The Challenge: 1 Hour That Will Completely Change Your Mind On Accessibility!
Hey CEOs, be honest- have you ever thought about digital accessibility beyond how to mitigate risks and boost benefits for your website? For most businesses, the answer to this question is a simple and resounding “No.”
We’re not judging you!
In fact, we’re in the business of providing these exact things- significant risk mitigation and outsized business benefits- to websites looking to take the inevitable plunge into digital accessibility.
But any CEO currently in the dark or on the fence about the inherent value of digital accessibility should accept our challenge now. And get ready to experience the kind of mind-blowing insights that no article or conversation could ever deliver.
The Challenge: Use a Screen Reader for 1 Hour Across Your Own Website
You’ll learn that screen readers easily solve the digital accessibility problem. Just kidding. You’ll learn that they don’t even come close.
That’s why we’re calling all CEOs, web designers, UX specialists, product specialists, and more, to take our digital accessibility challenge. We’re just asking you to explore your very own website with a screen reader. How hard could that possibly be, right?
You probably know your website like the back of your hand. You can probably close your eyes and picture every color, word, and drop down menu. You probably know every single product, service, and informational offering. You probably think you actually can navigate your very own website with your eyes closed.
Hate to break it to you, but….we bet you’re wrong.
We bet you’re about to learn first hand how frustrating digital experiences are for blind and low vision users (a whopping 12% of the consumer base, BTW). We bet you’re about to find yourself dropped off a metaphorical cliff right into a big heaping pile of perspective-shifting realization on digital accessibility.
Or in other words, “Wait… our website isn’t actually usable if people can’t see it!”
*Mic drop*
Common Accessibility Issues You’ll Experience
You’ll have only yourself, a blindfold, a screen reader, and your wonderful, though inaccessible, website.
Here are some issues that we suspect you’ll encounter with regularity because these are the challenges that blind and low vision users run into all day, every day even when using a screen reader.
- Unlabeled buttons: Navigating a webpage with unlabeled buttons is a bit like being trapped in a random choose-your–own-adventure story, except that you have no idea what choices you’re making. When the screen reader announces “button,” “button,” “button,” you’ll have no idea what fun freefall awaits you when you click. Will you jet off to Facebook, end up on TrustPilot, or fly off to somewhere else for a while? Nobody knows!
- Unlabeled forms: Want to provide your contact, billing, or shipping info? Good luck knowing what to do when the screen reader tells you to “edit box” but doesn’t tell you anything about what you need to enter into the form field.
- No descriptions for pictures: Your screen reader will let you know there’s an “image” and you’ll have to just make up what that image is. A chart explaining something? Someone using the product you’re exploring? An offer about a sale? There are no limits in your imagination! Though knowing IRL would be nice, too.
- Confusing focus order: No headings or page structure? No problem! Your screen reader will helpfully read the entire page from top to bottom in one extremely long blurb while you listen and try to make sense of what’s happening. What a fun way to spend some time!
- Pop-Up Surprises: Even with 20/20 vision, every single web user at one time or another has accidentally clicked into an unexpected pop-up, been flung from the website they were on, and forced to navigate back. Wait until you experience this joy without any idea that there even was a surprise pop up! Or wait until you’re stuck in a pop-up trap because there’s no clear way to get out. Let the pop-up games begin!
These are just some of the challenges that blind and low vision users experience with screen readers. Don’t be surprised if you fall even deeper into the inaccessibility rabbit hole.
Wondering Where to Start? Here’s a Basic Primer
If you’re the type of leader who sees the value in accepting this challenge, but have zero idea of how to even get started, we have a few basic tips:
- Screen Reader for PC Users: You’ll likely be happy to know there’s no need to purchase anything to make this challenge a reality. NVAccess.org (Non-Visiual Desktop Access) provides a FREE downloadable screen reader available to anyone using Windows 8.1 or later. https://www.nvaccess.org/download/
- You can confirm system requirements prior to downloading: https://www.nvaccess.org/about-nvda/
- Screen Reader for Mac Users: There’s no need to download or install anything for Macs. Apple provides a pre-installed screen reader called VoiceOver, which can be turned on and off as needed. Instructions can be found here: https://support.apple.com/guide/voiceover/turn-voiceover-on-or-off-vo2682/mac
- Basic Navigation: You may need to delve a bit deeper, depending on how committed you are, but for a realistic, basic experience using a screen reader, you’ll need to know these two keys:
- Tab: Use this key to move to another element. This is how you’ll move to the next button, link, form field, checkbox, etc.
- Shift + Tab: Use this key combo to move backwards. This is how you’ll reverse your steps if you’ve accidentally moved too quickly past a prior element or simply want to go back to review something again.
That’s it! If you’ve gotten this far and you’re willing to give it a go, we sincerely applaud you.
Most CEOs, developers, and designers are out there making off-the-cuff decisions about whether it’s “worth it” to embrace digital accessibility and whether there’s an “easy fix” or a “good enough” solution. But these same decision-makers have no idea what they’re talking about because they’ve never even tried navigating online without sight. (Spoiler: YES, it is worth it, and NO there’s not a quick widget or overlay fix that will make it all better.)
With this challenge under your belt, the insight and experience you’ll gain will truly set you apart from the pack. You’ll be a thought-leader in the world of digital engagement and, we hope, an implementer of best-in-class digital accessibility for your business.
Bonus: Just imagine how many times you’ll be able to share your experience with others during meetings, phone calls, speeches, family dinners, holidays, and bbqs. Yep- you’ll earn bragging rights for years to come. Especially when you get to the part where you turned your new insight into a business-boosting game-changer that increased your rankings, customers, and tax breaks while decreasing your legal risks. *BOOM*
Uncomfortable? Unpleasant? Unusable? This is Why Accessibility Matters
Once you’ve actually lived the experience of trying to use your own website to buy your own products, order your own services, join your own organization, or read your own information, it should become indisputably obvious that digital accessibility isn’t about resolving technical quirks. It’s about removing real barriers to your real site, real goods, real services, and real insights. It’s about capturing, keeping, and valuing real people.
Once you realize how uncomfortable and unpleasant the experience is, and just how unusable your website is for anyone using a screen reader, it’s clear that digital accessibility isn’t just an optional consideration, it’s an urgent need.
At AllyADA, we know this first hand because our business was born from the experiences of friends, family, and loved ones with vision challenges. And this is precisely why we employ blind and low vision reviewers to conduct manual reviews during our audit process.
Your web developers may think your website is easy and accessible. They may even have tried to make it that way. But only the people who actually rely on accessibility to accomplish everyday tasks know the truth.
Digital accessibility is not just an easy way to improve SEO rankings and get huge tax breaks. At its most basic core, it’s also about the experience of being human. And specifically, about the experience of being a human with accessibility needs, navigating a world that is not built with them in mind.
And the real secret is that there is no difference between the two perspectives- the human perspective and the business perspective bring us all back to the same place. Accessibility benefits absolutely everyone! The more accessible your website is, the more users, engagement, rankings, and conversions you get. And the more accessible your website is, the more that blind and low vision users (12% of the population!) get to be a valued part of the collective human experience.
That’s a win-win we’ll take any day.
The future of modern online commerce is clearly paved with an accessible pathway, and we help businesses steer their enterprise toward the very best of what this offers to their website, their business, and their customers.
Now take the challenge! We dare you.