Paula Ballog, Jim Homme, Gerald Homme: Bender HighTest Team

Welcome to Disability Matters with your host Joyce Bender. All comments, views, and opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the host, guest, and callers. Now the host of Disability Matters, here's Joyce Bender.

Hi everyone and welcome to the show, everyone in the United States and around the world. Oh my goodness. We have such great listening audience. China, from China to the UK to Australia, 17 different countries with listening audiences, and some, some only one person. But you know what? That one person, you one person, you're making a difference. You know what I need you to do for me? I need you to tell other English-speaking people with disabilities to listen to the show. You are going to help me share quality of life for people living with disabilities. So, you know, thank you so much. And speaking of around the world, hey, Richard Roberts, I love you so much. The first person I met at the State Department in South Korea, and then in Japan, and now a close friend and just an awesome disability rights person. Gang Young Cho in South Korea, think the world of you. You are truly on target for being disability rights leader in South Korea. Cheryl Harris, how about Cheryl Harris? She, I'm headquartered in Pittsburgh, She grew up like only an hour away from me in Beaver, PA. When I met her, she's in Tunisia doing a show in Tunisia with me through the State Department. And now guess what? She is at the State Department in the United States, a wonderful person. And Veniamin in Kazakhstan— Veniamin, I think about you all the time. I can't believe the tension and what you're going through in that country. Венямене! We all love you here. And Bender Consulting Services, Voice America, we all send our support to all people living with disabilities in the Ukraine. Of course, to everyone, but I'm on the board of the World Institute Disability. And you know what we're working on? Getting people out of the country. Imagine having a disability in the Ukraine, trying to get out of the country. So please go to World Institute on Disability, which I'm on the national board. That's wid.org. And you can see where you can make a donation. To people with disabilities in the Ukraine, to the resources we're putting together for them. But we're always thinking about you. We're always behind you. And now I get to one of my favorite parts of the show where I get to get that shout out to Yoshiko. Yoshiko Dart, how thrilled I am and was to see you in D.C. You know, for the past, like, oh my goodness, I'm going to— maybe over 5 years. I do this every show. You know why? To remember Justin Dart, one of the great leaders of disability rights and getting the ADA signed. You know what? It is terrible that people do not know about him. I mean, across the board. Because he is such, such a great man. So I told you, Yoshiko, I'm going to bring that up on every show. And I just know, Yoshiko, that wherever you are right now, I know it, you're looking and you're saying, "Lead on, Joyce." I just know it. You know, we— I love you, Yoshiko. I will always love you so much. And I have to thank our sponsor, Highmark. What a great company. They've been our lead con— uh, sponsor for several years. Lead, they are an awesome, awesome company. Well, I have to say I'm biased today because I think I have the best guest in the world on the show today. Why? Because they are with Bender Consulting Services. So of course I know them extremely well, starting Paula Balogh, the Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Gerald Helmy, Manager of Talent Acquisition and Technology, and Jim Helmy, Accessibility Consultant. And what is this I'm talking about? I'm talking about HighTest. HighTest is a division of Bender Consulting Services focused on accessibility digital accessibility, and even more that we'll be talking about in a little bit. Remember, if you're looking for digital accessibility services, Highmark, or wherever you are, whatever company you are, from Highmark to Northrop Grumman, all across the United States, you need help, you call Bender Consulting Services, high test. Okay, well, we're going to start with Paula Balogh, PJ is what she goes by. PJ, I'm so excited, it's unbelievable. As we're getting ready for Global Accessibility Awareness Day, guess what day it is? May 19th. And guess what day that is? PJ's birthday. See, that must be planned, that your birthday is on Global Accessibility Awareness Day. Perfect, since you're the CTO, the Chief Technology Officer, EVP, person who has worked with me the longest, number 2, and person over HighTest, our digital accessibility team at Bender Consulting Services, and so much more you do. I love having you on today. Let's start, Paula, by you telling our listeners, which I know they will be so surprised, around the world and in the United States, how long have you worked with me?

Well, I've been— it'll be 35 years this November. Seems like yesterday.

35 years, can you believe that? 35 great years having PJ Balog work with me. You are part of of the success of Bender, helping me build the company. And everyone knows it. Gerald, do you know that?

Of course, I'm actually the best.

Yeah, and how about you, Jim Homme? Do you know that?

I absolutely do. I get the privilege of working with Paula every day.

So, Paula, I know you manage the accessibility team, and I know how much you love that. But I want to ask you a question. A lot of people think— people even said this to me— oh, websites, their accessibility, that's only for people who are blind. That's not correct, is it?

No, it's not. It's actually many disabilities, including people with mobility impairments, low vision, people who are deaf, people with epilepsy, many disabilities. Actually, and websites, they should be accessible for all people. That's right. No matter what the disability, even temporary disabilities.

That's a great point. No matter what the disability you have, even if it's temporary, you under the ADA deserve access the way everyone else has access. and I know how strongly you believe in that. Gerald, you work with PJ on the accessibility team, and you are our manager of talent programs. Here we have Global Accessibility Awareness Day coming up, uh, May 19th. What does that mean to you? What do you think are some of the major aspects of that to you?

Well, thanks, Joyce Bender, for having me on the show and all of us on the show to talk about this. This is an important day, Global Accessibility Awareness Day. This is all about spreading the word about accessibility and getting the buzz, getting people talking about it so that people can learn about digital access and inclusion of people with disabilities. And, you know, I'm really used to talking about it because Jim, who is here with us and is my father and is blind, Growing up, when I explained to kids that were my peers or adults or teachers that my dad was a programmer in IT, they were just shocked that that was even possible, that a blind person could use a computer. And I explained, "Oh, yeah, it's pretty normal. You know, you use a screen reader, unless they don't make things accessible." So I was used to talking about accessibility since childhood, and now I get to help advocate with our customers and partners to help them make their websites accessible and understand that people with these disabilities still can use technology, and you need to include them when you're building technology so that they can access your website, so they can order food or deliveries from their— your mobile app, or get their made-to-order sandwiches at the kiosks at your restaurants. So it's just to get people talking about this and get them to understand what accessibility is.

Yeah, and, and that is so important, having that awareness. And speaking of that story you just told, PJ will tell you, we were at the building we will soon be moving into, and we met this gentleman while we were there, and we were talking about our employees and what they do. And PJ, remember that person could not believe that people who are blind could do these things?

Yes, people every day I talk to can't believe it. The thing that's so upsetting is that, you know, people today, everything you purchase, most of the things you purchase, especially because of COVID is online. And if you don't have access to those things, you can't purchase them. So, you know, either people selling are missing out, and people that can't access that information are missing out. Or if you're purchasing insurance, or no matter what it is that you're trying to find online, if you're blind and you can't get to a form or access the form or fill the form out,, then you can't get what you're trying to find online, and it's really upsetting that people don't think about that unless it happens to them. Even if you have a cast on and you can't use a mouse, you have to be able to tab through the websites or apps to be able to access information.

Yeah, and I know you always talk about color And isn't a person who is colorblind, isn't that considered a disability where they need accessibility?

Yes, absolutely, because different colors, you can't see, they can't see all the different colors. So if your site uses colors that are not accessible, then a lot of times people will either miss the information, not see the information. On your site.

And I'm going to tell you, any companies listening, anyone, you want someone that's like magnifying glass eyes looking at testing and finding one minuscule mistake out of like billions of words, it's PJ Balog. Is it that right, Gerald? How many— is it that right? She doesn't miss.

She has the eagle eye.

Yes, she does. She's like superhero PJ. Superhero can see everything. That's her superpower. Yes. So, so, Jim, let's hear about you. How did you get started in digital accessibility?

I'm a—

as Gerald was talking about, I'm a screen reader user. I'm, I'm totally blind, and I had to advocate for myself over the years, all the way from, you know, the beginning of life until I started my job way back in 1988. I'm the first person with a disability that Joyce Bender placed anywhere. And when I got my job, I had to advocate all the time there just to survive at my job. And I started finding out that there were these regulations about that kind of thing, and I started to want to give back to other people who were blind and then to people who have other disabilities because I discovered that the regulations covered all the other disabilities also. So, I just wanted to give back and help other people start advocating and getting access to what they needed, and along the way, I just kept spreading the word until the point of where we are now with our own department here at Bender spreading that same word.

And you know what, Jim, I was thinking about this the other day. Do you even know when that started? I'm talking about digital accessibility. You know, when, when did they even start doing that? Because I'm sure for ages here people had no hope. There, there wasn't digital accessibility. We know that. When, when did that start, would you say?

Interesting story. We were talking about this a little while ago when we were having Paula's birthday celebration about how we started using a typewriter at Bender, and really accessibility got started in a meaningful way back when there was an Italian person who wanted to write love letters to his girlfriend who was partially sighted, and he invented the typewriter for that reason. That was way back in the 1800s.

Wow.

And, and the, the computer mouse was invented in 1955, and that was also an accessibility thing. And what we take for granted now as optical character recognition was invented back in the early '80s. So we have the forerunners for digital accessibility happening a lot, a long time over a long period of time. The first screen reader was invented in 1982, believe it or not.

That is a very interesting story.

Yeah, those are very interesting stories. So prior—

and then the Expressible Braille, Jim. Before you used a screen reader?

No, I used, uh, refreshable Braille wasn't invented until later, later, but I used a Braille printer that used to print on hard copy paper. It sounded like Fred Flintstone.

Yeah, I remember seeing that, was gigantic paper. I was so noisy that Yes, I remember seeing that. So, Jim, you know how you said you started working in 1988, which was before the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law? So what did people do before that then? What was the deal? What would you do?

Well, they just advocated for themselves, and I don't really even know what kind of organizations we had back then. But I know there are small groups of people all over the country and all over the world who would get together, you know, in the same room with each other and on the phone and everything and try to pool their ideas together to try to get access, uh, and, and just share stories to see if they could help each other along. And, uh, when, when, um, even before the internet was, was born, we had small groups of people who would get together. There were these things called bulletin boards, which were the forerunners of our internet that we have now, that, that used to send messages to each other and help each other.

Well, I'll tell you what, one of my favorites— go ahead, Gerald.

I was gonna say, one of my favorite stories of the early days of Dad's career is when he first got hired and he had to work in Lotus Notes, and Lotus Notes was practically inaccessible, and this was before the ADA, so there wasn't a huge requirement for it to be accessible, but Jim made a whole bunch of code. He wrote his own code for his screen reader to adapt it to work in that environment. You know, he just used his own technical skills to to make it work and ended up becoming the first certified Lotus Notes developer and was able to continue and be successful in his job. That's one of my favorite stories of Dad's early days in accessibility.

I know, I remember that. Yeah, that was a great accomplishment. Well, thank God for the Americans with Disabilities Act. That's what I have to say. Oh, someone's on the line that knows something about about the Americans with Disabilities Act. Tony Coelho, are you on the line right now?

I sure am, Joyce. I've been listening. It's very, very educational, and I remember as well way back then.

Well, let me just say—

Hi, Tony.

That's Paula.

Yeah, I—

go ahead. I was just going to say about about Tony. He's of course the author of the Americans with Disabilities Act and just a great person, and I might add the chair of the Bender Advisory Board, but all across the world people know Tony and love Tony. Tony, you then do remember of course clearly how this was prior to the Americans with Disabilities Act for people who were blind.

Absolutely. They, you know, I always say that, you know, if you were sight-impaired, blind, and you went to a restaurant and you asked the waitress or waiter or whatever what was on the menu because you could not see, or whatever you wanted to say, they had legally the right to kick you out because because you were troublesome, bothersome, nuisance, or whatever, and that was all very legal. Nobody could stop them from doing what they were doing. And all that has changed as a result of the ADA. The critical thing on that is enforcement of that law, but that is the law of the land.

It is, and I know that you're even working even more about that with President Biden. With Section 508, but one of the reasons that I heard you speak about something and I thought, "You have got to be kidding." It was so shocking to me, and now I saw it for Global Accessibility Awareness Day on their website, but I wanted you to tell our listeners the percentage of websites that are not accessible.

Joyce Bender. Yeah, Joyce, there's a group that analyzes websites about every 6 months, independent group, and their review says that 98.2%, now that's 98.2%, of all websites are not accessible. That's a staggering number. It tells you something about, what is going on, and that needs to be changed. Now, most people, uh, during COVID understood how critical the internet was to them to do finances, to shop, uh, to, uh, anything that you needed to do business-wise, you had to use the internet. Well, just think of those of us with disabilities, uh, who don't have access to the internet What happened to us during COVID So it's an issue that has been around for a long time. A lot of— there's been a lot of court cases. A pizza company basically said that they didn't have to comply because there were people insisting that the internet was covered by the ADA. I'm a strong advocate of that, by the way. And so This case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court ruled— excuse me, the appellate court ruled that it was covered by the ADA, and it went to the Supreme Court, appealed, and the Supreme Court denied access. So basically, from that point of view, it's the law of the land. However, there are other cases that are going through some of these more conservative courts, and it's the opposite. So there are two things that are going on right now, primarily led by the blind community and the hearing loss/deaf community, and basically it is to develop legislation. I'm advising them on this whole effort, develop legislation that would say that it's covered by the ADA. Now, I happen to think it already is there, but we're doing the legislation just to educate and to get some support and interest and so on. Now, on the other side, we're working with the administration, the Justice Department, Education Department, HHS, basically getting them to draft rules and regulations that in effect say that the internet is covered by the ADA. And so that effort is going on right now. All three of those agencies are working on it. The most critical one, of course, would be the Department of Justice. And they're in the midst of drafting that right now. Same with HHS and and education, but those are narrow in focus. So, HHS dealing with health issues, education dealing with education issues, but justice would be across the board in all activities. Now, that is being worked on right now. As I say, I'm very involved in that. It's being led by the blind, sight-impaired, hearing, hearing loss communities.. And we are hoping to get those in place by sometime in '23. It takes a while to get all that done, but we're working on it and pushing. Administration and the White House, I should say, has said this is a priority. And so we're optimistic that something will be done. Now, we expect opposition as we go along, but with the President. I'm, as someone who has a disability, understands this, was an author, supporter of the ADA when I was in the Senate, I think that we should get support there as we move along. But it is this effort, and I take the position, I'll say again, that the ADA does cover the internet. People say that the definition is not there, but the definition includes interstate commerce, and there's no doubt that the internet is involved in interstate commerce. So that's the status of it. I'm optimistic we'll finally get something done. We had an— we made an attempt in the Obama administration to get there. OMB basically stopped it. Dealing with definitions and so forth. But we're pushing now, and I'm optimistic we'll get there.

That will be wonderful. That will be wonderful. You know what, you are the ultimate energizer bunny. I mean, this man never stops, you know that? Okay, ADA, uh, let me just go through some of these. Census, ADA Amendments Act, Section 503 of the Rehab Act. Uh, now you're working on this. What did I leave out? I know I left something out.

Uh, Department of Education— no, Department of Labor Disability Rights Administration, whatever it's called, ODEP. And I got Clinton— I was head of the, as you know, Joyce, head of the President's Committee to Hire People with Disabilities. Clinton appointed me to head that up, and pro bono, but I said that I would be happy to do so, but at the end of my time doing it, if we had made it successful, because it wasn't very successful, if we made it successful, that he would then follow through in creating this assistant secretaryship at the Department of Labor. The reason I did that is that as an independent agency, which the President's Committee was, you got the crumbs that budget-wise were available. But as an Assistant Secretary of Labor, you'd have free access to funds in order to get things done. So at the end of my time, this is the end of the Clinton presidency, I went to the President and he agreed to put it in the budget, and it was put in over the objection of some folks from the White House. Um, and then, uh, when it got in the budget, uh, Senator Harkin was the chairman of the Labor Subcommittee in Appropriations, and he, uh, then pushed it through on the appropriation process, and we got it done. So that was an effort to get rid of the President's Committee, but also to put disability in the mainstream of governance, and we got that done.

Yeah, well, see what I mean? I knew I would have forgotten something. I mean, I know Paula Balog, you know this man. Am I right that he never stops?

Oh no, Energizer Buddy. He's definitely always on the move, always looking out for others.

Paula is— Paula is prejudice, so Everybody has to take that in as a grain.

A fact. No, a fact.

I've seen you in action.

I, before I go on, I did want to ask you one last question, uh, Tony, for all of our listeners. Is there anything people can do to help, you know, push this legislation through or help bring it, you know, more to the forefront Is there anything that our listeners can do?

Well, once we introduce it, I think it would be a good idea, Joyce Bender, to have somebody on your show from the blind or hearing loss community to discuss it. And at that point, then, your folks that you have on your program could urge their member of Congress to co-sponsor it. And that would be the logical step. In regards to the executive order, at this point, it's— if anybody has a good relationship with Justice Department or HEW or Education Departments, support there would be fine. But I think the most positive thing would be getting people as co-sponsors to the legislation. Now, the reason that that's important is that the more we get people as co-sponsors to the legislation, we'll send a signal to the White House that there's this broad support, not only from the communities, because we've got 180 different groups to send a letter to the Justice Department and to the White House and to senators talking about how this was a priority for all these different groups and the disability community. But if we get more cosponsors, it basically sends a big signal to the White House that this is important and that legislation isn't needed if they will just go ahead and issue ultimately the rules and regulations that need to be promulgated.

Well, thank you. We will certainly be having you back on. As a matter of fact, you'll be back in July, actually on the day the ADA was signed with Valerie Jarrett. But we will follow up on everything you've said. Tony, thank you so much for calling in.

Thank you, Joyce. Thank you, Paula.

Talk to you later.

Bye.

Okay. Bye-bye. He's my champion. He is a great man, I'll tell you that. Okay. Well, wow. It's always so exciting to me to have the author of the Americans with Disabilities Act call into the show. I mean, that is really is a great honor to have that. So I want to ask Gerald a question, then I'll go back to PJ. Gerald, tell us about what HighTest does to help companies secure accessibility documentation known to many people such as myself as VPATs, to do business with the federal government?

Happy to. So this is something we've seen be a huge need, especially in light of the work of people like Tony Coelho to really push on— put on the pressure for digital accessibility to be something that companies should care about.— and especially because of 508, if you're doing work with the federal government, they're going to ask you to submit a detailed accessibility report of your products, your websites, your applications, your documents that you're providing to show that they are accessible and to show if they are accessible within each standard. Of the WCAG, which is the web governing body that talks about what makes something accessible. So this detailed report shows for each thing that impacts accessibility with your product, what level are you?

Are you at—

how good of a job are you doing at making that accessible? So many customers have been coming to us and asking us for assistance in reviewing their products to see if they're accessible and to complete these VPATs, because they don't even know where to get started to look at their sites or their programs to see if they can— are accessible or even have the level of expertise to complete these forms. So we've helped a number of companies develop these VPATs to help them impact their accessibility And it also gives them a good generalized picture of where they need to improve on their accessibility. And then, you know, these are one of the factors now that government is looking at when you're bidding on work is between you and your competitor, which of your products is more accessible for the one that they select to use for their services. And these forms are slowly becoming a best practice of something that you just have available to be asked for when you're trying to work with any number of organizations. We've seen educational institutions, government contractors that are in the private sector ask for these pieces of documentation when they're choosing through their procurement process. If they want to work with a company. So they are really an important piece of documentation for you to have, just as your other compliance and legal and regulatory documents need to be up to date for— and your security documentation for the work that you are doing. Accessibility is becoming a standard piece that you are going to need to be able to document. Your level of compliance with the law for digital accessibility. And we can help you build out that documentation so that you can go after these opportunities for your product.

Oh, that— you know what, what VPATs, what are they referred to now as?

They're now Accessibility Conformance Reports.

Accessibility conformance reports. And just so you know, that is the correct word, but so you know, that's VPATs for those like me that would not know. PJ, when you are testing with your group, what are things you look for? What do you look for when you and your group are testing?

When we're actually doing testing?

Yes.

Well, Jim and I test together a lot, which is really exciting because, you know, Jim is obviously an expert in screen reader user, and I always say I'm his eyes. We walk through it together. It's really interesting. We look for, obviously, areas where Jim obviously can't get through through maybe a form or testing apps to make sure that he can get from screen to screen, we can purchase something, he understands what he's purchasing. Lots of other things that we test for are PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations. One of the most amazing things to me now that I have been working with the PDFs is when you're reading it with Jim, the reading order could be totally different. I'll have to ask, you know, what are you seeing? Because if you don't create this document properly, what Jim is seeing, what I'm seeing, is totally different because the order could be wrong or different, or he's not seeing the top of the page, he's seeing the bottom of the page. I mean, it's really, really interesting. Is there anything else you can add to that, Jim?

Yeah, the kinds of things we test for are: can you use the product with a keyboard all by itself? Does it have enough color contrast? Do videos have captioning? Is the document structured so that someone with a disability can figure out which parts are titles, which parts are headings, which parts are Table headings, all the relationships of the data to one another and to the rest of the website and to the rest of the mobile application. All kinds of different things.

It's amazing how much there is, you know, that I hate to say it, but that isn't right. I always quote Eve Hill. Eve Hill is now the chair She's also an attorney with a law firm, but she's the chair of the board of the Bazelon Center of Mental Health Law that I am on the board of. But when in the Obama administration, she was with the Department of Justice. I can still hear her speaking, say, "You want to hire people with disabilities? Well, how can I get in your front door?" if the website is not accessible. I'll never forget that. It had such an impact on me, and I know now I'll be with PJ, and she'll be looking at something, and she'll say, "That's not accessible. That's not accessible." And PJ, how many times have we been in events that do not have captioning?

Many. Mostly even church services you go to.

Yeah, and I'm sorry, you just— no, that's right. And once you're— yes, isn't— and that's terrible at the church services or synagogue or mosque, wherever it is, that there are people that go. How would they understand if it isn't accessible? And Gerald, doesn't this even include people— accessibility doesn't even include people with intellectual disabilities?

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. You know, you want to make sure that you have a sensible layout to your website. One of the biggest things about accessibility is being able to understand what's on your page and where to go and how to do what you need to do, and that when you go to do it, it actually works with whatever device you're interacting with. Technology with. And for people with intellectual disabilities, you want to be clear where they can go to engage in your products and services. You don't want it to be something that's going to prevent them from being able to be included.

Well, why don't companies do this? Jim, why don't companies do this? After all, Jim, You are a subject matter expert in digital accessibility. You are one of the top accessibility experts in this country. Number one, why do you think they don't do it? But start with this: how have you seen the landscape of digital accessibility shift over the years of your career?

I think it's gone from specialized accessibility separated into various disability groups to more general. From when I started out, we were writing scripts only for blind people to access things, and if you were a person who couldn't hear, you, you got an interpreter or you got somebody to help you, and it was all splintered from disability group to disability group. But now with universal access, especially now since we're— everybody's going online more with COVID It's become something that is just general and out there, and the need for digital accessibility, the awareness of that need is greater than ever. And as to the question you asked me before about why do I think more people don't pay attention to this, I think it's because of a lack of education, possibly to developers. About accessibility. Most of the courses that I'm aware of don't teach accessibility in with all the other things they teach. Accessibility is taught as a separate thing outside of the normal way people learn how to develop software. And so, you know, just like in the corporate culture, we want to encourage people to have accessibility as just part of what they do. I think the educational process also needs to get there and not just, you know, make accessibility separate as though it's a pain to do, but just make it part of everything that they also have to work on in school.

And I think, you know, I hate to say this, but it's sometimes it takes something happening to someone or someone in their family to understand the need for accessibility. But please keep in mind that it isn't just people who are blind. I think that you have— Gerald, what about Dragon? Can you talk about that for a minute?

Yeah, so as a person with dyslexia and dysgraphia, I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking, a software that allows me to read and write using my voice and using the computer speakers to have it read out loud content to me. But a lot of people, there's a lot of people that have significant mobility impairments that actually uses Dragon NaturallySpeaking beyond that to actually navigate and control their computer. So they'll navigate and completely control their computer using their voice. So for example, you know how sometimes when you're navigating on a webpage You go over a link and there's a little box around that link, and that's actually an accessibility feature that is called focus that allows a person who's using Dragon to navigate or a keyboard to navigate to actually know where they're at on that webpage. So for somebody who doesn't use their mouse to click on something, that's essential for them to be able to successfully click on anything. Can you imagine if you were just, you know, selecting things at random on your website hoping to end up in the right place? It would be frustrating and you would just go to your competitor. So that navigation, there are so many groups that get involved in this. Piece of it and so much software to help include people both on mobile devices and on their computers.

And Gerald, you brought up an interesting point because 20% of people in the United States are living with disabilities, and from a business perspective, that's a lot of money that you may be leaving on the table if you don't accommodate people with disabilities.

Oh, that's so true. Absolutely. That is so true.

And then Joyce, for you, there could be, you know, websites that they decided to have flashing animations on their screen that could cause somebody to have a seizure or trigger migraines for somebody with a migraine disorder. So, you know, there's a lot of factors that go into building these sites to make sure Everybody is included. It's funny, when you look at— one of the things that my dad, Jim, has always said is if you look at these standards, really, if you're just building your websites in an effective way that is using code the way it's supposed to be used, a lot of the times you're already really close to accessible. It's just keeping a few things in mind. So if you are really using your core programming skills to build things the way they are supposed to be, you are going a long way. So it is not that hard to include accessibility if you actually implement it and make it a part of what you do.

That's an example I was going to mention. We have had— I'm sorry, Joyce.

No, no, go ahead, TJ.—

people that we've worked with that have had websites that have been around forever. We've also worked with people who are just building their websites, and it's so much easier to get in from the beginning when they're building new websites to make it accessible. It's much easier and more cost-effective if they build it in at the beginning.

Wow, that's a good point. And I also—

yeah, also, Joyce, Linda Dickerson, a dear friend of ours that passed away, she remembers she sees her eyes.

For her software.

So it's really cool. I mean, there's so many people that weren't able to in the past use technology at all until all these new different assistive technologies have come out. So the sites and the applications need to be able to be used with those different accessible technologies.

Yes, I'm so glad you brought that point up. That's a great point, PJ. See, that's why you work for me. You come up with these great points. But Linda Dickerson was, uh, one of our closest friends. As a matter of fact, after she passed away a couple years ago, at the Bender Leadership Academy, we started a scholarship called the Linda Dickerson Scholarship Fund. And of course, Bender Leadership Academy is preparing high school students for the world of work leadership, how to deal with bullying, and then we have the special Mary Brogger Mental Health Initiative. And Linda, oh my goodness, she loved young people with disabilities, loved them. And Linda was, you know, that's why we have the Linda Dickerson Scholarship there. Linda was a great communicator. She was on the board of Carnegie Mellon, graduated from Carnegie Mellon, chair of the board of the ballet, chair of the board of the zoo. You know, I could go on and on.

Ran for office.

Ran for office, that's right. I could go on and on and on, but knew more CEOs than anyone I have ever known in the city of Pittsburgh. In the regional area. Brilliant, brilliant. But Linda had a very significant disability. She used a wheelchair. And so later on when her disability became worse, she would use the accessibility Paula talked about, looking up at the screen and using her eyes to write emails. And, you know, they were prolific. But just think, you would have missed out on those years of Linda's life without that technology. So there are so many great things about technology and what it can do. And I didn't get to ask you this, Jim. What is it like working with PJ?

Oh. I love it.

I love it.

She's—

she is the greatest. I mean, she keeps me on my toes. She keeps me focused. She keeps me, uh, uh, you know, she makes me laugh. She, uh, she really cares about everybody so much. Um, and, uh, it's just— to me, it's an honor and a privilege And I'm thankful for it every day.

Well, we're thankful for you every day. And Gerald, who was just with me in DC and also works with the digital accessibility team, I think you know, Gerald, that as we're approaching Global Accessibility Awareness Day, that this is a disability rights issue, right, Gerald?

Absolutely. This is an important day, an important topic, because remember, although people may discriminate against us with disabilities, disabilities don't discriminate, and anybody can join our community at any time. And if you are— find yourself suddenly with a disability, don't you want to have access to all the same websites, the same software, the same pro— your favorite apps on your cell phone. Don't you want to have access to all of those things as you do now, even if you were to gain that disability? So keep that in mind when you're thinking about what a difference this makes. Could be you or your loved one that could be impacted by this.

And you know what, raise your hand at your company on May 19th. First say happy birthday PJ Balog, but after that raise your hand and say, hey, this is Global Accessibility Awareness Day. What are we doing to make that known at the company? What are we doing about accessibility? This is the celebration day, and there are events, you know, in different cities across the United States, including Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which I spoke at last year. But make sure that you remember social media. Get it out there. May 19th, Global Accessibility Awareness Day. You have to celebrate just as We all would, and I like that comment that Gerald made. Remember, you are the temporarily able-bodied, which means you could join this group at any time. So, before we go, PJ, what does someone do if they're listening to the show right now, they're saying, wow, I need to work with High Test, how do they get in touch with us? What do they do?

Yes, we have a contact us form. Contact form on our website. You just need to fill that out and send it in, and somebody would definitely get in touch with you, uh, right away.

We'll get in touch with you right away. Yes. And by the way, Jim, how long have you been doing this with Bender? How many years?

I mean, I will be, uh, at— including Highmark, or just with Bender?

No, including— no, working in any digital accessibility because even before you came to the office, I know you worked with that— was it a law firm? Do you know what I'm talking about?

Oh, yeah. We did LexisNexis work back in 1998, back in 1999, I think.

Something like that. Okay. Wow, that's a long time. So what I mean, folks, you're not listening to a— you're not listening to a show where we're talking about a company that just said a few years ago, "Oh, we should do this." And you know what? It's all about quality of experience. And before we end the show today, we always end with a quote, but before we end, again, PJ Balog, Gerald Helmi, Jim Helmi. I'm so proud you all work at Bender Consulting Services, and I'm glad everyone got to meet the Chief Technology Officer and the HITESS team. Thank you all so much for being on the show today.

Thank you for having us. Glad to be here.

All right, so we gotta end the show with that quote, and this is one of the quotes. I love this quote. Quote. Ready? Many people will ask, am I sure my website's accessible? Well, here's the thing. If you're not sure if your website is accessible, it's not, said Jenny Lay-Flurry, Chief Accessibility Officer for Microsoft. This is Joyce Bender. America's Voice: Where Disability Matters at voiceamerica.com. Talk to you all next week, and in the words of Mary Brocker, when you leave the show today, choose joy.

Voice America would like to thank you for tuning in. Please join us next Tuesday at 11 AM Pacific time and 2 PM Eastern time for another installment of Disability Matters right here on the Voice America Variety Channel. We are the leader in live internet talk radio. VoiceAmerica.com.