[Dan Tuleta] All right well I'm showing two o'clock so I think we should get started.
As always welcome everyone again to another edition of Equidox Webinar Wednesdays.
Today we're going to be doing something a little bit different, a little bit fun. We are going to
be doing a little bit of a quiz show with a couple of our account managers from the Equidox team. So
they're going to get to show off a little bit of their accessibility knowledge themselves.
So, as always you can reach out to us if you'd like to chat more about
Equidox software or any of our services. We can be reached at EquidoxSales@Onixnet.com our website
is www.Equidox.co and we're also very active on social media. So please feel free to follow us on
LinkedIn, connect with us there, follow us on Twitter, Youtube, or Facebook. So please feel free
to reach out. Again, if you have any questions following this demo, or rather this webinar,
and we would love to chat more with you on a one-to-one basis. Just a few quick words about
Equidox and our parent company Onix before we begin. So Onix networking is primarily a google
cloud consultancy. We're also... we have a lot of different cloud partners. Our mission is to
improve organizational efficiency through cloud computing solutions. We are based in Cleveland,
Ohio and we have been in business for about 28 years now. Now Equidox is really just a division
of Onix. So Onix is our parent company and we are primarily focused on PDF accessibility, with
our mission to ensure that digital information reaches everyone via accessibility solutions.
So just a quick slide here with a few of our customers that we serve. So we're just gonna
put those logos up now we work with organizations in all different verticals and of all different
sizes. So really no one is too big or too small for us to work with. So
again feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions about anything that we offer after
this webinar. And just one other announcement before we begin with the quiz show today. We are
now offering an on-premise version of Equidox. So if you've been on webinars before with us,
if you have seen demos or maybe you're an existing user of Equidox, you probably think of Equidox
as exclusively a web-based application operating directly through your browser. But the development
team has been working very hard recently to actually basically rebuild the entire application
to be able to work as an on-premise solution. So if cloud security is a problem for your
organization, if you don't want your documents, anything that might be confidential, going into
the cloud, you're able to now deploy Equidox on your own servers within your own four walls.
So there's no longer a reliance on cloud storage, and there's no need for FedRamp.
If you are here from a government agency today. It also allows for the software to work
a lot faster and more smoothly. And then also, of course, faster uploads, faster exports, and
of course we always offer training and support. So that's not changing at all. It's really going
to be the exact same application from a front-end functionality standpoint. But we are now just able
to deploy it both in the cloud or within your own four walls on your servers, whichever you prefer.
So again before we get into the game today, I'm just going to announce everyone that's on the call
so my name is Dan Tuleta. I'm a sales engineer here with the Equidox team.
And I'll be the host today. So I'm going to be reading the questions off to our contestants.
Ryan Pugh, our Director of Accessibility, is our judge today. And so he is gonna be there to
sort of make any sort of clarifying remarks or if any questions are answered incorrectly he's gonna
put his foot down. So then also our two contestants today... we have Dawn Campbell,
who is our account manager primarily working in Canada but also has some
contacts in the United States as well. And then Tom West is another account manager
that will be our contestant today. So that's the team. That's everyone that's on the call
today. And these are the voices that you will hear. All right so let's go through the rules.
So players will choose a category and questions will be answered within that category top to
bottom. So somewhat similar to Jeopardy! but not quite as flexible. We're going to stay within
the same category until all of the questions are answered before we move on to the next category.
Correct answers are rewarded with corresponding stars. So the questions will be a ranking of one
through four stars and a correct answer will get you whatever that number may be. Our Director of
Accessibility, Ryan Pugh, will clarify any answers as necessary. And whoever has the
most stars at the end of the game will win. All right so let's play! Before we started today,
Dawn won the coin toss so Dawn would you like to choose the first category for us?
[ Dawn ] Yes, please! I would like Digital Accessibility Basics one star, please.
[Dan] Okay perfect. All right, so Accessibility Basics. The first question under this category.
“What percentage of the US population has a disability?”
[ Dawn ] I know! Okay, so this is a little bit of a funny question since I do spend most of
my time in Canada; however, I do know that 26 or one in four of... I think it's 61 million
adults in the US disclose that they have a disability. And also in addition one in five
Canadians, which is about 6.2 million of our 35 million Canadians also say they have a disability.
[Dan] Well that is absolutely correct, as our answer is now shown on the screen. So
a great job Dawn. We'll move on to the next question. So Question Two under Accessibility
Basics. “What percentage of consumers will leave a website that is inaccessible?”
[Tom] I know! I think this is kind of a tricky one, but there's a lot of different surveys out
there. I think the number is 71% of consumers will leave a website that they found is inaccessible.
[Dan] Uh that's absolutely correct Tom. And yes you are correct there are quite a few
different numbers and metrics out there, but the standard and most common response there
would be 71 percent of consumers will leave a website that is hard to use or inaccessible.
Okay so Question Three under Accessibility Basics. “What does
WCAG stand for and what is it made up of? [Dawn] I know! Okay so I feel like this
is probably a daily conversation for both Tom and I as account managers, but I do
know that WCAG stands for Web Accessibility Content… Sorry... wait let me start again...
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and it is actually made up of four pillars.
And these pillars aren't a checklist, okay. That's really important to know. Sometimes you'll hear
the pillars referred to as “POUR” which would mean Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust.
[Dan] That is absolutely correct Dawn. Great job. So we will now move on to the
final question under Accessibility Basics. Question four. “What percentage of top
websites have accessibility issues?’ [Tom] I know that one! That's another
tricky one, again involving percentages. It's always tricky to figure out what's
the what's that right number but I believe at a minim it's 97% of the top million websites
have been found to be inaccessible. [Dan] That's absolutely correct,
Tom. great job yes. The more you look into these top websites you find that almost all of them have
accessibility issues. Okay, so that completes round one of our game here. So after round one,
Dawn has four stars and Tom West has six stars. So Tom since you answered the last question in
round one, how about you get started by choosing the next category for round two?
[Tom] Great, thanks, Dan. I'm gonna go with PDF Remediation.
[Dan] Okay perfect. So under PDF remediation the first question: “Is there anything
on a PDF that should not be tagged?” [Dawn] I know! Okay, so anything that
is considered repetitive or decorative. So we like to do a lot of stuff on documents that,
again, are just visually pretty. But to an end-user would not necessarily have any meaning.
So things like if you have a logo and a document that's 50 pages, no one wants to hear
“Equidox logo” 50 times. So we're gonna maybe not tag that. There's also something else really cool,
sort of in Equidox. Because we have this feature called Ignore zone. So, again, if you “ignore”
if you put that little zone on top of something, then everything else Equidox software kind of
knows to artifact that zone. So that way it's also not going to be tagged and not read.
[Dan] Absolutely correct, Dawn. Great job. So yeah repetitive elements and decorative
images are an example of something that does not necessarily need to be tagged on PDFs.
So the next question under PDF Remediation. “How is heading
structure different from reading order?” [Dawn] I know this one too. Sorry, Tom!
Okay, so heading structure and reading order. So when I think of heading structure,
I actually think of it as a chapter book. I think of it, the fact that when you pick up a book,
you've got a title of the book, you've got chapters, and sometimes you have sub-chapters.
And again it just shows an outline of what the document is all about, or what your book is all
about. So it's sort of the same idea with heading structure. It's going to show how your information
is all organized based on the level of importance. So that way people with that use screen reading
technology can jump around and be able to find the information, exactly what they're looking for.
Whereas reading order, okay, again, is just how something is visually organized. So again,
if you don't set a reading order, then if you have a document like a brochure or something
that has multiple columns, a lot of people don't realize screen readers just read right
to left... left-to-right top-to-bottom, right? So the screen... for a screen reader user, reading
order is really important because, again, it just sets out how that document needs to be read.
[Dan] That is absolutely correct, Dawn, and that was a very thorough answer. So... but you're right
on the money with you with your answer there. So great job! Two stars for Dawn. All right so
next question under PDF Remediation. Question three. “What are the two most important steps
in making a PDF form field accessible? [Tom] I know that one.
I see I seem to be beating Dawn of the punch on some of the shorter answers, but in this one,
Dan, I think that the two most important steps are first and foremost tagging the fields,
and then secondly applying the tooltips. [Dan] Yep! That's absolutely correct,
and those tooltips are absolutely critical for using forms with assistive technology.
Okay, so the next question, question four under PDF Remediation. “What is a table summary and what
should be included in that table summary? [Tom] I know! This one's a little longer,
but a table summary is a brief description of how the data is organized in a table
and that can include some different things. Columns and rows and
it’s certainly telling whether they are merged cells or headings within that table...
and then Equidox, of course, allows, you to set the number of row and column headings
within the Table Editor. So the table summary will auto-populate with those figures up front.
[Dan] Yep, absolutely! And that's a very handy feature within Equidox: the ability to have the
tool automatically create that table summary for you, which will ensure that regardless
of who in your organization is remediating that table, you will be getting consistent
and accurate table summaries pre-populated for you just based on how you've laid out
your table during... in the Table Editor. Okay, so that concludes Round Two. So we're halfway home.
And after Round Two, we have a current score with, Dawn has seven stars, and Tom has
13 stars. So Dawn you got some catching up to do! But let's, since Tom answered the last question
in Round Two..., Tom, what would you like, which category would you like for Round Three?
[Tom] Yeah I think I'll just keep going down the list, and I'm gonna go with Automation.
[Dan] Okay, perfect. All right so Question One under Automation. “What percentage of errors can
be can automated checkers catch?” [Tom] Oop! I got it got it!
Checkers can catch 20 to 30 percent of accessibility errors, and then most folks
will use HTML previews and or a screen reader to try and figure out how to catch the rest.
[Dan] That is true. Now, this is quite a complicated answer,
so I think we're going to have our judge, Ryan Pugh, just weigh in here
and interject with a little bit more information. [Ryan] Yeah for the benefit of the audience, Tom's
answer wasn't a “guessed” range. It's not some approximation that it falls within 20 and 30%,
as the industry will use different metrics to determine what percentage
of accessibility errors are being caught. Such as, flagging 30 percent of WCAG criteria failures or
finding 30 percent of elements that do contain errors. Trying to find more accessibility errors
without human intervention introduces the risk of false positives, such as flagging all
bolded text as missed headings. So that means that finding more errors isn't always useful,
and they actually create more work. [Dan] Great, thank you, Ryan. Thank
you for the clarification on that. So moving on, now, to Question Two. “How is the Equidox Zone
Detector tool different from auto-tagging?” [Dawn] I know this one! Okay so Adobe,
this is my understanding of Adobe, is that Adobe will set the tags for the entire document all at
once. And of course, this really has means that whoever's using that tool really has to understand
what a tag tree is. In our case with the Equidox Zone Detector, this is a feature where, again,
it can be edited as it's applied by moving this little slider along. Where it creates zones on top
of all the elements that appear on your page. So, again, you can see the zones and you can actually
see them changing. So that way, you know what tag is actually going to be put in the tag tree upon
export of these documents. So again, if something comes into Equidox that's never had a tag at all,
again, it's very, very quick to go through and set headings or give something that alt text.
[Dan] Great, and great answer Dawn. That's absolutely correct.
So we will now move on to Question Three under Automation. “What is the only fully automated
solution Equidox offers, and why does it work? [Dawn] I know! Sorry, Tom! Okay,
so we have Equidox software, but then we also have a high-volume solution. Which is... sometimes
you'll hear account managers use the words “batch processing.” So, and it's a fully automated
option. So this is where our Equidox developers will take a whole bunch of samples from one of
our customers, or from one of our prospects, and they end up analyzing those samples and building a
really custom template that suits those examples. So that way we can use a whole bunch of machine
learning and a bunch of technology that goes way beyond Dawn’s… an account manager's understanding
to correctly tag all of the nuances. And everything that is in that document.
So it is super custom, based on, again, a set of documents that would be highly repetitive.
So, again, thinking about bank statements, or your insurance policies, where it's just
thousands of pages that are the same being produced over and over. But I feel like maybe
my Director of Accessibility, Ryan, our judge, could maybe elaborate a bit more, I'm guessing.
[Dan] Ryan, would you like to weigh in to clarify Dawn’s answer?
[Ryan] She's pretty much on the money there. But to be clear, Equidox software does use a number of
automated features, such as our AI-powered Smart Detection Tools, that can automate parts of that
PDF remediation. The entire process relies on human intervention to make sure that the
Zones, List, and Table Detectors are used in the correct locations. It won't assume that something
is meant to be a list. You have to tell it it's a list. And then it will automatically detect.
[Dan] Right. All right, great, thank you, Ryan, for the clarification. And great answer,
Dawn. All right, so the final question under Automation.”How is tagging a nested list
different than tagging a simple list in Equidox?” [Dawn] I know this one too! I know! I know! Okay,
it's not the answer. Simply it's not... because we have an AI Detector,
it detects each item on a list simply by using a slider. And the thing about that slider is that if
you have a list within a list,it still has the ability to pick up all of those list items. So
it's actually... it's not different, it's the same tool that is making this magic happen.
[Dan] Absolutely correct, Dawn. Great job. So that concludes Round Three of our game. So after Round
Three, we have a current score: Dawn with 16 stars and Tom with 14 stars. So that was a big round
for you there, Dawn. And now Tom has to do the catching up here in the final... the fourth and
final category. So since there's no choice left, we're going to go straight into Equidox Software.
So the first question under Equidox Software: “If you have the same style of document every month,
for example, meeting minutes, how do you create a template that can be applied each month?
[Tom] I know! This is actually one of my favorite capabilities. It's
a kind of a newer feature of the Equidox software, and it's called Zone Transfer.
So the really... the idea behind Zone Transfers and that feature, is that allows you to copy
tags from one nearly identical document (which, often people are working within) to another.
A lot of people use it for documents like meeting minutes, recurring reports, documents
that they're updating frequently, you know, and... or materials with copies in multiple languages.
[Dan] That's absolutely correct. Great job, Tom! All right, so Question Two
under Equidox Software. “Can you use the Equidox software if your organization has
rigid security restrictions or requires FedRamp? [Tom] Yes, I know that one too. This is actually
very, very exciting. Especially to me, just with some of the different folks that I've
talked with over the years, and actually over the course of the last few months. But
it's... the answer is absolutely yes. We now offer an on-prem solution...
on-premise solution for organizations who have the infrastructure to support
the setup and installation of the software. And that's for those folks that are really
hypersensitive to letting their software outside of their own four walls. It's a great solution.
No shared cloud means you won't be sharing any documents or data with Equidox. And, of course,
Dan, to your point earlier no FedRamp is required with that particular deployment.
[Dan] Great answer, Tom! And yes it is great news. Just being able to support different clients
according to their needs. Okay, so Question Three under Equidox
Software. “How do you know if the document you remediated in Equidox is accessible?”
[Tom] Uh, there's a few different ways, Dan. So through the software itself,
we have an HTML preview screen. Which essentially allows you to see what an assistive technology
user would hear. And I think Ryan might elaborate on that a bit...But secondly,
there's an output warnings screen, so you can see any errors that may have come up
through the remediation process that you can correct before you go ahead and
output it for the final time. And then the last way is actually out outside of the platform,
or outside of the Equidox software, but you can actually validate it using a screen reader.
[Dan] Oh, great, yeah that is correct,
Tom. And I'm wondering if our judge would like to clarify and elaborate a bit.
[Ryan] Yeah. The HTML preview presents a linearized version of the content.
Similar but not identical to what an assistive technology user is going to hear. We still present
images visually and we still communicate a visual presentation, as well as a linear presentation,
of complex structures such as tables. And one that allows you to very easily check the reading order
and table structure, etc., through the preview. Once you're done with that, many accessibility
issues are going to be found through our output warning system. And to make sure that your
document is fully accessible and usable, there really is no substitute for using a screen reader.
[Dan] Great! Thank you, Ryan, for the clarification. So now moving on to the
fourth and final question under Equidox Software. “How do you make a PDF that
is an image of cursive handwriting accessible?” [Dawn] I know! I kind of answered the... I know
because I see the question up on the screen. But yes, so with Equidox, we have something called a
Graphic Zone. So you're just going to take and draw a little zone over, turn it to Graphic,
and you're going to put that over things in your document that might be, like handwriting,
somebody's signature, something like that. And then all you're going to do is give it an alt
text. So, again, it's it's a really simple way, that if you have somebody's signature, that has
been handwritten in, you can just put “Joe Smith's signature” as an alternative text. So that, again,
the person that using the assistive technology knows what that handwritten note might be.
And yeah, and again, a lot of times it's just a really handy feature when you have a lot of
OCR, which is, again, that optical character recognition. Where we've just scanned in a
document and whatnot. There are, again, some different strategies
for using a feature called Custom Text. Which, again, would allow people to put in,
sort of, longer content if you're having to describe something in length. So yeah,
so there's different features like that. [Dan] Yep, great that is correct,
Dawn. And yeah, there are a number of ways to address something such as handwritten notes
or anything that might be an image, text within an image. So, a lot of different options within
Equidox. It's a very flexible platform in how you can address some of those more challenging
elements and pages that can arise in PDFs. [Ryan] Just to expand on Dawn's answer very
slightly… Uh, you would also use the Custom Text feature if you need to apply structure
to images. If somebody has used handwriting to present separate paragraphs with headings between
them. And they've just triple-underlined their intended heading, putting Graphic zones over those
wouldn't communicate that those are headings. So you would use custom in those situations.
[Dan] Great, thank you, Ryan. Okay, so that's going to conclude the main portion of our game.
But the problem is, is that we have a tie score. So Dawn and Tom both have 20 stars apiece. And
that means we are going to have to head into our tiebreaker... So the tiebreaker question:
“Within an organization, who should be responsible for digital accessibility?
[Dawn & Tom] Everyone! everyone! I don't know, that was a tie.
[Dan]
It sounded like Tom was also trying to answer. But maybe the microphones didn't line up correctly.
[Tom] cut out a little…
[Dan] So we're gonna... as the host I'm gonna make an executive decision that,
yes, in fact, accessibility is everyone's job. And of course, both of our account managers know this.
So we're gonna give the blue ribbon to both of our account managers and contestants today. So, great
job. Thank you for participating, Dawn and Tom! Okay, so that's gonna conclude our game today.
And we thank everyone who was in the audience. And thank you to everyone for playing along.
So just to kind of wrap everything up here, again, if you'd like to chat with us… We talked about
some broad topics today, and we've made a lot of mention of our Equidox software, and some of the
services that we can offer. So if you would like to have a more specific or tailored conversation
to your organization and your PDF accessibility needs, please feel free to reach out to us. We do
a lot of demonstrations, and we can give you any kind of consultation that you would like. If you
just reach out to us at EquidoxSales@Onixnet.com, someone will get in touch with you right away.
Of course, our website is Equidox.co. So visit us there. We have a lot of resources,
including past webinars that have been recorded and posted there. There are blogs,
there are all kinds of tips and tricks, all information about the legalities around
website accessibility and document accessibility. And, of course, we are very active on LinkedIn,
Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook. So please follow us and connect with us on social media. And if
we can just ask one brief favor of the audience today… We will be sending out a very short survey
after we finish up here today. So if you can just give us one moment of your time to complete that
survey. We would love to hear some feedback from you. We would love to know more about what you
would like to see in upcoming monthly webinars. So keep an eye out for that survey and we hope to
see you next month for another edition of Equidox Webinar Wednesdays. So we'll wrap
it up there. And again, thank you, everyone, for attending and we'll talk to you soon!
[Tom] Thank you. [Dawn] Thank you, bye everyone!