How to make your customer experience more inclusive (and make more sales) – with Jodie Greer, Be People Smart

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:08

Welcome to the, Bring Your Product Ideas To Life Podcast, practical advice, and inspiration to help you create and sell your own physical products. Here's your host Vicki Weinberg. Today. I am delighted to invite Jodie Greer onto the podcast. So, Jodie is the founder of Be People Smart, a disability inclusion and accessibility specialist. Be People Smart supports organizations to be more inclusive by considering all staff and customers in the way they operate and communicate. Jodie spent more than two decades in the corporate world before deciding to jump ship and become a route of enablement support of companies of all sizes across all sectors, which is when Be People Smart was born. Now I have known Jodie for a long time now. More years that I probably want to remember. Um, and it was actually after hearing Jodie speak at an event that I attended fairly recently, a virtual event, I should add because we are obviously living in that world. Um, and she was talking about how small businesses can make their communications more inclusive. And I have to say, really opens my eyes to a lot of things that I wasn't doing, but could quite easily do to make my website, my social media and lots of other things, much more inclusive for everyone. Um, and so we're going to talk today about just a tiny, tiny section of what she talks about in that speech, because honestly she had so much to share, but I think if we put all that into one podcast episode, it would possibly be quite overwhelming. So, um, you never know, hopefully Jodie can pop back at some point and share even more with us. But today we're just going to focus on some of the fairly small and simple things that we can all do to make sure our communications are much more accessible for everyone. So I really hope you enjoy this conversation. I hope you find it as fascinating and as useful as I did, as I said, Incredibly accessible. I think there's a lot in here that you'll be able to action straight away, or if not straight away, you know, the coming weeks and months, because it is a long term thing. And, um, Jodie is really honest about the fact that, you know, none of us are going to be, you know, making all of these changes overnight, but even small test steps will make a big difference. So with all of that said, and gosh, that was quite a long introduction. I would love to now introduce you to Jodie. Thank you so much for being here.

Jodie Greer: 00:02:28

Thanks for inviting me. It's good.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:31

So let's start by giving an introduction to yourself, your business and what you do, please.

Jodie Greer: 00:02:35

No problem. So I'm Jodie Greer and I'm the founder of a company called Be People Smart and effectively what we do is help other organizations, all sizes, all sectors to be disability inclusive and accessible.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:51

Thank you. So let's um, so let's give some actual examples of what you mean when you talk about being more inclusive and accessible, if that's okay. Um, obviously my audience, the people who are selling their own products, I mean, the process of that, that it's assumed that nowadays most people are selling online. So in that context, what do we mean by making our products more inclusive?

Jodie Greer: 00:03:14

Yeah no problem so I guess as well, it also helps to put some context around accessible because it's a new term to some people. I know that. Um, so for instance, online, it's about making sure that everybody can understand what it is you're selling. what it looks like an effectively what they're actually purchasing. So, um, for instance, if you think if somebody had low or no vision, they tend to use a solution called a screenreader, which literally reads out the content of a screen to them. So can they from your text and also from a description on your images, we can go into that a little bit if we'd have time, um, understand what the product really is, you know, what did it kind of look like? Feel like, um, how big is it, all that kind of stuff? Um, because of course not only purchasing for themselves, but of course, purchasing gifts.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:06

Thank you for that. So I guess it's about making, like the buying experience easy for everybody.

Jodie Greer: 00:04:13

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I mentioned vision, but it goes so much further than that. I mean, sometimes for instance people might have a video showing their product in different ways, but it might have some, you know, audible so someone might be speaking through it. So if there aren't captions on it, if you're deaf, how do you know what someone's telling you? So it could be things like that, but even down to, you know, people with dyslexia, there are certain requirements and for people with autism there can often be things that really kind of overshadowed because it's just too much stimulants. Um, so yeah, there's lots of things you can consider, but sometimes it's easier to sort of start somewhere and understand some really core points of how you can make things inclusive that we can all do, and we can all do quite easily. And that's the kind of stuff that hopefully we can cover today.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:03

Yep. Thank you. And I was definitely want to cover that off in a minute because I agree that. Lots of things we can do. And this is obviously a massive, massive topic. Um, so for anyone who's listening, either feeling a little bit daunted, just be reassured that we're only going to go into like some fairly high-level stuff today. Is that right Jodie?

Jodie Greer: 00:05:22

Yeah.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:05:23

So, but I think something that we get to cover off before we go into this is why are people missing out if they don't take this into account? So if they don't make any even small efforts to make their products more inclusive,

Jodie Greer: 00:05:35

Yeah. I mean, literally they're missing out on custom and I don't know if your listeners would have heard of the purple pound for instance, but the purple pound is what is famed for the, um, dispensable income of people with disabilities and their household. Because of course it's literally. Can you purchase it? Can you even navigate around the web page for instance? And just to give you an idea, because it's an awful lot of money in the UK alone, the purple pound is worth 274 billion pounds. So if that's what people have got to spend, then I'm sure most, if not all of your listeners would be quite interested in a little chunk of that.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:18

Yeah, absolutely. And I think also because obviously I heard you speak at workshop a few weeks ago. I know some of the things you're going to cover, and I'm convinced from that, that actually implements some of the changes you're going to speak about will help make your products more accessible to everyone, because I'm sure that lots of people, myself included have been in the situation where you want a webpage and it just isn't clear what you're getting, or it isn't clear what option to choose or it just kind of doesn't work and you just click away. And so obviously somebody who can't even perhaps read the texts for whatever reason or see the images, um, that experience is going to be even more negative, presumably.

Jodie Greer: 00:06:58

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as an example, we've not long had Christmas and I was looking at some, you know, Santa ornaments on a site and I saw that when I wanted, but then when you look at the dropdown, it's like Santa 1,Santa 2, Santa 3 and Santa 4, but I wasn't sure. What, which one was Santa with the reindeer. So I just didn't purchase it because I didn't want to be ordering the wrong thing. And to be honest, I could have maybe contacted the seller, but it was kind of easier to go elsewhere. And that's what we call the click away pound as well, which is kind of linked to the purple pound. But often if people find the shopping experience difficult, they will just go somewhere else.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:39

Yeah, absolutely. And I'm sure for lots of people that's been experienced. Um, so let's talk a little bit then about some of those practical things that we can all do to make our product listings and websites more inclusive.

Jodie Greer: 00:07:51

Yeah, absolutely. So a few key things. One is with your images, um, So again, talking about screen readers that I've already mentioned, they will read out the alternative text you put behind, an image it's not actually that difficult to do, but it's also important. Um, that it's contextual. So what is it, your image is basically trying to say, so for instance, if you were selling a product, your image is literally showing you what it looks like. So, you know, make that clear, you know, a ragdoll wearing a blue dress with blue shoes and a blue floppy hat, for instance, um, which will help and also thinking about all of the context. So for instance, you know, you've got different demographics within your customer base, so they may also be looking at different skin tones for that same doll. I don't know why I chose the doll, but anyway, okay. I can see this doll in my head now. So, um, you might be looking, you know, again, to see all the different kinds of details about it. So, you know, give them in the description and it may well be, you don't need to give as much in the alt text if you've got it in the body of your actual, um, webpage or, you know, your item description. So your alt text could be a lot simpler for instance. And also if it's in the item description, it's clear for everyone, of course. The way that you define your images is really important. Um, something else, and this one often gets missed is color contrast. So for anyone. Even if you've got 2020 vision, I've got to say a lot of color contrast are faint. And for instance, white texts on a yellow background or yellow text on a white background is really difficult for people to read. And if people have got reduced vision, even, you know, even if it isn't severe, it can be impossible to see it. So therefore it doesn't exist. There is no texts there. Um, there are some really easy ways to actually check, um, color contrast, but that's another thing I would say. Um, Text Styles. So using very kind of plain simple text styles. I know that a lot of people for their branding, like the very sort of pretty and curly styles for your brand, it is your choice. But just be aware, of course, people may not be able to read them. So for instance, a lot of people with dyslexia find very curly fonts, ones that haven't got even space in between letters, things like that really difficult. Um, yeah. Colors, fonts, alt text. Um, there's so many things you can do, but I guess are some of the key things and also being able to navigate your web page because a lot of people don't use a mouse, so they need to use a keyboard. So if you have stuff in a logical order, so effectively, if you were tabbing through, you can get to all the information. That's something else that really helps people.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:10:40

Thank you for all of that. Cut. I just want to come back to the images and the alt text really quickly because lots of people and myself included, I've always thought of alt text in terms of SEO, but you've probably heard this as well, Jodie, that for SEO purposes in your alt text, you should put, I don't know your brand name or your, you know, things that people might find if they're searching. But it sounds like what you're saying is way alt text was designed to be used. It's actually to help people using screen readers if I got that correct?

Jodie Greer: 00:11:10

Yeah, absolutely. And also you think about the experience. So if you were a screen reader user, and I haven't actually got any statistics to hand, but there's a lot of screenreader users. Um, if you were a screen reader user, then you would literally hit all those words. So, you know, can you imagine you would just go in for a webpage, you get to an image. Be People Smart Inclusivity, Disability Inclusion like what is that picture? And actually the picture was about personas. I mean, it doesn't, it doesn't do anything, but also that's a lot of information you're actually receiving. You've now lost the plot completely as to what you were actually looking at. Um, and yeah, it makes it very difficult. And again, probably just a click away moment.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:11:58

Yeah, I can see it. So thank you for clarifying that because yeah, that's, that was when I heard you speak a few weeks ago, that was one of the light bulb things for me because yeah I only ever had people talking about alt text in terms of SEO. And then when I realized it was short for alternative text, that was a bit of a light bulb moment for me. Is there any sort of compromise there though? So for example, I'm just thinking of my products. Could I put child wearing Tiny Chipmunk white towel with blue motif, for example, some, um, that wasn't very good. That was off the top of my head. What I'm trying to say is for people who are like, no, but I need to have my brand name in my alt text. Can you do that? As long as it actually gives a clear description of what the product is, is that

Jodie Greer: 00:12:42

absolutely. And actually I would encourage that because the reason you've got that image, there that's exactly the context you're showing. You're not just showing a child wearing a random bamboo headedtowel. Well, you want to show in a child wearing a Tiny Chipmunk bamboo headed towel. Right. So that is exactly what you're showing. So you can put, you know, exactly what you've just said with the Tiny Chipmunk logo on the, on the hood, blah, blah, blah, in blue. Um, yeah, that, because that's why it's there the real intention of the contextual text. It's a literally provide the same experience for someone who's looking at it. And if that's why it's there, that's what you want to put in any way.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:23

Thank you. And presumably that was also going to still help out with your SEO anyway, because let's say use that same example. If you've got the words, Tiny Chipmunk and bamboo and baby and towel, it's given a clear description of what you're looking at, but then those words are possibly some of your keywords are in there as well. It's just rather than a random string of words, they actually make some sense.

Jodie Greer: 00:13:46

Yeah, I think it just really hit the nail on the head Vicki it is just that it is thinking a little bit differently as to how you place the word. So you do make them sort of logical, I guess, you know, make them isn't a sentence. So that, that context is there for someone who needs it, but certainly you can still use them for your SEO. You know, it's like killing two birds with one stone.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:10

That's good point. I think that'd be some reassurance people. It was actually the people who've spent time, you know, getting their images, you know, SEO friendly. Hopefully they won't have to do too much work so that their screen reader accessible as well. Um, and before we move on from the things you can do, is there anything in terms of your actual product listing, the actual descriptions for your product that we need to take into account.

Jodie Greer: 00:14:33

Yeah, I would just say make it really clear, like, quite literally, as I say, you know, one of that description, but also if you've got multiple options okay I'll go back to my santa example. Right. So if you've got multiple options, you know, making it really clear that. Depending on how your drop down or your selection process works. But you know, Santa 1 is Santa with a reindeer outside of, you know, Santa's house Santa 2 is, um, I think the more descriptive you make, it just really does improve the whole experience for everybody, not just people that rely on accessibility.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:07

Yeah, absolutely. I think I might, I don't know if I shared this example, with you Jodie, but I was looking. To buy something recently and it was like a fabric and all of the drop-downs are named like red Berry and green Sage, but then there were like a few red options and a free green options. And I couldn't work out well, which is the red Berry and which is the green Sage in which. Where was, I think just having the pictures labeled of this is this and this, this or something in the text, but in the end, like you said, I just clicked away. And that seller unfortunately lost that purchase just because I had no idea what I was purchasing. And that was with me having the benefit of being able to see the pictures and read the descriptions well and I still could not work out what, it was, I was buying. So I think that that's really good advice that everyone will benefit from.

Jodie Greer: 00:15:53

Yeah, absolutely. And obviously, you know, I say obviously, but to me, I truly believe this. I don't think people obviously do this with any sort of intent or certainly no negative intent. they just aren't aware of, of what the impact can be, but for their business, that is a significant impact how many other people clicked away from that fabric. So by raising this awareness, I'm really hoping, I'll see. Yes, we can enable people to be more inclusive, but also their face it, we can also enable people to do more business.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:22

Yeah, because it might, it hopefully it'll make it easier for everyone to buy.

Jodie Greer: 00:16:25

Yeah, absolutely.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:27

So thank you for those tips about selling on your own website. Um, lots of us, I know also sell on third-party marketplaces now. I don't expect you to be an expert in every third party marketplace, Jodie, cos there's lots out there. Um, but do you have any advice or thoughts about things we could do when we're selling on Etsy or Amazon or eBay? Wherever it might be, because I know that to varying degrees, these platforms are going to have this kind of thing built in. Like, so I remember we looked together and we found that on Etsy, you can add alt text, for example, on Amazon you can't. So I know there's going to be limitations, but is there anything we can do? I don't know if it's in the text just to make the buying experience easier on those sites.

Jodie Greer: 00:17:12

Yeah. I guess you kind of have to use what's open to, obviously I'd love to see all of these platforms fully accessible. We'll make all of the components accessible, but we are where we are. So I think if, for instance, if we pick on Amazon, um, I've not personally listed anything on Amazon and I know you're the expert there, Vicki but, um, When it comes to what, you know, if you can't put stuff against images and let's face it, sometimes people have like 10 images for one product anyway. So that probably wouldn't be quite so simple, but if you do make it so that literally all the detail, and you might feel like you've already got all the detail, but if you closed your eyes and couldn't see those pictures and just read the detail, does it tell you everything about the product someone would need to know to be confident and comfortable purchase in it? So I guess that's one thing. Um, and no one wants to read a novel, obviously when they read in about a product. And you can probably tell me this, Vicki, I guess, in that there's also a limited character number that you can put in for a description anyway,

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:15

There is which I think creates another challenge because I know that you and I had spoken about, you could actually add an image description in the body of the text possibly, but on Amazon, again, due to the character limitations, that also isn't an option, which isn't great. Um, but I guess on other marketplaces or third party websites, you might be able to do that. That could be a little work around.

Jodie Greer: 00:18:37

Yeah. I mean, so that you certainly, I work on, I guess really it's maybe thinking a little bit differently as to how you describe it. Cause sometimes I know people get quite imaginative with their descriptions because of course they want to stand out against competition and so on. Um, Yeah. Makes sense. Right. So I'm not knocking that, but if you've only got limited space for your texts, maybe just think a bit smarter about it. So I'm not losing that imaginative piece, but also include in all the detail, because even for me, sometimes for instance, I'll look on Amazon and I'm looking on a bath mat and I want to know how big it is and actually I can't find that in the whole body. And then I realize on the fourth image in the image, it also shows me the dimensions. So that's not very helpful. So even for me, often I'll fail to click away and then I'll think, oh, actually let me double check the imagery. Um, if I can't do that, I have no option, but to just choose someone, who's put the details I need into their actual text.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:41

Yeah, thank you for that. So I guess the key thing is to make sure that without, as you say, writing a novel, all of the key information, someone might need to make a purchase like colour and size and okay I guess it really depends on what your product is, but all of the key information needs to be somewhere in the main body of text, because we can't assume that everybody can see your graphics, your images, your infographics, or whatever, additional.

Jodie Greer: 00:20:06

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even if you think about, um, I suppose I've already mentioned we've had Christmas. So obviously a lot of people have been buying gifts, but people buy gifts all year round, of course. And even if you think about, if somebody, for instance is color blind and they want it to purchase a scarf for someone, well, they're quite like a few of the designs, but they're not sure what colors they are. So even if you can see the picture. I'm not sure which one I want to select because I quite like the one that's got the dolphins on it, but don't know what color it is. So I don't know if it's their thing. Um, and I've been told they really liked blue and purple for instance. So I don't want to assume it's blue because it's water-based how do I know that? And I only know that if it's actually in that content, because as I say, even, and that's a lot of people as well, even if I was color blind, that will stop me purchasing the product because I don't want to get it wrong.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:05

So that's actually something I think everyone can also take away. Is that when you setting up products on like, all of the marketplaces I've worked on certainly, you can name the different options. So it sounds like just by naming the option, Blue dolphin rather than just blue or just dolphin as an example would be super, helpful to everybody.

Jodie Greer: 00:21:25

Yeah, definitely. All of that stuff helps. It really is about being as descriptive as you can be without the novel. Um, just so that everyone knows what they're seeing, what they're getting, um, and people can make an informed choice.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:38

That's perfect. Thank you. So let's move on slightly from product descriptions, product pages, and talk a bit about social media, because I think most of us are on some social media platform or another, what are some of the things we can do on social media, whether we're talking about our products or not just to be a bit more inclusive.

Jodie Greer: 00:21:58

Yeah, no, worries. So I'm going to go to alt text again, right? So describing your images is still really important. There are some caveats to a point. And the reason I say that is to have the alt text sitting behind the image. A lot of the time you have limitation. So I'll give you an example on LinkedIn. I can do that from the laptop. I can, I can post now and I can put the alt text against that. If I use my mobile to post I can't and if I use a scheduler to post, um, certainly the scheduler I use, I can't, but what I do instead and actually this is quite nice because even if people don't use a screen reader, it's good practice anyway, is I put image description or the image shows and I explain what it is at the end of my posts. Um, because again, if you had low vision for instance, but you, you know, you've never mastered, screenreader use, then you also get the same information. So that can be really helpful anyway, so definitely alt text is important. Um, one of my other things, um, that I'm really quite hard on is, um, capital camel case hashtags. So what does that mean? That means a capital letter at the start of every word in your hashtag, um, and I'll say every word because sometimes people think it won't mean the first word, for instance, but by having a capital letter at the start of every word, it makes it so much clearer for everyone. So for instance, um, people with dyslexia, not just kids with dyslexia, but a lot of people with dyslexia find it really hard to separate the words I don't personally have dyslexia. I find it hard to separate the words with long hashtags. Um, but also to screen reader users, when it's got the capital letters at the start of each word, it actually does know they are separate words. So even the word is, would have a capital. I, um, so that's really important. And honestly, once you see them, if you can see it for yourself, it's so much more obvious what you're saying. So it's just a nice experience anyway. And I know I'm on the workshop. I did recently someone asked the question, if you do that, are you still included in like, you know, the pool then what the correct term is of all these hashtags? So, you know, if I. Hashtag Tiny Chipmunk, but I did a capital T and a capital C, I'm not going to be in, you know, we've all those that were all in lowercase and absolutely you are, you will see that with a predictive and when it's a readily used hashtag it will pop up, but you can definitely use your capital letters and you can just do it better than other people did. So that's a really good thing to do. Um, and another thing I was talking about this, I think it was actually with you Vicki recently talking about emojis and emojis, right. And a lot of us love emojis. I'm a bit of an emoji fan and basically they do some great stuff because they can give us literally some kind of emotion to a post. They can make you smile and all that stuff. However less is definitely more with emoji. So for instance, And I was guilty of this in the past. If I was going to put like, you know, five laughing face emojis in a row, because I found something really funny, um, visibly that gives that exact message. You know, it tells you that it's hilarious. But if I'm with a screen reader user, and this may not be the exact alt text behind them, but. You'd read this little message and then you would hear laughing face emoji, laughing face emoji, laughing face emoji, but you can imagine that like five times it kind of kills the message. So just think about that as well, because sometimes people have got, you know, a laughing face and a kiss emoji, then something else then something else. And if you're getting all of those read out to you, yeah, more than sort of two or three, I guess, especially if they're different, um, would just be too much. And I can imagine how frustrating it would probably be. You'd probably stop reading.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:26:08

Yeah, I really can see that. Thank you for explaining that. I think funny enough, after I heard you talk about that, I was on Instagram and I don't know if it was a blip, but there was like, I think it was a period of, I don't know, let's say 24 hours where I wasn't seeing people's emojis. I don't know why, but obviously in the emoji description and it took me a while to work out what was happening. So I'd read someone's post. It'd be a bit of text. And then it would say like winking face in like. Sort of ellipse things and then there'd be a bit more text. And I'm assuming that was what you would get if you were using a screen reader. And there were a couple of posts I was reading and you'd actually read, then it would be whatever description, whatever, lots of emoji. And it, it made it actually for me, even though I was reading it, it actually made it quite hard to read because you'd read a bit of text, then it would be like winking face kiss face, wherever, maybe like three emojis. Back to the text and it made it quite disjointed. Um, and I've got a bit, I'm a fan of emojis as well, but since sort of having that realization, I've definitely sort of used them a lot more sparingly because it was, it really brought it home. I don't know why this happened. It was literally like it was in my family for, I think just for like a day, this sort of happened. I wasn't seeing emojis and I just thought, wow. Really makes it clear what other people or how other people are viewing things, which I think sometimes there's a really good thing to see.

Jodie Greer: 00:27:32

Yeah. It's actually the very actual things really pull it. Right. And you've literally had the same experience as someone who uses a screen reader would have essentially. And it does, it does open your eyes, cause there's loads that we learn all of the time from other people's experiences. But that is interesting. I've not, I've not seen that happen myself, but it's actually quite cool because it literally wouldn't have been just you for those days. Right. It would have been probably everyone it's quite nice that people have been able to see what it's really like.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:28:01

Yeah. I just found it fascinating. And coming back to the hashtags as well, which I, by the time this episode is going out, Jodie, I want to say that I'm only using camel case hashtags. It's something that I'm really trying. Um, cause what's, what's frustrating, actuallyI find is when you type your hashtags, it automatically, the predictive thing puts it all in lower case, but I've definitely been in a situation I wish I could think of a good example or a funny example here. I might Google some later where I've read a hashtag and I thought it said something. And then I'd be like, oh no, what it actually says is because where it all blends together, you sort of have to guess, which is a new word. And like maybe before this goes out, I'll try and find some examples that I can share with people. But you've probably seen the same where you think. Why did they use that hashtag that you realize, oh, what they're trying to say is because

Jodie Greer: 00:28:51

there are some funny ones out there. Um, I can't think of one off the top of my head, but I probably wouldn't mention them here anyway, because of what they look like, they really crude. And then you think that's not even contextually. It doesn't make sense. And then if you try again, you're like, oh, you mean, because again the words aren't separated. Why? Um, and that you can avoid the embarrassment with camel case hashtags.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:29:18

Yeah. And like I said, by the time this goes live I'm only going to use camel case hashtag, so you can come to my link and come to my Instagram and check on me and see what camel case hashtags look like as well. So there we go. I'm giving myself some accountability now. So one final thing before we finish up, Jodie is obviously we've talked quite a lot today. And I know, thank you. I do really appreciate that. You've tried to keep it really top level and really simple for people as well. We've not gone into masses of detail cause I know we probably could. Um, I do think everything you've talked about today is actionable. What's the key thing you want people to take away from this?

Jodie Greer: 00:29:55

Yeah. Um, I guess my my message would be to take it a step at a time. What's really important is some people, of course, they want to do this stuff anyway, because it's good for business, but a lot of people will certainly want to do this because they feel like they've literally excluded people. And I think my main message would be, you know, don't feel bad. Don't kick yourself. Um, none of us are born knowing this stuff. So it's about taking it. As I say, one step at a time, doing the things you can do and also. You know, you need to be practical. So for instance, you can start now and you can start implementing these small changes, which will make big differences with all your kind of future posts and with all your, um, you know, future, um, listings and all that sort of stuff. But for instance, especially for small business owners, you may not have a lot of support to do this stuff. Going back over all of your products may not um, Make sense to you, or you may just feel like you literally don't have time to do that right now. Now, if you're going to keep them listed, there's going to be updates and things to make, and you can do the accessible pieces then as well. So just don't feel the pressure, I guess I would say I'd love the world to be fully accessible right here right now. But I think having the positive intent, you know, wanting to do more to make people being, you know, make people included, um, and to make sure that people's experiences with your products with your sites are a positive one that's something to be applauded. Right. So that's something to kind of congratulate yourself on from all different avenues. So I think, yeah, don't beat yourself up. Take steps now. Um, start being really inclusive and then, yeah, just be proud of that.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:31:41

Thank you. That's. I mean, that's a really good message to end on because it is really tempting because I know when I heard you talk the first time, it was all new to me and you just start making a mental list of all the things you haven't done. So it's really nice to reframe it and think, okay. But. W, you know, these are the things I can do going forward. And like you say, you don't have to sort of redo your whole website or your whole product catalog or whatever. I think even if you just start today with making some small changes going forward, if we all do that, I think that will make a big difference.

Jodie Greer: 00:32:14

Yeah, definitely. I think it'll be good stuff. And I will be checking on your hashtags Vicki!

Vicki Weinberg: 00:32:19

Do, because like I said, Jodie, I mean, I'm not perfect. I try it, you know, I try and remember to do, and sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. Um, but I think, yeah, I'm trying to remind myself that I am trying. That's better than sort of not, you know, a few months ago, I didn't even have a clue that that's what I could be doing or should be doing. So I think even just having the awareness is, is a step forward.

Jodie Greer: 00:32:45

One thing that might be useful for you to include when you put this episode out, actually, you know, I mentioned about color contrast. Um, if I send you a link to a free very simple contrast analyzer that I use. Um, maybe that's something that'd be really helpful for people because if they want to double-check imagery they're creating, or even maybe something, if they're rebranding that kind of stuff, um, it, it's just an easy way of doing it and it's literally done with two clicks. Once you download it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:33:16

Yeah, that'd be so helpful. Thank you. So yeah. Do send that over and I'll make sure that's in the show notes. And I also have the link to your website and all your social media channels and everywhere people can find you.

Jodie Greer: 00:33:27

Excellent. Thank you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:33:28

Well, thank you. Thank you so much for being here for sharing all of this. And as I said, for keeping it light and practical as well, because like I, yeah, I fully appreciate this is a massive topic, so yeah. And I think we've only just touched the surface and maybe we'll have to have you back a future date to talk about sort of other areas of inclusivity inclusivity.

Jodie Greer: 00:33:48

Yeah. Happy to, um, yeah. If your listeners want some extra advice or whatever, please do reach out. Um, and yeah, well done for taking steps.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:33:56

Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for listening all the way to the end of this episode. If you enjoyed it, please do leave member of you that really helps other people to find this podcast. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes and do tell your friends about it too. If you think that they also might enjoy it, you can find at vickiweinberg.com. There you'll find links to all of my social channels. You'll find lots more information. All of the past podcast episodes and lots of free resources too. So again, that's www.vickiweinberg.com. Take care, have a good week and

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see you next time.