Ep 22: Inclusive Design Tools and Resources
Shownotes
In this episode of the Marketing Made Inclusive podcast, the focus is on inclusive design in marketing. Joyann and Jade discuss various tools and resources to help marketers create accessible and inclusive content.
You can watch the podcast here.
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Useful links:
Watch the previous episode here.
WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools.
Accessible Colour Pallet Generator.
Hootsuite Inclusive Design Blog.
Transcript
00:00:00:03 - 00:00:30:18
Joyann Boyce
Okay, excellent linkup. Welcome and welcome back to the Marketing Made Inclusive podcast. We are so glad to have you here with us because this week is a continuation from the previous episode. If you haven't listened, we're going to dive in further to inclusive design. And this week I am joined by Jade. Hey Jade.
00:00:30:18 - 00:00:33:16
Jade Pett
Hello.
00:00:33:18 - 00:01:06:18
Joyann Boyce
So, Jade and I were going back and forth because admittedly inclusive design is an area for us marketers that we're not too accustomed to. I would say we have design skills, but we're not exactly designing products. You know, we're not making anything physical at most. We're probably developing websites and developing digital things. So, there's a lot that internally we talk about around visual accessibility.
00:01:06:20 - 00:01:31:23
Joyann Boyce
But we've just been diving deeper and we just wanted to share some of those resources for you. Now, for those of you listening, this is a great opportunity to head over to our YouTube or my YouTube. I think it's named after me and head over to the YouTube. Or if you search Marketing Made Inclusive on YouTube. The podcast will come up and you'll be able to see some of the resources that we're looking at.
00:01:32:00 - 00:01:57:01
Joyann Boyce
As always, we're going to link the resources in the description wherever you're viewing or listening, but we're going to dive into some tools and one of the tools and resources I mentioned last week was the inclusive design kit, which is developed by Microsoft. Now, I don't know if you've seen this one. Have you seen this tool?
00:01:57:03 - 00:02:02:09
Jade Pett
No, I'm aware of it, but I've never taken a proper look at it.
00:02:02:11 - 00:02:28:18
Joyann Boyce
It is fascinating because for one, it's kind of like just design. Wife is against all of Microsoft's branding and stuff like that. So, when I stumbled on out, it's like, oh, who did this? And was quite surprised that it was Microsoft. But one of the key things I love about it is how clearly it illustrates the some of the principles of inclusive design, like one of the principles is recognize exclusion.
00:02:28:20 - 00:03:01:03
Joyann Boyce
We acknowledge bias and recognize exclusion that happens when mismatches between people and experience that is, or where what we are about in inclusive marketing, recognizing who you're excluding, learn from diversity, inclusive design puts people in the centre throughout the process that fresh and diverse perspectives are the key to true insight. And one of my friends, I think this is one of your faves that you mentioned Jade in another form but solve for one extend too many.
00:03:01:05 - 00:03:10:03
Joyann Boyce
Everyone has abilities and limits. Creating products for people with permanent disabilities creates results that benefits everyone.
00:03:10:05 - 00:03:12:15
Jade Pett
Yeah.
00:03:12:17 - 00:03:44:15
Joyann Boyce
So, and within this resource they have a guidebook. They have different kind of cognitive scenarios. Oh, they've added a new thing since I've last looked at it in the pursuit of AI. Ah, I'm going to dive back into this one life action. So, they've added a new resource since I've last seen this, which is about the how biases affect artificial intelligence, which is fact, but wholeheartedly.
00:03:44:17 - 00:04:03:23
Joyann Boyce
I think this is an amazing resource for anyone who wants a quick summary because there's quick downloadable things, but it's also an amazing resource for teams because each team can take each member of the team can take a different area to focus on, and then come back and present them.
00:04:04:00 - 00:04:07:12
Jade Pett
Mm, that's a good idea.
00:04:07:14 - 00:04:38:09
Joyann Boyce
But there's so many in it is like a lot of it does focus on physical inclusivity in regards to disability, but I do think there's a lot that can be adapted to marketing and even adapted to when you're marketing to the disabled community and how you include them within it. I just am a big fan of a learning resource that has Greaves reading and facial videos.
00:04:38:11 - 00:04:44:14
Joyann Boyce
Yes, I'm dyslexic, so I'm just like, oh, take me to the video first. Yeah.
00:04:44:16 - 00:04:51:24
Jade Pett
And sometimes it's easier to have it broken down by, you know, another person kind of in a more conversational style, more step by step.
00:04:52:01 - 00:05:03:15
Joyann Boyce
Mm hmm. Because it's not you can get intimidated when it's a whole chunky bit of text. Absolutely love it. What's the tool you brought to the table, Jade?
00:05:03:17 - 00:05:33:10
Jade Pett
So, I brought the Wave Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool, and this is something that we've used before. So that's why I picked this one in particular, I know it works. And so this is the extension, I think the only one that I've probably played around with, but it's this extension for your whatever browser you use and it will scan a web page and show you what's successful and what's isn't, what they think needs fixing and how you could fix it.
00:05:33:12 - 00:05:53:04
Jade Pett
And I think they break it down into different levels as well. If I'm not mistaken, there's like a red, green kind of amber situation. So, you know what to prioritise as well, which I think is really helpful for learning what accessibility is and what people might, might need help with. Then in the future, you might know what to look out for by yourself
00:05:53:04 - 00:05:54:18
Jade Pett
without the tool.
00:05:54:20 - 00:06:25:12
Joyann Boyce
You do start becoming alert. Like I can spot things that are colour contrasted or not off the bat now. And I'm just like, oh, that doesn't look right. Wave stands for Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool. And from what I recall as well, it's based on our, I always forget it but it, W, there's like this general law about accessibility online it's like WP3 or something are going to add a sort of resource.
00:06:25:14 - 00:06:27:22
Jade Pett
That sounds familiar.
00:06:27:24 - 00:06:57:19
Joyann Boyce
The reason I like the wave tool is because reading WAC, the accessibility online, it is very thick and dense and I feel like for marketers this is a quick browser extension that you can just plug in, go. One of the favourite things I like is when I scroll on to the image heavy websites and I'm just like where’s alt text and I'm like, I know there’s no alt text, I click on it and you get it in there.
00:06:57:19 - 00:07:22:18
Joyann Boyce
And I really like this. So, it's good for anyone who has a Chrome, Firefox, or Edge browser, and you can just click on it and it does. I do think I might have it installed. I do. So, I have it installed on my Chrome browser and amazingly their website has not scored any terrible points. Which would be the irony of it all, wouldn’t it?
00:07:25:05 - 00:07:51:11
Joyann Boyce
But for those watching you can kind of see it gives you colour contrast, references, details, all the key things and it kind of shows you based on the colours you have on the website, what would be accessible for reading and if it passes the WCAG, that is what it's called the wacker. Nope, I'm not.
00:07:51:11 - 00:08:19:14
Joyann Boyce
I'm not going to. Thank you. And it's also free, which is what I love, because there are a few tools out there that are not free and I think gatekeeping making websites accessible doesn't seem fair. I understand companies need to make money to make these tools better, but as a way of doing that. So, what I brought to the table next is the inclusive design conference.
00:08:19:16 - 00:08:51:23
Joyann Boyce
Now, I love it because it is a completely free conference and you don't even have to sign up. They just post the whole conference cheap and I believe it happens almost every year. But one of the things I really like about it and when I tuned in last year was, I can just go through and just pick the videos and look into the areas that I wasn't sure about.
00:08:52:00 - 00:09:18:18
Joyann Boyce
It also inspired me to think that I would love to do an inclusive marketing conference one day. The Into the world. Any sponsors out there. But it allowed people because a lot of the time, some of these resources it makes you think that oh inclusive design one box and you take it but it was so fascinating to see a 24-hour conference as well as a 24 hours of content.
00:09:18:20 - 00:09:38:02
Joyann Boyce
People diving deep into their areas like there's a video that specific only focuses on colour contrast as a speaker that specifically focuses on and framing and how to frame things well and comics and every element of it. Someone's diving deep on that.
00:09:38:04 - 00:09:39:10
Jade Pett
That's great.
00:09:39:12 - 00:10:03:01
Joyann Boyce
Isn't it? And obviously their branding is fully accessible. It's got a lovely yellow and black combo for those listening to those before September the next conference, which is inclusive Design 24, is going to be on the 21st of September this year, completely free online and you can apply to be a speaker for the year for that as well.
00:10:03:03 - 00:10:16:07
Joyann Boyce
So, shout out to the organizers and the supporters of putting on this free conference because honestly, the more designers and marketers that engage with inclusive design, the better the Internet's going to be.
00:10:16:09 - 00:10:18:14
Jade Pett
Yes, definitely.
00:10:18:16 - 00:10:22:02
Joyann Boyce
What’s next on the list?
00:10:22:04 - 00:10:45:07
Jade Pett
So next is an accessible colour palette generator. This one from Vengage, I think you pronounce that. And so, they'll make the generate a colour palette for you that's accessible, which I think kind of is one of those two birds, one stone situation, because colour palettes in and of themselves can be tricky anyway, especially if you're not a designer.
00:10:45:09 - 00:10:58:19
Jade Pett
But with this one, then, you know right off the bat that it's also going to be accessible. And that's not something you have to fret too, too much with in the future. I mean, I'm sure you'll still have to check things out, but this will make it a little more future proof, I think.
00:10:58:19 - 00:11:38:20
Joyann Boyce
I like it and you can put in your own base colour. I see as well. I'm just going to pop in one of our, see. Oh nice. So, or those listening, I have just popped in one of our brand colours for the software and it's given palettes that are accessible. This is so fascinating because there are so many colour palette tools out there and I don't remember ever seeing them given you like, is this accessible mark or.
00:11:38:22 - 00:11:46:21
Jade Pett
No, no, I feel like that's always something I would have to double check in a contrast checker by myself.
00:11:46:23 - 00:12:00:10
Jade Pett
And it's nice because it gives you options as well. So, you put in one colour and there's four different palettes you could choose from as a vibrant palette, a monochromatic palette, and then two different contrasting palettes. And then more so you have options.
00:12:00:12 - 00:12:22:17
Joyann Boyce
Ooh, pastel. Okay, a light to dark. So, you have the option. So, it's giving you because that's another element of like inclusive design. I've heard designers say in the past or just marketers that they feel like it's limiting their creativity. But clearly you can keep going. I like this one. I'm adding this. I did not have this one.
00:12:22:17 - 00:12:48:05
Joyann Boyce
I think I had a generic colour palette in my browser selection for when I'm looking for colours. So, I'm going to add this one. It's going to make life so much easier; two birds one stone. Two birds, one apple. I'll try to use different phrasing. I so many colloquial things that so violent. Anywho, I digress.
00:12:48:07 - 00:13:18:19
Joyann Boyce
I've got a blog that I actually had pinned for the past three years. It's from Hootsuite, and it's social media. Accessibility includes design tips for 2023. Now, funny, I've had this pen for three years, so this means they have been updating it, which we love because I know I haven't changed a link, but essentially for those who don't know, Hootsuite is a very well-known marketing social media scheduling tool.
00:13:18:20 - 00:13:48:13
Joyann Boyce
I'm thinking we're talking to marketers. Who doesn't that Hootsuite? Well, you might not. You might use another tool, but Hootsuite is like one of the goes to social media scheduling tools. So, the fact that they have a whole blog breaking down how to make your designs and content accessible for social media is amazing. The fact that they're updating it as well, because I think it's only in the past two years all the social platforms have allowed old texts.
00:13:48:15 - 00:14:12:16
Joyann Boyce
That wasn't a thing. Yeah, so I absolutely love it. So, it goes into what is inclusive design. It tells you the main things that we always say, always add alt text. You can add old text on Twitter to gifs now as well, which is always fun to click those because how do people describe gifs?
00:14:12:18 - 00:14:14:07
Jade Pett
It is an interesting one.
00:14:14:09 - 00:14:22:04
Joyann Boyce
It's like how like the gif changes. It could be the same gif, but depending on the tweet and the context, the way you describe it will change.
00:14:22:06 - 00:14:24:02
Jade Pett
Yes.
00:14:24:04 - 00:14:50:07
Joyann Boyce
I'm sure you have to add captions for each of the social platforms. How to write accessible text. We do this, but I never thought to say it. So, in the accessible text, in the accessible text section, they talk about writing in plain language, the reading age. We talk about that not using fancy fonts because screen readers make it hard.
00:14:50:13 - 00:15:17:14
Joyann Boyce
Don't use abbreviation. This is this is really good tips, not alternating capitalization except for hashtags. Put blocks of hashtags in this separate comment. Okay. And camel pastel case or camel case. Okay. I think pastel case.
00:15:17:16 - 00:15:27:16
Jade Pett
They’re saying that in camel case you don't capitalise the first word, whereas Pascal case does.
00:15:27:18 - 00:15:47:09
Joyann Boyce
Have we been doing, saying the wrong thing this whole time? Oh, my goodness. Okay. We need to look into that because I swore camel case was that would make sense, now I reflect today because I do naturally capsulize the first word anyway.
00:15:47:11 - 00:15:48:24
Jade Pett
Yeah.
00:15:49:01 - 00:15:54:14
Joyann Boyce
So maybe I've been doing pascal case and calling it camel case this whole time.
00:15:54:16 - 00:15:57:04
Jade Pett
That's what I'm thinking.
00:15:57:06 - 00:16:27:12
Joyann Boyce
I'm learning things. I'm loving it. Accessible visuals. I mean in emojis. I love that it goes into describing them and alt text for them. What is really interesting was a lot of like Domino's. Using emojis to draw an image is not accessible because or using not even emojis, but like brackets. And you know, back in the day we had a smiley face.
00:16:27:14 - 00:16:29:09
Joyann Boyce
It was like a semicolon. The bracket.
00:16:29:11 - 00:16:30:10
Jade Pett
Yeah.
00:16:30:12 - 00:16:56:07
Joyann Boyce
Screen Reader is going to read that a semicolon in a bracket. It's not going to read that smiley face. So, thinking about that, especially when you're a big brand. But yeah, I love I love this blog from Hootsuite. I love that they keep updating it and they're keeping it relevant. We need to dive back into this blog because clearly, I haven't looked at it for a while and there are some there's some gems in here.
00:16:56:09 - 00:16:58:19
Jade Pett
There's some good resources there too.
00:16:58:21 - 00:17:18:10
Joyann Boyce
Yeah. This is the thing that I love and is also it's amazing about our sector inclusive marketing, inclusive design, because as technology evolves, everything we learn continues to evolve. Nothing stays sedimentary. And that's kind of like the beauty of marketing as well.
00:17:18:12 - 00:17:19:13
Jade Pett
Yeah.
00:17:19:15 - 00:17:40:14
Joyann Boyce
I remember when I first fell in love with marketing, I was just like, I want a sector where it doesn't feel like day to day. You know, every day feels different. One day you create an ad campaign for picture frames, the next day you're creating a campaign for a gym. The next day is for something. Is Barbie. Yeah, it could be anything.
00:17:40:15 - 00:17:45:04
Joyann Boyce
Okay. What’s the next one? I think the last two are yours, Jade.
00:17:45:06 - 00:18:10:21
Jade Pett
Yes. I mean, it's all just colour because there's so many different platforms and tools that help making sure your colours are accessible. So, this is the Colour Oracle Colour Blindness Simulator from We Are Colourblind. And I mean, it does what it says on the tin. It shows you what things will look like to a person who is colourblind.
00:18:10:23 - 00:18:37:15
Joyann Boyce
Oh, that is so fascinating. So, you can apply that to your browser, your host. Oh, it's a screen. Okay. You download it and it shows you real time. So, it adds a filter, oh, 8% of all males are affected by colour vision impairment. 8%?
00:18:38:18 - 00:18:48:10
Jade Pett
I know. I knew it was more common in men. I didn't know that much.
00:18:48:12 - 00:19:02:09
Joyann Boyce
Oh, now I'm going to, see every time I see these tools, it always makes me want to do a mini project, which I'm not going to do, but it'll be fascinating: how many male specific campaigns would pass the colour-blindness test?
00:19:02:11 - 00:19:05:03
Jade Pett
Yes, that would be fascinating.
00:19:05:05 - 00:19:23:01
Joyann Boyce
But now that I'm thinking about, like, you know, they have the whole, this is like a meme in product design and stuff where you take the exact same product. But for guys, you make it dark, mode it for girls, you make it like mode. It's like, put it in pink for women and put it in blue for men.
00:19:23:01 - 00:19:35:20
Joyann Boyce
It's like, What? What? Okay, now. But now I'm thinking of like brands like Old Spice and stuff. Like, how would, would Old Spice pass a colour-blindness test?
00:19:35:22 - 00:19:48:04
Jade Pett
Yeah. That would be a really interesting one because there's different obviously levels to it as well. Not colourblind people see the same so it would be fascinating to see, yeah. How it would perform.
00:19:48:04 - 00:20:09:03
Joyann Boyce
And if anyone wants to do that project, feel free and then we'll happily send you campaigns. And do you find a way to make it across the board, like what campaigns pass and what campaigns don't? Because that is just fascinating. Okay. And then the last one we have on the docket; I keep saying dockets can be listen to legal podcast.
00:20:09:05 - 00:20:14:00
Joyann Boyce
Lastly you have on the list is another colour contrast.
00:20:14:01 - 00:20:41:05
Jade Pett
Yeah, yeah. Just good old-fashioned contrast and colour accessibility. I feel like contrast checking is one of the easiest to get into your routine. It takes 2 seconds to just I knew like you said, we can spot it pretty easy now, but it's also if you're feeling a little bit unsure, then there's a good chance that it's, there's a reason for that and that you should check, especially the more you're kind of staring at colours.
00:20:41:07 - 00:20:51:09
Jade Pett
And it's pretty easy to fix, which, you know, you can always put an outline around something, you can put shadows in. It's a good thing to get into the habit of, I think.
00:20:51:11 - 00:21:18:18
Joyann Boyce
I think especially if you're working with external designers or external graphic designers, if this I have not seen this in the brand guideline at all. I assume that branding specialists think of these things and they just don't implement it. But I think if you're sending a brief to an external graphic designer, putting in what your colour contrast requirements are for your brand colours would be an amazing ad.
00:21:18:18 - 00:21:44:23
Joyann Boyce
I don't think we've ever received that. We do it and we implement it and we advise clients, you know, love your brand colours, but I think I had a client and then I'm like, I'm loving this light sage colour. However, please don't put it on white because I cannot see it. And if I cannot see it, you're impairing far more many of your customers and your potential uses.
00:21:44:23 - 00:22:07:12
Joyann Boyce
So, colour contrast is a big one for us marketeers. Okay, that was our final resource. So, all the resources as mentioned, are going to be linked in the description wherever you are listening to or watching. And I just want to encourage those who are listening to head over to our YouTube so you can see all those tools as we engaging with it.
00:22:07:14 - 00:22:33:02
Joyann Boyce
And if you feel like, you know, you can click that subscribe button, you can, you can just it's a little red button, this nice and bright red button with white writing, it is made in a very specific way. YouTube thought about this. Head over to our YouTube channel and click it. And if you're watching or listening anywhere and you're not going to head over or you are either way, please do leave us a review to do reviews.
00:22:33:02 - 00:22:48:06
Joyann Boyce
Help us to reach a wider audience. And we want everyone talking about inclusive marketing. We want it to be the new marketing. So that's the way you can help us do that. Thank you for tuning in to the Marketing Made Inclusive podcast and we'll speak to you soon.
