Marketing Website Accessibility in the Age of Assumptions
Offering website accessibility services has attracted enthusiastic interest from digital marketing and web design companies seeking new revenue streams.
Ground zero is overcoming accessibility assumptions, myths, biases, and even misguided marketing about what accessibility is and who it is for.
Which Leg Is First?
When you put on your shoes, which foot do you choose first? Is it your left foot, or right foot? Do you sit or stand on one leg and then switch legs? Do you wear shoes? Do you wear socks with sandals? (Had to ask.) Do you own shoes?
What happens for people who do not have feet?
How often do web designers, developers, and marketers think about what we do, and how we do it? Why do we do it? When do we do it?
What happens when we can’t do it?
The assumption is that everyone can use our websites. They’ll figure it out.
There Is Gold in ADA Lawsuits
There once was a time in America where people lived, hunted and went to war over buffalo and boundaries, or a show of machoism between tribes.
When the country was “discovered”, a new group of people arrived and grabbed the land on the authority of a “chief” from somewhere across the big ocean who had never been there but assumed Native Americans wouldn’t mind a few changes.
Did they know who the people were who inhabited the mountains?
Was anyone brainstorming at a meeting with a gigantic whiteboard exploring all the ways to invade, create, persuade, trade with, sell to, convert, and otherwise dump a new system of life on people who could not use any of it?
No silly. Whiteboards didn’t exist back then.
The insult was the assumption by the British that the land was for sale at all.
How do you sell something you do not understand?
How do we build websites for people we do not understand?
Why do we build websites to sell products and services that target only the people we assume will be able to use the website?
According to the World Health Organization, at least 15% of the world’s population suffer from a disability.
The 2019 Midyear Update on ADA Website and Mobile App Accessibility by UsableNet found that:
When you stop to consider how much of the company budget goes towards digital marketing strategies and hiring SEO professionals to wrestle with search engines that change their business models every month, wouldn’t it make sense to provide an accessible website that will convert more visitors when they arrive?
Offering website accessibility services sparked some marketers to explore if they could automate accessibility testing or provide accessibility insurance policies to prevent an ADA lawsuit.
It would be a real gold rush if making websites accessible was so easy. How about a software application that codes it for you? Remember Frontpage for web design?
Understanding Accessibility & Removing Assumptions
Selling accessibility services is complicated. It’s not just about the costs. The difficult part is overcoming assumptions about why accessibility is important to web businesses.
From my personal experiences, educating prospective clients on website accessibility takes time.
Inclusive web design has never been a favorite area for stakeholders.
Usability and conversions are. Mobile design is. Performance is hot.
But website accessibility is like entering a new country and ignoring how things are done there.
At first glance, it sure looks easy enough to set up accessibility testing or design services or provide products like accessible plug-ins, WordPress themes, and automated testing apps.
One example is to simply write up a marketing campaign about the surge of website accessibility ADA lawsuits and how business websites are easy prey.
Convince prospective clients that you can save them enormous legal fees by performing accessibility tests to find all the accessibility errors that fail WCAG2.1 Guidelines.
Run some automated tests, produce a report with findings and walk away with a check.
The most common mistake is marketing accessibility design and testing as a once and done process.
Small businesses say no to accessibility testing because they have limited financial resources. They may be less likely to have a designer who knows how to design for accessibility.
Perhaps they purchased an inexpensive ready-made website, love it to pieces, and truly have no idea whether certain people are unable to use it.
This target market is terrified of the stories about ADA lawsuits. More than once I am told that a lawsuit will put a small company out of business.
Making accessibility services affordable makes sense. It also requires tremendous patience and a willingness to help these smaller businesses with education and ongoing support at fees they can tolerate.
Larger companies with bigger budgets are more inclined to invest in accessibility testing to satisfy their curiosity or take the offensive approach to any potential ADA lawsuit.
They require staff trained to fix issues that appear in accessibility reviews or a willingness to outsource accessibility specialists.
At the corporate level, interest in setting up an accessibility department increased, creating permanent jobs and a desire to “bake in” accessibility from the start, into the development process itself.
A positive outcome of providing accessibility testing or design services depends on the expertise of the people doing the work. This includes project managers, salespeople, web designers, web developers, and accessibility specialists.
In situations where a company has been served with a letter of complaint, the next steps may require legal assistance and possibly the services of an expert witness, certified accessibility specialist or accessibility agency specializing in advanced accessibility services.
But first things first.
How well do you know how people use websites?
Do any of your assumptions or biases prevent inclusive web design?
Assumptions, Biases & More Fairy Dust
Way back in the early days of search engines Mike Grehan, CMO & Managing Director of Acronym, researched and wrote an in-depth, 350 pages book called “Search Engine Marketing, the Essential Best Practice Guide.” The book shattered myths about the profession and provided sound practices and guidelines.
Finally, someone had the courage to stand up and say that ranking in search engines required more than magical fairy dust.
There were concerns that search engines would wreck the art of true information seeking.
“Web Dragons: Inside the Myths of Search Engine Technology” by Ian H. Witten, Marco Gori, and Teresa Numerico, explored ideas about how the web would change communication forever and search engines might someday control information and how we see the world.
It was praised by major influencers employed by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.
While search engines looked for people to inform, educate, amuse and advertise to, web designers were experimenting with new ways to create pretty things to admire on the internet.
Web developers were inventing new programs to help build them.
Remember MIVA? ColdFusion? Hotdog? Frontpage?
Steve Krug saw the flaws in the work being produced. His book, “Don’t Make Me Think”, was written because websites were mazes for users just trying to get from point A to point B.
Peter Morville, author of “Information Architecture: For the Web and Beyond,” arrived at early conclusions about how web information is organized and made information architecture a vital piece of knowledge every web designer and SEO needed to learn. Suddenly we were classifying, prioritizing, and designing rules for how to find stuff.
Next came all the behavior studies and mountains of data gathered about how we make decisions, search, purchase and develop loyalty to brands.
With each area of exploration came software developed to automate the process. This included eye tracking, keywords, links, competitor analysis, webmaster tools, and Google Analytics.
But something has been missing.
Did we assume the web included everyone?
Do web site owners bring their own personal biases to their websites?
Even with Section 508 and WCAG and accessibility laws for public-facing businesses in each country, online businesses are not designed for everyone to use them.
Automating website accessibility may grant a peek at 25% of errors.
Touchy-Feely Matters to People
A business owner once said to me, “I don’t care about that touchy-feely stuff you do.”
He wanted to sell his products online but had no interest in meeting the needs of customers who could use his website.
People who use websites reward companies that build websites they can use.
This is just how it is.
And yet, there are countless websites that people struggle with.
The rise in website accessibility lawsuits occurred because some people were turned away when they needed assistance to do something on a business website that matters to them.
Some examples include wanting to download a coupon from a store website, order pizza, purchase products, book reservations, and access online art galleries.
Whether we are seeking information, looking for social engagement, researching, educating ourselves, looking for entertainment, or browsing for something new, everyone wants to be included as a valued user.
The bigger surprise is how we neglected to design websites that valued online business customers with the same consideration that is often legally required for places of business offline.
Our web design practices lack empathy for disabled persons or anyone with a permanent or temporary impairment.
Removing Assumptions From Web Design
“Let them call us if they can’t read it,” I was told by a company that refused to make their documents accessible.
Forcing a blind person to call for help to get a document because the web version does not work on their screen reader is discrimination. Not providing accessible content is against WCAG2.1 or Section 508 recommendations.
So, back to the gold rush of opportunity for companies wanting to add accessibility services. Do you know how to make documents accessible?
Before you jump in, it is vital to understand accessibility so that you can accurately explain why it is important for today’s business websites.
The most prevalent assumption is that accessibility is for blind people. This is probably due to the bulk of ADA lawsuits coming from blind persons using screen readers. They are taking advantage of the rapid advances in assistive computer devices that aid persons with disabilities.
Assistive computer devices, software applications for reading, and mobile device accessibility settings help all people with sight impairments.
If you know someone who is colorblind, they are not seeing the same colors as you are.
If you know someone who uses corrective eyewear, they may rely on screen magnification or audible reading tools. They also struggle with contrasts and lighting, whether indoors or outside.
Should you add an accessibility plugin that allows people to adjust webpages so that they can use them?
Or do you build in accessibility and provide code in the background that responds to browser or mobile device commands to change font sizes, magnify or switch to dark mode?
Providing accessibility services requires vast knowledge about how to design for inclusion, test for inclusion and educate for inclusion. There are no shortcuts.
It is part of your role as an accessibility advocate or specialist to educate your clients on how to provide a website property that can be used regardless of a physical, mental, or emotional impairment that may be permanent or temporary.
If you wish to provide accessibility testing as a service, you will need to know the different types of disabilities that are covered and what design practices are recommended.
By law in most countries, businesses must be accessible to customers. Even though a business may not have a physical building, for ethical and moral reasons, the same consideration applies.
Yes, the ADA Title III wording in the USA does not include “websites”. This has not prevented ADA lawsuits from website users trying to conduct tasks on business websites.
Automated accessibility testing tools do not find all the issues, but they are a nice exploratory lift. Accessibility testing is a combination of manual and automated methodologies. User testing with persons with disabilities helps developers understand what is not working or where improvements are needed.
Screen reader testing is done manually. The process is long because screen readers are unique to browsers, operating systems, computer devices – not to mention user habits.
Remember when I asked what foot you choose to put your shoe on first? This is something unique to you.
People who use screen readers also use them differently. For example, they may sort content by heading tags to find what they want faster or to help understand the content topic of the page.
Challenges & Protections
Adding an accessibility statement to a website is a service that some companies offer. These are policies intended to protect the website owner by being forthcoming with information about the accessibility compliance of the website.
If they did not test a form, or do not plan on making their PDFs accessible, this is information that should be included in the accessibility statement.
The statement describes:
Some companies provide an accessibility statement for a fee as part of their accessibility services. The theory is that it helps prevent any legal action when there is proof the company is making an effort towards accessibility compliance.
The challenge here is that the moment anything new is added to the website, such as an image, new form, design layout change, or blog post, if it is not coded to be accessible, the accessibility statement is voided.
The same is true for software applications and forms on websites, WordPress theme updates and third-party plugins. Regression testing is required to verify that changes meet the accessibility standards claimed in the accessibility statement.
Another area of growing concern is protecting designers, developers and companies hired to build or maintain websites built to pass accessibility standards.
What protects you from clients who refuse to maintain the finished product?
What if you provide advice on a practice necessary to meet WCAG or Section 508 requirements and it is not implemented by the client, and they receive an ADA website accessibility lawsuit?
Another example might be choosing an accessible theme for WordPress and modifying the accessibility out of it either by accident or on purpose. The theme designer is not responsible for any changes to their compliant code.
Some companies must outsource third-party software that is not accessible, even though the rest of their website is.
There are circumstances where the developers of the third-party software are unable to update their software to meet accessibility compliance.
More and more contracts and accessibility statements are addressing these situations, but a vast majority of business websites are unaware and therefore potentially vulnerable.
The Accessibility Rabbit Hole
If you should decide to expand your knowledge about website accessibility, the good news is that most of the information is free to learn.
The bad news is that it may take years to educate yourself.
I am not afraid to admit that even though I have been conducting usability and conversions testing for nearly 20 years and included basic accessibility practices all along, when I went to apply for accessibility employment at the corporate level and was met with disdain by interviewers, it was a real shock.
In fact, I needed time to want to be part of the accessibility industry after meeting some of their leadership.
In trying to understand what was happening, I learned how deep the accessibility rabbit hole really is. It is not something to jump into lightly.
For digital marketers with a passion for conversions, the opportunities presented by website accessibility practices are wide open for you and your clients just by removing biases and assumptions about how people use websites.
There are people who have been building accessible websites and software for a long time. Search for accessibility podcasts to meet some of them.
LinkedIn, Twitter and Medium are additional outlets for accessibility advocates and leaders open to educating and guiding anyone interested in where to start.
Resources Referenced or Used in Research for This Article Books on Amazon
More Resources:
Overcoming the Fear of Advisors
As a financial advisor, money, undeniably, is your world. But in the broader culture, talking about money from a personal perspective remains a big taboo.
People feel shame about money: if they don’t have much, they’re afraid they’ll be judged a loser. If they have a lot, they fear others will try to take financial advantage of them.
Most parents would rather talk to their kids about sex than about money. Sigmund Freud proclaimed that, concerning the psyche, the strongest symbolic connection is between gold and feces — in other words, money is “dirty.”
What’s the No.1 stressor in the lives of three out of four U.S. adults? Money. That’s what annual American Psychological Association surveys find year after year.
To be sure, money is a deeply emotionally charged subject. Is it any wonder, then, that most people suffer from fear and anxiety about talking to a financial advisor?
Indeed, 71% of Americans find some aspect of speaking with an FA to be scary, according to a survey last year of more than 2,000 adults by Harris Poll on behalf of McAdam, an independent financial planning firm. The top concern — 49% of respondents — was that talking to an FA would “end up costing me a lot of money.”
Other worries: nearly half the respondents said they were chary of trusting an advisor with their personal information. And 41% were afraid that an FA would be unable to help them with their finances.
With financial advisor-phobia a hard fact of life, the ways in which FAs deal with this challenge can make the difference between acquiring and retaining clients or losing them to competitors who do a better job of allaying folks’ fears.
Natural Anxiety
“Money is a big issue in our culture — but we get so many messages that we shouldn’t talk about money that when we go into a financial planner’s office, it’s just natural to feel anxious about having that conversation,” says Brad Klontz, a financial psychologist and associate professor at Creighton University, as well as managing principal of Occidental Asset Management, near San Francisco.
One in four people feel “moderate” to “severe” anxiety about engaging with a financial advisor, 2014 research conducted by the National Seniors Productive Ageing Centre, in Melbourne, Australia, found. Here in the U.S., incidence rates likely would be similar, the study’s co-author Douglas Hershey, psychology professor and director of the Retirement Planning Research Laboratory at Oklahoma State University, reportedly said.
Certainly, paralyzing fear about talking with an FA can ultimately mean big investment blunders.
“Advisors have to help prospects and clients put aside their fears,” says Dave Lee, director of practice intelligence, Raymond James Financial, headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Often, a prospect preparing to meet with an advisor for the first time agonizes: “‘Is this guy going to convince me to part with my money?’” says Alden Cass, a New York City-based psychologist. His practice is 50% financial advisors.
“People are still experiencing an exaggerated startle response to 2008 — similar to a symptom of post-traumatic stress — which is making them hesitant to part with money. And that’s the key problem,” says Cass, who is author, with Brian F. Shaw and Sydney LeBlanc, of “Bullish Thinking: The Advisor’s Guide to Surviving and Thriving on Wall Street” (Wiley 2008).
Wirehouse and other big-firm FAs may need to work harder to relieve client fears than advisors in the independent space. To begin with, people associate the large financial institutions with bureaucracy, a plethora of high fees — the “price” they pay for that brand name — and plenty of cross-selling; e.g., mortgages and credit cards. Even a big, fancy office can trigger anxiety in prospects, who fret that the major firm may charge more than they can afford.
But no matter the channel in which advisors work, there are several other issues that provoke client fear, including: the FA’s manner, “broker-speak,” fear of getting bad news, pushy sales tactics, feeling intimidated by the advisor’s expertise compared to their own financial ignorance, and distrust of the industry as a whole — an impression exacerbated by the global meltdown.
“When someone meets with an advisor who’s trying to sell them something and is talking at them, they go underground. That [approach] is more prevalent at the wirehouses and large firms because advisors are trained to sell people and win them over,” says Courtney Pullen, president of Pullen Consulting Group, in Denver. His clients are financial services firms and affluent families.
Even the physical environment of a client meeting can stir up angst. When the FA’s office is decked out like a living room, with sofa and chair, people are less nervous than when advisor and client talk with a big, imposing desk separating them, studies show.
Ticker symbols racing across a Bloomberg terminal and financial news blaring raise anxiety levels too.
Older clients carry greater financial fear, especially those who have gone through the Great Depression. Millennials, wary and untrusting, aren’t readily open to working with advisors, which is another sort of angst. They first need to feel that the FA understands where they’re coming from.
Coping Mechanisms
To assuage the fear factor, it is essential — not surprisingly — to develop a relationship with the client. But proceed slowly, starting with the discovery process.
Asking prospects to share their “deep, dark secrets and sins about money” right away isn’t the ideal approach, writes Michael Kitces on his blog, Nerd’s Eye View (www.kitces.com). “It’s important to recognize the sheer level of discomfort or even outright embarrassment that a prospective client could feel.” Thus, it’s a good idea not to make them “get (financially) naked on the first date,” advises Kitces, a partner with Pinnacle Advisory Group, in Columbia, Maryland.
If a prospect is seeking a new FA, begin with these two questions, suggests Charles Nemes, senior vice president-investments, Nemes Rush Private Wealth Management of Raymond James, in Novi, Michigan. First: “What did your previous advisor do that gave you comfort and peace?” Second: “If you could change or enhance anything about that experience, what would it be?”
People immediately open up and “begin to describe their perfect client experience —which [you] should implement right away,” Nemes advises.
Surely, current market volatility has created client anxiety. Increasing the number of touches to existing accounts is therefore paramount.
Nonetheless, “wirehouse advisors feel complacent — because of managed products — and think they must only get new assets and clients because that’s what firms are pressuring them to do,” Cass says. “They feel they don’t have to communicate with the clients they already have. But advisors need to let them know they’re there for them and watching their money. They should make sure clients feel validated, heard and listened to.”
That’s why Raymond James is encouraging stepped-up advisor-client communication by providing FAs with a guidebook and webinars on how to help clients feel more comfortable in this highly unpredictable market.
“The recipe right now for minimizing fear is to stay visible and keep clients connected to their financial plans and focused on long-term goals,” says Lee.
Large-firm advisors can help prospects feel less nervous by emphasizing their firms’ stability and longevity.
“Even though we’re a local presence in a very small town, many of our best clients take comfort in knowing there’s a strong institution behind us with resources that we wouldn’t otherwise have if we weren’t part of the firm,” says Vaughan Scott, managing director and investment officer, Axiom Financial Strategies Group of Wells Fargo Advisors, in New Albany, Indiana.
Indeed, despite the financial crisis, “the wirehouse ‘brand’ still carries lots of weight,” according to John Bowen, founder-CEO of CEG Worldwide, a coaching firm for top advisors, based in San Martin, California. “Some people have more confidence in [wirehouses] because they presume they have the wherewithal to be there for the long haul.”
Yet the reality, too, is that “the industry has a bad name. It’s not one that people trust. This makes it even more incumbent on the advisor to listen to the client and establish a relationship,” says Pullen, author of “Intentional Wealth: How Families Build Legacies of Stewardship and Financial Health” (CreateSpace 2015).
To start earning trust, don’t try to gather all the client’s assets at once, Cass advises. Do a small test run to show them your value. “Let them know you want to prove their money is safe with you and that you can make them more. Explain your investment strategy. Make them feel they could be part of the market rebuilding process, rather than being on the freight train down.”
Transparency about fees and your own compensation can go far to lessen client anxiety. Above all, folks need to perceive that fees are equitable, Bowen stresses.
Show prospects a sample financial plan to ease them into the planning process. Many may be unfamiliar with it or are simply intimidated by numbers. Explain why it’s important for them to disclose a great deal of information.
Bring relief to money-embarrassed prospects by applying the psychological technique of “normalizing.”
“You can say, ‘Most of my clients have made bad decisions at some point in their lives. That’s OK’,” Klontz explains. “Everyone is so secretive about money they don’t know that others have the same financial experiences they’ve gone through.”
Listen to learn, advises Pullen. “Move from being the expert to being much more curious.”
For emotional support and a calming effect, propose that prospects bring along their spouse or another person they trust — someone who, perhaps, knows more than they about the financial services industry.
Wrong Steps
Now, a few big don’ts.
Don’t make the prospect or client feel they’re being judged for lack of financial expertise or their money mistakes. Don’t throw around industry jargon.
“Nobody wants to hear about alpha or standard deviation. They want to know, ‘Do you understand my problem, and do you think this conversation will be about how you’re going to help me meet my long-term goals?’” Lee says.
Don’t come on with a forceful sales pitch, especially when introducing yourself.
“It’s not ‘Let me sell you on me and my firm.’ What advisors need to say is, ‘Tell me about you — your aspirations, your financial goals,” Pullen notes.
Don’t ask a prospect to bring a stack of documents to the initial meeting. “Let them just come in and feel they are [being] heard. After that first good experience, do a deeper dive as you establish the relationship,” Klontz says.
Do you, as a financial advisor, have awareness that talking with an FA is scary for most people? If not, now’s the time to smell the coffee.
“I believe there’s a significant contingent of [FAs] who recognize the challenge we have [to lessen client fears]. Those who address this appropriately can make themselves and their practices more approachable,” Scott says. “This is different from decades ago when the focus was [only] on creating the maximum rate of return. Today, it’s much more about being able to engage thoughtfully with clients and for them to know you always have their best interest at heart.”
Continue Reading This Article
share on facebook share on twitter
Jane Wollman Rusoff
Jane Wollman Rusoff is a ThinkAdvisor Contributing Editor specializing in interviews with thought leaders. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today and Esquire, among numerous other publications. Author/co-author of five books, Jane was a staff editor at London Express Features and Billboard’s Merchandising Magazine. She is the founder of www.FamilyStarProductions.com.
More from this author
Recommended Stories
Copyright © 2020 ALM Media Properties, LLC. All Rights Reserved.5 Facts About Phobias
Some fears are common, like fear of snakes, fear of heights and fear of flying. But some people have weird phobias, like the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth (also known as arachibutyrophobia). Fear, what a phobia is based on, isn’t necessarily a bad thing – it serves as a built-in defense mechanism that prevents dangerous situations. But when a fear becomes so extreme that it paralyzes you, it isn’t so productive. So what is it that you fear? What are your phobias? Plus: Find out if you’re a hypochondriac…
1. What is a phobia?
A phobia is described as a persistent, unreasonable fear of a specific thing or situation, where someone feels an intense need to avoid or flee from the fear. The threat of the phobia you feel is much greater than the actual threat it poses. Often phobic people are able to realize that their fears are unreasonable. But unreasonable or not, the phobic can experience physical reactions such as stress, anxiety, blushing, trembling, sweating, vomiting and trouble breathing.
2. How does a phobia develop?
The definition of a phobia says that it’s an unreasonable or irrational fear, so what causes such an intense reaction and desire to flee? Common phobias can be a learned behavior, such as listening to your parents swear they’ll never fly because of all the reasons it’s unsafe, or they can stem from a traumatic event. Phobias can also develop due to the signs of the times. Your grandmother may be a cyberphobe, a person afraid of computers, because she wasn’t a part of the high-tech generation and computers may seem too complicated and overwhelming.
Comments
Post a Comment