 The big seven lies about web accessibility and what the real truth is Okay guys if you've got a website You're gonna want to watch this video because if your website isn't accessible to certain groups of the population You are missing out now. You may think it's gonna cost you a lot of money or it's gonna be really complicated There's a bunch of laws you got to deal with it is gonna be so easy by the time you finish this video I'm gonna show you exactly what you need to do and when you do these things not only will your website be more accessible You're gonna make more money more people are gonna be able to go to your site and you're gonna be better off I want to thank you for watching this video first off Don't forget to subscribe get that big subscribe button down there turn it from red to gray Don't forget to ring the bell turn on all bell notifications So you're notified each and every time I go live or I upload a video now What is website accessibility first off? Let's define that website Accessibility has to do with making your site available to a larger audience Now wouldn't you want to do that and that larger audience could be people with a vision impairment an audio impairment a learning Disability an age disability so we want to make sure everybody has access to your website now The best way to do that is to utilize Assistive technology okay assistive technology and what that basically is is it's a reader and it allows these screen readers to Actually read your site for the individual okay, and we're gonna get into more detail about that in just a second But I also want to go over some of the myths and some of the I guess half truths about Accessibility that we hear all the time and we accepted but they're just not right now We know like in physical buildings in the US you have to have Accessibility for people who have disabilities in other words a ramp going into a restaurant or a store so that everybody has Access to your business without any barriers and wouldn't you want to do that? I mean you don't want to put up barriers to people who actually want to access your website and maybe give you some money So the same standards need to apply to the internet that it does to a physical building More and more people are doing things online. They're paying bills. They're buying products, you know They're ordering groceries wouldn't you want them to be able to use your site and the answer is obviously yes Now the one statistic that's thrown around all the time is that 15% of the population have some sort of Disability while there is at least 15% it's a much greater number than that It's a much greater number because a lot of these disabilities can't be seen with the human eye If somebody has a hearing impediment and they walk down the sidewalk There's no way you're going to know that but they wouldn't have access to your site if you have some audio files on there So we want to make sure that everybody has Availability to get on your site and to interact with your business the real number is more like about 26% of the population and you think about that 26% of the population Why would you want to shut those people out from visiting your website and utilizing what you have now the second myth I hear a lot is that a website Accessibility is a very costly and complicated thing to do and it's just not okay It's actually very easy and a lot of these things can be automated a lot of the errors on your sites a lot of problems on your sites You can sign up with an accessibility company and all of those can be corrected almost immediately Now that leads us into myth number four that automated Technology can fix all the problems on your site and that's not really true either It's more of a hybrid combination of some of these automated tools and physical things that you can do to make your site more Accessible some people when polled thought accessibility meant having a toolbar of the different categories and that's just not Accessibility the fourth myth out there is that Digital accessibility has to do with people who have vision problems now while that is part of it That's a very small part of it Actually, there are more people with mobility problems Maybe they can't move their hands and arms and they need a different way to navigate your site Possibly it's an age related thing the font on your site is way too small and it needs to be a lot larger So they can see those things it could be an audio type thing where they can't hear some of your videos or your audio files on There so Accessibility is a very wide range of things that we need to look at and we need to fix and I hear people say Well if I do all that it's going to mess up the design of my site it most certainly well Not it's not going to hurt the design of your site at all It just makes it available to more people once again Don't you want that the next myth? I hear number five is that digital? Accessibility has to do with websites in the United States now while the United States do have rules and laws That make you make your site accessible to people with disabilities It's increasing all around the world and countries all around the world and if you think about this You are probably selling or trying to reach people around the world and even if you're not Let's say you're just located in the United States because I'm in the United States So I talk about that a little bit more But let's say you are just in the United States or maybe you're in a foreign country that markets the United States There are laws and there are rules that you have to abide by so you could Actually get in trouble if you don't do these things myth number six is that Accessibility only has to do with brick and mortar businesses. That is not true It also applies to websites according to title three of the ADA Americans with disabilities acts Everybody has to have the right to access places of public Accommodation and yes, that does apply to websites So if you don't fix some of these things and you don't do some of these things You could be up for a costly legal battle that you don't want to fight It has been fought and one in court that websites do fall under this public Accommodation situation of title three so you need to get on this and you need to get on it fast And we're down to our last myth now and myth number seven is This particular law title three of the ADA does not apply to companies with less than 15 employees That's not true. It makes no exception for small businesses So if you if it's just you operating out of your living room You are as liable as a company with thousands of employees And it's been proven in court that they can win a case against you So it's so very important that you do something about it So what can you do about it? You can use a service and there's a lot of services out there I like equal web. I'll put that on the screen down here equal web You could you can go there and they can help you out with your compliance But there's also some steps that you can actually take to okay So let me go ahead and throw some of those things up on the screen And you can stop the video at this point and jot those things down or come back to this later on But these are just some of the things that you could do on your own to make sure you are more Accessible to a larger portion of the population first off Choose a content management system that supports Accessibility don't use you know a website builder that doesn't Number two use headings correctly to organize the structure of your content number three include Proper alt text for images and that's basically just a description of what those images are number four Give your links unique and descriptive names That's very very important as opposed to let's letting your website generate them number five Use color with care not too much of this because this can be very disruptive Or it can cause people to lose interest number six design your forms for accessibility Make it easy to fill out your forms number seven use tables for tabular data not for layout Number eight ensure that all Content can be accessed with the keyboard alone in a logical way So make sure that's available number nine use aria rolls and landmarks But only when necessary and number ten make dynamic content Accessible okay, so you've got a list of things you can do you have a company you can go to and you can Certainly Google and find a whole lot more companies that you know help you with accessibility But the bottom line is guys. This is beneficial not to all those people out there But also to you as a business owner Understand doing the right thing sometimes is not always easy But it's still the right thing and you want to do the right thing you want to make sure people have Accessibility I mean how would you feel if there were certain businesses that shut you out because you had some disability? I mean if you put yourself sometimes in somebody else's shoes it helps you see this in an entirely different light I've done that probably more so in the past few years of my life and I ever have before because I had some Dangerous things happen in my life and it made me really think about things around me It made me really think about other people and some of the stuff. They're going through I used to get really upset when people cut me off in traffic And then one day I was cutting somebody off in traffic because I was going to an emergency And they got mad at me and they blew their horn and they were really irate and cuss me out and all this And I was thinking to myself. They don't know what's going on in my life They don't understand what the problems I'm having right now They don't understand how I have to get somewhere really fast So that made me think about anybody that cut me off anymore Maybe think about you know, what are some of the reasons that they would cut me off in traffic? You know, maybe they are a bad driver. Maybe they just can't help it, right? Maybe they have an emergency. Maybe they just lost a friend or a relative or they've got fired from their job The point is when somebody does something like that, we always assume they're just trying to do something to us and we get angry So I turned over a new leaf in life and if somebody cuts me off I assume that they got something going on. There's something bad's happening or they're just a bad driver And it doesn't get me mad anymore if anybody wants to get in front of me now I just let them get in front of me because what's it gonna matter if a you know a 15 foot car or 12 foot car? I don't know how long a car is but anyhow if a car gets in front of me and They are you know 10 or 12 feet in front of me and they take up some room That's not going to slow me down getting where I want to go That's not going to hurt me in the least so why get angry about it guys So also we're going to go back to this website thing I want you to think of it the same way think of all of the different disabilities Maybe somebody can't move their arms or legs or can't hear or can't see or have as cognitive problems Wouldn't it be cool to help those people out? Okay, and you have the added benefit of getting more business and having more people access your site I want to thank you so much for watching this video if you are somebody who has some limitations with disability Put your comments below. I really do want to hear about it I think it'll help a lot of people if they can see and hear you as a real person also If you've had experience with accessibility on sites, let me know about it. If you have any questions Ask your questions below. I love getting your questions. I love answering them I want to thank you so much for watching this video. Don't forget to subscribe. Don't forget Bring the bell turn on all bell notifications so you're notified each and every time I go live I want to thank you so much for watching the video once again, and I'll see you in the next video