He’s Doing It Again featuring Kelly Thibodeau

Transcript

Rob Dwyer (00:01.89)
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Next In Queue. Today I welcome to the show Kelly Thibodeau. Kelly, welcome. How are you?

Kelly Thibodeau (00:10.977)
I'm doing well Rob, thank you for having me.

Rob Dwyer (00:13.866)
You run a company called Squarely Accessible and we're going to talk about what you do and why it's important. But before we get there, I need to acknowledge that you are joining us from very far north up in Manitoba. You live just outside of Winnipeg in Headingley, if I'm not mistaken. Is that correct?

Kelly Thibodeau (00:42.991)
do, yes, you've done your homework well.

Rob Dwyer (00:45.556)
So for those that don't know their Canadian geography, which I'm included in that, it's like Fargo, but then you just keep going north, and then you keep going north, and then you keep going north. So.

Kelly Thibodeau (01:04.507)
Yeah, I mean, they're definitely far, much farther than where they're placed, northern places, but we're about, I'd say eight hours north from Minneapolis. Yeah.

Rob Dwyer (01:12.706)
Yeah, so as someone who lived in Minneapolis for a couple of years, I thought when I moved to Minneapolis, I knew a different kind of cold. But I have to imagine that you know a different kind of cold up in the Winnipeg area. This is coming out the beginning of February. What kind of weather do you have today?

Kelly Thibodeau (01:38.107)
So today it's a little milder. We're still below zero in Celsius, which if I remember, so I lived in St. Louis, Missouri for about five years when I was a kid. And if I remember some of the translation there, it's about 30 degrees Fahrenheit, I believe. But over the weekend, we're going down to like minus 20 Celsius. So.

Rob Dwyer (01:57.251)
Yeah.

Kelly Thibodeau (02:05.755)
it's probably in around the zero or below zero in Fahrenheit maybe. So yeah.

Rob Dwyer (02:08.802)
Yeah, yeah, that is very cold and I am glad that I am much further south than you. So, but someone's gotta live up there and I don't know, do the things that you do. So I guess, thank you. Let's talk about squarely accessible. Tell me what it is that you do today and.

Kelly Thibodeau (02:18.427)
You

Rob Dwyer (02:37.688)
really why this came about because this is not what you've done for your entire career.

Kelly Thibodeau (02:44.355)
Right, it's probably what I've done for a lot longer of my career than what I initially maybe realized. So I started working in, I've been in marketing and communications for almost 30 years now. And I started working in digital accessibility in 2007 because the company that I was working for, there was some legislation that was coming into another province here in Canada and in Ontario. And so that sort of

had everybody kind of sit up and pay attention about, we better sort of figure this out. I also have lived experience because my mom had a disability. And so she had a rare neurological disease that progressed over time. And our family didn't really know what was going on for a long time, but it was that sort of the marriage or the blend of those two things that I think just sort of really had this work resonate with me. And so my job title often was

communication specialists or social media manager or marketing manager, something like that. And accessibility was always part of that, but not necessarily my job title. So when I started on my own in my own consultancy, originally had a different company name and evolved that to Squarely Accessible in 2023. Because again, I know there's a real gap between what people know and what they're being taught.

and that I wanted to play a role in igniting some more creativity and energy into that conversation around digital accessibility. So, we work with organizations from small nonprofits to large multi-million dollar organizations and do some training work, consulting work, coaching work, and it just sort of, you know, it continues to evolve and as more people get interested and start to pay attention and...

are looking to either upskill their internal team or have some experts come in and help them out. That's what we're here to do.

Rob Dwyer (04:43.662)
Let's talk more specifically about what accessibility means, in particular digital accessibility. think when you hear about disabilities, I think often people think about what's visible and what they can see. And that may be that someone is in a wheelchair or something along those lines. But digital accessibility doesn't just

to those kinds of disabilities. So tell us more about that.

Kelly Thibodeau (05:17.445)
Sure, yeah, think I'm glad that you kind of started with the, you know, sort of the things that I think as a society, we're conditioned to be able to see disability or tell when someone is disabled. So some of the things in the built environment or physically, we might think about like ramps and buildings or some accessible washrooms or accessible parking. But online, you think about how often you use the internet every day.

And not simply just to do some doom scrolling or spend some time, but to do important things like pay your bills or buy what you want to buy or file your taxes or any of those types of things. And so it's about creating access to that information and those experiences in those places. And we know that about 80 % of disabilities are invisible, which means you can't tell. Right? So...

I think again, also expanding the view of what does that really mean and who is this really for? And there's also, we'll talk about some of the things, the details a little later on, I'm sure, but just sort of starting with this idea that things that work better for people with disabilities work better for almost everyone else. know, sort of using that lens to look at how can we be more innovative, think differently.

and embrace people with disabilities as the experts in leading them.

Rob Dwyer (06:50.382)
You know, it's interesting to me and I've had this conversation before in my personal life, not necessarily on the show. And that is about how access to the internet is no longer a nice to have kind of thing. Like it's critical to have, to function in, in most everyday, what most people consider everyday life.

If you want to apply for a job, the days of knocking on doors and handing paper resumes to someone are over in most places. That's not a thing anymore. yet, lot of the, at least in the states, lot of the legislative action, Americans with Disabilities Act,

has been focused on that physical that you were just talking about, right? The ramps and things. So let's talk about the digital piece, which Canada often is ahead of us with certain things. Here in the US, we don't, to my knowledge, have a lot of legislation around digital accessibility. But talk to us more about what that means.

Kelly Thibodeau (07:54.97)
Right.

Rob Dwyer (08:18.997)
as far as

What does that mean in an everyday sense from, let's just start with my website. What does that mean for it to be digitally accessible?

Kelly Thibodeau (08:31.355)
Mm-hmm. Well, like you said, you know, when you really boil it down, access to information is a human right, and it's so important. It's woven into the fabric of human existence today. So there is actually legislation in the... You mentioned the ADA or the Americans with Disabilities Act, and it does specify websites there and in Section 508 and that sort of...

The two pieces that I know are critical from a US standpoint, the good news is that what gets cited there is something called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. So acronym for that is WCAG, if anybody's into the acronyms, and it's an international standard. So it's both part of our Canadian legislation, the American legislation, European legislation, Australia, and a few other places as well. So with websites,

know, websites are our digital front door. And as soon as someone, you know, hears about you or your brand or your organization, chances are your website is kind of your home base of where all that activity happens. And so when you think about what are the important things that people need to be able to do on your website? Websites generally don't just sit on a shelf. It's important that they're

moving, growing, right? Like they're a key fundamental part of doing business today. And whether you buy things on the website or not, chances are you still want someone to do something, even if that action is off of the website somewhere. So working with people with disabilities to then identify those scenarios and then test them and get their feedback. That in combination with some automated accessibility testing, because there are some tools, right?

that can do that work, but there's a real nuance between what's accessible and what's actually usable. And you might be surprised to find that sometimes things that are accessible kind of meet those guidelines end up not being very usable for people with disabilities. So it's sort of the marriage of those two things is what we're really looking for.

Rob Dwyer (10:45.772)
I'd love to just dig into some examples because I imagine a lot of people would just say, well, I've used these automated tools. They, you know, check, check, check, and I'm good. Can you talk about some examples where, yes, maybe you used automated tools, but in real world usage, this just doesn't pass master.

Kelly Thibodeau (10:58.235)
Mm-hmm.

Kelly Thibodeau (11:10.299)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. I actually redid the Squarely Accessible website back in 2022 and did that same thing, worked with people with lived experience, worked with an agency that had some experience creating accessible websites. And it had sort of passed all of the checkers, like you say. And then when people tried to use it on their mobile device,

the navigation menu didn't work at all.

Rob Dwyer (11:42.478)
Hmm

Kelly Thibodeau (11:43.427)
So that was a real eye-opener for me because I thought like, hey, I thought we kind of passed, right? Like we got the check mark. And what you learn is that there really is no green check mark at the end because things change. And what might be an accommodation or what might work for one person might be a barrier for another. So when you kind of embrace accessibility as part of the reason why you do the things you do.

then you take a real human-centered view to what that work is and who it's for and what means.

Rob Dwyer (12:21.432)
Can we talk about some common misses that companies have with their websites when it comes to accessibility? Obviously, you talked about your own experience with your own website, but where do people most often get things wrong when designing websites?

Kelly Thibodeau (12:46.907)
I think most people think that accessibility is complicated, technical, and the web developer's job. So they don't necessarily understand that there's actually a real intersection between the code, the design, and the content. And it's all of those three things that create an accessible experience. So even one...

like inaccessible PDF. We love to distribute things by PDFs and send people white papers and ebooks and all that kind of a thing. But if they're not structured properly, if they're not what's called tagged properly, or converted into an accessible format, then someone, for an example, who's using a screen reader might not be able to access that information at all.

Rob Dwyer (13:34.838)
Interesting, interesting. Okay. So obviously website and content is important. I feel like lately people get more information at first from social media than they do from, from websites. There used to be a time where it was like always, you know, go to the website, but I think a lot of marketing efforts are geared towards social media today.

Kelly Thibodeau (13:35.791)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Dwyer (14:05.624)
Do I have to worry about accessibility with social media?

Kelly Thibodeau (14:10.405)
Yeah, so I think part of my answer to that question is, let's go back to this idea that accessibility is about brand value and experience, right? And so when we connect it to those two things, then it becomes more than just your website, because your brand lives in a lot more places than just your website. And so, you know, my answer regardless is going to be yes.

Because do you want someone, right? Like we go to social to sort of look up brands and see, you know, do they really mean what they say and who else is talking about them? And how do I know for sure, right? That trust is such a big part of that initial contact. And, you know, if you're doing all this great work and telling me all of these sort of values aligned messages and I see, you know, there's a website has some effort around being accessible. And then

I go to your Instagram post and I have the opposite experience. Now that trust has been broken. so again, it's like, show me the proof of does this really matter to your organization? Do you see me in your customer base? Is there room for me? And making sure that you're reinforcing that.

Rob Dwyer (15:34.178)
Last week, I talked to Chris Gillen about brands and loyalty and kind of the changing face of how consumers interact with brands. And certainly that trust factor really resonates along with that conversation that we had. I would imagine though that there are companies out there, whether they're the marketing person or

who's in charge of just developing the website on the coding side or what have you, that would say, you know what?

I don't think that it's worth the effort because the customers that we might turn off are so small in numbers that it's just not worth the extra effort to put into that. What would you say to them?

Kelly Thibodeau (16:36.955)
So I think part of that is expanding the view of who are, quote unquote, these people. We know at a minimum in Canada is 27 % of Canadians who identify as having a disability. So last time I checked, I didn't see too many folks that were ready to sort of ignore 27 % of their audience. In the US, it's one in four, and that's about 70 million people. So...

I think that's sort of the grounded in reality is that people experiencing disability are already in your audience. It's not this extra group or layer that you kind of haven't gotten to yet. And there's this great diagram from Microsoft. It's called their inclusive design methodology. And it shows different sort of examples of where disability or let's say impairment can...

Create some commonalities. So for example, with permanent disabilities, so things that people are born with and that don't change, born with or acquired and it doesn't change, they can't change it. So as an example, someone who has maybe one arm, right? Like how would they use a mouse and a keyboard day to day? Might be one example. Another might be someone who has a temporary disability, so maybe they broke their arm and they can't use it, right? And then someone...

who in the diagram, it shows sort of a parent who's been up all night with a baby, right? You can't put that baby down. So you're don't necessarily able to do the same things. But I also think about things that happen in other situations, whether it's someone who's standing in bright sunlight or maybe in the doctor's office and doesn't want to turn the audio on, right? Or on the bus or different things like that. So all of those things that help people with disabilities, it's just, it helps.

Like I said, just about everyone else. So when you come back to who is it that we're doing the work for and why, you get this understanding that it's actually a really large group of people. And you never know where someone's at in their journey around whether how they're feeling from day to day, or are they waiting for some kind of diagnosis or not, right? Like we're so trained to think in absolutes about what an experience might be like or not. And so it's important that

Kelly Thibodeau (19:01.551)
We don't force people to self-disclose. We don't wait for them to complain. I actually asked a group of hundreds of B2B or business-to-business marketers about why accessibility isn't prioritized in their organizations. And the answer is because customers aren't complaining.

So yeah, we know it's not a great place to wait for complaints.

Rob Dwyer (19:24.718)
Yeah, I mean, you mentioned a couple things there that really hit home with me when you talk about accessibility, not just being for people with disabilities, because there are situational circumstances that it does make sense. So I'm thinking about being on my phone and watching a video. And I often

will keep my volume down, particularly when I'm in a public place. That doesn't mean I don't want to watch the video. If the video doesn't have captions or subtitles, then I may just skip it, right? Because I don't necessarily want to disturb people around me. Anyone who's been around that person in a public space that just has the volume up and is just listening away, like, that's not who I want to be.

Kelly Thibodeau (19:57.093)
Mm-hmm.

Kelly Thibodeau (20:15.194)
Yeah.

Kelly Thibodeau (20:21.733)
Yeah.

Rob Dwyer (20:22.198)
because that really annoys me. So I do the opposite. And I think a lot of people probably do something like that. I think it was last year, I actually wrote an article about voice support. And the crux of the article, because we had been talking about this within my family, was that there are a lot of people who are aging.

And as you ate, I mean, we have this entire baby boomer generation that is entering retirement age and getting older. And, you know, sometimes your fingers just don't work the same way that they did when you were younger. Arthritis can set in and so handling digital applications on this small screen can be really difficult. And so it's just easier for a lot of consumers to make a phone call.

And I think that's another one of those situations where maybe you wouldn't necessarily characterize it as accessibility, but it is an option for accessibility because it's hard to manipulate really small objects with your hands if you start to lose that. I read that the potential loss

is somewhere around $7 billion annually when it comes to lacking accessible options as a company. that accurate?

Kelly Thibodeau (22:01.519)
Yeah, that's accurate. It might even be higher in some cases because I think, you know, we sort of expect things to not work the way we want them to or need them to. And so the opportunity to surprise and delight is a real opportunity. And I think that organizations that are paying attention to how they differentiate themselves in the marketplace should be paying attention to accessibility because it's not only the people who have

lived experience, it's their friends, it's their family, it's their caregivers, right? Who else is in their circle? So what a chance to turn someone into a champion and a loyal customer. It's got that opportunity is is very substantial. And I would love to have us get to a place where it's not a competitive differentiator anymore. But it is. And even for, I think organizations that

are creating accessible products and services, are doing great work in the world, they're not talking about it enough. And so there's a real storytelling opportunity around accessibility as well.

Rob Dwyer (23:09.474)
Yeah, I want to ask maybe a little bit more personal question. What are your feelings on Times New Roman?

Kelly Thibodeau (23:23.899)
Well, that was a pretty safe question as far as fonts go, I have to say.

The controversial one is always Comic Sans, but...

Rob Dwyer (23:35.586)
Well, sure, sure. That one is controversial. I open this as a larger discussion about fonts, right? So let's talk about fonts in general and maybe how we should be thinking about them from an accessibility standpoint, because I don't know that, right? I am certainly guilty of not always doing that. So tell us like, what kind of approach should we take?

Kelly Thibodeau (23:44.101)
Mm-hmm.

Kelly Thibodeau (24:04.827)
Yeah, so fonts typically fall in a few different camps. There's what we call serif fonts, so Times New Roman would be one, right, that has sort of little tails that almost connect the letters together. There's the sans serif fonts that don't have those little tails. And then there's the script or decorative kind of fonts where it almost looks more like handwriting than it does type. So for accessibility, generally sans serif fonts are better. And they have been...

I'd say a preference online for a long, time, even though way back in the day, you could only use Times New Roman on the internet. Those typically tend to be better choices for print publications because they have the little tails and can help make things easier to read. So that's sort of my view on Times New Roman is that's maybe the space where it belongs. I think the other thing is to think bigger in terms of font sizes. So

at least a 12 point font size for accessibility. You think about just legibility with 1.15 line spacing or more. I honestly try to use 14 points in all of my documents as a base font size. And at first it feels like, it's really big and I can't get as much content on that one page as I want to. Or same thing even on a website, like clear space.

Well, white space is so powerful in helping content look inviting, look like you want to read it, right? Like when you get presented with a wall of text, your brain kind of just like shuts down and says, mm-mm. Even if it's really important content or you really are interested, it's just not the way people read online. And it's the same for people with disabilities. They want that same experience. So the way that content is structured, everything from...

know, are headings actually tagged as headings versus just marked up manually to like look a little different than the other text. Those are really important landmarks because people with disabilities can use like with assistive technology with some screen readers will use those headings to make decisions about, they want to read the rest of the content or not? And then the other thing that it does is it helps search engines also understand your content. And so you're kind of doing double duty there already.

Kelly Thibodeau (26:27.227)
Plus you're improving the user experience, right? So fonts and font choices. And that's another one with with social media, it can be really popular to use a lot of those scripty fonts because it's fancy, but it's really, really tough to read. And so again, like, you know, I certainly noticed changes for my vision on what is legible and what is not. But to give yourself sort of that sober.

second thought, let's say, and try to really use design in a way that helps people read and understand information instead of like cramming it all into one tiny little space.

Rob Dwyer (27:08.354)
As someone who has office glasses, regular glasses, and then almost always takes off glasses to read the phone, I can absolutely get on board with larger fonts. It is certainly a sign that you are getting older when things that you used to be able to read.

are not as easily legible. And fonts can help with that. I know that color is often challenging. People want to use color in ways that is attractive, that is attention getting. Is that problematic? Or are there some guidelines that we should probably consider when we're choosing color?

Kelly Thibodeau (27:49.829)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Dwyer (28:06.264)
What's your take on that?

Kelly Thibodeau (28:07.259)
Well, first we need to like bust that myth that accessible cannot be beautiful, right? Accessible is beautiful and folks who are working in, whether it's marketing or customer experience or whatever, you're working within creative constraints every day, whether that's brand colors or voice and tone and things like that. So I like to think about something like color as an invitation to actually be more creative.

then less creative. And there are some specifics around what's called a color contrast ratio, so the difference between light and dark. And I would say like as soon as, you know, there's a real good, I have a colleague who talks about a squint test. Like if you squint your eyes and everything kind of melts together, that's a real good indicator that there's not enough color contrast. But there are actually online tools where you can

So use an eyedropper or put in the color codes and color combinations and see is there enough color contrast. So the ratio that you're looking for is 4.5 to 1. orange is such a common brand color. And it's so problematic. It's just one of those ones, orange and red, right? That as soon as you put white text on it.

Visually, if you're not experiencing any visual difficulties, you might think, that looks OK. But you might be surprised when you actually test it. Same thing with yellow. If you put white text on yellow, even a darker shade of yellow, chances are that's not enough. So a few things. And then we haven't talked a ton about people who are neurodivergent or might have something like a vestibular disorder, like, say, vertigo or get dizzy. And sometimes those color combinations can almost

vibrate against each other, right? And sometimes you think, maybe I'm doing that because I want this certain effect. But that can actually trigger seizures and headaches and migraines for people. it's an important, we're so intentional about when and how we use color. So it's an invitation to be even more intentional.

Rob Dwyer (30:01.826)
Hmm.

Rob Dwyer (30:23.478)
I would imagine that if your website is causing seizures with people that you're probably not going to gain them as customers. That's generally speaking, probably a good rule of thumb. Can we talk about, I've never been to Canada and I've never been to Winnipeg specifically, but I wonder, is there something that you think people should know about that?

Kelly Thibodeau (30:31.833)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rob Dwyer (30:51.402)
area, something special that the people of that area just kind of carry around as a proud thing for them.

Kelly Thibodeau (31:02.683)
Well, we have the on our license plates for a long time. I don't think it's the same anymore. I used to say friendly Manitoba. So Manitobans are friendly, known to be very generous in terms of, you know, giving donations to charity and things like that. But it's also a really diverse place and there's tons of stuff to do. So we have an amazing zoo here that has polar bears.

And a lot of people have never seen a polar bear before. So that's really fun. Yeah, yeah. And in the winter this time of year, when it gets that cold, we have something called sun dogs. So it's almost like you imagine a circular rainbow around the sun because it's that cold. And they're gorgeous. So there's the Northern Lights. And in the summer, there's folk festivals.

Rob Dwyer (31:34.536)
I have never seen a polar bear, that would be awesome.

Rob Dwyer (31:49.373)
Mm-hmm.

Kelly Thibodeau (32:01.051)
intercultural festivals, there's all kinds of different things going on and I think Winnipeg is a little underrated but I think it should be on the list of tourist destinations for sure.

Rob Dwyer (32:15.298)
It sounds like you should work for the the tourism bureau up there the way you're talking it up speaking of bears. I understand. That the inspiration for Winnie the Pooh came from Winnipeg the bear. Is that true?

Kelly Thibodeau (32:18.466)
Hahaha!

Kelly Thibodeau (32:33.861)
Yeah, that is true. That is true. Yeah.

Rob Dwyer (32:37.908)
I don't know why you don't just have Winnie the Pooh on your city flag.

Kelly Thibodeau (32:42.875)
Right, yes.

Rob Dwyer (32:46.174)
I think you would increase tourism just by doing that.

Kelly Thibodeau (32:50.563)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Dwyer (32:53.646)
So let's wrap things up with what... I mean, we've talked about just embracing, Thinking about people, thinking about how people interact with things and thinking about how that impacts the experience that people have in general. But if you could just give some piece of advice to companies out there.

Kelly Thibodeau (33:22.299)
Hmm.

Rob Dwyer (33:24.024)
that we haven't talked about yet. What would that be?

Kelly Thibodeau (33:26.715)
Mm-hmm. I think it's easy to sort of accessibility into kind of the DEI camper, diversity, equity, and inclusion. And there's certainly lots of news and stories of things happening there that are going in different directions, and maybe I'll just leave it at that. But accessibility is really about solving business problems. So when you think about the need to innovate,

and the need to attract customers and retain customers, reduce risk from legal ramifications, saving money, protecting the brand reputation. It's something that is a real business driver. And so I want people to start thinking about it that way. And I think as far as how it's connected to customer experience, CX is about

removing friction and finding innovative ways to make things easier. And people with disabilities can lead that work. So I think that's really important thing to kind of come back to is it has touch points across the entire business from sales to service to product development to marketing and communications. And when I think about what are some things that some CX leaders can do is, well, first talk to your existing vendors and suppliers and find out.

Are their products accessible? And if they are, how do they know? You can ask for copies of a report that will specify exactly what they're doing and how. And then learn from people. So train some existing teams. Follow people with disabilities in your social media, whatever your favorite social media space is, whether that's LinkedIn or Instagram or anything like that. Lean in and start doing some listening and get really curious.

and you might even in some organizations might have like an employee resource group. So you have internal experts who could help with that. So I think those are some of the early and easy things to start doing because I also understand that it can be really overwhelming and there are some quick doable things, but you really need to also step back and understand what is it that you're trying to achieve? How do you define it? And then you might also have some folks on your team that

Kelly Thibodeau (35:52.227)
are already personally passionate. so talk to them and find out like, how can you sort of move further what we call sort of shift left and get it more into the requirements and production processes so it's not this like final stop at the end. So.

Rob Dwyer (36:08.258)
I love that. If someone wanted some help or maybe some training, do you offer that? And what's the best way to get in touch with you?

Kelly Thibodeau (36:14.555)
Mm-hmm.

For sure, yeah, I absolutely offer that. Teaching is one of my very favorite things to do. So, to be a core part of the work in the business. So my website is www.squarelyaccessible.com. And I'm also on LinkedIn, I'm on Instagram, lots of different ways to find me. So, yeah, I love a conversation.

Rob Dwyer (36:41.41)
Well, my listeners know what to do. Head down to the show notes. You will find the link to Kelly's website and you will also find the link to her on LinkedIn. So go connect with her, say hello. Kelly Thibodeau, thank you so much for joining us on Next in Queue.

Kelly Thibodeau (36:58.427)
Thank you, Rob. It's been a pleasure.