#75: Why Accessibility in eCommerce Can’t Wait (feat. RNIB)

Speaker A: Hello everyone and welcome to an episode of the Spacebar podcast. I'm Pete Robinshaw and um, on this week's episode, uh, I'm really pleased to be joined by one of space, uh, 48's own customers today. But not just any customer, uh, they're one of the most well recognized names uh, in the charity sector and they're here today to talk to us about a really important topic related to website accessibility. So uh, please welcome along uh, remotely today, uh, we've got Robin Spinks who is head of inclusive design for RNIB and also his colleague who's actually in the studio us today, Kat Stoner, who is head of technology transformation and engineering at rnib. Hello both of you. I'm gonna have to wave at two different places. Hello.

Speaker B: Hey, good to be here.

Speaker C: Great to be here.

Speaker A: Thanks for making the effort to come on uh, we've got there in the end with the technology. Um, yeah, it's pleasure to have you both on because what's actually a really important topic and I'm ashamed to say we should, we haven't covered this before now. I think we're 70 odd episodes in and we should have covered this a long time ago. But there's a reason specifically today, uh, more than one reason for talking about this today. Um, but before we get into this I was doing introduced for you both, um, but I mentioned RNIB there. Ah, but I haven't actually explained who or what or you are. Um, just want to give you, give us a bit of an overview of um, who an IB are, what you represent, who you represent as a charity.

Speaker B: Yeah. So RNIB is one of the UK's leading charities. We are the leading organization for blind and partially sighted people. Um, and a few years ago we became Royal National Institute of Blind People. So I, uh, we are almost 160 years old and we provide a range of services and also advocacy and we're the organization that are recognised by government to speak on behalf of people who are blind or partially sighted across the uk. So we're well known, perhaps our talking book service and our bookshare, um, would be services that people might recognize. Um, people will also know about some of the work that we do obviously to fundraise, to make services available. And like a lot of charities we're kind of embracing technology in lots of different ways and uh, it's great to get the chance to come here and talk about our work.

Speaker A: So we're going to talk about website accessibility. We'll get onto that in a little bit. But in terms of what you cover, in terms of services, you touched on some of them there, um, as a kind of goal or vision for the charity. Is there like a mission statement you guys have that kind of represents overall what you try to do?

Speaker B: Essentially what we want to do is to create the perfect country for anyone who lives with blindness or partial sight, as I do. Um, and that involves changing things, so changing products and services and changing society to make things more inclusive and more accessible. So whether that's information that people receive via the nhs, whether it's software packages that people might use or indeed websites or apps or. What we want to do is work in a collaborative way with industry, with companies and organizations to create that change, to remove barriers and to improve equity and improve opportunity for anyone who lives with sight loss on a daily basis, about 250 people will be told, I'm sorry, there's nothing further that can be done. No drug treatment, no therapy or surgery. You're going to live with a permanent visual impairment. And just imagine being told that, uh, and what that might mean for you and your work and your interests and your relationships and family. So really our job is to provide first line support at, uh, the point of diagnosis. And We've got over 120 eye clinic liaison officers up and down the country who will provide that first line of support, reassurance. And really it's to enable people to see a future, to have a sense of optimism and a sense of positivity, and to recognize that they might need to adapt things slightly and do things a little bit differently, but they can continue to do the things that they love doing and to enjoy the things that they enjoy and just live a, uh, live a positive and happy life. As someone with sight loss, that's amazing.

Speaker A: I never really thought about or contemplated the kind of support element of like somebody realizing that they're going to never maybe essentially say again, that is like to lean on you and give them that support. Support. I never really considered that as a thing you would do. I associate with you with. Again, I've got. My cousin's blind. Uh, he's been blind since he was a young kid. And he's, he's actually gone on and done great things. He's run as an athlete. But I didn't. I really thought about the realization that he has to. At the point, you know, he got told, like, that's incredible.

Speaker B: Yeah. And imagine how much time we spend on screens. You know, all of us are kind of, in one way or another, you know, using screens. It's difficult to imagine a day, isn't it, where we don't use the screen. Whether it's kind of adjusting the heating or checking a football score or planning a trip or doing some work or studying or even just connecting with friends and family. Screens are so ubiquitous now. And I think it's a great moment to stop and think, okay, how would you manage to do that if suddenly, uh, you didn't have the ability of sight to be able to read and you had to do things a little bit differently? So it's great to be having this conversation now.

Speaker A: Yeah, I guess I can talk about screens. I guess would kind of lead us on to kind of what we're here to talk about specifically today, which is around, um, website accessibility. And obviously, clearly you guys are the ultimate experts on this, which is again why we've got you on. Um, and imagine most brands out there, because Obviously we in Space48 work in the digital commerce space, so we build websites for customers all the time. Um, but for brands out there that maybe have heard of website accessibility or maybe don't know enough about it, do you want to give us a bit of an overview when it comes to what we mean by website accessibility for you? Like, how do you talk about that?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, basically, I guess a good place to start is to think about what accessibility means. And essentially it's about designing and modifying things like information and environments, including digital environments, to make them more usable for people with different kinds of disability. So, you know, there are global standards which are in place, so there's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines or wcag, that's the most kind of commonly understood and recognized instrument that's out there as a benchmark for not only for compliance but also good practice. So when we are auditing a website or an app, we're thinking about the WCAG guidelines and we're thinking about what might need to be done to ensure compliance. So a lot of the team are spending time testing websites and apps against those standards, but they're also looking at how would you realistically use this? So it might meet the accessibility standards, but how usable would it be if you were blind or partially sighted? And we've always got people in the team who are blind or partially sighted. Um, I've pushed that, uh, agenda quite significantly inside RNIB so that we're constantly looking to the blind and partially sighted population when we're recruiting. Because to be honest, that's where the richness comes from. When you give a website or an app to someone who's Low vision or who's blind, they'll tell you lots of things about it that you didn't know.

Speaker A: Well, I kind of feel a bit embarrassed now because I, back when I first started, when I left uni, went into a sort of digital job, one of my jobs was to actually audit websites, uh, based on W category guidelines. Um, and obviously I'm a fully sighted person, so I'm just basically looking. I've got a set of criteria, I'm going to mark it. Oh, well, they don't do this, they don't do that. Uh, but yeah, I never thought it really wasn't the best place to do. I was just following like set of guidelines. But those guidelines have been around for me and I've been doing this job for 20 years and that was why I first joined. So, uh, is that when did like the kind of, those guidelines kind of become a thing? And do they, they just purely apply to, I guess, digital commerce and M websites? Like when did they become a thing and are they still relevant today?

Speaker B: I mean first, first of all, don't feel embarrassed because most people who work in this space would be fully sighted. And actually what we're doing is we're trying to get more visually impaired people in, which is, which is great but you know, a lot of people would be in a similar position and not necessarily having met or worked with people who are end users. That would be very common. RNIB actually contributed to the establishment of web accessibility standards, um, from around about the turn of the century, um, up to the present day. So we continue to contribute and lend a hand to the standards effort and it's something that's emerged over the years to the current um, standards that are in place. So the team are constantly looking at, at those standards. We're inputting, we're lending our voice. What we're trying to do is to capture the experience of people with lived experience and ensure that that becomes part of the standards going forward.

Speaker A: How much of those guidelines adapted or changed over the sort of past 20 years? Like if they had to adapt to changes in, I guess, obviously web's moved on a hell of a lot, you know, in the last 20 years. Have you, is it a constant update? Does it take into account like mobile, I guess now mobile browsers and everything else like that?

Speaker B: Absolutely. You know, if you look at, I guess the website, look at, think about your own web use maybe in say the year 2000, um, and think about how it is today and I wouldn't mind betting it feels vastly different, you know, we can all remember um, when, you know, I mean, gosh, I can remember dial up Internet, you know, and my mom and dad's house and like, you know, waiting to get online. And just think about the transformation from that through to current day. Having you know, uh, ultra fast, um, fiber broadband for example. A lot of kids growing up just taking that as red that that's the norm. My kids do, you know, they think that 300 is a decent speed and anything below that is lousy. And if you go somewhere on holiday, what the kids want to know is how fast is the WI fi?

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: I guess a decade ago people wanted to know is there WI fi? Now the kids want to know what speed is the WI fi? Because that's critical to enjoying my gaming or doing whatever I do online. So I guess web use has changed massively. The capability of what you can do online has changed hugely. And then of course, as you alluded to, mobile is the name of the game. Now most people are accessing the web on uh, post six inch device screen, uh, sizes, you know, so we've got to think about content and design in relation to those devices. And then a big thing for us really has been, and something that we've contributed to enormously has been the development of inbuilt accessibility tools. So quite revolutionary back in 2009 was the advent of voiceover on the iPhone, um, on the iPhone3GS, if anyone remembers that way back in the midst of time. And um, that was revolutionary because for the very first time you had the opportunity for blind people to be able to use touch on a flat screen to interpret what was on that screen. And every iPhone and iPad and Mac, an Apple watch today has voiceover baked in. So if you've got a device in your pocket, voiceover's already in there. When you turn it on and leverage it, you can have an experience of digital services that allows you to navigate by touch. Having said all of that, what's accompanied those technological um, milestones is ah, an increase in complexity in terms of the sites and services that people are using. So without proper coding and accessibility provisions baked in, it can be impossible for, for someone to use, yeah, a modern, you know, online service. And that's clearly unacceptable. That's something that we're pushing hard on because you know, you, you, you, you should have access on an equitable basis. If you're blind, you should be able to use a given website in the same way that someone who's fully sighted and that's not a reality right now we tend to find that when we do a survey, we find as many as 90% of websites are not actually working properly for someone with sight loss. I mean imagine the frustration of getting onto a site, being able to browse, being able to select something, but not being able to pay for it and check out. And um, it's those kind of things that we deal with day in, day out in the web accessibility and app accessibility audits that we deliver.

Speaker A: We talked about tech there after tech's moved on quite a bit with mobile, etc. But so if you go back again, Back to my 20 years ago when I first started, is how things got better. Technology got more complex or better in some cases. But have things got better for visually impaired users online or, uh, things pretty much as they were. Is it getting better? Where are we?

Speaker B: Do you know, technologically I think things have got better. There is baked in accessibility in Android, uh, and uh, right across the Google ecosystem and across Apple and Microsoft and Amazon. So you know, if you buy a mobile device or a tablet, for example, today, the starting point, the expectation is that there's baked in accessibility. Everyone has that expectation. Now, uh, that was definitely not the case 20 years ago, even 15 years ago. So that's been a huge progression. What has been stubbornly, uh, problematic is actually ensuring that content and services continue to evolve in terms of accessibility. So we've seen great evolution and development in terms of embedded accessibility and platforms and mobile platforms in particular. However, uh, the content that's being created, that continues to lag behind significantly. And the other thing that that translates into is the employment statistics. So you know, three out of four working age, uh, blind and partially sighted people in the UK are, are currently not in work and that's unacceptable. So that has been a stubborn statistic that's not changed in a generation. And you know, that might have a lot to do with content not being accessible to people.

Speaker A: And is that something again, is a charity you guys, you really push for and are advocating for in terms of changing that, uh, in terms of getting more m. I guess clearly you are, but I guess you're limited by, well, the businesses that do the employment. Right?

Speaker B: I mean we're only limited I guess by our bandwidth. So we rely on lots of brilliant volunteers and staff. And you know, my team, for example, every day of the week they're working with businesses to improve the accessibility of apps and services. But you know, that is kind of scratching the surface really if you consider the scale and the extent to which people's lives now revolve around digital. Um, and it's not just phones and tablets and PCs and laptops. Right. People are now using smart glasses. I've been using smart glasses over the last couple of days to do my work. Um, I'm using them more and more. Um, I'm really excited about what might be possible there. And another big development for those of us who are visually impaired has been the kind of march of AI, um, firstly in the generative AI space but now also in the kind of multimodal AI space. So you know we're seeing some great stuff from companies like Meta for example. So you know, for 300 quid I got a pair of smart glasses and if I'm in the United States right now, I can use those glasses to tell me what's around me. I can ask and get an interpretation. That whole space is only going to heat uh, up. We're going to see more players join in that space and enabling more experiences and more accessibility. So that's a real uh, positive um, sort of beacon on the, on, on the horizon where we're already beginning to benefit from.

Speaker A: We'll touch on a little bit later on. I'm going to come back to that, I'm going to revisit that. I just want to I guess talk to you about your own sort of personal challenges. Both you uh, and Robin as well coming across accessibility and obviously, obviously Robyn, you clearly deal with this on a day to day basis. Uh and it's cat like your career history. You've obviously both been retail we spoke about before you came on in, you know, the business you've worked at was accessibility been something that connecting ASOs. You obviously used to work there. Like I know you weren't necessarily at the forefront of the E commerce team but is that something that brand like ASOS would consider in terms of, you know, we need to make our website accessible? Like what, what do you think is the perception of accessibility in kind of the sort of, you know, retail space?

Speaker C: Yeah, really great question. I think it currently is not at the forefront of their thinking and it should be. Um, I've worked for a number of retailers, high street, well known high street brands as well as E commerce, um, with asos and I would say the high street retailers I've worked at that had a physical presence. They've put a lot more emphasis on physical accessibility, not digital accessibility and actually physical accessibility in terms of someone who has a physical ailment rather than say sight loss. So people are still, if they're blind and partially sighted, still would need Someone uh, to help them around the store. Um, I remember at the store I worked in when I was uh, at university there was a blind gentleman that would come in quite regularly and we'd have to guide him around the store. With the advent of technologies of where we're moving to, we, I could see a world where that isn't required um, as much. And that individual in that example would have more freedom to be able to access that store exactly as a sighted person would do. And then from a digital accessibility um, perspective and thinking about ASOs, their focus is to make their website accessible. But I think what we see quite a lot, and I'm sure Robin would attest to this as well, is we see um, businesses or almost looking at accessibility as a, for want a better way of describing it, A tick box exercise to go down the list of accessibility standards to get someone in to do a review, but not necessarily get people with lived experience and um, blind and partially sighted people in the topic that we're talking about today to really use that website and say whether uh, it works for them. There's a lot of assistive technologies out there and the standards will work for some, they won't work for all. And actually all organizations in my view should be designing accessibility in right from the start of what they're looking to achieve in terms of um, digital content as Robin was alluding to, or software solutions.

Speaker A: Do you think? And um, obviously we're you know, e commerce design age, we design websites all the time. Do you think that really somebody who isn't, doesn't suffer from a visual impairment is in a place to actually go ahead and design a website or build a website without that? Do they need some guidance from somebody? Is that an ideal or is a reality that somebody really to get this right, you need somebody there to actually who's suffering with an ailment to actually go and help with the design ultimately or to test the site. What's your thoughts on that?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean I'm a sighted individual working um, for the rnib and I certainly learn something every single day from my colleagues that are um, blind or partially sighted or have a visual impairment. Um, and they really make me think about things in a different way that I wouldn't otherwise have um, thought about. And in terms of when we were designing our new website we had um, people with um, sight loss as part of that design journey right from the beginning working with the designers, um, from you guys and also other. I'd like to think that the designers from uh, space learned Something from us through the journey as well. Um, I think it's a balance because can every organization, um, have that lived experience all the way through? And obviously we have a benefit in the fact that we have a mix of people in our organization, but I think they should strive too. And I think just going back to the piece Robyn was talking about in terms of employment, I mean, 27% of people are employed today that are blind or partially sighted. That number needs to go up. And if that number goes up, there's more organizations that have got that individual, um, to tap into in terms of that usability testing piece.

Speaker A: Yeah. Is that an opportunity for, I guess, consultancy point of view, whatever it is, in this space for a greater level of employment for, you know, people are visually impaired. This is a, this is a guest thing that, you know, there's millions and millions of sites out there, there's massive brands. Is this an opportunity? I'm not saying this is just be their role, but there's an opportunity that for actually brands take this seriously. They should be looking at bringing in, you know, people with visual plans because ultimately we're going to talk about legislation in a minute. I would have thought this is a big opportunity for, uh, if you're visually impaired, to go and get a role somewhere from a digital perspective to help

Speaker B: out 100%, you know, RNIB Enterprises, the part that I represent, where we work with businesses small and large, local, national and international, and it's all about enabling people to think about the broad range of gains that there are from building in accessibility, as Kat says right at the start, but it's also the richness of having someone on your team who's got lived experience. And as you build and as you test and as you refine your digital assets, that person can give you a sense of does it work? If you're a screen reader user, is the tonal contrast optimized? You know, the challenge is like, how can you make it look and feel as nice and as corporate and as attractive as possible, while also optimizing the tonal contrast, you know, optimizing the screen reader accessibility. It's possible to do all of those things. I think there's still in some quarters a bit of a perception that accessibility might result in it becoming, you know, in some way a little bit bland and maybe not as sexy and. Absolutely, we know that that's not the case. We know you can have a wonderful digital asset that actually is compliant and works well for everyone. And it's about working towards that goal incrementally and as you change things, as you refine the design, you actually test and check the accessibility as you go along. And that's something that we're really delighted to do for any business. And quickly they will see the benefits of that investment.

Speaker A: I'm going to play devil's advocate over here in terms of thinking about putting myself in position of a retailer. Obviously you've been asos and I've worked with retailers all the time. Um, what I want to get out of this question is why should retailers or brands or any not just online taking accessibility websites seriously? Because a lot of them think well I'm m going to have to just employ somebody to come and look at this. I guess what is the opportunity they're missing out on by not getting this right? I'm not talking about just parking legislation for a minute, but an opportunity perspective. Like what? From a business look at revenue, right? They want to make money, so what is it? How can they justify internally to say we need to take this seriously?

Speaker B: Well, I think a recent conversation that I had with a very large massive global brand that's named after a rainforest, you know the one I'm talking about, they said that overnight they adjusted the color contrast on their product reviews so they used a deeper saturation of orange on the product review, um, items on sites on mobile and on desktop and turned that on. And literally overnight they noticed a percentage increase in the number of people who were engaging with reviews. It went up by a four figure uh, amount overnight. And that's simply by making the tonal contrast between the background and, and the reviews higher and optimizing that so that optimized accessibility. But it also very clearly massively increased engagement with reviews. You know, and I think when you get comments like that from massive global brands, and there are many more like that, uh, where you optimize something, simply the motivation there was let's make it easier for people to see. And by doing that, what we know is we'll make it easier for people to engage and instantly we'll be able to measure uh, that they engage. Engagement level with reviews has rocketed and people discover that all the time. You know, if you take a color, if you're using teal for example, and you deepen the shade of teal so that the tonal contrast with the background is greater, you'll notice a higher level of engagement with it and then typically it'll also look better. You know, it's a little bit like, you know, avoiding translucency. I think there was a design uh, sort of phase where people were a little bit obsessed with translucency and it causes problems for some users. Even though it might look quite nice. If you offer an opportunity for that to be turned off then actually you, you'll increase engagement in terms of um,

Speaker A: like the number of people with visual impairments in the UK specifically. I don't know what did you mention the number at the start?

Speaker B: Two million.

Speaker A: Two million, okay. Yeah, that's two million customers that, yeah. If you don't get this right, you're basically turning away basically. So that, I guess that's why the point, because the point, the question was like what is the again business look at this revenue basis, like what, you know, two million quid, whatever. The know they're not all about Amazon specifically. I mean out those 2 million, I'm guessing a large proportion of them will probably try and shop with Amazon because everybody else does. So I guess that's what my M point was like what is the opportunity of, for retailers if they if to get this right?

Speaker B: Well it's also, you know, the train line's another interesting example. You know, what they've tried to create. There is a frictionless experience in purchasing rail tickets. So you decide you want to go somewhere, you start browsing the options and the idea is that within like two, three minutes you could have had the thought, decided you want to do it, looked at the options, chosen the ticket, booked it, have it in the wallet on your phone, boom, job done, get on with the ironing or gardening or whatever it is you're doing. So make it a really quick frictionless interaction. Where that's happened, that's typically tended to increase the accessibility and increase the volume of business as well. So you know, there's a clear message here that if you optimize tonal contrast, if you optimize screen reader capability, you do make it easier and better for users who don't have any disability. And I think it's about cascading that point to as many people as possible and getting people to think about that broader business benefit and investing. You know, Apple were convinced of this a long time ago. So they, they have a very deep philosophy in their business which is about, they believe that basically accessibility is a fundamental human right. They go that far. They tell their staff that, ah, their product designers and as a result when a new Apple product is created, accessibility features are there from day one and they will be developed. Okay, Sometimes things might, you know, need a bit of remediation, a bit of work, you know, and they contact Work with the community to do that. But by and large, there's a big commitment to accessibility. That's about that belief. It's about that belief that you'll get more customers. If you think about everyone, you know, everybody's got some sort of link to a person with a disability, whether that's an older relative, someone who's got sight loss, someone who's a wheelchair user. You know, there's so many people, and I think just demonstrating that you care and that you want those customers and your customer base, why would you turn them away? You know, imagine going to a shop where you see lots of amazing things inside, but you can't get in the door. You know, that's. That's the analogy we often use. No one would want that scenario. Clearly, it's ridiculous. So if you can think about digital accessibility in that way, and what you can do quite quickly is actually dismantle barriers, remove them, make it easier for people to use the experience, make it more enjoyable, because if the experience is more enjoyable, people will come back, you know, and that you mentioned Amazon, that's, that's one of the reasons so many people use it, is a lot of effort has been spent to make the ordering really super easy, frictionless. Some might argue it's even too easy, but, you know,

Speaker A: yeah, it's interesting. So we talked about, about. There's obviously cleared opportunities from a, you know, too many customers potentially turn away. But one thing I want to talk about, part of the reason you're here today is for retailers that still aren't taking this seriously, or not looking at that. There's obvious legislation that's coming in. Well, it's being enforced. Do you want to talk us a little bit down why retailers should start, actually? Well, this doesn't take this for them to take it seriously, but what's going on? What's happening?

Speaker B: So, you know, currently in the uk, there is the Equality, uh, Act. And what we've not seen so far are many cases. We've not seen as many cases as we would like that highlight, for example, this issue of digital accessibility. But the advent of the European Accessibility act in June 2025, that's a couple of months away from when we're recording this. Um, that's going to create a renewed focus on accessibility because that will apply right across the eu. And even though the UK is no longer in the eu, everything that we hear and read and see tells us it will be applicable because that's the standard that people will expect. So if people are building services, they're going to build them for a European market and that's going to include the uk. So even though we're not in the eu, this will be applicable here. Um, and, um, interestingly, in terms of digital accessibility and web, one of the fundamental principles that we often talk about is pour. So perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. And that principle specifically is called out, uh, by the European Accessibility act when it comes to web accessibility. So, uh, WCAG will be the standard. But I think it's interesting that those characteristics of poor are called out and you know, the indication is that those will be the, um, those will be the measures against which any service will be, will be judged. So, you know, now is a brilliant time for any business, no matter what it is that you do. Uh, and whether or not you believe that you've got disabled customers, because the truth is you have. Even if you haven't met them, you've got them, just haven't met them yet. That's a really fundamental component for people. But now is the time to be carrying out, uh, those audits on your site. Um, we're very happy to help with that. We're doing that every day. Um, and we'll bring in real blind and partially sighted people who are web accessibility experts to look at the site and to assess it against those principles and to look at it against WCAG and to give you a report. But also more importantly than that, to give you clear, tangible steps that you can implement to make your service better, make it more usable, more attractive, uh, and more accessible. And ultimately to enable you to tell your customers that this is something that you're embracing. You know, you're not feeding it or shying away from it. You're actually making the service better, more equitable, and you're ensuring that, you know, those 2 million blind and partially sighted people, they can become your customers. Because that would be great.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a huge part of the market that's not being addressed, I guess, in terms of the act that's coming in or the legislation that's coming in. Um, we've seen things like this before, not specific around accessibility, um, but we've seen like, you know, you've been in E commerce, that the consent, gdpr, all that kind of stuff in it. When it first comes in, typically people just say, okay, yes, there's nothing. We'll worry about that when somebody gets fined. So do you think businesses are really going to sit up and take notice of this? Is it going to take somebody a Business, a large business online, Amazon or something like that to get a fine or how, how this is going to be enforced. I'm not quite sure what the penalties will be. But what other risks? Risk, apart from the too many customers you're losing out, what other risks potentially of not adhering to this?

Speaker B: I think, I think across Europe is very likely that we will quite quickly see cases being taken and it will be really interesting to see what happens. So, you know, the evidence we've got is that, uh, companies are seeing this as something that's coming in, not enough for our liking. But you know, businesses are noticing it, they are starting to talk about it, uh, disability charities are talking about it. Uh, it's something as a consultancy that we're already embracing. We're already talking to people about readiness and preparedness for it. And you know, whether or not people do it now or do it next year, they're going to have to do it. And our urge to any business would be prepared. Just actually embrace this and look at it as an opportunity to make things better. Because that's what it is. It's an opportunity to optimize tonal contrast screen reader accessibility to make your website more accessible, more usable for more potential customers. And I think embracing it with that spirit will also enable people to, you know, to progress and to move forward and create something that ultimately works better for the customers.

Speaker A: So I mean, again, it's a no brainer to address this. I mean, I guess in terms of actual. What are the practical steps that business. You mentioned about your audits, et cetera, that you guys will help. But what are some of the practical steps that businesses might need to take or can take to kind of help meet these guidelines? Again, it might not be overnight, but it might be a bit of a longer process. But where should they start and should the business be panicking if they hadn't started looking at this already? Uh, are there any quick wins or quick fixes? I know there's tech out there like Userway, uh, and Recite Me and a few others. I don't know if they're applicable. Uh, I'm. You can carry on that. What, I guess what's the best approach to kind of get started with this at least?

Speaker B: Well, ultimately good web accessibility is about having the right code and making sure that screen readers for example, and other assistive technologies can interact with that website without the addition of any kind of overlay or sticking plaster on top. So that's ultimately what it comes down to, is good code and websites that are actually properly structured and take account of the needs of assistive technology users. So don't panic. Get in touch with rnib. We're ready to help. We can actually enable you to, uh, we can do an audit, but we can also enable user testing with real users who have, uh, visual impairments and other disabilities. We have hundreds of user testers that we're ready to deploy and we can enable people to get started. And if you wanted to take a look at your website, you could look and say, look, how well is the tonal contrast optimized? Is it optimal? Is it something that's going to give the best experience? How does it work when we use a screen reader? Now we've all got screen readers on our smartphones. So every iPhone, every Android has a screen reader baked in. You can turn that on and learn a little bit about how it operates and just visit your own website and say, what's the experience like? Um, and that could be a really good segue into a conversation with us and in an audit and then potentially some user testing. But, you know, involving users auditing your site, asking questions in a reflective way where you're always learning, you're always moving forward. You know, nobody gets this right first time. Don't be afraid, come and talk to us. We can guide you through and we can enable you to plan an implementation plan that makes your site better and more accessible over a period of time. And that's the key thing really is people are not going to have a perfect site overnight. But if you've got a development plan that actually embraces accessibility and integrates it into your workflow, then you've got a lot more confidence that it's something that will become a reality and will ultimately lead to that uplifting customer experience.

Speaker C: What Robin's just touched on there, that is really important because it's not accessibility starts and ends with a re platform project or when you launch a new piece of content. It's got to be ingrained in everyday thinking. And when your marketing team want to launch a new campaign, the images that they're putting out on, be it social media platform or be it on, on your own website, have alt text built in, there's audio, um, descriptions and transcripts for videos. So people um, with sight loss are able to have that read out to them if they're not able to access the video content directly and just simple things. Um, as Robin was saying, looking at your mobile sites and using the accessible tech that's built into Apple and Android devices, but also using your keyboard through your website and can you tab through your website? Because if you can do that and you can access the um, buttons and the calls to action then that will help um, in terms of how a screen reader would access, um, access that if you don' immediate um, access to those assistive technologies.

Speaker A: Um, so you guys have done your own website with platform the last 12 months. Um, you've kind of lived and breathed this yourselves of going through and kind of creating a new um, accessible website. Do you want to tell listeners a little bit about that project? Uh, I guess I'm keen specifically to hear about um, why you chose Shopify as a platform. Because um, obviously you want to associate RNIB with like selling stuff but clearly you do. But again I wouldn't always associate Shopify with being in a website platform. You would say with like a, you know, charity for visually impaired. Like do you want to talk us through about the project, why you chose Shopify and how that project is kind of going or gone?

Speaker C: Yeah, sure. So um, we kicked this project off um, probably around this time last year actually um, with a rfp and we recognize that our existing shop that we had back then wasn't fit for purpose, wasn't giving us the functionality that we wanted in terms of the areas we wanted to expand. Uh, our shop offering but also wasn't as accessible as we would want it to be. And some of the reasons for that was just the navigation through the site was quite clunky for a sighted or um, partially sighted person. Didn't really make it make that much difference but it just wasn't usable um, and therefore wasn't accessible. So we wanted um, to move to a platform that gave us more flexibility, gave us more flexibility in house as a team so that we weren't reliant on a third party to have to, to make changes. Um, and as I said we conducted an rfp. We looked at a number of different commerce platforms that are out there, um, to pick a couple of them. Wix, Adobe Commerce, um, SANA Commerce and Shopify for us really came to the fore. One because it's um, quite a cost beneficial model in terms of how it's set up but also their accessibility features were really quite good as well. So during the RFP process we um, met and engaged quite heavily with their accessibility lead. Um, we have access to him still today if we want to um, lean on him for any advice. We really wanted to find a partner that understood us as a charity, understood our purpose and also wanted to um, be on the journey with us for our vision of um, improving the, the world and particularly the uk um to be accessible for everyone with uh, sight loss.

Speaker A: I'm interested. It's part of a question in my mind that um, when you guys are evaluating software. So like you know I work with pims, I work with e commerce platforms, lots of different ancillary third party tech. I guess like from a user perspective your internal users are on ib so they're working with Shopify and you know enriching product and putting products on and whatever. Uh, the actual interface, the actual admin panel has to be accessible. Right? Like I never really thought about until you just said that. In terms of every bit of software you have to evaluate has to have I guess a decent level of accessibility. Not just in terms of the fact the way that it's coded or whatever the website, but the actual physical data, they use it for your users. I'm guessing you've got you know, visually impaired users in the background working on the site. I never thought about that. That's a consideration of the rfp, right?

Speaker C: Absolutely a consideration. Um, and for us we have um, blinded past you sighted people that work across our organization. Um and for us Shopify is used by our helpline team because they take um, telephone orders. We needed to make sure that the admin portal was fully accessible because that team has a whole ah range of um, sighted and non sighted individuals um, but also our retail team as well. So it's, we found that a number of the platforms from their front end were accessible and they were able to meet um, WCAG guidelines and pour as um Robin was referring to earlier. But their admin portals is what let them down and for us that was something that we weren't able to take forward.

Speaker A: Uh, okay, so you've got to think about it in two respects then it's right again. Every software I guess has to go through that kind of process. So obviously you've completed the RE platform now. Uh, but I'd like to kind of hear about the actual process because. Partly because when we talk about accessibility today and how some of our retailers need to maybe transform their existing sites. But I'd love to hear about some of the more technical kind of design challenges you face during the project. Um, also we kind of touched on this earlier and I use the Ouija example about the design because there's this common myth that actually if you design an accessible website it's going to gov.uk website and nobody really likes to look at that website. So how do you balance? Again I would like the technical challenges in the design, like how, how have you managed to end up with the site? What are some of the considerations or complexities and challenges you had?

Speaker C: Yeah, um, so we had part of our inclusive design with us uh right at the start of our journey with the design team. Um, I think I touched on it earlier but they were fully involved in the wireframing process and giving advice and um, what wouldn't work well and what would work well um, throughout and they were not afraid to voice what would not work well. And actually that really benefited the whole project because when we came to um, move to implementation and then ultimately um, our first round of accessibility and then usability testing um, we had a much better ah, outcome um because a number of the things like pop ups for example we just didn't do because they don't work well for a screen reader. And so not having them in there from the start was uh, was beneficial. And I think the um, space design team got to know um, as we went through that and looked at each page um individually what would and wouldn't work well. So um, for example as a business we have a minimum size font um within all of our communications that we do of aerial 14. Anything below that is just hard for people to um, read. And coming a world where kind of aerial law um calibri 12 is the standard. I arrived at RNIB and I was like wow, this is a massive font size. This is crazy. Now it's, it's the norm and I, I would struggle probably to, to adapt, to go back because even as a sighted individual it's easier for me to, to read. So that's something that we built into the platform to make sure that the font sizes were um, appropriate to make sure that the color contrasts were appropriate but without losing that richness that you get from an E commerce site with um, pictures and content and videos and um, having um, carousels of images or bit um to be able to be clicked through. So we've been able to build a website that is accessible and um, usable from a range of users and a range of assistive technologies without losing that richness um, that you want from an E commerce site to attract people in

Speaker A: and honestly go and check out the Honor Bead Shop. It looks phenomenal. Like you would not know that it's been built as an accessible website in quotes but like it, it looks brilliant. And I'm not just taking credit for that because you guys did a lot of the designers where you involved in it. Um, I have a question for you obviously coming from where you've been in terms of the business you work for, was it hard for you as a transition to kind of like see things in that perspective in terms like an adapter, uh, building and designing a website in that way and that going through that thought process. Was it a challenge for you?

Speaker C: Um, yes, a little bit. To be honest. There were things I threw in of it would be really cool if we could do this or be really like what about if we did this? And actually what our inclusive design team taught me is while I'd have a great idea, actually we'd be able to implement that in an accessible way that wasn't necessarily having like things pop up and flash and change, but it would be done in such a way that you'd still get the richness of the content and um, the message across in a way that was engaging and interesting but without having some of those non accessible elements. Um, I have personally learned a lot since um, joining our organization. Um and as I said I learn every day from those around me in terms of what works for them and what doesn't. Um and some of the feedback we've had since launching the site has, has uh, been fantastic in terms of the way that it's opened up the ability for those 2 million people that are out there with, with sight loss and um, partially sighted to shop our website and shop products that assist them um, in their daily lives.

Speaker A: So you've had feedback and you've seen an increase in uptake in terms of items conversion or whatever the metric is you would use. Have you seen since you've relaunched it, is it measurable?

Speaker C: Yeah, we've seen ah seen an uptick in sales but the other area we've seen a um, significant uptake in or uptick in is um, the number of calls into our helpline for people asking for support and assistance. So that has um dropped significantly um, which again I think is something that businesses don't necessarily consider. They think about the revenue but they don't about the um, kind of those support functions that sit around and the number of calls that come into their helpline or their contact center for people to place orders on their behalf or to query where's my order? Because I can't find um it and I can't navigate your, your site. One of the things we implemented um, and one of the things we wanted to do was add additional functionality that made it easier ah for people to find where their order is, to track their order, to be able to pay for their order um and in doing that that's driven down the number of calls coming into our helpline.

Speaker A: One question I've got specifically at Shopify, I don't know if you know the answer to this, but obviously Shopify pride them just about making buying journeys which I'm gonna ask this question. Shopify pride themselves on their checkout in terms of it being, you know, the most best converted checkout in the world. Whatever they call it. Um, just a running quick like is that checkout natively, is that accessible as it causes it comes or did we have to do some work to kind of convert it? Is it how watched? I don't know if you know that or.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's an interesting question, Pete. Um, there was a lot of conversation actually around the checkout when we were um, going through the project. There is not a lot of customization you can do to the checkout and there was certain aspects that our uh, inclusive design team did, in an ideal world, want to tweak. It is accessible to um, the extent someone can check out. And one of the good things that we implemented was um, one click payments and being able to check out with Apple Pay or Google Pay. Um, and we've had really um, positive feedback on that. But I do think there is probably certain elements of that checkout that could be improved and optimized and Shopify themselves lock it down a lot. So there's not a lot you can um, do there. Unlike the rest of the site where we had a lot more freedom to um, really uh, make it a truly accessible experience.

Speaker A: Sounds like you need Robin to go in and do some consultancy with Shopify, listen to Shopify, you know, take Robin's all day, get them on board. Um, I guess a couple of questions I want to ask you because again I work with retail all the time. I've been an E commerce manager and I deal with customers all the time. And as soon as you mentioned the word accessibility to a retailer generally or an E commerce manager, like what's that going to cost me? I guess so the question to you is obviously you've been through this process now, so you did a complete re platform. Um, but uh, how do you get an E commerce manager to convince say his powers that be that actually how do they get the secure budget not just for I guess a short term investment in terms. Okay, we need to go and make the website accessible on an ongoing basis. How. What's the sort of advice would you give around. Yeah, a secure initial budget, but then the ongoing budget like what we kind of Talked about obviously potential lost revenue before but like how do you, does it have to be a caustic exercise to convert your website? I guess it depends how bad it is in the first place, right?

Speaker C: Yeah, indeed. And I, I think if people are designing in from the start a, from a universal inclusive design perspective and designing those accessibility features in really it's not an additional cost. I would say that our replatform would have cost a similar amount whether we were designing it in the way that we designed it or whether we were just doing it. Um, not necessarily. I um, think it's about people shifting their mindset to think about how people can navigate their website in a, in a fully inclusive way and thinking about the elements that just are uh, not accessible and ensuring that alt text is on there. I mean that's doesn't cost anything to implement. That is just for me some of the basics that should be there on every website, um, that's live. But I don't think accessibility needs to cost significant amounts of money. I mean the ideal is that we're doing usability testing and people with that lived experience are engaged in that process and that every organization when they're going through a change includes as part of their testing phase and accessibility test phase. That is something that was pretty new to me prior to joining the rnib, I'm sad to say. Um, but everyone should be doing that and that's um, things that you can do in house with um, some of the tech that's out there now, particularly around some of the accessibility tools that are available online or through the um, Apple Android accessibility features.

Speaker A: It's interesting about the test process because we often get um, asked about performance of our website. So whenever we like to put a new feature live or we put some live, we have to test it. Is this going to have an impact on performance? I guess this is just an extra. Like when we're, by designing or building something we're testing, does it pass the accessibility? I guess it's just an extra part of the process right. In terms of the deployment or the user testing like you said. So it's just another thing to think about. But again it doesn't have to cost anything, it's just an extra check or you know, and again ideally prevent it in the first place by actually thinking about it properly when you're actually doing the design. So. Okay, that makes sense. Um, I guess related to that then. So the final question around kind of like I guess key takeaways around um, advice you've got for sort of Business leaders listening to this, ecommerce managers about how we try and convince them to invest in this area. We kind of talk quite a bit today, but how, how to go about it, where should they start? What's kind of like, you know, we said it's over, too late to start. But what would you say is the key, you know, the key things that somebody were getting on with to go and go down this path?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean there's 2 million people out there that are potentially an untapped, um, opportunity in terms of revenue for um, you as an organization. We've touched on it a number of times, but it's designing for all and universal design. And if you design for all, you design in a way that not only gives a beneficial experience for a blind and partially sighted person, but potentially also a sighted individual as well. It's. We need to move away from thinking about designing for individual user groups and actually designing for a, um, whole world of people with a whole variety of um, different ways that they would be interacting with your content. Consider that user testing. If you have the opportunity to tap into um, people with blind and or partially sighted, then do that. But if you don't, then some of the, um, tips that we shared earlier in terms of navigating your website using a keyboard and can you access all the content? Can you add something to your bag? Can you um, pay for an item by just tabbing through your site? Um, but also if you want to learn more or you want Robin's team to come in and do a review, do reach out to us.

Speaker A: Brilliant. I was going to ask you that. I was going to call that the closing statement. If you need some help with some great tips and ideas today. But you really. I didn't even realize you guys did consultancy, so that's brilliant. Reach out to say, Robin and kat, both on LinkedIn. Um, you'll be able to get into after this podcast, but thank you so much. I think that was a really cool place to finish. Um, it's great. I think this is a topic that definitely needs more airtime. I know we're doing this now because of legislation, but again, we should have done this a long time ago, but I think hopefully this is a start and gets this kind of discussion out there and hopefully we'll start to see some improvements again. As much as I hate AI, I'm excited about the benefits it can have for accessibility specifically. But yeah, if you do learn more, um, please go online rnib.org uk and also go and check out the shop as well, is it shop.rnib.com you can find the link anyway? Yes. Go and have a look at it and see what you can actually achieve in a generally great, accessible website. So, okay, do you want to ask, I guess, final couple questions, uh, for Robin. Um, you kind of touched about AI before. Um, and I always ask my guests on the podcast to kind of look into the imagine the future of, um, what things are going to look like from a commerce perspective. So I'm kind of keen to hear your thoughts a bit around, um, how ACAI may be putting more of a role in sort of website accessibility or digital accessibility. We talked about transcribing a video, so that's a perfect guess use case of where that can happen. Uh, so how do you see maybe the future of online accessibility or digital accessibility changing over the coming years? How do you think, how do you see it's going, uh, to evolve?

Speaker B: Well, I'd like to think that AI can actually offer us some help. It can, you know, for example, being able to use AI, uh, just, you know, I'd love to be able to ask my smart glasses to book me a return ticket from, you know, Edinburgh to Manchester, um, leaving after whichever time and returning by whichever time, um, and within a certain price range. I'd like to just hand that off as a task because that's the kind of thing that will be genuinely helpful for everyone. So, you know, book me this, buy me that, find me this, go ahead and book it. Um, put the receipt in my receipts folder. We're nearly there. But actually being able to deliver that in a meaningful way, or also have a pro forma of how I would typically send out an agenda, be out for a walk or out on my paddle board or out for a run, and just communicate to my glasses, create this agenda. Often we have great thoughts when we're outside in the fresh air. I'd love to just throw those to an AI and then have IT communicate with the team on my behalf. We're edging really close to it, but I'd like to get to a point where that's the norm, that's the way of doing it, you know, Or I've got a proposal idea when I'm out running through a forest. I'm training for the London Marathon at the moment. Um, and I can just throw the proposal idea into a document by voice while I'm out running and then it'll just keep it, you know, at the moment I have to take a few more steps to be able to do that. That would Be great. Also from a navigational point of view, so many people struggle with getting around. I'd love to have much more multimodal map based information that not only tells you about, uh, physical features in the environment, but also sounds that you might hear around you or textures that you might become aware of. All of those things aid orientation and mobility. So there's a couple of examples and also things like menu interrogation. So going on a evening, uh, out or going out for lunch, I'd love to do a much more sophisticated interrogation of my options using AI and then countless other things from a workflow perspective. But you know what? Above all else, it's about enabling and enriching and developing, just enabling people to develop their capability. Being a constant companion that you can rely upon to deliver simple transactional things that might be, might be more complex if you were to do them yourself.

Speaker A: I love that I'm one of the biggest AI skeptics, but you've convinced me that AIs can be really, really good things. Yeah, you can come on again. This is brilliant. Thank you, Robin.

Speaker B: Skepticism's good though, isn't it? I mean, I am scared skeptical about it. I know I sound kind of hopelessly enthusiastic and I am super enthusiastic, but I do have those moments where I'm skeptical. I think it's just like healthy skepticism, isn't it? It's good, yeah.

Speaker A: I think you've got to remain a bit grounded, but yeah, doing the ideas. I love it. It's great. But thank you so much for coming on today, Kat. Thank you, Robin as well. It's been great to have you both on.

Speaker C: You're very welcome. Um, it's been great. Thank you.

Speaker B: Thanks so much. It's been an absolute blast. I've really enjoyed it and, uh, hopefully we can do it again sometime. Thank you so much for having us.

Speaker A: But that's it for now. Thank you for listening. Stay safe, take care and M, we'll catch you on the next one.