Blind-Sided!

Years ago I did a lot of communications and online work for a department of the provincial government of Ontario and had to get familiar with the The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) and subsequently had a chance to work with the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) at OCAD. Both these experiences were amazing. I am a naturally curious person and learning new things fascinates me.

Now that I am visually impaired, I use any and all these past experiences using accessibility tools to help me navigate online. And am grateful for the initial help I received from CNIB.

This is anecdotal …

Today 4 companies lost my business. I was looking for a few things I need for a project. And went online to search for them. Easily found, but these products were not with the usual stores I buy from; Amazon, Best Buy, Apple etc – these aforementioned stores are great using accessibility tools to view their sites – but the items I needed were found on other retailers sites. I did not buy from them because I could not see their sites. At all. Full stop.

The colours were wrong when viewed with the accessibility tools, lots of small videos – no captions, the type was, although probably really “pretty,” unreadable and the “alt” tags were less than helpful if there at all. That is just a start! There were several other factors as well. I could go on and on. I taught Usability and these sites – if I was still teaching – would be poster children for what not to do.

This is a decent “first blush” at Inclusive Marketing, It is not that hard. But you have to be aware of it. You would think with all the hubbub about DEI this would be a line item at the very least in marketing communications’ management.

I am always surprised when a site by a company that is what I would call “significant” is unusable, at least for me, who is visually impaired. I can understand a small Mom and Pop shop not having the resources.

I spent a lot of my career in advertising both online and off. And worked a great deal in the User Experience area as well as Usability. To me that is “Job #1!

Hell, in BC where I live, they do not even have a disabilities act?

One thing I discovered is that a lot of people think if you are blind you have zero vision. That is not the case. This is a pretty good description of different kinds of blindness.

I also suspect a lot of companies just assume blind folks won’t be able to use their products. Adobe! I am talking to you!  Some of us do use your products and the accessibility could really be improved. There are some other companies that just are unusable …. Canva, which is a great site is impossible to use with accessibility tools. If you do any server work … the WHM  (WebHost Manager) is all but useless under accessibility mode.

I do want to give a shout out to Apple here. A few years ago as a Logic user the newest release at the time was a mess under accessibility tools. I spoke with a Logic specialist and in short order they corrected the issues and it is a joy to work with.

Come on folks y’all can do better!