So in the About You section in the technical expertise, it says Expert skills in understanding WCAG 2.1 AA. That’s a must for any accessibility position. In the previous video I just got done talking about how you have to learn WCAG to get any accessibility position. It’s mandatory. You must understand it. Also, in the next two sentences it says demonstrate a strong understanding of the legal landscape and trends in digital accessibility requirements and litigation.

Below that it says comfortable partnering closely with Legal on all litigation investigations and questions related to digital accessibility compliance. That sentence, and this is me extracting meaning from that, that tells me that they are constantly defending against litigation from plaintiffs law firms and that they need someone to help them understand the material claims being made against them. And that is exactly what my ADA Compliance Course addresses.

So this is telling you that the actual market is valuing accessibility. And if you get into the accessibility market, you will have something that is very valuable to these different companies. They need help with this. In this case, Target is specifically looking for a consultant, a full-time consultant that can help them with this. So I’m presuming from this, I’m presuming that they have so much litigation against them and they need someone with experience in this to help them directly respond to, not necessarily respond to, but understand the claims that are being made against them.

Also a strong understanding of the legal landscape. So they are aware of just how litigious this is and they want to stay on top of this. So they want to be in compliance at all time and make sure that they are following best practices and they really need someone in charge to help them with that. They also in here they said track record in building and maintaining a compliance program ecosystem to include creating and managing partner trainings and program documentation, developing an ongoing audit process.

These are all things that I continually talk about. These are so important, especially to the household names that you know and recognize, because I can guarantee you that their digital assets, their mobile apps, their websites, any documents that they have publicly available, etc., anything that they have publicly available is scrutinized by these plaintiffs law firms. And then it says there’s a few other interesting selection. It says able to use data to tell stories and to achieve buy-in from senior leaders.

That to me is a very curious sentence to have in here because this is from Target itself. Presumably this is from target. So Target is already saying we can’t get senior leaders to buy into something or we need help to get them to buy into something. So we’re seeking out help. But shouldn’t the company already, if they’re posting about this, shouldn’t the senior leaders be convinced in and of itself just from the very fact that the people posting this need help with convincing them? That just seems at ODS to me.

But maybe the senior leaders are completely separate and so this could be another story. But I just thought that was very interesting, that they need to achieve buy-in from senior leaders and that is directly from the post itself. So very interesting post. Also what’s interesting, the salary range is $109,000 to $196,200. The market is telling you that they value digital accessibility. So whether you’re seeking employment, whether you are seeking a career, you want to get a long-term career, whether you want to build your own small business, these are all things that are very doable and decently, lucrative relative to other positions and other lines of work.

So I will link to this below. But what this is telling you is that the market is valuing accessibility. And accessibility is something that is needed not just for compliance, but for genuine access to make sure that digital experiences are accessible to people with disabilities.

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So when you understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, you have a very good understanding of digital accessibility. You may not know the specifics, for example, you may not know how to make an Excel spreadsheet accessible, but you understand the principles of accessibility. So this can help even for jobs that are unrelated to accessibility. Let’s say you’re applying for a traditional position at a bank related to accessibility, not whatsoever. Still, you have an additional skill on your resume that is unique.

So you’d be hard-pressed to find anybody that is knowledgeable of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. And it’s also seemingly complex. So many people stay away from these technical standards because they just seem too complicated, and they’re for someone else who is more tech-savvy or more aware of accessibility. This is just not for them. Many people are, I think, there’s even a low grade of fear of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. So if you have this, it’s a significant marketable advantage that you have on others.

And if the person reviewing your application or interviewing does not know about the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, it works well for you to explain what they are and how they help. And this is something that that person can start internalizing and realizing, oh, you have something that’s very marketable and helpful and we need this. And they may know that already, or they may start to think about it and realize later how valuable this is and how much they need it.

And especially as you’re explaining about accessibility and how you came to know about it, you can also convey to them subtly you’re not telling them directly that they need it, but by saying that like, oh, yeah, this is something that has come about because of how the Americans with Disabilities Act is being interpreted and the different requirements under Section 508 and Section 504, and how anybody that’s a recipient of federal funding needs to make their digital assets accessible, etc.

If you’re explaining that this person is hearing that, and if they can put two and two together, they might realize that, hey, either we need you for this position because you’re going to add additional value, or there’s another position we can place you in because we might need you here more. But the point is, it makes you more marketable. It’s a very valuable bullet point to have on your resume, and one that is material. It’s not fluffy. It really adds to your resume.

Also, if you are thinking about a career in accessibility. All accessibility positions, regardless of what they are, they require knowledge of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. And if you’re in accessibility, it doesn’t matter whether you’re in sales or another position that’s not really related, that’s not really directly involved in accessibility. Even if you’re marketing accessibility, you need to know about the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines because the principles come up over and over again.

So if you are thinking about entering the accessibility space, you need to know the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. And by the way, these positions can easily hit six figures. I see this all the time on job postings. And the other day I saw a position that Target the post is no longer live, but the salary was $196,000 for this position. And of course, it required knowledge of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

Also, if you’re selling digital products and you incorporate the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and you make them WCAG conformant, that is going to help you. It’s going to give you the first mover advantage in your space in terms of accessibility and WCAG. Because what do people do? They find out about the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and they search for it. Not many people think to market accessibility and WCAG conformance. So if you learn these guidelines and you incorporate accessibility into your product or service, you’re going to have an advantage.

And it’s something even if people aren’t looking for it, if you promote it, then all of a sudden you have that advantage. It gives you the first mover advantage into accessibility for your category. You may not have been first in your category, but you will be first for accessibility in your category. And more and more and more people are looking for accessibility and just wait for a new law to come into place. And I’ll talk about more about that after this next bullet point, which is digital accessibility consulting.

It is desperately needed, whether people know it or not. But the good news is that more and more people are becoming aware and think about everybody with digital assets. They need to make them accessible, and they need help with doing so. They need help with accessibility programs, they need help with building accessibility policies or writing accessibility policies. This space is going to become even more trending. It’s going to become even more on fire than it already has been.

Just wait until the DOJ passes a new regulation, congress passes the new law, and or the Americans With Disabilities Act gets amended. Wait until that happens, and then you will see movement, so much tremendous movement. And there will be such a need for digital accessibility. So even if someone isn’t aware of the need now, let them know what you do and they might come back to you later on. But you can definitely build a small business around accessibility. But of course, you must know the Web Content Accessibility guidelines inside and out.

So how do you learn about WCAG? Well, training, right? Like you can go about this informally or you can go about it formally. What I did is I took the informal route and I learned about foundational concepts from guides, checklists, YouTube. I spent a lot of time watching videos and just flipping through, reading different blogs on accessibility and going that route. It took me a long time, but what I was doing was I was looking for content that I was looking for good content, right?

Someone who knew what they were talking about, but also knew how to relay that in simple terms. And I was trying to avoid the fluffy content. There’s so much fluff out there where people are just wasting your time going over these long convoluted explanations in a roundabout way to get at something that they can distill very easily so that you can extract meaning. So I went about it going through many, many different materials and learning WCAG and just finding who I learned best from and also taking into consideration the learning style.

So that’s another sub bullet point I have below. Time is the learning style. So who are you best learning from? Who writes really well? Who is conveying the meaning of the subject very well? What I have here is my WCAT course and YouTube. So if you take you can combine multiple resources, but you want to learn this as fast as possible. You don’t want to spend a month or two months learning about the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. You will learn more over time, but you want to start to grasp the essentials right away.

And so I recommend my WCAG course. You can go to Wcagcourse.com. I’ll link to it in the description below. And this is me going through in plain English and explaining all of the success criteria in as easy to understand terms as possible. And there’s a video, and then there’s the text below. And then there’s a link to every success criterion on the W three C. Of course, this information, you can find it if you are looking online, but it’s not as fast, right? Part of this to me is time is of the essence.

I want to have everything distilled down for me and explain for me in easy to understand fashion. And so that’s why I recommend my course. But you can also supplement this with YouTube and watching videos on. People go through the success criteria in other ways. So there’s something to be said about learning something and then learning it again and going through it again. And you will start to really start to hone in on becoming an expert and developing expertise, which is where you want to get at.

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Currently I am sharing the screen of the Shopify homepage and I’m down at the footer and there is no accessibility statement. There is nothing on accessibility. There is a section labeled Global Impact and there are links for sustainability Social Impact, Build Black, Build Native and Research but nothing on accessibility. And wouldn’t you think you would have a Build Accessible link or something to that effect on there?

But I’m going to go ahead and click the Social Impact link and it says entrepreneurship is an opportunity for everyone. The future becomes reality by advocating for underrepresented communities globally, making our company and industry reflect, etc. Then it says removing barriers to entrepreneurship. Commerce is a powerful force in the world. We remove barriers to entrepreneurship so that anyone can leverage its power to create and we go on and on.

Another section says fostering a diverse tech ecosystem. The technology industry needs more voices. We are focused on creating equitable access to education and career opportunities that support people who will power the future of global commerce. And then it says making resources available to all. To increase entrepreneurship, we have to ensure that all tools and support needed to succeed are accessible to anyone.

So I’m going to click on the link that says explore our learning initiatives. And then it says access to learning opportunities is essential for entrepreneurs. Our focus is on maximizing any entrepreneur’s chance of success by opening access to as many resources as possible, saying all the keywords that would lead to talking about digital accessibility, except for that’s not what these pages are about. They’re about entrepreneurship and this general feel-good social cause. They’re saying a lot, but they’re also saying a little because there’s just not much of substance on these pages.

And so they’ve got this open learning program. They’re working with colleges and universities to develop digital learning experiences, but nothing on. I don’t see anything specifically on accessibility, although they’ve mentioned access many of times. Nothing on accessibility. So nothing from their homepages, no links. I continue to look around and there is an Accessibility Best Practices for Shopify themes. So I have this document pulled up. So this is some documentation on how to increase accessibility. And there’s some good information on there. It’s not extensive, but there is some good information.

They also have an accessibility policy. And so this policy, it looks like it’s a result of a requirement of the Ontarians for Disabilities Act. And it says feedback process. Shopify welcomes any feedback as we use to provide services to persons with disabilities. And then it says accessibility team. And the country is Ontario. So this is about AODA compliance, right? Because number twelve, the number twelve heading says Request for AODA Compliance documents. I don’t know if this is there’s another page on accessibility for themes. So there’s some information on accessibility for themes. It’s not as extensive as the other page, but that appears to be it.

And then we have the Shopify App Store, which still houses a number of overlay widgets that are in this case, I think they’d be called apps or plugins. And so there are any number of overlay widgets on here. But this gives the idea, the false impression that these overlay widgets can make a Shopify website accessible, that they can make it ADA compliant, WCAG conformant, when if you’re watching this channel, you know that that is not the case.

So there are all these apps, but they give Shopify website owners, Shopify customers this impression that they can make a website accessible, ADA compliant with these overlay widgets. And in fact, I have a tweet pulled up, and this tweet thread is from Austen Allred. And so Austen and I’m just going to click hover over his name. Austen is the co-founder and CEO of Bloom Tech, the school that invests in you. So he has 282.4 thousand followers. And on January 27, 2022, he wrote, my sister’s small business got a letter saying someone is suing her for her Shopify site not being compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Her lawyer is telling her to pay the $10,000 settlement.

And then he also replies to his tweet, it was not a lawsuit, just a letter. There are only a couple of employees. It’s all fixed now. And then he writes, it was fixed by installing a Shopify extension plugin. Whatever Shopify calls them, took 30 seconds. And then someone else says, shouldn’t Shopify be able to help with making her website accessible? So this is someone who is tech-savvy. They went with the overlay option, and presumably in part because Shopify is putting these plugins on their App Store and they’re giving them credibility.

And so this is what’s happening right now. And I’m recording this on June 20, 2023. And Shopify, their customers have been sued so many times for accessibility. So many times. Shopify website owners might be the most targeted defendants in website accessibility litigation. I have talked to so many of them. And so for Shopify, really, what the response should be is to make their website builder platform so that you can make a website as accessible as possible outside, out of the box.

And primarily this refers to I’m referring to interactive elements, making sure that those interactive elements have appropriate name, state roles and or values where applicable. Right? But it goes beyond that. It really goes into making sure your platform is as accessible as possible, and then prompting website owners where additional accessibility or accessibility could be involved with specific things that they upload, add, edit, etc. As a website builder platform, you want to do all you can. It’s understandable.

And everybody should know that because someone can customize a website and they’re going to upload content that we can’t. As a platform, you can’t do everything to make sure that website is accessible. Part of this is on the website owner, right? But then also a significant part is on these website builders, which have tremendous resources. They’re very tech-savvy. They have the developers, they have the money. I looked and the last reported revenue on Google is $2.93 billion. Shopify is a publicly traded company and we’re still at this point where their website owners are being sued.

And then the downstream effect is that people with disabilities are harmed because all of these websites, right, all of these popular e-commerce websites, are still missing basic accessibility considerations. With the lack of those considerations, it is either impeding access altogether or it’s causing a significant degradation of experience, or it’s just a stacking inconveniences, whether they be minor or mild or fair or significant. The point being is that these websites can be made more accessible and we can improve access to people with disabilities.

I’m not saying that Shopify must do everything, but they need to take stronger action and they definitely need to have an accessibility statement on their website. So this is the state of Shopify and accessibility. At least outwardly obvious, right? We can’t know much more than what is made public, but so far, with these pages and the resources provided, Shopify still has a lot of work to do. And really it should have been done a long time ago, because this has been a problem that has been ongoing for years.

And I think Shopify, if they really want to, they have these links that are for social programs, social causes, making sure there is access. I’m perplexed. I don’t know why they haven’t done more for accessibility.

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