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Verbatim text
Lee:
Welcome to the Agency Trailblazer podcast. This is your host, Lee. On today’s show, we are talking with Colleen Gratzer all about her journey through design and accessibility. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. Welcome to a conversation with two fairly poorly people today. It’s me, Mr. Lee Jackson, and we have on the line, Colleen Gratzer. How are you today?
Colleen:
I’m well.
Lee:
You are well? You just lied to me. I heard you coughing. Oh, poor us. So we’re both croaking through an episode together, but we had this plan that we were very excited to connect, so that’s all so fine. Folks, if If you don’t know who Colleen is, she is awesome. She is the founder of Gratzer Graphics and also the podcast host of Design Domination podcast, a podcast I highly recommend that you go ahead and check out. So if you want to press pause and tap in creative-boost.com/podcast, you can find out all the different ways that you can subscribe to that show. She’s got tonnes of great content in there that is very good for designers who’ve been around the block for years, as well as aspiring brand new designers as well. So there you go. That’s the unpaid little advertorial for you there, Colleen. But instead of me butchering all about you, do you mind just sharing a little bit of who you are, maybe what you do, favourite colour, maybe a favourite drink, or maybe some cool fact that you feel that not many people know about you?
Colleen:
Sure. Well, my favourite colour is green and always has been. It’s been my brand colour, my main brand colour for several years now. Something that most people do not know about me is that I actually have a degree in foreign languages, Spanish and French.
Lee:
That is so cool. Shall we now switch to French for the rest of this episode?
Colleen:
No, because I would not be able to parlais in français. That’s okay.
Lee:
I only have my 16…. I left school when I was 16, so that’s as much French as I know, which is where is the toilet? I think that’s about it. My name is Lee, and I’m still 15. I’ve been 15 for a very long time now because that’s the last time I learned how to speak my age. Well, that’s cool. So we have a multilingual on the show today of the highest quality. That’s awesome. Well, folks, like I said, if you want to check out that podcast, go ahead, creative-boost.com, but also you can check out Gratzer Graphics. Links are all in the show notes with all the cool spelling feelings. But, Colleen, this episode is all about jumping in that time machine. I don’t know. Are you into time travel at all? Any online TV series?
Colleen:
I’ve been watching Wayward Pines again. Oh, that’s so cool. Yeah. So it’s time travel, I guess.
Lee:
We’re on the wrong way for this show, though, because that’s into the future, isn’t it? They go into these things. And spoiler alert, press pause now if you’ve not seen it. Isn’t it like 10,000 years into the future or something like that? 2000. 2000 years. It is phenomenal. I’ve read all the books as Oh, I have read. In an entire holiday. Oh, I have read them. Yeah, they’re brilliant. Absolutely fantastic. Wayward Pines, folks, you get all the best resources from here. All right, well, let’s just go back to Doctor Who. You heard of Dr. Who. We’re going to jump in a tardive together, Colleen. And I would like to go back in time to the very, very early days of Colleen’s exposure to graphic design. And can you just let us know how you got into it?
Colleen:
Well, my parents always told me that I came out of the womb with a pencil and drawing tablet in hand. I was always into fine artsy-fartsy stuff, and I was obsessed with drawing. Just with a pencil and paper, my father would bring home big sheets of the old inkjet paper that had green and white stripes on one side. Awesome. Oh, yeah. I would draw all over it. I did a lot of drawing of people’s faces and houses. Totally random. I did more of realistic drawing than cartoon or anything cool and stylized. So yeah. And I was always into art, all through school and everything. So from day one.
Lee:
That’s awesome. And then when did you transition from pen and paper onto the screen?
Colleen:
Well, it’s funny because I never got into illustration on the computer. But when I was 10, back in the ’80s, we got our first computer, and my father taught me DOS, and I was pretty good at it. So I became a little bit of a computer geek. So in high school, it was like, Okay, well, talking about college stuff, what could I do as a career? I mean, I always knew I wanted to do something art-related, but I learned foreign languages. Oh, I Spanish in grade school, and I took it through high school. And then I added French because a misguidance counsellor told me that I needed to take French in order to major in art in college. Well, I said, Well, My two favourite artists are Spanish, Moreau and Dalais, but I wasn’t getting rid of Spanish because I loved it. So I added French, and I ended up then wanting to major in art and foreign languages. But anyway, getting back to the question. So in high school, it was like, Okay, well, how could I merge art with computers? And that was graphic design. So then that leads back to why I went to the guidance counsellor and she said, Okay, if you want to do that, then you need to also take French.
Colleen:
But I really liked both. So I did all of it.
Lee:
I feel like the guidance counsellors, that’s their job. So when somebody gets to the point where they don’t know what to do, they’ll just become a guidance counsellor. I was told that I had no prospects whatsoever. I just left my guidance meeting feeling absolutely depressed. They basically inputed things I like doing into a computer. I can’t even remember what it’s called now. Some programme that still exists nowadays. And then it output a load of jobs. And she’s like, you might as well just go down to Tesco, which is like the warm up, I guess, of the UK. Oh my gosh. I was like, oh, great. I feel amazing. Thank you.
Colleen:
See, they’re misguidance counsellors.
Lee:
Absolutely. All right, well, DOS, that’s cool. Was that programming you were teaching in DOS or was that actual graphic design at that point?
Colleen:
Oh, no, it was no graphic design at that point. That was just like… It was like I could type in cd to change directory and do DOS commands, and then I could play like Tetris in, I don’t know, eight colours.
Lee:
No, that’s legendary. I remember the old monitors as well. So when you then went into the… You took the graphic design. Can you remember what the graphic design applications were you were using?
Colleen:
I didn’t get into any of that until college.
Lee:
Okay, what were those? Because college, when’s this then? 2000s now we’re talking?
Colleen:
No, in the ’90s. You see what I did there?
Lee:
You see what I did?
Colleen:
Go on then.
Lee:
What were the applications? Can you remember?
Colleen:
So my first year of college, we weren’t allowed to touch the computer. So we did a little bit of paste up, and it was a lot of mat board and spray mount and ruby lith. And it was a lot. And then the second year, I think we started with Photoshop 2, which did not have layers. No. And Cork Express, which I loved. We didn’t do any page maker there for page out. I loved Cork Express. And then Illustrator, of course. Those were the big three.
Lee:
Yeah, Cork Express was huge, wasn’t it? Yes. That was the choice, wasn’t it? For a long time, I remember. Because we were in the print industry, even in the early, in the late ’90s, early 2000s, I used to get involved with print. I thought I was going to launch a printing company at one point. I had no idea how I was going to do it. I just left I was still told I should go and get a job at Tesco’s, and I was trying to work it out to start a printing company. But yeah, Quark Express and all those sorts of things, I seem to remember were the applications of choice. Holy moly, Photoshop 2.0. I mean, wow, no layers. That’s insane.
Colleen:
You were totally screwed if you… Because you couldn’t go back and you couldn’t edit the layers. If you messed up, it was like you had to start pieces from scratch.
Lee:
Or you just saved multiple versions.
Colleen:
Exactly. And then the computers- On your 200 megabyte hard drive.
Lee:
Right.
Colleen:
Computers could barely handle the files. And none of the files were as big back then as they are now. But I remember waiting overnight in the computer lab to print stuff out because it took so darn long. I would give I would call my friends and be like, Can you please come and take my credit card and go buy me dinner? Go buy me a sub because I’m going to be here all night.
Lee:
Oh, man. That’s insane. So when did Gratzer Graphics happen then? So we’ve gone from college. When did the going it alone and actually launching the business happening? Was there a journey that led to that, or did you just go straight into it from college?
Colleen:
Well, I graduated in ’97, and then right away, I was working a full-time job, but immediately I started freelancing on the side. And I always wanted to work for myself, but it took me a good seven years until I felt confident enough to go out on my own. So that was ’97. And then in 2003, I actually made my business into an LLC, but I didn’t go out on my own until 2004. And the catalyst for that was because I had a dog with separation anxiety, and she could not be medicated or restrained in a crate. Yeah, we tried everything. And I ended up taking her to day camp every single day, and it just got expensive. I mean, it was like paying for… I imagine it was like paying for a child to go to daycare. And so that was my catalyst of, I’ve got to work for myself, so I don’t to leave, and I can have the dog stay at home with me.
Lee:
Is that the same dog that was in the picture I remember of you, or is that a new dog?
Colleen:
No. So this dog, she passed several years ago. So she lived a very good long life. Bless her. Yeah.
Lee:
But you like those. You’ve got a new one now.
Colleen:
Yes. We’re very big into rescues. So we’ve had a lot of dogs over the years because we actually adopt a lot of older dogs or problem… I shouldn’t say problem, special needs dogs. Dogs that have problems that some people don’t want to address. So we’ve had lots of dogs over the years and we have two right now.
Lee:
We had a dog that was… So she was very, very scared of any loud noise, etc. And then when we had our daughter, she started to get aggressive towards her because obviously she would cry a lot and about that and like that and snap at her, etc. We eventually had to hand her off to someone else who could look after her. But I remember before Ella was born, on the fireworks, you guys don’t have fireworks night, but I guess you have July the fourth, don’t you? Yeah. The fireworks going off all night. It’s awful. I’d have sleep downstairs with the dog on the sofa, cuddling the dog.
Colleen:
Oh, yeah. That’s what we have to do. We have to turn up music or TVs through the house really loud. I mean, we have neighbours that will set them off, too. So they’re right there. I hate July fourth because Sure. That’s all you’re doing is trying to console the dogs and giving them rescue remedy and hiding them.
Lee:
I’m such a big sucker for a dog. They’re so cute. But anyway, this is not about dogs, this podcast. So let’s go back. 2003 then you launched Gratzer Graphics. You’ve been based in Washington, I think, the whole time?
Colleen:
Well, right outside the DC area. Yeah.
Lee:
So for us at Britz DC, is that the left-hand side as we’re looking down on the map or the right-hand side of the map? That’s the only way we know America.
Colleen:
So Washington DC would be on the East Coast.
Lee:
Okay, so that’s the North East. East Coast. Yes, that’s the right side. Okay, we know where you are now. That’s the capital, isn’t it?
Colleen:
I guess that would be your bottom left.
Lee:
So is that your bottom? Yeah, so that’s the capital then, isn’t it? As opposed to the… Because Because you’ve got Washington County, haven’t you, over on the left-hand side of the map, which is all good.
Colleen:
So Washington County is in Maryland, but Washington DC is the nation’s capital.
Lee:
Okay, I’m confused again. But yeah, so where Trump lives. Yeah, right. Okay, we’re good. Now we know where you are. All right. So What were the first few years of that agency like then? Because this is early days of the Internet. This is back when we’ve got those bevelled… You remember the bevelled buttons were very popular, weren’t they? Back in 2003, I remember. So did you go straight into things like doing web design, digital things, or were you very much doing, say, I don’t know, branding? Or what were the early days looking like for you?
Colleen:
Well, I would come home from my full-time job and then I would work. I did that most days of the week and then on weekends. I was doing logos, and I would be doing print stuff, so ads and flyers and things like that. And then I also did a few websites, actually building them from scratch in HTML. I learned HTML in college, and my computer science teacher begged me to change my major because he wanted more designers to learn HTML. And so, yeah, I had to learn. I learned HTML. I was coding everything from scratch. And then I was… I mean, this went on for seven years until I worked for myself, like I said. But I was… While I was doing that work, sometimes I had to take sick days or vacation days from my full-time job just to get sleep. I mean, at one point, I worked on a monthly publication that I was editing and laying out, and that took a lot of time. I mean, at some point, that was somebody everybody’s full-time job, and I was doing it on the side. That’s insane.
Lee:
It was a lot. I suppose all the revisions, all the amends, et cetera, that would come in as well. I mean, that’s no mean fee, is it? That could take several hours.
Colleen:
Oh, yeah. And it wasn’t just the client I was dealing with. It was all the different people that wrote all the manuscripts. I would have to send them individual proofs and then get their feedback. So it was like having 10 clients on one project.
Lee:
I actually feel anxious right now. It’s bringing back all the memories. Oh, my gosh. This actually will lead to a conversation I do want to have about your resources section. So keep telling us more. So you were doing things like that with the job, etc. So when did you escape the job and go full-time?
Colleen:
So then I was like, okay, this was back in 2004. I was like, well, if I’m going to do this, when am I going to do it? I mean, what am I waiting for? And I was like, okay, this is it. At this point, I’m making more money on the side than I am at my full-time job. So that was That did it for me. I needed to have hard cold facts in front of me. So I was like, Okay, this is it. You just went for it.
Lee:
I think as well, though, I imagine thinking of the late nights and all the work that you have done. I guess you just had to make a decision, didn’t you? It’s either or and let’s see where this goes.
Colleen:
Yeah, exactly. And it’s still going. I mean, it was just… Yeah, it’s still going.
Lee:
Virtual fist bump. I’m loving it. So from those big… Because that’s a big, heavy project, isn’t it? Like you said, sending off the proof to all those different people, et cetera. You’re one person on your And that was just one project?
Colleen:
Yeah, it was one project. I had other clients, too, with different projects. So that was just one thing.
Lee:
How has it evolved? I understand you’ve got other people involved now as well. So how has it evolved over the last few years from just you in, say, 2004, when you said, Right, I’m going this alone, et cetera, with very much logos and obviously print jobs, et cetera. What’s been the general direction over the last few years?
Colleen:
Well, for many years, until last year, I was doing everything myself pretty much. And I never wanted to have employees, and I had used subcontractors for some things here and there, and it never worked out into a situation where it would have been a long term thing until last year. And I just felt like… It was that like, oh, people are going to do it the way I want them to do it, or people wouldn’t get back to me when I expected. They weren’t very responsive, or I would end up redoing things. And so I thought, well, I might as well just do it myself the first time. And then I thought, Well, and if I outsource, then I’m giving away some of that income. I wasn’t thinking of it as if other people are helping me do it, and I’m paying them less to do it than what I’m getting, that I’m going to make money off of that. I thought, Well, I’m just like a money hoarder. I got to bring all the money in and keep it. I shouldn’t be subcontracting out anything. So I had a totally different mentality back then.
Colleen:
And then last year, I decided to go trying to find somebody who could really help with the design work and the web support and the web development on an ongoing basis. So I looked at Upwork, and I found two individuals who are not in the United States. And so they have a rate that is sustainable for me, and it’s a rate they’re happy with. And it just worked out really well with both of them. I mean, it’s been amazing. It’s completely changed my business, and it’s allowed me to focus on being the business owner, which I really wasn’t sure I wanted to do. I really wasn’t sure I wanted to be managing anybody or being that business owner person. I think I was more of, I’m okay just sitting back and doing the work. And then after, it wasn’t really until taking the WP Elevation blueprint course about three years ago that I started thinking differently about that, and then started thinking, Oh, okay, yeah. So I could bring in more business if I I have help. I can get more things done and get more clients, and I can focus on the business and the marketing.
Lee:
I think there’s two things before we carry on that I think I’ll encourage people with. Number one, check out WP Elevation. Flipping phenomenal. Life-changing. Did it years ago. Amazing. Yes, life-changing. Freudian is a legend. Everyone over there is a legend. What they preach is what they practise as well, and it’s worked for so many people. But the second thing I think we can draw from this as well is that you would potentially spending all of that time trying to do things and hoarding, I guess hoarding the money, it sounds wrong, but I know what you mean because this is exactly what I was doing as well, is keeping on hold of all that money actually leads to the point of stagnation where you actually can’t earn any more money and you can’t give the existing clients that you have the attention and care that they want because they want access to you. Colleen, you’re awesome. They want access to you, et cetera. They want to be able to talk to you. They want you to be there for them for the project. So it actually doesn’t necessarily matter if some person somewhere in the world is doing some of the coding or is doing some of the design, et cetera, because they still have access to you.
Lee:
And that was something that took me a long time. It was actually my business partner, Tim, et cetera, who encouraged us to get other people involved in our old business. And at that point, the freedom was phenomenal. It was like, holy moly, I can actually now work out what our strategy is, or I can actually go down to London and spend a day with our clients and make them feel loved whilst the work is getting done. So that was definitely life-changing for us.
Colleen:
Yeah, the other The other thing, too, though, is because I was so busy, I wasn’t doing any marketing. And I had tonnes of clients from the client base I had built up for more than seven years at that time. I had all these clients that kept coming to me, but it wasn’t necessarily work that I wanted. And I was just so busy. I wasn’t doing any marketing. So I wasn’t out there trying to get new clients or better work or more profitable work. And so that was a big mistake that I made not doing that. But now, the past couple of years now, I’ve been able to do that. Well, before that, before I took on a team last year, I was starting to do marketing, but that was added to my plate. So now that I have people helping me out, then I’m able to have more time, more free time, and also time to do my podcast. And then I have time to do marketing and the higher level business tasks that need to be done.
Lee:
That’s awesome. I’d love to talk about the podcast as well, but I do have a couple of questions on your website. One thing that I absolutely loved is your resources section, where you’re telling people how to prepare a copy, how to submit edits, image requirements, and all of those things. All the things that we all struggle with as designers. All the time, you get a 200 by 200 pixel image, or you just get a non-spell-checked word document, massive, saying, This is our new brochure. And you’re like, No, it’s not your new brochure. So when did these resources come out and why did you put them out there and what was the impact of having those resources available for your clients?
Colleen:
It’s funny you mentioned this because just a couple of days ago, I took a couple of them off, but I still have the submitting and it’s one up there and a few others. But the reason I put them up there was because I was tired of explaining over and over again the same things. I was constantly getting copy that wasn’t proofread or I was getting revisions that were, when sometimes I still got them, revisions that are piecemeal, some via email and some calling on the phone. And I’m like, No, designers need to see the edits in the layout. And it’s especially important that if you’re giving edits, you’re not saying… Because I have a lot of clients do this, and it drove me nuts. It’d be like, Page five, first paragraph. Well, what if you make an edit to a page prior to that? It’s going to reflow the text, and then you’ll be like, Well, now I don’t know what… Or that page 5 first paragraph is no longer page 5 first paragraph. Now it might be the last paragraph on page 4. So I wanted to make it more efficient for them. I wanted them to feel more empowered about how to do it.
Colleen:
And some clients, Of course, clients follow the process and some still deviate quite a bit.
Lee:
Which happens as well. Now, the reason why I asked for that, for two reasons. Number one, folks go and check out the resources. They’re actually really helpful. So if you are struggling with any of these problems, go ahead and check those out because there are answers here to problems that you may have, especially when it comes to things like revisions, et cetera. So receiving a marked up PDF is gold for any designer. And if you are struggling with terrible feedback, go ahead and check that one out over on Gratzer Graphics. Remember, check out the links in the show notes. But the other reason why I asked you about this is because you obviously have this passion of teaching and helping people learn how to do things better. So when did the idea for design domination come about and why did you launch that podcast? And obviously, what is it all about as well for anyone who is not aware of it?
Colleen:
Well, I launched the podcast in 2018. I think it was late March, early April.
Lee:
I remember because I listened to your first episode.
Colleen:
Oh, you know? Oh, gosh. Well, I was terrified. I was terrified, and I don’t like my voice. I didn’t want to listen to it. I told my husband, I said, Gosh, you’ve been listening to this voice for almost 20 years now. This is awful. How could you put up with this? But I was really scared to put myself But I’m like, I feel like I have… The more that I was talking to people in different communities and groups, I’m like, People are getting… They’re actually getting stuff from what I’m saying as I was from them. But I think we all discount what we know. We don’t realise how much we know until we share Absolutely. And so I was like, there’s a lot I have to say about the last 20 some years in terms of design and design business. And so I wanted to put that out there. I wasn’t necessarily sure about doing a podcast first. I really want to do… I mean, I want to do coaching. I’m doing some coaching for designers, like design mentoring, whether that’s for their skills or for design freelance issues. And so the podcast is a way to help build my audience and help people who are looking for some information here and there to get solutions for some issues here and there.
Colleen:
And yeah, I mean, I’ve been through so much, and I feel like it really rattled my confidence for many years. And a lot of designers don’t have a tonne of confidence going on on their own. I wanted to help them get that confidence because I didn’t have it for so long.
Lee:
So for anyone who’s ever considering putting themselves out there to help other people, and The thing I love about our community, both the WordPress community and the design community and web designers and developers, the whole… I don’t know. Let’s just say the whole overarching community is that we all want to help each other. We don’t really compete with each which is cool. So you’re telling people what you’ve learned so that they can benefit from what you’ve learned so that you don’t have to, et cetera. But can you just let us into the secrets of how you got your podcast launch? Because I feel like people think it’s rocket science when it really isn’t. And I know, for one thing that you’re sat in your… Where are you sat right now for the recording of this to get the best sound?
Colleen:
Yeah, I’m in my walk-in closet because I get the best sound. But I don’t always record in here. But I saw it when somebody suggested it- You sound like a studio.
Lee:
It’s so cool. Carry on.
Colleen:
Somebody suggested it to me, and I tried it and I said, Dang, that sounds really good. I’m going to have to start recording in the closet from now on. I am sitting on an ottoman in front of a chest of drawers with a laptop and my road on this.
Lee:
There you go, guys. Now you know how to launch a podcast.
Colleen:
But that’s not where I work. But hey, I have to say, if I can launch a podcast, and I mean in terms… I knew nothing, okay? I knew absolutely nothing. I went to… I didn’t even know who Pat Flynn was. I did some googling on how to podcast, and I found three free videos that he has about how to start a podcast. And I did that. And then I knew of other people that did podcasts, like Troy from WPL Innovation, and they were all saying, get the road. So I got the road, and I just went from there. I mean, I was terrified. I learned how to do it, and I’m like, okay. That’s so cool. I just did it. And it was on my an ever-do list. It was not anything I ever had considered doing. And the reason I started with the podcast was because a business mentor had suggested that I start with that. I wouldn’t have just said, oh, I’m just going to start a podcast.
Lee:
And what’s the… I mean, it’s been a… Is it a year now?
Colleen:
It feels like it’s been a year. Yeah, it’s been a little over a year.
Lee:
What’s been the effect on you? Has it affected your business in any way? Has it been a learning just for you, specifically learning, or has it helped you pivot?
Colleen:
Well, It’s different from my business because my business serves mostly nonprofits, and the audience, obviously, for the podcast is designers. But I do have to say the best part about it has been not only helping people, but getting the feedback. I mean, I grew up with a lot of bullying and criticism and nothing’s good enough attitude. And this has been like a 180. So it’s great that people are like, Wow, I’m learning so much from you, or, I love your podcast. I love such and such episode. I mean, it’s just it’s really cool to hear that feedback.
Lee:
Yeah, that’s brilliant. With regards to my experience as well of launching the podcast, I mean, back in the day it was WP Innovator. And then obviously it’s morphed into Agency Trailblazer because WordPress was just one of the tools and it’s expanded beyond just the tool. But that was the one thing that surprised me. It was the amount of feedback that we get from the community. We don’t realise how much we do know. And we have this There’s a plethora of experience over the years of stuff that we just think has just happened to us and we’ve learnt from it and that’s all cool. But as we start to talk about it, it really does start to change people’s lives. And it’s been phenomenal just being able to share with other people et cetera. I do love your show because I love your accent. It’s great. I’m a nervous guy. I get to listen to your accent. And you’ve got very different types of… Some episodes are long, some are short, but they’re very helpful with regards to… Because it’s usually just and you’re sharing some of your experience or advice on what I can do.
Lee:
I think maybe you touched on problem clients, I think a little while ago.
Colleen:
Oh, yes. I mean, I could write a book about that.
Lee:
I think all of us could write some, which is phenomenal. Remember, creativehyfenboost.com. But what you have recently done as well in conversations that we’ve had is you’ve pivoted quite a lot towards accessibility. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Colleen:
Yeah, that’s a funny story because there Well, there’s this listserv that I’m on, or I should say, email list that I’m on. And this woman who does accessibility training for designers and for the federal government, she’s been doing this for like 30 years. And she’s always posting on the list about offering her classes, and here’s what’s coming up, and I would just ignore them. And three years ago, she said, I really want you to take my InDesign Accessibility course. And I’m like, I don’t understand it. I don’t know anything about it. I have enough going on. And so I dismissed it. But then she told me more about it, and I was like, okay. Yeah. So I did this course, and so I started creating accessible InDesign documents for clients who needed the design, and they happen to also need an accessible PDF from that. But I’ve also gotten clients who are creative firms who have the InDesign file done and set up, and now they need someone to go in and make it accessible.
Lee:
So are these accessible So is this accessibility there for websites, is it? Or is this something else? Because InDesign- So this is for documents.
Colleen:
So if what I work in is InDesign for documents, I mean, you can make word documents and PowerPoint and other types of documents accessible. But I focus on when it comes to document accessibility, I focus on InDesign. And so you start with InDesign and you then create an accessible PDF from that.
Lee:
See, I did not know this existed. Okay, I literally… This took me by surprise. I thought you were going to talk about websites.
Colleen:
I am.
Lee:
I’m going to get there. No, that’s fine. This is really good. Let’s talk about PDFs because I had no idea this existed. I assumed that anyone could read a PDF, a document, because it was text. Tell us more. Educate me.
Colleen:
Oh, okay. Well, this PDF could then be e-mailed or it could be posted on a website. Well, the problem is that if the PDF or the file and then the resulting PDF are not accessible, what happens is that, let’s say someone using a screen reader, somebody who is blind or has low vision, might be using a screen reader, and they might be getting the information, the text, in a completely different order than how it looks. I’ve never thought this, ever. Yeah. And then there’s also the case of images. So images, like a lot of people think images of text are text, but they’re not. They’re images still. So images of text, they need to have alt text in there. And And there’s all these other things that you have to do to make sure that the file is actually going to be read properly. So not only the content is going to be read properly, but it’s going to be read in the proper order. I actually just did some training a couple of weeks ago with the Department of the Interior, training some of their staff on how to do accessibility in InDesign, because they do a lot of that there and then make PDFs from it.
Colleen:
And so after I did that course and got into that more, I I worked into website accessibility, and I did a lot of research for probably a good part of a year. And it’s been ongoing, too. But then I started creating accessible websites.
Lee:
And how did you go about that? So I can now understand with regards to the documents that things like if you’ve got your columns, columns of text, etc, or you’ve got floating text in a random place, I think I’m starting to understand what you’re doing with regards to the accessibility in there within design, etc. So the screen readers will be able to understand that in the order that it’s meant to appear, etc. How do you transition that to website? Are you using WordPress? Is this as well something that you can apply? Because I don’t even know how to… I mean, I understand I need to add alt text, for example, on an image, but I’m suddenly starting to think, I actually don’t know how to tell a screen reader how to go to the next column.
Colleen:
Well, so with an InDesign Layout, if the columns are set up properly, then there’s not necessarily any extra work to do that. It depends on how the designer has set up the document. But when it comes to websites, yeah, I’m talking about WordPress. Starting with an accessible theme that’s got HTML5 code so that you’re using semantic tags. And then there’s also a lot of contrast issues in terms of colour. There’s There’s also alt text, but not every image should have alt text. So you have to really understand how it works, and then try, and then figure out how is this going to be? What an experience is this going to be for somebody who might be using a screen reader? Because I’ve had people who do this, who test sites professionally with screen readers, sighted people who use screen readers to test sites. I’ve had them advise me on, okay, well, if you do this, it’s going to do this. That’s not an accessibility barrier. It’s not considered a problem, like an error, but it’s going to be annoying for the user.
Lee:
So it’s still a user experience issue.
Colleen:
Yeah. There’s a lot of weighing user experience with meetings the WCAG guidelines. Holy moly. Yeah. And then there’s also the case of what is the client going to do when they get their hands on it to update it? So I mean, the sites that I’ve done, there’s been a lot of Customization in the back-end to give them little forms, like done with advanced custom fields. Give them a little form to fill out. Like, Hey, when you put something here, like put this text here, and then in the next field, it might say, and then put this text here because this is going to read out extra text for a screen reader that a sighted reader is not going to see on the site.
Lee:
Well, this is exactly what I’m thinking. For my context, I’m thinking I can lay out a grid in Beaver Builder, for example, of, say, three columns, and then I can slap in three text blocks and put in different blocks of text, et cetera. But that’s not necessarily going to be helpful for the screen reader. We can therefore prescribe. I mean, we’ve used ACF, advanced custom fields in the past to prescribe things, but there’s an awful lot I guess, behind the scenes, isn’t it? That we’re not really aware of. And I can’t even think of anything in, for example, Beaver Builder, where we would be adding any extra text for, say, a screen reader. I’m not aware of anything. If there is anything, I don’t know if you’ve used Beaver Builder yourself personally, but I’m not even aware if there is anything that we could do for people like that. It seems like a massive minefield. Is this something you’re looking at creating any courses for in the future to help other people like me who now all of a sudden feels overwhelmed?
Colleen:
Yeah, actually, I have been working on a course for this, which is going to be an amalgamation of all of this research I’ve done over the past few years, and then being part of an accessibility community where people do this all all the time, and they have feedback on all these different things. And yeah, so I hope to release that soon, and that would give designers and developers a really solid foundation, and then tell them… I mean, it would even be like asking… Telling them which questions to find out from the client, asking them certain questions, and then even the legal parts of what should be on your contract. Because last year in the US, the lawsuits for non-compliant sites They mean they almost tripled.
Lee:
It’s scary, isn’t it? I think, wasn’t it Rihanna or someone got sued as well? I’m just throwing out a random start or Beyoncé. Someone got sued.
Colleen:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then in New York, it’s really crazy. I mean, there’s been a lot of lawyers who are on the role for sites that aren’t accessible and then filing claims. And pretty much people are like, okay, their lawyers tell them like, okay, you just got to write a check and then fix the site. But some people think, oh, well, once I’ve had a claim made and I’m in the process fixing it. They might be given two years to fix the site, make it compliant. That doesn’t mean that somebody else is going to come along in that time frame- And make a claim. And make another claim. Yeah, so some people have had multiple claims made against them. So It’s really important for designers and developers to not ignore this because then they could be putting themselves in some a legal risk for not bringing it up. Who knows? I mean, the client, if they get sued, they might come after you.
Lee:
Yeah, exactly. So I guess that’s also important, therefore, to look at the terms and conditions of the contract that you have with your clients. So if you’re going to design a website, et cetera, what are you promising to them? Are you responsible for the accessibility, et cetera? And if you’re not, then that’s on the client. They need to be made aware of that. But if you are, then I guess we need to be skilled up as well in those sorts of things.
Colleen:
I was just going to say, well, the other thing that I’m doing now, too, is website accessibility audits. So for people that already have a site or if it’s somebody who’s developing a site and they’re like, okay, now we to make this accessible. I’m going through and doing audits of the sites to say, hey, I’ve got 60 some checkpoints, and then I make a report of what the issues are, and then here’s how your developer can fix that.
Lee:
I think I need to ask you to do a few of those for me.
Colleen:
The amount of money I spend on guests is depressing.
Lee:
I get them on the podcast and they say something cool and I’m like, Oh, I need that. And then we have a conversation afterwards. I’m like, How much for? That’s really It’s cool as well. I’m intrigued to see where you go with this because this feels like something that I think is a very misunderstood area. I think you’ve heard from me the overwhelm the moment we talk about this. I start to feel overwhelmed by it all. I’ve done the bare basics, which marry up with SEO as well, where you make sure there’s alt images and you make sure it’s text and you make sure that your image doesn’t contain text in it. And if the image does contain text in it, then that’s in the description tag, et cetera. You’ve I’ve covered your basis there. But what I have never really considered are things like the flow of the paragraph, etc. Because you still do things like absolute positioning and all sorts of stuff like that. I’ve never considered things like what is the user’s experience using a screen reader? Is it going to be annoying for them? Is it going to make sense to them, et cetera?
Lee:
Because I frankly don’t have that understanding. I definitely think there is a gap in the market for you, Colleen, to help people like myself in an agency. I know this is something that’s important, but equally for everyone else, you’ve got people like Maur Cohen who has developed a whole, a brilliant course all about design, where you can understand the basics of design for developers who tend to struggle in the design elements. And then you’ve also got user experience done by Pete Cheney. She’s also focused in on people’s user experience. But that’s both of those are obviously very visual. Whereas I think what you could add here is massive value for people, considering the user experience and the accessibility portions of websites, because it’s certainly something that we get asked a lot as developers, and it’s certainly something I know that’s going to be pushed more and more. Because let’s be frank, our websites, everything should be accessible. So often I forget and take for granted that I have sight, and yet there are so many people who do struggle. They can’t read the computer. In fact, I’ve got relatives who got my uncle John’s got diabetes, et cetera.
Lee:
He’s losing his vision. So I have very, very poor vision now. Can’t really see much on the computer, et cetera. And so often I take for granted what I have. But I don’t recognise very often that what I’ve just designed or laid out on the screen and the colours I’ve chosen, et cetera, is not necessarily going to be helpful as somebody else. Sorry, little rant over. Sorry, it’s just that I just got a bit impassioned by it.
Colleen:
Well, yeah, because it’s… Accessibility is a structural thing and it’s also a visual thing. And a lot of people think that, okay, well, if I make the site accessible for a screen reader, if they just test it with a screen reader and it’s fine, they think that, Oh, it’s okay. But that’s not the case either. So there’s all… I mean, the nature of disabilities varies so much. I mean, they’re cognitive in nature. They could be visual. I mean, it could be seizure disorder that’s triggered by flashes of motion on a site.
Lee:
Oh my gosh, I didn’t even think of that either.
Colleen:
I mean, then there’s low vision and blindness. I have a friend who’s legally blind And she doesn’t use a device. She doesn’t use a screen reader. But if she has the ability to increase the text or the contrast on a site, that is helpful to her. But she’s not using a device. So you can’t assume that everybody that has low vision is going to be using a special device. And a lot of people don’t know that you can adjust the text size on the site and the contrast. But there are certain plugins that allow you to add the capability specifically for those things. But also, like keyboard navigation is very important. I mean, people don’t think about things unless they happen to them, or like you said, you have a relative with a certain condition. And we could be permanently or temporarily disabled. And I mean, think about if you broke your arm and you couldn’t use your right arm to use a mouse, you have to navigate with the keyboard, or you’d have to learn fast how to use the mouse with your left hand. So keyboard navigation is a big deal with accessibility.
Lee:
I get another thing I didn’t consider.
Colleen:
Yeah. And then going back to the InDesign files for a second with the colours, that’s really… Accessibility is an issue that should be brought up at the branding stage because I’ve been handed files that have to be accessible after they’ve already been designed. And I’m like, you’re almost like your whole colour palette has to be redone because it’s not accessible.
Lee:
Oh, yeah. I think Peecha… Yeah, it was Peecha the other day shared with me on… Is it colours. Co, I think it is? Or kugulores. Co. And she When you… Because we’d picked a brand scheme because we were going through a rebrand, and she pointed out that certain colours that we’d picked would merge together, so there would be no differentiation for different types of colour blindness because I didn’t even recognise.
Colleen:
Oh, yes. There’s a colour blindness site that you can upload files like screenshots, and you can see if there’s enough contrast. I’m working on a job right now where there’s a lot of maps in this InDesign file, and I have to tell the client, you’ve got to go back to your person that’s doing these maps and tell them there’s not enough contrast between these colours. So you’re going to also have to use… Because I had to test it with different degrees of colour blindness, and then I had to tell them, You have to use different shapes to represent these colours, too, or use a background or a texture in the background to signify what’s different. Because the number one rule with accessibility is you cannot convey information with colour alone.
Lee:
Yeah, because I think it’s… I can’t say this now. I’m I’m going to try it. I’m going to try to say achromatospe…
Colleen:
No, I can’t say it. I know what you’re talking about.
Lee:
Essentially, that’s grayscale. Everything is grayscale for them. So you can’t… Achromatic. There you go. Yeah, I knew what it was. Let’s pretend I knew what it was. And I think everything is grayscale as well. So again, you can’t highlight an alert as red because that’s not necessarily going to mean anything to them. Whereas if there is maybe an exclamation point as well. An actual icon that accompanies that to help differentiate, et cetera, or even just the colours as well. So we picked a colour scheme, and what was happening was for achromatic, I think the YTS and the greys, there was not much difference between them. I mean, there was to us visually as non-colour blind, but for colour blind, I think it was on one of the scales, it just meant that the colours looked exactly the same, practically. So you could barely see any differentiation between the two. Whereas for a normal sighted person, you could actually layer one on top of the other and you’d be able to read the text quite well. And I had not got a clue until, again, we were shown how the mistakes of our ways.
Colleen:
No worries.
Lee:
So folks, if you want to keep your eye on what’s going on over at Colleen’s World, as and when she chooses to start to help us out on all that stuff, that’s creativeboost.com. So Colleen, you have absolutely blown my mind already with all of the things that I had not thought about. I mean, thankfully, I don’t feel too overwhelmed because you happen to be a friend of mine who is going to show me the errors of my way and teach me these sorts of things in a way that I can understand. Now, you’ve pings me whilst we were talking, and I didn’t know you had this course, so I promise, folks, this was not staged at all. I didn’t realise you were going to be launching your website accessibility course. So folks, I’ve put a link to the course meeting list in the show notes. It’s creative-boost.com/website-accessibility-course. So you can go ahead and check that out and get on the list so that you can be made aware as to when this course will be out. I, too, will signing up because this is something that I would like my team to learn.
Lee:
So actually going right back to what we were discussing earlier with guys having team members involved, et cetera. I’m certainly going to learn a bit of this, so I understand enough for when I’m having conversations with my client, but I’m going to have my team actually do the deep dive. So when they’re doing the development, it will be those guys who are skilled up in making sure that they’re holding me accountable as well as holding themselves accountable to getting this work done.
Colleen:
Yeah, I’m teaching my team this too. The InDesign stuff. Yeah. And the website. Awesome.
Lee:
So that was just a happy coincidence. Didn’t know you were going to do that, but folks, I would recommend that you jump on there and sign up to that list to be made aware of when that is out. So, Carlene, this has been a wonderful time chatting. I think for me, I was a bit nervous interviewing you, to be honest, because it’s weird, isn’t it? When you listen to people’s voice all the time and you feel like you know them, et cetera, and then you then end up interviewing them, you get a bit scared and nervous because I don’t want to sound like a creeper because I know a little bit about you because I listen to your show. So I don’t want to sound creepy when I’m like, oh, yeah, I know that about you. Oh, no.
Colleen:
No, I think good podcasters will do their research. And as a fellow podcaster, I mean, I do the same thing. Exactly. Hey, I’m honoured that you had me on here. I’m totally honoured.
Lee:
Well, I’ve really, really enjoyed interviewing you, folks. Remember, check out all of the different links in the show notes. You’ve got Gratzer graphics. You’ve also got creative-boost. Com, where you can to access the podcast. Also, make sure you check out that link as well for the course that I didn’t realise was being released. I feel very happy about that and relieved because I was really starting to feel overwhelmed. But we talked about it. I was like, Holy moly, there’s so much to think of. I’m definitely looking forward to that course as well, so make sure you follow that. If you have iTunes or any podcast device, just type in Design Domination podcast, and I highly recommend you subscribe to some great content from a wonderful accent, as we’ve said before. It’s very easy to listen to. It’s Colleen Gratzer. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Colleen:
Thank you. I really enjoyed it.
Lee:
You’re a legend. Thanks for your time. Have a wonderful day. And thank you for taking the time to be on the show whilst poorly.
Colleen:
Thank you.
Lee:
Cheerio.
Lee:
That wraps up today’s show. Don’t forget, if you are not a member of our free Facebook group, then head on over to agencytrailblazer.com/group. Also, did you know that over on agencytrailblazer.com, we have done a beautiful new design. We’re still laying it out and having a play around, but we would love your feedback, so go ahead and check out agencytrailblazer.com for the cool, snazzy, yet not accessible yet design. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful day. If we don’t see you in the group, then we will certainly see you in the next episode.
