Avoiding The Accessibility Overlay Trap: Real Solutions for ADA-Compliant Multifamily Websites

[00:00:05] Welcome to the Multifamily Tech Gurus podcast series. I'm Kerry Kirby, the founder and CEO of 365 Connect, along with my esteemed co-host, Jimmy Lancaster, software engineer extraordinaire, and chief product officer here at 365 Connect. Today we're talking about website accessibility, that one thing you're never really thinking about until you get called out on it.

[00:00:34] Jimmy, we have been deep into web accessibility for over five years now. I think most of what we know, we had to forget and start all over again because this stuff moves so fast that anything less than building this into the core of your operation, making sure your team, your software engineers are implementing this constantly, it's just not going to hit the compliant mark.

[00:01:03] If you're not totally staying on top of it. Yeah, absolutely. We, we spend a lot of time staying on top of it. And, and if we didn't, I just know how far off we would be from actually hitting the mark. So yeah, it's something you have to be super on top of. You can't even be passively on top of it. You have to be actively looking at it, thinking about it, analyzing it.

[00:01:32] Even here in, in, in, in our own team, it's like somebody might develop it. They kind of know, they know something about ADA and they're developing towards that. Then somebody else looks at it. Then at the end of it, I might look at it and say, Hey, you missed X, you know, these three things like that, that make this thing not accessible.

[00:01:51] So it's a, it's a team effort. It's something you have to actively do. It's gotta be top of mind. And, uh, if otherwise you're going to quickly find yourself in a position where you're not compliant.

[00:02:04] So, so basically it kind of, uh, makes us go a little slower because we have to check it and check it and we have to wear a belt and suspenders.

[00:02:13] Oh yeah. And you talked about time, but I'm going to talk about money because I happen to write the checks here, lower right hand corner. That would be my signature.

[00:02:22] Um, you know, we have a, what's called a IAAP auditors go through our, everything we do. Actually, there are stay on a monthly retainer. And then we do these massive audits every six months, but they're, they're still there running in the background the whole time.

[00:02:43] And I AAP is international associate accessibility, uh, association of accessibility professionals for those who do not know what that is.

[00:02:57] That's a mouthful.

[00:02:58] Yeah, it is. It's too long. So it's like CPA certified public accountant.

[00:03:03] I got that one.

[00:03:03] Yeah. So it's like I AAP is, is the holy grail that you want to belong to if you're a website accessibility auditor.

[00:03:13] So anyway, uh, those guys are running in the background and, and we pay them every month and have for over five years when we first decided, Hey, let's certify this because it all checks out.

[00:03:29] Uh, so we've been writing checks ever since, but, but go on.

[00:03:33] Yeah. Well, you know, that's the funny thing is that even though our team, we talk about it all the time and at a minimum every six months, right?

[00:03:42] We're sitting there making changes and in the process, learning it. So, you know, uh, between me and a couple of the other guys, we've been, you know, we've been very involved over the last, uh, how long have we been in five, five years, six years now?

[00:03:56] We originally certified in 2019. Okay. But I think we started playing with it in 2018. Yeah. I think the end of 2018 is when we started, uh, you know, experimenting with it. And we have some people here that were around that entire time and still are actively involved whenever those audits pop up to get, to get anything changed and fixed. So like we spend a lot of time on it. We know a lot about it. We talk about it a lot. Um, if you want to be a lot of it,

[00:04:26] you want me to roll up on your, your website, I can probably pick out, you know, 10, 20 things in a matter of 10 minutes that are a problem. And yet even with all of what we do and what we know, we, we put that into new products. We try to incorporate those things that we've learned. Uh, but even then our auditors still can find at least a couple of things that weren't done to the right standard and technically aren't compliant. Uh, and so just

[00:04:56] knowing how much we know and how much we've been able to really, uh, uh, get ahead of that compliance, those auditors, those IAAP auditors are so far ahead. They, they, they're so good at it that they even, uh, you know, they're, they're pointing out stuff that we aren't catching. And I'll tell you what, I've, I have a lot of developer friends, right?

[00:05:21] People that I went to college with that are, that are still, uh, you know, in that, in this field, uh, people that I've run into people that I've met over my career.

[00:05:30] I can promise you none of, I've met one person that knows anything about web accessibility compliance and, and takes the effort to actually apply that stuff.

[00:05:43] And, uh, and I mean, I'm talking out of hundreds of developers that I know one person I've actually been able to sit down and hold a decent conversation.

[00:05:52] And I can tell you even that that person didn't know half the stuff that I was able to talk about.

[00:05:59] And so like, that's the scary part for, you know, call it for every hundred developers out there.

[00:06:04] You got one or two that actually know anything about this and are applying those things.

[00:06:10] Um, I think some people know a little bit.

[00:06:12] I think it's kind of natural to, to, to do a couple of these things, especially as you see various examples out there that might have incorporate some of the things you got to do.

[00:06:22] But, you know, they're not, it's not top of mind.

[00:06:25] It's not an active, uh, they're not actively pursuing making sure that things are compliant.

[00:06:30] And so you got a bunch of people writing uncompliant code, not knowing better.

[00:06:36] And, uh, you know, how do you, how do you win in that scenario?

[00:06:40] I don't know.

[00:06:41] Yeah.

[00:06:42] Let me show you something more scary, Jimmy.

[00:06:43] You got a lot of lawyers that don't know this stuff either.

[00:06:46] If you recall, I actually, uh, spoke at a educational conference before the bar association and people got educational credits to listen to me.

[00:06:56] And it was like, wow, how did, how did, how did that happen?

[00:07:00] You know, how had the tables turned?

[00:07:03] Oh man.

[00:07:03] Yeah.

[00:07:04] Yeah.

[00:07:04] It's a, what's, what's my saying?

[00:07:06] Uh, um, we don't work for the suits.

[00:07:09] The suits work for us now.

[00:07:11] Um, so, but you didn't get to charge them $400 an hour.

[00:07:15] No, no, but you know, Hey, uh, you know, there are other ways to get even with those guys.

[00:07:23] But, um, but that, that's the other thing, you know, there are, if you go really dig into this, speaking of legal for a minute, there's a, a, a pretty stealth group out there that are litigators.

[00:07:40] Litigators on behalf of the plaintiffs suing, you know, on behalf of the disabled community.

[00:07:47] And they're really, really good at what they do.

[00:07:50] And then when you get into defense, it gets really thin of, of, of who to get out there because the knowledge base is, is not really good.

[00:08:00] Because you need a guy that's highly technical and understands the ropes and, and what they're looking at and what they're claiming and how to, how to defend that.

[00:08:11] And it gets pretty tough.

[00:08:12] And some of this stuff is pretty cut and dry and not really defendable.

[00:08:15] You know, we were called upon to consult in a couple of cases and we take a look at it and it's like, man, you need to settle this because you don't have a, you don't have a wish and a prayer.

[00:08:28] There is no Hail Mary we could throw on this one.

[00:08:32] But, you know, the other thing about going back to certification for a minute is, you know, we do it every six months.

[00:08:42] And every six months there is something, right?

[00:08:44] Because it's, it's moving quickly and we stay on top of it.

[00:08:48] We write it into everything we do.

[00:08:49] So it's part and parcel of everything we build.

[00:08:53] And we build a lot of stuff.

[00:08:55] A lot of people look at us and say we're a website provider, but we're so much more.

[00:08:59] You know, we've been around 21 years before the days of portals, before digital applications.

[00:09:04] We have all those product lines.

[00:09:06] It's a lot of stuff to keep up with and certify.

[00:09:10] But, you know, recently, you know, we've always say I've been a leader in ADA compliance.

[00:09:18] But we also recently seen, you know, another provider pop up and say, hey, we're certified and we're recertifying every two years.

[00:09:33] And it's like, how is that even remotely good?

[00:09:41] Because we're doing it every six months and we have something.

[00:09:44] And then we have an accessibility firm on retainer 24-7.

[00:09:51] Our developers are, like you say, the knowledge, internal knowledge base built on it's pretty elaborate.

[00:09:58] How do you possibly say, you know, how is that even remotely good every two years, Jimmy?

[00:10:07] I guess to start, you know, immediately my thought is, well, if you don't create anything new, that helps.

[00:10:14] Right?

[00:10:15] Because a lot of times, you know, some of the stuff getting caught for our audits is the stuff we've developed over the last six months.

[00:10:23] And so those new features or maybe new designs on the websites or whatever it may be, all those things have to get audited.

[00:10:31] And so, you know, there's some catching up of everything new we've done over six months.

[00:10:37] So first of all, I have to say, if whoever that is is not, you know, only doing this every two years,

[00:10:43] it would help if they're not actually building anything new.

[00:10:47] And I do know of a couple of vendors that probably don't build anything new over the course of several years.

[00:10:54] So that would help.

[00:10:55] But even then, you know, what I would consider the best practices evolve faster than two years.

[00:11:02] And so, you know, we've even seen things where it's like, you know, in an audit, it's like this is the best way to do it.

[00:11:09] And then a couple audits later, we're changing it and we're doing it a little bit different in a little bit better way.

[00:11:18] Because that has become the best practice in the industry standard on how to accomplish whatever that requirement is.

[00:11:27] And so those things are evolving way faster than two years.

[00:11:31] And we see that even amongst our own audits, you know, and it's just, you know, it's like law, right?

[00:11:39] Right. The there's there's stuff like case law. Right.

[00:11:42] Well, why? That's because it's been, you know, a law is written.

[00:11:46] It gets battle tested in court, analyzed and, you know, argued back and forth.

[00:11:52] And then at the end of it is a judgment saying this is this is how this law should be interpreted.

[00:11:58] Well, the same thing's happening over here with with this accessibility stuff.

[00:12:02] And you have people saying, yeah, I know this is the goal.

[00:12:06] This is the requirement. But this is the best.

[00:12:08] This is how you should actually be accomplishing it.

[00:12:11] And those things are getting determined.

[00:12:13] And that stuff's evolving every day.

[00:12:16] And so going two years, you kind of end up in trouble.

[00:12:20] So technology moves so fast.

[00:12:22] We're in the A.I.

[00:12:23] You need to change your code base just for search now.

[00:12:27] Search has changed.

[00:12:30] So, yeah.

[00:12:31] So basically, if I, you know, have maybe some tech products that, you know, no offense, Craig, but have a Craigslist vibe, I'm OK.

[00:12:44] So, you know, just thinking about that for a minute, you know, walking down the trail of what we've been through.

[00:12:51] WCAG 2.1 was what we originally certified under that came out in 2018.

[00:12:56] Yep.

[00:12:57] And then we've recently evolved to something newer.

[00:13:01] That's right.

[00:13:02] 2.2.

[00:13:03] 2.2, which came out in late 2023.

[00:13:07] I mean, if you're running on 2.2 now, it's kind of like, well, you're left behind.

[00:13:14] I mean, 2.1.

[00:13:16] Right.

[00:13:16] Well, that was less than a year ago.

[00:13:18] So if you just certify every two years, you're behind.

[00:13:21] Right.

[00:13:21] You're behind because 2.2 is out.

[00:13:24] 3.0, there's going to be a quantum leaps and been in draft for a while now.

[00:13:27] So that's coming out.

[00:13:31] But something interesting, Jimmy, I saw was, you know, if you took the WCAG standards and you printed it out to 105 pages.

[00:13:43] Oh, light reading.

[00:13:45] Yeah.

[00:13:45] Right.

[00:13:46] So, I mean, the time that goes into it, right?

[00:13:50] And time is money, especially when you've got a bunch of developers on your payroll reading 105 pages, right?

[00:13:56] Developers aren't cheap, unfortunately.

[00:13:58] Right.

[00:13:59] And then our audit firm, you know, stays up on that stuff and they have to read the 105 pages and it just goes on and on and on.

[00:14:09] Yeah.

[00:14:09] As a matter of fact, when 2.2 came out, you know, there was obviously drafts and stuff.

[00:14:14] But even our audit firm, the people that are more on top of this than anybody, it wasn't until, I think, February where they said, okay, we're ready to start certifying you for 2.2.

[00:14:26] So it was, I think, I want to say it was February before they even agreed to start doing the things that help us get compliant with 2.2.

[00:14:35] And so it's like, those are the guys that live and breathe this every day.

[00:14:39] They are the IAAP certified professionals here.

[00:14:45] And even they had to take a little time to get ramped up and make sure that they knew what they were doing.

[00:14:51] Right.

[00:14:51] And so it's like, I don't know how anybody else stands a chance without them.

[00:14:56] Yeah.

[00:14:57] I'm with you.

[00:14:58] So let's talk about quick fixes, Jimmy.

[00:15:01] And you and I have touched on this on a couple of podcasts.

[00:15:05] Overlay accessibility widgets.

[00:15:07] Yeah.

[00:15:07] Companies are selling them in our space.

[00:15:09] Providers, look, put this little widget on your website that you click and it's got all these tools in it.

[00:15:16] And all's good.

[00:15:21] Tell me what you know and I'll tell you what I know.

[00:15:24] Okay.

[00:15:24] All right.

[00:15:26] I, you know, I want to throw them under a bus for sure.

[00:15:30] Right.

[00:15:30] But I, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that they, they are a hundred percent worthless.

[00:15:36] They, they can help you in certain things.

[00:15:39] And so I think if, you know, I do a disservice telling you otherwise, but the things that they can help with are, are what I think of as purely the superficial aspects of compliance.

[00:15:51] You know, things that are more visual, even then they're, they're not even perfect.

[00:15:54] But they, you know, they can help accomplish some of those things.

[00:15:58] The things that they really can't do is fix the compliance aspect of the, of the transactional aspects.

[00:16:06] So when it comes to things that are interactive on your site, such as filling out forms or using a special mapping feature, maybe it's, maybe, you know, it's things like you have a interactive floor plan selector.

[00:16:24] Right.

[00:16:25] Right.

[00:16:25] Like, uh, one of these ones where there's a map and you go click on it.

[00:16:29] That's where these compliant, these, these widgets, they can't help you like at all.

[00:16:34] And it's because they, they don't understand how the user is supposed to be using these things to even begin to fix them all.

[00:16:41] And so, uh, at that point, you know, those widgets aren't helping you.

[00:16:48] And so if you think that the widget is going to make you compliant, well, there, you know, a lot of what you're doing is, uh, is not even going to, to, to, to be able to, uh, for, for that widget, it's going to be able to even look at and analyze and help fix.

[00:17:04] And so when you, when you break it down that way, you know, because of what we do, you know, those widgets aren't going to save you in our industry.

[00:17:15] Like maybe, maybe it would get a lot further if you had a website that had nothing like new contact forms.

[00:17:22] All you can do is kind of click around and read some information.

[00:17:25] It might get you a good ways down the road.

[00:17:28] I wouldn't even say perfect then, but for what we do, they definitely can't fix everything.

[00:17:32] Well, in our, in our industry, I mean, what do people want?

[00:17:36] They want tours scheduled.

[00:17:37] They want guest cards filled out.

[00:17:40] They want applications submitted.

[00:17:42] Oh, once you get into the application or the resident portal, it's over.

[00:17:46] Yeah.

[00:17:46] That widget isn't going to save you.

[00:17:49] Right.

[00:17:49] So, you know, a couple of things about widgets.

[00:17:53] First off, A, they're controversial.

[00:17:56] B, the disabled community has come out against them.

[00:18:04] C, the providers in our industry are white labeling and selling them.

[00:18:10] And then the biggest thing that is new is there is a lawsuit asking for class action status against a overlay widget company called Accessibee.

[00:18:25] It's filed in New York.

[00:18:31] And there's a company using it on their website, got sued for ADA accessibility, went back and said, oh, wait, this widget cures all that.

[00:18:42] And they're like, oh, no, it doesn't.

[00:18:43] And here's a boatload of reasons in this lawsuit why it does not.

[00:18:50] So that buyer has gone and sued Accessibee.

[00:18:57] Of course, this case hasn't made its way, you know, to a trial or anything yet.

[00:19:03] So everything's an allegation to be legally correct.

[00:19:11] But let's just look at the other end of that.

[00:19:14] Let's just not even think about their case for a minute.

[00:19:19] Probably 20 to 25 percent of all lawsuits filed on accessibility.

[00:19:23] There's a widget involved, and that's been ongoing for years.

[00:19:29] That's a continual thing.

[00:19:35] Lawsuit, I've got one.

[00:19:37] Could read it to somebody, but we don't have enough time to do that.

[00:19:42] And nobody wants to have a lawsuit read to them.

[00:19:45] But there's an accessibility widget on the lawsuit we're consulting on in federal court,

[00:19:51] and it's allegations are made against the accessibility widget.

[00:19:58] So all I could say about widgets are where there's smoke, there's fire.

[00:20:06] And there's been a lot of fire under widgets from the disabled community

[00:20:10] and the litigation community by attorneys that are on that plaintiff's side

[00:20:15] that know these things pretty well.

[00:20:18] And there are four attorneys involved in this class action case,

[00:20:23] and I think that's a huge eye-opener.

[00:20:27] And a lot of the widgets the providers sell,

[00:20:33] and you and I could go look at property websites and find those all day long,

[00:20:38] are from that very company.

[00:20:41] They're white-labeled.

[00:20:42] Yeah.

[00:20:42] So there's an obvious issue out there, and all I can say,

[00:20:51] and I think they wrote it best in this overview of this case,

[00:20:56] is you can't fix this with a single line of code.

[00:21:00] Yeah.

[00:21:01] No, it's true.

[00:21:02] And I don't know.

[00:21:04] Well, you know.

[00:21:05] I like to play a little game where I go on people's websites

[00:21:08] and see how many accessibility issues I can find in less than five minutes.

[00:21:16] And so my goal is, like, find 10 in less than five minutes.

[00:21:19] And I find 10 in less than five minutes even with sites that have widgets.

[00:21:24] So I can find them.

[00:21:26] Obviously, I'm a little more – I know what I'm looking for a little more than –

[00:21:31] You're smarter than the average bear.

[00:21:32] Yeah.

[00:21:34] You know, and obviously I'm technical,

[00:21:36] so if you had somebody that isn't technical trying to find them,

[00:21:40] they might not find them as quickly as I do.

[00:21:43] You kind of got to know what you're looking for.

[00:21:46] But the fact is, is, like, I've never run on a website

[00:21:52] that has accessibility widgets that I wasn't able to find issues on.

[00:21:58] I welcome anybody to send me a website and see if I can't find an issue,

[00:22:04] but I promise you I haven't run into one yet.

[00:22:08] And so, you know, just to me that point's like,

[00:22:11] if you think that that's all you have to do, you know,

[00:22:16] you've been sold something that is wrong.

[00:22:21] Jimmy, it sounds like a new game show.

[00:22:23] Like, we're going to get a timer.

[00:22:24] Yeah, yeah.

[00:22:24] We're going to put it, and it's going to be five minutes.

[00:22:26] Yeah.

[00:22:27] And you've got five minutes to find ten things wrong with this.

[00:22:30] It's like a hackathon.

[00:22:32] Yeah.

[00:22:32] You know what I'm saying?

[00:22:33] And then the buzzer's going to hit, you know.

[00:22:35] That's right.

[00:22:36] It sounds pretty fun.

[00:22:37] Sounds like shop till you drop.

[00:22:39] Jimmy, that's a hell of a pastime you've got.

[00:22:41] Let me go find accessibility issues.

[00:22:43] Yeah, you know, some people like to play video games.

[00:22:47] I like to go find every way somebody's going to get sued.

[00:22:51] Right.

[00:22:52] Yeah.

[00:22:52] Okay.

[00:22:53] Interesting hobby.

[00:22:54] So it's not golf.

[00:22:55] It's not video games.

[00:22:57] I got other hobbies too, but, you know.

[00:23:00] I'm going to sit here and see what's wrong with accessibility in the world.

[00:23:05] It's a noble project, Jimmy.

[00:23:07] I'll give that to you.

[00:23:08] From a guy that's invested a lot of money into accessibility.

[00:23:14] So, you know, it kind of leads me back to a couple of things that I've been talking about.

[00:23:21] And I've been talking about accessibility for quite a while.

[00:23:25] I've spoken about it at conferences.

[00:23:29] And I think the first one I did was at the Multifamily Innovation Summit.

[00:23:35] People were all pitching products.

[00:23:38] And then I walked up there and said, this is why we need to get compliant with website accessibility in our industry.

[00:23:45] I didn't talk about our product.

[00:23:47] I didn't pitch anything.

[00:23:49] And I came off the stage.

[00:23:52] And two people came up to me and said, you're a total badass because you didn't go up there and pitch anything to do with your company.

[00:24:00] You're like, we need to change the way we do things in our industry for the sake of the disabled community.

[00:24:07] And, you know, I've talked about it in other podcasts.

[00:24:10] So it's been a burning topic, and we've invested a lot in it.

[00:24:14] And I think eventually, you know, multifamily moves slow, as everybody says.

[00:24:19] But it will eventually focus more and more on this, especially as the government has been getting more and more and more involved.

[00:24:27] This has been battle-tested in litigation.

[00:24:30] The Supreme Court has stood up and said it's part of the ADA Act now.

[00:24:36] I think there's been something rewritten.

[00:24:40] I believe I'd have to go dig through my law knowledge database there, tying it back in also.

[00:24:49] I want to say possibly through the Justice Department.

[00:24:53] But anyway, it's a big deal.

[00:24:56] And all I can say is it's a must-do, especially in housing where we sit at what I call a high-risk mark because we're providing housing.

[00:25:07] We're supposed to be compliant in everything we do.

[00:25:10] We're supposed to follow certain laws and non-discrimination.

[00:25:15] And when we're discriminating against disabled people, I think it's a pretty big thing.

[00:25:20] Yeah, well, I mean, if you think about it, so when we started this conversation today, you mentioned that, like, the reason behind this thing is that it's supposed to be accessible and fair to people that are visually impaired, right?

[00:25:36] And so the key word being fair.

[00:25:40] So now if you can't give somebody housing because they're not able to find or apply or do whatever with your product, your housing product, right, it's not fair, which runs into fair housing.

[00:25:59] So, yeah, no, you get coupled.

[00:26:00] So you're going to take that fire that's already burning and you're going to just drop a gallon of gasoline on top of it.

[00:26:07] And, you know, there are state laws, California, Florida, you know, where it does tie into a state, you know, housing and disability acts, so on and so forth.

[00:26:16] And there are many others out there.

[00:26:18] So it is a big thing.

[00:26:22] One thing I do want to point out as we round out this topic is all of our services are digital now.

[00:26:30] So digital accessibility is huge.

[00:26:34] And there's a thing, by the way, in the legal world called a nexus.

[00:26:38] And the nexus is the property and its digital services kind of become one or interdependent on each other, interconnected.

[00:26:50] And they are hyper interconnected in our industry for sure.

[00:26:54] So it's something that everybody needs to think about and, you know, make sure they're not trying to quick fix this because I think the quick fix world's getting ready to have some shakeups in it.

[00:27:11] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:27:13] Well, it'll be interesting to see what happens here.

[00:27:16] Big topic, Jimmy.

[00:27:18] We will certainly be back for more as things evolve.

[00:27:22] Until then, I want to thank everyone for joining us.

[00:27:25] You can find us streaming everywhere.

[00:27:27] Be sure to visit us online at multifamilytechgurus.com.

[00:27:32] Until next time, I am Kerry Kirby along with Jimmy Lancaster, and we are the Multifamily Tech Gurus.