,880 --> 01:10:15,460

you know,

:

01:10:15,520 --> 01:10:19,400

we all should be taking care of each other and ourselves in

:

01:10:19,400 --> 01:10:22,020

r jobs, because especially in:

:

01:10:23,160 --> 01:10:25,420

you just popped to the other side of the pond at the moment

:

01:10:25,420 --> 01:10:29,080

and go and talk to a DEI person and tell them how they fit,

:

01:10:29,260 --> 01:10:30,400

you know, ask them how they're feeling.

:

01:10:30,400 --> 01:10:34,020

Some of the things that we are doing at the moment is to

:

01:10:34,020 --> 01:10:37,740

try and fight, bring sort of create spaces, you know,

:

01:10:37,760 --> 01:10:42,360

our webinars every month or a space where people who love

:

01:10:42,360 --> 01:10:48,600

this stuff and are going through hell come together to at

:

01:10:48,600 --> 01:10:51,740

least have the best hour of their month when it comes to

:

01:10:51,740 --> 01:10:53,140

accessibility, you know,

:

01:10:53,280 --> 01:10:55,820

that's that's what we aim it to be, you know,

:

01:10:55,820 --> 01:10:57,260

there's kind of two tracks of it.

:

01:10:57,260 --> 01:11:00,620

You can listen to us to talk about something that hopefully

:

01:11:00,620 --> 01:11:03,780

might sort your problems out and sort of like take you to

:

01:11:03,780 --> 01:11:05,560

where accessibility is going next,

:

01:11:06,000 --> 01:11:08,200

or you can chat with the other people in the chat because

:

01:11:08,200 --> 01:11:12,840

we keep it open to make you feel like you're part of a

:

01:11:12,840 --> 01:11:13,200

community.

:

01:11:13,940 --> 01:11:14,100

You know,

:

01:11:14,160 --> 01:11:17,720

we are we are under fire at the moment as a community.

:

01:11:19,600 --> 01:11:20,760

Here in the UK,

:

01:11:21,120 --> 01:11:25,440

we're a lot further away from the heart of the fire,

:

01:11:25,580 --> 01:11:27,600

but it's still burning,

:

01:11:28,520 --> 01:11:32,400

and it's still depriving us of a lot of the oxygen we need

:

01:11:32,400 --> 01:11:33,580

to be able to do our jobs.

:

01:11:34,620 --> 01:11:40,540

What we try and do is to help clients understand how we can

:

01:11:40,540 --> 01:11:43,060

help them with the challenges that they have.

:

01:11:45,780 --> 01:11:47,960

Accessibility is not always easy.

:

01:11:48,690 --> 01:11:52,580

It is the most interesting thing I've ever done in my life

:

01:11:52,580 --> 01:11:56,200

and will probably ever do in my life because it's...

:

01:11:56,000 --> 01:12:01,180

encompasses everything from sort of like you know needing

:

01:12:01,180 --> 01:12:04,340

to be the most amazing sales person to understand stuff

:

01:12:04,340 --> 01:12:08,100

like legal stuff from parts all over the world to work with

:

01:12:08,100 --> 01:12:10,720

procurement people to work with kind of.

:

01:12:10,840 --> 01:12:13,520

People are in kind of diversity inclusion who are looking

:

01:12:13,520 --> 01:12:17,360

at disability is one part of a larger whole of groups of

:

01:12:17,360 --> 01:12:20,700

people that they're trying to serve in a research.

:

01:12:21,400 --> 01:12:26,260

You know the number of people who have different jobs who

:

01:12:26,260 --> 01:12:29,800

come to us because they all have an accessibility challenge

:

01:12:29,800 --> 01:12:34,680

is is is the cool thing and that's that's what we do as I'd

:

01:12:34,680 --> 01:12:38,540

really encourage people to keep on coming to your podcast

:

01:12:38,540 --> 01:12:42,440

and because you know you've got people on here who've been

:

01:12:42,440 --> 01:12:45,300

doing this for a while so if people want to kind of build

:

01:12:45,300 --> 01:12:47,280

up their career that's a really good thing.

:

01:12:47,800 --> 01:12:51,260

We've got the digital accessibility experts podcast which

:

01:12:51,260 --> 01:12:51,620

is ours,

:

01:12:51,940 --> 01:12:56,060

which is basically our webinars a couple of months later

:

01:12:56,060 --> 01:12:59,740

just the audio come to our webinars and you can be part of

:

01:12:59,740 --> 01:13:00,300

a community.

:

01:13:01,900 --> 01:13:04,080

You know you can find all of this stuff on how to inclusion

:

01:13:04,080 --> 01:13:04,680

calm,

:

01:13:04,680 --> 01:13:08,760

you know a lot of the things that we are trying to do.

:

01:13:09,560 --> 01:13:15,220

Is to build an industry that you know that has the impact

:

01:13:15,220 --> 01:13:16,960

that we all want to have.

:

01:13:19,080 --> 01:13:20,960

And you know it's.

:

01:13:21,860 --> 01:13:25,080

You know that's the thing that kind of really really kind

:

01:13:25,080 --> 01:13:28,580

of matters is the impact we're all having at the end or we

:

01:13:28,580 --> 01:13:31,240

don't want is just lots of people who are.

:

01:13:31,240 --> 01:13:35,980

Really keen on accessibility who burn out you know that's

:

01:13:35,980 --> 01:13:39,820

that's not an industry you know anyone wants to work in.

:

01:13:40,260 --> 01:13:41,800

Exactly and it's not sustainable,

:

01:13:41,980 --> 01:13:45,220

but I mean I've had so much of your time Jonathan so I'm

:

01:13:45,220 --> 01:13:47,500

just going to take us to final thoughts I mean we will

:

01:13:47,500 --> 01:13:50,420

probably invite you back again if you have the time for

:

01:13:50,420 --> 01:13:54,260

thoughts maybe post EAA regulation I know that we were

:

01:13:54,260 --> 01:13:55,980

hoping to spend a bit of time on that.

:

01:13:56,000 --> 01:13:58,940

But I know you're very busy and yeah,

:

01:13:58,960 --> 01:14:00,900

so any final thoughts anything else?

:

01:14:00,960 --> 01:14:02,440

I mean, I love the webinars.

:

01:14:02,440 --> 01:14:05,060

I have been to quite a few of them obviously time

:

01:14:05,060 --> 01:14:07,760

permitting But it's great that you've got that as a podcast

:

01:14:07,760 --> 01:14:10,640

as well to revisit So it's great for some advice and things

:

01:14:10,640 --> 01:14:13,060

so appreciate you to putting that out there as well But

:

01:14:13,060 --> 01:14:15,500

anything else you want to share with the listeners?

:

01:14:16,160 --> 01:14:16,940

Yeah, I mean,

:

01:14:16,960 --> 01:14:22,720

I mean just on the point we have As I say if you go to my

:

01:14:22,720 --> 01:14:24,100

if you find me on LinkedIn.

:

01:14:24,100 --> 01:14:27,260

We've got a, We've got I've got a newsletter on there.

:

01:14:27,260 --> 01:14:30,460

We did a really good piece on the a a kind of like

:

01:14:30,460 --> 01:14:33,300

September last year if you're working in an organisation

:

01:14:33,300 --> 01:14:36,520

that doesn't know that the EAA a is coming along,

:

01:14:36,520 --> 01:14:39,340

it's best not to kind of like stick your head in the sand

:

01:14:39,340 --> 01:14:41,420

but to try and get some help.

:

01:14:41,420 --> 01:14:46,560

We're helping loads of organisations do that And probably

:

01:14:46,560 --> 01:14:50,560

just the last thing really is that, you know,

:

01:14:50,560 --> 01:14:54,160

just to go out on a really really positive note I

:

01:14:55,000 --> 01:14:57,260

Accessibility is the best fun,

:

01:14:57,260 --> 01:15:00,760

I think, you can have in digital, you know,

:

01:15:00,880 --> 01:15:04,520

it requires a lot of you to kind of, you know,

:

01:15:04,560 --> 01:15:07,980

to understand all of these different types of things,

:

01:15:08,100 --> 01:15:11,360

you know, and, you know, for example,

:

01:15:11,600 --> 01:15:16,460

the EAA is now requiring us to be thinking about kiosks as

:

01:15:16,460 --> 01:15:18,840

well as as websites and mobile apps.

:

01:15:18,860 --> 01:15:21,460

You know, if you've got experience in this area,

:

01:15:21,460 --> 01:15:25,720

can you work out how to kind of transition across to some

:

01:15:25,720 --> 01:15:26,620

of the new areas?

:

01:15:27,000 --> 01:15:30,840

The EAA also requires your customer service people,

:

01:15:31,120 --> 01:15:32,940

you know, the people who kind of like, you know,

:

01:15:32,940 --> 01:15:37,540

are on the phones to be trained in how to handle situations

:

01:15:37,540 --> 01:15:39,600

where somebody with a disability calls them.

:

01:15:40,100 --> 01:15:44,080

And so it's always growing, you know, we're doing stuff in,

:

01:15:44,080 --> 01:15:48,000

you know, accessibility and A.I., VR, AR you know,

:

01:15:48,020 --> 01:15:50,400

all of the new kind of technologies and things,

:

01:15:51,440 --> 01:15:53,660

it never gets old, it never gets boring.

:

01:15:55,600 --> 01:15:58,360

And, you know, we're, I guess,

:

01:15:58,620 --> 01:16:03,380

in a sort of like luxurious situation in the sense that we

:

01:16:03,380 --> 01:16:06,500

generally tend to get the the new things.

:

01:16:06,800 --> 01:16:06,920

You know,

:

01:16:06,980 --> 01:16:09,420

people come to us with the stuff that's never been done

:

01:16:09,420 --> 01:16:09,960

before.

:

01:16:10,840 --> 01:16:14,320

And we try and share as much of that stuff on things like

:

01:16:14,320 --> 01:16:16,520

our webinars as we can.

:

01:16:17,120 --> 01:16:18,340

You know, so, for example,

:

01:16:18,660 --> 01:16:21,440

WCAG is not good at neurodivergence.

:

01:16:22,680 --> 01:16:22,820

You know,

:

01:16:22,880 --> 01:16:26,080

we work with National Autistic Society to sort that out.

:

01:16:26,260 --> 01:16:29,540

You know, we can provide that sort of stuff for you.

:

01:16:30,580 --> 01:16:34,160

You know, everywhere where the whole industry is going,

:

01:16:34,160 --> 01:16:38,880

we're always thinking one, two, three, four years ahead.

:

01:16:40,240 --> 01:16:44,120

So if you're interested in, you know,

:

01:16:44,320 --> 01:16:45,440

does this stuff have legs?

:

01:16:45,440 --> 01:16:50,040

You know, is a career and accessibility a good thing?

:

01:16:50,180 --> 01:16:51,340

What could it look like?

:

01:16:52,320 --> 01:16:54,300

You know, we're too busy these days, unfortunately,

:

01:16:54,620 --> 01:16:56,940

to be able to answer sort of individual questions.

:

01:16:57,560 --> 01:17:01,220

But if you come to our webinars, you know,

:

01:17:01,280 --> 01:17:04,300

we've got hundreds of people on them.

:

01:17:05,260 --> 01:17:08,300

So, you know, people love our webinars totally.

:

01:17:09,660 --> 01:17:10,940

You know, you'll get to see.

:

01:17:11,000 --> 01:17:17,280

where everything is going and be part of a community that

:

01:17:17,280 --> 01:17:23,020

I've always been a real kind of advocate for and just,

:

01:17:23,020 --> 01:17:25,260

you know, enjoyed being part of.

:

01:17:25,440 --> 01:17:27,160

It's a good world, accessibility.

:

01:17:28,240 --> 01:17:29,040

It's not always easy,

:

01:17:29,320 --> 01:17:31,520

but I think we do care for each other.

:

01:17:33,360 --> 01:17:35,160

And, you know, I know that's the experience.

:

01:17:35,360 --> 01:17:37,560

It's one of the reasons why I wanted to be on your podcast,

:

01:17:37,560 --> 01:17:39,820

Joe, cause I love what you're doing, you know,

:

01:17:40,160 --> 01:17:43,100

bringing some of the kind of names that are out there who

:

01:17:43,100 --> 01:17:47,480

are doing really great stuff in their companies, you know,

:

01:17:47,480 --> 01:17:49,480

giving them just a few moments to kind of go,

:

01:17:49,700 --> 01:17:50,980

what's it all about, really?

:

01:17:51,560 --> 01:17:54,020

And, you know, what can I share that might help people?

:

01:17:54,320 --> 01:17:58,300

So I hope that I've been able to share a little bit on this

:

01:17:58,300 --> 01:17:59,040

podcast today.

:

01:17:59,040 --> 01:18:00,860

And as I say, people come to our webinars.

:

01:18:01,360 --> 01:18:02,980

There's loads more where this comes from.

:

01:18:02,980 --> 01:18:03,840

Amazing.

:

01:18:04,300 --> 01:18:05,960

Well, I've definitely learned a lot.

:

01:18:06,220 --> 01:18:08,080

So I hope that the listeners learn as well.

:

01:18:08,360 --> 01:18:11,260

And it's just so insightful and really appreciate you being

:

01:18:11,260 --> 01:18:14,320

open about your background and your journey as well.

:

01:18:14,560 --> 01:18:17,400

So it's just all of your time and everything you're doing

:

01:18:17,400 --> 01:18:17,920

in the space.

:

01:18:18,120 --> 01:18:19,240

So thank you so much, Jonathan.

:

01:18:19,640 --> 01:18:21,880

And I'm sure it's not the last time we'll speak.

:

01:18:22,300 --> 01:18:23,100

So yeah,

:

01:18:23,120 --> 01:18:25,200

just let me know if there's anything I can ever do to help

:

01:18:25,200 --> 01:18:25,600

as well.

:

01:18:25,920 --> 01:18:27,240

So yeah, we'll stay in touch.

:

01:18:27,480 --> 01:18:29,240

Thanks again. Very well, Very well, thanks, Joe.

:

01:18:29,760 --> 01:18:30,240

Thanks, everyone.

:

01:18:30,600 --> 01:18:30,720

Cheers.

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About the Podcast

The Digital Accessibility Podcast
Interviews with Digital Accessibility Leaders
In The Digital Accessibility Podcast, Accessibility Leaders are interviewed by Joe James about the importance of digital accessibility in business and society.

Joe is a Digital Accessibility Recruiter at PCR Digital with an inquisitive mind and a passion for the space.

Tune in for key insights, personal accounts, and takeaways about the importance of digital accessibility, told by experts.

Contact: joe.james@pcrdigital.com
PCR Digital: https://www.pcrdigital.com/

About your host

Profile picture for Joe James

Joe James

Hi! I'm Joe. I'm a Technical Recruitment Consultant who's worked in a huge variety of industries. Having worked to hire specialists for one of the world leaders in digital accessibility, my own passion for and interest in the field has grown.

My aim is to chat with thought leaders and advocates within the space to raise more awareness of the field in general and help to understand what we can all be doing to ensure all areas of the web/technology are accessible to everyone.