Podcasts about wcag

The countdown to the European Accessibility Act has begun, and organizations across the EU and beyond are racing to understand what this landmark legislation means for their products and services. In this timely conversation, accessibility expert Susanna Laurin returns to AXSChat to separate fact from fiction about the EAA ahead of its June 2025 implementation.Susanna reveals a concerning readiness gap, with European-based companies generally better prepared than their American counterparts who often mistakenly view the EAA through a WCAG-only lens. Large global organizations with established compliance departments have plans in place, while smaller businesses and those in sectors previously untouched by accessibility requirements remain dangerously unaware of their obligations - with just days until implementation begins.The conversation dives into prevalent misconceptions surrounding the EAA, from the false belief that all websites must be accessible to misunderstandings about grace periods and documentation requirements. Susanna cautions against the growing industry of "quick-fix" accessibility solutions and overnight experts offering magical tools that promise compliance with minimal effort.A fascinating geographic divide emerges in the discussion, with Northern and Western European countries demonstrating greater preparedness than their Eastern and Southern counterparts. This pattern mirrors previous implementation experiences with the Web Accessibility Directive and reflects broader differences in accessibility maturity across the continent.Perhaps most concerning is the critical shortage of qualified accessibility professionals, creating a situation where monitoring authorities are competing with private companies to recruit from the same limited talent pool. Susanna makes a compelling case that the long-term solution lies in fundamentally changing how we educate digital professionals, integrating accessibility as a core skill rather than specialized knowledge.Join us for this essential conversation that looks beyond immediate compliance concerns to envision a more sustainable and inclusive digital future for Europe. Whether you're responsible for accessibility in your organization or simply interested in how technology and policy intersect, this episode offers valuable insights into one of the most significant digital accessibility developments in recent years.Support the showFollow axschat on social media.Bluesky:Antonio https://bsky.app/profile/akwyz.com Debra https://bsky.app/profile/debraruh.bsky.social Neil https://bsky.app/profile/neilmilliken.bsky.social axschat https://bsky.app/profile/axschat.bsky.social LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/antoniovieirasantos/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/axschat/Vimeohttps://vimeo.com/akwyzhttps://twitter.com/axschathttps://twitter.com/AkwyZhttps://twitter.com/neilmillikenhttps://twitter.com/debraruh

In deze aflevering is Michele teleurgesteld in Figma Grid, kondigt Webflow aan GSAP volledig gratis te maken, maakt Sara Soueidan gehakt van Chrome's CSS only carousels en bespreken we het WCAG 3.0 scoring model. Ook bespreken we de nieuwe CSS properties readin-order en reading-flow om de toegankelijkheid van Flexbox en Grid te verbeteren. 0:00 - Intro 01:11 - Michele is teleurgesteld in Figma grid 07:00 - GSAP is nu gratis - https://webflow.com/blog/gsap-becomes-free 09:54 - Webkit komt met P3-Color picker upgrade - https://webkit.org/blog/16900/p3-and-alpha-color-pickers/ 12:59 - Zijn CSS only carousels toegankelijk? - https://bsky.app/profile/sarasoueidan.com/post/3loj6zz52es26 21:03 - Reading-order en reading-flow in Chrome - https://css-tricks.com/what-we-know-so-far-about-css-reading-order/ 26:38 - WCAG 3.0 draft is beschikbaar - https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2025/05/wcag-3-proposed-scoring-model-shift-accessibility-evaluation/ 33:03 - AirBNB bedenkt een nieuw transparant video format - https://medium.com/@waldobear002/airbnbs-new-lava-icon-format-a-technical-deep-dive-b2604626c7e0 41:35 - White Lotus update & Clarksons farm - https://www.primevideo.com/-/nl/detail/Clarksons-Farm/0SHGKA0J8D4G01ZGD647627NEJ 43:42 - Zen Browser - https://zen-browser.app/ 47:18 - The Office ladies podcast - https://officeladies.com/

In this episode of Chax Chat, hosts Chad Chelius and Dax Castro tackle real-world challenges in document accessibility, focusing on tools like Microsoft Word, Excel, and Adobe Acrobat. They explore common issues with tables and cells, such as merged headers and layout complexities, and share practical tips for ensuring accessibility across different formats. The conversation includes strategies for managing accessibility in spreadsheets and PDFs, highlighting the nuances of remediation. Plus we are introduced to Chad's cat, more Koi talk, and how to snag a Chax freebie.

Anlässlich des Global Accessibility Awareness Day sprechen wir mit Ediz Kiratli, UX-Experte und Leiter des Arbeitskreises Barrierefreiheit bei der German UPA, über die Auswirkungen des Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetzes (BFSG), das ab dem 28. Juni 2025 in Kraft tritt. Im Zentrum steht, welche Verantwortung UX-Professionals bei der Umsetzung digitaler Barrierefreiheit tragen – konzeptionell, strategisch und operativ. Es geht um häufige Missverständnisse, rechtliche Anforderungen, branchenspezifische Implikationen und konkrete Handlungsempfehlungen für UX-Teams. Ergänzt wird das Gespräch durch einen Ausblick auf KI-gestützte Unterstützung, Tipps für inklusive Usability-Tests sowie persönliche Erfahrungen aus der Praxis. Ein unverzichtbarer Deep Dive für alle, die Barrierefreiheit nicht nur als Pflicht, sondern als UX-Kernkompetenz verstehen.   |   ZEITSTEMPEL [00:00] Einführung & Vorstellung von Ediz Kiratli   |   [01:45] Bedeutung des Global Accessibility Awareness Day   |   [03:00] Entwicklung digitaler Barrierefreiheit   |   [04:30] Häufige Missverständnisse und Irrtümer   |   [06:00] Was regelt das Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG)?   |   [08:30] Branchen & Produkte, die besonders betroffen sind   |   [12:00] Die Rolle von UX bei der Umsetzung des BFSG   |   [14:45] Interface-Gestaltung: Herausforderungen & Perspektiven   |   [16:30] Von Anfang an mitdenken: Accessibility im Projektprozess   |   [19:30] Tools & Methoden zur Prüfung auf Barrierefreiheit   |   [21:00] Inklusive Usability-Tests mit Menschen mit Behinderungen   |   [23:00] Einfluss von Designsystemen und Komponentenbibliotheken   |   [25:00] Wie Developer & Teams motiviert werden können   |   [27:45] Kritische Reflexion zu Übergangsfristen   |   [30:30] Wirtschaftliche Hürden & Lösungsstrategien   |   [34:00] Argumentationshilfe für Entscheider   |   [37:00] Gesetz als Mindeststandard – was jetzt zählt   |   [40:30] Wünsche für die UX-Community   |   [41:30] KI & Automatisierung als Unterstützer   |   [44:00] Erste Schritte für Accessibility-Einsteiger   |   [45:45] Strukturelle Veränderungen in Organisationen   |   [48:00] Mitwirken im AK Barrierefreiheit   |     |   INFORMATIONEN ZUM GAST Ediz Kiratli ist seit über 15 Jahren in der UX-Branche tätig und aktuell als Referent für Usability bei der VBG aktiv. Zudem leitet er seit zwei Jahren den Arbeitskreis Barrierefreiheit der German UPA. Er steht für praxisnahe Aufklärung, strategische UX-Integration und die Weiterentwicklung barrierefreier Standards. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ediz-kiratli-42000b5/ German UPA Arbeitskreis Barrierefreiheit: https://germanupa.de/arbeitskreise/arbeitskreis-barrierefreiheit   |   LINKS UND RESSOURCEN Gesetzestext BFSG: bmas.de/DE/Service/Gesetze/barrierefreiheitsstaerkungsgesetz.html   |   Color Contrast Analyzer: https://developer.paciellogroup.com/color-contrast-checker/  |   WCAG 2.1 Standards: w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/quickref/   |   BITV-Test: bitv-test.de   |   Frontally-Artikel zum GAAD: germanupa.de/magazin/frontally   |     |   DANKE FÜR DEIN FEEDBACK UND SUPPORT Wenn dir diese Episode gefallen hat, freuen wir uns über dein Feedback! Abonniere unseren Podcast, teile die Folge mit deinem Team und hinterlasse uns gerne eine Bewertung auf deiner Plattform. Du willst selbst aktiv werden? Dann werde Teil des Arbeitskreises Barrierefreiheit – wir freuen uns über neue Perspektiven und engagierte Mitstreiterinnen und Mitstreiter. www.germanupa.de   |

In dieser News-Ausgabe sprechen wir über Änderungen an der V8 JavaScript Engine, die euch erlauben, Dateien mit Explicit Compile Hints für die direkte Kompilierung zu markieren. In der neuen Chrome-Version kann das hunderte Millisekunden Beschleunigung bringen.Wir diskutieren außerdem, warum die WCAG anfängt, ihr Kernthema „Accessibility“ anders zu denken und zu bewerten.Dave berichtet von einem Bug, der still und leise Nachrichten in Apples iMessage verschluckt & was genau XML damit zu tun hat.Fabi nutzt zwar mittlerweile mehrheitlich Cursor als IDE, war aber trotzdem erstaunt über die neuesten Änderungen und Verbesserungen im Umgang mit AI und Copilot in Visual Studio Code.Nachdem es zuletzt mit Evo nicht geklappt hatte, eine Alternative zu git zu etablieren, nimmt das Projekt JJ (Jujutsu) immer mehr an Fahrt auf. Jan legt dar, welche Vorteile das Projekt gegenüber Git mitbringt und was Google damit zu tun hat.Und zu guter Letzt berichtet Dennis, wie es (White-Hat-)Hacker:innen gelungen ist, die Kontrolle über einen Nissan Leaf zu übernehmen und was sie alles damit anstellen konnten.Schreibt uns! Schickt uns eure Themenwünsche und euer Feedback: podcast@programmier.barFolgt uns! Bleibt auf dem Laufenden über zukünftige Folgen und virtuelle Meetups und beteiligt euch an Community-Diskussionen. BlueskyInstagramLinkedInMeetupYouTube

In this episode of ChaxChat, hosts Chad Chelius and Dax Castro delve into document accessibility with a focus on real-world challenges and professional development. This episode highlights tools and strategies that bridge the gap between aesthetics and functionality. Working in MS Word, Powerpoint and Adobe Acrobat. Using the Microsoft accessibility checker. Qualitative VS quantitative. And of course Koi Talk.

Today's episode is a little different.  I'm sharing a recording from one of our monthly live Automation Guild member trainings, and trust me, it's a session every software tester should hear. Get instant access to Automation Guild: https://testguild.me/youtubeGuild  ** Use code youtube30 to get 30% off. We'll discuss an essential topic for anyone involved in software development: accessibility and the upcoming European Accessibility Act. Listen in as accessibility advocate and testing expert Laveena Ramchandani unpacks what's coming with the new legislation and why building inclusive digital products can't wait for the law to catch up. Discover: How to think more accessibly – Spot potential barriers and adopt an inclusive mindset. How to test for accessibility – Use keyboard navigation, browser extensions, automated tests, and assistive tech. How to help teams create accessible content – Apply the social model of accessibility, annotate designs, and follow WCAG guidelines.  Whether you develop, design, test, or lead software teams, especially if you serve European customers, this episode will get you up to speed on the what, why, and how of making your products accessible to all, and help you get ahead of compliance before June 2025 arrives.

What really drives accessibility—compliance, inclusion, or brand trust? Chad and Dax unpack an IAAP white paper on motivations, share how automation needs a human touch, and highlight why certifications like IAAP's ADS matter. They also dive into creating truly accessible documents with a focus on meeting PDF/UA standards. Perfect for anyone ready to level up their accessibility game.

Masz swoją stronę internetową, platformę, sklep lub aplikację i zastanawiasz się, czy musisz coś zmieniać ze względu na Europejski i Polski Akt o Dostępności (EEA i PAD)? Jesteś we właściwym miejscu. Europejski Akt o Dostępności (EEA) to dyrektywa unijna, podobnie jak np. OMNIBUS. Dyrektywa, w przeciwieństwie do rozporządzenia obowiązującego bezpośrednio, np. RODO, GPSR, DSA, wymaga implementacji do prawa krajowego. Stąd Polski Akt o Dostępności (PAD) – ustawa o zapewnianiu spełniania wymagań dostępności niektórych produktów i usług przez podmioty gospodarcze, która obowiązuje od 28 czerwca 2025 roku. Tyle, gdy chodzi o wprowadzenie. Teraz przejdźmy do konkretów. 00:00 Co to znaczy, że strona internetowa ma być dostępna? 01:15 Akt o Dostępności i WCAG - w czym rzecz? 03:34 Jak najlepiej myśleć o dostępności? 05:05 Produkty i usług objęte wymaganiami dostępności 06:07 Mikroprzedsiębiorcy mają fajrant 08:50 Wymogi dostępności określone Aktem o Dostępności 10:14 Podsumowanie Materiały dodatkowe: 1️⃣ mój poradnik tekstowy: https://prakreacja.pl/wcag-eea-pad-tajemniczy-akt-o-dostepnosci-i-jego-wplyw-na-e-commerce-sklepy-internetowe-strony-serwisy-platformy-aplikacje-saasy-itp/ 2️⃣ Praliny PraKreacji: https://prakreacja.pl/praliny-prakreacji/ 3️⃣ książka Wojtka Kutyły o dostępności: https://wojtekkutyla.pl/ksiazka-o-dostepnosci/. #ecommerce #prawo

In Episode 131 of White Canes Connect, host David Goldstein shares highlights from a powerful panel on digital accessibility and the expanded scope of ADA Title II, which now includes websites, mobile apps, and digital documents of publicly funded institutions. Moderated by Thomas DiAgostino and facilitated by JEME Agency and Accessible Pharmacy Services for the Blind, the panel features four experts from diverse backgrounds: Jamie Ray-Leonetti (Institute on Disabilities at Temple University), Adrienne Moore (Office for People with Disabilities, Philadelphia), architect Ricardo J. Rodríguez De Santiago, and Goldstein himself. The discussion centers on the DOJ's 2024 Title II update, requiring compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA standards. Panelists explore implementation challenges, legal obligations, and the critical role of inclusive design. Moore outlines Philadelphia's proactive strategies, while Rodríguez emphasizes human-centered design and breaking common accessibility misconceptions. Goldstein draws from lived experience, highlighting real-world digital barriers and the need to involve disabled users directly. Ray-Leonetti underscores the urgency of embedding accessibility into policy and organizational culture—not just for compliance, but as a moral imperative. This episode is both a rallying cry and a practical guide for anyone building digital spaces. Accessibility isn't extra—it's essential. Show notes at https://www.whitecanesconnect.com/131      Links Mentioned Have you checked out Federation Focus yet? https://www.youtube.com/@nfbofpa/  JEME Agency: https://www.jeme.agency  Accessible Pharmacy Services for the Blind: https://www.accessiblepharmacy.com  Sip. Savor. Support. Keystone Chapter fundraiser at Landmark Americana: https://nfbofpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Sip-Savor-Support-FINAL-TROY.pdf  Attend PA Association of Blind Merchants Spring Fling Blind Vendor Showcase: https://www.pablindmerchants.org/fling/  Exhibit at PA Association of Blind Merchants Spring Fling!: https://www.pablindmerchants.org/exhibit/  Be a sponsor of PA Association of Blind Merchants: https://www.pablindmerchants.org/sponsor/  An Easy Way to Help the NFB of PA Support the NFB of PA with every purchase at White Cane Coffee Company by going to https://www.whitecanecoffee.com/ref/nfbp. When you use that link to purchase from White Cane Coffee, the NFB of PA earns a 10% commission! Share the link with your family and friends! Listen to Erin and Bob Willman from White Cane Coffee on episode 072 of White Canes Connect. Donate to the NFB of PA Like what you hear on White Canes Connect? Support us and donate to the National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania, visit https://www.NFBofPA.org/give/. We Want to Hear Your Story Reach out with questions and comments, or share ideas! We want to hear from you. Call us at (267) 338-4495 or at whitecanesconnect@gmail.com. Follow White Canes Connect Find out why White Canes Connect is currently ranked at #13 of the 100 Best Visually Impaired Podcast. Find the show on: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/white-canes-connect/id1592248709  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1YDQSJqpoteGb1UMPwRSuI  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@pablindpodcast 

In this episode of We Are, Marketing Happy, Jenny breaks down HHS's new accessibility rule and what it means for healthcare organizations. With compliance deadlines approaching in 2026 and 2027, it's essential to understand who's affected, what WCAG 2.0 AA standards require, and how to assess your website, kiosks, and mobile apps for compliance.Jenny shares steps for getting started, including a free accessibility scan and ways to approach necessary updates. While enforcement remains uncertain, prioritizing accessibility will result in a better experience for all patients and showcase your brand's commitment to inclusivity.Resources & NotesHHS Accessibility Rule Fact SheetADA Web Accessibility RuleFree Accessibility ScanSite Audit ToolColor Contrast ComplianceDesign Guide Based on WCAG PrinciplesFigma plug-ins are also available for additional accessibility checkpoints. However, automated tools only go so far. Having a designer and developer who understand accessibility best practices is the most reliable way to ensure compliance.Connect with Jenny:Email: jenny@hedyandhopp.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennybristow/If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love to hear your feedback! Please consider leaving us a review on your preferred listening platform and sharing it with others.

Join us for an enlightening conversation with Paul Schantz, a seasoned IT leader at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), as we delve into the critical intersections of accessibility, technology, and student success in today's higher education landscape. This episode unpacks the upcoming ADA compliance deadline, CSUN's proactive approach to digital accessibility, and the transformative potential of AI.Discover how institutions are preparing for the 2026 ADA deadline, ensuring all digital content adheres to WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines. Learn about CSUN's robust procurement process, designed to guarantee that all technology meets rigorous accessibility standards, and how they partner with vendors to drive inclusive solutions.We also explore the burgeoning role of AI in higher education, focusing on its potential to enhance student engagement and data analysis. Paul shares insights into CSUN's AI task force, highlighting how AI tools can be leveraged to improve retention, graduation rates, and overall student experience.Connect with Paul Schantz on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulschantz/

In Episode #148 des 121WATT Podcasts sprechen Sarah, Patrick und Anna Jarosch von Eye-Able über digitale Barrierefreiheit und was mit dem neuen Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz ab Juni 2025 auf Unternehmen zukommt. Was du aus dieser Folge mitnimmst:

The above title does not do Dan Swift justice. Dan also has his own podcast, successful Youtube channel and he has released seven music albums. Talk about being unstoppable! I met Dan when I appeared as a guest on his podcast, Time We Discuss and I knew he would contribute to a fascinating story here.   Dan grew up with an interest in music. For a time he thought he wanted to write music for video games. Along the way he left that idea behind and after graduating from college he began working at designing websites. He has made that into his fulltime career.   As he grew as a website designer and later as a supervisor for a school system coordinating and creating the school sites Dan took an interest in accessibility of the web. We talk quite a bit about that during our time together. His observations are fascinating and right on where web access for persons with disabilities is concerned.   We also talk about Dan's podcast including some stories of guests and what inspires Dan from his interviews. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I.       About the Guest:   Originally wanting to write music for video games or become an audio engineer, Dan Swift graduated from a small Liberal Arts college with a degree in Music Composition (Bachelor of Arts) and Music Recording Technology (Bachelor of Music).  Dan went on to release seven EP albums between 2003 and 2024. Most recently, "Parallels" dropped on Leap Day, 2024.  Dan has always had a passion for shaking up genres between Eps writing classical, electronic, and modern rock music.   While creating music has always been a passion, Dan took a more traditional professional path as a web developer. While on this path, Dan had a lot of experience with accessibility standards as it relates to the web and he values accessibility and equity for everyone both inside and outside the digital workspace. Having received his MBA during COVID, Dan went on to a leadership position where he continues to make a difference leading a team of tech-savvy web professionals.   In early 2024, I created a podcast and YouTube channel called "Time We Discuss" which focuses on career exploration and discovery. The channel and podcast are meant for anyone that is feeling lost professionally and unsure of what is out there for them. Dan feels that it is important for people to discover their professional passion, whatever it is that lights them up on the inside, and chase it. So many people are unfulfilled in their careers, yet it doesn't have to be this way.   When not working, Dan enjoys spending time with his wife and three kids. They are a very active family often going to various extracurricular events over the years including flag football, soccer, gymnastics, and school concerts.  Dan's wife is very active with several nonprofit organizations including those for the betterment of children and homelessness.  Dan enjoys playing the piano, listening to podcasts, and listening to music.  Dan is very naturally curious and is a slave to a train of never-ending thoughts.   Ways to connect with Dan:   Time We Discuss on YouTube Time We Discuss on Spotify Time We Discuss on Twitter/X Time We Discuss on Instagram Time We Discuss on BlueSky   Time We Discuss Website Dan Swift Music Website   About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Well, hi everybody. Welcome once again. Wherever you may be, to unstoppable mindset, I am your host, Mike hingson, sometimes I say Michael hingson, and people have said, Well, is it Mike or Michael? And the answer is, it doesn't really matter. It took a master's degree in physics and 10 years in sales for me to realize that if I said Mike Hingson on the phone, people kept calling me Mr. Kingston, and I couldn't figure out why, so I started saying Michael Hingson, and they got the hinckson part right, but it doesn't matter to me. So anyway, Mike hingson, or Michael hingson, glad you're with us, wherever you are, and our guest today is Dan Swift, who has his own pine podcast, and it was actually through that podcast that we met, and I told him, but I wouldn't do it with him and be on his podcast unless he would be on unstoppable mindset. And here he is. Dan is a person who writes music, he's an engineer. He does a lot of work with web design and so on, and we're going to get into all that. So Dan, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here.   Dan Swift ** 02:25 Michael, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me. I am. I'm super excited.   Michael Hingson ** 02:30 Well, looking forward to getting to spend more time with you. We did yours time to discuss, and now we get this one. So it's always kind of fun. So, and Dan is in Pennsylvania, so we're talking across the continent, which is fine. It's amazing what we can do with electronics these days, telling us not like the good old days of the covered wagon. What can I say? So, So Dan, why don't you tell us a little bit about kind of the early Dan, growing up and all that.   Dan Swift ** 02:57 Oh, geez. How far   Michael Hingson ** 02:58 back to go? Oh, as far as you want to go,   Dan Swift ** 03:02 Well, okay, so I am, I am the youngest of five. Grew up just outside of Philadelphia as being the youngest. You know, there are certain perks that go along with that. I get to experience things that my parents would have previous said no to the older siblings. And you know how it is with with, you know, if you have more than one kid, technically, you get a little more relaxed as you have more but then I also had the other benefit of, you know, hearing the expression, there are young ears in the room, I will tell you later. So I kind of got some of that too. But I grew up outside of Philadelphia, had a passion for music. Pretty early on. I was never good at any sports. Tried a number of things. And when I landed on music, I thought, you know, this is this is something that I can do. I seem to have a natural talent for it. And I started, I tried playing the piano when I was maybe eight or nine years old. That didn't pan out. Moved on to the trumpet when I was nine or 10. Eventually ended up picking up guitar, bass, guitar, double bass revisited piano later in life, but that's the musical side of things. Also, when I was young, you know, I had a passion for role playing games, Dungeons and Dragons, was really big when I was a teenager, so I was super excited for that. Yeah, that's, that's kind of those, those memories kind of forced me, or kind of shaped me into the person that I am today. I'm very light hearted, very easy going, and I just try to enjoy life.   Michael Hingson ** 04:30 I played some computer games when computers came along and I started fiddling with them, the games I usually played were text based games. I've never really played Dungeons and Dragons and some of those. And I I'm sure that there are accessible versions of of some of that, but I remember playing games like adventure. You remember? Have you heard of adventure? I have, yeah. So that was, that was fun. Info con made. Well, they had Zork, which was really the same as adventure, but they. At a whole bunch of games. And those are, those are fun. And I think all of those games, I know a lot of adults would probably say kids spend too much time on some of them, but some of these games, like the the text based games, I thought really were very good at expanding one's mind, and they made you think, which is really what was important to me? Yeah, I   Dan Swift ** 05:21 completely agree with that too. Because you'd be put in these situations where, you know true, you're trying to solve some kind of puzzle, and you're trying to think, Okay, well, that didn't work, or that didn't work, and you try all these different things, then you decide to leave and come back to and you realize later, like you didn't have something that you needed to progress forward, or something like that. But, but it really gets the brain going, trying to create with these, uh, come up with these creative solutions to progress the game forward. Yeah, which   Michael Hingson ** 05:43 and the creative people who made them in the first place? What did they? Yeah, they, I don't know where they, where they spent their whole time that they had nothing to do but to create these games. But hey, it worked. It sure. Did you know you do it well. So you went off to college. Where'd you go? Sure,   Dan Swift ** 06:02 I went to a small liberal arts college, Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania. It's near, it's near Hershey. It was, it was weird in that my the entire school was about half the size of my entire high school. So that was very, very weird. And then you talk to these other people. And it's like, my high school was, you know, very large by comparison. But for me, it was like, well, high school, that's what I knew. But yeah, it was I went to, I went to 11 Valley College near Hershey. I studied, I was a double major. I studied music composition and music recording,   Michael Hingson ** 06:35 okay, and, oh, I've got to go back and ask before we continue that. So what were some of the real perks you got as a kid that your your older siblings didn't get?   Dan Swift ** 06:45 Oh, geez, okay. I mean,   Michael Hingson ** 06:49 couldn't resist, yeah, probably, probably   Dan Swift ** 06:51 some of the more cliche things. I probably got to spend the night at a friend's house earlier than my oldest brother. For instance, I know my parents were a little more concerned about finances. So I know my oldest brother didn't get a chance to go away to college. He did community college instead. And then, kind of, my sister was a very similar thing. And then once we got, like, about halfway down, you know, me and my two other brothers, we all had the opportunity to go away to college. So I think that was, that was definitely one of the perks. If I was the oldest, I was the oldest, I probably wouldn't have had that opportunity with my family. Got   Michael Hingson ** 07:24 it well, so you went off and you got a matt a bachelor's in music, composition and music recording. So that brought you to what you were interested in, part, which was the engineering aspect of it. But that certainly gave you a pretty well rounded education. Why those two why composition and recording? Sure.   Dan Swift ** 07:43 So if we talk about the music first at that time, so this is like the the late 90s, early 2000s any kind of digital music that was out there really was, was MIDI based, and anyone that was around that time and paying attention, it was like these very like, like that music kind of sound to it. So there wasn't a whole lot going on with MIDI. I'm sorry, with music as far as how great it sounded, or I shouldn't say, how great it sounded, the the instruments that are triggered by MIDI, they didn't sound all that great. But around that time, there was this game that came out, Final Fantasy seven, and I remember hearing the music for that, and it was all, it was all electronic, and it was just blown away by how fantastic it sounded. And And around that time, I thought, you know, it'd be really cool to get into writing music for video games. And that was something I really kind of toyed with. So that was kind of in the back of my head. But also, at the time, I was in a band, like a rock band, and I thought, you know, I'm going to school. They have this opportunity to work as a music engineer, which is something I really wanted to do at the time. And I thought, free studio time. My band will be here. This will be awesome. And it wasn't until I got there that I discovered that they also had the music composition program. It was a I was only there maybe a week or two, and once I discovered that, I was like, Well, this is gonna be great, you know, I'll learn to write. Know, I'll learn to write music. I can write for video games. I'll get engineering to go with it. This is gonna be fantastic. Speaking   Michael Hingson ** 09:07 of electronic music, did you ever see a science fiction movie called The Forbidden Planet? I did not. Oh, it's music. It's, it's not really music in the sense of what what we call, but it's all electronic. You gotta, you gotta find it. I'm sure you can find it somewhere. It's called the Forbidden Planet. Walter pigeon is in it. But the music and the sounds fit the movie, although it's all electronic, and electronic sounding pretty interesting.   Dan Swift ** 09:37 Now, is that from, I know, like in the 50s, 60s, there was a lot of experiments. Okay, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 09:45 yeah, and, but again, it fit the movie, which was the important part. So it certainly wasn't music like John Williams today and and in the 80s and all that. But again, for the movie, it fit. Very well, which is kind of cool. Yeah,   Dan Swift ** 10:02 I'll definitely have to check that out. I remember when I was in school, we talked about like that, that avant garde kind of style of the the 50s, 60s. And there was a lot of weird stuff going on with electronics, electronic music. Um, so I'm very curious to see, uh, to check this out, yeah, yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 10:14 You have to let me know what, what you find, what you think about it, when you get to chance to watch it, absolutely or actually, I I may have a copy. If I do, I'll put it in a dropbox folder and send you a link. Fantastic. So you graduated. Now, when did you graduate?   Dan Swift ** 10:32 Sure, so I graduated in 2003 okay,   Michael Hingson ** 10:35 so you graduated, and then what did you do? So,   Dan Swift ** 10:41 backing up about maybe 612, months prior to that, I decided I did not want to be a I didn't want to write music for video games. I also did not want to work in a recording studio. And the reason for this was for music. It was, I didn't it was, it was something I really, really enjoyed, and I didn't want to be put in a position where I had to produce music on demand. I didn't want to I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to lose my hobby, lose my passion in that way. So I decided that was out. And then also, when it came to working in a studio, if I wanted to be the engineer that I really wanted to be, I would have to be in a place where the music scene was really happening. So I'd have to be in like Philadelphia or Los Angeles or Nashville or deep in Philly or something like that. And I do not like the cities. I don't feel comfortable in the city. So I was like, that's not really for me either. I could work in like a suburb studio. But I was like, not, not for me. I don't, not for me. So when I graduated college, I ended up doing freelance web work. I had met through, through a mutual friend I was I was introduced to by a mutual friend, to a person that was looking for a new web designer, developer. They lost their person, and they were looking for someone to take over with that. And at the time, I did a little bit of experience doing that, from when I was in high school, kind of picked it up on the side, just kind of like as a hobby. But I was like, Ah, I'll give this a shot. So I started actually doing that freelance for a number of years after graduation. I also worked other jobs that was, like, kind of like nowhere, like dead end kind of jobs. I did customer service work for a little bit. I was a teacher with the American Cross for a little bit, a little bit of this and that, just trying to find my way. But at the same time, I was doing freelance stuff, and nothing related to music and nothing related to technology,   Michael Hingson ** 12:29 well, so you learned HTML coding and all that other stuff that goes along with all that. I gather, I   Dan Swift ** 12:35 sure did, I sure didn't. At the time, CSS was just kind of popular, yeah, so that. And then I learned, I learned JavaScript a little bit. And, you know, I had a very healthy attitude when it when it came to accepting new clients and projects, I always tried to learn something new. Anytime someone gave me a new a new request came in, it was like, Okay, well, I already know how to do this by doing it this way. But how can I make this better? And that was really the way that I really propelled myself forward in the in the digital, I should say, when it comes to development or design.   Michael Hingson ** 13:05 Okay, so you ended up really seriously going into website development and so on.   Dan Swift ** 13:15 I did. So I continued doing freelance. And then about five years after I graduated, I started working as an audio visual technician, and also was doing computer tech stuff as part of the role as well. And while I was there, I ended up developing some web applications for myself to use that I could use to interact with our like projectors and stuff like that. Because they were on, they were all in the network, so I could interact with them using my wait for it, iPod Touch, there you go. So that was, you know, I kind of like started to blend those two together. I was really interested in the web at the time, you know, because I was still doing the freelance, I really wanted to move forward and kind of find a full time position doing that. So I ended up pursuing that more and just trying to refine those skills. And it wasn't until about about five years later, I ended up working as a full time web developer, and then kind of moved forward from   Michael Hingson ** 14:09 there, iPod Touch, what memories? And there are probably bunches of people who don't even know what that is today. That   Dan Swift ** 14:16 is so true, and at the time that was cutting edge technology,   Michael Hingson ** 14:21 yeah, it was not accessible. So I didn't get to own one, because was later than that that Steve Jobs was finally kind of pushed with the threat of a lawsuit into making things accessible. And then they did make the iPhone, the iPod, the Mac and so on, and iTunes U and other things like that, accessible. And of course, what Steve Jobs did, what Apple did, which is what Microsoft eventually sort of has done as well, but he built accessibility into the operating system. So anybody who has an Apple device today. Troy actually has a device that can be made accessible by simply turning on the accessibility mode. Of course, if you're going to turn it on, you better learn how to use it, because the gestures are different. But it took a while, but, but that did happen. But by that time, I, you know, I had other things going on, and so I never did get an iPod and and wasn't able to make it work, but that's okay. But it's like the CD has gone away and the iPod has gone away, and so many things and DVDs have gone away.   Dan Swift ** 15:31 Yes, so true. So true. You know, just as soon as we start to get used to them   Michael Hingson ** 15:35 gone. I think there is, well, maybe it's close. There was a blockbuster open up in Oregon. But again, Blockbuster Video, another one, and I think somebody's trying to bring them back, but I do see that vinyl records are still being sold in various places by various people. Michael Buble just put out a new album, The Best of Buble, and it's available, among other things, in vinyl. So the old turntables, the old record players, and you can actually buy his album as a record and play it, which is kind of cool. Yeah, they've been   Dan Swift ** 16:07 very big with marketing, too. It's been kind of a marketing, I don't want to say gimmick, but in that realm, you kind of like, hey, you know, this is also available in vinyl, and you try to get the people that are like the audio files to really check it out. I never really took the vinyl personally, but I know plenty of people that have sworn by it. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 16:25 I've heard a number of people say that the audio actually is better on vinyl than typical MP three or other similar file formats. Yep,   Dan Swift ** 16:35 yep. I had a friend growing up, and actually, I shouldn't say growing up, so I was already, like, in college or post college, but a buddy of mine, Craig, he was all about vinyl, and he had, he had the nice, the amplifier, and the nice, I think even, like, a certain kind of needle that you would get for the record player. And you know, you'd have to sit in the sweet spot to really enjoy it, and and I respect that, but um, for me, it was like, I didn't, I didn't hear that much of a difference between a CD and vinyl. Um, not very. Didn't have the opportunity to AB test them. But now I will say comparing a CD to like an mp three file, for instance, even a high quality mp three file, I can tell the difference on that Sure. I would never, you know, I'd use the MP threes for convenience. But if I were to have it my way, man, I'd have the uncompressed audio, no doubt about it, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 17:27 wave forms, yep, yep, yeah. Obviously that's that's going to give you the real quality. Of course, it takes a lot more memory, but nevertheless, if you've got the space it, it really makes a lot of sense to do because mp three isn't going to be nearly as high a level quality.   Dan Swift ** 17:43 Absolutely, absolutely true. And that the way I rationalize it to myself. It's like, well, if I'm going to be though in the car or probably walking around and listening to music, I'm going to be getting all kinds of sounds from outside. Anyway, it kind of offsets the poor quality of the MP justify it.   Michael Hingson ** 17:56 That's true. Well, you know when and mp three is convenient if you want to put a bunch of stuff in a well on a memory card and be able to play it all, because if you have uncompressed audio, it does take a lot more space, and you can't put as much on a card, or you got to get a much bigger card. And now we're getting pretty good sized memory cards. But still, the reality is that that for most purposes, not all mp three will suffice.   Dan Swift ** 18:26 That is true. That is true. And I think too, you have a that the next battle is going to be mp three or a streaming,   Michael Hingson ** 18:33 yeah, yeah, that's going to be fun, isn't it? Yeah? Boy. What a world well. So one of the things I noticed in reading your bio and so on is that you got involved to a great degree in dealing with accessibility on the web. Tell me about that.   Dan Swift ** 18:55 Absolutely. Michael, so I've very strong opinions of accessibility. And this really comes back to, you know, I was, I was at my job, and I was only there as a full time developer. I wasn't there all that long, maybe a year, maybe two, and my supervisor came over to me and she said, you know, we want to start to make things more accessible. And this is like, this is like, 1012, years ago at this point, and I was like, okay, you know, and I did my little bit of research, and there wasn't a whole lot going on at the time. I don't think WCAG was a thing back then. It may have been. I can't remember if 508 was a thing at the in the Bible. It was okay, yeah. So I was doing my research, and, you know, you learn about the alt tags, and it's like, okay, well, we're doing that, okay. Then you learn about forms, and it's like, okay, well, they need to have labels, okay, but, but the turning point was this, Michael, we had a person on staff that was blind, and I was put in touch with this person, and I asked them to review like, different, different web applications. Applications we made, or forms or web pages. And the one day, I can't remember if he volunteered or if I asked, but essentially the request was, can this person come into our physical space and review stuff for us in person? And that experience was life changing for me, just watching him navigate our different web pages or web applications or forms, and seeing how he could go through it, see what was a problem, what was not a problem, was just an incredible experience. And I said this before, when given the opportunity to talk about this, I say to other developers and designers, if you ever have even the slightest opportunity to interact with someone, if they if, if you meet someone and they are using, let me, let me rephrase that, if you have the opportunity to watch someone that is blind using a navigate through the web, take, take that opportunity. Is just an amazing, amazing experience, and you draw so much from it. As a developer or designer, so very strong opinions about it, I'm all about inclusivity and making things equal for everyone on the web, and that was just my introductory experience about a dozen years ago.   Michael Hingson ** 21:07 And so what have you done with it all since? Sure, so   Dan Swift ** 21:11 with our website, we went from having about a million success criterion failures, and we've gotten it all the way down to, I think my last check, I think was maybe about 10,000 so it was huge, huge change. It's hard to get everything as because as content changes and newspaper, as new pages come online, it's hard to keep everything 100% accessible, but we know what to look for. You know, we're looking for the right contrast. We're looking for, you know, the all tags. We're looking for hierarchy with the headers. We're making sure our forms are accessible. We're making sure there aren't any keyboard traps, you know, things that most people, most web visitors, don't even think about, you know, or developers even thinking about, until you know, you need to think about them   Michael Hingson ** 22:00 well and other things as well, such as with other kinds of disabilities. If you're a person with epilepsy, for example, you don't want to go to a website and find blinking elements, or at least, you need to have a way to turn them off, yeah.   Dan Swift ** 22:13 Or or audio that starts automatically, or videos that start automatically, yeah, yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 22:19 So many different things, or video that starts automatically, and there's music, but there's no audio, so you so a blind person doesn't even know what the video is, yes, which, which happens all too often. But the the reality is that with the Americans with Disabilities Act, it's it's been interesting, because some lawyers have tried to fight the courts and say, well, but the ADA came out long before the internet, so we didn't know anything about the internet, so it doesn't apply. And finally, the Department of Justice is taking some stands to say, yes, it does, because the internet is a place of business, but it's going to have to be codified, I think, to really bring it home. But some courts have sided with that argument and said, Well, yeah, the ADA is too old, so it doesn't, doesn't matter. And so we still see so many challenges with the whole idea of access. And people listening to this podcast know that, among other things I work with a company called accessibe. Are you familiar with them? I am, Yep, yeah, and, and so that's been an interesting challenge. But what makes access to be interesting is that, because it has an artificial intelligent widget that can monitor a website, and at the at the low end of of costs. It's like $490 a year. And it may not pick up everything that a body needs, but it will, will do a lot. And going back to what you said earlier, as websites change, as they evolve, because people are doing things on their website, which they should be doing, if you've got a static website, you never do anything with it. That's not going to do you very much good. But if it's changing constantly, the widget, at least, can look at it and make a lot of the changes to keep the website accessible. The other part of it is that it can tell you what it can't do, which is cool,   Dan Swift ** 24:16 yeah, that's a really good point. You know, there's a lot of tools that are out there. They do monitor the stuff for you, you know, like we on our on our site, we have something that runs every night and it gives us a report every day. But then there are things that it doesn't always check, or it might, it might get a false positive, because it sees that like, you know, this element has a particular color background and the text is a particular color as well. But there's, you know, maybe a gradient image that lies between them, or an image that lies between them. So it's actually okay, even though the tool says it's not, or something like that. So, yeah, those automated tools, but you gotta also look at it. You know, a human has to look at those as well.   Michael Hingson ** 24:52 Yeah, it's a challenge. But the thing that I think is important with, well, say, use accessibe. An example is that I think every web developer should use accessibe. And the reason I think that is not that accessibe will necessarily do a perfect job with with the access widget, but what it will do is give you something that is constantly monitored, and even if it only makes about 50% of the website more usable because there are complex graphics and other things that it can't do, the reality is, why work harder than you have to, and if accessibility can do a lot of the work for you without you having to do it, it doesn't mean that you need to charge less or you need to do things any different, other than the fact that you save a lot of time on doing part of it because the widget does it for you. Absolutely, absolutely.   Dan Swift ** 25:47 That's that's a really, really good point too, having that tool, that tool in your tool belt, you know, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 25:55 yeah. And it makes a lot of sense to do. And there are, there are people who complain about products like accessibe, saying artificial intelligence can't do it. It's too new. You gotta start somewhere. And the reality is that accessibe, in of itself, does a lot, and it really makes websites a lot better than they otherwise were. And some people say, Well, we've gone to websites and accessibe doesn't really seem to make a difference on the site. Maybe not. But even if your website is pretty good up front and you use accessibe, it's that time that you change something that you don't notice and suddenly accessibe fixes it. That makes it better. It's an interesting discussion all the way around, but to to deny the reality of what an AI oriented system can do is, is really just putting your head in the sand and not really being realistic about life as we go forward. I think that is   Dan Swift ** 26:52 so true. That is so true, and there's so many implications with AI and where it's going to go and what it will be able to do. You know, it's just in its infancy, and the amount of things that that the possibilities of what the future is going to be like, but they're just going to be very, very interesting.   Michael Hingson ** 27:05 I interviewed someone, well, I can't say interview, because it's conversation. Well, I had a conversation with someone earlier on, unstoppable mindset, and he said something very interesting. He's a coach, and specifically, he does a lot of work with AI, and he had one customer that he really encouraged to start using chat GPT. And what this customer did, he called his senior staff into a meeting one day, and he said, Okay, I want you to take the rest of the day and just work with chat, G, P, T, and create ideas that will enhance our business, and then let's get together tomorrow to discuss them. And he did that because he wanted people to realize the value already that exists using some of this technology. Well, these people came back with incredible ideas because they took the time to focus on them, and again, they interacted with chat, GPT. So it was a symbiotic, is probably the wrong word, but synergistic, kind of relationship, where they and the AI system worked together and created, apparently, what became really clever ideas that enhanced this customer's business. And the guy, when he first started working with this coach, was totally down on AI, but after that day of interaction with his staff, he recognized the value of it. And I think the really important key of AI is AI will not replace anyone. And that's what this gentleman said to me. He said, AI won't do it. People may replace other people, which really means they're not using AI properly, because if they were, when they find that they can use artificial intelligence to do the job that someone else is doing, you don't get rid of that person. You find something else for them to do. And the conversation that we had was about truck drivers who are involved in transporting freight from one place to another. If you get to the point where you have an autonomous vehicle, who can really do that, you still keep a driver behind the wheel, but that driver is now doing other things for the company, while the AI system does the driving, once it gets dependable enough to do that. So he said, there's no reason for AI to eliminate, and it won't. It's people that do it eliminate any job at all, which I think is a very clever and appropriate response. And I completely agree   Dan Swift ** 29:29 with that, you know, you think of other other technologies that are out there and how it disrupted, disrupted different industries. And the one example I like to use is the traffic light, you know. And I wonder, and I have no way of knowing this. I haven't researched this at all, but I wonder if there was any kind of pushback when they started putting in traffic lights. Because at that point in time, maybe you didn't have people directing traffic or something like that. Or maybe that was the event of the stop sign, it took it took away the jobs of people that were directing traffic or something like that. Maybe there was some kind of uproar over that. Maybe not, I don't know, but I like to think that things like that, you know. It disrupts the industry. But then people move on, and there are other other opportunities for them, and it progresses. It makes society progress forward.   Michael Hingson ** 30:06 And one would note that we still do use school crossing guards at a lot of schools.   Dan Swift ** 30:11 That is so true, that is true. Yeah, yeah. And especially, too, like talking about idea generation. I was talking to ginger. I forgot her last name, but she's the the president of pinstripe marketing, and she was saying that her team sometimes does the same thing that they they use chat GBT for idea generation. And I think, let's say Ashley, I think Ashley Mason, I think was her name, from Dasha social. The same thing they use, they use a chat GPT for idea generation, not not necessarily for creating the content, but for idea generation and the ideas it comes up with. It could be it can save you a lot of time. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 30:48 it can. And you know, I've heard over the last year plus how a lot of school teachers are very concerned that kids will just go off and get chat GPT to write their papers. And every time I started hearing that, I made the comment, why not let it do that? You're not thinking about it in the right way. If a kid goes off and just uses chat GPT to write their paper, they do that and they turn it into you. The question is, then, what are you as the teacher, going to do? And I submit that what the teachers ought to do is, when they assign a paper and the class all turns in their papers, then what you do is you take one period, and you give each student a minute to come up and defend without having the paper in front of them their paper. You'll find out very quickly who knows what. And it's, I think it's a potentially great teaching tool that   Dan Swift ** 31:48 is fascinating, that perspective is awesome. I love that.   Speaker 1 ** 31:52 Well, it makes sense. It   Dan Swift ** 31:55 certainly does. It certainly does. And that made me think of this too. You know, there's a lot of pushback from from artists about how that, you know, their their art was being used, or art is being used by AI to generate, you know, new art, essentially. And and musicians are saying the same thing that they're taking our stuff, it's getting fed into chat, GPT or whatever, and they're using it to train these different models. And I read this, this article. I don't even know where it was, but it's probably a couple months ago at this point. And the person made this comparison, and the person said, you know, it's really no different than a person learning how to paint in school by studying other people's art. You know, it's the same idea. It's just at a much, much much accelerated pace. And I thought, you know what that's that's kind of interesting. It's an interesting   Michael Hingson ** 32:45 perspective. It is. I do agree that we need to be concerned, that the human element is important. And there are a lot of things that people are are doing already to misuse some of this, this AI stuff, these AI tools, but we already have the dark web. We've had that for a while, too. I've never been to the dark web. I don't know how to get to it. That's fine. I don't need to go to the dark web. Besides that, I'll bet it's not accessible anyway. But the we've had the dark web, and people have accepted the fact that it's there, and there are people who monitor it and and all that. But the reality is, people are going to misuse things. They're going to be people who will misuse and, yeah, we have to be clever enough to try to ferret that out. But the fact of the matter is, AI offers so much already. One of the things that I heard, oh, gosh, I don't whether it was this year or late last year, was that, using artificial intelligence, Pfizer and other organizations actually created in only a couple of days? Or moderna, I guess, is the other one, the COVID vaccines that we have. If people had to do it alone, it would have taken them years that that we didn't have. And the reality is that using artificial intelligence, it was only a few days, and they had the beginnings of those solutions because they they created a really neat application and put the system to work. Why wouldn't we want to do that?   Dan Swift ** 34:23 I completely agree. I completely agree. And that's, again, that's how you move society forward. You know, it's similar to the idea of, you know, testing medicine on or testing medications on animals. For instance, you know, I love animals. You know, I love dogs, bunnies. I mean, the whole, the whole gamut, you know, love animals, but I understand the importance of, you know, well, do we test on them, or do we press on people, you know, you gotta, or do you not test? Or do just not you like you gotta. You gotta weigh out the pros and cons. And they're, they're definitely, definitely those with AI as well.   Michael Hingson ** 34:56 Well, I agree, and I. With animals and people. Now, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, we ought to be doing tests on politicians. You know, they're not people. Anyway. So I think when you decide to become a politician, you take a special pill that nobody seems to be able to prove, but they take dumb pills, so they're all there. But anyway, I'm with Mark Twain. Congress is at Grand Ole benevolent asylum for the helpless. So I'm an equal opportunity abuser, which is why we don't do politics on unstoppable mindset. We can have a lot of fun with it, I'm sure, but we sure could. It would be great talk about artificial intelligence. You got politicians. But the reality is that it's, it's really something that that brings so much opportunity, and I'm and it's going to continue to do that, and every day, as we see advances in what AI is doing, we will continue to see advances and what is open for us to be able to utilize it to accomplish, which is cool. I   Dan Swift ** 36:04 completely agree. Completely agree. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 36:06 so it'll be fun to see you know kind of how it goes. So are you, do you work for a company now that makes websites? Or what is your company that you work for? Do, sure.   Dan Swift ** 36:16 So I'm still in the education space, so I'm still, I'm like, in a state school managing a team of web professionals.   Michael Hingson ** 36:23 Okay, well, that's cool. So you keep the school sites and all the things that go along with it up at all that   Dan Swift ** 36:31 is correct. And we have lots of fun challenges when we start to integrate with third parties and got to make sure they're accessible too. And sometimes there's dialog that goes back and forth that people aren't happy with but, but it's my job to make sure, that's one of the things that we make sure happens, especially since I'm sure you've been following this. There's the Department of Justice ruling back in April, but I think it's anyone that's receiving state funding, they have to be. They have to follow the WCAG. Two point, I think, 2.1 double A compliance by April of 26 if you are a certain size, and my my institution, falls into that category. So we need to make sure that we were on the right path   Michael Hingson ** 37:06 well. And the reality is that has been around since 2010 but it took the the DOJ 12 years to finally come up with rules and regulations to implement section 508. Yep, but it's it's high time they did and they do need to do it for the rest of the internet, and that's coming, but people are just being slow. And for me personally, I think it's just amazing that it's taking so long. It's not like you have to redesign a box, that you have to go off and retool hardware. This is all code. Why should it be that difficult to do? But people throw roadblocks in your way, and so it becomes tough. Yeah, it's   Dan Swift ** 37:47 interesting, too. I remember reading this article, oh, gosh, this is probably, this is probably about a dozen years ago, and it said that, you know, the original web was 100% accessible, that it was just, you know, just text on a page pretty much. And you could do very, very simple layouts, you know, and then it got more convoluted. People would start doing tables for layouts, and tables within tables within tables, and so on and so forth. Like the original web it was, it was completely accessible. And now with, with all the the interactions we do with with client side scripting and everything like that, is just, it's a mess. If   Michael Hingson ** 38:19 you really want to hear an interesting thing, I like to look and I've done it for a long time, long before accessibe. I like to explore different sites and see how accessible they are. And one day I visited nsa.gov, the National Security Agency, which, of course, doesn't really exist. So I could tell you stories, but I went to nsa.gov, and I found that that was the most accessible website I had ever encountered. If you arrow down to a picture, for example, when you arrowed into it, suddenly you got on your screen reader a complete verbal description of what the picture was, and everything about that site was totally usable and totally accessible. I'd never seen a website that was so good contrast that with and it's changed. I want to be upfront about it, Martha Stewart Living. The first time I went to that website because I was selling products that Martha Stewart was interested. So I went to look at the website. It was totally inaccessible. The screen reader wouldn't talk at all. Now, I've been to Martha Stewart since, and it's and it's much more accessible, but, but I was just amazed@nsa.gov was so accessible. It was amazing, which I thought was really pretty cool. Of all places. You   Dan Swift ** 39:41 know, it's interesting. Before I started my my YouTube channel and podcast, I actually thought about creating a channel and or podcast about websites that are inaccessible, and I thought about calling companies out. And the more I thought about it, I was like, I don't know if I want to make that many people angry. I don't know if that's a   Michael Hingson ** 39:58 good idea. I'm. Would suggest going the other way, and maybe, you know, maybe we can work together on it. But I would rather feature websites that are accessible and tell the story of how they got there, how their people got there. I would think that would be, I hear what you're saying about making people angry. So I would think, rather than doing that, feature the places that are and why they are and and their stories, and that might help motivate more people to make their websites accessible. What do you think about that as an idea?   Dan Swift ** 40:28 I actually thought about that as well, and I was going backwards between that and and the other the negative side, because I thought, you know, bring that to light. Might actually force them to like by shedding light on it, might force them to make their site more accessible, whether what or not or not, no, but I definitely thought about those two sites.   Michael Hingson ** 40:45 Yeah, it's, it's, it's a challenge all the way around. Well, what was the very first thing you did, the first experience that you ever had dealing with accessibility that got you started down that road.   Dan Swift ** 40:58 I think it was like I said, when I work with that, that blind person, when I, when I first had that opportunity to see how he used the different web applications, we had the different web pages, and he was using a Mac. So he was using VoiceOver, he was using the, I think it's called the rotor menu, or roto something like that. Yeah, yep. So then after that happened, it was like, whoa. I need to get them back so I can, like, learn to use this as well and do my own testing. So the IT department had an old I asked them. I said, Hey guys, do you have any any old MacBooks that I can use? I was like, it can be old. I just need to test it. I need to, I need it to test for accessibility on the web. They hooked me up with an old machine, you know, it wasn't super old, you know, but it was. It worked for me. It gave me an opportunity to do my testing, and then I kind of became like the person in the department to do that. Everyone else, they didn't have the interest as much as I did. They recognized the importance of it, but they, they didn't have the same fire on the inside that I had, so I kind of took that on, and then like that. Now that I'm in the position of leadership, now it's more of a delegating that and making sure it still gets done. But I'm kind of like the resident expert in our in our area, so I'm still kind of the person that dives in a little bit by trying to make my team aware and do the things they need to do to make sure we're continuing, continuing to create accessible projects. You   Michael Hingson ** 42:20 mentioned earlier about the whole idea of third party products and so on and and dealing with them. What do you do? And how do you deal with a company? Let's say you you need to use somebody else's product and some of the things that the school system has to do, and you find they're not accessible. What do you do?   Dan Swift ** 42:42 So a lot of times, what will happen, I shouldn't say a lot of times. It's not uncommon for a department to make a purchase from a third party, and this is strictly, I'm talking in the web space. They might, they might make a purchase with a third party, and then they want us to integrate it. And this is a great example I had. It was actually in the spring the this, they had essentially a widget that would be on the on their particular set of pages, and there was a pop up that would appear. And don't get me started on pop ups, because I got very strong opinion about those. Me too, like I said, growing up, you know, late 90s, early 2000s very, very strong opinions about pop ups. So, but, but I encountered this, and it wasn't accessible. And I'm glad that in the position I'm in, I could say this unit, you need to talk to the company, and they need to fix this, or I'm taking it down. And I'm glad that I had the backing from, you know, from leadership, essentially, that I could do, I can make that claim and then do that, and the company ended up fixing it. So that was good. Another example was another department was getting ready to buy something. Actually, no, they had already purchased it, but they hadn't implemented it yet. The first example that was already implemented, that was I discovered that after the fact. So in the second example, they were getting ready to implement it, and they showed us another school that used it also a pop up. And I looked at it on the on the other school site, and I said, this isn't accessible. We cannot use this. No. And they said, Well, yes, it is. And I said, No, it isn't. And I explained to them, and I showed them how it was not accessible, and they ended up taking it back to their developers. Apparently there was a bug that they then fixed and they made it accessible, and then we could implement it. So it's nice that like that. I have the support from from leadership, that if there is something that is inaccessible, I have the power to kind of wheel my fist and take that down, take it off of our site. Do   Michael Hingson ** 44:31 you ever find that when some of this comes up within the school system, that departments push back, or have they caught on and recognize the value of accessibility, so they'll be supportive.   Dan Swift ** 44:45 I think the frustration with them becomes more of we bought this tool. We wish we had known this was an issue before we bought I think it's more of a like like that. We just wasted our time and money, possibly. But generally speaking, they do see the. Value of it, and they've recognized the importance of it. It's just more of a when others, there's more hoops everyone has to go through.   Michael Hingson ** 45:05 Yeah, and as you mentioned with pop ups, especially, it's a real challenge, because you could be on a website, and a lot of times A pop up will come up and it messes up the website for people with screen readers and so on. And part of the problem is we don't even always find the place to close or take down the pop up, which is really very frustrating   Dan Swift ** 45:30 Exactly, exactly the tab index could be off, or you could still be on the page somewhere, and it doesn't allow you to get into it and remove it, or, yeah, and extra bonus points if they also have an audio playing or a video playing inside of that.   Michael Hingson ** 45:44 Yeah, it really does make life a big challenge, which is very, very frustrating all the way around. Yeah, pop ups are definitely a big pain in the butt, and I know with accessibility, we're we're all very concerned about that, but still, pop ups do occur. And the neat thing about a product like accessibe, and one of the reasons I really support it, is it's scalable, and that is that as the people who develop the product at accessibe improve it, those improvements filter down to everybody using the widget, which is really cool, and that's important, because with individual websites where somebody has to code it in and keep monitoring it, as you pointed out, the problem is, if that's all you have, then you've got to keep paying people to to monitor everything, to make sure everything stays accessible and coded properly, whereas there are ways to be able to take advantage of something like accessibe, where what you're able to do is let it, monitor it, and as accessibe learns, and I've got some great examples where people contacted me because they had things like a shopping cart on a website that didn't work, but when accessibe fixed it, because it turns out there was something that needed to be addressed that got fixed for anybody using the product. Which is really cool.   Dan Swift ** 47:07 Yeah, that's really neat. I definitely appreciate things like that where, you know, you essentially fix something for one person, it's fixed for everyone, or a new feature gets added for someone, or, you know, a group of people, for instance, and then everyone is able to benefit from that. That's really, really awesome. I love that type of stuff.   Michael Hingson ** 47:22 Yeah, I think it's really so cool. How has all this business with accessibility and so on affected you in terms of your YouTube channel and podcasting and so on? How do you bring that into the process? That's that's   Dan Swift ** 47:37 really, really good question. I am very proud to say that I take the time to create transcripts of all my recordings, and then I go through them, and I check them for for accuracy, to make sure that things aren't correct, things are incorrect. Make sure things are correct, that they are not incorrect. So I'll make sure that those are there when the when the videos go live, those are available. Spotify creates them automatically for you. I don't know that you that I have the ability to modify them. I'm assuming I probably do, but honestly, I haven't checked into that. But so that's that's all accessible. When it comes to my web page, I make sure that all my images have the appropriate, you know, alt tags associated with them, that the the descriptions are there so people understand what the pictures are. I don't have a whole lot of pictures. Usually it's just the thumbnail for the videos, so just indicating what it is. And then I just try to be, you know, kind of, kind of text heavy. I try to make sure that my, you know, my links are not, you know, click here, learn more stuff like that. I make sure or they're not actual web addresses. I try to make sure that they're actual actionable. So when someone's using a screen reader and they go over a link, it actually is meaningful. And color contrast is another big one. I try to make sure my color contrast is meeting the appropriate level for WCAG, 2.1 double A which I can't remember what actual contrast is, but there's a contrast checker for it, which is really, really helpful   Michael Hingson ** 49:00 well. And the other, the other part about it is when somebody goes to your website again, of course, accessibility is different for different people, so when you're dealing with things like contrast or whatever, do people who come to the website have the ability to monitor or not monitor, but modify some of those settings so that they get maybe a higher contrast or change colors. Or do they have that ability?   Dan Swift ** 49:28 I They do not have that ability. I remember looking into a tool a while ago, and it was and actually, you know, at the school, we thought about developing a tool. It would be like a widget on the side that you could adjust on different things like that. You could do, you could remove images, you could remove animation, you could change color, contrast, that sort of thing. And it just be like a very predefined kind of kind of settings. But in my research, I found that a lot of times that causes other problems for people, and it kind of falls into the the arena of. Um, separate but equal. And there's a lot of issues with that right now in the accessibility space when it comes to the web. So for instance, there was a company, I forget what the company name was, but they had one of their things that they did was they would create text only versions of your pages. So you'd contract with them. They would they would scrape the content of your site. They would create a text version, text only version of your pages. So if people were using a screen reader, they could just follow that link and then browse the text only version. And there was litigation, and the company got sued, and the the person suing was successful, because it was essentially creating a separate argument.   Michael Hingson ** 50:34 And that's not necessarily separate, but equal is the problem, because if you only got the text, pictures are put on websites, graphs are put on websites. All of those other kinds of materials are put on websites for reasons. And so what really needs to happen is that those other things need to be made accessible, which is doable, and the whole web con excessive content. Accessibility Guidelines do offer the the information as to how to do that and what to do, but it is important that that other information be made available, because otherwise it really is separate, but not totally equal at   Dan Swift ** 51:11 all. That's absolutely true. Absolutely true. Yeah. So it   Michael Hingson ** 51:15 is a, it is something to, you know, to look at well, you've been doing a podcast and so on for a while. What are some challenges that someone might face that you advise people about if they're going to create their own podcast or a really productive YouTube channel,   Dan Swift ** 51:31 be real with yourself with the amount of time you have to dedicate to it, because what I found is that it takes a lot more time than I originally anticipated I thought going in, I thought, you know, so I typically try to record one or two people a week. When I first started out, I was only recording one person. And usually I would do, you know, record one day, edit the next day, you know, do the web page stuff. I would go with it, you know, I can knock it out in like an hour or two. But I wasn't anticipating the social media stuff that goes with it, the search engine optimization that goes with it, the research that goes with it, trying to so if I'm if I'm producing a video that's going to go on YouTube, what's hot at the moment? What are people actually searching for? What's going to grab people's attention? What kind of thumbnail do I have to create to grab someone's attention, where it's not clickbait, but it also represents what I'm actually talking to the person about, and still interesting. So it's a lot of a lot of that research, a lot of that sort of thing. It just eats up a lot a lot of time when it comes to like the transcripts, for instance, that was those super easy on their number of services out there that created automatically for you, and they just have to read through it and make sure it's okay. I know YouTube will do it as well. I found that YouTube isn't as good as some of the other services that are out there, but in a bind, you can at least rely on YouTube and then go and edit from that point. But yet, time is definitely a big one. I would say, if anyone is starting to do it, make sure you have some serious time to dedicate several, several hours a week, I would say, upwards, you know, probably a good, you know, four to 10 hours a week is what I would estimate in the moment. If you're looking to produce a 30 minute segment once or twice a week, I would estimate about that time.   Michael Hingson ** 53:11 Yeah, one of the things I've been hearing about videos is that that the trend is is clearly not to have long videos, but only 32nd videos, and put them vertical as opposed to horizontal. And anything over 30 seconds is is not good, which seems to me to really not challenge people to deal with having enough content to make something relevant, because you can't do everything in 30 seconds exactly,   Dan Swift ** 53:41 and what I found too. So this was very this was a little bit of a learning curve for me. So with, with the YouTube shorts that you have, they have to be a minute or less. I mean, now they're actually in the process of changing it to three minutes or less. I do not have that access yet, but it has Go ahead, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so. But what I'm finding Michael is that the people that so I might create this a great example. So I was interviewing a comedian in New York City, Meredith Dietz, awesome, awesome episode. But I was talking to her about becoming a comedian, and I made about four different shorts for her from her video, and I was doing a new one each week to kind of promote it. And the videos, for me, they were getting a lot I was getting anywhere between maybe 315 100 views on the short for me, that was awesome. For other people, you know, that might be nothing, but for me, that was awesome. But what I found was that the people that watch the shorts aren't necessarily the same people that watch the long form videos. So I'm or, or I might get subscribers from people that watch the shorts, but then they're not actually watching the video. And in the end, that kind of hurts your channel, because it's showing, it's telling the YouTube I'm gonna use air quotes, YouTube algorithm that my subscribers aren't interested in my content, and it ends up hurting me more. So anyone that's trying to play that game. And be aware of that. You know, you can't get more subscribers through shorts, but if you're not converting them, it's going to hurt you.   Michael Hingson ** 55:05 I can accept three minutes, but 30 seconds just seems to be really strange. And I was asked once to produce a demonstration of accessibe on a website. They said you got to do it in 30 seconds, or no more than a minute, but preferably 30 seconds. Well, you can't do that if, in part, you're also trying to explain what a screen reader is and everything else. The reality is, there's got to be some tolerance. And I think that the potential is there to do that. But it isn't all about eyesight, which is, of course, the real issue from my perspective. Anyway.   Dan Swift ** 55:41 Yeah, I completely agree. I think what YouTube is trying to do, and I believe in getting this from Tiktok, I think Tiktok has three up to three minutes. Actually, there might be 10 minutes now that I think about it, but, but I think they're trying to follow the trend, and it's like, let's make videos slightly longer and see how that goes. So be very curious to see how that all pans out.   Michael Hingson ** 55:58 Well. And I think that makes sense. I think there's some value in that, but 30 seconds is not enough time to get real content, and if people dumb down to that point, then that's pretty scary. So I'm glad to hear that the trend seems to be going a little bit longer, which is, which is a good thing, which is pretty important to be able to do. Yeah, I completely   Dan Swift ** 56:21 agree. Because like that, the trend right now, it's, you know, people, they want stuff immediately, and if you don't catch them in 10 seconds, they're swiping onto something else, which is which is very challenging, at least, especially for me and what I do. Who's   Michael Hingson ** 56:32 the most inspiring guest that you've ever had on your podcast?   Dan Swift ** 56:37 Michael, this is a good one. This is a good one. So the video for Ashley Mason. She is a social media marketing she created a social medi

In this episode of the Post Status Happiness Hour, host Michelle Frechette interviews Gen Herres from Easy A11y Guide to discuss web accessibility. Jen shares her background as a developer and her journey in understanding and implementing accessibility standards. She emphasizes the importance of simplifying complex accessibility concepts for clients and offers strategies for agencies to sell accessibility services. Jen introduces a five-day challenge to help agencies qualify potential clients and sell their first accessibility package. The conversation highlights the significance of making websites accessible to a broader audience and the various reasons why accessibility is essential for businesses.Top Takeaways:Accessibility Doesn't Have to Be Scary:  Many people find web accessibility intimidating, but experts like Gen Herres help simplify the process. There are resources available to make accessibility more approachable.Planning for Accessibility Takes Time: Implementing accessibility properly requires time for strategy, testing, and client approvals. Starting now helps businesses integrate it seamlessly into their workflow instead of rushing later.Accessibility Can Help Generate More Revenue: Learning how to sell accessibility services effectively can help web professionals increase their income by offering more value to clients.Mentioned In The Show:Easy A11y GuideWCAGMozilla17 HatsEqualize DigitalWacomNew York E-Z Pass Apple VoiceOverDequeJAWSCloudflareWPAccessibility.dayCami MacNamara5-Day Accessibility Selling ChallengeAgency Accessibility SystemGuidebook for Accessibility at Your Agency

Patrick Escarcega is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Meserow Design, a company known for its excellence in developing and maintaining custom software solutions. His background is in software engineering and has been leading software teams for many years. His technical focus has been on Microsoft development and cloud technologies.    Topics of Discussion: [3:30] Patrick recalls the moment he transitioned from individual software developer to leading teams, highlighting the importance of understanding how software adds business value beyond just code. [5:00] Patrick describes the joy he rediscovered in coding when starting his own company, emphasizing the delicate balance between hands-on coding and leadership responsibilities. [7:50] The head chef and food scientist analogy. [9:26] The importance of creating a safe environment, a “pit of success,” so developers can naturally follow best practices without feeling constrained. [10:36] Why readable, maintainable code is crucial, especially for senior leaders whose time is spent reading code more than writing it. [13:27] Comparing software engineering creativity to building an engine from “invisible Lego bricks," emphasizes the hidden creativity involved in engineering solutions. [15:08] The importance of leaders giving developers space and freedom to craft innovative solutions, rather than overly prescribing methodologies. [17:00] Running integration tests. [20:41] Accessibility and WCAG compliance explained: Why accessibility should be an integral part of software development and testing workflows. [23:14] EqualWeb accessibility checker and Chrome browser extension. [25:02] Practical everyday use of AI in software development, especially GitHub Copilot, and why developers should embrace AI tools regularly to remain productive and competitive. [31:10] Patrick encourages developers to embrace AI and keep learning, emphasizing that continuous adaptation will keep careers vibrant over the next decade.   Mentioned in this Episode: Clear Measure Way Architect Forum Software Engineer Forum Programming with Palermo — New Video Podcast! Email us at programming@palermo.net. Clear Measure, Inc. (Sponsor) .NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo Patrick Escarcega Meserow Design Engineering Practices for LLM Application Development     Want to Learn More? Visit AzureDevOps.Show for show notes and additional episodes.

Dans cet épisode, Emmanuel et Arnaud discutent des dernières nouvelles du dev, en mettant l'accent sur Java, l'intelligence artificielle, et les nouvelles fonctionnalités des versions JDK 24 et 25. Ils abordent également des sujets comme Quarkus, l'accessibilité des sites web, et l'impact de l'IA sur le trafic web. Cette conversation aborde les approches pour les devs en matière d'intelligence artificielle et de développement logiciel. On y discute notamment des défis et des bénéfices de l'utilisation de l'IA. Enfin, ils partagent leurs réflexions sur l'importance des conférences pour le développement professionnel. Enregistré le 14 mars 2025 Téléchargement de l'épisode LesCastCodeurs-Episode-323.mp3 ou en vidéo sur YouTube. News Langages Java Metal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yup8gIXxWDU Peut-être qu'on la déjà partagé ? Article d'opinion Java coming for AI https://thenewstack.io/2025-is-the-last-year-of-python-dominance-in-ai-java-comin/ 2025 pourrait être la dernière année où Python domine l'IA. Java devient un concurrent sérieux dans le domaine. En 2024, Python était toujours en tête, Java restait fort en entreprise, et Rust gagnait en popularité. Java est de plus en plus utilisé pour l'AI remettant en cause la suprématie de Python. article vient de javaistes la domination de python est cluturelle et plus technique (enfin pour les ML lib c'est encore technique) projets paname et babylon changent la donne JavaML est populaire L'almanach java sur les versions https://javaalmanac.io/ montre kes APIs et les diff entre versions puis les notes ou la spec java Les nouvelles de JDK 24 et du futur 25 https://www.infoq.com/news/2025/02/java-24-so-far/?utm_campaign=infoq_content&utm_source=infoq&utm_medium=feed&utm_term=global JDK 24 a atteint sa première phase de release candidate et sera officiellement publié le 18 mars 2025. 24 nouvelles fonctionnalités (JEPs) réparties en 5 catégories : Core Java Library (7), Java Language Specification (4), Security Library (4), HotSpot (8) et Java Tools (1). Project Amber : JEP 495 “Simple Source Files and Instance Main Methods” en quatrième preview, visant à simplifier l'écriture des premiers programmes Java pour les débutants. Project Loom : JEP 487 “Scoped Values” en quatrième preview, permettant le partage de données immuables entre threads, particulièrement utile avec les virtual threads. Project Panama : JEP 489 “Vector API” en neuvième incubation, continuera d'incuber jusqu'à ce que les fonctionnalités nécessaires de Project Valhalla soient disponibles. Project Leyden : JEP 483 “Ahead-of-Time Class Loading & Linking” pour améliorer le temps de démarrage en rendant les classes d'une application instantanément disponibles au démarrage de la JVM. Sécurité quantique : Deux JEPs (496 et 497) introduisant des algorithmes résistants aux ordinateurs quantiques pour la cryptographie, basés sur les réseaux modulaires. Sécurité renforcée : JEP 486 propose de désactiver définitivement le Security Manager, tandis que JEP 478 introduit une API de dérivation de clés. Optimisations HotSpot : JEP 450 “Compact Object Headers” (expérimental) pour réduire la taille des en-têtes d'objets de 96-128 bits à 64 bits sur les architectures 64 bits. (a ne aps utiliser en prod!) Améliorations GC : JEP 404 “Generational Shenandoah” (expérimental) introduit un mode générationnel pour le Garbage Collector Shenandoah, tout en gardant le non generationel. Évolution des ports : Windows 32-bit x86 ca sent le sapin JEP 502 dans JDK 25 : Introduction des “Stable Values” (preview), anciennement “Computed Constants”, offrant les avantages des champs final avec plus de flexibilité pour l'initialisation. Points Supplémentaires sur JDK 25 Date de sortie : JDK 25 est prévu pour septembre 2025 et représentera la prochaine version LTS (Long-Term Support) après JDK 21. Finalisation de l'on-ramp : Gavin Bierman a annoncé son intention de finaliser la fonction “Simple Source Files” dans JDK 25, après quatre previews successives. CDS Object Streaming : Le JEP Draft 8326035 propose d'ajouter un mécanisme d'archivage d'objets pour Class-Data Sharing (CDS) dans ZGC, avec un format d'archivage et un chargeur unifiés. HTTP/3 supporté dans HttpClient Un article sur l'approche de Go pour éviter les attaques par chemin de fichier https://go.dev/blog/osroot Librairies Quarkus 3.19 es sorti https://quarkus.io/blog/quarkus-3-19-1-released/ UBI 9 par defaut pour les containers En plus de AppCDS, support tu cache AOT (JEP 483) pour demarrer encore plus rapidement Preuve de possession dans OAuth tokers 2 Mario Fusco sur les patterns d'agents en Quarkus https://quarkus.io/blog/agentic-ai-with-quarkus/ et https://quarkus.io/blog/agentic-ai-with-quarkus-p2/ premier article sur les patterns de workflow chainer, paralleliser ou router avec des exemples de code qui tournent les agents a proprement parler (le LLM qui decide du workflow) les agents ont des toolbox que le LLM peut decided d'invoquer Le code va dans les details et permet de mettre les interactions en lumiere tracing rend les choses visuelles Web Le European Accessibility Act (EAA) https://martijnhols.nl/blog/the-european-accessibility-act-for-websites-and-apps Loi européenne sur l'accessibilité (EAA) adoptée en 2019 Vise à rendre sites web et apps accessibles aux personnes handicapées Suivre les normes WCAG 2.1 AA (clarté, utilisabilité, compatibilité) Entreprises concernées : banques, e-commerce, transports, etc. Date limite de mise en conformité : 28 juin 2025 2025 c'est pour les nouveaux developpements 2027 c'est pour les applications existantes. bon et je fais comment pour savoir si le site web des cast codeurs est conforme ? API Popover https://web.dev/blog/popover-baseline?hl=en L'API Popover est maintenant disponible dans tous les navigateurs majeurs Ajoutée à Baseline le 27 janvier 2025 Permet de créer des popovers natifs en HTML, sans JavaScript complexe Exemple : Ouvrir Contenu du popover Problème initial (2024) : Bug sur iOS empêchant la fermeture des popovers Intégrer un front-end React dans une app Spring-Boot https://bootify.io/frontend/react-spring-boot-integration.html Etape par etape, comment configurer son build (https://bootify.io/frontend/webpack-spring-boot.html) et son app (controllers…) pour y intégrer un front en rect. Data et Intelligence Artificielle Traffic des sites web venant de IA https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-traffic-study/ le AIEO apres le SEO va devenir un gros business vu que les modèles ont tendance a avoir leurs chouchous techniques ou de reference. 63% des sites ont au moins un referal viennent d'une IA 50% ChatGPT, puis plrplexity et enfin Gemini, bah et LeChat alors? 0,17% du traffic des sites vient de l'IA. Et en meme temps l'AI resume plutot que pointe donc c'est logique Granite 3.2 est sorti https://www.infoq.com/news/2025/03/ibm-granite-3-2/ IBM sort Granite 3.2, un modèle IA avancé. Meilleur raisonnement et nouvelles capacités multimodales. Granite Vision 3.2 excelle en compréhension d'images et de documents. Granite Guardian 3.2 détecte les risques dans les réponses IA. Modèles plus petits et efficaces pour divers usages. Améliorations en raisonnement mathématique et prévisions temporelles. les trucs interessants de Granite c'est sa petite taille et son cote “vraiment” open source Prompt Engineering - article détaillé https://www.infoq.com/articles/prompt-engineering/ Le prompt engineering, c'est l'art de bien formuler les instructions pour guider l'IA. Accessible à tous, il ne remplace pas la programmation mais la complète. Techniques clés : few-shot learning, chain-of-thought, tree-of-thought. Avantages : flexibilité, rapidité, meilleure interaction avec l'IA. Limites : manque de précision et dépendance aux modèles existants. Futur : un outil clé pour améliorer l'IA et le développement logiciel. QCon San Francisco - Les agents AI - Conference https://www.infoq.com/presentations/ai-agents-infrastructure/ Sujet : Infrastructure pour agents d'IA. Technologies : RAG et bases de données vectorielles. Rôle des agents d'IA : Automatiser des tâches, prévoir des besoins, superviser. Expérience : Shruti Bhat de Oracle à Rockset (acquis par OpenAI). Objectif : Passer des applis classiques aux agents IA intelligents. Défis : Améliorer la recherche en temps réel, l'indexation et la récupération. Nous concernant: Évolution des rôles : Les développeurs passent à des rôles plus stratégiques. Adaptation nécessaire : Les développeurs doivent s'adapter aux nouvelles technologies. Official Java SDK for MCP & Spring AI https://spring.io/blog/2025/02/14/mcp-java-sdk-released-2 Désormais une implémentation officielle aux côtés des SDK Python, TypeScript et Kotlin. ( https://modelcontextprotocol.io/ ) Prise en charge de Stdio-based transport, SSE (via HTTP) et intégration avec Spring WebFlux et WebMVC. Intégration avec Spring AI, configuration simplifiée pour les applications Spring Boot (different starters disponibles) Codez avec Claude https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/agents-and-tools/claude-code/overview Claude Code est en beta, plus de liste d'attente Un outil de codage agentique intégré au terminal, capable de comprendre votre base de code et d'accélérer le développement grâce à des commandes en langage naturel. Les fonctionnalités permettent de comprendre le code, le refactorer, tester, debugger, … Gemini Code Assist est gratuit https://blog.google/technology/developers/gemini-code-assist-free/ Pour un usage personnel. Pas besoin de compte. Pas de limite. 128k token input. Guillaume démarre une série d'articles sur le RAG (niveau avancé). Le premier sur Sentence Window Retrievalhttps://glaforge.dev/posts/2025/02/25/advanced-rag-sentence-window-retrieval/ Guillaume propose une technique qui améliore les résultats de rechercher de Retrieval Augmented Generation L'idée est de calculer des vecteurs embeddings sur des phrases, par exemple, mais de retourner un contexte plus large L'intérêt, c'est d'avoir des calculs de similarité de vector embedding qui ont de bons scores (sans dilution de sens) de similarité, mais de ne pas perdre des informations sur le contexte dans lequel cette phrase se situe GitHub Copilot edits en GA, GitHub Copilot en mode agent dans VSCode Insiders https://github.blog/news-insights/product-news/github-copilot-the-agent-awakens/ Copilot Edits permet via le chat de modifier plusieurs fichiers en même temps, ce qui simplifie les refactoring Copilot en mode agent ajoute un mode autonome (Agentic AI) qui va tout seul chercher les modifications à faire dans votre code base. “what could possibly go wrong?” Méthodologies Article d'opinion interessant sur AI et le code assistant de Addy Osmani https://addyo.substack.com/p/the-70-problem-hard-truths-about Un article de l'année dernière de Addy Osmani https://addyo.substack.com/p/10-lessons-from-12-years-at-google plusieurs types d'aide IA Ceux pour boostrapper, dun figma ou d'une image et avoir un proto non fonctionnel en quelques jours Ceux pour iterer sur du code donc plus long terme on va faire une interview sur les assistants de code IA Le cout de la vitesse de l'ia les dev senior refactur et modifie le code proposé pour se l'approprier, chnger l'architecture etc donc basé sur leur connaissance appliquer ce qu'on connait deja amis plus vite est un pattern different d'apprendre avec l'IA explore des patterns d'approche et la prospective sur le futur Loi, société et organisation Elon Musk essaie d'acheter Open AI https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpdx75zgg88o La réponse: “non merci mais on peut racheter twiter pour 9,74 milliars si tu veux” Avec la loi narcotrafic votée au sénat, Signal ne serait plus disponible en France https://www.clubic.com/actualite-555135-avec-la-loi-narcotrafic-signal-quittera-la-france.html en plus de légaliser les logiciels espions s'appuyant sur les failles logiciel La loi demande aux messageries de laisser l'état accéder aux conversations Donc une backdoor avec une clé etatique par exemple Une backdoor comme celle des téléphones filaires américains mis en place il y a des années et maintenant exploitée par l'espionnage chinois Signal à une position ferme, soit c'est sécurisé soit on sort d'un pays Olvid WhatsApp et iMessage sont aussi visée par exemple La loi défini la cible comme la criminalité organisée : les classiques mais aussi les gilets jaunes, les opposants au projet de Bure, les militants aidant les personnes exilées à Briançon, ou encore les actions contre le cimentier Lafarge à Bouc-Bel-Air et à Évreux Donc plus large que ce que les gens pensent. Conférences La liste des conférences provenant de Developers Conferences Agenda/List par Aurélie Vache et contributeurs : 14 mars 2025 : Rust In Paris 2025 - Paris (France) 19-21 mars 2025 : React Paris - Paris (France) 20 mars 2025 : PGDay Paris - Paris (France) 20-21 mars 2025 : Agile Niort - Niort (France) 25 mars 2025 : ParisTestConf - Paris (France) 26-29 mars 2025 : JChateau Unconference 2025 - Cour-Cheverny (France) 27-28 mars 2025 : SymfonyLive Paris 2025 - Paris (France) 28 mars 2025 : DataDays - Lille (France) 28-29 mars 2025 : Agile Games France 2025 - Lille (France) 28-30 mars 2025 : Shift - Nantes (France) 3 avril 2025 : DotJS - Paris (France) 3 avril 2025 : SoCraTes Rennes 2025 - Rennes (France) 4 avril 2025 : Flutter Connection 2025 - Paris (France) 4 avril 2025 : aMP Orléans 04-04-2025 - Orléans (France) 10-11 avril 2025 : Android Makers - Montrouge (France) 10-12 avril 2025 : Devoxx Greece - Athens (Greece) 11-12 avril 2025 : Faiseuses du Web 4 - Dinan (France) 14 avril 2025 : Lyon Craft - Lyon (France) 16-18 avril 2025 : Devoxx France - Paris (France) 23-25 avril 2025 : MODERN ENDPOINT MANAGEMENT EMEA SUMMIT 2025 - Paris (France) 24 avril 2025 : IA Data Day - Strasbourg 2025 - Strasbourg (France) 29-30 avril 2025 : MixIT - Lyon (France) 6-7 mai 2025 : GOSIM AI Paris - Paris (France) 7-9 mai 2025 : Devoxx UK - London (UK) 15 mai 2025 : Cloud Toulouse - Toulouse (France) 16 mai 2025 : AFUP Day 2025 Lille - Lille (France) 16 mai 2025 : AFUP Day 2025 Lyon - Lyon (France) 16 mai 2025 : AFUP Day 2025 Poitiers - Poitiers (France) 22-23 mai 2025 : Flupa UX Days 2025 - Paris (France) 24 mai 2025 : Polycloud - Montpellier (France) 24 mai 2025 : NG Baguette Conf 2025 - Nantes (France) 3 juin 2025 : TechReady - Nantes (France) 5-6 juin 2025 : AlpesCraft - Grenoble (France) 5-6 juin 2025 : Devquest 2025 - Niort (France) 10-11 juin 2025 : Modern Workplace Conference Paris 2025 - Paris (France) 11-13 juin 2025 : Devoxx Poland - Krakow (Poland) 12-13 juin 2025 : Agile Tour Toulouse - Toulouse (France) 12-13 juin 2025 : DevLille - Lille (France) 13 juin 2025 : Tech F'Est 2025 - Nancy (France) 17 juin 2025 : Mobilis In Mobile - Nantes (France) 19-21 juin 2025 : Drupal Barcamp Perpignan 2025 - Perpignan (France) 24 juin 2025 : WAX 2025 - Aix-en-Provence (France) 25-26 juin 2025 : Agi'Lille 2025 - Lille (France) 25-27 juin 2025 : BreizhCamp 2025 - Rennes (France) 26-27 juin 2025 : Sunny Tech - Montpellier (France) 1-4 juillet 2025 : Open edX Conference - 2025 - Palaiseau (France) 7-9 juillet 2025 : Riviera DEV 2025 - Sophia Antipolis (France) 18-19 septembre 2025 : API Platform Conference - Lille (France) & Online 23 septembre 2025 : OWASP AppSec France 2025 - Paris (France) 25-26 septembre 2025 : Paris Web 2025 - Paris (France) 2-3 octobre 2025 : Volcamp - Clermont-Ferrand (France) 6-10 octobre 2025 : Devoxx Belgium - Antwerp (Belgium) 9-10 octobre 2025 : Forum PHP 2025 - Marne-la-Vallée (France) 9-10 octobre 2025 : EuroRust 2025 - Paris (France) 16-17 octobre 2025 : DevFest Nantes - Nantes (France) 4-7 novembre 2025 : NewCrafts 2025 - Paris (France) 6 novembre 2025 : dotAI 2025 - Paris (France) 7 novembre 2025 : BDX I/O - Bordeaux (France) 12-14 novembre 2025 : Devoxx Morocco - Marrakech (Morocco) 21 novembre 2025 : DevFest Paris 2025 - Paris (France) 28 novembre 2025 : DevFest Lyon - Lyon (France) 28-31 janvier 2026 : SnowCamp 2026 - Grenoble (France) 23-25 avril 2026 : Devoxx Greece - Athens (Greece) 17 juin 2026 : Devoxx Poland - Krakow (Poland) Nous contacter Pour réagir à cet épisode, venez discuter sur le groupe Google https://groups.google.com/group/lescastcodeurs Contactez-nous via X/twitter https://twitter.com/lescastcodeurs ou Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/lescastcodeurs.com Faire un crowdcast ou une crowdquestion Soutenez Les Cast Codeurs sur Patreon https://www.patreon.com/LesCastCodeurs Tous les épisodes et toutes les infos sur https://lescastcodeurs.com/

More healthcare organizations are rethinking their websites, but should you opt for a refresh or a full rebuild? In this episode, Jenny explores this growing trend and breaks down the key differences. She covers when a refresh is the right choice—especially for improving accessibility, mobile responsiveness, and privacy compliance, including the impact of HHS Section 504 and WCAG 2.1. She also explains when a rebuild is necessary, such as enhancing the patient experience, rebranding, or integrating new technologies. Understanding these distinctions can help your organization align its website strategy with its goals, timeline, and budget.ResourcesHHS Accessibility GuideConnect with Jenny:Email: jenny@hedyandhopp.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennybristow/If you enjoyed this episode we'd love to hear your feedback! Please consider leaving us a review on your preferred listening platform and sharing it with others.

New Federal ADA Regulation Deadlines Are Approaching – Is Your Institution Ready? Colleges and universities must now meet stricter ADA compliance requirements for websites and digital content or risk legal consequences, fines,  and loss of federal funding. With the Department of Justice's latest update to Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), institutions must ensure all web content, mobile apps, and digital resources meet WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards. For many schools, the deadline is approaching fast. In this episode of Changing Higher Ed®, host Dr. Drumm McNaughton has a conversation with Eugene Woo, CEO and founder of Venngage, to discuss what these new ADA regulations mean for higher education institutions and what they must do to comply. Understanding the New ADA Requirements for Higher Ed The Department of Justice's update to Title II clarifies long-standing accessibility expectations, removing ambiguity about digital compliance. Now, all institutions receiving federal funds—including financial aid, research grants, or disaster relief—must ensure their online content adheres to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. AA The key changes include: Explicit standards for websites and mobile apps – Digital accessibility is no longer optional. Clearer rules on compliance deadlines – Larger institutions (50,000+ students) must comply by April 2026, while smaller institutions have until April 2027. Greater enforcement risks – ADA lawsuits have historically driven accessibility improvements, and these new regulations are meant to make institutions proactive rather than reactive. Woo explains that many universities operate hundreds, if not thousands, of websites across different departments and programs, making compliance a daunting task. Why ADA Compliance Matters for Colleges and Universities Accessibility Isn't Just a Legal Obligation—It's a Universal Design Best Practice Woo highlights that designing for accessibility benefits everyone, not just individuals with disabilities. Features like captions for videos were initially created for the hearing impaired but are now widely used by all viewers. The Biggest Accessibility Challenges for Higher Ed Websites According to WebAIM's annual survey of the top one million websites, these are the most common accessibility issues: Missing alt text for images – Over 50% of homepage images lack descriptions, making content inaccessible to screen readers. Poor form accessibility – Online forms frequently lack proper labels, creating barriers for those using assistive technology. Non-descriptive links and buttons – Generic link text (e.g., “Click here”) makes navigation difficult for screen reader users. Inaccessible PDFs – Many course materials, syllabi, and administrative documents are in PDF format but lack proper tagging and readability. Color contrast issues – Up to 20% of men have some form of color blindness, yet many websites fail to meet the contrast requirements. 3. What Institutions Should Prioritize First Given the scale of most universities' digital footprints, Woo recommends: Conducting an ADA compliance audit to identify accessibility gaps. Prioritizing high-traffic pages and critical student services for remediation. Implementing universal design principles in new content to prevent future accessibility issues. How Universities Can Ensure ADA Compliance Designating Leadership Responsibility Presidents and institutional leaders must appoint a compliance officer or team responsible for ensuring accessibility across all digital platforms. Without clear ownership, accessibility efforts can fall through the cracks. Leverage AI and Automated Accessibility Tools for ADA Compliance Woo notes that institutions can use AI-powered tools to scan websites for accessibility violations and assist in remediation. Some platforms can even auto-correct PDFs and web pages to bring them closer to WCAG 2.1 standards. Budgeting for Digital Accessibility Compliance Compliance isn't just a policy issue—it requires financial investment. Schools must allocate resources for accessibility audits, technology upgrades, and training to ensure long-term compliance. Three Key Takeaways for Higher Education Leaders Determine whether your institution must comply—and by when Institutions receiving any federal funding must meet the new standards, with large universities facing an April 2026 deadline. Appoint a leader or team to oversee accessibility compliance Without clear accountability, compliance efforts will stall. Universities must assign responsibility to IT, compliance, or academic leadership teams. Invest in accessibility tools and training ADA compliance isn't just a one-time fix. Schools should budget for ongoing accessibility improvements, staff training, and technological upgrades. Higher education institutions can no longer afford to overlook digital accessibility. With the DOJ's new enforcement push, now is the time to act. Listen to the full episode for more insights from Eugene Woo and practical strategies for making your institution's digital content fully accessible. Read the podcast transcript on our website: https://changinghighered.com/ada-compliance-in-higher-education/ #HigherEducation #ADACompliance #HigherEdPodcast About Our Podcast Guest Eugene Woo is the CEO and founder of Venngage, an infographic design platform that enables users to create compelling and accessible visual content. With over two decades of experience in software engineering and product development, Eugene has a strong background in engineering and a passion for visual storytelling. Prior to Venngage, he founded Vizualize.Me, a platform for creating visual résumés, which was acquired by Parchment in 2013. Eugene holds a Master of Science in Planning from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology Connect with Eugene Woo on LinkedIn → About the Podcast Host Dr. Drumm McNaughton is the founder, CEO, and Principal Consultant at The Change Leader, Inc. A highly sought-after higher education consultant with 20+ years of experience, Dr. McNaughton works with leadership, management, and boards of U.S. and international institutions. His expertise spans key areas, including accreditation, governance, strategic planning, presidential onboarding, mergers, acquisitions, and strategic alliances. Dr. McNaughton's approach combines a holistic methodology with a deep understanding of the contemporary and evolving challenges facing higher education institutions worldwide to ensure his clients succeed in their mission. Connect with Drumm McNaughton on LinkedIn→

In this episode of Chax Chat, Chad Chelius and Dax Castro tackle some of the most common challenges in document accessibility. From overlooked tagging issues to the hidden complexities of tables and lists, they break down key remediation strategies that can save you time and frustration. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, this conversation is packed with practical tips to help you create compliant, user-friendly PDFs. So sit back, grab your favorite mug of whatever, and let's get into it! 

Zur Fortsetzung der Barrierefreiheits-Mini-Podcast-Serie hatten Hans und Peter dieses Mal Nina Jameson zu Gast! Nina ist digitale Barrierefreiheitsexpertin und Co-Gründerin der Gehirngerecht Digital G…

2025: Odyssee Accessibility – Eine Expedition in die Welt der digitalen Barrierefreiheit.Barrierefreiheit ist längst kein Nischenthema mehr. Spätestens seit dem Beschluss des BFSG, des "Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetzes" steht fest: Unternehmen, die digitale Produkte und Services anbieten, müssen jetzt handeln. Denn Barrierefreie Gestaltung ist nicht nur ein optionales Add-on, sondern wird von einer gesellschaftlichen Notwendigkeit zur rechtlichen Verpflichtung.Bei Centigrade sehen wir in der barrierefreien Gestaltung aber nicht bloß eine lästige Aufgabe, sondern die große Chance, mehr Menschen mit den eigenen Produkten zu erreichen.In diesem Podcast testen wir daher populäre Apps und Webseiten auf Barrierefreiheit und kommen zu überraschenden Erkenntnissen und UX Insights. Neben klassischen Richtlinien wie der WCAG oder der ISO 9241 nutzen wir für unsere Tests moderne Tools und Methoden wie Accessibility Personas, Generative AI oder Computer Vision. So bereiten wir euch optimal auf das BFSG vor, das im Juni 2025 in Kraft tritt.Jede Podcast-Episode schildert einen anderen realitätsnahen Test, der zeigt, wie unzureichend gestaltete digitale Produkte den Alltag behindern und Optimierungspotenziale eröffnen, die sogar weit über die Zielgruppe eingeschränkter Nutzender hinausgehen.Also, anschnallen, zurücklehnen und festhalten – wir starten unsere Odyssee Accessibility… bald.

Le WCAG est le standard international pour l'accessibilité web, mais connaissez-vous ces 13 règles à suivre ? Notes de l'épisode : Cours sur l'accessibilité : https://code-garage.fr/courses/accessibilite-web

For our 200th episode of the WCAG podcast, we are celebrating with a Listener Questions special! (This is part 2, please listen to the previous episode to catch part 1 of our Listener Questions Special!) In this format, the Water Colors team blindly answers listener-submitted questions read off by the editor. We have some incredible listeners with a broad range of experience levels and varying interests. As a result, we always end up with some fun, thought-provoking, and sometimes controversial questions! These ‘Listener Questions’ episodes are recorded live, with a free stream available on YouTube for your enjoyment. All other episodes are also recorded live, but the livestreams are typically only accessible to our YouTube members. If you enjoy this content, consider joining our membership! Join the discussion on the Water Colors Aquarium Gallery Podcast Listeners Facebook group! https://www.facebook.com/groups/788428861825086/ Enjoying the show? Support the gallery by shopping aquarium plants, merch, equipment, and more! https://watercolorsaquariumgallery.com/ Looking for more content? Become a YouTube member for exclusive access to behind the scenes livestreams! https://www.youtube.com/@watercolorsaquariumgallery

For our 200th episode of the WCAG podcast, we are celebrating with a Listener Questions special! In this format, the Water Colors team blindly answers listener-submitted questions read off by the editor. We have some incredible listeners with a broad range of experience levels and varying interests. As a result, we always end up with some fun, thought-provoking, and sometimes controversial questions! These ‘Listener Questions’ episodes are recorded live, with a free stream available on YouTube for your enjoyment. All other episodes are also recorded live, but the livestreams are typically only accessible to our YouTube members. If you enjoy this content, consider joining our membership! Join the discussion on the Water Colors Aquarium Gallery Podcast Listeners Facebook group! https://www.facebook.com/groups/788428861825086/ Enjoying the show? Support the gallery by shopping aquarium plants, merch, equipment, and more! https://watercolorsaquariumgallery.com/ Looking for more content? Become a YouTube member for exclusive access to behind the scenes livestreams! https://www.youtube.com/@watercolorsaquariumgallery

[click here for the transcript in English] >>> intro Welkom in deze nieuwe aflevering van onze podcast Let's Talk About Work! Vandaag schuift een boeiende gast uit de wereld van leren en ontwikkelen bij ons aan. Bart Wuyts gaat in gesprek met Christophe Jacobs, chief customer success officer bij FLOWSPARKS. Christophe is expert op vlak van pedagogische wetenschappen en digitaal leren, en neemt ons mee in de wereld van e-learning en zelfgestuurde opleidingen. Samen zoomen we in op de uitdagingen én de mogelijkheden die digitale tools bieden om leren toegankelijk en inclusief te maken. Van digitale vaardigheden tot toegankelijkheid voor mensen met specifieke noden: Christophe deelt zijn inzichten, praktische tips én concrete voorbeelden. Een inspirerend gesprek voor iedereen die werk maakt van levenslang leren en inclusie op de werkvloer. Beste luisteraars, welkom op deze nieuwe podcast aflevering Let's Talk about Work! We hebben vandaag een gast uit de commerciële wereld op bezoek, Christophe Jacobs. Ik moet eens goed kijken op mijn papier, want Christophe is chief customer success officer bij FLOWSPARKS. Wat doet een chief customer success officer? Chief customer success officer bij FLOWSPARKS is verantwoordelijk voor het succes die onze klanten halen in het gebruik van onze tool dat een zeer brede invulling betreft en voor mij specifiek komt dat erop neer dat ik enerzijds een ploeg aanstuur die effectief onze klanten gaat adviseren rond het gebruik van FLOWSPARKS, wat een e-learning tool is. Dat moet je even uitleggen, wat is FLOWSPARKS, want anders weten we niet waar we het over hebben. FLOWSPARKS is een e-learning platform die organisaties in staat stelt om hun eigen zelf gestuurde digitale opleidingen aan te maken, gestoeld op didactische principes wat een beetje de kern is van onze tooling. In onze wereld noemen dat een e-learning authoring tool. Maar daarnaast is het ook een platform die ervoor zorgt dat je wat je gemaakt hebt van opleidingen of opleidingsinitiatieven ook kan gaan uitrollen naar deelnemers, toegang geven aan mensen die die opleiding moeten gaan volgen. En natuurlijk als je een stuk inhoud hebt en je hebt het platform waar mensen dat gaan bezoeken, heb je natuurlijk ook rapportages. Dat is het derde luik van FLOWSPARKS, rapporten om in te kijken wie heeft wat gevolgd op welk moment. We gaan in dit gesprek niet in de eerste plaats reclame maken voor FLOWSPARKS, maar het kan natuurlijk niet zonder dat we dat even toelichten. We hebben jou hier in de eerste plaats toch aanwezig als expert op vlak van pedagogische wetenschappen. Je bent master in de pedagogische wetenschappen en we hebben het in al onze afleveringen in deze podcast eigenlijk over inclusief ondernemen, inclusie op het werk. Op het eerste zicht is dit misschien een thema wat er wat verderaf ligt, maar eigenlijk niet. Want ook leren en bijblijven is een belangrijk element om ook volledig erbij te horen en alle kansen te krijgen die bij inclusie horen. En vandaar dat we het interessant vinden om jou hier ook aan het woord te laten. Het klopt toch dat jij master in de pedagogische wetenschappen bent? Dat klopt. Ik heb een master in de pedagogische wetenschappen, afstudeerrichting onderwijskunde. Dus daar ligt mijn specialiteit. Maar ik heb ook een bachelor in het sociaal werk. Dus ik heb een schakelprogramma gevolgd in mijn studies wat dat ook een stuk verklaart, mijn achtergrond rond inclusie en het aandacht hebben voor wat maatschappelijke thema's. Daarom dat ik het leuk vind dat ik hier uitgenodigd ben om aan te schuiven. En inderdaad, wat je zegt klopt volledig. Als je kijkt naar werk en mensen werk aanbieden. Een heel groot deel van te gaan werken betekent ook je eigen maken wat de processen, procedures en wat de inhoud van een job is die iemand moet gaan uitvoeren. En wat we dus kunnen gaan doen als organisatie om mensen in onze groep van medewerkers in te schakelen is natuurlijk die opleiding gaan voorzien. En dan vanuit mijn insteek heel specifiek gaat dat over wat zijn digitale zelf gestuurde opleidingen die kunnen bijdragen om mensen vlotter te gaan integreren in de groep van medewerkers. Digitale opleidingen, dat snap ik nog. Zelfgestuurde opleidingen, wat bedoel je daarmee? In mijn ervaring is er soms wat verwarring tussen, oké, wat is een digitale opleiding, zeker sinds covid is dat een heel troebel gegeven aan het worden in discussies. Stel het zo; als je een klassikale opleiding hebt die plots niet meer fysiek kan doorgaan en je doet dit via Zoom of via Teams, ga je dat dan een digitale opleiding noemen of niet? In principe wel want je gaat een digitaal middel gebruiken om die opleiding te faciliteren. Waarom ik het woord zelfgestuurd erbij aankleef is dat is een opleiding die niet live doorgaat, maar als synchroon. Daar wordt een stuk opleidingsmateriaal op voorhand voorbereid. Die wordt dan uitgedeeld aan een medewerker of aan een persoon en die kan om het even waar en op even welk moment die opleiding gaan volgen. Dus voor mij betekent dat een zelfgestuurde digitale opleiding. Dat kan die opname zijn van dat ex cathedra moment die gegeven is. Maar dat kan ook een verwerkingsopdracht zijn, een scenario die je moet gaan doornemen, een quiz die je moet gaan afronden. Dus er zijn heel veel verschillende werkvormen binnen die zelfgestuurde digitale opleiding. En dus dat is eigenlijk een vorm van opleiding waar mensen zelf achter hun eigen computer, op het moment dat het hen uitkomt, op de plek dat ze daar gebruik van kunnen maken, zelf een stuk opleiding kunnen volgen en een bepaald programma opstarten en, laten we zeggen, de instructies volgen die verschijnen en op die manier zijn ze aan het leren of wordt er iets bijgeleerd. Klopt. Het principe is; iemand gebruikt zijn computer, zijn mobiele telefoon, zijn tablet, welk apparaat dan ook. Die gaat ergens een toegang krijgen om die opleiding te kunnen gaan volgen. Die neemt die door. Er staan instructies op het scherm. Er wordt verteld wat er moet gebeuren. Dus eigenlijk ga je de rol van die coach of trainer of lesgever een stuk gaan digitaliseren. Dat die klaarstaat voor iedereen. Men gaat door de instructies, men neemt de teksten door, bekijkt de afbeeldingen, bekijkt de video's, doet eventueel een test, doet het scenario dat gaat afgerond worden en dan krijgt men een uitkomst. Zijnde, je hebt het gevolgd of je bent geslaagd. Het is wel de bedoeling inderdaad dat iemand voor zichzelf gaat uitmaken, hier ga ik nu die opleiding gaan volgen met een toestel die ik voor handen heb. Dat is een hedendaagse manier van leren stel ik mij zo voor. Is dit dan de manier van leren vandaag? Wordt dit de enige manier van leren? Hoe zie jij dat? Ik zou zeer graag zeggen ja, dit is de beste manier van leren en de enige manier van leren en kom allemaal naar FLOWSPARKS, want wij hebben de oplossing. De realiteit is echter zo dat dat stukje wat we dan e-learning noemen, dat zelfgestuurd leren, dat is eigenlijk het zoveelste stuk gereedschap in de gereedschapskist die iemand binnen learning en development eigenlijk voor zich heeft. Je hebt die klassikale momenten, je hebt die on the job training, die e-learning is daar een toegevoegde waarde in heel veel gevallen als je het juist gaat toepassen. En dat laatste is heel belangrijk want wat zijn de grote voordelen van schaalvoordeel? Als je gaat kijken naar organisaties die bijvoorbeeld in shiften werken, om dan mensen op hetzelfde moment in een klassikale training te krijgen is lang niet altijd evident. Dan kan e-learning wel helpen. Op de site van BASF is dat het geval. Ze hebben bijvoorbeeld een ademhalingstraining die zij gaan uitrollen. De eerste keer dat je die volgt is klassikaal en je moet hands on in de praktijk iets gaan doen. Maar de herhaling is via een digitale weg en een klein stukje nog praktijktraining. Dus je moet eigenlijk zorgen dat mensen op het even welk moment dat digitale stuk kunnen gaan doen. En eens ze klaar zijn kunnen ze samen dat moment gaan doen. Dus daar zitten echt de grote voordelen van een e-learning. Het is trouwens grappig dat je verwijst naar een ademhalingstraining, want we hadden enkele afleveringen geleden hier Tom Stijven als ademcoach nog over het belang van goed ademhalen. Dit geheel terzijde. Dus enerzijds heel praktische zaken, maar ook op vlak van het leermoment zelf is e-learning of zelfgestuurde training, digitale training een voordeel, want je kan de deelnemer op z'n eigen tempo door een stuk leermateriaal laten gaan. En dat is ook zeggen dat de angst voor een verkeerd antwoord te geven in een klassikale sessie niet aanwezig is. Men kan leren van feedback, men kan er een uur over doen waarbij dat iemand anders een half uur nodig heeft. Dus op vlak van differentiatie naar opleiding is dat ook wel een heel grote meerwaarde. Alleen wil ik niet gezegd hebben, doe dan plots alles in een e-learning, want vaak is dat dan de reflex, we hebben een nieuwe tool zoals FLOWSPARKS, een heel leuke, we gaan er alles in gaan steken. Het is wel altijd een weloverwogen keuze wat gaan we in welke werkvorm gaan aanbieden om ons volledig leeraanbod te gaan vormgeven binnen de organisatie. Het zal eigenlijk altijd een mix blijven van verschillende leervormen waarin deze wellicht wat belangrijker wordt naar de toekomst toe en extra mogelijkheden creëert. Eén van onze eigen activiteiten hier in huis bij WEB-Blenders is een team wat al jaren bezig is met het thema e-inclusie. We hebben het over inclusie, maar we zien dat heel wat mensen vandaag nog steeds risico lopen op digitale uitsluiting. Daar werken wij op allerlei manieren ook aan. En als je dit allemaal zit te vertellen, dan gaat er bij mij zo'n belletje rinkelen van oei, dit legt meteen ook wel een drempel voor een aantal mensen om op eigen kracht zelfgestuurd dan maar met e-learning aan de slag te gaan. Hoe gaan jullie daarmee om? Of hoe kijk jij daar tegenaan? Dat is een realiteit die we ook zien. Het grotendeel van de klantenbestand die wij hebben zijn organisaties waarbij dat bij de aanwerving, die digitale geletterdheid, afgetoetst wordt en op z'n minst nodig is vooraleer dat je in die job kunt gaan starten. Maar we hebben ook een aantal maatwerkbedrijven bijvoorbeeld die ook met FLOWSPARKS aan de slag gaan om ook toegang te geven tot e-learning training. Net daar zijn we gelukkig als tool flexibel genoeg om zowel de toegang, want daar begint het eigenlijk al mee, een e-mailadres hebben, dat kunnen gaan beheren, het wachtwoord kunnen gaan onthouden. Dat is eigenlijk al een zeer grote stap voor veel mensen. Om die toegang te gaan versimpelen, je hebt sowieso een batch nummer bijvoorbeeld, je hebt die bij je, je geeft die in en dan heb je toegang. Op die manier gaan we de toegang faciliteren. Maar ook in het overbrengen van de inhoud kunnen we als maker dan, als inrichter, ook genoeg gaan faciliteren om die drempel zo laag mogelijk te houden. Bijvoorbeeld, in plaats van drie pagina's van tekst mee te geven, kunnen we met pictogrammen gaan werken om dingen te gaan overbrengen. Maar dat is aan de hele andere kant van de maker. Dus zoals bij elke tooling op zich, wat je ermee maakt hangt ook heel sterk af van de maker die daarmee bezig is. En als je daar op let, kun je naar de inhoud toe ook laagdrempelig gaan werken. Dus dat is naar inhoud toe. Maar mensen moeten ook wel voldoende vertrouwd zijn met een minimum aan skills met de digitale devices om er überhaupt, je zegt de toegang kunnen we al vergemakkelijken, ik kan me voorstellen dat dat ook nog wel een thema blijft dat mensen, we komen helaas ook nog wel heel wat mensen tegen die bij wijze van spreken nog wat schrik hebben van de digitale devices. En ik zal toch niks verkeerd doen, ik zal er maar afblijven. Dat is nog wel een drempel dan naar een e-learning. Ja, dat klopt. We hebben organisaties die dan ook heel bewust gaan kiezen om een voortraject rond het gebruik van digitale devices te gaan inrichten. Of er is een gemeenschappelijke tablet die klaarligt, of er is een toestel die klaarligt waarbij er altijd een begeleider of begeleiding aanwezig is, dat kan ook. Maar er zijn ook momenten waarbij dat de digitale geletterdheid zo laag ligt. En meestal heeft dat ook een harmonie met bijvoorbeeld de taal niet machtig zijn, waarbij dat een e-learning ... Het lijkt dat een e-learning training niet kan ingezet worden voor een deel van het doelpubliek. Een heel concreet voorbeeld. Wij hebben een oplossing waarbij dan bijvoorbeeld contractoren een veiligheidstraining moeten volgen vooraleer dat ze een fabriek moeten gaan binnenkomen. Zeer belangrijk, de veiligheidstraining. Wat we daar hebben in het platform is de mogelijkheid om de e-learning, die in wezen een zelfgestuurde activiteit is, te gaan organiseren als een groepssessie. Dit betekent dat niemand hoeft een toestel aan te raken, we kunnen de sessie opstarten met een moderator. Die moderator moet dan natuurlijk zijn rol als moderator serieus nemen en die kan vier à vijf mensen samenbrengen, door die e-learning gaan navigeren. We verwachten dan van die moderator dat hij gaat ingaan en interactie gaat opzoeken. Wat zou jij antwoorden op deze vraag? En eens dat dat dan afgerond is, wordt de e-learning wel geregistreerd op elk van die vier of vijf individuele personen. Dus wij zijn ook realistisch genoeg om te weten, we kunnen het niet allemaal oplossen met een digitaal middel. Maar zelfs als we dan al digitale middelen hebben, hoe krijgen we mensen die dan geen digitale geletterdheid hebben of gewoon de taal niet machtig zijn, op een andere manier moeten instructies krijgen, toch ook mee in dat digitale verhaal. Omdat het aanbieden van inhoud het ene aspect is? Maar organisaties zijn ook vaak op zoek naar registratie. Wat hebben mensen gevolgd. Mag ik eventjes daarop inpikken. Je haalde ook taal aan. Je hoort mijn sidekick Artemis Kubala, allerbeste luisteraar. Stel dat er inderdaad mensen zijn die het Nederlands niet zo machtig zijn, is er dan in het e-learning platform al de mogelijkheid om de taal te switchen? Misschien met AI toepassingen erin. Binnen FLOWSPARKS is dat ingebouwd. De maker kan zelf kiezen in welke taal dat hij die instructie wil gaan voorbereiden. Let op, voor sommige onderwerpen en voor sommige organisaties is Nederlands een verplichte taal om instructie te geven, zeker op vlak van veiligheid en compliance. Maar bijvoorbeeld FLOWSPARKS heeft een integratie met DeepL, die misschien gekend is om vertalingen te doen. Google Translate is zelfs geïntegreerd met een vertaalsoftware, als je dat in huis ook hebt, om in één klik je content te gaan vertalen door machine, door AI. Die je dan natuurlijk wel zelf gaat moeten controleren, want het gaat maar zover. Maar op z'n minst voor de maker betekent dat dat hij niet per se het Frans machtig moet zijn, of het Duits, of het Italiaans, of het Roemeens of het Pools. Die kan gewoon die taal kiezen en dan eventueel ter verificatie doorsturen en laten inlezen. Dat is ook iets dat wij actief gaan aanmoedigen, want net door al die talen te gaan aanbieden, ga je ook een stuk inderdaad weer die drempel gaan verlagen voor je doelpubliek. Ik wil toch even terug het thema wat opentrekken naar learning en development in brede zin, levenslang leren. We weten allemaal hoe belangrijk het is. Ook in relatie tot heel het thema inclusie wat we benoemd hebben. Tegelijkertijd moeten we er ook niet flauw over doen en zijn er toch heel wat mensen die daar niet op zitten te wachten. Die niet van zichzelf altijd gemotiveerd zijn om dingen te leren, bij te leren. Hoe kijk jij daar als professional tegenaan? Hoe krijgen we mensen meer mee in de noodzaak om te leren? Hoe maken we dat aantrekkelijk zodanig dat dat inderdaad geen of een veel kleinere drempel wordt. Daar heb ik heel veel verschillende, heel praktische insteken al gezien in die dertien jaar die ik nu al bezig ben in het vak van heel veel verschillende organisaties. Je hebt er die de insteek hebben van het straffen. Dit is een opleiding die je moet gaan doen. Als je dit niet doet dan kom je niet in aanmerking voor een promotie of iets anders. Je hebt er die de andere kant gaan doen. Dit is de insteek van het belonen. We hebben een traject gedaan bij een klant, ik zal de naam niet direct noemen, waarbij dat het ging over als je een opleiding gaat uitvoeren en voltooien. Dus je hoeft niet geslaagd te zijn. Het ging over digitale skills, dan kon je een muis gepersonaliseerd van het bedrijf gaan ophalen. Een kleine beloning. Of je kan een schouderklop uitdelen als beloning. Maar als je gaat kijken naar de totaliteit van opleidingen die gegeven worden in een organisatie ga je zien dat er vier grote types van opleidingen staan. Er zijn er die verplicht zijn. Dus dat ga je zien dat er daar enorm veel initiatief is om die afgerond te krijgen in je doelpubliek. Dat gaat dan zelfs over het blijven stalken van iemand tot die is afgerond omdat, de organisatie krijgt anders boete of … Je opleidingen die dat nodig zijn om het werk gewoon nog maar uit te voeren. Dus dat soort opleidingen wordt dan meestal door de teamlead of de ploegleider wel een stuk doorgedrukt want anders heeft hij een medewerker die niet operationeel is in het team. Dan heb je een deel opleidingen die dan gaan over upskilling. Oké, je gaat naar een andere job gaan of je hebt de ambitie om te gaan naar een andere job. Dat zijn meestal opleidingen die dan vertrekken vanuit een soort van intrinsieke motivatie van die medewerker want die weet als ik die opleiding ga volgen, dan krijg ik daar een hoger loon of andere zaken. Dus dan heb je daar een stuk opleiding. En dan heb je een deel van de opleidingen die zelfontplooiingsopleidingen zijn. En daar zie je, zie ik toch in de praktijk twee perspectieven naar. Je hebt een groep die dat omarmen en die zeggen oké, als die tof is zal ik gaan volgen als opleiding. En je hebt de groep die het volledig links laat liggen. Dus vaak is het romantisch beeld over zelfontplooiing. Ik ga een opleiding gaan aanbieden en dat aanbod zijn 2000 trainingen of zoveel objecten die je kan gaan volgen en dan zie je gewoon dat er een deel dat volledig afstoot van ik heb daar gewoon geen zin en geen tijd in om dat te doen. En een deel die zegt ja ik wil vanalles gaan opnemen, meestal een minderheid daarin. Je hebt gewoon zo'n diversiteit en komt het vanuit een intrinsieke motivatie? Wordt het extern opgelegd? Is dat iets wat interessant zou kunnen zijn? Heeft het relevantie tot de job? En ik denk dat dat laatste voor mij het belangrijkste is. Als er een opleiding wordt gegeven en die heeft nul relevantie tot wat ik nu dagdagelijks zit te doen, waarom zou ik in godsnaam dat gaan doen? What's in it for me blijft voor mij ook als maker en als consultant daarin het belangrijkste. Toon waarom die opleiding in godsnaam relevant en belangrijk is voor die persoon waardoor hij die motivatie om het dan te volgen toch een stuk gaat vergroten. Dat is gekeken vanuit het perspectief van de werkgever eigenlijk. Ja oké, dus de stok in de wortel? En what's in it for me? En de categorie die vanzelf intrinsiek gemotiveerd is, daar hoeven we niet druk om te doen, die gaan het wel volgen, die zijn geïnteresseerd om alles bij te leren. Daar heb je natuurlijk de drang om iets te gaan leren. Als dat een stuk groter is bij die groep, dan gaan zij eigenlijk van nature een stuk makkelijker de leerinitiatieven gaan oppikken die aanwezig zijn in de organisatie. Dat zie je ook zeer praktisch als we een learning management systeem hebben in de organisatie. De meeste mensen hebben daar een afkeer van, dat is meestal een vehikel die heel moeilijk te navigeren is. Maar dan de mensen die het echt willen om iets te gaan leren, die vinden dan hun weg door al die twintig kliks om iets te gaan bereiken en die gaan dan hun weg vinden. Dat is dus een groep die je relatief snel meehebt. Alleen is dat ook niet een vaste groep, want verschillend van het aanbod aan wat er dan aanwezig is of een moment in de carrière van die persoon kan het ook gewoon weer een andere persoon zijn. Dat maakt wel als L&D professional dat je altijd met een bewegend speelveld aan het werken bent binnen de organisatie als je je leerinitiatieven daarrond gaat inrichten. L&D, de term viel net, learning en development. Wat zie jij als professional foutlopen vandaag bij werkgevers als het gaat over learning en development? Wat zijn dingen waar we voor moeten opletten? Advies, valstrikken waar je in kan lopen zijn tweeledig denk ik. Aan de ene kant denk ik als inrichter van een leerinitiatief dat je toch moet vermijden om een leerinitiatief te zien als een volledige inhoudsdump of een content dump of een inhoudsoverdracht naar een andere partij. Ik zie dat vaak gebeuren. Er moet een leerinitiatief opgezet worden. Men gaat twintig pagina's gaan schrijven en men gaat een expert betrekken, dan worden er dertig pagina's, veertig pagina's, drie vragen op het einde. Hup, we gaan dat sturen naar iemand. We hopen dat die dat doorneemt en drie vragen beantwoordt en dan weet die het wel, tussen aanhalingstekens. Of we gaan er een leuke video van maken, een video van 20 minuten en dan weten ze het wel. Alleen, als er geen enkele focus is op, wat is dan de transfer naar de praktijk? Wat moet die persoon daar dan mee doen in het dagelijks werkveld? Dan is dat meestal een nutteloos initiatief want je moet ook wel gaan informeren. Maar dan heb je geïnformeerd, dan heb je geen leerinitiatief opgezet. Hoe maken we er een leerinitiatief van? Er zijn twee zaken. Op het moment van het leren zelf gaat het over zo snel mogelijk dingen naar de praktijk kunnen gaan vertalen. Dat wil zeggen scenario's gaan aanbieden, observatie opdrachten gaan aanbieden, reflectiemomenten gaan aanbieden. Om het klassieke patroon van een leerinitiatief te gaan opzetten, zie ik vaak, er wordt veel nagedacht over de inhoud. Wat moeten we gaan geven? Dan is er daar al redelijk veel tijd ingekropen en dan wordt een klein beetje de praktische situaties die daar moeten uitvloeien een stuk, ja, dat is dan weer iets moeilijker. Creativiteit heb je daarvoor nodig. Dat wordt al sneller aan de kant gezet. Dus op het moment van het leren zelf kun je dit nu toepassen in een gesimuleerde of een case studie of iets die met de praktijk te maken heeft, kun je dat gaan toepassen om die retentie ook een stuk te gaan hebben. Maar dan volgt natuurlijk ook het zwaardere werk. Je hebt een leerinitiatief gehad. Laat ons dat nu gaan observeren in de praktijk. Wat doen mensen daar nu mee in het dagelijks leven? Want uiteindelijk, je leerinitiatief zal moeten vertrekken van we willen een verandering in ons dagelijks werk. Wat is de verandering die wij ambiëren? We doen het initiatief. Is die verandering aanwezig of niet? En dan moet je gaan evalueren is die aanwezig of niet? Dus voor mij gaan die wel hand in hand. Alleen zie je heel vaak dat initiatieven worden opgestart en dat dat stuk observatie in de praktijk gaat ontbreken. Wat is de uitkomst die wij daar willen en wat is de meting die we daardoor nodig hebben om dat te gaan evalueren? Dat is inderdaad een interessante en ik kan mij voorstellen dat dat vaak achterwege blijft, want het is allemaal extra werk dat er nog bijkomt. En we zijn ons vaak niet bewust hoe belangrijk dat is. Wat je zei triggerde me nog op een andere manier. Je zegt er wordt veel belang gehecht aan de inhoud die overgebracht moet worden. Daar gaat vaak zoveel aandacht en tijd naartoe dat dat al snel bij wijze van spreken 80% van de inspanning wordt. En dus betekent ook dat er veel minder nagedacht wordt en gewerkt wordt aan de vorm waarin. Terwijl we ondertussen eigenlijk ook wel weten dat verschillende mensen kennis opnemen op een andere manier. Dat er heel wat verschillende manieren van leren en van kennis opnemen zijn en de vorm waarin dat gebeurt wellicht ook belangrijk is of niet. Hoe kijk je daarnaar? Wat je nu net aanhaalt is eigenlijk de kernfilosofie van eigenlijk de tool die wij hebben, FLOWSPARKS, de authoring tool. Want wij bieden net die werkvormen aan voor makers. Je kan informatieoverdracht gaan doen, pagina's met informatie met een afbeelding bij, maar daar zitten ook werkvormen in om een scenario aan te bieden waar mensen heel snel moeten beslissen: Is dit juist of fout? Is dit veilig, is dit niet veilig? Is dit zoals we wensen of niet. Er zitten scenario's in: denk na over deze situatie. Wat zou jij doen? Wat is het gedrag die je zou stellen met een reflectiemoment daarachter. Er zitten mogelijkheden om een video op te nemen en te vragen: observeer en duw op een knop als je iets ziet die fout. Net die diversiteit in die werkvormen. We hebben die ingewerkt in onze technologie omdat we net zien dat als je iets wil leren, dat altijd neerkomt als er actief leren bij betrokken is, heeft dat veel meer waarde dan puur en gewoon die kennisoverdracht. Ik heb een vraag. Het zijn inhouse trainers die gebruik maken van de software. Toch? Bij ons is het inderdaad: ofwel is het learning en development zelf die gebruik gaat maken van de tool, of ze gaan hun kennisexpert, subject matter experts, gaan betrekken in het maakproces. En dat kan op twee niveaus: of die subject matter experts, die kennisexperts, worden betrokken als degenen die input leveren of die feedback geven of die meesturen óf ze krijgen ook de tooling in handen om die inhouden te gaan uitwerken. Eigenlijk sla je twee vliegen in één klap want hoe dat wij nu regelmatig werken met externe leveranciers is dat zij vragen: geef me cases. Zodat onze cases relevant zijn specifiek voor de werkvloer en de situaties en de scenario's dat die ook relevant zijn voor de doelgroepen. Eigenlijk zit dat dan in dat systeem. Maar ik vroeg me ook nog af moet een organisatie dan FLOWSPARKS als systeem nemen of is het geïntegreerd? Is het compatibel met al bestaande LMS systemen? Als je als organisatie inderdaad al een learning management systeem hebt, fijn die bestaat al. Dan kan je FLOWSPARKS enkel en alleen gebruiken om dan de inhoud uit te werken om dan in het learning management systeem kwijt te kunnen. We zijn redelijk flexibel daarin. Als we naar de inhoud even kijken zo. Het interesseert me vanuit jouw perspectief om eens te zien vandaag de dag bij werkgevers. Wat zijn de thema's die hoog scoren op vlak van learning en development? Wat komen jullie vandaag vaak tegen? Ik denk dat ik het eerder kan beantwoorden vanuit de niche van e-learning. Want op L&D kunnen het redelijk veel thema's zijn. Maar vanuit wat wij zien als e-learning, net omdat dat een schaalvergroting met zich meebrengt, zien wij heel vaak compliance, de code of conduct, de code of ethics. Saaie materie. Heel saaie materie. En gelukkig heeft FLOWSPARKS dan ook weer daar iets op gevonden om dat in adaptief leertraject te steken. Dat je, als je er al iets van kent en het is al de twintigste keer dat je die training krijgt, kun je daar veel sneller doorfietsen omdat je je kennis al kan bewijzen. Dus dat is een groot deel daarvan. Software training, alles die te maken heeft met ja, we hebben hier een product in de commerciële sector. SAP is een zeer gekend product, zeker in de logistiek. Maar iedereen heeft zijn processen op een bepaalde manier geconfigureerd, dus die moet je toch weer gaan leren. Ah oké, hoe werken die dan? Werkt die procedure stap voor stap. En gelukkig, FLOWSPARKS heeft daar ook een oplossing voor om die overdracht stap voor stap ook aan te bieden. Plus je kan een downloadbare handleiding meekrijgen op hetzelfde moment. Dus dat is allemaal ook voorzien. En dan zien we een deel rond producttraining. Oké, we hebben een gamma aan producten en ik ben hier net ook Soudal voorbijgereden. Ja, ze hebben FLOWSPARKS ook om hun productcatalogus aan te leren aan hun team. Dus zij gebruiken daar ook producttraining voor. Onboarding is nog zo'n klassieke, vooral in de optiek de pre boarding. Dus we hebben iemand die de wens heeft om bij ons te werken. Tof, maar die start pas binnen drie maand. E-learning is ideaal omdat je op voorhand iets kan meesturen. Ga er al door. Verwerk die informatie al. Als je wil, bereid je al voor, al dan niet verplicht. Maar je kan dat ook makkelijker doen op een digitale manier. Dat zijn zowat de vier meest voorkomende. Los dan van alle andere vragen die er nog leven. Volgens mijn zijn dit wel de meest voorkomende die ik zie in de dagelijkse praktijk. Als we het over leren hebben, het sluit een beetje aan misschien bij wat we daarstraks al even aanhaalden, dan wordt er traditioneel nogal hard gedacht, gekeken naar die 55-plussers. Die moeten we vooral meekrijgen, want die hebben de grootste achterstand. En die, ja, die kunnen niet meer mee. Ervaar je dat ook bij jouw klanten? En ben je het daarmee eens? Niet echt. Ja, ik heb natuurlijk niet zelf die hands on ervaring, dus het enige wat ik kan zien is de feedback die ik krijg of de gesprekken die ik heb met mensen die dan effectief bij de organisatie in het werkveld staan. Daar is het eerder vooral dat leeftijd op zich niet zo'n groot verschil maakt. Jonge mensen, oudere mensen die zo kunnen redeneren ja, die jonge groep zijn digital natives, die zijn geboren met een smartphone of met een computer. Alleen zie je daar dat zij inderdaad dagelijks op die toestellen zitten. Maar voor Instagram, TikTok, … En als het gaat over leerervaringen, ja, dan is het opnieuw een heel nieuwe wereld. Zeker als je dan praat over een learning management systeem. Dat zijn niet de meest sexy tools of degenen die ook consumentgericht zijn. Dus daar zie ik eigenlijk niet dat die split echt beaamd wordt door mensen die in het werkveld staan. Het gaat er wel over dat het inderdaad niet evident is voor alle groepen om ze te gaan meekrijgen in die initiatieven, dat is wel een feit. Maar om echt te zeggen, ja wij zien een totale split tussen die twee groepen, dan zeker niet voor e-learning, komt dat eigenlijk niet zo hard naar voor. Oké, ik ben gerustgesteld. Een laatste thema misschien om nog kort efkes aan te kaarten? Tenzij dat mijn sidekick nog dingen in petto heeft. We hadden het over digitale vaardigheden, maar in meer algemene zin is toegankelijkheid ook wel een belangrijk thema als we het hebben over inclusie gecombineerd met learning en develompent. Heb je daar inzichten die ons kunnen helpen? Niet elke training is even toegankelijk voor mensen die ja, slecht horen, slecht zien, andere beperkingen met zich meedragen. Ja, ik kan zeker daar input voor leveren, want wij zijn vorig jaar of twee jaar geleden begonnen met onze tooling klaar te maken voor wat we dan noemen accessibility. Dus mensen die ondersteuning nodig hebben: auditieve beperking, visuele beperking. Om die ook toegang te geven tot leermaterialen die gemaakt worden in een zelfgestuurd leerprogramma. We hebben een eerste initiatief gehad bij een klant die daar heel bewust ook achter vroeg. We hebben onze software aangepast en we hebben eigenlijk achteraf gezien ja, dat was een verkeerde manier om daarmee om te gaan of de implementatie te gaan doen op het technisch vlak. Daar hebben we heel wat lessen uit geleerd. En ondertussen zijn wij ook bezig met onze tooling accessible te maken. Om ervoor te zorgen dat iemand die software nodig heeft om nog maar die teksten voor te lezen of om lettertypes aan te passen of om het kleurcontrast aan te passen, dat die dat ook gewoon kan doen in onze software zonder dat hij daar heel veel moeilijke manipulaties voor moet gaan doen. Wat ik daar ook uit geleerd heb is dat die accessibility richtlijnen die er bestaan, degene die wij hebben, WCAG voornamelijk, ja die gaan ervan uit dat dat gaat over een website. Wat is WCAG? Dat is de standaard die bepaalt rond accessibility wat jouw technologie aan moet gaan voldoen om toegankelijk te zijn voor iedereen. Dus daar zijn richtlijnen voor, die volgen we nu ook in de implementatie. Alleen die zijn gemaakt voor een website, maar een website is geen leerervaring. Om een voorbeeld te geven, in een leerervaring heb je vaak sequenties die je moet gaan volgen. Dus de richtlijn zegt, als je inhoud hebt op een pagina, die moet altijd direct allemaal raadpleegbaar zijn. Maar soms is die leerstrategie, nee je bouwt je kennis op. Dus het eerste stuk moet je eerst doen en dan het tweede stuk. Dus ergens implementeren wij die standaarden, maar we gaan daar ook tegenin omdat we net vanuit onze onderwijskundige insteek zeggen ja maar ja, we hebben een andere logica die we hebben. Je zou eigenlijk een andere standaard nodig hebben voor het leerplatform. Klopt, er is bij mijn weten of wat ik ondertussen tegenkom. Ik heb ook twee jaar geleden een interview gehad met Susi Miller. Susi Miller heeft een boek geschreven rond Accessibility Guidelines voor eLearnix. Eigenlijk wordt dat een klein beetje bijna onze Bijbel, want zij gaat ook gaan kijken naar al die onderwijskundige stukken die ook, en gaat dat dan hervertalen naar de richtlijnen die er bestaan voor een website. Wil niet zeggen dat we er niet moeten aan voldoen. Ons technisch team is daarmee bezig om ervoor te zorgen dat het gewoon kant en klaar is. Alleen gaan wij op bepaalde momenten beslissingen nemen die tegen die standaarden ingaan. Zeer doelbewust omdat wij toch graag vanuit een onderwijskundige hoek ook kijken naar onze digitale oplossingen, die ook willen gaan implementeren. Oké Christophe, dank je wel voor het delen van al jouw expertise. Tussendoor werd het toch weer een commercieel praatje, maar dat neemt niet weg dat het wel boeiend was en dat de wereld van die e-learning mogelijkheden oneindig groot is en ja voor heel wat laagdrempelige mogelijkheden zorgt. Of het nu FLOWSPARKS of een ander systeem is, daar maken we even abstractie van. Jij niet, maar wij wel. Dank je wel om hier te zijn voor dit boeiende gesprek. Met veel plezier. [outro] Je luisterde naar een aflevering van Let's talk about Work, de podcast van de groep WEB-Blenders. Al onze gesprekken gaan over werk, de weg naar werk, welzijn op de werkvloer en alles wat daarbij komt kijken. Je vindt ons op je favoriete podcast platform en op www.blenders.be/podcast. Op social media kan je ons volgen op LinkedIn onder podcast Let's talk about Work en op Instagram als Blenders podcast Let's talk! Ook via de Blenders nieuwsbrief kan je up-to-date blijven. Was je geboeid? Zet dit gesprek je aan het denken? Ben je zelf graag één van onze volgende gasten? Laat het ons weten via info@blenders.be en wie weet schuif jij binnenkort mee aan tafel!

FEATURING:* Michal Perlstein, Senior Manager of Digital Engagement, City of Seattle IT* Michelle Ringgold, User Experience Team Lead, City of Seattle IT* Dennis McCoy, Product Management Team Supervisor, City of Seattle IT* Jeff Beckstrom, Development Team Manager for Digital Engagement, City of Seattle ITIN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL LEARN:* How Seattle's digital engagement team manages web content, blogs, and newsletters while overseeing digital policies and design requirements* Why user testing and feedback were crucial in developing the city's major event pages for winter weather, heat, smoke, and flooding* The importance of "evergreen" content in emergency preparedness communications* How Seattle IT has prepared for WCAG 2.1 accessibility compliance over the past 6-7 years* The challenges and opportunities of implementing AI and cloud solutions in government digital servicesTIMESTAMPS: * (00:00) Show Introduction* (00:52) Team Introductions and Roles* (03:45) Building the Digital Engagement Team* (05:48) Implementing UX in Government* (09:10) Major Event Pages Development* (14:15) User Testing and Feedback* (19:20) Public Sector Product Management* (23:42) Cross-Department Collaboration* (28:15) Digital Accessibility Implementation* (31:00) Future Challenges and AI OpportunitiesLINKS MENTIONED:* Seattle.gov* WCAG 2.1 Standards* City of Seattle Major Event PagesWhenever you're ready, there are 4 ways you can connect with TechTables:1. The TechTables Newsletter: Join our thriving community of senior technology leaders by subscribing to the TechTables Newsletter. Gain early access to the latest episodes, industry insights, and exclusive event updates.2.

Understanding the New Regulations: Learn about the latest federal regulations on digital accessibility and how they impact schools, including a clear breakdown of what "WCAG 2.1 level AA" really means and why it matters.The Four Key Principles of Accessibility: Discover the four core principles—perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust—and how these apply specifically to school communication and social media.Practical Tips for Social Media Compliance: Get actionable tips to ensure your social media content meets accessibility standards, from alt text for images to handling emojis and using AI for support.The Importance of Accessible Content: Hear why accessible content isn't just about compliance but also about making sure your message reaches everyone—and how this aligns with your communication goals.SPECIAL GUESTEmily F. Popek, APRVice President, Strategic CommunicationsNichols Strategies, CaliforniaEmail: emily@nicholsstrategies.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-f-popek/ Twitter/X: @EmilyPopekWebsite: https://nicholsstrategies.com/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/nicholsstrat   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nichols-strategies/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAgfCvRLmrIIDXiFPw2Jl1A USEFUL INFORMATIONOverview of the new federal rule on accessibility. This page spells out the standards, the timeline, and the exceptions.Go-to resource for understanding the WCAG standards - w3.orgFollow this page for tips on creating accessible content - https://www.facebook.com/a11yawareness and join this private Facebook group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/110948031049165 Order your copy of my book Social Media for Schools: Proven Storytelling Strategies & Ideas to Celebrate Your Students & Staff - While Keeping Your Sanity now!Interested in our membership program? Learn more here: https://socialschool4edu.com/MORE RESOURCESFree Video Training: Learn the simple secrets behind social media for K12 schools!Sign up for our free e-newsletter - click herewww.SocialSchool4EDU.com

Lucinda is joined by special guest Susi Miller from eLaHub about the critical topic of accessibility in e-learning. Susi discusses the importance of making digital learning content accessible to individuals with various disabilities and access needs, as well as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and how these standards apply to e-learning, highlighting common pitfalls and best practices for creating inclusive learning experiences KEY TAKEAWAYS Accessibility goes beyond traditional views of disability, encompassing various access needs, including visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive impairments. It's essential to consider all types of disabilities when creating digital content. The WCAG guidelines serve as a benchmark for making digital content accessible. Organisations often aim to meet WCAG AA level, which includes 56 standards. The latest version, WCAG 2.2, introduced nine new standards to improve accessibility. Creating inclusive learning experiences benefits all learners, not just those with disabilities. Using clear language, providing alternatives to common interactions (like drag-and-drop), and ensuring content is engaging for everyone enhances the overall learning experience. Conducting audits and providing training on accessibility empowers organisations to create their own accessible content. This approach focuses on practical remediation and understanding the specific authoring tools used in creating learning materials. BEST MOMENTS "Accessibility is very often what people mean when they're talking about how do we make our content accessible to these particular standards." "If you're just looking at those accessibility standards, what you're not doing is looking at the learner experience." "It's very easy for someone to say yes to being WCAG compliant, but you need to look deeper." "The misconception that accessible content is not as good as non-accessible content is something we still have in our industry." VALUABLE RESOURCES The HR Uprising Podcast | Apple | Spotify | Stitcher   The HR Uprising LinkedIn Group How to Prioritise Self-Care (The HR Uprising) How To Be A Change Superhero - by Lucinda Carney HR Uprising Mastermind - https://hruprising.com/mastermind/   www.changesuperhero.com www.hruprising.com            Get your copy of How To Be A Change Superhero by emailing at info@actus.co.uk ABOUT THE HOST Lucinda Carney is a Business Psychologist with 15 years in Senior Corporate L&D roles and a further 10 as CEO of Actus Software where she worked closely with HR colleagues helping them to solve the same challenges across a huge range of industries. It was this breadth of experience that inspired Lucinda to set up the HR Uprising community to facilitate greater collaboration across HR professionals in different sectors, helping them to ‘rise up' together. “If you look up, you rise up” CONTACT METHOD HR Uprising Join the LinkedIn community - https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13714397/ Email: Lucinda@advancechange.co.uk Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucindacarney/ Twitter: @lucindacarney Instagram: @hruprising Facebook: @hruprising Actus Software Website: https://www.actus.co.uk LinkedIn Instagram Facebook YouTube X / Twitter HR podcast, The HR Uprising, Diversity, Equality & Inclusion, Learning and Development, Culture & Change: https://hruprising.com/hr-podcasts/

How do you transform a major online retailer into a beacon of accessibility? Join us as we sit down with Tzveta Dinova, the pioneering accessibility lead at ASOS, who shares her compelling journey from design and education to becoming a trailblazer in inclusive practices. Discover the story behind Sveta's transition into accessibility in 2018 and how her role has evolved within ASOS, a company dedicated to inclusion in fashion and beauty. Her unique position as the sole accessibility advocate at a major retail company presents both challenges and exceptional opportunities.Get ready to understand the "why" behind accessibility initiatives through Tzveta's eyes. As an accessibility product owner, Sveta discusses her strategic approach to fostering a culture of accessibility within ASOS, educating her colleagues on the social model of disability. Learn from her methods of building empathy and commitment across a vast team through training sessions and live demonstrations from individuals with disabilities. Sveta underscores the importance of embedding accessibility into daily workflows, ensuring that every team member shares the responsibility.Explore the transformative effects of accessible e-commerce platforms on customers with disabilities. Tzveta provides an insider's perspective on measuring accessibility improvements at ASOS, from leveraging assistive technologies to collecting detailed feedback. Find out how balancing corrective actions with positive reinforcement creates a more inclusive platform and re-engages customers who previously faced accessibility challenges. This episode is a must-listen for anyone committed to understanding and advancing accessibility in a fast-paced online retail environment.Support the showFollow axschat on social mediaTwitter:https://twitter.com/axschathttps://twitter.com/AkwyZhttps://twitter.com/neilmillikenhttps://twitter.com/debraruhLinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/antoniovieirasantos/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/axschat/Vimeohttps://vimeo.com/akwyz

All-in-one video creation, management, and sharing video platform Since founding Quickchannel 20 years ago, we have become experts in connecting people, driving engagement, and generating successful results for businesses through live and on-demand streaming, webinars, and broadcasting. We're continually committed to inspiring marketing teams to incorporate video into their marketing strategy, boosting their engagement levels, and helping them generate more leads and conversions for their business. The Quickchannel platform provides a fully branded, interactive communication channel that is completely GDPR- and WCAG-compliant, where YOU are the content creator professionally and seamlessly. Connect with Viktor

In a podcast episode, Rebecca shares her personal and professional journey, which encompasses her experiences as a mother to a neurodivergent son and her career in instructional design. These experiences led her to establish EB Graphics and Consulting, a company dedicated to making learning accessible through universal design for learning principles and WCAG standards. She recounts her early passion for art, initial aspirations of becoming a doctor, and the eventual shift to a design career, emphasizing that one's starting point doesn't limit future possibilities. https://www.ebgc.net/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/rbprejean/

Could the future of web accessibility hinge on nuanced grading systems rather than binary pass/fail ratings? Join us as we sit down with Detlev Fischer, Managing Director of Dias and a key figure in the development of the German test procedure for WCAG 2. Detlev shares his eclectic career path, from studying film in Hamburg and visual arts in the UK to becoming an accessibility advocate. You'll gain a unique insider perspective on the collaborative efforts required to shape accessibility standards and the critical role organizations like W3C and IAAP play in this evolving field.We dive deep into the complexities of web accessibility standards, particularly focusing on the WCAG 2 guidelines. Discover why binary ratings may not be enough and explore innovative solutions like graded ratings and the use of assertions for dynamic content. The conversation expands to the European Accessibility Act, the challenges of reaching a consensus among experts across regions, and the urgency to accelerate progress in web accessibility despite slow advancements over the past decade.In our final segment, we tackle the implementation challenges of European accessibility standards and the varied progress across different regions. Learn how mandatory accessibility statements have driven improvements on public websites and why the demand for accessibility expertise is skyrocketing among software companies. We also celebrate recent achievements in the field, extending heartfelt thanks to everyone who contributed to these milestones. This episode is a tribute to the hard work and collaboration that continue to drive the accessibility movement forward.Support the showFollow axschat on social mediaTwitter:https://twitter.com/axschathttps://twitter.com/AkwyZhttps://twitter.com/neilmillikenhttps://twitter.com/debraruhLinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/antoniovieirasantos/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/axschat/Vimeohttps://vimeo.com/akwyz

CEO and Creative Director at SeaMonster Studios, Wes Buckwalter manages a small team of geniuses, keeps them paid, and fights for their rights as employees of what he hopes is the best job they've ever had. He advocates for the creativity of my employees and contractors, managing day to day operations, finance, and client relations. SeaMonster Studios have delivered over 1500 websites to clients over the last 18 years. They are a proud Shopify Plus partner and have become a top-tier partner with several app developers within the Shopify ecosystem.Wes started out in the trenches, designing and building websites before a small screen had ever been considered and have continued to champion and pioneer skills in the web and ecommerce fields that gave him a start in this industry.In This Conversation We Discuss: [00:49] Intro[01:50] From early ecommerce venture to a thriving agency[03:19] Navigating the gray areas of ADA & WCAG guidelines[04:48] Balancing site compliance with brand aesthetics[06:06] Compliance as a continuous improvement process[08:08] Accessibility from different user perspectives[09:28] Starting accessibility with thorough site reviews[10:05] Preventing lawsuits with digital accessibility[11:25] Improving awareness on accessibility issues[12:19] Directing legal threats to small Ecommerce sites[14:02] The financial dynamics behind lawsuits[15:29] Parallels between tech fixes & construction audits[16:21] Addressing agency flaws by reviewing past work[17:14] Understanding varying WCAG compliance across states[18:34] Balancing agency & business' responsibility[19:47] Exploring limitations in automated accessibility [21:01] Managing compliance when stacking Shopify apps[22:07] Shopify's limits on compliance control[23:56] Using Shopify's flexibility while avoiding pitfalls[25:39] Combining AI tools and human testing for site fixes[27:26] Accessible Web for efficient compliance scanning[28:39] Restraints in plug-and-play accessibility tools[29:25] Critiquing overlay tools for accessibility issues[30:33] Image descriptions for better user navigation[31:56] Setting standards for product compliance & SEO[33:22] Free site review from SeaMonster StudiosResources:Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on YoutubeFriendly, full-service digital agency offering data-driven strategy and development seamonsterstudios.com/Follow Wes Buckwalter linkedin.com/in/seamonsterwes/If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

Mariah Parsons, Host of Retention Chronicles and Head of Marketing at Malomo, is joined by SeaMonster Studios' Wes Buckwalter, Creative Director and CEO, and Deneb Pulsipher, Web Developer and Accessibility Specialist. Wes shares the company's origins and evolution into a full-service agency offering branding, graphic design, and compliance. Deneb, previously a high school English teacher, transitioned into web development, focusing on accessibility for ecommerce brands. They discuss the importance of WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) and ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance, emphasizing the need for accessible websites to retain customers and avoid lawsuits. They highlight common issues like alternative text for images and text in images, and the benefits of compliance for SEO and user experience. Episode Timestamps:  4:57 SeaMonster Studios background and evolution into web compliance and accessibility experts 25:33 Sea Monster Studios' Expertise and Offerings With Branding and Web Compliance 25:58 Challenges and Benefits of Accessibility 31:31 Practical Considerations for Accessibility 43:52 Common Accessibility Issues and Solutions For Ecommerce Brands

Інформаційна безбар'єрність – тема нового, вже четвертого, епізоду «Подкасту про безбар'єрність». Дрібний шрифт, відсутність контрастності, піктограми, які ви не можете розпізнати, й навіть картинка, яка не завантажується, коли інтернет погано ловить, – це про доступність інформації. Про переклад з іноземної мови, дублювання тексту шрифтом Брайля чи переклад на жестову мову – також про відсутність бар'єрів. Олена Іванова, менеджерка проєктів з інклюзії та реабілітації Програми розвитку ООН в Україні, та Тетяна Ковтун, дизайнерка та тестувальниця візуальної доступності, розповіли на прикладах, як працює інформаційна безбар'єрність. Ведуча – Ніна Мацюк https://www.instagram.com/nina.matsi/ Згадані та рекомендовані у епізоді матеріали: Навчання і сертифікація спеціаліста(-ки) із доступності – IAAP Для нетехнічних спеціалістів(-ок) https://www.accessibilityassociation.org/s/certified-professional Для технічних спеціалістів(-ок) https://www.accessibilityassociation.org/s/wascertification Книга «Інклюзивні дизайн-патерни» https://www.smashingmagazine.com/ebooks/inclusive-design-patterns-ebook/ Методичка для тестування WCAG 2.0 & 2.1 Conformance Testing, Detailed Methodology https://dequeuniversity.com/online-courses/descriptions/wcag-20-21-testing Вебдоступність – освітній серіал на «Дія. Освіта» https://osvita.diia.gov.ua/courses/vebdostupnist Colour Contrast Analyser (завантажити інструмент для перевірки контрастності) https://www.tpgi.com/color-contrast-checker/ Web contrast checker (перевірка контрастності в браузері) https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/ Перевірка контрастності на етапі дизайн у Figma (розширення для Figma) – Stark – Contrast & Accessibility Checker https://www.figma.com/community/plugin/732603254453395948/stark-contrast-accessibility-checker Стаття про текст із низькою контрастністю https://www.nngroup.com/articles/low-contrast/ Як зробити інформацію доступною та зрозумілою, Марина Лебідь https://fb.watch/shFVzhymqS/ Універсальний дизайн в громаді https://mtu.gov.ua/files/UniversalDesign-ItemsSpaceInfoServices_Brochure_Web_1.pdf Доступне інформування про соціальні, реабілітаційні та адміністративні послуги https://usif.ua/images/news/2022_04_18/AccessibleInfo_v04.pdf Доступність інформування та оповіщення в кризових ситуаціях https://www.undp.org/uk/ukraine/publications/dostupnist-informuvannya-ta-opovishchennya-v-kryzovykh-sytuatsiyakh Дивіться відео на YouTube-каналі Radio SKOVORODA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwYMQmN5C7c Або ж обирайте зручну для себе подкаст-платформу: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, MEGOGO Audio https://bit.ly/m/podcast-bezb «Подкаст про безбар'єрність» став можливим завдяки ціннісній співпраці з однодумцями(-ицями) з Львівського туристичного офісу https://www.instagram.com/lviv_tourism_office/ та компаніями, які роблять Україну інклюзивнішою: ОККО https://www.instagram.com/okkoua/ Uklon https://www.instagram.com/uklon.ua/ SoftServe https://www.instagram.com/softserve_people/

In this episode of the Digital Learning Today Podcast, Jeff welcomes Sue Ann Towle, Vice President, Product Management, MetaMetrics on the podcast LIVE from ISTE 2024 to discuss the new Lexile & Quantile Hub. If you are a new listener to TeacherCast, we would love to hear from you.  Please visit our Contact Page and let us know how we can help you today! In This Episode … MetaMetrics, an innovative leader in educational measurement, assessment, and AI announced at ISTE, the launch of the redesigned Lexile® & Quantile® Hub, set to debut in September. This major update underscores MetaMetrics' commitment to accessibility, enhanced user experience, and increased support. First launched in 2018, the Hub is an online collection of innovative tools and resources that leverage the Lexile® Framework for Reading and the Quantile® Framework for Mathematics. Users visited the Hub nearly 3 million times in 2023 to access learning materials and guidance that bridge the gap between assessment scores and instructional content used in the classroom, saving teachers time and supporting academic growth. The new Lexile & Quantile Hub was rebuilt from the ground up to prioritize accessibility, complying with WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Accessibility requirements like WCAG 2.1 AA are evolving to provide better support and research shows only 4% of companies have a website that meets these requirements. Social media integration further connects the user community, allowing educators and parents to share insights and resources effortlessly. Tools, like the popular Lexile® Find a Book, are now easier to access and faster to navigate for educators and parents who want to locate appropriately challenging reading materials on topics of interest for their students. A new Resource Center centralizes materials supporting instruction to ensure that educators and parents can efficiently find and utilize the information they need. For example, resources like maps that align student measures and content measures, grade level charts, and decodable practice passages are reorganized into a central location making them easy to locate. This saves time for teachers who are supporting differentiated instruction in their classrooms. The redesign also enhances the visibility of features at all subscription levels from the free visitor account through premium partner access. Users can easily create accounts and access resources tailored to their membership tier. Educators in states that have a contractual partnership with MetaMetrics enjoy free access to the highest tier of Hub membership which provides the most access to usage of tools and features. About MetaMetrics MetaMetrics Brings Meaning to Measurement MetaMetrics is guided by a powerful north star—to support student growth through actionable learning measurement. Over the last 35+ years, MetaMetrics' staff of educators, psychometricians and policy leaders have developed learning frameworks that now support over 35 million students in the US. More than half of the K-12 students in the US receive Lexile and Quantile measures and over a hundred million pieces of content have corresponding measures. MetaMetrics was founded in 1984 by Dr. A. Jackson Stenner (retired) and Dr. Malbert Smith with the singular goal of making measurement meaningful by matching students to learning resources using a scientific, universal scale. Today, Lexile and Quantile measures are available in all 50...

Tutorial de Accesibilidad Web: Kit Digital para hacer tu sitio web 100% accesible.

Full Transcript   Join members of Tamman's marketing team as we explore how we manage digital accessibility as marketers, designers, content creators, and communicators. We focus on the machinations and the nuance that goes into crafting our external image as a company as an organization that deeply, deeply cares about digital accessibility.   This episode is part of a three-part series focused on marketing and design with accessibility in mind. Check out the other episodes: Using Emojis with Accessibility in Mind Art and Accessibility    Additional Show Notes: Hemingway Writing Software Grammarly Writing Software Web Content Accessibility Guidelines or WCAG

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your hosts are Paul Marden and Oz Austwick.Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast.Competition ends on 19th June 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references: Skipton Town Hall https://skiptontownhall.co.uk/accessibility/Noor & Katu https://noorandkatu.com/Survey mentioned by Paul:  https://www.euansguide.com/media/0uyju30y/final-23-euansguide-results-pdf.pdfKids in Museums Open Letter:  https://kidsinmuseums.org.uk/2024/05/dear-change-makers-an-open-letter-from-the-kids-in-museums-youth-panel/Rubber Cheese 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey - https://rubbercheese.com/survey/ https://carbonsix.digital/https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmarden/Paul Marden is the Founder and Managing Director of Carbon Six Digital and the CEO of Rubber Cheese. He is an Umbraco Certified Master who likes to think outside the box, often coming up with creative technical solutions that clients didn't know were possible. Paul oversees business development and technical delivery, specialising in Microsoft technologies including Umbraco CMS, ASP.NET, C#, WebApi, and SQL Server. He's worked in the industry since 1999 and has vast experience of managing and delivering the technical architecture for both agencies and client side projects of all shapes and sizes. Paul is an advocate for solid project delivery and has a BCS Foundation Certificate in Agile. https://rubbercheese.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/thatmarketingbloke/ Oz Austwick is the Head of Commercial at Rubber Cheese, he has a somewhat varied job history having worked as a Blacksmith, a Nurse, a Videographer, and Henry VIII's personal man at arms. Outside of work he's a YouTuber, a martial artist, and a musician, and is usually found wandering round a ruined castle with his kids. Transcription:  Oz Austwick: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Oz Austwick. It's been a busy few weeks in the visitor attraction industry and the world at large. So in today's episode we're going to take some time to talk about what's happening, including the recent M+H Show, the upcoming election, the Family Friendly Museum Awards, and of course, the Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey. Oz Austwick: So, Paul, where have you been recently? Paul Marden: So as we are recording, it is currently half term week, a little bit of a damp half term week, which is a bit of a shame when you're in mid May, but went to Longleat at the weekend and went specifically to go and see their Steve Backshall live event, which is happening at the moment. So for those of you that don't have kids watching CBBC at the moment, Steve Backshall does the deadly 60 telly programme, which is kind of animals and nature on CBBC. And Steve brought out some of the best animals on his event at Longleat. So it was really cool. We got to see some. We saw an armadillo, we saw massive, great python and a wolf. He brought a wolf out on stage, which was pretty awesome. Oz Austwick: Oh, wow. Paul Marden: Yeah, that was cool. So there was lots of oohing and ahring and everybody enjoyed it. Lots of fun, even though it was absolutely gushing down with rain whilst we were there on Monday. So we didn't. Typical english style. We did not let the weather get in the way of a good day. What about you? Where have you been recently, Oz? Oz Austwick: We had our bank holiday day out on Sunday, not on Monday. So we had amazing weather. We threw all the kids in the car and drove down to Dorset to Swanage, where I used to spend my childhood holidays. And the place that went was Swanage Pier. I love it there. I spent my childhood, you know, fishing off the pier and swimming in the sea. Sadly, the hotel I used to go to doesn't exist anymore. They knocked it down and turned it into a sewage treatment plant. Paul Marden: Attractive. Oz Austwick: Yeah, absolutely. But it was absolutely amazing. The sea was very cold indeed. I did get in, had a bit of a swim, as did my eleven year old. The others all chickened out and just sat and watched. But it was lovely, you know, two p machines in the arcades. Paul Marden: Oh, I love it. Was it the pushers on the shelves? Coin drop ones? I love that. Yeah, gotta be the two p ones. Can't afford the ten p ones. That's too rich for me. Oz Austwick: Who can? I mean, that's vast amounts of money to win anything in those. Paul Marden: So Swanage for me just brings back memories of geography, field trips. I remember going there for about a week whilst I was at secondary school donkeys years ago, so. Oz Austwick: Right, well, we used to drive down from Yorkshire, where I grew up, and it would take all day to drive down to go to Swanage. I mean, it was, yeah, when we were there. Absolutely amazing. And the hotel was lovely before they knocked it down, obviously. So I have very fond memories and, yeah, nothing has happened to spoil those memories, thankfully. A very popular place for us to go. Paul Marden: Lovely day trip. Oz Austwick: Yeah, it really was. It really was. So the M+H show, let's talk about that, because that happened and it was quite a thing, wasn't it? Paul Marden: It really was. I had such a lovely time, so it was my first time at M+H show. It was. It was lovely event. They pitched it as the big meetup and it really was. I mean, it was absolutely jam packed with people. There were lots and lots of people there when I was there on Wednesday and so many people that I know that I was bumping into that were either running stands, presenting, or just being there and enjoying all the great content and meeting people. It was just such an awesome event. How was it for you as your first big attractions event? Oz Austwick: Absolutely, yeah. It wasn't just my first M+H. It was my 1st event. And, yeah, I was gobsmacked, to be honest. It was big. More than anything. I'm just genuinely surprised at how many companies sell museum display cases. Paul Marden: There was a lot of glass cabinets on show. Oz Austwick: Yeah, there really were. And they were beautiful. But, yeah, I mean, how do you differentiate yourself in that market, I wonder? Paul Marden: I would differentiate myself by going around and putting my greasy fingers over all the competition's glass and show how beautiful my cabinets could be. Oz Austwick: Yeah, just take my children. They'd make a mess of the glass within seconds of arriving. So did you get to any of the talks, any of the presentations? Paul Marden: I did, actually, yeah, I saw a few presentations. I thought they were really good this year. It was quite clever being given your headset that you could wear so that you could hear the presenters. Few people that have been in previous years telling me how great that was this time, because that was a new introduction this year. Oz Austwick: Can I just throw a slightly different perspective on that? I turned up late to one presentation and I didn't have the little box and the person who was handing them out was on the other side and couldn't get. So I missed it completely. Yeah, I mean, it's a great way to make sure you can hear what's going on. Paul Marden: It's tough. Isn't it? I felt it was a little bit. So when I had a similar experience where at one point I didn't have one, and it feels a little bit. It's hard, but it answers the problem they've had in previous years, where it was the same layout, where it's a big, noisy hall. And this did make it quite possible for people to be able to hear what was going on. But I would imagine as a speaker on stage, that's quite tough talking to people when you know they can't hear your voice. I don't know. I don't know how I'd feel about that. But there was one presentation that really stuck in my mind, and that was Spencer Clark from ATS and Steve Dering from Direct Access Consultancy. And they were talking about breaking down barriers and basically just giving a collection of essential accessibility tips for attractions. Paul Marden: And it was just such a great presentation. I always think that if I'm presenting at an event, if one person walks away, having heard one thing from me, I feel like I've kind of done my job. And to be fair to Spencer and Steve, they absolutely nailed that. I walked out of the room at the end of that, fizzing with ideas and walked away. And straight away that evening, I was writing a pitch for a client and things that I'd learned from what they were talking about made it into my pitch presentation. It's directly changing the way I think about accessibility. So I thought that it was a great achievement.Oz Austwick: And especially for that specific talk. It's not just a talk that says, “Oh, you can make some more money, do if you do this, or you can improve your response rate if you do this.” Actually saying, “This is a way you can help people.”Paul Marden: Yeah. Oz Austwick: And that's now changed the way that Rubber Cheese works and that. What an amazing result for them. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. There's a few things, few numbers that stuck in my mind and I kind of. I went and read about them afterwards and we'll put some links in the show notes to the survey that these stats are based on. But there was. There's two things that they said which really stuck in my mind. 59% of disabled people say, if a venue has not shared its disabled access information, I avoid going because I assume it's inaccessible. And 77% of disabled people say I'm more likely to visit somewhere new if I can find relevant access information about the venue. So these numbers, they caught me straight away and they got me thinking and made me realise that making a venue accessible is more than just meeting the website accessibility guidelines, which is kind of a key focus for us in the industry.Paul Marden: Lots of organisations will want to make sure that they follow the WCAG guidelines, the accessibility guidelines. Anyone that has a large amount of public sector funding will have a statutory obligation to meet those targets. So that's a big focus of people's attention. But just making it so that a screen reader can read your website, or making it so that you've addressed colour accessibility for people that are colour blind isn't enough to make the attraction itself accessible. So if you don't share the content about how your venue is accessible, people will assume you are not accessible. It was an eye opener for me. They gave a really great example. They talked about Skipton Town Hall up in Yorkshire, and they've got a webpage on their site all about the accessibility features of the building. And it was rich with photography. Paul Marden: So, you know, it's got pictures of all of the access points into the building, what the door looks like and which part of the building it gives level access into. They had pictures of all of the toilets that they've got and how they're accessible. They're fortunate. They've got a changing places toilet. So this is one of these accessible toilets with a large bed and usually with the equipment to be able to move somebody out of a chair and onto a bed to be able to change them. They've got photos of all of that on the website. So the accessibility information is right there. It's really clear and it gives loads of really good evidence that demonstrates this is somewhere that takes accessibility seriously. Oz Austwick: Yeah. Paul Marden: Interestingly, this didn't come out in the talk itself, but I found it interesting that the Craven Museum is based in Skipton Town Hall and they won the most accessible museum and the overall winner of the Family Friendly Museums award last year. And we interviewed them back a couple of weeks ago, back in March. So it kind of shows you that making places more accessible for disabled people makes them more accessible for all sorts of people as well. So, you know, it can make it more accessible for families with young children, it can make it more accessible for the elderly, it can make it more accessible for people with temporary access needs. Paul Marden: If you've breaking your leg or something like that, you know, you're not permanently disabled, but you need access into a building and making places more accessible to you for disabled people widens the access into the entire venue itself. I've since had a quick look at some of our clients and they're all writing about this. People are putting lots of information onto their website about this sort of thing. I saw Eureka had a special microsite all about it and Mary Rose have got information on their website about it. So this is really important content. And for me, sitting and listening to them talking, going back and thinking about it is really. It's really caught my attention and made me think and do things differently, which, you know, I feel like that's what these sorts of events are all about. Really? Oz Austwick: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, what a fantastic result for the event. If it opens up the industry to people who were struggling to access it, then, yeah, job done, right? Paul Marden: Yeah, completely. What about you? Oz Austwick: There were a few highlights for me, but I think one of the things that stood out the most was getting to meet some of the kind of movers and shakers within the community meeting Gordon from ACE, what a lovely guy. Had a fantastic chat to him and it really struck me how there are so many people and organisations who exist within the sector purely to try and improve the whole sector for everybody. I like it anyway because I've got a real interest in the historical side of things, museums and stately homes and castles that really talks to me and I take the kids out to places, so it's nice to know, but to actually be part of an industry where everyone's trying to help each other, I think is really lovely. Paul Marden: It really isn't it? Yeah. There were so many people like Gordon that you met at the event and they just make you feel good, they make you buzzy. There's a huge kind of collective recharge of batteries and fizzing of ideas that comes from these sorts of events, it was just brilliant. Oz Austwick: Yeah. That's what networking should be, right? Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. I was going to do a shout out for one person that had a stand. I've got a card that I picked up. This is a lady called Sonya Varoujian and she runs an organisation called Noor and Katu. They import these handmade crocheted little animals, finger puppets and toys and things. I went straight over to those because my daughter is crocheting like mad. She got taught by grandma a couple of months ago. It blows my mind. I have absolutely no idea what's going on as she's doing this and all of a sudden, out the other side comes a squid. But this little organisation Sonya was living and working in Armenia got the idea when she returned back to the UK and now imports these toys and they're for sale in a bunch of different attractions. Paul Marden: I just thought it was really lovely that these were fair trade, they were nice, creative things that I know my daughter would absolutely lap up at an organisation and it's completely sustainable and makes a big difference in communities that are not well served. Oz Austwick: Absolutely. And I know that you, like me, almost certainly get dragged into gift shops at visitor attraction sites on a regular basis and there comes a point where you've seen the staff and to have a company out there that's not only doing good things, but providing something a little bit different, a little bit unique that you can buy in a gift shop and actually feel like you've done something worthwhile and bought something that isn't just going to fall apart in a couple of weeks. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. Oz Austwick: I think that. Yeah, yeah, it would be really nice to see more things like that. So, yeah, go and check them out if you're listening or watching. Paul Marden: Did you see any talks yourself that  caught your attention? Oz Austwick: Yeah, yeah, there were a couple that sprung to them. But firstly, I wanted to just briefly mention the talk that I didn't get to watch. I'm a YouTuber, not a massively successful one, but I'm part of a YouTube community. So when I saw that the Tank Museum was doing a talk about how they've used the YouTube creator community to boost their own social media and their own income, I thought, “Fantastic, I'll go along and see that.” Because my brother in law, who's a far more successful YouTuber than I am, was actually part of that. He got invited down to make a video about his favourite tank. So I turned up and obviously I thought I was on time. I was too late. It was hugely crowded, there was no seats, there was no space. So I was stood in the kind of the corridor. Oz Austwick: It's not really. Is it a corridor? The path, the walkway, I don't know what you call it. And, yeah, got moved on by the venue staff because.Paul Marden: Loitering in the corridors. Oz Austwick: We were effectively blocking the way through. And rightly so, you know, they need to make sure access is maintained. But, yeah, I didn't get to see that talk, which I was a little bit sad about, but a couple of talks that I did get to see, which stood out, was the Bloomberg panel discussion hosted by Kripa Gurung. They're doing some amazing work. And the fact that it's a completely philanthropic organisation, I think is quite amazing if you haven't come across what Bloomberg are doing with Bloomberg Connects the app. But, yeah, that was really interesting. Talking about what they're doing, how they're getting organisations online, having the museum at the home and English Heritage there, talking about what they're doing with Bloomberg Connects was great. Oz Austwick: But I think, if I'm being honest, my favourite talk was the Castle Howard Christmas events talk, partly because it was really interesting, talking about the marketing and how they've created this amazing Christmas event that has a real following and people come back year after year and they've done that on purpose and it's been hugely successful. But Abby from Castle Howard, she's just hilarious. She's been a guest a couple of times, talking about how she hospitalised an old man on his very last ever day at work and then how she sacked Santa. Just, yeah, if you get a chance to go and see their talks go along, because it's not only entertaining but informative, too. So, yeah, that's probably the highlight for me. Paul Marden: Cool. I saw a lovely presentation. Longtime listeners will know that I'm a Kids in Museums trustee. So I went over and watched the Kids in Museums Youth Panel and it was really interesting because they had a summit focused around young people and their needs in museums back last year. They had a webinar where they talked about it a couple of months ago and I was blown away by these people who are part of the Kids in Museums Youth Panel. You know, young people at early stages of their careers, some of them are at uni still. Some of them are in the early stages of their first jobs and just talking so articulately about their experience of museums, what they think museums should change, what's going well, what could be done better? Paul Marden: And so I wasn't disappointed when I saw them speaking in real life. They did a cracking job talking about the museum summit and what they think are the issues in the museum. So there was a couple of stats I pulled out of it. Over 90% of young people don't feel considered as an audience and represented in museums, which that blows my mind, because we talk a lot about audience with the people that we work with, and the needs of young people are central to many of the conversations that we have about audience. So there. That made me think, “Oh, is there a problem where the conversations that do get had are not being discussed in the right way? Is it a problem of perception? Paul Marden: Is it that young people don't perceive that they're being considered when in actual fact they are, or is it a lack of involvement and so they feel like it's being done to them rather than being done with them?” Yeah. Food for thought. If most young people feel that museums don't consider them as part of their audience, that's problematic. Oz Austwick: Yeah, absolutely. Isn't it? I mean, I'd be amazed if the people that were running the museums had the same opinion. I suspect they clearly think they are doing things for young people and children, but maybe they're just not asking those young people what they want. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So there's a few things that the youth panel suggested could be done. So loads of kids go on school trips to museums. But have a guess what you think the minimum age is to go unaccompanied into a museum in some museums? Oz Austwick: Well, I mean, I'd expect that it would probably be 16. That feels like a reasonable age. Paul Marden: There are museums where you have to be 18 to go unaccompanied into the museum. Oz Austwick: Why? Paul Marden: You can go and get a job, you can go and pay your taxes, but you can't go into the museums on your own because you're not a responsible adult. That's interesting. And I use that word with a great deal of misuse. Oz Austwick: Yeah. I just struggle to work out how you could justify that. Paul Marden: I know. Oz Austwick: Well, obviously there are one or two museums out there where you probably need to be 18 to go in and have a look. Yeah. I mean, in general, why 18? Paul Marden: Yeah, I think standards of behaviour, you can expect people to behave in a certain way, but that doesn't. That's not dependent on age, that's dependent on your behaviour. Oz Austwick: And the sort of teenager that genuinely wants to go into a museum is probably going to behave pretty well when they're in that museum. Paul Marden: Yeah, you'd think. So the next thing I might play into this, but one of the things the youth panel want is to see more youth groups being represented in the decision making process in museums, so that they better represent communities and highlight career pathways for young people. Including more working class histories in museums would help people feel more represented. I thought that was quite interesting. We've been to a few recently where we did not necessarily see stories of our background being well presented at the museum. Oz Austwick: Yes. Paul Marden: Enough for both of us to have noticed it and commented it as we were wandering around. Oz Austwick: It's interesting because some do it really well. Paul Marden: Yeah. Oz Austwick: And coming from a historical background with a focus on arms and armour, there's a real issue that the sort of arms and armour that have survived from the mediaeval period are the unusual ones and they're the ones in the museum. So that's what people see. And you kind of assume that this fancy, ornate, decorated, enamelled armour is pretty standard, but the bog standard stuff didn't survive and maybe that's the issue when you're looking at furniture in a room, in a house, the fancy furniture is the one that survived because people cared about it. It wasn't being used on a day to day basis. Paul Marden: Yeah. Oz Austwick: Yeah. I don't know, but you're absolutely right, it does give you a slightly skewed view of what's actually out there. Paul Marden: Yeah. Look, if you're interested listeners, in finding out more about what the Kids in Museums Youth Panel are looking to achieve, they've just published an open letter to changemakers within the sector where they talk passionately about what they think the sector needs to do to change. There's a lovely video that goes alongside the open letter where these young people are using their voice to be able to advocate for change. It's great, it's really interesting and I highly recommend everybody goes and watches the video and reads the letter and then does something about it. Oz Austwick: So, anything else from M+H  that we need to talk about? Paul Marden: The lovely meal and drinks afterwards. The very lovely Bala McAlin and Stephen Spencer, both once of these parts, were hosting an event Wednesday evening, I think it was, which was absolutely lovely. Well attended. Drinks flowed, food came out. It was delightful. Very much appreciated. Oz Austwick: Yeah. And I have very mixed feelings about the fact that I decided to leave a little bit early. Paul Marden: But you got home at a reasonable time and I didn't manage to drag my backside in the front door until about half midnight. And it wasn't because I had a wonderful night, it was because I spent most of it in Waterloo station trying to get home. Oz Austwick: Yeah. A bit of an issue with the train. Paul Marden: Yes. I would much preferred if I'd actually stayed at the drinks event and then dragged myself into Waterloo later once they'd actually sorted themselves out. Oz Austwick: So I think at this point we probably need to talk about how the government have ruined our plans for the next few months of podcast content. Paul Marden: Yes.Oz Austwick: Because we've been thinking for a little while that it would be a really nice thing to do to talk to the main political parties about their idea for the visitor attraction industry in the future. And obviously our hands been forced a little bit. Paul Marden: It hasn't it? We're not the only ones. I think quite a few people were caught on the hop a little bit when Rishi announced the general election on the 4th of  July. So, yeah, events, dear boy, have somewhat overtaken us, haven't they? Oz Austwick: Yeah, just a little. So, yeah, we're probably not going to do that if for no other reason that the Labour Party shadow minister isn't standing again, for all the right reasons. But it does mean that there's a bit of an imbalance there and if we can't talk to all the parties equally and get their ideas, we probably shouldn't talk to any of them. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. Oz Austwick: That being said, we can still talk about it, right? Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. The lovely people at ALVA Bernard, who presented at M+H and talked about this very subject, amongst other things, they've done a lot of policy work and have prepared some thoughts around what they think is important to the sector, around strengthening the visitor economy, protecting arts and culture and heritage and supporting the natural environment, whilst at the same time looking after all of those people that either work or give up their time to support the sector. So, yeah, there's a few things in there that I thought it was worth us just touching on, because I think it's really important that we think about what the future of the sector could look like in just a very few weeks time as the country changes. They've got some interesting thoughts. Paul Marden: Unsurprisingly, the sector would probably benefit from some reduced taxation and there's quite a number of different areas within which ALVA think that the taxation burden on the sector could be lessened. And similarly, they've also got ideas around how funding for the various arts councils and support organisations around the different home nations would make a substantial difference, especially around capital funding would make a big difference to the sector. But there was a few very specific arts which jumped out as me, as being kind of. They really meant something to me. So there's one. ALVA says, “They ask all the political parties to ensure culture, life, performance, arts, heritage and nature are experienced by every child and young person and are within the national curriculum.” Yeah, I think this is so important. Yeah, I think I've talked on the podcast before. Paul Marden: This was one of the big COVID victims. So many schools during COVID had to stop taking kids out and experiencing the outside world and going to day trips and the like. And I just. I think it is so important. It's really hard for many schools. They've got such a burden around meeting the curriculum, budget cuts, all of the calls on the staff time is so hard for them to prioritise day trips. But I've seen him in my own daughter's school. Just the powerful impact it has on the kids. They're a school where the kids barely spend a whole week in class. They're usually out doing something outside of school, which I just think is brilliant. And I got to tag along with them. A few months ago. We went to London. Paul Marden: We did the trip to the Science Museum, took the kids up on the train and on the tube, which was, let me tell you, quite scary. Oz Austwick: Did you manage to bring them all back? Paul Marden: Counted them in and counted them out and it was all good. It was all good. But then went into parliament and that was just brilliant. Taking a bunch of ten and eleven year olds into parliament and bless them, it was the tail end of the day. So they were all shattered. But they were so completely engaged by it. They saw Priti Patel walking through the central lobby. They saw all of these different ministers, their advisors, and they got to sit in the chamber of the House of Commons and seeing debate going on. It was all about Horizon scandal. It was just. It was such a brilliant day trip for the kids and how much does it enrich them.Paul Marden: Yeah, okay, me and Millie go to these places all the time, but, you know, there might be one or two kids in that school for whom this is the only time that they get to experience a day trip into London and see one of the big national museums and go in and enjoy parliament. I never got to go into parliament when I was Millie's age. Oz Austwick: No. And I think it's really important to say that. I mean, both you and I live in the southeast of the country in a relatively rural and affluent area and that even here with the schools that we've got, they're struggling to do this. And then when you look at what the inner city schools are having to deal with and some of the northern cities and northern towns where they're really struggling with population poverty up there, how are those kids getting similar opportunities? Paul Marden: Yeah. Oz Austwick: And the fact is they're not. Paul Marden: No, no. Oz Austwick: And that's something that I can't agree with ALVA more on this, that this needs to be prioritised because this is the future. Paul Marden: Yeah. Another area where we've had direct experience, from conversations we've been having recently is around supporting local authorities in their care of civic collections and culture. I mean, you've spoken to so many places recently, haven't you, where cultural budgets are just being eviscerated. Oz Austwick: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I've always had a kind of a love of finding those little obscure rural town museums because you find some amazing things in them. My local museum, it's a tiny little market town and they've got like a special area of Egyptian relics. They've got a mummy in a sarcophagus in this little museum that's what, four rooms? But they've got no funding. And there's so many times we're talking to museums like this. They know what they need and they know what they want, but they just don't have the money to be able to do it. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. Oz Austwick: They come to us looking for a website and they're just struggling for budget to do anything. Paul Marden: Yeah, which is where things like that Bloomberg Connect app comes in, because when you look on the Bloomberg Connect site, you've got big national museums like National Portrait Gallery in there using the Connect app. But there were some little ones in there as well that I saw, you know, small local town museums just like the ones that you're describing in there using that app. Oz Austwick: I was looking through the app last night and my eye was caught by, I think it was Beverly Town Hall. I was born in Beverley, up in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and I sort of thought, “Oh, I'll have a look at that.” And I just got drawn in and it was just this amazing experience. I didn't even know Beverley had a town hall that was open to the public, nevermind that had a collection that you could view through the Bloomberg Connect app. So, yeah, I guess maybe a little bit more in the way of awareness, but it shouldn't be down to a philanthropic organisation like Bloomberg to keep these museums and collections going. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So look, the ALVA kios of the political parties is up there on their main website. Really worth going and looking at. As the manifestos are published, you'll be able to see what the political parties are doing. There's already some information on the various different party websites around what they want to do within the culture and tourism sectors. But I think we've got a few weeks yet to wait until we see the actual cast iron commitments come out in manifestos. So that'll be interesting to see the direction that takes. Oz Austwick: And I suspect we're going to talk about this a little bit more over the next few episodes, perhaps. Paul Marden: Yeah, maybe. The other thing I will mention, this is a shameless plug because I work as a trustee at Kids in Museums. We're working on this flagship awards ceremony and it is absolutely delightful event lots of people enjoying themselves doing amazing work and there is a sponsorship opportunity. So if you're like us, one of those kind of sector supporting organisations that serve the attraction sector, and you'd like to support the good work of Kids in Museums and be associated with that amazing event, give me a shout, because I can point you in the direction of the right people to talk to get that sponsorship in place and I know it will make a massive difference to them. Have you been busy recently? What have you been up to? Oz Austwick: Do you know what? Weirdly, it's been a little bit busy. Yeah. I mean it feels like it's always a little bit busy, but it's been specifically a little bit busy because as of yesterday we've launched the third annual Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey. Paul Marden: Excellent. Oz Austwick: That's quite a mouthful, isn't it? It'd be really nice to find a catchier name for it than that. Paul Marden: I always talk about naming is the hardest problem in computing, but naming is the hardest problem in marketing, I think. Oz Austwick: Yeah, let's be honest, what it's actually known is pretty much new survey brackets two. So it's the third one. The first one was a bit of an eye opener, the fact that there wasn't anything already out there and we did this and it was amazing. The second one, we tried to refine it and we got some really nice, interesting data. This is probably the first time we've been able to sit and look at it and go, “Right, okay, now we've got a couple of years worth of results. We can look at what we actually need to be asking and what's just out there because we want to ask, because it's interesting and what information we're not actually getting.”Oz Austwick: So we've really cut back on the number of questions and I think it's probably safe to say that isn't going to have a massive impact on the quality of the information that we get, but it's also allowed us to add in a few extra little bits as well. So yeah, we're talking about sustainability and the use of AI and yeah, I'm really excited. Paul Marden: Yeah. Oz Austwick: I haven't actually looked to see if people have started filling it. Paul Marden: I can't look, I can't look. I just kind of want to look through my fingers. Oz Austwick: I'm not sure I want to know, but yeah. So if you are listening to this, if you've got this far into the podcast and you work at a visitor attraction, please go and fill this in. There's a link in the show notes. There's links on LinkedIn, on X. Everywhere we go. There will be a link for this. And if you can't find it, go to rubbercheese.com. And it's right there at the top of the homepage. There's a link. Paul Marden: Yeah. rubbercheese.com/survey, slip that right in there. Oz Austwick: Yeah. I think one of the things we've done differently is the advisory board. We talked about this a little bit in the last episode. We did what an amazing thing to have these guys on board. I think they've saved us months of work by just being clever. Paul Marden: They've improved the quality of what we've done. Asking us, what on earth are you asking that question for? Those answers are exactly the same answer. Can't you make it easier for me to know what I need to gather before I type my data in? Oz Austwick: Exactly, saying, “Oh, well, I wouldn't fill it in because you don't tell me what I need to do.” Okay, well, we'll do that. It's not a problem. Yeah. How amazing. So thank you to them and to Expian for sponsoring the advisory board. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. And we're working through now focusing on the kind of engagement plan to increase more people. And then, you know, whilst we have a lull as people are going to be filling in their survey, we'll start planning, looking at the data, seeing where the stories lie. We'll talk about that in some future episodes, but starting to gather together what the final report looks like and the stories that will be told. And, you know, we're really grateful to Convious for sponsoring us on the digital survey and the digital report that will follow and then a bunch of webinars that will run afterwards. So, you know, the call to action for us is get in there, find your data, read the guidance notes, go and fill in the survey. Paul Marden: But then once you've done that, come and talk to us because, you know, we'd love to know what you would like us to dig in to. It is amazing how this rich resource of data that we've got and people ask us questions that we've never even thought of, and we look at the data differently and we find a different story in there. So without your input, without you telling us what's interesting you, with what's bothering you, what's challenging you, we don't look at the data properly and we don't find those stories for you. So come and talk to us. Oz Austwick: Is this how it feels to kind of run a museum, to be the custodian of this amazing thing and just want people to come and engage with it. Yes, because that's kind of it. You know, we've got this amazing data and it's got all of these wonderful stories within it that are relevant to anyone in the industry and we just want to talk about it. So, yeah, please fill in the survey, talk to us about it and, yeah, with any luck, this one will be bigger and better than the last two. Paul Marden: There we go. Couldn't ask for more than that, could we? Oz Austwick: No. Before we go, because we're going to wrap up relatively soon, there's one thing that I noticed that we failed to do last time and we talk a lot about giving away a book and I think we even said we were giving away a book in the last episode and then never mentioned a book. So, Paul, do you have a book that you'd like to recommend? Paul Marden: Do you know what, Oz? It's funny you should say that. I absolutely do. I have this book Delivering the Visitor Experience by also previously of these parts, Rachel Mackay, who is, I believe, at Hampton Court Palace, and she's written an amazing book about what it is to create, manage and develop unforgettable vista experiences at museums. I don't want a museum, but it was really interesting for me to be able to read this book all about the process that people that do run museums go through to develop, craft and tell that story and give that amazing experience. It's a brilliant book. Heartily recommend it. And if you retweet the show note saying, “I want Paul's book”, then you too could get an amazing copy of Delivering the Visitor Experience by our friend Rachel Mackay. Oz Austwick: Amazing. Thanks very much. Paul Marden: Slightly out of breath because it will be edited out, I'm sure, but I had to run up the corridor and go find the book and take it off the shelf and bring it down because although I was completely organised with all my stuff from M+H show, did not have my book recommendation. Well, there you go. I think that just about wraps us up, doesn't it? It's been a busy few weeks for us with M+H show and all that's going on and that doesn't look to abate over the next few months as we get the survey into shape and find out what's happening in the sector. Oz Austwick: So I think it's only going to get busier. Paul Marden: It is. How is this your first time actually hosting? Oz Austwick: I think I prefer this one. Maybe that's because it's not my first one. Or maybe it's just because I. Paul Marden: Because you're power hungry and you took the captain's chair. Oz Austwick: Make it so. Yeah, definitely Picard rather than Kirk. But that's because he's a West Yorkshire man. Paul Marden: Is he really? You've got too much hair to be Picard. I'm sorry.Oz Austwick:  I'm not wearing my Star Trek uniform.Paul Marden: On that bombshell. Thank you very much, mate. Oz Austwick: Thank you. Oz Austwick: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on X for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, SkiptheQueue.fm. The 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report is now LIVE! Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industryGain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion ratesExplore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performanceLearn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion ratesUncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversionsDownload the report now for invaluable insights and actionable recommendations!

Learnovate has launched a Work Ready Graduate Programme (WRGP) to help companies in Ireland deploy state-of-the-art learning technology solutions. The programme places graduates with Learnovate member companies for 12 months where they receive real-world work experience in the learning technology sector. The graduates work within a partner company on a project focused on, or involving, a learning technology solution while being mentored and supported by senior researchers at the Learnovate Centre. Learnovate is the leading global future of work and learning research hub based in Trinity College Dublin. This is the first year Learnovate has run the Work Ready Graduate Programme. Funded from 50% to 70% by Enterprise Ireland, the programme currently has six graduates working for companies including ALPACA; Akari; Adaptemy; Hibernia and SkillsVista. Learnovate is now actively recruiting eight new graduates for Year 2 of this programme, with a closing date of Wednesday, 31 July, 2024. Further information and details on how to apply are available at learnovatecentre.org/wrgp. To be eligible, candidates are required to have a minimum of a level 8 degree in a relevant field and an interest in Education, User and Learner Experience, Learning Technologies, and/or Instructional Design. They also should have completed their course or graduated between 2020-2024. Participants in the programme are hosted by a partner company and supported by the Learnovate team while working on a project focused on, or involving, a learning technology solution to be used in a corporate learning or formal education environment. During their placement, the graduates receive real-world work experience, business skills training, one-to-one mentoring, access to the latest knowledge and techniques on the future of work and learning, and a thorough grounding and training in modern business and software design best practices. Learnovate Director Nessa McEniff says: "We are delighted to launch Learnovate's Work Ready Graduate Programme (WRGP), with the support of Enterprise Ireland, which we believe will bring significant benefits both to the graduates selected this year and our participating member companies. This programme allows companies access to a resource whose skill set can mobilise their projects while leveraging the Learnovate approach and benefiting from Learnovate's expert mentorship. The WRGP, which we plan to run for at least three years, allows us to help our member companies reap the benefits of Learnovate's expertise and insights into the latest developments in the learning technology space." Paul Hederman, Director of Customer Success at Akari Software, says: "Since the graduate (Olgu) joined Akari Software I have found her to be very focused, team oriented and really motivated to learn. This is all the more impressive as she works remotely. Currently, she is working on creating a detailed company-wide resource for all WCAG 2.2 accessibility criteria that defines what the criteria is in practice and how it can be tested by various teams within Akari Software. This is important work for the Akari Product Team and we are delighted with the real added value she is bringing to this project. We are also delighted that she sees the value to her own career progression too." Akari Software designs and builds software to assist universities digitalise and manage their curriculum data. Olgu Saglik, participating graduate who was placed with Akari Software, says: "I was attracted to this programme for several key reasons. Firstly, the chance to receive training from Learnovate and other respected institutions is invaluable in enhancing my expertise. Additionally, the opportunity for a placement within an Ireland-based edtech company is particularly appealing to me as I am passionate about contributing to the growth and innovation of Ireland through my work. Overall, this programme offers a platform for me to enhance my skills, gain valuable experience, and...

Send us a Text Message.In this episode, we're thrilled to have Kason Olson join us. Kason is a digital marketing leader from Salt Lake City, Utah, who has triumphed over challenges such as ADD, ADHD, and dyslexia to become a beacon of inspiration in the marketing world. He currently leads digital marketing at Qubescan and is the founder of Arctic Marketing Solutions.Highlights from the Episode:Introduction to Kason Olson: Dive into Kason's background and how he overcame significant challenges to excel in digital marketing.Milestone Model: Discover the three stages of Kason's innovative Milestone Model, designed to help businesses grow sustainably. Stage One: Building a strong foundation with brand design, messaging, and website optimization.Stage Two: Establishing trust with Google and visitors through SEO, reputation management, and compliance with WCAG and ADA standards.Stage Three: Scaling businesses with paid ads, email marketing, and strategic growth initiatives.Importance of Compliance: Learn about the significance of making websites WCAG and ADA compliant to avoid legal issues and enhance accessibility.Tactical Advice: Practical tips for business owners who can't afford an agency. Kason shares insights on leveraging free resources, educating oneself, and utilizing online tools for effective digital marketing.Why You Should Listen:Gain actionable insights from Kason's vast experience in digital marketing.Understand how to navigate the complexities of building and scaling a business online.Learn the importance of a holistic marketing strategy and how different channels work together.Episode Highlights:Kason's inspiring journey from overcoming learning challenges to leading successful marketing initiatives.The detailed breakdown of the Milestone Model and its application in real-world scenarios.Practical advice for business owners on where to start and how to leverage free resources for digital marketing success.

Fredrik snackar med Tobbe Lundberg om Redwood - ett “appramverk för startups”. Tobbes väg till Redwood går bland annat via en bilmekaniker, en webbshop, och massor av trasiga sökvägar på Windows. Vi hinner också med en liten rapport från konferensen JSDay i Verona, inklusive några favoritpresentationer. Redwood vill vara ett bra ramverk för små organisationer som vill ha ett ramverk som hjälper en att få igång och underhålla hela webbapplikationens stack - både på klient och server. Fredrik känner att det skulle kunna vara något för honom, något som röjer undan många av de beslut man kan gräva ner sig i innan man ens kommit igång med ett projekt - Från vilka ramverk man ska välja, via hur man löser inloggning, och hela vägen till hur tusan man sjösätter sin skapelse. Tobias berättar om hur han hittade till Redwood, och hur hela Redwood utvecklats och utvecklas. Just nu försöker man till exempel styra bort från att bygga API:er på förhand bara för att man gissar att man behöver det senare. Serverkomponenter i React: en rolig och komplicerad utmaning där Redwood tar komplexitetssmällen åt användarna. Fredrik undrar: kan man komma till en punkt då man faktiskt kan börja förenkla och minska komplexiteten i alla webbtekniktravar? Tobbe tror inte vi är där riktigt än. Det är lätt att fastna i att bygga ramverk, och glömma bort att bygga saker med ramverket också för att få nya insikter. Redwood lägger mycket fokus på utvecklarupplevelsen - till exempel att det ska vara enkelt och smärtfritt att uppdatera mellan versioner. Ett stort tack till Cloudnet som sponsrar vår VPS! Har du kommentarer, frågor eller tips? Vi är @kodsnack, @thieta, @krig, och @bjoreman på Mastodon, har en sida på Facebook och epostas på info@kodsnack.se om du vill skriva längre. Vi läser allt som skickas. Gillar du Kodsnack får du hemskt gärna recensera oss i iTunes! Du kan också stödja podden genom att ge oss en kaffe (eller två!) på Ko-fi, eller handla något i vår butik. Länkar Tobbe Lundberg Redwood Nextjs Graphql React server components The guild Fastify Prisma Postgres Redwoods tutorial/bok Serverless Netlify Fly Render JSDay - konferensen Tobbe och Fredrik var på Presentationen om optimering av lambdafunktioner Marco Cedaro Do we need it? Marcos presentation från JSDay Mathilde Buenerd pratade WCAG och tillgänglighet på JSDay Craig Spence pratade Rust och Webassembly Cars Webpack Vite Serversidesrendering i React David Price - en av Redwoodgrundarna Rob Cameron - mannen bakom Redwoods tutorial Ruby on rails Peter Pistorius Tom Preston-Warner Codemods AST - abstrakt syntaxträd Routing Supabase Verdaccio - “A lightweight Node.js private proxy registry” Tobbes blogginlägg (flera delar finns) om att ha sitt eget NPM-register med Verdaccio Hetzner Titlar Vad är Redwood? Min fru skulle lämna in bilen Fullstackpaketet Hela prodmiljön lokalt Lite taskigt mot lambda All kod är teknisk skuld Man tror att man kommer dit Varför ska jag behöva tänka i API-termer? Ett hopp för mycket Det kändes som svart magi redan då Vi tar smällen i ramverket Man fastnar i ramverksbyggandet Min bilmekaniker Uppgraderingspathen Explosion av möjligheter Ett gediget CLI-verktyg Tom hade redan infrastrukturen

In today's episode, Lois speaks with Mitch Creedy, a digital accessibility consultant from Canada. Mitch talks about their background in digital accessibility, and the training they received through the Blind Institute of Technology, also called the BIT Academy. They also refer to the WCAG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, as a tool that can be used by web developers wishing to make their work more accessible. The second half of the conversation revolves around the topic of bullying, both experienced within the workplace and in more casual and social interactions, where Mitch unpacks some experiences that they have encountered. *As a note: this conversation was recorded in December 2023 and, at one stage, Mitch refers to their decision to disengage from social media for a short time. I'm thrilled to let you know that they are back on socials and you can now connect with them there. Reach out to Mitch at: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mitchk20 Blind Institute of Technology website: Podcast Image description: A person with short hair smiling at the camera. They are wearing a grey zip-up top with a high collar. The background is plain and white, providing a clear view of the person. I'd love to hear from you – contact me at Web: https://www.loisstrachan.com/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/lstrachan Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/loisstrachanspeaker This episode edited by Craig Strachan using Hindenburg PRO – find out more on Hindenburg.com Credits and music by Charlie Dyasi of Naledi Media.

Avoiding a lawsuit is as easy as implementing accessibility correctly the first time. But as many of us know, we still aren't quite there yet. There is a lot of work that needs to be done if we are going to truly have an internet that is accessible to everyone. Many businesses and public entities offer services, products, and information that everyone needs access to, regardless of their ability, and sometimes it feels that a lawsuit is the only way to jumpstart that process. To get an inside look at the legal system, we have invited a special guest to join us of CHAX Chat! Eve Hill of Brown Goldstien & Levy is an ADA lawyer and consultant. In this episode, we are going to hear firsthand what happens in an ADA lawsuit, the step-by-step process when a complaint is filed, and steps you can take to start preparing your company now for success, enabling your company or organization to serve everyone. 

נגישות היא לא רק נושא חשוב. נגישות היא נקודת פתיחה להתייחסות יסודית וטובה יותר לפיתוח תוכנה בכלל. מפתחים ומפתחות שיבינו את שאלת הנגישות לעומק, יורידו מעצמם לחץ, ויוציאו תחת ידיהם קוד איכותי, שיתקבל בהערכה ויחסוך בעיות.לרן בר-זיק יש תשוקה מיוחדת לענייני נגישות, והמון מה לומר בנושא. נגענו בשאלות רבות: למה כדאי להשתמש בספריית קומפוננטות נגישה? מדוע תוסף נגישות הוא בעייתי ולא בהכרח רלבנטי? איך כלי בדיקות אוטומטיים עשויים לעזור ומתי הם מזהים בעיות לא אמיתיות? למה חשוב לתעד את הטיפול בבעיות הנגישות? מהי בעיית השווארמה? מהי מלכודת טאבים? מה קורה, תמיד, אך ורק בכריסטמס? ובעיקר – כמה עמודים בשעה יכול בר זיק לקרוא?לפרק הקודם שלנו בנושא נגישות (מומלץ מאוד!)https://www.osimhistoria.com/software/ep103-accessibilityלתקן של WCAG:https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/לאתר של WebAIM:https://webaim.org/

RJJ Software's Podcasting Services This episode of The Modern .NET Show is supported, in part, by RJJ Software's Podcasting Services, where your podcast becomes extraordinary. We take a different approach here, just like we do with our agile software projects. You see, when it comes to your podcast, we're not just your editors; we're your collaborators. We work with you to iterate toward your vision, just like we do in software development. If you're ready to take your podcast to the next level, don't hesitate. Contact us at RJJ Software to explore how we can help you create the best possible podcast experience for your audience, elevate your brand, and unlock the vast potential in podcasting. Show Notes Welcome to The Modern .NET Show! Formerly known as The .NET Core Podcast, we are the go-to podcast for all .NET developers worldwide and I am your host Jamie "GaProgMan" Taylor. In this episode, I spoke with Dennie Declercq about accessibility, it's importance in modern application development, and how it's not just a case of adding ARIA tags to HTML elements. Developing your web applications with accessibility and all users in mind should be the default mode for all user interface developers; and that change needs to come from us: "And I don't have good eyes, so I have bad eyes. I'm not blind, b ut my eyes can be way better by example. That's the reason I don't drive a car. So thinking about this, "is a website for people at autism. it shouldn't be accessible on the other ways." It's just telling fairy tales to yourself. In fact, those fairy tales are not there because a lot of people on the spectrum have one or multiple additional, let's say, diagnosis. So really important to push back and say no. We need to make accessible websites for everybody. Also, for whatever case it is. I love all the things that you're saying in the last part, so I hope I checked them all" — Dennie Declercq In fact, in the time between recording this episode and it going live, version 2.2 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines where published. At the time of recording this into (Oct 18th, 2023), version 2.1 is still the required standard for UK web applications, but it will be superseded by 2.2 by the time you hear this episode. So let's sit back, open up a terminal, type in dotnet new podcast and we'll dive into the core of Modern .NET. Supporting the Show If you find this episode useful in any way, please consider supporting the show by either leaving a review (check our review page for ways to do that), sharing the episode with a friend or colleague, buying the host a coffee, or considering becoming a Patron of the show. Full Show Notes The full show notes, including links to some of the things we discussed and a full transcription of this episode, can be found at: https://dotnetcore.show/season-6/breaking-barriers-unleashing-accessible-software-for-all-with-dennie-declercq/ Useful Links ddsoft WCAG Microsoft Accessibility Insights GitHub Action Microsoft Accessibility Insights Guide Dennie's Blog Supporting the show: Leave a rating or review Buy the show a coffee Become a patron Getting in touch: via the contact page joining the Discord Music created by Mono Memory Music, licensed to RJJ Software for use in The Modern .NET Show Remember to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, or wherever you find your podcasts, this will help the show's audience grow. Or you can just share the show with a friend. And don't forget to reach out via our Contact page. We're very interested in your opinion of the show, so please get in touch. You can support the show by making a monthly donation on the show's Patreon page at: https://www.patreon.com/TheDotNetCorePodcast.

#165 APCA calculates contrast differently from WCAG and is expected to be part of WCAG 3. Find out from APCA creator Andrew Somers the problem with WCAG contrast ratios, why APCA is more accurate and how you can make your colors more accessible.

#162 Get a plain-English summary of the 9 new success criteria in the WCAG 2.2 guidelines, so that you can make your websites more accessible.

Joel Ward is an Emerging Technology Manager at Booz Allen Hamilton who has been working within Web Accessibility since around the time Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act was enacted on August 7, 1998 and the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines came out (WCAG version 1.0 was published on May 5, 1999). Ward spoke on a XR Access Symposium panel discussion about Empowering the Workforce through Accessible XR, and also brought a pair of XREAL Air glasses with live captioning to show off the power of AR as an assistive technology to other attendees. I had a chance to speak with Ward about the pending work that has to be done in order to specify XR accessibility experimentation within government contracts. Right now XR accessibility is in a bit of a Catch-22, because if something is not specified within a contract to be worked on, then it most likely won't happen. However, XR Accessibility features and functionality are still too nascent to be clearly specified and scoping out within these contracts. As I covered in the unpacking of public policy and XR accessibility write-up of my interview with XR Association's Liz Hyman, then the emerging nature of XR technologies means that they're not clearly specified within legislation like Section 508 or the American's with Disability Act to be enforced. We talk what needs to be done at the federal government contracting level so that his group at Booz Allen Hamilton can have the freedom and resources to develop more XR Accessibility features that feeds into the type of Darwinian experimentation that Neil Trevett says is a crucial phase of the standards development process. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality