Driving Progress in European Web Accessibility

Could the future of web accessibility hinge on nuanced grading systems rather than binary pass/fail ratings? Join us as we sit down with Detlev Fischer, Managing Director of Dias and a key figure in the development of the German test procedure for WCAG 2. Detlev shares his eclectic career path, from studying film in Hamburg and visual arts in the UK to becoming an accessibility advocate. You'll gain a unique insider perspective on the collaborative efforts required to shape accessibility standards and the critical role organizations like W3C and IAAP play in this evolving field.

We dive deep into the complexities of web accessibility standards, particularly focusing on the WCAG 2 guidelines. Discover why binary ratings may not be enough and explore innovative solutions like graded ratings and the use of assertions for dynamic content. The conversation expands to the European Accessibility Act, the challenges of reaching a consensus among experts across regions, and the urgency to accelerate progress in web accessibility despite slow advancements over the past decade.

In our final segment, we tackle the implementation challenges of European accessibility standards and the varied progress across different regions. Learn how mandatory accessibility statements have driven improvements on public websites and why the demand for accessibility expertise is skyrocketing among software companies. We also celebrate recent achievements in the field, extending heartfelt thanks to everyone who contributed to these milestones. This episode is a tribute to the hard work and collaboration that continue to drive the accessibility movement forward.

Chapters

• 0:02 Exploring Accessibility Standards and Future
• 10:44 Advancing Accessibility Standards in Europe
• 20:46 European Accessibility Standards Implementation Challenges
• 31:54 Celebrating Accessibility Achievements

Transcript

Neil Milliken: 0:02

Hello and welcome to Acces Chat. I'm delighted that we're joined today by Detlev Fischer, who is the Managing Director of Dias. Detlev has a long history of working in the Access Abundancy space. I remember his name from when I was getting engaged with things like W3C, seeing him on email lists and so on, so it's been a long time coming to get him on the show. Luckily, we bumped into each other at an IAAP conference not so long ago and I managed to persuade him to join us. So, Detlev, welcome, it's great to have you with us. Can you tell us a bit about yourself, your journey into accessibility Because most of us take a rather securitist path into this and what you're doing right now?

Detlev Fischer: 0:49

Thank, you Hi? Well, the same is probably true for me. How did I get there? I mean, I used to study film at the art school in Hamburg and after that went to the UK because someone suggested I could add some post-credit studies there and did something on. I think the course was called Visual Arts at Coventry University and during that course or after that course, I was asked to stay on as a research fellow, do my PhD there. That was a new university which needed people to do a PhD, so I was actually even paid to do that, which is very unusual from today's perspective. But I got a nice little salary to just sit and research.

Detlev Fischer: 1:40

And during that time I went to Rolls-Royce Arrow Engines to do some field research because I was working on animated diagrams and somehow it was a little bit like what I think. There's this English expression a solution looking for a problem, and you do nice animated things and you hope that someone will, that it will have some kind of application. And it turned out that it didn't really have an application and someone who just died and who was very dear to me in my time in England, john Lindsay. He basically turned this thing on its feet and said you know you can't do that. You have to look for a problem, start with a problem that people have there in some real context and work from there. So I went there, did some field research, looked at how error engine engineers service engineers were looking at problems, trying to solve problems, and what kind of resources they were using to do that, and among those were also big diagrams, but also talks to colleagues and database entries of past engine failures and whatever. So a wide range of resources. And that was actually what I did for my PhD.

Detlev Fischer: 3:09

So after that my wife had come over to the UK, we had a child coming and that was basically the moment when we moved back to Germany and there I did some work in adult education and then after that, went into transport research, did lots of European projects on intermodal transport and finally, since I did some websites for those transport projects, I got into accessibility simply because I wanted to do it right. So I looked up things and found the BITV test, which I'm managing today, which tells people in kind of easy, step by step why do you need to do that, how do you do that, how do you test it, how to do an accessible website. So I started as a very simple basis, did some websites and tried to make that accessible, and so I had this connection to Dias, and when the old company, the transport research company, went downhill, I just looked around and got into Dias.

Detlev Fischer: 4:17

So that's the story, how I got to accessibility basically Great and I think it's really fascinating because we talk to people that have been in the profession for a while and none of us started out like thinking you know what? I'm going to become an accessibility practitioner. What I hope is that there are people in education now that think that that's a career and that are thinking well, you know, well, that looks like a good career, but most of us came about this through unusual roots and sort of fell into what I think is a vocation.

Neil Milliken: 5:04

And maybe it's a vocation, because we all created it to be a vocation now, so maybe we can be a little proud of that. But it really is an honor to have you on the program today. So thank you for all the efforts that you have made.

Detlev Fischer: 5:20

Thanks.

Neil Milliken: 5:21

So, as I mentioned at the beginning, we were meeting at the IAAP event, which is the International Association of Accessibility Professionals. For those listening that don't know the acronym, so you had to teach yourself. I had to teach myself. Same for Deborah. What was it that got you interested in engaging with organizations like W3C and NIWAP? Was it again the passion for doing things right?

Detlev Fischer: 6:03

I actually can't quite remember how that came about. I think at some meeting I would have met Shadi Abouzara, who has been at the W3C for a long time. I think he's now at Amazon. I love Shadi and I can't remember how that came about. I mean, we were working in the field and we were thinking about standards because we were trying to basically transpose everything that W3C did with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines into the German test procedure, which tries to follow the international ones. So that was my task. When I entered Dias, my task was to update the test procedure for WCAG 2. At that time I entered Dias, so we were rewriting, we're writing new checking procedures or test steps, and I think maybe in that context someone mentioned that there could be an opportunity to also take part in the standardization efforts.

Detlev Fischer: 7:14

And also, I mean, it's obviously something you're kind of tickled because you're then asked to, you're one of the invited experts, so that's nice to be, um, but also it's it's something you get a more direct, um, more direct feeling of what happens when you try to pin down those things which are, which is incredibly hard. I mean, I just could never believe how many hours people discuss one tiny, tiny thing which may be, whether a preposition is here or there or whether it's you know, it's really really minute things that are discussed for ages and it was quite amazing to see that. Also frustrating sometimes, because especially now with W3C, now with WCAG 3 being developed, it's such a big thing that you wonder, you know, if you're so minute and go into so much detail, will it ever be ready? And when it's a frightening thing. But yeah, I quite like being involved in the standards thing and have been since.

Debra Ruh: 8:25

I was one of the invited experts to get involved in W3C and I was shocked at the detail and it's not really my personality, so I found it just mind-blowingly tedious, and only because it's just not my little ADHD personality but the amount of work that goes into these standards was, I'm so glad I got to do it. I was stunned at the efforts and the amount of time that people were taking, most of them voluntarily, to do this. I think we should really really thank all these invited experts that have changed our world. But I would be curious, especially with this, talking about W3C, the 3.0. I have had, we've had guests talk about it. We've had. We used to have somebody in our community that was always slamming the standards and we're like, okay, okay, you know, at some point we have to have standards so we know what to base our laws on and you know, and so, but what?

Debra Ruh: 9:36

I would a question I have and I wonder what is the future of these standards boards? Do we need them? Do we need W3C? I know this is a big question to ask, but and certainly I know that we need them, but I do. There are people that are saying, oh no, they just slow us down. But I was, do you mind just exploring that topic a little bit, because you are certainly a much more of an expert on that topic than I am.

Detlev Fischer: 10:04

Well, I'm not sure what to say, to be honest, and it's not because I feel I could be stepping on someone's toes or something. It's really like it's very difficult to imagine a different setting or different scenario where this kind of activity wasn't there. What would people do? It's, I mean, it's, one angle on this is, you know, what has always not infuriated, but it's always kind of bogged me down with this idea that everything has to be rated as pass or fail. You know all these. You know that's the whole idea of WCAG 2, at least, that everything has to boil down as pass or fail. You know all these. You know that's the whole idea of WCAG 2, at least, that everything has to boil down to pass and fail.

Detlev Fischer: 10:50

And in my kind of daily practice I realized that there are so many gray areas and so many cases where something is nominally a fail but it's not a real problem, or something is a pass but there are problems and they're not really captured, that I was never very happy with that. And we had actually something in the German test procedure which was a graded rating scheme. So we had an opportunity to say this is a pass, this is a near pass, this is a partly pass and this is a near fail. And this is a fail and something I mean. I think W3 is moving into that direction to make it more fine, more kind of nuanced, fine-grained, the kind of rating also, because many large players find it very hard to fully conform.

Detlev Fischer: 11:47

But there are issues about that which go a little bit to the direction of your question, I think, and that is this whole issue of assertions which is discussed right now in the working group, the idea being that if you can't meet certain things, like you can't ensure that your images all have proper alternative text, could you then not just say we have a process in place which ensures that after some time, or in most cases, or however you put it, those images will get alternative text and those videos will get captioning and so on, so, and that you can then use that kind of assertion in place of conformance, which can be, you know, evaluated with a test.

Detlev Fischer: 12:33

You know you just say you can't, your content will never be quite there, but you have you say you know I pass this because I have this assertion that we do our best to do it. And obviously that's fraught with problems because it can easily be gamed. You don't know whether people make these assertions in good faith or whether they just make them because some marketing guy says you know, let's do these assertions, no one will check it. Marketing guy says you know, let's do these assertions, no one will check it. And I mean this discussion is quite interesting and is one of the more you know fraud. It's fraud with issues and it's happening right now.

Detlev Fischer: 13:10

But I also realize that it's maybe in a changing playing field, with so many actors that have dynamic content that changes all the time. It's maybe something that needs to be there, because there's old method where you say this is my test object, this is my website tested. Now, you know, check it, repair everything and then it's fine. It's just doesn't work anymore. So it's, but it's difficult to see how it's going.

Debra Ruh: 13:36

So I just always wondered and then let me turn it over to the other host but I don't understand how we do it without standards boards, because the standards allow us all to agree with what we're talking about. So I'm with you. I just don't know how we do it without it, even though it's a tedious process. Hats off to every single person that's involved in this.

Debra Ruh: 14:05

We were just talking with another guest on another show we were talking about how do you know it's buyer beware, how do you know which vendor to pick to make sure that you can be successful in your accessibility journey, which that's a big thing that I just said already. But how do you do it if we don't even know, if we're not all on the same page of what we're even talking about, which, to me, is where the standards come into play? But I also think, on that conversation, one way that a brand can do their due diligence is look and see which leaders are heavily engaged with these standards, because they're the ones that are deciding, actually, how we're going to all move forward. So I, I, we didn't mention that on the last program, we'll mention that now, but anyway, I really appreciate all the leadership that you've shown us.

Antonio Santos: 15:00

Okay. So so I can jump in During the no, in the recent developments of the European Accessibility Act, we've seen the European Commission running different meetings with stakeholders from different countries, trying to work on the standards, having local meetings, and then I realized, no, in my own personal thoughts okay, we have already so many standards now running these meetings with every European country, is this going to lead us anywhere? Some countries don't. Even I was looking into the experts that sometimes were invited that these people don't even have a work history of working or improving the web. So my question, resuming, is how can we move faster? Because if we look back 10 years ago, the number of websites that are accessible and you look today, the progress is still minimum. So how can we move?

Detlev Fischer: 15:59

faster, good question.

Debra Ruh: 16:04

I don't know.

Detlev Fischer: 16:08

I mean, I think, the European. The first thing is, you know, even if you have a standard and I think that needs to be realized there are still many different ways of interpreting it. And do you have different experts agreeing? They're disagreeing about things. So someone will say this is a pass, the other one will say this is a fail. I have this long-standing article, which I've never finished, which is called wiggle room, you know, where you say nearly all these success criteria. There's wiggle room where you can say, well, is this now really a pass? Can there still be called a pass? Is it a fail and all that so, and then I mean the European standard basically just picks up on the WCAG stuff and adds other things. And that's what we are doing right now, and that's what we did in Paris at Atos, in this IAAP workshop to look at these additional requirements which come in with the European norm that not only uses WCAG but also has other things, and to see how can these be understood, what do they mean to people, and I think inviting people from all the member states to get a view on that, even if they may not be experts, I think at least it leads to a situation where they may become aware or there's something where we need to do something. We need to get someone to help us or train ourselves. So, however, they do it to understand what's happening and what we need to do as, for example, european member states. What do we need to do so that our public bodies fulfill those requirements which are set down in the European law? So I think it's a good starting point and also, of course, it's interesting to see for us as practitioners. We have now started trying to. You know, a group of experts is now trying to think about understanding text for these additional criteria or requirements, and obviously it's relevant to see what other countries do with these. I mean, if they have something like subtitles should be spoken, and not only that you have subtitles, but you should be able to turn these subtitles into audible text. You know under what conditions, and so on.

Detlev Fischer: 18:37

You know people treat all these requirements in different ways and some say, oh no, this, we can't do this. Or they say all these things about technical documentation. They pertain only to say software, and if you have someone say transport body putting an faq on their website, that's content. That's not technical documentation proper and this question is unsolved. You have something in the European norm that says you know prerequisites, so on. So if you have technical documentation, then do that.

Detlev Fischer: 19:11

But what exactly is that kind of what counts as technical documentation? That is something where different people have different opinions about and, depending on those, they may say this is not applicable, or they may say we need to to test all this and it's all not accessible, and so for that I think it's very important to get these different European experts together and find you try to get some kind of mutual, some kind of common ground or mutual understanding of what it means, and our aim is to kind of basically write understanding texts for those additional things that are in the end. I don't know how long that will take and how that will go, but that's the aim.

Antonio Santos: 19:59

At European level. We know that there have been different reports that measure the accessibility maturity of each country in terms of knowledge, and we know that countries work. Do you believe or, by your experience, feel that the fact that countries and nations are at a different level of maturity on digital is impacting the way how the Accessibility Act is developing?

Detlev Fischer: 20:27

I think someone else would be better placed to answer that. I'm not entirely sure. I mean I haven't done. I know that Susanna Laurin, for example, has done a review of the implementation of the European Accessibility Act and it may have more to say on that, I would imagine. I know a little bit from the German side that there was a report, and many people have criticized it that it's kind of painting a more rosy picture than it should have, and I know from our experience. For example, we've been testing public websites of two federal states commissioned to do that as part of this monitoring exercise, and it's not a pretty picture.

Detlev Fischer: 21:14

It's very simple. I mean, everyone knows that, you know it's getting better, though, and I think one thing that does make it better is the requirement to put the accessibility statement on the website, because that brings it out in the open that accessibility is not there yet, and it's kind of embarrassing to show that, and so that gives people an incentive. It gives these public bodies an incentive to improve that, and so that gives people an incentive. It gives these public bodies an incentive to improve things. But I can't say much about the differences in European countries. There's more hearsay that I hear. You know those countries there are not. You know there's very little happening and others are much better. And I know for a fact that, like the UK and the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries will be more advanced than others. For sure, but beyond that I can't really say much about that.

Debra Ruh: 22:08

Can I just make a really quick comment, since I've so interrupted you? Neil, you go, and then I'll just want to make a real quick comment.

Neil Milliken: 22:16

Well, if you're going to be real quick, go for it.

Debra Ruh: 22:18

OK, well, I just want to say that in the United States, when we did our federal law years ago, we did not say you needed those accessibility standards. But then we started doing laws in the different states and I believe Oklahoma did something where they required you to do the accessibility statement and we saw such positive impact because of that.

Neil Milliken: 22:40

But I'm so sorry, um, neil, get over to you that's all right, um, so it's interesting because, I mean, in my role, I I'm, we operate in lots of different European territories, so I'm seeing some of the differences, because we're French headquartered. We're not doing it against BITFL, we're doing it against RGAA, and the requirement there is that we produce what's called a Chema pluriannuel, which is a multi-year plan. So not only do you put your accessibility statement on your website, but you also then have to publish your plan of action on your website, but you also then have to publish your plan of action, and so I think that that does. Yes, I mean we're applauding, but it's the plan. But there's quite a lot of inaction in France, because France has a habit of being really good at implementing laws and then ignoring them. Should they choose to them? Should they choose to um so um?

Antonio Santos: 23:46

so well, I think things are I, I'm optimistic is as it says in my um subtitle here.

Neil Milliken: 23:48

But I do think that it's really interesting to to see the different ways that this is being applied, and I also think I'm really interested to see what happens when we find the risk of market exclusion, because this is the thing that's starting to get. Interesting is when, by not being accessible or by not having the documentation about accessibility, suddenly you find yourself disqualified from a bid or a contract. But it goes much larger with the European Accessibility Act, because you're excluded from an entire market. Yes, because compliance with the EN norm is a requirement for you to get a quality mark, so the CE mark, which is what's needed if you're selling a product in Europe. So that's a potentially really big penalty, far more than being sued.

Neil Milliken: 24:48

But how that's interpreted may be different in different countries.

Neil Milliken: 24:51

So if you're a multinational, that's a real problem for you because you don't know which application of the you know or which interpretation of the gray areas may impact your product.

Neil Milliken: 25:09

And so you know one country may have decided actually this is fine, you go ahead, you know we accept your interpretation of the gray areas as compliant and another might not. And I wonder what will happen when one country decides that you're not compliant and suddenly you potentially lose your access to an entire market because you're disqualified from having a CE mark. So I think you know it's a real watch this space kind of moment to see what happens here and you know how rigorously the law is applied and whether or not it crosses borders or stays kind of siloed because you would think it's a European law that it would cross borders. Certainly the certification crosses borders, even if the local implementations of the laws are different. I think it's really complex. Probably do need to get Susanna back on to tell us how we're going to do it get Susanna back on to tell us how we're going to do it.

Detlev Fischer: 26:16

We see a lot of demand from that kind of realization that the European Accessibility Act is coming, and it's mostly companies, software companies, developing things like recruitment systems, travel management systems, intranets, things like that. They suddenly wake up and say, oh, hang on, we need to be accessible very soon. We need that expertise. How do we do this? So we have a lot of requests right now and it seems to be increasing because people get worried.

Detlev Fischer: 26:48

Some people also get worried about what's the German word is Abmahnungen I don't know whether there's anything similar, maybe something like drive-by lawsuits. I think is the American term, so that some people specialized on basically getting some money simply by pointing out that you're not accessible and claiming that they're acting on behalf of someone who is disadvantaged through that. And obviously there can also be real claims apart from that. But I think people seem to be worried about abmanungen because that's what happened after the I think, the data protection law. There was a wave of this happening in Germany which was costly for quite a few people, so they're worried about that. So we're not so much in the product area where the CE mark would be relevant, but we do see that demand is picking up.

Neil Milliken: 27:52

Yeah, yeah I know, I think that the difference between gdpr and and um the eaa is that, and I think I'm I'm going to be killed if I misquote susanna lauren on this is that the eaa has been implemented as local laws, whereas actually gdpr was a regulation.

Neil Milliken: 28:14

So there's a difference between it being an act and a piece of regulation. So the regulation is harmonized across the entirety of the European Union, whereas this is implemented locally. And I think that that's what's going to cause the challenges, is those local interpretations, because there isn't that same level of harmonization. So it's going to be really interesting. And to back you up on what you just said, detlef, we certainly see the impact of GDPR amongst our German colleagues and customers. There is a real focus on privacy and not transgressing the line there, and that interpretation of that because of the drive-by I can't say the German word, you'll have to remind me of it again. I want to get this one down um, you know it really, you know, has made a sort of kind of cultural impact into how we then deliver it services I think it's exciting.

Debra Ruh: 29:29

I think I I'm so proud of the EU, I'm very proud of them. This is how we make progress, because we are not seeing progress with a lot of the others. So and you know, maybe we're doing it old fashioned in the United States, but I don't care. I'm saying to the US corporations we expect you to be accessible, get there, work with it, because the community is tired of not being included. So that's why I have taken my accessibility experience and focused on Billion Strong, because we need to say we need to support the EU and support everybody that's doing this work, but we need to stop purchasing products and services from groups that don't include us. So I think there's multiple things that need to be done to make accessibility. You know just part of the way we all do business. Why are we excluding any human beings? I do not even understand.

Detlev Fischer: 30:23

Yeah Well, when you talk to customers, of course it's nice not to have to or at least I don't like that role very much to kind of appear like some kind of accessibility cop, you know going there.

Detlev Fischer: 30:38

And so you have to do it that way and you fail here and there and so on. And unfortunately it's mostly not necessary because once they call they do have an intrinsic interest in understanding it and getting it right. So you don't even have to go to that level of telling them you have to do this and that you just tell them what's needed and how then can they turn their product or their site or whatever, into something more accessible.

Debra Ruh: 31:11

I agree, because I totally agree with you Once they're interested, they want to get it right and they're very innovative. We saw so much innovation come from the corporations, but I think what we need to do is we are over. There's more than a billion people with disabilities in the world, so I believe the community needs to get together and support the leaders that are trying to support us, and we need to speak out to the ones that we don't understand why they're not including us. We just do. I think our voices need to be heard in a different way, not only with just the lawsuits or things like that, but everything we have at our disposal.

Debra Ruh: 31:51

So I think we should all celebrate what's happening. I'm very stoked about it. I really am. Thank you for all of the work you've done to make this happen.

Neil Milliken: 32:00

Thank you. So thank you, teta. We've reached the end of our half hour. It's flown by. I just need to thank Amazon and MyClearText for keeping us on air and keeping us captioned and accessible, and I really look forward to continuing this conversation on social media. It's been a real pleasure talking to you today.

Detlev Fischer: 32:22

Thanks, thanks for having me.