Carousel Spotlight Webinar: Accessibility

OVERVIEW

This webinar is a great opportunity to improve your knowledge of our accessibility feature - allowing everyone to access the content you share.

TRANSCRIPT

 Welcome to the Carousel Spotlight Webinar series. Um, in these sessions, we look at specific, uh, concepts, dive into them a little bit deeper and kind of relate them to not just, uh, signage and carousel, but to kind of communications as a whole. Um, I am Cullen Gross. I am the sales engineer over here at Carousel.

I'll be able to walk you through today's episode, which is all about accessibility. The title of this one is Accessibility. Accessibility. Accessibility, um, because it's a big word and can mean a few different things. So we're gonna break down kind of all those different options, right? Um, this sort of.

Episode is, is really kind of geared more to higher ed on the later side, um, but is really applicable to, to almost anybody, right on sort of the, on the front end. Um, we'll be doing kind of a q and A out at the end as well. If you have any sort of questions, you can preemptively type them into the question box, um, in the chat box and we can start kind of answering those as we go.

So as we start, um, we need to talk about kind of who we are. Um, so first we'll kinda talk about what we do. We're car digital signage. We've been working, um, in the signage space, making content management software to manage content on screens for about 25 years. But as far as who we are, um, we're organization that really tries to help our customers reach their audience, right?

If you have a message and you have to get that message out to. Employees or students or faculty, um, we're there to assist, right? With that. So although we're kind of signage, kind of think of us also as sort of, um, a communication sort of enablement, um, at the same time. So kind of our software is here to sort of help create and consume visual information.

Um, and the best way to sort of do that is to think about content in the terms of accessibility. So when we think about this word, accessibility, um, and we want to be able to help everyone on all sides of the, of the field, um, sort of participate and get information, um, visually, uh, we have to talk about kind of.

What our definition of accessibility is, right? We kinda have to level the playing field here. Um, and really to us there's three different facets. There's sort of three different angles to approach accessibility at. Um, the first one is based on our software and sort of our. Organization. We want Carousel to be easier to use than the other available options.

When it comes to a content creator, we're kind of the user of our software. We want that to be approachable and sort of easy to use, so sort of lowercase, a accessibility. We also want to provide options for. All audience members, right? Including those with visual impairments, but not necessarily limited to them, uh, to be able to consume that message, right?

To be able to experience that content. Um, even if a digital screen is not the best way to, um, consume that. And then lastly, as like an organization, we're gonna talk about some things that we, we do to sort of standardize, like when we grade ourselves on accessibility, that we're not like just making things up as we go, that we're actually following very specific guidelines, um, that are kind of made well before we even started and kind of make sure that we're, you know, not going off the path too.

So when we talk about accessible software, right, and software by design, um, we're talking about the carousel user interface being easy to approach and easy to use for like everyday users, right? So we want it to be approachable. We want people who might not have technical or artistic backgrounds to be able to use it.

Um, obviously if you have those skills right, you can do way more. But with carousel and signage, like one big thing that we find is. The more users you have, the more people that are c collaborating on the screens. Right. The more people that are, um, harvesting that community and getting the information out, uh, the more useful those screens are to the people who are viewing it, right?

So we want software that allows a lot of people to come in, make, create, schedule content, um, in a way that doesn't take up a lot of time and doesn't require a lot of knowledge, right? So, sort of. Just one little aspect of Carousel, one little sort of example on carousel. I'm gonna go into the user interface and we're gonna just see what Carousel looks like from a content creator perspective, make some content and sort of get out and why we do this.

I'll, I'll enable another little feature we'll talk about next, which sort of leads into our next example of accessibility. Um, but one, right? Let's have. Example of like what approachable software looks like. So if I exit out of here and I slide over,

there we go. Sorry about that. Um. Here we are in the carousel, uh, user interface. Um, this is, uh, a playlist that I have of just four very simple slides. Um, and in here I want to sort of add new content, right? So maybe I only have control of one screen. I have control of one particular screen. In this case, maybe I have some videos and messages in my student center.

Um, and I want to sort of, um, be able to, um, make a. New slide. Um, welcoming a guest speaker, right? So from the user interface, if you've ever sort of used, um, any sort of presentation software, it's very similar to that. These are all just sort of slides that rotate through, and I just wanna make a new one.

One of our examples here are templates, and within templates I'll find a template that sort of matches the type of content that I want to display. In this case, I want to sort of have a picture of a guest speaker and put some content in. Within this approach, right? All I have to do is fill out a form, right?

The, the layout, the design, the look, the colors, that's all locked down for me, right? By my organization. Um, and either they were done doing that themselves, or our design team helped create that. But from my perspective here, as a content creator, all I have to do is I have some, um. A collateral here that I can just kind of paste in.

Um, I would just type in the sort of content, um, I need to display in here. Um, and then that template's going to live, update for what that looks like, right? So I just need to know what my content is. Um, and then the system will sort of do the handling of the formatting for me. Um, if I have an image that I want to upload, I can upload that.

Um, in this case, I do have a picture of Scott. We'll be on the q and a section here in a second. Um, and then here I can make content very quickly, very seamlessly. Um, and I just fill out a form, right? And this kind of leads into our sort of approach of we want this process to be this easy, right? If I want to publish this on the screen.

That's it. Like I've done everything I need to do to get that content in the queue and get that content on the screen. Um, and that's really sort of our approach to make that, um, experience easy and seamless before we leave here. Right. Um, I do wanna talk about a, a feature that is available. Um, if you're a car, uh, cloud customer, um, this might not have been something that you've, uh, noticed, but this is just included in the base subscription.

There's no extra charge for this. Um, but there's this option here that you can enable by default that allows you to display this on the accessibility site, right? Uh, this is something you have disable, uh, enabled or disabled by default, and it's sort of based on which channel you, uh, want to have displayed.

So if you have some content you want have displayed publicly and something you don't, this. If when enabled and enabled in the channel settings, allows users to have a URL that they can access at any time without logging in to see all of that content or whatever content you've enabled so they can consume it if the screen is not sort of like the best place for them to see that message.

Right. So if I sort of pop back in here, um.

That's the second part of accessibility, right? The first part was that content creator, right? Just making content easy, making it quick, making it very low to the ground. But the second side of that is, is your content viewers, your content consumers, right? Being able to consume that content in a way that works for them.

And although we are a signage company, we work with digital signage and we're talking about. You know, screens with information, uh, that is not the best place for everyone to consume that content, right? If you have a visual impairment or, um, you're just, you know, busy or you're walking past the screen and you wanna look at it later, uh, there's a lot of reasons why, uh, a, a physical screen right is good for 99%, maybe 95% of your audience.

Um, but there's, there's a gap there. We wanna make sure that we fill that, right? So we wanna make sure that. That content is accessible by everyone. So you can supply it in one spot without having to kind of double your work effort, right? So in that option, I hit earlier to enable that accessibility site.

Um, I can hop back over here and show you that tab. This is, um, an example. I guess I'll keep it. Uh, minimize for you. Um, this is the example of the accessibility site that can be enabled on your system. Uh, this allows users to access this URL without logging in. They can access it through the web. It's sort of publicly hosted, right?

You'll be able to decide which content you want to have on here. In this case, I have a fictional technical college. I called Roland Technical College, and I want to access that content that was on the student center screen, right? So the link to this website might be like. In the student center like webpage, or I might make it a QR code that someone can scan right from their phone and look at that content.

Um, or I can have this be something that is part of like my accessibility links right within my organization. I remember that we're sort of in this sort of a. School example, right? Higher ed sort of example, um, where this kind of option, you know, really shines the brightest. Um, this could be any sort of content in any sort of, um, organization, right?

Uh, retail, um, K 12, right? Corporate. Um, just a way that if you want people to be able to access your content and any members of your audience have any sort of visual impairments and this is where they would come. So I wanna see what's on the student center, right? Um, this is currently blank 'cause I haven't selected anything.

Uh, this could have a lot of different options, a lot of different screens or, or departments, right? Like arts departments and athletics. In this case, I just have student center, so I'll click this and I'll be able to see the sections of the screen. I wanna see what's going on in the video messages section.

And then from here I can see that same content that I had previously. Right? Now let me publish this. I should probably have done that earlier. Um, so the same content that I had, um, on that screen, I can see here. Um, and then the really cool thing about this and the kind of the template, uh, example is that when I walk in here, um, that text that I typed in the form will be re rendered on this screen.

So if your users have a screen reader, like in their browser, um, although this is a, a text or an, uh, image, um, sort of content, um, this will be, it'll be read to them through that screen reader experience, right? Then obviously, if you're. Font in your browser is, is expanded, right? This will be a little bit bigger, right?

And you can name all of your content with, with names that, uh, make sense so people can easily find that through their screen readers. Um, but this sort of accessibility site is something that anyone could access once you have it enabled and really just fills in that gap between your content and anyone who might have an accessibility need.

If we sort of, um, step back and kind of talk about like, why is this important, right? Um, and kind of how did we kind of get here, right? The big thing is, um, not everybody, um, like has the same, I guess, uh, autonomy or privileges that, that we all have, right? So there's some things that, um, just require a little bit of work on the front end to make it easier for, for absolutely everybody.

So think of like captions and things like that. Um. When we kinda look back in 1973, there was an act that sort of at a federal level set a very specific set of guidelines for how, um, Americans with disabilities, um, should be presented with information that's electronic. Um, so that was sort of a, like a big turning point in sort of, um, accessibility in like the digital space that sort of led itself to create a few different voluntary, um.

Uh, templates and next, uh, questionnaires for private companies right. To, to, to grade themselves on. Right. So we're, we're not a federal agency and we're not sort of bound to this, um, act, but we did take a, um. Specific questionnaire that we filled out, um, that's based on questions such as, um, factors for color, blindness, how text is rendered, um, how images are rendered.

If your browser has a different language and we support that language in carousel that automatically switches. So a lot of just standard, um. Kind of guideposts for accessibility. So what we do internally is we fill out this VPA is what it's called, the voluntary Product accessibility template. We fill that out, we kind of, um, grade ourselves on, on these different factors.

And these are standard factors that we're not like making up along the way. Um, and that's something that if you want access to the VAN, um, it becomes a conformance accessibility conformance report for you. Uh, after we fill it out, um, this is something that is available through sort of the, um, you know, sales process, right?

If you wanna kind of talk to us, um, you need to get some security documents. This is one of the documents you can request during that process, um, to actually see based on those factors, like how conformant is, is Carousel as software, um, based on these sort of guidelines. And that is. Basically the session, right?

So the big takeaways here is that when it comes to accessibility, there's a lot of different definitions, um, and Carousel as a tool, we want that to be easy to use and approachable. Right? Just in a few seconds, I whipped up a piece of content. It looks nice and branded. Um, it's very similar to existing technologies.

Um, and the, the floor is, is pretty low to kind of get into it, right? On the flip side of that, for the content consumers, we want that to be accessible to everyone, even in the case that a screen isn't the best way to consume that content. So the accessibility site, sort of an optional public page that you can enable, can really help fill that gap for anybody that.

You have in your organization that needs that content delivered to them in a more accessible way. And sort of the last bit is like internally, right? We're not just making all of this up as we go. Uh, we are sort of grading ourselves on very standardized, uh, accessibility, uh, guideposts, um, that we make sure that we fill out and continually improve on.

I wanna thank everyone for coming to the spotlight and being here with me live. Um, if you're recording, watching the recording, thanks for, for getting to, to the end. Um, if you like this, we're gonna have like another one, uh, April 19th at 10:00 AM it's going to be, um, on a thing called cap the Common Alert Protocol.

Essentially what that is, um, is how Emergency Alert Systems talk to each other. And how that can be integrated into signage, right? So if something happens, um, and you have a system that can send out a phone call and set alarms, it can also trigger your screens to change as well. So if that's something that interests you, um, please join us on April 19th for another one of these quick sessions.

Um, and we, we will get into the questions. With me, I have Scott Douglas, he is sales rep in higher education, um, and also the sales rep for, um, all of the Canada, Canada region. Um, so if you have any questions, put 'em in the chat box. Um, and then we'll take a look and, um, we will answer any questions that you might have.

But, uh, if you're leaving now, thanks for coming. Um, appreciate your time. Uh, thanks for carving out a little bit of time for us. Hopefully we've made these kind of short and concise and valuable.

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