 All right. So before we start, let's see, what was your experience with accessibility so far? Anyone? Do we have developers, designers, content writers? Okay. So, yeah, there are so many people taking care about accessibility and even more definitions related to accessibility. But today, I'm not going to share any of them. You can't Google that. Dear friends, today, I want to talk about something much more important than pure terms. You know, here, as I told you, and as you know, there are so many developers and designers. And you have a strong power. To make and impact thousands and thousands of lives of people with disabilities. To help them buy things, work, travel, and overall lead more prosperous life. Truth be told, not so many developers and people think like that. And it's not because you are bad persons. No, not at all. It's because of the lack of education. Causing lack of responsibilities. And now, here is my personal definition of accessibility. So accessible website is a website that allows all people to use all of its features without any support except assistive technology devices that they use in everyday life and solve solutions such as magnifiers and speech programs. Of course, there are so many disabilities out there. And accessibility can be done across different types of disabilities. But today, we're going to focus exclusively on accessibility for screen reader users. In most cases, they are blind or visually impaired. Although they are not the only users. So screen readers are used by people with different types of disabilities such as people with dyslexia. Now, let's see what is the screen reader and how does it work? So the screen reader is actually a speech software. It converts text into speech. Now, many people don't know this, but screen readers are very powerful, very sophisticated programs. And they have a long history of development. They have been developing for more than 30 years. So they follow the development of contemporary PC machines. Screen reader users can use normal machines with Windows, iOS, Android. However, on top of all programs that we usually use and that you all know about, they have installed those speech programs, those speech software. Although it's so powerful and sophisticated, it's not, well, it can't do anything. And it has some limits. And this is why we need you, developers, who can help us make the world wide web more accessible. Here are at least three reasons for which accessibility standards should be met. So the first one is obviously CSEO. Google loves accessible web. And if the website is accessible, the ranking will be higher. Number two, returning customers. When people with disabilities understand that the website they want to buy from is great and want to use, they will always come back. And number three, brand reputation. You can stand out from competitors if you are sure that you are accessible. There are various ways to check accessibility. Some of them are useful. Some of them are much more useful. And one thing that you should remember is that you should never assume that something is accessible just because you think that it's accessible, especially if you have never had experience with that. Also, just because something works with the keyboard does not mean that it will be accessible to screen reader users. Andrea will cover this shortly. But what I can say is that you should always reach out to users and ask them if they are willing to test the website for you, do a quick report and show you if the website is accessible or not. Tell you what are some errors they detected and what you should fix. Okay. But how the accessibility or inaccessibility affects daily life of the blind? Well, you know, I wanted to open a bank account. And I completed all of the information that they required. First name, last name, whatever, date of birth. And then they said, okay, you can click here. We will send you the SMS code. Type here to verify, get. And then the last step that said, please agree with our terms and conditions, click submit, and your account will be created. The problem was the check box that I was expected to check that says yes, except it was not accessible. And I couldn't check it. And I could not proceed with my account creation. And guess what I did? Well, I closed the website and I changed the bank. So they lost my money. What a silly. Now, the most popular website for job seekers in Serbia was not accessible. A few years ago, four or five years ago, I was looking for a job. And although all fields that were required were labeled correctly, I could not upload my CV there. And so I called them and said, hello, this is Lazar. So I'm trying to apply for XYZ position. But the problem is your platform is not accessible, so I cannot put my CV. And that said, oh, there's a story to hear about it. Let us reproduce it and we'll call you back. Shortly, they called me back and said, you're sorry for waiting. Yes, you are right. Unfortunately, we could reproduce your issue. And our platform is not accessible. And I said, okay, so what should I do now? And the guy said, look, until we fix it, which requires strong budget and time, I suggest you send me your application via email and I will upload this for you. Okay. Just a few months ago, my friend who is my chance, well, nothing is my chance, but was totally blind called me up and said, hey, Lazar, you know what? I want to try to find a job and do you know if that platform is accessible? Well, I'm not sure. I mean, I found a job in the meantime and a lot of things happened. But as far as I know, they were not, they are expected to fix it, but we check. So I checked and guess what? It didn't work again. So I called them up and said, basically the same thing. And the guy said, look, yes, we totally understand you. But the problem was that we had COVID and this is why we had to restructure our budget. So unfortunately, we were not able to fix it yet. And then I said, look, if you do not fix it shortly, as soon as possible, I will publish this on LinkedIn. And I'll say that the most popular platform for job seekers is not available to people who lack jobs, who are actually, so to speak, disadvantaged group when it comes to finding a job. And in two days, that was Friday, I checked the platform on Monday and that worked correctly. So changes are possible. But we need pressure. We need to put pressure. Now, I would just kindly ask my assistants to show the video that I prepared for you. You will be able to see what the inaccessible website looks like and what are some issues that blind people or screen users can have if the website does not work as expected. All right. So now I will show you two inaccessible websites. When I say inaccessible, I mean an available for blind people and screen reader users. You will be able to experience what it looks like when you're blind and you want to get something, get the information or book something, buy something from the website, which is not accessible. Let's start with eDreams. For people who don't know, eDreams is the agency that allows you to book flights. So now I have this website up and running. Let me maximize the window so you can see it properly. System menu, your travel agent. I will now press eKey. Where from? Where from? I'll press enter. And let's say I want to fly from Belgrade. Okay. I will now press tab key. Where to? Let's go to Athens. Okay. I will now press escape key to leave this edit field. Okay. I can choose the airport. Okay. So I think I was able to choose the airport. But now I have to choose my departure date. I'll press enter here. But I already know that this won't be accessible because this is the red only field. And when you encounter this on a calendar, it's very difficult to do anything. Okay. So now I opened this field and now I'm going with my down arrow key. So below the picker, then to the left, I press my left arrow key, then I'll press my right arrow key up. And it doesn't say a bird. So it is not possible to pick the departure date. Let's go. Let's see if I can choose the date, the return date. Continue button. Return at red only. Your travel date. Return again. So I can't choose my return flight. Okay. So the date picker is not accessible and people with disabilities, particularly blind people are simply not able to book the flight throughout this agency. What a pity. Now let's go to the other website. It is Desco supermarket. It is the, as far as I know, one of the biggest supermarket chains in the UK. So now I'm on the website. I'll press system menu. I'll space X to maximize the window. And then I will go down the page. Let's skip the main content. Community food connection scheme. You're working with fair share to save and donate surplus food from our stores. Find out more community food connection scheme. You're working with fair share to save and donate surplus food from our stores. Find out more community food connection scheme. Find out more viewing free of free items. Community skip the footer. What's for lunch? You see, this is the slider that is constantly appearing. So now the slider is here and it constantly speaks, which simply does not allow me to control my behavior on the website. Let me turn my screen here again. Okay, so I think you got the idea of what it looks when the website is not accessible. All right. Now the question for you all is, will you now start considering accessibility solutions and taking care about accessibility when you create websites? I hope yes. Head over to my friend, Andrea. Afterwards, we'll be available to all of your questions. Hello, guys. My name is Andrea and I'm a web developer. I just provided you the answer to the question, how? And I am here to provide you with the answer to the question, why? Why we overlook website accessibility? First of all, I would like to ask the audience how many of you are web developers, web designers, web site builders? Could you please raise your hand? Ask. And now how many of you are doing accessibility testing using a screen reader? Please raise your hand. I'll ask people. We are here to change that. So let us answer the question, why we overlook website accessibility? There are many reasons. And they depend on a specific situation. But I would group them in four categories. You have budget and timeframe, then generalized approach to website design, then the fact that website accessibility is a brand new area to explore, and finally reliance on accessibility test tools. We are going to see in a bit why is that wrong. Let's talk first about budget and timeframe. In many cases, accessibility is never mentioned in the project, because you think about how many pages these websites have, how many products. Let's define the content that goes in. Let's define the timeframe in which it will be delivered. Let's make sure it complies with GDPR, etc., etc. And what we forget? We forget to mention accessibility. Sometimes clients think, hey, accessibility is included, right? And that's where the problems start when accessibility also was enforced. And then customers can get fined for having an inaccessible website, and then they can see the developer. Anyways, that's only one of the issues. The another issue that creates an inaccessible website is that time count can very often result in cutting corners. Basically, I'm not going to test the specific feature of the website correctly, because I'm on a deadline and I need to finish the project. That's obviously going to lead to accessibility issues. It can also be compromised by specific issues of a customer. And in those cases, it's most likely, hey, I want a slider which has this animation. It looks cool on this website. I want it on my website. Then we have to develop it from scratch. And in that very moment, we forget to include accessibility. Also, unfortunately, even the basic user testing often gets skipped. Now, let's talk about generalized approach to website design. When I mean generalized approach to website design, I mean that when we start building a website, we start building it for a majority of users. And then we start developing the bits for a minority of users, which can obviously lead to issues. And the specific user groups are not included, resulting in accessibility issues. I also had experience with many of my customers that did not really understand website accessibility. And they were confusing it with, for instance, responsive design. For instance, they said, hey, my website is accessible. I can access it on my mobile phone or my tablet. No, website accessibility is not just about the device you are accessing it. Not just the browser. You have to include existing technologies. You have to include specific behaviors of people. If you don't include that, you didn't make anything. You didn't make a website accessible. Also, as I mentioned before, many of us, when we want to make something cool, don't really think about website accessibility. And I can use Lazarus's example that he could not open a bank account for a simple checkbox. I checked that website. And what I found out, I found out that the checkbox he was unable to click was actually composed from two divs, lots of styling, some JavaScript, and what happens when a designer, a web designer makes a checkbox like that? Well, input type checkbox element is automatically recognized by screen readers and is easily able to check it without, and you don't have to put too much effort to make it accessible. If you develop something from scratch, you have to put lots of effort to make it accessible, and these guys are obviously oblivious to that fact. In general, I'm just saying, guys, if you don't have to, please do not reinvent the wheel. Now, let's talk about the website accessibility in general. It's a huge, huge area to explore, and we are barely scratching its surface. Many people feel intimidated by that. Does they revert to old habits? And sometimes they don't like to reject taking on a website accessibility project. They just say, I'm going to develop a website, however, if you want to make it accessible, hire a specialist developer or agency or something like that, which is a very bad approach. If we need to avoid this, how are we going to do that? We're going to do that by just saying to ourselves, like the great, great philosopher Socrates, I know that I know nothing. Why is this important? Accessibility is a huge field, and we would spend years and years trying to figure out every single accessibility rule. But if we know that those rules exist, that those users exist, which technologies do they use? How does technologies work? We are already on the right path. And basically, if you are not prepared to develop yourself further to learn new things, then it's time for you to find another occupation, because web design does require continuous learning. Now, I'm going to talk about the most tricky of those reasons, and that is reliance on accessibility tools. Okay, I am using this tool. I'm using this plugin to make sure that my website is accessible. And it gives me information. I'm happy with that. I think my website is accessible. What's the problem here? The problem with this mindset is it's probably derived from a website optimization. We like to tick track boxes. We like to think, okay, if I do this, this, this, and that, my website will be accessible. If I ensure that my website is ADA compliant, it's going to develop the best experience to the users. This is wrong. There is a big gap between theory and practice. And right now, at this very moment, user testers have no real alternative. Let me show you an example. How can we test out a website? Let's say we use an accessibility tool. I'm using Wave for this example. And I asked Tlaza to give me one website, which is fully accessible for him. And the other website, which is not very accessible, and he is using it. What are we seeing here? We are seeing here that our accessibility test tool, and this is not the issue with the tool itself, but the way it was used, shows much more errors and notices and alerts to the website that is perfectly accessible to us. And why is that? Let's see. So this is the first website. It's called a blind health project. And as you can see, it has errors, contrast errors, et cetera, et cetera, lots of things that can be improved. Yes, it does. However, for a screen reader user, this website is perfectly accessible. The issues this website has are more for the users that do not use a screen reader. For instance, contrast issues, text formatting, font families, which use server fonts. That is not a very pleasant experience. However, that does not mean that this website is inaccessible to us. And let's now try the Air Serbia website, which Tlaza had issues using it. It has only a couple of errors, but there is one big issue. Can anybody from the audience tell me what's the issue with this test? You can't see the website? Yeah, correct. So I'm going to explain you what happened. When you visit this website, a DDoS check will fire. When DDoS checks fires, it basically checks whether the website is being abused or not. And it's like a fail-safe. The problem is when Wave access to the website, the DDoS check fired and completely hidden all the content. So you cannot see anything. And basically what is Wave testing, it is testing this black screen for the DDoS check. But if we use Wave with a browser extension, which looks similarly and wait for the DDoS check to pass, we are going to be able to see the real deal. Lots of errors, lots of contrast errors, lots of room for improvement. So you can see the issue is not with the accessibility tool. It's only an issue with the way it was used. Try understanding the way how website accessibility tools work and base your results on that. And obviously never ignore a screen reader user. If there is one key takeaway that I want you to bring home from the stock, it would be this. Regardless of your profession, always remember, it is our duty to make the Internet a more accessible place. Thank you. A few minutes for questions. If anybody has questions, we have mics lined up on both sides. And you can approach the mics as any questions. Thank you very much. That was an awesome talk and very eye-opening. I don't know if we have also questions from the live audience. I do have a question though. Because when we talk about accessibility and we are trying to introduce that and make that part of the project, unless somebody is fully aware of what it means and why it is so important, it is difficult to convince them that one of the excuses they say is like, yeah, but most people can't access it. A lot of people still dismiss it. I don't know if you have encountered tips and tricks on how to make people more aware of how important it is and who is left out. It is very difficult to convey this message to people who never heard about this. But that's why we had a strong and strict regulation. You can just say that people can easily get sued and they will need to pay a huge amount of money. That always works. That's a good one. Yeah, I would just like to add that, first of all, that's an excellent question. There are a couple of ways, a couple of strategies to persuade people. First of all, you are trying to convert a customer to, like how to say, a long-term customer. If you want to keep that customer, you need to make sure that customer gets the best out of the website. The best way you can engage with that customer is do the homework, do the research, feel how their business works, see what their business needs. Then you can present to them the numbers, the legislation trends, which are coming for the EUO that comes in 2025. Obviously, it depends from the region to region. However, it is coming and it is inevitable that websites will have to be accessible, otherwise there will be consequences. Not only that you are going to get a long-term client using this approach, but also you are going to avoid bad reputation. Even if you protect yourself perfectly from any legal implications, you're still going to have bad reputation. Hey, this guy developed me a website, but the website was not accessible and I didn't read the contract correctly. I'm not going to hire this guy anymore. You're using a client, you're using a customer. If you're doing research carefully enough, you will see that depending on profession, there are lots of opportunities to gain extra profit for the business if your website is accessible. That's it for me about this question. Thank you very much. Thank you. I think we still have time. There are some questions. Go ahead. Since I'm coming from the hosting industry, you know me from earlier, and I want more money, of course. That is like the point of business. Have you ever tested C-Panel Plus and hosting dashboards and panels? How many of these are actually accessible? Yes. I tested hosting your panel. This is the only thing that I had the opportunity to try out that worked. It was decently working. This is what I can say. Just my personal opinion, but I could be wrong. Although it is not related to hosting, Gutenberg just doesn't work as expected. Thank you. Maybe I think we have a question over there. Hi. Okay. Not always. Thanks for your talk, for a great interesting talk at the first. I have a question because in 2025, as you already said, the European Accessibility Act comes into force for a lot of companies. Not all companies, but many large companies. How do you think how will this influence the accessibility of websites in the real world? Because if I think about GDPR and the compliance there, we have laws into force, but even nowadays a lot of websites are not compliant with the laws. I think what happens about accessibility because it's a topic which is important for less people than GDPR compliance. The accessibility will come, although that will not be... It's the never-ending process that's a thing. You never can say, yes, so we made the web fully accessible. Some companies will always try to avoid it. Some of them will do their best to fix those issues. I don't live in the fallacy that one day every single website will be accessible to the fullest. No. Unfortunately, we will never reach that goal. We have to be upfront with that. But it is honest. As Andrea said, we need to try this out. We need to push this forward. So, yeah, I can assume that big companies will be doing things towards accessibility. But let's see. I'm just going to add to the question a bit of a technical side. I believe that website accessibility will rise gradually. However, the accessibility law that comes in 2025 will... I'm pretty sure that it's going to create a sort of panic. Hey, my website is not accessible. I need to get it accessible. So, majority of companies would probably react in the very last time before the law comes to fruition. However, the thing is, even when the law comes, I think that it would mainly revolve around ADA compliance, and then there will be like special cases, et cetera, et cetera. We are not going to see accessible... Obviously, we are not going to see fully accessible company websites because of that. We have time for one more question. So, I think from over here... Please let us have two more. Come on. Go ahead. He considered the question. Mine's not so much screen reader-related, but so accessible. There's a lot of contrast myths that exist. I'd just like to hear your opinion on when a button fails a test for contrast, but user testing shows that the black on blue is not as easily to see as the white on blue, yet black pass as white fails. I'd just be interested to hear your opinion on myths versus the actual user experience. Actually, I had a similar question, so I can maybe piggyback on that. Thank you so much for your presentation. The question was, when you say that a site is accessible, how does somebody determine that threshold? Just like what the other questioner said, some of these decisions are based on how we perceive the contrast versus how the testing tool tells us. And what you demonstrated today is that the testing tools also are not very good. I will take your question after, my friend, because it's a contrast issue, but I will take yours. Go ahead. My question was exactly how do you figure that out? Andrea, maybe you can... Yeah, of course. Very nice question, by the way. I would say that when I'm comparing tests from accessibility tools and tests from real life users, the main thing that makes me find what is working the best is just interviewing the users, seeing how they use the website. And even if there is a contrast issue on the website, if multiple groups of users are not having the issue with that, that is fine. That's exactly actually what I mentioned on the last topic. And the thing is, when users are able to use the website and they do not have trouble with it, they can go through all the functions of the website, they can visit all the pages, they have access to all the content, the user experience is seamless. That is my goal to me. I'm not interested what testing tool will say to me. Testing tool is just like guidance. It can help me. But I'm also aware of that, that it works specifically, which is not always going to work the best for my users. So the main thing to take away from this is to always go to user and ask them, hey, do you like this? Do you like that? Even if it's not within the rules of specific tool, specific testing device, it can still be accessible and it can still provide amazing experience for users. How do we know that the website is accessible? So you raised the crucial question here and that's why there are so many agencies around. So first things first, we have to separate user testing from accessibility auditing. User testing is a simple test. So a user in terms like a screen reader user, a user in question goes over the website, checks the issues and tells their opinion. How do we know it's accessible? So there are accessibility standards that are internationally accepted. We have WCAG, WCHE. And then we have American Disabilities Act. Then we have that European Accessibility Act. But mostly people are following WCAG. And that is very comprehensive accessibility standard that covers all accessibility issues that you might think of. Screen reader issues, color contrasts, keyboard users issues. Then we have voice control issues. So a lot of things are covered by those standards. And they are revised as technology goes on. They are revised every two years or every three years. Now we have WCAG 2.1, which is the standard that most agencies are following. And yeah, all accessibility issues are grouped into three categories. We have P1 issue. If the website has a P1 issue, it means that there is no way that the user with disability, for example, in today we are talking about screen reader user, let's stick with that. So if the website has a P1 issue, it means that a screen reader user has no way to access the certain feature and do the things they want. For example, choosing the right date is a P1 issue. It's a critical issue. Then we have P2 issues. Those are serious issues, which means that there are ways, if the screen reader is advanced user, there are ways that users can navigate the web and do the thing. And then we have P3 issues. Those are issues that exist, but they do not affect the entire experience. Now the thing is that people or companies can get suited only for P1 and P2 issues. So this is how we know. If that answers the question. Thank you so much. Please a round of applause for Andrea.