Todd Libby - Making the web equal and accessible

Show Notes:

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Transcript:

Bekah Hawrot Weigel: 00:05

Hello, and welcome to Season 4, Episode 2 of the Virtual Coffee Podcast. I'm Bekah. And this is a podcast that features members of the Virtual Coffee community. Virtual Coffee is an intimate group of developers at all stages of their coding journey. And they're here on this podcast, sharing their stories and what they've learned. And we're here to share it with you. Here with me today is my cohost, Dan.

Dan Ott: 00:30

Thanks, Bekah. Today we're joined by Todd Libby. Todd is a web developer, designer, and accessibility advocate. And he's been doing it for over 20 years. He's currently an accessibility engineer at WebstaurantStore. And he's also a member of the Worldwide Web Consortium — also known as W3C — doing work updating their -- the web content accessibility guidelines. Todd also hosts a podcast called Front End Nerdery. So once you're done listening to this episode, head over there, and give that one a listen. We had a great time talking with Todd and hearing about his long journey in tech, how and why he developed a career focusing on accessibility, and shared with us about what accessibility means to him and what kinds of things all developers can do to ensure their work is accessible by everyone. I know you're going to enjoy it.

Bekah: 01:24

We start every episode of the podcast like we start every Virtual Coffee. We introduce ourselves with our name, where we're from, what we do, and a random check-in question. Today's question is, what famous artist, dead or alive, what'd you want to paint your portrait. We hope you enjoy this episode. My name is Bekah. I am a front-end developer from a small town in Ohio. And if I could have one person paint my portrait, I -- when I was in college, Georgia, there was like big Georgia O'Keeffe paintings or replicas in the hallways of my department. And I always loved them. And I know that's not what -- she doesn't paint people, but I think it would be cool to see how I would be represented by her. So I'm gonna go with Georgia O'Keeffe.

Dan: 02:19

Hi, I'm Dan. I'm a front-end developer in Cleveland, Ohio. And ... does it have to be famous person?

Bekah: 02:27

Did I say famous?

Dan: 02:28

I -- it said famous in the question. But --

Bekah: 02:29

Oh, I did. But, no. Like, just take it out. Just --

Dan: 02:31

I- I mean, Kate, one of my good friends at Kate Brideau from college, I would say that would be the person. That'd be famous. I don't- I don't really know a lot of famous painter names. I mean, except for, like, the really famous ones, you know? And that seems like a boring answer. Maybe I have Raphael, but not the- not the artist. The ninja turtle to my- to my-

Bekah: 02:53

Or my- my [unintelligible].

Dan: 02:54

-version. Yeah. [Laughs] Well, it's -- well, sure. There's- there's that too. Yeah. A-any Raphael, really. I'll take- take any version.

Bekah: 02:59

Sounds like a good choice [laughs].

Todd Libby: 03:05

And I'm Todd Libby. I am a front-end developer and accessibility engineer, currently in Phoenix, Arizona. And I guess my artist would be ... I dunno. He- he was really ... unique. So I guess I would say Salvador Dali.

Bekah: 03:28

Mm. That's cool.

Dan: 03:29

That'd be a good one.

Bekah: 03:31

There's -- anytime somebody is from Phoenix, I think of a short story that I read from Sherman Alexie. "This Is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona." And I remember nothing about the short story, except for the title. And it's just, automatically, that what comes into my mind. So if you haven't read it, check it out and then remind me what it was about.

Todd: 03:51

I haven't, but I- I will look that up, definitely. I'm originally from Portland, Maine. So of course everybody knows me because of the lobster roll thing. So --

Bekah: 04:01

Yes. Todd is all about the lobsters and in our Virtual Coffee Slack, he always uses the lobster emoji to respond to people. And so we just automatically recognize that it's Todd. So it's like he- he has claimed that emoji and it's one of the greatest things ever.

Dan: 04:20

Yeah. It's- it's really cool. And it's just like, you see the lobster emoji pop up, you're like, "Oh, cool. Todd's here." Excellent [all laugh].

Bekah: 04:26

I just think it's funny. Like, when- when new people come into Virtual Coffee and then they also click the lobster emoji. So --

Dan: 04:34

I mean, I always click it. I- I mean-

Bekah: 04:36

You do?

Dan: 04:36

I don't do it first. You know what I mean? But like, I'm -- it's- it's like high fiving Todd, you know? It's like-

Todd: 04:39

Yeah.

Dan: 04:40

-celebrating the- the- the Toddness of- of it.

Todd: 04:44

The virtual- virtual high five [laughs].

Dan: 04:46

[Laughs] That's right.

Bekah: 04:47

Right. And it can be a-about all sorts of different things. Like, somebody could post a- a question that they have, and then like, there's a lobster emoji [chuckles]. It's not about lobster. Although, if I had a question about lobster, I would definitely ask Todd first.

Todd: 05:02

[Chuckles] I've got a million no one answers.

Bekah: 05:05

I feel like that's a separate podcast episode.

Todd: 05:08

Yes.

Dan: 05:08

Does it [unintelligible]?

Bekah: 05:09

Thank you so much for being here with us, Todd.

Todd: 05:13

Thank you.

Bekah: 05:13

We always like to start with the origin story. How did you get to where you are today? So, if you wanna take us through that path, that would be awesome.

Todd: 05:23

Yeah. Oh, boy. That's a long one. I'll give you the abridged version. Nine years old, I started on a Commodore PET in school. And then gradually worked my way up to a Commodore 64, where I learned BASIC, a lot of different flavors of BASIC, and was just, you know, it was just a hobby of course at that point. But ... what was it? About 1999, I had a .... what was it? A 386 desktop IBM computer. And I started to learn HTML. And this was before CSS. So that is the indication of how old I am. And JavaScript was just kicking around. I started learning how to design websites using Front Page Express in Internet Explorer 3 and 4. And just, it- it went from there. Programming was cool. I used to do ... in BASIC on a Commodore, I would program — if anybody remembers those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books from way back in the day-

Dan: 06:53

Oh, yeah.

Todd: 06:53

-I u- I used to program a text-based ... pretty much copying [??], and I hope no one's listening from that company, but [laughs], I- I used to, just to- to just practice. I would just, you know, code those books into a- into a text-based game on Commodore 64. And that's really what got me started because I was living in a very rural area in- in New England. And there wasn't much to do, so -- except for programming at that point. So, skip ahead to today, or when I started professionally and I was 22 years ago. And I started, I read Jeffrey Zeldman's book "Designing with Web Standards", instantly got hooked into-

Dan: 07:46

Yes.

Todd: 07:47

-web standards, progressive enhancement accessibility. And it just, you know, took off to the point where it is today, where I'm in the- the field that I enjoy being in, and that's accessibility.

Dan: 08:04

I think that's awesome. I -- and I- I love that book too. And Jeffery Zeldman [laughs]. I- I have been -- so 22 years ago is what? 99, 2000, something like that, you know? And I- I think I got into -- I mean, I was starting to make something around then and really kinda got a lot more into it a couple of years later. But was with the web standards, you know, movement and everything like that. And I've been, you know, and similarly front-end focused for a long time. And one of us was -- just one of the reasons I was very excited to have you on this podcast and just to kinda get to- get to hang out with a little bit more.

Todd: 08:42

Yeah.

Dan: 08:43

It's a -- so, you know, focusing on front end and focusing on accessibility, things like that, what -- I mean, what career opportunities has that, like, presented to you from, you know, starting -- I mean, you don't need to, like, list every single one or whatever. But, like, run- run us through a little bit of how- how that's been being like, a- a front end, and especially accessibility, you know, specialist, for whatever that means for- [chuckles] for you, you know? Run it through a little bit, like, how that's been finding- finding work and finding people that care about that sort of thing?

Bekah: 09:16

Can I just jump into, if you can just provide some context for what- what does accessibility mean and how does that work as part of a job?

Todd: 09:27

Okay. To address what it's accessibility mean, I'll- I'll address that first. And that is making the web equal and accessible for everybody. It just doesn't have to be a disability. It can be, you know, somebody in -- I'll use this example. In a very rural area who has a 3G phone, and, you know, it's not a very fast connection is to, you know, what we have these days with our shiny new iPhones and stuff like that. And then accessibility -- well, so-somebody in accessibility would basically, not only advocate, but don't -- in my daily routine of doing auditing on websites, it's just checking to see if sites are accessible if they're, you know, if they should be failing Web Content Accessibility Guidelines — WCAG is how I pronounce it. There's many different pronunciations to that. But [laughs] the, you know -- and you know, there's different, I guess, levels of how people will do an audit. Like, you know, you can do the, you know, A and AA as far as the levels. So there's A, AA, and AAA. A lot of people I find don't do AAA because it's too stringent and it's also, you don't have to go that far in most cases. But it's just auditing, making sure sites are accessible in creating a report for a client and then telling them, "Here's what's wrong. Here's how you need to fix it. This doesn't, you know, adhere to the guidelines and recommendations for best practices as well." And, you know, looking at code and, you know, always looking at HTML and CSS because CSS too has a strong effect on accessibility. And that's what the job entails. And Dan, what was your question?

Dan: 11:52

Alright. I guess my question was, you know, it's- it's a sort of -- I don't know if non-traditional is the right word, but, you know, a- a sp- being a specialist really, in any regard, is a- is a choice, you know, and can limit your options, but like, also, you doing what you wanna do, right? And so I wa- my question was more like, how has it been, on your career journey, you know, being a specialist, especially in the accessibility world?

Todd: 12:17

Right. It's been a challenge lately in, I would say the past five, maybe 10 years. Because not a lot of people, not a lot of companies were looking for accessibility specialists. Not until ... I've pretty much noticed this year, a lot of companies are now looking for accessibility specialists because companies are getting sued. And they don't wanna get sued. That's- that's the bottom line. So my professional journey had been, I worked -- I started -- I did a website for somebody I knew back in New England, Maine. And, it was just a small site. And then from there, I got, you know, a few different jobs doing websites. And then from there, I was like, "Well, you know, this thing's taken off. I'm gonna do the f- I'm gonna go the freelance route." So that's what I did. And up until 2015, I was a freelance developer, I guess, you could say. I got into WordPress, PHP development, and then, I was hired by a company to do their website and their SaaS- their SaaS site, I guess. It was a- a thing where you log in and it wasn't a public facing site. And from there, it would b-been about, I don't know. I think I counted over 2000 resumes that I had sent out to companies in 20 years, and one company hired me. And that was that company that I worked for in 2015 to ... just last year, as a matter of fact. And then finally somebody took a chance on me. That would have been Nobility. I was hired by Nobility in March- i-in March or April. Geez, it's been over six months. But [laughs] --

Dan: 14:46

What is time anyway?

Todd: 14:48

Yeah. Well, I don't even know [laughs] anymore. I'm in a different time zone now, so that's messed me up too [laughs]. But Nobility gave me a, you know, an opportunity and very grateful for that opportunity with them. And a lot of great people in Nobility that work for the company. Everybody is a matter of fact. And they do some really good stuff as far as accessibility goes. And as of October 1st, I will be on the WebstaurantStore team as an accessibility engineer. So I look forward to that. Yeah.

Dan: 15:34

Awesome.

Bekah: 15:34

Can- can you talk a little bit about what you'll be doing in that role there? Maybe dive into a little bit of details?

Todd: 15:41

For right now, all I know is it's basically doing the same thing I do now, and that's auditing their product for their website. I know they use- they use React and I think it was .NET. So that -- I'll be in that environment.

Bekah: 16:10

So, like, when you do an audit, where do you start with that?

Todd: 16:14

So, when I do an audit, I do automated checks and scans first. So I use stuff like the WAVE extension, the Axe, I now wait until the end to use the axe-core extension in the browser. Things, like, there's a command line called Pa11y. So it's P-A-1-1-Y. There's that. I use -- does Bookmarklets from Ian Lloyd and Paul J. Adam that I use, to also do checks. Let's see. What else? There's Microsoft Accessibility Insights, which is a great tool to use. What else? And ... I said Axe -- color contrast checks. I use the Firefox accessibility dev tools, the accessibility panels, and those. And then I move on to manual testing. So, mouse only, keyboard only. I will do, it -- which goes back to color contrast, I'll do the squint test. So I'll just look at the site while I'm squinting at it and see if, you know, I can make out anything, cuz that I was taught not too long ago. So ... and --

Dan: 17:46

I like that.

Todd: 17:46

Oh, screen readers. I will use screen readers. So for Mac, there's VoiceOver. And it's best to use VoiceOver in Safari because the native, you know, Mac app and everything. NVDA and JAWS on a Windows. And if — and it's very, very rare — but if somebody says, "Oh, you know, we have Linux users." So I will test on what -- and it's called Orca for Linux, and, yeah. Those are pretty much, if I remember them all correctly [laughs]. Those are the tools I use.

Dan: 18:36

That's -- yeah. That's awesome. It's very extensive. I was just writing all them down so that, you know --

Bekah: 18:39

So was I. Well, the link to those notes on show notes.

Dan: 18:42

Yeah, absolutely. And so- so like day to day -- I mean, I know you haven't started yet, but like, in your- in your role, will it be mostly doing audits after the fact? Or like, will you be interfacing with, you know, I'm not sure what they do, what they -- what- what they make or anything like that. But, you know, like, where in the process are you- are you doing like accessibility, you know, helping the team with- with this stuff? Like, you know, audits for me imply -- and I know this is not always true, but when I- I think of it as something, "Oh, something's done, now we do an audit on it. You know what I mean?

Todd: 19:15

Mm-hmm.

Dan: 19:16

But I was wondering it -- and that I'm sure that's an important part. I was wondering if there's places earlier in the process where- where, you know, you're able to interface and like, you know, make suggestions before it, you know, as opposed to like fixing things, but like, help build something, you know-

Todd: 19:34

Right. Yeah.

Dan: 19:34

-the first time. Does that make sense?

Todd: 19:36

Yeah. Yeah. I'm- I'm sure it's gonna be ... probably a- a lot of both. Maybe there's existing things on the site that need to be checked, components that may be being worked on that we'll have to be checked. I mean, that's that -- it's that way pretty much with any kind of audit. So I've had companies come to me and say, you know, "We -- we've got somebody who emailed us and said, 'This isn't accessible, so we need a -- an audit done.'" And I'll go through the site and say, "Okay, I found all this. Here's what you need to do to fix it." They'll fix it, you know? That'll be after the fact of course. I've had companies come in and ask me to do consulting with their teams before the project starts to make sure that it gets done beforehand. Because when you do an accessibili- when you- when you bring in accessibility from the start of a project, it's so much easier and there's less -- a lot less stress doing it from the very beginning. Because when you get to the end and you've got everything is as accessible as you can, and I'll add that nothing's a hundred percent accessible, it's- it's a lot easier on your teams, you know? Like I said, there's a lot less stress. You don't have to go back and, you know, scatter around, trying to fix this, that, and the other thing after the fact. So -- and that's also where my advocacy comes in is saying, "Okay, if you get this done from the start, you're gonna be -- it's gonna be so much easier. And it's gonna cost less money because you're not going back. It's gonna cause a lot less stress." Again. And those are the two main things, you know? But to answer the question, it's gonna be a little bit of both. And I would think -- because like I said, it's usually that way at the beginning, you know?

Dan: 21:45

Right. Get something to a baseline first.

Todd: 21:47

Yeah. Yeah. And I'll -- and- and it's still re-re-really early in the process, so I'm- I'm not too sure. But I know that it'll be a lot of, you know, checking to make sure everything's good on the end of, you know, before we put this out, we need to make sure it's accessible. So --

Dan: 22:09

Yeah.

Bekah: 22:10

As you've been working through this industry, do you think -- is there one problem that you keep encountering over and over? Like stand out issues, things that people can just really look at and say, "All right. Let's start here."

Todd: 22:26

Well, where do I begin? [Laughs] I-it -- that -- it's- it's a lot. But the mainly, it's color contrast-

Bekah: 22:35

Mm.

Todd: 22:36

-okay? That's the biggest one. And keyboard accessibility is another. And I'll throw in a third one. And that being ALT text on images — the alternative text. I've had, you know, a lot of -- ALT text can be a tricky- a tricky thing because people think, "Well, I have this image. And I need to really go into detail what that image is conveying, if it's an informative image." And you really don't -- just a short, you know, it's a purple flower in a field, is- is fine. You don't have to go into -- I've- I've seen on Twitter, because they give you a thousand characters for ALT text. And I've seen this [laughs] -- I've seen ALT text that long before.

Bekah: 23:42

I always wonder, like, I've -- I, like, I don't think I've written enough, because I'm not even close to the 1000 and I have a thousand to write [Todd laughs].

Dan: 23:49

Yeah. I always-

Todd: 23:50

Yeah, you --

Dan: 23:51

-try to just like- like -- just say the joke or what -- I mean, usually, if I'm posting an image, it's a joke, you know? But like-

Todd: 23:55

Right.

Dan: 23:56

-whatever the shortest version of the joke is, you know [laughs]? So I, like, posted one today and it was just like, "Guy's saying thumbs up," or something like that, you know? You know what I mean?

Todd: 24:05

Yeah.

Dan: 24:05

Like, that seem if -- to me, that at least seems, like, usually, enough. I don't need to give the whole --

Todd: 24:09

Yeah.

Bekah: 24:09

Sometimes I just don't post because I don't know how to describe it. Like, "Well, I'm not really sure that I know how to say and capture what this is doing. So we'll go- we'll go for something else."

Todd: 24:20

Yeah. There's- there's a lot of debate around how long should it be. It should be 180 characters. Should it be a certain amount of words, but just as long as it conveys in a short succinct sentence? I guess, that's fine. And of course, you have some images decorative that, ya know, it needs an empty ALT text. And that's a big one because I was just doing an audit and they had decorative images, but no ALT -- no empty ALT text, which is just the ALT equals, you know, quotes. And it's -- the quotes are empty in between.

Bekah: 24:58

Can you explain that? Cuz that -- I had just recently learned about that, but still don't quite understand why that's the standard.

Todd: 25:08

So there's a -- i-it tells a screen reader there's an image there, but it doesn't- it doesn't need -- it's decorative, basically. So it just -- there's- there's no need to- to describe --

Dan: 25:20

So, what ha- what happens in the screen reader if it runs into an image with no ALT attribute at all?

Todd: 25:25

It skips over it. So you're loo- the- the user is losing information. So if there's something you're trying to convey, like, let- let's use the ... like an infographic, for ek- example. And there's no ALT text on it. That user, that's using the screen reader, is not gonna, you know, know that it's there.

Dan: 25:47

Totally. Totally. And so, in the case of a decorative image where we don't need to, like ... it's okay if the screen -- you know, if -- it's okay if anybody skips over it. What do -- you know, what is the tactical difference for a screen reader -- for a user on a screen reader between an empty -- an- an image with an em- like with a ALT property, and just an empty string, and an image with no ALT, you know, defined at all?

Todd: 26:15

So, if it's okay, let's use a logo as an example. If you have empty ALT text on your logo, but -- and it's also linked, the screen reader will read that link, and you don't want that to read it, you want it to -- it da- it doesn't really need to. I mean, there's cases where somebody may say, "Yeah, I want the person to know what the logo looks like." But if it's not really necessary, no ALT text, you know, it's -- screen reader won't read anything. And as far as I know -- and I -- I'll be the first to say, I'm not an- an- an expert by any means with screen readers, because this -- it is a lot of different stuff. I've been learning lately, but to mine -- to my recollection, anyways, an empty -- so the -- and -- so, no ALT texts — let me get this straight [laughs]. No ALT text, the URL will be read to the image.

Dan: 27:39

Okay. Yeah. That's the big difference. All right. That's the part I didn't know, right?

Todd: 27:42

Yes. And --

Dan: 27:43

So there's no ALT ek- text at all, like, no ALT property fine -- defined. When a screen reader is reading it, it'll come through normal texts, and then it'll just read, like, blah, blah, blah dot JPEG-

Todd: 27:52

Yes. Yes.

Dan: 27:54

-right? Okay. That's it. Nice.

Todd: 27:55

And then the em- the empty ALT is silent. So that's --

Dan: 27:59

And that means it'll -- that tells it to skip right over it, which is-

Todd: 28:02

Yes.

Dan: 28:02

-what you want sometimes. Like, sometimes that is the- the preferred thing.

Todd: 28:05

Yes.

Dan: 28:06

Or like the decorative image where it's, you know, just a background image or something like that, or -- probably not background, but like, you know, sometimes-

Todd: 28:12

Yeah.

Dan: 28:13

-it's just used for decoration. Doesn't need to convey actually information.

Todd: 28:16

Right.

Dan: 28:16

And so in those cases, putting an empty ALT, like, ALT equals, you know, empty string is- is actually very good and much, like, very good for accessibility because otherwise they're gonna see, probably a very long URL with dot JPEG, which means nothing to them, right?

Todd: 28:34

Yes. Exactly. Yeah.

Dan: 28:35

Yeah. Oh, that's great. Yeah. That's one of those things that it's like -- and I've seen a lot of people -- well, this is a separate topic. I -- but, like, that- that little, like, pick that little bit. That just- just -- even just ALT and getting like your head wrapped around how to deal with ALT- ALT texts ... like you said, makes -- can make a huge difference for accessibility, making choices [??] for your users.

Todd: 28:59

Yeah. Yep.

Dan: 29:00

Ah, that's really cool.

Bekah: 29:02

And you were talking about one of the big problems being color contrast. And-

Todd: 29:06

Mm-hmm.

Bekah: 29:06

-that seems like something that could be pretty simple to identify with a Lighthouse audit. Can you explain what a Lighthouse audit is? And if you're like, "That's not the way to go, this other method is better," I would love to hear as well.

Todd: 29:23

So, I mean, I've used Lighthouse before. I don't really rely on Lighthouse. At- at -- it -- Lighthouse runs off of axe-core and- and which is great. But I don't think it really gets to the root of every issue. And it really can't -- plus you have false positives, which is, you know, something -- it -- for example, I was just talking about this on the -- in the- in the Slack — Virtual Coffee Slack. False positives for color contrast, you know? I've come across instances where it will flag color contrast errors, but the color contrast is far exceeds the 4.5 to 1 ratio. So I don't really rely on Lighthouse. I mean, it's a good tool, don't get me wrong. Because there's that performance piece to it that I really, really like using. And as far as, you know ... it- it's a good tool, don't get me wrong. But I- I use -- and I used to use it. I used to use it myself. I mean, I used it on my site and was like, "Yeah, 100. I got 100 across the board." And, you know, that- that virtual confetti flying everywhere. But the tools that I use would be the -- it's a contrast-ratio.com, which is Lea Verou color contrast site. I also use the -- let me look, I have it on my other machine here, the color contrast analyzer. And that is by The Paciello Group. So Steven Faulkner has a what -- based on the Windows version. The Mac iOS version was developed by somebody else. I use that- that tool as well. And I will provide the link to that. So that --

Bekah: 31:35

This great. I'm, like, really looking forward to- to diving into a lot of these resources that you are dropping right now. Cuz I think sometimes I -- it's hard to know where to start. And-

Todd: 31:46

Mm-hmm.

Bekah: 31:46

-and I think that's just a problem with teaching developers in general. There's not a focus on it. It's not built into most curriculums and -- at all. And so there's a lack of focus, I think, as a result of that. And then not knowing where to start, or if you're with a company that doesn't look at those things, then I think it can be -- you can find yourself a while down the path and- and not know what you should be identifying, how you should be approaching this. And so, the more that we talk about it, I think the better. Where do you think people could get started if they want to learn more about accessibility?

Todd: 32:40

So the W3C has a great intro to accessibility class, which I believe is still free. And yeah, it's an Introduction to Web Accessibility on edx.org. And I took that class even. And it was -- it's great. You can pace yourself, doesn't have to be real fast. There's no, you know, there's no s- due date or anything. There's a free version. If you want a certificate, you got to pay a certain amount. It's like -- if you put in four to five hours a week, it's like four- four weeks long to do. It gives a good overview of, [clearing throat] excuse me, accessibility, and, you know, some- some of the guidelines, there's ... a lot of good information on the web, and I even have to pitch Nobility's website and their blog. They go over some of the WCAG guidelines. And- and accessibility is also — I wanna make this clear — accessibility is more than just WCAG guidelines. It's also about inclusive design as well. Making sure, you know, certain demographics aren't, you know, kept out that they -- everybody's included, hence the name inclusive design. But, some other ... let's see. That's a good question. Cuz there's so much -- I mean, I guess, you know, a search would come up with a lot of different things. Webaim.org has some good stuff as far as accessibility -- learning accessibility. Level Access does. Let's see. Who else? TPGI has good stuff. So there's- there's a lot out there that, you know, people can find on, you know? Ev- even -- there's even like courses on, I guess, u- Udemy and platforms like that as well.

Bekah: 35:03

So ki- this is kind of been your focus the entire time you've been working in tech. Was there a reason that you went down this path or- or something that kind of inspired this journey? Or have you just always been interested in it?

Todd: 35:24

It started when a couple of family members -- I have like three family members, you know, that have disabilities. Two have motor skill disabilities, one visual. And seeing the looks of frustration on their faces when they're trying to access something that's inaccessible on the web really got me motivated in the beginning and carries me to this day, really. I kind of -- towards like 2018, 2019 was kind of, like, I guess slacking off a little bit with my accessibility, but I- I get together with our friend, Chris DeMars, in Burlington, Vermont. He -- there was a- there was a conference and, you know, he gave a great talk and that really lit the fire again. So there's been a really -- it's been like laser, like focus for me, as far as -- since then. And just the- the- the looks of frustration on faces of people that I've seen, trying to ac- access something that's inaccessible on the web. It's just, it's very ... the word I'm looking for here, very -- it hits home. It- it really, you know, being that I try to advocate for people that don't have a voice. And I think, as- as accessibility professionals, we all do. We try to advocate for those people. Especially lately with certain — I will use it in quotes — accessibility overlays, for instance, but [chuckles], yeah. That's basically where it all started was just those family members and friends, and- and just seeing people, you know? the- the frustration and the point where they're ready to give up.

Bekah: 37:47

Yeah. I- I was just with Chris last week. He spoke at KCDC, he -- along with Cass Ferris. And they did an accessibility talk. That was the first time I- I got to see him speak in person. It was really great because they both come at it with a lot of passion and examples. And I think for so many of us, we have a general sense of what accessibility is, but we don't have that broader sense of, you know, it- it might be -- there might be a disability that you can't see or it might be a temporary disability or a mental health challenge that somebody is going through. And-

Todd: 38:27

Mm-hmm.

Bekah: 38:28

-all of those things can impact what accessibility looks like. And if you really look at the people around you, you for sure know someone that has one of those challenges or- or you have one yourself. And so, you know, opening up the conversations about this, you know, like you have, in- in like Chris and Cass have, I think is so important to really making change in- in tech overall.

Todd: 38:55

Yeah, I -- you know, you- you brought up invisible di- you know ... disabilities. I have migraine headaches. I get them when something sets off. If there's a website I visit that has, you know, animation or motion that really, it's too much. And it's triggers a migraine. I mean, there's all that stuff that you mentioned and i-it's ... you know? Chris is great, you know? I- I, yeah. I've, you know, seen him talk, you know, virtually, and then before the pandemic, and everything. And we've gotten to know each other. And he, you know, he- he does a great job advocating.

Bekah: 39:41

Yeah. I think, you know, even -- so, a couple of years ago I was diagnosed with ADHD. And it's interesting how much I didn't realize that impacts the things that I interact with and the ways that I interact with things. And I- [chuckles] I feel like maybe this is just a personal problem. But this is the conversation between Discord and Slack for me, like, I walk into Discord -- I don't walk in there. I open up Discord, and it's immediately just overwhelming, and-

Todd: 40:08

Mm-hmm.

Bekah: 40:08

-I don't know where to go from there. And then I just like slowly back out the door, right? Like, there's too-

Todd: 40:15

Yeah.

Bekah: 40:15

-much going on for me.

Todd: 40:16

Yeah. That- that information overload happens to me as well [chuckles]. It's- it's like Slack, and Discord, and there's -- yeah, I was on -- I was watching a Twitch stream yesterday and the- the chat was going off, and I was just, like, I just -- I can't -- I wan- I wanna be able to lur- kind of read the chat, and I can't, because, you know, it- it -- yeah. The- the information overload is a big thing too. Yeah.

Bekah: 40:47

So I, you know, I think, your background, you talked about your journey through this. And it seems like you've been mostly self-taught then. Is that right?

Todd: 41:00

Yeah. I started when I picked up that Commodore 64 user manual. And just, I- I love, you know, to read, and I read that. I had purchased a book. It was a "Learn HTML in 21 Days". And it was like a big, huge, thick phone-book-like manual. And I read through that. That's how I actually to -- made my first website. Not that I put it out on the web or anything, but then I- I graduated from there on -- I went to GeoCities, and Angelfire, and Tripod, and all those websites [chuckles], if you remember those websites.

Dan: 41:46

Hm. Hell, yeah.

Todd: 41:47

And all the great, you know, lime green, and pastel, and, you know, fluorescent colors. And then, you know, it's been a learning process the entire time and I love to learn. So it's one of those things where if I can pick up something in a Slack group or on a Discord channel. That's great. I've, you know, I keep learning every day and, you know, learning ... lately it's been learning the intricacies of the WCAG guidelines because there's so much there, and being able to — and I'm grateful for this — being able to work on the next, I guess, version, which is 3.0, which is a few years down the road has been a learning process as well. And being a member of the W3C is too. And being in those meetings, and we're learning so much from a great group of people.

Bekah: 42:50

Yeah, that's awesome. I- I love that idea of just consistent learning and being open to learning, all of the time. Because I think, no matter what part of tech or- or any industry, really, that you're in, the being open to learning new things, and talking through things with other people, and understanding is, you know, that- that's what growing is about. That's what is important to what you're doing.

Todd: 43:18

Yeah. And it's, you know, even I've, you know, learned -- I learned on Twitter as well, you know? I see something, a link to an article or something, and I check it out, and it's like, "Oh, well," you know, "It -- today I learned [laughs]," you know? And-

Bekah: 43:36

Yeah.

Todd: 43:36

-you know, I -- it's- it's, you know, there was a quote, and I'll try to find that quote because I love the quote. It had something to do with doing something ... yeah, right there. "There are three things everyone should do every day. Number one is laugh. Number two is think — spend some time in thought. Number three, you should have your emotions move you to tears. If you laugh, think and cry, that's a heck of a day." And that was just like the best quote I think I've seen in- in a long, long time. I even add to that learning one thing a day.

Bekah: 44:23

Yeah. I love that so much.

Dan: 44:24

Yeah.

Bekah: 44:26

I didn't think, you know, learning things on Twitter for me has been really big as well. Even when somebody just has a small portion of a tweet at -- for some reason, it sticks in my mind better than if I read a whole article on that thing.

Todd: 44:40

Yeah.

Bekah: 44:41

And I think, maybe, because there's some type of personal connection there, like, "Oh, I remember that person said this one thing." And it, you know, it might be some type of coding tip or whatever, but I think that just be -- just sharing that knowledge or- or it's, "Hey, I know that I could ask that person that question," can be really helpful in finding the answers to things or having more confidence in- in being- being able to ask questions.

Todd: 45:10

Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's- it's, you know, I use Twitter as a tool to say, you know, "Oh, you- you mentioned something about the new, you know, whatever coming- coming down the line. I've got a couple of questions for you," you know? "Hey, can I," you know, "DM you? I got a question I need to ask." And it- it reaching out to somebody to -- or to the person that, you know, had that tweet it -- is -- and- and mo- you know, I don't think I've ever had anybody go, "No, I don't wanna tell you the answer," or anything like that. So, yeah, it's- it's always been, you know, "Hey," you know, "I've got this question." People are more than, you know, more than welcome to- to, you know, answer those questions.

Bekah: 46:05

Yeah. And I think that's so big. Especially when we're talking about this topic. If you don't know it is okay to ask somebody-

Todd: 46:11

Mm-hmm.

Bekah: 46:12

-right? Or ask someone just to direct you, you know? "I'm getting started in this. It's not been a focus. How- how do I get started? What do I do?"

Todd: 46:19

Mm-hmm.

Bekah: 46:20

And you dropped a lot of great resources here. But, you know, I think in- in every place and space, we should- we should know that it is okay to ask about these things. And it's good to do that.

Todd: 46:30

Yeah, definitely. You know, the -- I- I tell people, you know, if you have a question about accessibility, I'll do my best to answer. If I can't answer it, I will find somebody that can, or I will look it up and see if I can get you the answer. Because it's- it's- it's that little, you know, it's that being helpful-

Bekah: 46:46

Mm-hmm.

Todd: 46:47

-in make -- you know, making sure that person has that information, for me anyways, is- is- is big. And, you know, just saying, you know, feeling good about being able to help people.

Bekah: 46:59

Yeah, for sure. That's so important.

Dan: 47:01

I love that.

Bekah: 47:03

Todd, we have about one -- a time for one more question. And then -- and I'd love to hear what you have to say about this. Cuz I know that there still are companies out there that are -- have some pushback about paying for making things accessible, or they say like, "Well, that's not our focus right now because we don't have the time or the money to do that." How would you approach that situation? Or, you know, maybe if you were a- a developer consulting on that, you know, how would you kind of convince them that this- this should be a priority?

Todd: 47:31

Funny you mentioned that, cuz I wrote a article about that, and it's on Smashing Magazine. So I'll get that to -- link to you as well. It's- it's a very tricky slope sometimes. You know, I've heard people, for instance, say, "Well, you don't wanna get sued." And that kind of perks up stakeholders ears and says, "Oh," you know, "Well, I guess we're gonna have to do this." Me, I use real world examples of ... for instance, I ran into a stakeholder on a project. And I said, "We gotta make sure accessibility is done from the very beginning of the project." He turned to me and said, "We don't have disabled users." I, in turn, said to him, "You're wearing eyeglasses. That's an assistive technology." And he kind of perked up. But I'd hadn't convinced him [laughs]. So the, you know, there- there's some people that can be very stubborn. So I went as far as to say, you know, somebody working, you know, using your product, they can have a broken arm, it could be a situational disability. They could have a broken arm. They could be at home working with a child on their lap. That's very fussy. I've been there a long time ago. I know that feeling and I, you know ... I know, Bekah, you're a parent. I don't know if you're a parent, Dan, but, you know --

Dan: 49:10

Oh, yeah.

Todd: 49:11

Yeah. Yeah. So, you both know that, you know, you have a child on your lap and they're fussy [laughs], and then, you know, and you're trying to answer an email or something. It's very difficult. So, you know, getting teams on board is another thing too. Where getting somebody, a person dedicated to doing accessibility on the design side, on the development side, on the marketing side, that helps too. But the main thing is getting stakeholders on board. If you can get a stakeholder on board, then it should be ve- much, much easier to get the entire organization on board.

Bekah: 49:57

Yeah, that's great. I love that. You know, it all comes down to listening and being open-minded, right? If we work towards understanding each other, then we can all do a whole lot more to improve things for everyone.

Todd: 50:10

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yep. And- and I've heard it- I've- Ive heard it before, "We don't have the budget," you know? "We'll get to it after launch." Well, that brings me back to ... yep. If you do everything from the beginning, you will have the money for it, and, you know, it'll be less stressed. So, yeah.

Dan: 50:33

And you don't need to pay for it or find the budget to pay for a whole round of- of, you know, auditing and stuff like that [chuckles].

Todd: 50:39

Right. Yeah. And auditing, so, I'll use an example of a company that got sued and what they could have- what they could have spent just with, you know, doing it from the beginning. They ended up paying seven figures for an audit. So, that should tell you something [chuckles] about that process.

Bekah: 51:06

Right. And it shouldn't ever have to come to that. That's just-

Todd: 51:08

No.

Bekah: 51:08

-you know, absolutely ridiculous.

Todd: 51:11

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Bekah: 51:12

But I'm so glad that you're here today to talk us through this and drop all of these great resources. And I really hope that, you know, it helps people who are listening to work through the stuff. And to know that it's okay to ask questions, and to grow, and learn more all the time. So we'll make sure that we drop all those links in the show notes. And thanks so much for being here with us today, Todd.

Dan: 51:35

Yeah, thanks, Todd.

Todd: 51:36

Well, thank you.

Dan: 51:37

I really appreciate it too.

Todd: 51:38

Yeah. Thank you both for having me.

Bekah: 51:40

Bye.

Dan: 51:41

Alright. Bye, Todd.

Todd: 51:44

Bye.

Dan: 51:46

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Virtual Coffee Podcast. This episode was produced by Dan Ott and Bekah Hawrot Weigel, and was edited by Andy Bonjour at GoodDay Communications. If you have questions or comments, you can hit us up on Twitter at VirtualCoffeeIO or email us at podcast@virtualcoffee.io. You can find the show notes, sign up for our newsletter, check out any of our other resources on our website at virtualcoffee.io. And of course, join us for our Virtual Coffee chats every Tuesday at 9 AM Eastern and Thursday at 12 PM Eastern. Please subscribe to our podcast, and be sure to leave us a review. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week!

The Virtual Coffee Podcast is produced by Dan Ott and Bekah Hawrot Weigel and edited by Andy Bonjour at GoodDay Communications.