040 Creating A More Accessible Photography Business with Erin Perkins

Erin Perkins, a deafblind accessibility educator and the owner of Mabely-Q, joins me for an interview this week! We talked all about the importance of accessibility for photographers, ways to improve accessibility online, and being adaptable to client needs. 

Takeaways

Accessibility should be a top priority for all business owners, particularly in the wedding photography industry.
Small business owners face challenges in incorporating accessibility due to limited resources, but that doesn't make them less necessary.
Improving accessibility online involves using questionnaires to understand clients' needs and being adaptable in communication.
Proper use of alt text and image descriptions is crucial for visually impaired individuals.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Importance of Accessibility
03:08 Challenges for Small Business Owners
06:16 Improving Accessibility Online for Wedding Photographers
08:05 Using Questionnaires to Understand Accessibility Needs
09:46 Effective Communication and Adaptability
14:01 Considerations for Website Design and Color Contrast
18:05 Proper Use of Alt Text
21:42 Alt Text vs. Image Descriptions on Social Media
23:02 Inclusivity and Accessibility without Limitations
25:21 The Impact of Inaccessible Platforms
27:44 Moving Towards Genuine Inclusion
29:39 Starting from Where You Are
30:28 Fun Question: Snowboarding vs. Stand Up Paddling

Transcript

Sandra Henderson (00:00.11)
Accessibility should be a top priority for all business owners, but let's be honest, it is something that is overlooked more often than not. It's something that I really hope we start to see changing in 2024, and that is why I knew I had to have my friend Erin on the podcast. Erin is a deafblind accessibility educator and the owner of Mabely-Q. Her mission is to make the world a more accessible place one business at a time.

She loves getting to teach businesses how to do just that by leaning on her life experiences that she shares with others to foster true inclusion at all levels. This is a do not miss episode, so absolutely make sure that you grab your notebook and pen, or if you're busy and listening to this on the go, make sure you come back to it because there are some really, really important takeaways for you in this episode that you're gonna be able to apply to your business and start delivering an even more incredible client experience every step of the way.

Welcome to Keeping It Candid. I'm your host Sandra Henderson, an international wedding and family photographer and business coach. I help wedding photographers use systems to build out the backend of their businesses to gain control and continue to thrive no matter what life throws their way. And on a more personal note, I'm a strong Enneagram three-wing too who's obsessed with tacos. And my love for traveling combined with navigating chronic illness life are just two of the many things that drive my passion for all things systems, workflows, and beating burnout as a business owner.

Join me every week for a candid behind the scenes look at what it's really like working as a wedding photographer, where I'll give you actionable steps to take your business to the next level. Absolutely no fluff here friends, so go grab your favourite notebook and pen and let's dive into this week's episode.

Sandra Henderson (01:44.854)
Erin, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I am so excited for this conversation. But before we dive right in, I would love it if you would give listeners, just introduce yourself and give them an idea of who you are and what you're all about. Sandra, thank you for having me. I really like genuinely appreciate you inviting me on this podcast. I am Erin Perkin and I am the CEO of Mabely-Q and

Mabely-Q is all about creating accessibility education for small business owners because like in the corporate world, which is where I came from, like a lot of these things, they already have the budget, they already have all these things built out for them, so they're able to do that. But when you're a small business owner, you don't have access to these resources, you don't necessarily understand.

And to be honest, accessibility is very dry. It's very misunderstood. It's vague. It's like all those things that you can think of that I found that I ended up teaching people because I myself am deafblind. And I've always had resources given to me growing up. You know, my parents had to like make sure that their kids had access.

But not everyone goes to have that like fortune. So I just ended up doing it and I really enjoy it. And it makes me very excited to just be able to help people really lean into their values of their business. Yeah, absolutely. I love that so much. And I think that is so, so important. And you brought up a really good point that

bigger companies and corporations, they have so many resources at their fingertips to be able to approach different aspects of incorporating accessibility into their companies. But for small business owners, we don't have those same resources. And I think when it's just us, it's such a...

Sandra Henderson (03:54.062)
complex and nuanced subject as well because there's so many different groups of people that need accessibility. It's not just about one group of people and I think that is something that I know from conversations I've had with other people. It's something that kind of hinders them from going forward because they're worried that they're gonna do something wrong.

want people not to be scared of. We're all gonna make mistakes. I've made so many mistakes. I mean, my first branding was completely not accessible with the script font. And I kinda had to learn because it's not something that is taught in school. And it's just like, and here's the thing. Corporates, they grew up big time as well. I would like to use Metta.

And Instagram as the most recent example, they launched Thread. And it was completely inaccessible to screen readers, people who use alt text and all of that. They could not use it at all. And if a company that had this system set up in Instagram and Facebook grew up on Thread, you as an independent business owner, you are allowed to screw up.

Yeah, I totally agree. I think we all need to just get more comfortable with making mistakes because we are imperfect people and the important thing is not to be perfect right now and never make a mistake going forward. It's to be open to like owning up to those mistakes and correcting whatever that mistake was and learning from it going forward. Yeah, and that's like really all I teach is like, you know, you make a mistake, okay, how do you correct? However, I will 100%

Sandra Henderson (05:46.662)
over and over and over again, that means you don't really care. And okay, I don't want to be part of your world then. Yeah, I completely agree with that. So what are some ways that you think that wedding photographers can improve their accessibility online when it comes to their websites, their social media presence and things like that? I think this is like really tricky because a lot of disabled people...

One, they already don't see themselves in the wedding arena. They don't see themselves. They don't see themselves represented. However, it's also like, they also don't want to be the token of that wedding photographer. So it's very trying to find that fine line of being able to showcase that you do welcome them, you do want them to be represented.

but at the same time don't make them feel like it has to be a part of their story. Like for me, I got married 13 years ago, so Pinterest was still brand new at that time. So it was definitely interesting because I do not want my hearing aids to be shown in the wedding pictures and stuff like that, just because I don't think it's aesthetically pleasing.

But it didn't mean that my being deaf is not part of my story. So it was like tricky, like trying to find that fine line. I think a lot of photographers could, they can change their language a little bit and like make sure that people feel like, oh, you know, I feel included in this. It doesn't matter if I have any sort of disability, but the reality is most disabilities are invisible.

So it's like, how do you represent that? And I think it's by language and representation on your website. Yeah, that is so, so important. One thing that I started doing, I think in 2021, that...

Sandra Henderson (07:58.922)
It unfortunately doesn't make an impact on the outward presentation because it's for the clients that I've already brought in. So I'm working on making some changes to not tokenize people for my social media presence and things like that. But for people who have hired me and are wanting to work with me, I send out what I call a welcome questionnaire and I ask them things if they need any accessibility, if they have any limitations that they don't want stairs or.

lifting people or sitting on the ground or anything like that. And I think that is so important, just making sure that every person that you're working with is comfortable and not being put into a situation where they don't feel safe or don't feel comfortable going forward. Yeah, I mean, I think a questionnaire is actually a great place to start because it allows them to disclose things that they want to disclose.

they'll be like, if they ask that question, it will be comfortable. Like if a photographer had asked me like, what are some things that I can do to create more access for you during the photo shoot? I would say one of the things that used a little bit more hand gestures, because I'm not seeing your face when you like accounting three to one or something, or if you're like telling me something, they're like

It's funny because I did a brand photo shoot and the photographer was great, but there were certain things that I was like, this is interesting because like, they will be talking to me behind the camera and I would have no clue what they're saying. So sometimes it's like, all right, we need to kind of set up the scene before we actually take pictures so that I'm kind of aware of what I need to do. So I think communication is like really essential.

Yeah, that's a really good point that you brought up about requiring things like gestures and things like that. I personally am terrible at verbalizing my posing instruction. So I always will like do hand gestures. But that's something that I've never thought of is that some people when they can't hear and things like that, that those are going to go a really long way. And I love that you said

Sandra Henderson (10:06.55)
that the questionnaire gives them the opportunity to disclose things that they want to disclose. I think that is a really important takeaway because we shouldn't be putting our clients into a position where they're feeling like they have to give us this information. But if they want to give us that information and they're comfortable, then it's really important to use that. Yeah, like especially nowadays, I feel like more and more people are saying, you know, have ADHD or stuff like that. And like that's totally cool.

Maybe their partner has ADHD, but their partner doesn't necessarily want to disclose that. The other one is like, I just want them to be aware of like, they will lose their patient if you don't keep it moving. Yeah, they get distracted very easily. I think it will help the photographer be able to adapt pretty quickly.

If there's one thing that you hope that wedding photographers start doing the minute they finish listening to this episode, what would that be? Definitely update your questionnaire for sure. And then the other thing is giving multiple ways for people to contact you. Oh, good point. Because a lot of people have their preferred method of communicating. I really hate it when people just call me and say, oh my god.

I have like serious anxiety around that. So you really need to set up some sort of workflow that allows them to contact you the way they want to originally, but then funnel them into like your questionnaire and stuff like that. But like, if they say they would rather just talk to you on the phone, like the client, like you do have to adapt for that.

If they prefer to communicate through email, adapt for that. Or if they want video chat, you do have to adapt for that. So it's like, reflexible. I know in this day and age where people are like, oh god, I gotta go on video? I prefer video more than anything. Video to me, it gives me that human connection. But if someone wants to talk on the phone, I will do it. Not my favorite though.

Sandra Henderson (12:26.214)
Yeah, completely understandable. And such a great point about being flexible. I think that business owners as a whole, but being in the wedding photography, I see it so much with wedding photographers is they get set in their way of doing things, which I think is important to have your boundaries and the way that you like to do things because that's your zone of genius and you can excel that way.

But you do have to have flexibility. There needs to be a little bit of wiggle room. It can't just be all about you. And if people aren't willing to meet me where I am, then we're not gonna work together. Like you need to be more open and welcoming to the different types of people that you're gonna be working with. Yeah, like I know so many people, they just generally have like so much anxiety about being on the phone. And like my husband, he's different. He would much rather call than write an email.

an hour to an hour and a half typing an email on my dude did not need to be that long. Yeah. He would rather talk on the phone, though we definitely have different things there. But it's very interesting how people are.

Sandra Henderson (13:37.834)
everything on the phone and it pushed me so far out of my comfort zone, but it's just one of those things that you got to step up and do sometimes, unfortunately. Yeah, for sure. So I'd love to jump back to some of the things that we were talking about at the beginning of the episode when we were talking more about websites and social media and things like that and the accessibility that wedding photographers are putting forward online.

You brought up a really good point about your first website and branding with script fonts And this is something that I see so much in the wedding photography or wedding industry as a whole everybody wants to make everything look pretty and I have like I wear glasses, but my vision isn't that bad I can see without my glasses on but I had really struggled to read a lot of fonts that are scripted on people's websites. Oh Yeah

I mean, it's almost stereotypical. Weddings, like anybody in the wedding industry, it's almost mandatory to be like very light, very scripty, very pretty in the stereotypical way. And I'm not saying you can't use script fonts at all, but keep those to like the headers.

Like maybe only two headers, like header one and header two, that's it. Um, but like, I know a lot of people are guilty. I was guilty of this when I built my website. I'm not a web designer by any means, but I have a background in graphic design. And I wanted my script font to be kind of like represented on the website, but it wasn't like what it wasn't part of the font choices.

So I would create a graphic and put it in the website, but then I would forget the alt text because I was still learning at that point. At that point, I was more focused on graphic design and working for other people as opposed to creating accessibility. And I realized that those images are not readable when you have your script font that is embedded on the image.

Sandra Henderson (15:56.042)
It's not readable. So you have to make sure you have alt text for that. And then the other thing is the color contrast. Oh my God. So many people like pink and gray or pink and white. Don't get me wrong. Pink is definitely one of my favorite colors.

and but when it's like low contract like go to cooler.co and check your color contract you will find that your color contract is not good at all like i'm questioning if people can read some of that i'm like can you actually read your own stuff i know you're trying to keep that aesthetic but

shouldn't we like kind of like throw that aesthetic out the window and create something that really feels like you? I completely agree. And going forward, or going off of what you were saying about if people can even read what they're putting up there, I think the same thing when I see people's Instagram stories and they have their text is so teeny tiny that I'm like, with my phone here, I cannot even read what they've written.

I'm like, I understand you're trying to condense things into one, like, screen, but like, that's just not realistic. Like, you need to like, spread that story out over several pages and I will read it. I promise you I will read it. But if it's like all crammed into one, like, nope, I'm skipping ahead. There's nothing wrong with having multiple screens to share a story.

You were talking about alt text and it kind of gave me like a light bulb moment. Something that I see a lot in the wedding photography community when they're talking about blogging and things like that to help with their SEO. A lot of people have the idea that alt text is just an SEO tool where they put in keywords. So I would love if you could take a second to just kind of explain the proper way to be using alt text.

Sandra Henderson (18:05.902)
actually designed for people who have vision limitations or maybe even they actually rather consume things through the screen reader audio but they're still looking at the image and sometimes they need and if you just say like wedding couple um something i don't know

what photographers do for their blog. But if you just like basically keyword stuff, you actually want hurting your own SDL, press Google No, Google knows what you're doing. And then you're hurting yourself because the people who are on your website, they're listening to it through the screen reader, they're automatically leaving. 85% of the people leave their website when it's not accessible to them.

So the minute they hear something and they get this frustration, I feel like we all do it. Doesn't matter if we have a disability or not. If there's a problem with the website, we automatically leave it and we're like, nope, not going back to that. It's just like we do not have the patience. So imagine what it's like for a person with a disability. You're adding layers of problems to that. Like, sorry, I'm going to leave.

So when it comes to like you curating your blog, yes, you do have to write a brief sentence. I'm not saying it has to be a million sentences long, but one of the things I actually learned from somebody else who actually has a line, he said that we were doing all tests wrong. And he had a point. He said, I don't care.

why like I could let me just use myself as an example. I would describe myself, I'm a white woman with a short haircut, Bob was one size shape and I'm wearing a blue, dark navy blue pink top dress. He's like, I literally do not care what you look like or what you wear. I wanna know why you're wearing that blue dress. I wanna know.

Sandra Henderson (20:29.174)
So he's like, he actually pointed out he wants us to be more intentional about how we write out our tests and why we're doing it in a sense. So I think we have to find that fine line of being descriptive enough so that people feel like they can envision the image. But at the same time.

Not just throwing images in just for the hell of it. Like I think we want to, when you're putting together a blog, you want to be intentional about what images you're putting in there, like why you show that image. Yeah, that makes so much sense.

And when it comes to using alt text on social media, there are some people who put it in like the alt text feature that's in behind the photos the same way it would be on a blog. And then there's some people that do an image description at the bottom. Do you think that there's one that's more beneficial than the other when it comes to people using screen readers and things like that? I mean, alt text is definitely designed for screen readers. Image description is more so for people who might not like

I would never use a screen reader. But sometimes an image description kind of helps me get a better, especially if I can't read the font text or something, and the image description kind of explains it for me. So there's no wrong way of doing something, but I think one of the most missed opportunities that people have is that when you are posting something on Instagram, you need to be very

I want people to think more about what they're posting. You're not just posting random, and a lot of people, they'll post some kind of graphic, and then not even say what that graphic is saying. That is such a missed opportunity because you know that graphic cannot be read by screen readers. So, and I guarantee you, most people aren't putting stuff in alt text.

Sandra Henderson (22:39.026)
Yeah. So like, make sure what you put in the graphic is also being written in the caption. Like, it's just such a missed opportunity for so many people. Yeah, that's such a good point. And it kind of leads into one last question that I wanted to ask you. This is something that I think came up a lot during the pandemic.

Um, because we saw like clubhouse was a really popular platform. I'm sure that was a topic of conversation that you had a lot. Um, but the thing with clubhouse for anybody who doesn't know is almost like a social media platform, but only audio. So it heavily excluded a huge community of people who can't hear. Um, and I know there was a lot of like blowback from that with the company and things like that. We'll save that for another day. But one thing that I noticed.

when all those conversations were happening, there were a lot of people that were saying, we're inclusive, but, or we have accessibility, but, where like there would just be, there's one, this group of people has to be left out, but that's really not inclusivity and accessibility if there are buts that go along with it. So I would love to hear your thoughts on something like that. Yeah, because the word but, actually, I remember somebody explaining this to you, if you're apologizing to...

someone and then you add the but. It almost eliminates the first sentence in to begin with. Yeah, I say that my husband and I say that all the time. Yeah, it's like you have to be like really thoughtful in how you're saying it. It's like yeah but I'm like everything you just said you just negated it with that word but. And that's like really hard for people because we're used to that. We like...

I am that person that is very much like gray area, everything. And it drives people nuts. I'm the middle child in my family. So like, I see my older sister's point. I also see my younger sister's point. I'm like, you're both right, but you're also both wrong. So figure it out. And I think that's like the issue is like, we're never going to get it.

Sandra Henderson (24:53.818)
We're never going to get it right. You are going to eliminate somebody unintentionally and you need to be okay with that. However, when you think about a platform like Clubhouse, they knew what they were doing from in the first place. They are 100% knew what they were doing. The reason why I say that is because the founder, one of the founders, I know for a fact,

had a child with a disability. And yet they knew what they were doing with the setting up clubhouse. They knew exactly. It's like for me, like with podcasts, like I still have this extreme frustration is like, I know how much stuff I'm missing out on. But yet anybody who is not deaf, I challenge you to actually go to your favorite podcast.

and tell me how many clicks it takes for you to find that transcript. It's gonna, I bet you it was gonna take you minimum four or five clicks. Which is why, like, you know, I want that access. Like, I want it to be one or two clicks to get to the transcript or have it captured and I don't like when I watch videos, I don't have a problem with turning on the caption, but I have no problem with that.

because that's just one click. But when you ask me to do four or five clicks, and it doesn't even guarantee that I can find that transcript, I'm just not going to do it. Yeah. And you mentioned a lot of people with ADHD earlier, and that is something that comes into play when you are kind of giving people the runaround, and they have to click five, six, seven times.

people who are neurodivergent are going to get distracted along the way or they're not going to be able to find their way around. So it's super important to just make sure that we're making things as easy as possible for everybody that we're working with. Yeah, because you just want like, so I just launched a campaign called Hello Genuine Inclusion. And the thing is, I'm trying to get us away from this whole superficial accessibility

Sandra Henderson (27:15.83)
because we need to get away from that. It's so easy to do so many things I've taught. But like, I'm asking people to like really take a look at what you're doing in your business. And like, let's figure out how to make it much more inclusive without you feeling, you as a business owner, feeling like you're doing 10 times more work. Because to be honest,

when I have to transcribe my video, my video takes me three, four times longer for me to edit, then and done for a hearing person. So like, you'll have the right to complain in a sense. I'm just asking you to genuinely, truthfully include people with disability, because we are a huge infrastructure of people in this world. We are like,

25% of the US population. If you get rid of that 25%, you're going to see how much support we have provided for everybody else. You're going to notice that we are missing. Yeah, that's so true. You brought up a good point earlier too, that most people who have disabilities, it is invisible. And so I think that a lot of people kind of overlook the fact that so like it.

the disabled community is a solid foundation to everything that happens in our world. And I completely agree with you. If we were to eliminate that 25%, I think it would be a real eye-opener for people. Yeah. And I think that happened during the pandemic too. Like noticing people like who are actually like such a strong support, not be able to be that support anymore. People with disabilities, like we are like so strong.

But man, we are tired. Yeah. So tired. Yeah, understandably for sure. Well, I hope that this episode starts taking some of that workload off your plate and inspires everybody to go out and make some changes to their website, their social media, how they're approaching their clients in person. And do you have any final takeaways you would love to leave the listeners with? My biggest thing is just start from where you're at now.

Sandra Henderson (29:39.866)
Don't feel like you have to go back, backtrack and like redo everything. Start from when you're at now, once you are aware, start trying to incorporate accessibility throughout your business from this point on. Oh, I love that. That's huge because I think a lot of people, they get

They keep pushing it off because it's like, oh, it's so much work for me to go redo my entire website, but just start where you are. And then when you have time, you can go back and do little things here and there, but it's more important to start doing it now and make it a habit for going forward. Yep. That's true. Awesome. Well, this has been an amazing conversation. I have one last question for you. Just something fun that I'm doing for this season of the podcast, a little would you rather question.

And so since we have connected earlier this year and I've had a chance to kind of get to know you through social media a little bit, I wanted to ask, would you rather snowboard a mountain or go stand up paddling in the ocean? No boarding a mountain. No boarding in the mountains? Yeah, then I'm paddling boarding in the ocean now. There's too many unknowns in that ocean. No.

It's so true. I went kayaking for the first time last summer and it was in a very shallow lake. And then I was in Florida and I was looking at kayaking and I was like, I don't know, there's bigger things in this water. The water's a lot bigger. I know. With the mountains, I feel like I have a little bit more control. While with the ocean, it's like, I don't know what's under there. I have a humongous

and things that live in it that like, I have zero desire to go, well, I can't anyway, scuba diving, norcaline is already like pushing it for me. Yeah, I'm the same way. I am not like, I don't mind being on a boat for a short period of time or like in water where I can touch. But I like I went.

Sandra Henderson (31:46.882)
parasailing one year and I had so much fun being up in the air. But then I was just in shallow water on the beach and a little fish touched my foot and I screamed. I was terrified from this tiny little fish, but being up in the air was no big deal. Yeah, it's just like that, like, oh God, what just touched me? And you can't see it and it's just like, no, no. Yeah, I totally agree.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Erin. It was so great chatting with you. And I hope that our paths get to cross again soon. Yes, for sure. Thank you for having me.