Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to the underrepresented in tech podcast, where we talk about issues of underrepresentation and have difficult conversations. Underrepresented in tech is a free database with the goal of helping people find new opportunities in WordPress and tech.
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Hello, Samah. How are you?
[00:00:21] Speaker B: I'm good. Hello, Michelle. How are you? How was your long weekend?
[00:00:26] Speaker A: You know, as long as you get a long weekend, it's wonderful. But even then, it feels too short. Like, oh, one more day, please.
I feel like Oliver and Oliver Twist. Sir, could I please have some more?
[00:00:41] Speaker B: I feel yesterday I want to slack you. And then I said it was like a day off. I said, no, I will leave you in peace for now.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: The problem is, on my days off, I end up on my desk doing all the things that aren't work-related but are related to my other work projects. So I spent about 4 hours at my desk yesterday, and then I was like, I'm gonna go watch some movies. That's what I did. So how are you?
[00:01:06] Speaker B: I'm good, I'm good. My long weekend was only Saturday and Sunday. I felt it pass so quickly. I work in the garden. I enjoyed the last beautiful weather in the Netherlands.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: So yeah, yeah, very good.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Normal weekend.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Well, I'm excited about today's topic because I'm actually involved in today's topic, which is nice. So today, we're going to talk about WordPress Accessibility Day, which is a 24-hour event coming up in October. And so, I dragged a few of my co-organizers along with me today for this. But anybody that's watching has already seen them on the screen. But if you're only listening, you're in for a treat because I'm about to introduce you to some pretty awesome people. So today, we have Bet Hannon and Alexander Gonder with us, and I'm very happy that they're both here. So I'm going to ask them to introduce themselves. Bet. I'm going to ask you to go first. Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you live, and what you do with WordPress. You know all the details. And I'm going to drink my coffee.
[00:02:01] Speaker D: Oh, yes. So I'm Bet Hannon. I'm the CEO of Accessacart. We're an accessibility services company agency that focuses on e-commerce and other high-user interaction sites. And I live in Bend, Oregon. So I'm about 3 hours from WordCamp US coming up. So, I'll get to drive to WordCamp US for the first time. Anyway, coming up, I am serving on the organizing team for WordPress Accessibility Day, and I'm the lead of the sponsors and finance teams there. But then I also work. I'm the treasurer on the board, so I deal with all the money stuff.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: She's the money person.
Thanks for joining us today, bud. It's good to have you here. Alexander, tell us a little bit about yourself.
[00:02:52] Speaker C: Hi, I'm Alexander. I run a digital agency called Ink My Web. We are out of Mumbai, India.
I've contributed to WordPress for over a decade and organized WordCamp since 2014.
WordCamp Mumbai is one of the longest-running WordCamps in India.
I've been part of the organizing team for that. For the last two years, I've been working with one of my friends, Raghua, on digitalalmy.com on various accessibility projects. That's why I was an attendee last year for WordPress Accessibility Day. And this year, I'm part of the organizing team. Also, I'm part of the marketing team, but the team is very fluid, so I've been doing other tasks as well.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Absolutely. And you all know me, and you know what I do, but you don't know perhaps that I'm on the organizing team for WordPress Accessibility Day. On the marketing team, I'm the lead this year for marketing and get to work with wonderful people that you see on the screen and all the rest of the team that you can find on our website too. But I'm going to turn it over to Samah so she can interview all of us first.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: I feel lame. Next year I'm going to be an organizer. I'm going to join as an organizer because I'm the only one here, and I feel like, oh no, next year, I have to be on the team. Yeah, I would love to know how the idea for WordPress Accessibility Day originated and what motivated you to start this amazing 24-hour event. And not a lot of events in WordPress go for 24 hours.
So why is it really important to make it to 24 hours, and what do people expect to learn during this 24-hour event?
[00:04:39] Speaker A: That was a lot of questions.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Bet. I think you've been with us the longest. Do you want to tell us about the origin?
[00:04:47] Speaker D: Yeah. So in 2020, Joe Dolson, who has long served on the Make WordPress accessibility team, had, you know, really got this idea to try and put together a 24-hour event. And part of the goal was really to, you know, there are events where you can learn more about accessibility, but a lot of times they're expensive, you have to pay for them, and then also a lot of times they're not in your time zone. And so that's where this idea of a 24-hour event came up, that you could find something in your time zone all across WordPress, just sort of reflecting that commitment in WordPress to really trying to meet people where they are and make that. Joe had the first event, and he organized it pretty much single-handedly. And then things fell apart, of course, during COVID that first year. And then 2022 was the first time that we kind of came back to try and do again another event that was all virtual.
And then it's grown between 2023 and 2024. So, the organizing team has gotten much bigger and more intentional about all aspects of organizing the event. We have Michelle leading our marketing team. I'm like, oh my God, doing these amazing kinds of interviews and things to help get the word out about the event. And so that's pretty cool. So we expect that we'll have over 2000 attendees this year.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: That's amazing. Yeah, that's an amazing number. And why do you, as organizers, I think I would love to hear from all of you, choose to put so much time and energy into an event like this? Has web accessibility impacted you or others, you know, personally?
[00:06:49] Speaker A: Alexander, go ahead.
[00:06:50] Speaker C: Yeah, so I come from a place like India where accessibility is not something, it's an afterthought, or it's something that doesn't cross anyone's mind. In fact, we have the worst kind of government websites.
All of them are like they were built in 1997. And so if, like standards like web accessibility, I applied at that point in time, websites become usable by default. We take These simple things for granted on regular websites where we can express tabs and go to the next field. Those things don't work on this website because some programmers decided that we won't allow people to go to the next field, or they wrote an additional JavaScript so that it doesn't happen in the name of security. I don't understand what that is or what kind of security it can provide. So, things like web accessibility need to be promoted, especially on this side of the planet. I think web accessibility and WordPress are important because WordPress has such a big footprint. If WordPress becomes accessible, it will also cover a big, huge space.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: Awesome. Yeah.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: For me, I'm going to jump in, but tell you, I think a lot of people have read my article called Five Days Without a Shower, where I had some pretty bad accessibility experiences at WordCamp US in 2022. For me, it was the first time I had experienced at that scale the inability to do things for myself or to access spaces and things like that.
And I thought, when I was thinking about when I was asked to join the team this year, I thought about the fact that if I approach a building. There's no way for me to open a door, or if I approach a building, there are no curb cuts, or everything is on the second floor, but there's no elevator for me; I am no longer physically able to access those things. And for somebody with web accessibility issues who needs a screen reader or who can't see contrasting issues or all of the things that go into that, it has to be very similar to coming up to a building and not being able to open the door. And so my physical experiences also made me think about what online accessibility must be to other people. That and the fact that I'm almost 56 and my eyes aren't what they used to be. So if the contrast isn't there, if the font size isn't there, I'm pinching things open on my phone, I'm opening, I'm making things bigger on my computer, we shouldn't have to do those things. We should have those things already in place for people who especially have any accessibility issues online. But as we get older, it's not even that we have grown up with disabilities. It's just that as we get older, everybody starts to experience some of these things.
Making the web accessible for people with disabilities makes it accessible for everybody.
How about you? Bet.
[00:09:59] Speaker D: Absolutely. Well, you know, at one level, that accessibility is what my agency does, but it's part of what we do because we had a client who needed it seven or eight years ago.
Once our team saw and really understood what accessibility was about in terms of web accessibility, all of us knew people in our lives who impacted us, and it just became this great purpose-driven way that we could impact the world.
And it's more a sense of if we help, there's an aspect of, like, I want to work myself out of a job. If I could get the world to a place where nobody needed help with accessibility, that would be an awesome thing because that would mean things were way more accessible. I don't think that's going to happen. It's going to take a long time for that to happen. But the more we can do events like accessibility day or webinars and tutorials and things to help people learn how to be more empathetic in the way they put together websites. That just makes the world a better place.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: We would love for there to be no need for underrepresented tech also, but it's probably not going to happen in our lifetimes.
[00:11:22] Speaker D: But, you know, every bit counts. And it's about me. I mean, I think in some ways that's the, you know, underrepresented, intact accessibility day is really all about trying to make the world a more inclusive, better place for more people.
It's not about excluding folks who are already being included; it's really about broadening the circle because we all benefit when we do that.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: You mean that even people without screen readers can benefit if it doesn't impact me at all if I'm not using a screen reader?
[00:11:59] Speaker D: Absolutely.
Making your website more accessible does improve the user experience for everybody on your site.
People who just have a situational limitation—they're on their phone in bright sunlight, or they're trying to hold a wiggly baby, or they're hanging, and they can't hit the button right—there are all kinds of ways that we can make that a better experience for everybody. And I am there with her Yoast thing—it makes you. It improves your SEO.
Who knew all kinds of reasons to, you know, get involved with accessibility?
[00:12:45] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. It isn't the number too, but you might know this better than I did. Isn't the number of, like, the percentage of increase in sales on a site significantly more if you're accessible because you're actually selling to the entire audience instead of just a subset?
[00:13:00] Speaker D: Yeah. So, the estimates around the globe are that about 20% to 25% of all adults have some kind of disability and a lot of those. I mean, a lot of times, people react like, that seems like a huge number. Well, a lot of disabilities are invisible. We don't see them necessarily. And so it is a large number. There are studies. It's really hard to do those kinds of studies because you have to do them before. But there are some that making your website more accessible does increase your sales. It certainly helps you increase your audience.
But if you think about it, in the US alone, people with disabilities control $490 billion in disposable income. Is there, like? It's a. If you're not tapping into that market regarding your products and services, you're leaving money on the table as a business. So.
[00:13:52] Speaker A: So it's okay to be selfish if that's the only reason you want to be accessible is selfishness; at least you've still made the web a better place. You're not. We're missing the empathy part there.
[00:14:01] Speaker D: It doesn't have to be only altruism. I mean, I think. I think that is. I think it makes you better at improving accessibility. If you can have some empathy, then think about how a particular person with a particular disability might experience this feature of your site when you start to get into the weeds of looking at accessibility. But, you know, it really is business-driven, and it can be for a lot of folks, right? They're going to improve their, you know, broaden their audience and improve their sales, but they're also going to comply with the law. And so we do a lot of that. So, in the US, there's the Americans with Disabilities Act. A lot of lawsuits are brought under that. Then, in the EU, we have the European Accessibility Act, which will start enforcement in June of next year. And so that's, you know, also that impacts not just EU businesses, but anybody who sells into the EU or has EU customers. And so, yeah, it can be. I mean, I get used to talking to folks a lot of times and convincing them it's a business. That is a good business decision.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Absolutely. It's a scanner. Yeah, go ahead.
[00:15:13] Speaker C: It's also good business practice from us developers. As a simple example, an Indian developer would earn almost two times more doing accessible websites than regular websites.
The payout we've been seeing for accessibility projects is almost two times what we get for our normal projects.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: I have another question.
I know, or we can see that you pay for your speakers and pet. I know since you're the finance person in the world. Accessibility day.
Of course, we know there must be more expense for this big 24-hour event—a lot of speakers, a lot of sessions. How does WordPress Accessibility Day sustain itself financially? Is it enough to cover what sponsors are paying or covering? Is it enough to cover everything for the speakers and other expenses?
[00:16:21] Speaker D: Yeah. So accessibility is kind of unusual for a WordPress event in that we pay our speakers a stipend, but there are a lot of other expenses, as you're right because the event is live captioned. So, we're providing high-quality captions for people with hearing disabilities.
We're also providing live ASL interpretation. And so those pieces. And then, at the end of the event, all of the recordings are. Are professionally transcribed so that the transcriptions of the videos are accurate because we're often talking about technical things, right? And a lot of times, the AI transcriptions just don't cut it. And so yeah, that's a lot of expense and then broadcasting and the Zoom webinars and all that. It does cost a lot. So, we are supported by some awesome sponsors.
So we, and I am just gratified that we sell out of our sponsorships every year. We have great, we have folks from yoast and Equalize digital, other, other folks who just really pitch in to make this the event that it is in terms of providing some, helping us to produce an event that is such a high quality for free.
Attendees can come for free. So, it's producing this event that has 24 hours of programming, but nobody has to pay to come. And that benefits people like in Alexander's part of the world who want to build up their skills, people in the US, but we have presentations for people at all different skill levels. You can make a donation; we gratefully accept those donations.
If you want to get one, I'll wear my T-shirt this year. We have some great T-shirts. For a $50 donation, you can get an event T-shirt, which is shipped pretty much anywhere in the world. So we're also trying to keep up with promoting the event in those kinds of ways. But yeah, our awesome sponsors help us make this event.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: And no donation is too small. I want to say that, too. Right.
[00:18:41] Speaker D: So, like, we have a lot of absolutely no.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: Who is registering they're donating $10, and those $10 add up over time. So.
[00:18:48] Speaker D: For sure. Absolutely.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: It's awesome.
I'm really happy. And, of course, when I saw the event a couple of years ago, it was free. And I was like, that's encouraging people to attend, learn, and grow. And I know this year you're doing an interview and you're doing an interview. The sponsors highlighted the companies where they're doing for accessibility, and that is awesome. And I know your keynotes, and it's.
[00:19:20] Speaker D: Not only do we get this event, but because of the way we do the transcriptions post-event. This is creating this amazing library of topics. And so, within a few weeks after the event, we hope everything will be in English on the event page. Right. So if you, you know, nobody really should stay awake for 24 hours, but you know, there may be a few people who want to do that. Right? You're going to catch some of those videos later. If they happen in a time zone. But you can go back and look at past years. One of the really kind of exciting things that are happening this year is that we have a relatively new translation team led by Joni Habibi, who's working on helping us translate things into Spanish, French, German, and some other languages around the world, as we have volunteers to help us do that. And so, you know, it's. It's not only that you get this event this year, but it's also that you're going to get, you know, you can go back and look at other presentations from past years.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: Awesome. Awesome. I know you have. Amazing person for the keynote.
Her name is Lainey Feingold. I hope I pronounced her name right.
[00:20:37] Speaker D: Feingold.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: Lady feingold. Yeah. I'm famous for butchering people's names, so I'm sorry, Lainey. I hope to meet you one day, but can you tell me about her and tell us what her session will cover?
We'd love to know.
[00:20:52] Speaker D: Yeah. Lainey Feingold is a US attorney who has been involved in legal actions in the United States.
She pioneered a process for trying to bring together companies that were not accessible to people with disabilities, and this is called a structured negotiation process to help them do that. She was involved in the nineties in one of the very first cases where banks did not have accessible teller ATMs and got them to be. To have braille on them. If you go to an ATM in the US today and there's braille on it, it's because of Lainey Feingold's work. So, she will be talking about the legal landscape around accessibility. And, of course, that is a really big deal for many folks these days in terms of all the lawsuits that are coming that are kind of serial plaintiffs, as well as the coming stuff around EAA that we talked about before. So, yeah, she's also just a great speaker. So that is something to look forward to.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: That's awesome. I'm joining, but I'm not going for 24 hours. Just go. And I'm really happy that I can rewatch it later.
[00:22:22] Speaker D: Absolutely.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
I would love to know. Also, of course, you have a lot of amazing speakers and a lot of amazing topics. What are specific accessibility challenges or topics? Are you focusing this year, or are you just keeping it general? And if there's something you would like to highlight, this question is for any one of you: If they have the knowledge, what topic would you like to highlight or do you want to mainly focus on?
[00:22:52] Speaker A: Alexander, why don't you jump in on this one?
[00:22:58] Speaker C: I'm not sure what I can add to this question.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: So which topic? Which. Which talk are you most looking forward to?
[00:23:06] Speaker C: So I've not gone through the speaker selection, so I have something I look at. I am on the roster, but there are a few speakers who I know of. I recently attended one of the IAP meetups here in Mumbai, and we had. It was held at this company called Barrier Break, which is a popular iPad accessibility company based out of. And there are people who I met at the meetup who are speakers. So definitely even, in fact, the speaker I attended, whose talk I attended last year, Rashmi, ended up meeting her physically at the meetup here. So that's. That's something I'm looking forward to.
[00:23:51] Speaker A: I am looking forward to. I'm looking forward to them all. I don't want to, like, necessarily, you know, pick people out, but there's one speaker, Alice Orru from Italy, who's doing practical text accessibility tips for content creators. And I was like, her pitch starts with, you wouldn't think that text has any accessibility needs. And yet there are. She also talks about inclusivity with language, which is something that the Yoast plugin does as well. Has an excessive inclusivity part that you can toggle on and off, and everybody should leave on, by the way.
But that helps us navigate things like inclusive language. Instead of saying boys and girls, we can say children, or we can say students, things like that. Or, instead of ladies and gentlemen, we could use more inclusive terms that cover all of the gender terminologies. And I don't even know how to say it. Right. But the gender spectrum, I should say. That's the word I was looking for.
[00:24:52] Speaker B: We go.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: And so, you know, so I'm really looking forward. She's one of the first three speakers. The first three or four speakers, so I'll be awake, but I'm looking forward to hers. I'm also obviously looking forward to hearing Lainey talk as well.
[00:25:08] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. For me, Lainey, the talk from Lainey is going to be the big one.
[00:25:12] Speaker B: So I'm going to attend the talk. I don't care if I have to wake up or stop working or do anything. That's something to skip for you.
[00:25:21] Speaker A: And that gets to introduce her, which is even more exciting.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: I do.
[00:25:25] Speaker D: This is. We've rotated around. So I'm on the. As the treasurer, I'm on the board, and we've kind of rotated around. It's come up to be my turn to make the opening remarks and introduce Lainey. So, yeah, I'm excited about that.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: I would be, too.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: What would you like to say to everyone is like, listening to us? I don't know. Also, watch us on YouTube about WordPress Accessibility Day. Is there something I didn't ask for, or is there some information you would like to share?
[00:26:02] Speaker C: Yeah. So accessibility is not rocket science.
It's not something. It's just that, like how we would do HTML and CSS. A lot of programmers here in India feel that HTML CSS is something that they shouldn't be doing and the front-end developer should be handling it separately. It's something like that. So right now, those roles have changed. So similarly, accessibility is something that's not rocket science. If you start doing it, if you start understanding the reasons behind it, it will come second to nature for you.
[00:26:38] Speaker D: Absolutely.
[00:26:39] Speaker C: So when I started doing mending projects for WordPress Accessibility, at that point in time, it's only once or twice that I was guided, okay, we need to do this and why we need to do this. And then, slowly I was able to take those calls myself.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:27:02] Speaker C: So it took me all of like three days to read up on accessibility before we got started.
Yeah. And I'm a very slow reader.
[00:27:12] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly. Just get started.
[00:27:15] Speaker A: Right?
[00:27:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:27:17] Speaker D: I would say go register. And even if the date doesn't fall at a good time for you, get on the mailing list. So you'll get the emails, you'll get the notices for when the videos come out. And if you're not able to join us, just go register. Do know that some of the sponsors have provided digital swag, so there are some pretty cool things that are just like swag at an in-person event. So kind of cool.
Check that out for me.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: I would also add to everything that everybody here has said is that nobody expects perfection from you trying to do accessibility. So I am. I very publicly make mistakes. I own up to my mistakes. I talk about my mistakes because I want others to learn that you can make mistakes. It's what you do once you've made a mistake and how you set your course of action based on what you've learned from those kinds of things. So I famously talk about the time when we underrepresented the tech. This was not Samah; this was me before she joined. But we, the organization, sent out a newsletter, and I thought I was being accessible in the way that I put links and things like that. But I got an email back from one of our readers, a blind reader who said, basically, I expect more from somebody who talks about underrepresentation in a very kind way. And I took it to heart. I could have been like, well, we're doing our best, right? That's what people tend to do, and they get on the defensive. Instead, I was like, crap. I do not want this person to have that experience.
And so I said, I am dedicated to making sure that our newsletter links are better links and that every image has a better description. And so the next month, I said, it's not your job to report back, but if you see anything and you'd like to let me know if we've done better, I would appreciate it. And she responded and said it was awesome. And I was like, yes. I wrote about that experience on Twitter because I wanted others to realize that I, and I think people, know I strive to do so well. But if I don't know, I don't know. But once I learn, I do better, and then I try to educate others the same way. So it's okay if you don't know what you don't know. Come to WordPress Accessibility Day to learn what you don't know and then start to put it into action. And if you flub it up a little bit, do better the next time. Because that's what it's all about. It's about growth and education.
[00:29:54] Speaker D: Absolutely.
[00:29:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
We talked a lot about the WordPress Accessibility date, but in the end, I would like to say that it's going to be on the 9th and 10th of October. It's going to be a live stream, and people can have access to the recording. Everyone listening just needs to sign up quickly. It's also free, totally free. So yeah, I will give the closing remarks to my lovely co-host, Michelle.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: Well, I will also say that while we've been sitting here, we've got 20 more registrations, and nobody's even listening to us right now because we're recording. So it's, it's definitely something that we have almost 400 people registered right now. And we just opened up registration on Friday, today's Tuesday. As you can see, it's a popular event for a reason, and we would love, love, love for you to attend. You don't have to make a donation; it's available there. You don't have to buy a T-shirt. You can buy a T-shirt, but at the very least register so that you get the information about like, like that said, if you can't attend on that day, at least you know when the schedules when the videos are out for you to watch afterward. But it definitely brings you into a community of people who are all striving to do better on the web for everybody.
Cool. All right, we do have next week. We have a guest.
I'm probably not going to say her name right, but I will pull it up real quick. Next week, our guest. Can you say it? Say it.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: No, for me. I just. No, I can put everyone's names. I have that. That's a beautiful scale. So I can pronounce her name and apologize later.
[00:31:34] Speaker A: Sounds good.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: Shailvi Wakhlu. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
[00:31:42] Speaker A:Shailvi, that is how she said it. I'm looking for her. I don't have her last name in front of me. Oh, Shailvi Wakhlu. And we're excited to have her. Come on. Next week, we will talk about a bunch of stuff that she's doing as far as underrepresentedness and the work that she's doing in the community. So we're going to have her on next week.
I think that's the only thing we have scheduled right now because, after that, we will have wordcampus. So we'll be recording that week, and then after that, we'll see. But if you have topics you'd like us to discuss, if you notice things that could use a little boost in our community, in the tech community and things that need to be brought to the surface, that's what we do. We get into the hard-hitting stuff. Sometimes, we talk about things that aren't comfortable. Sometimes, we're able to celebrate things that are the. But we don't pull any punches here. Beth's nodding. She's heard some episodes. She knows we go for the jugular sometimes because accessibility, inclusivity, diversity, belonging, all the things that make the world a little more equitable, are the things that we are striving for every day at underrepresented tech.
Alexander, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate you. I don't think we talked at the very beginning. It's very early in the morning for Bet, but it's very late in the evening for Alexander. It's mid-morning for me, and it's mid-afternoon for Samah. So we're spanning the globe as we record this right now. And I appreciate both of you taking some time to be with us today. Thank you.
[00:33:16] Speaker D: Great. Thanks for having me.
[00:33:17] Speaker C: Thank you for having me.
[00:33:18] Speaker A: Absolutely. Samah, it's always good to see you. I will see you soon. And to everybody else, we'll see you next. Next time on underrepresented in tech. Thanks.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: Okay, bye-bye.
[00:33:28] Speaker A: Bye.
If you're interested in using our database, joining us as a guest for an episode, or just saying hi, go to underrepresentedintech.com. See you next week.
