A latte with Eugene Woo

In this episode, Matisse chats with Eugene Woo, the CEO of Venngage, about easy ways to create accessible documents while comparing the various platforms used today.

About Eugene Woo
As an engineer with a passion for visual storytelling, Eugene Woo recognized the challenges many faced in design. This inspired him to master infographics and subsequently create Venngage, a platform that empowers you to transform your ideas into vibrant visuals without any design experience.

Follow Eugene and Venngage:
Website (Affiliate link)
LinkedIn: Eugene Woo
Instagram: @Venngage
YouTube: @VenngageVids

Connect with PR & Lattes
Website: PR & Lattes
Instagram: @PRAndLattes
Host: @MatisseNelis

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

[Music]

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 0:02

Hello and welcome back for another episode of PR & Lattes, the podcast where you can fill up your cup on everything PR and communications. I'm your host, Matisse Hamel-Nelis, and I am so happy to have you join me today for another brand new episode. Before we get started, make sure you subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening to it, to get notified each week during the season when a new episode drops. You can also subscribe to our newsletter by visiting our website, PRandlattes.com. On the website, you'll also find our podcast episodes, plus our amazing blogs with new ones being uploaded every Monday morning. And of course, make sure you're following us on socials, on Instagram, at@PRAndLattes and on LinkedIn, PR& Lattes. On today's episode, I'm chatting with Eugene Woo, the CEO of Venngage, an online platform that empowers users to transform their ideas into vibrant, accessible visuals without any design experience as an engineer with a passion for visual storytelling, Eugene recognized the challenges many faced in design. This inspired him to master infographics and subsequently create Venngage for full disclosure to the listeners. I was provided with access to the platform before the episode so I could play around with the software and get a sense of what it was all about. And after playing with it for a couple of weeks, I'm really excited to chat with Eugene about Venngage and other design platforms, their ease of use and creating accessible and compliant content. So grab your latte, sit back and enjoy. Welcome back to the PR & Lattes podcast. I am so excited to have today's guest on the podcast Eugene. Welcome to PR & Lattes.

Eugene Woo: 1:48

Thank you very much, Matisse. I'm excited to be here.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 1:51

Let's dive into this good stuff by starting off with the easy questions. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and your role at bengage, where you are the CEO, and what inspired you to focus on accessibility and document design and creation?

Eugene Woo: 2:06

Sure, simple question. So my name is Eugene. I'm the CEO and founder of Venngage. Venngage is easy to use design tool. It's you know, very similar to a Canva, if people are familiar with that, we have a very big difference. We are very specialized on making the documents and the designs you create accessible, and the tool itself, obviously it's also accessible. So we have a very and we have a very, I want to call it still very niche. I hate to use that word, but it's still a very niche set of features that enables anyone to easily create and export accessible designs and documents and a little bit of background, you know, I was a software engineer, so I came from a sort of a technical background, kind of, you know, like...Like many software entrepreneurs, kind of wrote the first version of the tool, and kind of, you know, stumbled upon, to be honest, kind of stumbled upon accessibility. As our as our user base grew, we got a lot of requests from governments. Actually, the Canadian government, I'm based in Canada, was one of them got cut and from higher ed. So universities and colleges started asking us about things like, Do you have an accessibility checker? Can we export this, you know, in an accessible PDF? And initially, to be honest, I we were like, what does that actually mean? So we're talking about like, you know, five years ago and change and so so slowly, it was a slow process. We began to learn a little bit, you know, a little bit as we dug into it and realized, like, wow, this is essentially something that we've ignored. And the entire industry, for the most part, have ignored these and, you know, the whole the whole digital accessibility point of design. So we know we this, made this decision where we rebuild our product, or two years ago to focus and to commit to it, and you know, two years later, here we are, like, we have a product that's very focused on accessibility, that actually helps users create accessible designs easily.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 4:23

Amazing, amazing. And you mentioned how governments and higher ed were asking for this. How important is accessibility in the design industry, from your experience and what you've been hearing, and how are platforms like fan gage and competitors like Canva and InDesign, and how are they addressing this need?

Eugene Woo: 4:43

Sure, I would say, I mean, the honest answer is, outside of like federal agencies and state agencies and universities who are kind of governed by by government, you know, by federal and state regulations. Outside of those, we do not see a lot of demand for our accessibility feature. So that's the honest answer. So, and that's probably, you know, 90 plus percent of our user base. So it's a, still a small minority who are, who really are pushing it. And it's mainly, you know, again, it's mainly from, from those that have either a compliance issue, sort of compliance I have, you know, a compliance mandate all their universities and and all nonprofit I would say there are definitely some non-profits as well. It's, you know, the honest the honest answer is, as much as I would like to say, oh my gosh, accessibility is such a widespread, you know, a widespread thing that people know. The answer is they don't know that's not true. So I would say it's still a small minority of our user base who are asking for it and who are using it, because we do track who uses our tool and that, you know, it's slowly growing, but it's still a small percentage of our user base. And as far as our competitors are concerned, I don't, you know, look at like our competitors all the time, but, but, but, from the last time we looked at our competitors, you know, they, they're not really focused on it, right? It's not something that it's, you know, I'll give you an example of Canva. I'm sure Canva had this the same request as they were much bigger than us. For many, many years, they've only started to build, you know, they've only begun that that process. They have very minimal accessibility features that, you know, I would say, compared to us, and we started much later than them. And other design tools, like InDesign, it's sort of an afterthought. You have to have a plugin. You kind of have to, kind of, it's very, very difficult. And all of the Adobe tools is quite difficult to make anything accessible. You can, it's obviously, but it's a it's a different skill level it needs, it requires a lot of training and all that. So typically, you have to be a professional, what we call professional accessibility remediator, or a document remediator, to be able to handle those tools. So, so that's the difference, I think, within within our market, which is the kind of do it yourself, simple to use tool like we're the only tool right now. Venngage is the only tool right now that has these built in accessible accessibility features.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 7:09

Yeah, and I find it interesting that it's, as you said, it's still a relatively small market, or a small component of businesses and organizations that are using things like Venngage and thinking about accessibility, when here, at least, where I'm based in Ontario, we have the AODA that, you know, significantly more businesses actually need to comply with this. And so it's really interesting that I think there's going to be a shift, and people maybe the panic will set in, and they'll start saying, oh, we need, we need a quick tool. We need the tool that's going to get us to where we need to be to be compliant, right? So...

Eugene Woo: 7:45

Yeah, I think there's a lot of, I mean, the regulations have been around for a while. It's not like, it's not like it's new, right? Like, it's accessible, accessibility, even in the US ADA and in Ontario, yeah, they've been around for a while, like, from like, decades, yeah. And so I would say that it's an, it's definitely an awareness problem, and, and, and a lot of the regulations don't have any kind of enforcement on them. They're...

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 8:11

yeah,

Eugene Woo: 8:12

...except for the ones that you, you know, I think some of the European ones now have some enforcement, which may change things in Europe, but in North America, it's, I think it's a little different, although, although there is a change now in the in the US, the ADA Title II there is some, there's going to be some enforcement there, yeah, and I so, so you're right, so maybe next year, everyone you know panics, and I personally don't think so, but we'll see.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 8:38

Yeah, we'll see. And especially in Ontario, with the AODA coming into full effect come January 1. That's where I think, you know there are, there are some repercussions for not being compliant. So perhaps at that point, it'll be warning that come through first with like, All right, well, you've had now 25 years to do this. Where are we at and kind of going from there and seeing what they can do, so that'll be interesting. But from your perspective, you've already mentioned, sort of how Venngage, Canva and InDesign compare in terms of the user experience, right? Where Venngage...and Venngage has it basically all built in, from an accessibility perspective, and it's easy to use, Canva easy to use, but doesn't necessarily have that accessibility woven into it, and then InDesign being its own beast, where it's a lot of training to really know the nuances, the ins and outs of how to make your document accessible. But how does that user experience compare for a user with disabilities who's trying to create content in an accessible manner, and what are the strengths and weaknesses from either Venngage or from the other platforms as well.

Eugene Woo: 9:45

So, so I can't, I cannot speak, no, I about the other tools I have not, you know, tested them in that manner, and, and, and, you know, I'm not a disabled person, so I don't know what the experience is. So I cannot speak for the Adobe tools or Canva, but on our tool, we do test our tools, both with, you know, we we used to contract out to a third party to test because we didn't have back then, we didn't know, we didn't have the capability of testing it with with a diverse set of users, including users who are disabled, and so we take that feedback in and and so we know that our tool can be used by someone with, you know, with disabilities, someone who's using a screen reader. We've begun to do it ourselves now in house. In house is in like we hire people with disabilities to test our tools, and we also test our tools. It's part of our regular QA process now to test our tools with screen readers. So, so a user can use a screen reader to sort of manipulate the, you know the app, or you know the design, or the editor, as we call it, and can make changes and and all that.

Unknown: 11:01

amazing,

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 11:01

Amazing, amazing. And how well does Venngage comply with international accessibility standards, like, what well guideline, WCAG 2.2 or the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or, you know, AODA, or ADA in the States, that sort of thing.

Eugene Woo: 11:17

Yeah, so, so we comply, we comply with WCAG 2.1 so that's the international standard that all the other standards sort of refer to. So like, either if it's European, the ADA in the US or in Canada, at the end of the day, it's WCAG, you know, 2.1 that is the standard, and we are compliant with that. Like we we put a lot of effort into making sure that we looked at all of, all of what compliance means, and, and, yeah, and we have some, you know, what we call a RECAD, which is a sort of a statement of a compliance that that was done by a third party, not, not by us. Yeah, we have that published in our site as well.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 11:56

Amazing, amazing. And what best practices does Venngage recommend when creating an accessible document. So I log into Venngage.

Eugene Woo: 12:03

Right.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 12:04

I'm starting to create a poster for an event, and now I'm like, okay, so what do I need to do? How do I make this accessible? This is going to live online. What do I got to do?

Unknown: 12:14

got to

Eugene Woo: 12:14

So if you're...So, I'll speak about general and then I can talk about, like, Venge. So in general, I mean, it doesn't matter if you use Venngage or any tools at the end of the day, if a document is accessible, if you know it has what we call a good structure. So the the the all the all the headers and the paragraphs and the subheaders are properly tagged and structured and ordered. So that means, you know, if I'm using a screen reader, it will kind of read it the way it will understand that this is a title. And if the user wants to skip to the you know, users are all the same, like we don't read a lot of times. We're just kind of what we call skim, and they want to skip to the next header, and they'll say, All right, I'm not interested in this. I'll skip to the next header. So we want to make sure that the headings and the structure and the order are all correct. And how do you do that? For the most part of you, in Venngage, for the most part, a lot of it is built in, if you're just using it as you would. If you if you tag, you know, if you add something as just like in Word, if something's a title, it will have to correct tag. If something is in h1 or in h2 a header, one hit or two, all of it will just naturally have the correct tagging structure. And in Venngage, we allow you to change the order. So if you wanted something on the side, you know, if you had a document that wasn't just going, you know, wasn't just, sorry, vertical, you have, like, something on the side. You wanted that read first, you could change the order by just dragging and dropping what we call in the order. We have this order panel that you can just drag and drop very easily. So, so I would say the number one is that making sure that it has that order tag structure. And then number two is, if you have any images or any visuals that are not text like have that you want the screen reader to read so they're important or informative. Informative. You want to have alt text. So that's pretty obvious. I think you know, most people know that, like, add alt text if you have images, especially if you have a complex image, like, like a graph or a chart, you want to make sure that it has it just doesn't say something simple, like chart, right? You want to, you want to actually describe what's in it. And then third, third is colour contrast. So you have colour contrast. Again, again. Colour contrast is a thing that most tools don't have. It built in. Most tools use, you know, require you to go to, you know, to use a colour contrast checker outside of the tool. And there's a lot of them, like WebAIM. There's like a dozen of them out there, but it's very cumbersome. You have to kind of work in the editor, go out and or you have to add a plugin in there. In vanguage, is all seamless. Every colour, every time you change a colour, you essentially we tell you, we sort of automatically check the contrast and tell you, hey, is there enough contrast or not. Does it meet the there actually is a requirement as a number depending on what the text is. Did you meet the requirement or not? And, and, so, yeah. So, so that's some of the, I would say, very high level features that that you would do as you're designing. I mean, there's like, a gazillion more. Those are the very high level things I would say as you're designing, you know, your your document or your design, that's what you would think of.

Unknown: 15:27

of.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 15:28

I love the fact that bengage will sort of flag, particularly with colour contrast, because that's an area where I find, with a lot of my clients, they'll say, "Okay, but what is, what is compliant? Why does this work? Why doesn't this work? Oh, I have to get another, a secondary app, or whatever the cases go elsewhere." The fact that Venngage sort of flags it for you right off the bat to say, "Ah, you need you're going to have to change this to be compliant," I think, is fantastic, and it helps the end user really understand, okay, now I get why I have to do this.

Eugene Woo: 15:56

Yeah, one of the things that I think that we really stand out is that we actually incorporate the whole colour, not just colour contrast, but a lot of the what we call accessible design principles, into your natural workflow. So it's not like this extra thing that you have to do at the end of the process. It's something that you're just kind of doing as you're designing right as you're picking a color, we say, hey, we show you the color contrast, and we give you and if it's not enough, it'll be red. It will say, like, you pick a color, like, it's great, but it's not, you know? So we kind of nudge you to accessibility as you're designing, as opposed to, hey, just fix it at the end, you know, run the run the checker and fix it at the end, which is, you can be done, but it's now you have to rework your design, right?

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 16:43

So yeah, and, you know, in a lot of cases, a lot of PR and comms people are sort of becoming the jack of all trades for their businesses and organizations. Where it's we have a very small team, we're all doing multiple different types of content and work and what we're creating. So having those checkers sort of built in, instead of being an afterthought and just always being top of mind, I think, is a fantastic way to make sure that what we are creating is always compliant, and that way we're sharing good things.

Eugene Woo: 17:10

Yeah, it's so one of the things, you know, it's accessibility. Is a very reactive work, I would say, Oh, it's a very it's like an afterthought. It's very reactive, right? Like, if you look at the industry as a whole, oh, we got sued. And then let's now go hire something, right? Or it's like, "Oh, I've created this document." And then they hand it over to an accessibility, you know, someone with an accessibility title, and go like, please help me fix it. And then they so it's then and then, and then the person will be like, Oh my gosh, this document is completely inaccessible. It's got no tech, like a screen reader. It says an image or whatever it is, right? And then they have to completely, you know, basically, spend hours and hours fixing that document. And that's the industry as a whole. It's extremely reactive. And what we wanted to do was make it more proactive. And that's, that's basically the main difference between Venngage and all the other tools, is that you actually address the problem proactively and as you're doing it, as opposed to kind of doing it at the end and being reactive.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 18:07

Yeah.

Eugene Woo: 18:08

So, yeah. So we kind of, I was, I'm a big fan of, like, the whole nudging and, you know, put guardrails in at your users, as opposed to, like, oh, fix it at the end.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 18:18

Yeah, yeah, especially if you're not sure what you have to fix, right? So having those safeguards in place and those prompts ensures that the person who's creating the content knows, "Oh, okay, I have to do this now. Oh, I have to do this now," versus at the end being like, Okay, I have to fix it. I don't know what I'm supposed to fix though.

Eugene Woo: 18:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, it's it. That's one of the, that's one of the big challenges that we've heard like when, when we were, when we were designing our features, like when and when we looked at what was out there, we realized that, oh, there's a big offer. None of the tools, none of the design tools, actually do that. Nothing. You know, they're still doing the reactive kind of method. Fix it at the end, run the big checker, and then you get like, 50,000 errors, and then you have to be like, "Oh my gosh, it's overwhelming." I've got so many errors, I don't even know what to do now.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 19:08

Yeah, exactly. And does Venngage, if you're creating a PDF, for example, when you're exporting, does the does it pass the PDF Accessibility Checker 2024?

Eugene Woo: 19:21

It it does. If you do all the things that will tell you so, so obviously, there's no magic here, like it is, it is all, it all depends on the user. If you're adding an image and and you didn't add alt text, and, yeah, it will obviously fail. But we're very good at, again, we're very good at kind of nudging you, yeah, nudging the user towards accessibility. And there is an accessibility checker at the end. So if you, if you, if you do all that like it will pass. So Venngage gives you the tools so that you can easily pass the accessibility checker without remediation. So if you do everything in the document does not need to be remediated. You just export it and it's and it's good, right?

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 20:04

Amazing, amazing. And what resources, aside from, you know, those prompts or training does Venngage provide to help users understand how to create the accessible documents, or is it just simply open up the app on your browser and you're good to go?

Unknown: 20:19

go?

Eugene Woo: 20:19

So some of it is open up. Your browsers just do the natural things, you know. But we do have, we do make the job a lot easier. We have assessed. We have templates that are tagged accessible. So basically what, what that means is that these templates are kind of more, you know, foolproof. They're kind of more foolproof accessible. It like everything, all the structure, everything is, is kind of already done for you. And if you're just looking for something really quick, like a poster or flyer infographic, if you use one of those templates, you know, the amount of extra work that you'll have to do is minimal. So we have accessible templates where, where the template just, you know, lends itself to being, you know, they're just, you know, very, very, very accessible in the because we've done the work up front. And then, you know, like I said, in the tool itself, there's a whole bunch of like, nudges and all that. And then finally, there is an accessibility checker where, and every time you you hit one of the errors we do, you know, send you to a page and say, Hey, if you want to learn more, here's why, you know, here's why it fails. Like, "Why? Why did this image fail?" And then we'll explain it failed because it didn't have the alt text, or it's, you know, it has text in it. You should, like, probably just type the text in there, but you don't use an image, you know, stuff like that.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 21:39

Excellent, excellent. What upcoming features or updates can users expect from engage to improve accessibility?

Eugene Woo: 21:48

So we are, we're doing forms, which I think forms is...

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 21:54

A game changer!

Eugene Woo: 21:56

Huge problem in the you know, as far as a PDF accessible, a document accessibility is concerned. So I would say forms is probably there are obviously, like, improvements. You know, the tool is constantly being improved. And we also, unfortunately, constantly break things. It's part of software. We add something and then we break something that was really working before, and then we were like, Oh, gosh. Now whatever. We broke something. Now we to go back and fix it. So I would say forms is a pretty big one. You know, being able to build forms and make them accessible.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 22:29

Yeah.

Eugene Woo: 22:29

And, and then we're always improving the complex visuals, making the complex visuals more accessible. So these are, like, the charts to diagrams that is actually very, very challenging. We've made various, to be honest, very small steps there. And so there's a lot more to do with, with these complex visuals. They're, they're, you know, they're not as straightforward as, I'll just add an alt text, which is what we kind of do right now, although they, although, you know, we do something, you know, a little bit more than that, but, but the ideal scenario is, you know, depending on what the visual is, is to to be, you know, to actually make that information a lot more accessible.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 23:06

yeah.

Eugene Woo: 23:07

And the navigation of them a little more accessible as well.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 23:10

Yeah, you had mentioned before as an answer to a previous question around complex charts and graphs and or visuals. And you know, when you're writing alt text for it to be more than just a chart or a graph. Does Venngage provide assistance in like, how can you best represent that alt text for something that complex?

Eugene Woo: 23:31

Yes, we do. So we, we actually generate, so if it's a chart, so it's a chart or a graph, we actually help you generate the alt text, because that can be, you know, with AI. Now, that can be done. It's, it's quant, it's quantitative, right? It's that, that one's actually a science the numbers. You can't get the numbers wrong.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 23:52

Yeah.

Eugene Woo: 23:52

So the AI does a fairly good job in describing and summarizing the chart. So we So, yeah, just one click of a button, and it will kind of describe, you know, give you a very good summary of the chart and, and the summary of that chart is accurate, and, you know, it's and you you can, obviously, you can, you should, and you should edit it to give it a little bit more context. But for the most part, like 90, you know, 90% of it is done for you.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 24:17

I think that's absolutely amazing, because usually people, when they are trying to remediate or trying to write their alt text for the complex images, they get to a chart or a graph, and they panic, and they're like, "I don't know what, how in depth I'm supposed to go," you know? So the fact that the AI is able to generate a very decent starting point, but then, like you said, you can add in a bit of context in addition to it, I think, is definitely a game changer for a lot of people who can then say, I know how to write the alt text for this with the assistance, obviously, of the AI tool that's built in.

Unknown: 24:50

That's

Eugene Woo: 24:50

That's...yeah, that's that's that. I mean, AI doesn't solve your problem 100% but it gives you a great start. And a lot of cases, like I said, it gives you 90%...you're 90% there, just kind of add the last 10%.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 25:03

Yeah, exactly. Can you share some success stories of organizations that have used Venngage for accessible document creation to inspire our listeners to be like, yes, we need to get on this.

Eugene Woo: 25:14

Sure. So we, we, we have a few community colleges. I'm not sure I, I'm not sure if I can mention their name, like the details of the contract, but we have one fairly large community college system signed on recently, like, this is, like, I don't know, 50,000 student, you know, kind of a fairly large community college in the States. Yeah, they were, they were, they were, they were using Canva before, and they switched over to us. And obviously the process prior to that was relying on a remediation team of, like a few, you know, two or three people, and they were just being overwhelmed and and they were not compliant. I think the most important thing was because they were overwhelmed, they were not compliant. And it was always like a red flag that they knew that this was one area that they were not compliant, and they would get in trouble. And also, you know, the director really wanted, she really wanted to make sure that that everything was not only compliant, but it was the right thing to do. So, yeah, so they moved over to us and started this year, and it's been great, yeah. I mean, the transition is very seamless. Like I said, the tool isn't quite similar from a user experience point of view. It's as easy to use. We've got templates, we've got all the fancy widgets and the icon libraries and illustrations, and on top of that, we have all the accessibility features. So So we've signed on, you know, after that, we've signed on a few other fairly large universities and some governments as well. But, yeah, but I like to use a university example, because those are kind of easier for people to understand.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 26:53

Love that. I love that. And that's the thing, when people can hear the success stories on how it's made other communications and marketing teams lives easier. That's when they're like, "Okay, how can it make my life easier?" And sort of jump into it, right? So instead of having to then build in a budget line for a remediation team to do it for them, they can now do it all in one go with this product. So I think that's fantastic, absolutely.

Eugene Woo: 27:17

Yeah. I also think that that solution, there's only so many documents you can remediate, so maybe, maybe the high stake ones like that you can remediate. But the everyday document that's created by staff and by faculty...

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 27:31

Yeah.

Eugene Woo: 27:31

There's, there's no way that you a small team can, you know? And it happens every day, like, it's kind of like a whack a mole, Game of Whack a Mole. Like they're posting them on sites and post them, putting them on the on the LMS and...

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 27:42

Yeah.

Eugene Woo: 27:43

...and whatnot. Sometimes on social media, you basically cannot control it, unless you say no one can. Can post anything like that's probably the only way, yeah, or they can only and all they have to go through like this remediation team, which that will just overwhelm that team. So the only real ways that you have to educate everybody and give them the right tools, right that will allow them to do it themselves.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 28:06

Exactly, exactly. Looking at industry trends, how do you see document accessibility evolving within design, PR, communications, advertising, the whole shebang?

Eugene Woo: 28:19

So I think you know, as you mentioned, there are some regulatory pressures coming, coming in. So, so I do think that the tools have to evolve. There really is the kind of they have no choice, because users, you know, will want, will want these features. And I think they, you know, and we are seeing it. So even, even even something like figma, we are seeing that, you know, figma, you know, has accessibility features. Now there, you know. And you know, for example, we use Typeform, which is a form survey tool, they have accessibility features. Now, I mean, not, not, you know, not great, but it's there. And so I do so we're seeing your everyday sort of tool sets around design and content creation, adopting accessibility new features, whereas I would say, you know, even, like, two or three years ago, like it's it wasn't there. And so I would say the trend is, you know, the trend is, and you know they are, you know, good, you know, like, vangage is a good case study. Like, there are case studies out there, out there of tools, who have these, who have these features and and, you know, I would expect people building similar features, or just, you know, kind of just copying what we do. So.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 29:32

Yeah, yeah. And what advice would you give to somebody who is in PR communications or marketing on choosing the right design tool, when creating, when needing to create these accessible types of documents?

Eugene Woo: 29:43

So I think the first thing is edcu...education, I, I don't know. Like, maybe you, like, how many PR people or marketing people actually know about digital accessibility? I don't know, right? Like, it's I, my, my guess it's low. My guess is fairly low, just from our own user base. Uh, just from our own management. So I think even before they choose the tool, I think just, they kind of just need to be aware. In general, there's the awareness, awareness problem that, hey, let's not, you know, in order for your documents to be accessible, you know, they you can't just write something in Word or do it in any and it just, and just export it, or just, you know, export an image and expect everyone to be able to read that image. That's not how it works. There are certain things you have to do. So, so I, you know, I don't know how to solve that problem, to be honest. Like, I think regulation is one of them. So everyone's kind of aware. Oh, gosh, but, but once, once we pass that hurdle. Then, then, yeah, then there is definitely, look at the tool sets right, which are the tools that allow you to do it easily and then have built in features, as opposed to, oh, now I gotta do this extra reactive step after I'm done.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 30:51

Yeah. And if you could offer one piece of advice to organizations who are starting to evaluate their accessibility solutions, what would it be?

Unknown: 31:00

be?

Eugene Woo: 31:01

So, from a doc from so typically, there are two things you got to worry about. One is your website, right? So, so we're, we're, you know, one is your website, the other one is documents. And most people will, you know, it's their website that's a bigger concern. And I have no kind of horse in this, in this race. I'm not a we're, no, we're not in that. So I would say the first thing to look at is they are, you know, a lot of people sell what we call overlays. I see it everywhere. Those are kind of the it's a fairly affordable solution. I would not be drawn too much into that solution, because, typically, that's what people adopt, because it's such a it's sold as a quick fix, a cheap and quick fix, I would say, like, you have to understand this the solution better. Well, yeah, understand the requirement better. The overlays typically don't solve the problem. It presents a solution that doesn't solve the problem. So I guess it's not even a solution. So, so my big one advice is that, like, you know, just be a bit very about overlay solutions, if that's presented to you know, because that's usually what's present to you from a website point of view that you you know. So, so do it the right way. That's the that's that will be my, my advice. And then for the document point of view, don't, don't rely on remediators like, get a tool that you know. Get a tool that can you know that way your people, whoever's creating a content, can create them and make them accessible from from the beginning.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 32:27

Amazing. This has been a fantastic chat. Eugene. I really, really appreciate it. But before I let you go, this is PR and latte, so I do have to ask this one question, what is your favorite go-to caffeinated beverage?

Eugene Woo: 32:41

So I'm a pour over guy.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 32:44

Oh!

Eugene Woo: 32:44

Yes, I yeah, I have been doing pour overs for, like, more than a decade, and so I like premium coffee, and premium coffee, I mean, I'm going going too many details. So more on the lighter roast more on the lighter, roast and pour over, yeah, just, just, you know, pour over on a very simple filter. No, nothing fancy, no, and it's black. Like, I don't put anything.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 33:13

You'd be amazed at how many guests I've had that said black coffee is their go to. And everyone's like, really?

Eugene Woo: 33:20

So, yeah, yeah. I think, you know, getting a tangent. I think a lot of people put stuff in their coffee because they're drinking like coffee that isn't good, so you kind of have to mask it by putting sugar or milk. But if you, if you buy good coffee, it, you know, the coffee actually tastes really good. It's not bitter, it's not dark, it's not over, it's not doesn't have that burnt taste to it. It tastes great.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 33:45

So good to know. I probably have some bad coffee because I put milk in mind. So Haha, I will up up my game on the coffee side. Well, thank you so much Eugene for being on the podcast. If people want to contact you or follow Venngage on social or the website, where can they find you?

Eugene Woo: 34:01

LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm active on LinkedIn. It's, you know, Eugene woo at Venngage. And, you know, check us out on Venngage. It's spelled with a, you know, it's spelled with two, ns, V, N, N, like, like, a Venn diagram, G, A, g.com, and on social media. We're on YouTube. We're on Instagram, at Venngage, that's that's where you should follow us.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 34:23

Amazing. And we'll make sure to have all those links in the description of this podcast so it's easy to follow. Thank you so much, Eugene for being on the podcast today.

Eugene Woo: 34:31

Thanks a lot. Had a good time.

Matisse Hamel-Nelis: 34:35

You've been listening to the PR & Lattes podcast. Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you can get notified each week when a new episode drops. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter by visiting our website, PRAndLattes.com on the website, you'll find our podcast episodes as well as amazing blogs with new ones being posted every Monday morning. And of course, make sure to follow us on social, on Instagram, at @PRAndLattes and on LinkedIn. I've been your host, Matisse Hamel-Nelis, thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you next week with a new latte and guest bye for now. You.