Kris Rivenburgh is an entrepreneur and licensed attorney in the state of Texas. Kris is the founder of Accessible.org and specializes in digital accessibility and compliance. Kris has two books published on the subject: The ADA Book and Digital Accessibility and Compliance.
Kris has been cited by numerous publications and organizations including Verizon, The Economist, MN.gov (Minnesota), Illinois.edu, SRY.edu (Syracuse), Los Angeles Daily News, and Yahoo Small Business. Kris has also had four guides published in Bloomberg Law.
That’s the official snippet for my Google card. Now more about me and my approach to operating Accessible.
If you read between the lines in how I operate Accessible.org, you’ll see strong threads of consumer advocacy beaming through the cloth. You’ll also see my very practical approach to problem solving.
Consumer First
I don’t know when the consumer advocacy came about, but it’s there. I think it stems from a desire for alignment.
For example, if there’s a bargained for transaction where a consumer purchases a product, then the transaction is completed when consideration is exchanged for said product. However, now businesses want more. Having a bonafied customer isn’t enough.
All too often, consumers are also burdened with onerous privacy policies and terms and conditions. Moreover, consumers are solicited for reviews, testimonials, and feedback; they’re being asked to forfeit their valuable time and energy for nothing in return. And depending on the sector the transaction takes place in, there is more burden that’s shifted onto the consumer.
For example, in corporate retail, consumers are now frequently asked to donate upon checkout. As another example, in many food and beverage establishments, consumers are now prompted for tips outside of the traditional dining experience.
And the reality is there isn’t an organized counter force acting on behalf of the consumer to thwart the never ending abusive and/or obnoxious behavior on the part of businesses.
On the misalignment continuum, when I see entrepreneurs pitching on Shark who make donating to social causes a part of their business plan, I see a fundamental misunderstading.
First, the donations, in theory, should not be a part of the business’s operation. I say in theory because I recognize that the donation may be part of a feel good ploy to garner even more business because of the charity storyline and the marketing that goes with it.
Second, beyond theory, if entrepreneurs truly believe in a cause, they are always able to donate themselves from their distributions.
But my primary point is this: if you really want to give back, you don’t need to donate X amount of dollars. You can simply operate your business the right way:
- Provide an excellent product or service that delivers value to the consumer.
- Do not waste people’s time with long waiting times and unhelpful customer service.
- Do not engage in abusive and deceptive tactics like sneaky data collection and reselling data.
- Do not relentlessly send spam emails and/or text messages.
Costco checks all of these boxes and by doing so Costco gives back to society. There’s no need for them to donate to charitable causes, they’re generating real value for all consumers.
Practical Approach
One of my mantras is “efficient and effective.” This came about organically as just what I’m after; what I’m trying to provide: something that is both efficient and effective.
The value described above covers a fair share of the efficiency side: saving time and money.
But the other part of my approach to products and services is that they must be effective.
Accessible.org only offers products and services that would effectively help clients and customers meet their objective(s) which almost always includes WCAG 2.1 AA conformance.
For me, anything that runs contra to full conformance isn’t acceptable. Again, this would be misalignment.
Here’s a classic example:
Many digital accessibility companies sell subscriptions to scans. Scans instantly flag a several accessibility issues, but they are extremely limited in the issues they flag, and, very importantly, aren’t conclusive.
And if they aren’t conclusive, most clients still need an audit (a real one with full manual evaluation). This audit was needed all along which leads us back to this: why did we buy the scan in the first place?
It’s true that scans can provide some value when a client understands the limitations and leverages them appropriately, but most if not all of the value can be captured for free by using WAVE or AXE.
There are several companies who make millions of dollars annually from selling scan subscriptions. In fact, many base their entire accessibility platform on the foundation of a scan.
This to me is asinine because then the entire platform (and its analytics) are based on skewed data which, again, isn’t effective.
When we built our own digital accessibility platform, Accessibility Tracker, it was built so that the results were based upon your audit results (you upload your audit report in Excel spreadsheet). Now, this is effective because this actually enables you to track to full WCAG conformance for the given scope of your audit.
For something to be practical, it has to be effective. As stated above, this is a must with all of our offerings.
Whereas other companies create products and services they think they can sell, I create products and services I know will help consumers. Legacy companies have long gotten away with bad values because they’re educating consumers as they’re selling them.
That won’t last much longer.
If you need help with accessibility and compliance, you’re always welcome to contact me.
