Dax Castro & Chad Chelius

Chax Chat Accessibility Podcast

Education EN ↓ 99 episodes

Join Chad Chelius and Dax Castro (CHAX) as they chat about important document accessibility topics, trends and maybe even complain a little now and again.

Author

Dax Castro & Chad Chelius

Category

Education

Podcast website

accessibilitychecklists.com

Latest episode

Jul 7, 2026

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Episodes

How to convert PowerPoints and PDFs to InDesign with PDF2ID 13.03.2023

Special guest Harpaul Chadha (Paul) from Recosoft Corporation , joins us to talk about solutions for creating InDesign files from Accessible PowerPoint and PDF documents! WHAT??!?! Yep. PowerPoint to InDesign is a thing and DecksMoveIn makes it happen, accessibly! Paul talks about how DecksMovein considers accessibility when importing your content. This plugin transfers your reading order, alt-tex...

Canva Accessibility Considerations and dealing with Inline Elements in Word 07.03.2023

Chad and Dax talk about the journey of accessibility for the online design platform, CANVA. You may be surprised to know that just a few months ago there were no tags available for any CANVA document. While they have made some improvements and documents are now saving with some semblance of tags, there is still a long way to go to meet the WCAG Success Criteria 1.3.1 Info and Relationships. If you...

Accessible Table Secrets 23.02.2023

Accessible Tables Podcast Chad and Dax jump feet first into dispelling some myths about accessible tables and have a change in thinking about another common table practice. Be sure to listen how Dax's opinion on the A1 cell has changed. Chad makes a great arguement for maintaining the best practice of adding a meaningful label in the A1 cell. Make sure to say tuned to hear our plea to Adobe to all...

ADA Digital Accessibility Lawsuits and Trends Report with Jason Taylor of UsableNet 14.02.2023

Join Chad Chelius and Dax Castro as they welcome Jason Taylor Chief Innovations Officer at UsableNet to discuss the ADA Digital Accessibility Lawsuits and Trends Report. Learn how they collect the data for the report. Find out what happened in 2017 that sparked the report. Chad brings up the topic of Overlays and the ensuing discussion may shock you. Dax has a suprising point of view on them. Find...

Accessible Epubs: What you need to know 31.01.2023

Join our guests Christine Foushi and John Foliot of Content Industries as they talk about accessible epubs. We explore the different versions, how they are structured. Did you know that epubs are basically HTML 5 documents? Stay tuned to listen to us talk about the importance of metadata at the book-level rather than the data-level. We reveal the secret of converting a zip to an epub and how to re...

Multi-line Hyperlinks: Why they happen and what do to about them! 17.01.2023

Listen to Chad and and Dax talk about the accessibility problems that are created when typed hyperlinks span multiple lines. We give you the reasons why it happens and some workarounds to fixing it or planning for them. Make sure you listen until the end learn how to set alt-text using Adobe Bridge and our thoughts on captions and alt-text uses. You will learn when to use either. Are you using the...

Accessibility Checkers: Are they enough? 10.01.2023

Guest David Herr, VP of Enterprise Solutions at Allyant joins us to talk about accessibility checkers and discuss the answer to"Are they enough?" Do you know what the standards are they are checking for? David talks about the difference between CommonLook Validator and CommonLook PDF and announces CommonLook Online. We take a moment to lament about fixing errors manually and with power tools. Make...

Speeding up Accessibility for Adobe InDesign 18.10.2022

Join Chad Chelius, ADS and Dax Castro, ADS for a special podcast featuring the benefits of using Axaio's MadeToTag plugin for Adobe InDesign. Do not forget to listen to the end for the special Adobe MAX giveaway!  • Setting Row Headers in InDesign • Layout Tables? No problem • Fixing Complex Table • The 7 steps for accessibility using MadeToTag • Extended Style mapping • Easily edit alt-text in on...

Exciting Alt-text Announcement for Adobe Bridge 12.10.2022

Our guest Caroline Desrosiers of Scribely joins us to talk about her role in the upcoming Adobe Bridge update for accessible meta data. She also discusses why alt-text can be so challenging and even reveals some of the questions her team uses to create meaningful descriptions.  

When to edit the source or PDF document 27.09.2022

The question of when to edit the source versus the PDF document almost seems obvious to answer. But our discussion might surprise you. We also talk about the Content Key for Alt-text in Adobe InDesign and why (for now) filling it out might just be time NOT well spent. Do not miss this episode if you are an InDesign user. We promise there are some great nuggets of wisdom in this show.

Understanding the Accessibility Checker in Microsoft Word 20.09.2022

Accessibility Podcast #32 : Understanding the Accessibility Checker in Microsoft Word. There is so much packed into this podcast that I can hardly believe it myself. Chad and I walk through some of the handouts for our upcoming MS Word Accessibility class on Sept. 29th and we also talk about several key features and steps for making your Word docs accessible. We also discuss the most common Checke...

A Footnote and Endnote Epiphany 13.09.2022

Chad talks about his recent discovery of solving the Acrobat error that pops up when you have an Lbl (Label) as a footnote tag without an accompanying L (List) tag structure. We also review what the ISO standard has to say about it and why. Stick around to listen to us review the three most common problems people run into when trying to test documents with a screen reader. I am betting you are doi...

The "Last Mile" approach to document accessibility 07.09.2022

Chad and Dax talk about the "Last Mile" approach to creating accessible documents. They discuss the tools to help you get your documents passed that last mile and what to do when you simply don't have time. Have you ever heard of the H tag? We know about H1 through H6 but the seldom talked about H tag has been long forgotten because NVDA and JAWS simply voice this tag as a paragraph rather than vo...

5 Ways to get your team on board with accessibility? 30.08.2022

5 Ways to get your team on board with accessibility. 1.  Start with awareness by asking: a. Did you know how this works for screenreader users? b.  Have you seen this cool app for color blind simulation c. Did you read this article on Harvard's efforts to caption their videos? 2. Chad discusses how to demonstrate easy wins 3.  Learn how tracking time can help get people on board to cut down workfl...

Designing with Accessibility in Mind 23.08.2022

This week Chad Chelius and Dax Castro talk about some of the key topics in their upcoming class "Designing with Accessibility in Mind" Listen in as they focus on things like the difference between Actual Text and Alt-text and you might be surprised at their discussion on PowerPoint and adding a description of decorative to the alt-text in the PPT draft. They also talk about AAA accessibility consi...

7 accessibility fails you can discover using NVDA 16.08.2022

Check out this episode as we walk through 7 accessibility fails you would never know where there without testing with a NVDA. We sneak in about 5 or 6 other things to watch out for as well. If you don't have the PDF that goes with this episode you can download it on our website chaxchat.com or reach out to us on LinkedIn for a copy.

Evaluating the Accessible User Experience 02.08.2022

Do you ask yourself "What do I want the end-user experience to be?" when designing your forms? What about the heading structure of your document? Chad and Dax take this episode to talk about what you should be asking and how your decisions impact the user's experience. We talk about forms, heading navigation, bookmarks, footnotes and endnotes, and even captions and where to put the accessible tran...

Building tables with accessibility in mind 25.07.2022

There are so many good nuggets of info in this podcast on tables! If you struggle with tables, you cannot miss this episode. I think the biggest takeaway was when we go over the process of table self-discovery: Why did I put this in here? What do I hope the user will get out of it? Am I presenting it in a way that meets my goal? Why am I presenting it this way? Why are there so many compartments i...

Interview: Large Healthcare org reveals their accessibility journey 22.07.2022

We are really excited to share this week's accessibility podcast with you. We interview Senior Creative Manager "Jason" from a large healthcare organization about the challenges of balancing accessibility and workload in his department. He talks about their initial journey, understanding the gaps, and how his team is leveraging accessibility Subject Matter Experts to bring their designs across the...

The Power of Accessible SVGs 11.07.2022

Accessible SVGs (Scalable Vector Graphics) featuring Guest Heather Neff of Equivalent Design. If you have ever wanted to understand how smart SVG graphics can increase accessibility while maintaining brand style this is the podcast for you. Chad and Dax talk with Heather Neff about her goal to bring SVGs to the world "One graphic at a time." We talk about embedded alt-text and how WordPress now pu...

How do I hire more people with disabilities in my organization? 05.07.2022

In this episode, Chad Chelius and Dax Castro talk about the difference in what you want and what you show as it relates to the idea of hiring more people with disabilities in your organization. We also discuss the article they wrote discussing why companies are turning to in-house accessibility remediation and compliance teams and the three common problems driving the decision. 1. Outsourcing acce...

Accessible Forms - Circle gets a Square 28.06.2022

In this accessibility podcast, Chad Chelius and Dax Castro talk about common pitfalls in creating accessible PDF forms. We passionately discuss the merits of circles and squares related to checkboxes and radio buttons. We also share some great insights on our upcoming webinar Document Accessibility in Higher Education. Be sure to register on our website - Accessibilityunraveled.com. Other topics i...

What does it mean to be an Accessibility Advocate? 22.06.2022

In this accessibility podcast, Chad Chelius and Dax Castro discuss what it actually means to be an accessibility advocate. Accessibility is piled on to most people's workload. However, taking a personal interest in digital accessibility usually takes hold after your first few months. But what does that really mean? What is the difference between being a remediator and an advocate? What do you do w...

Is "Just email us for an accessible version." Pass or Fail? 16.06.2022

This episode has lots of great tidbits but there are two standout sections of this podcast. We talk about the merits of an untagged PDF document that links to an HTML alternate version or to an email address. Is this an acceptable practice? We debate both sides. Listen in because I think you will very surprised when we tell you which agency is doing this.  We also talk about Table structure and ho...

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