EP047 Beyond the Click - Embracing Neurodiversity in E-Commerce === [00:00:00] Darin Newbold: All right, and good day once again and welcome to Commerce Today. My name is Darin and with me is always Josh here to talk to you about what's happening in the world of commerce, kind of right now and, and all the cool stuff. Well, we have a neat, very interesting and very neat subject for today, and it's basically going beyond the click, embracing neurodiversity in e commerce. [00:00:28] So, uh, so Josh, this is an interesting And I heard some stuff and it's something that I think all of us need to be prepared for next time we go into Walmart, because in the mornings, they're doing something different. You want to tell us about [00:00:42] Joshua Warren: that? Yeah, so Walmart's announced after a short trial that every single day from 8am to 10am, All U.S Walmart stores are taking some steps to make them more sensory and neurodiverse friendly. Basically, all those big TVs they have in the store are going to be set to static, non-moving images. They're turning off that wonderful music we all love to shop to, and they're lowering the store lighting as well to try to make it a more, basically, inclusive and Accommodating [00:01:10] Darin Newbold: space. [00:01:11] Well, it sounds like this will be the only time I will be shopping at Walmart from now on. I kind of like that. It sounds, sounds interesting. I can't wait. Uh, can't wait to see it. When are the, when [00:01:19] Joshua Warren: does this start? Um, so this actually, by the time most people are hearing this, it's already started for those watching the live stream. [00:01:25] It starts in about two days. [00:01:26] Darin Newbold: Very good. Very good. Well, all right. So we threw out this big word neurodiversity and I unfortunately had to sheepishly admit that I didn't know what it was. Actually, I had only heard about it. It's been a while, barely a month ago that I had any, any interaction with the word to understand it. [00:01:45] So help us understand a little bit more. What is this [00:01:48] Joshua Warren: neurodiversity? So neurodiversity, that term has been around since the 1990s, but it wasn't very common. Um, and I think a lot of people have a misconception of what it means, but really it basically means that. Some people's brains process information and interact with the environment differently. [00:02:04] And there's a few different things that are, rolled up into neurodiversity. So the autism spectrum is in there, but then also dyslexia, attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, and basically lots of different little cognitive and sensory differences in your brain. [00:02:22] Darin Newbold: Well, it sounds like, uh, sounds like that covers a pretty healthy majority of humanity. [00:02:27] Joshua Warren: Does it not? Yeah. So the official number from the research is about 20 percent of the population is neurodiverse. I suspect it's actually higher than that. [00:02:36] Darin Newbold: It may be. People probably just don't know and haven't been diagnosed or even looked at it. Interesting. Well, We have neurodiversity. We have these things out here. [00:02:46] And I know we've talked about different Stuff that from an e commerce and from a business standpoint, people should, uh, should know about, but why, why is this neurodiversity? Why is it important for, [00:02:56] Joshua Warren: uh, for e commerce? Yeah. Well, I mean, to get right to the bottom line, uh, 20 percent of the population being neurodiverse, that means 228 billion in ecommerce purchases this year alone were from neurodiverse individuals. [00:03:10] And I'm thinking that all the e commerce retailers out there probably want to get a little piece of that money. Yeah, absolutely. Um, but then also just, you know, I feel like the in store experience, especially back in the old days, whenever there was more of a, um, there's more store associates, more people to help you in the stores, I think it was a little bit easier to identify and say, Hey, here's somebody that maybe needs a little more help finding a product online. [00:03:33] You don't have that online. You don't get that one on one interaction with your customer. You don't get to see that they're struggling. If you find out they're struggling, it's usually after the fact or after they've already abandoned your site. So I think it's really important to take these things into account when designing your website. [00:03:49] Um, and then also, like you mentioned before about how you might shop at Walmart more during those hours. Um, I feel like we've mentioned before with lots of accessibility, it's not just for those that have a quote unquote handicap. Um, good web accessibility makes for a more usable website for everybody. [00:04:08] And then a more usable website tends to perform better with search engines as well. So there's definitely some, some benefits. And then of course, I don't like to, you know, go with the fear, uncertainty, doubt approach, but they're all the lawsuits. There's been a lot, a huge increase in accessibility related lawsuits, discrimination related lawsuits against e commerce properties this year. [00:04:30] So it's important to realize that. This can be an angle that, um, exposes you to some litigation. Interesting. [00:04:36] Darin Newbold: Yeah, we probably ought to put that on the list of potential topics for next time, for another time. as I was going through this topic and kind of looking at it and hearing what you're saying, Josh, it seems like Not to oversimplify it, but since I like to keep it as simple as possible, at the end of the day, what we're sharing is, is guys, guys, gals, merchants, you have to have a site that people want to and will come and have a great experience at. [00:05:02] And it's as simple as that. So taking any labels off of it, at the end of the day, create a great experience. Isn't that what it's all [00:05:09] Joshua Warren: about? Very much so. Very well said. [00:05:12] Darin Newbold: That goes on to kind of the, the what of all of this, this sensory processing, online shopping. What does that, how does that? [00:05:20] Joshua Warren: Yeah, so like I mentioned, there's a lot of different things that kind of are labeled with this neurodiverse label and, um, they can literally be anything as simple as, um, minor challenges in sensory processing to things like I mentioned of dyslexia, ADHD, autism, and so when you think about that and you try to put yourself in the shoes of that person as they're shopping on your website, You have a lot of pop ups. [00:05:46] You have a lot of things moving around that can either be distracting or even overwhelming to the point that they just kind of close the close the window. Um, one [00:05:54] Darin Newbold: thing if I may interrupt you real quick. Interesting because from an ADHD I can I have that one of the things that can happen in. I don't think people realize it is with either a pop up or with something that comes up is it will remind a person. [00:06:09] Oh, something else, and suddenly I'm off that site [00:06:12] Joshua Warren: because I'm gone somewhere else. Yeah, yeah, and even one of the practical applications we're going to discuss later, um, covers the fact that some individual with ADHD, that pop up, it might not remind you of something else on the web, it might remind you of something in your kitchen. [00:06:28] How would you just stand up, walk away from the computer? Come back 30 minutes later and then say, Oh, yeah, I was trying to complete that purchase. Yep. [00:06:36] Darin Newbold: I, yeah. Were you at my house the other day? I think that's happened. Well, all right. So how does this all end up kind of playing together? You know, what are the, what are some principles that merchants can [00:06:48] Joshua Warren: take into account? [00:06:49] Yeah. So, um, we're going to talk about the, the WCAG again, like we often do, but there's an even kind of. More broad, timeless recommendation for design. And that is the concept of universal design. We'll actually have a link in the show notes to this because it's, it's interesting, but detailed reading and this group came together, I think also back in the nineties and said, doesn't matter if it's the web, if it's a building, if it's a retail store, whatever it is, there needs to be the seven guiding principles for what they called universal design. [00:07:21] And it basically just means. Things that work for everybody and the biggest ones, the three that I wanted to call out that really relate to this are, they say that when you're designing spaces, including online spaces, they need to have flexibility and use simple and intuitive use and easily perceptible information. [00:07:41] Darin Newbold: That's a pretty broad brush there, there, Josh. So how do you interpret? Each of those, because flexibility and use, wouldn't that differ depending on how somebody might see it? It [00:07:53] Joshua Warren: does, it does, and that's where, um, the power of the web, like with a building, you can't allow someone to flip a switch and suddenly the building is a different color. [00:08:05] Um, and that's where also then taking that, you know, kind of very high level conceptual information about universal design and going back to the WCAG, which if you haven't listened to our accessibility episode, that's the web content accessibility guidelines. Um, and they actually have a blog post on the WCAG website that we'll link to in the notes that goes over specifically what, Neurodiverse individuals need from digital accessibility, um, and they actually call out specific items in the list of web accessibility to pay attention to for neurodiverse individuals. [00:08:41] Well, [00:08:41] Darin Newbold: and this is where I go back to, I think we've said it over and over and over again, these core principles of consistency, predictability, and the ability to control. I mean, that's just creating a great experience. It's, So, yeah, those have got to be there and those are the key. Those are key principles from that WCAG as you're talking about. [00:09:02] So, if we take this to the next piece, all right, what are the, what are the practical steps that [00:09:13] Joshua Warren: Yeah, so you really, um, need to take kind of a step by step approach to looking at your website, um, make a list of areas that it's deficient in, that you can improve, and then just work through that list. Um, WCAG does Have a specific list that we'll have in the show notes. Um, of Of course you can always hire creativity to be that independent third party and run your website through that list. [00:09:37] Um, I know lots of times in house teams, you look at the website so much that you almost see things that aren't there or miss things that are. Right, the forest for the trees. Yep, yep. But then as you go through that list, basically you're looking at things like the color schemes, you're looking at the navigation, especially looking at multimedia if you're playing audio or video. [00:09:58] It's incredibly important to allow visitors to stop, play, pause any sort of audio or video. Really think if you're going to autoplay anything. and especially don't automatically move the page without the user giving input. I know people love to like jump straight to this ad or pop up this ad, um, and that is just basically going to convince some of these more neurodiverse individuals to just exit your website entirely. [00:10:26] Well, [00:10:27] Darin Newbold: I, I love this, Josh. I really do, but I have to say, and maybe you can tell me, cause is it the website or is it the browser? That causes the website to move automatically with with certain things because it feels like sometimes it's it's the browser that does it that if you're looking at it somewhere else or whatever, but you [00:10:46] Joshua Warren: typically typically it's the website. [00:10:48] Usually it's the website manipulating that browser and trying to trigger certain things in it. Um, you know, we were talking about the positive side here. There's obviously the negative side of those dark patterns and all the different ways that kind of the dark side of I don't know how to call that usability, but that dark side that makes you and your browser do things that they want you to do so that you spend more money with them instead of what you want to do. [00:11:13] And [00:11:13] Darin Newbold: a lot of times it's the, you go on and you're looking at something, but then there has to be a pop up with some news or that has nothing to do. It's basically, it's, it's click bait, if you will, or whatever that gets thrown in there. And that's the, that's the part that ends up moving your browser all around. [00:11:27] Well, what about, what about timeouts and, and defaults that. can help users in [00:11:33] Joshua Warren: this process. Yeah, this is where we go back to that trip to the kitchen that I mentioned earlier. So, um, turn off timeouts if you can, if you can't turn off timeouts, increase them to at least 10 times their defaults. I know there are certain timeouts in there for security, like logging people out of their account, but even that, if you could increase that. [00:11:52] Consider it always balance it with a security concern. And that's just because, either due to the amount of time it takes them to process the information on your website or the simple fact that they got distracted and they're now not even in front of their computer and they're going to come back 30 minutes later. [00:12:07] You don't want the website to change when they're in the middle of an activity, without them realizing it's going to change. So worst case, if you're gonna have to time somebody out, All right. Have one of those dreaded pop ups that says, Hey, if you don't do anything in the next X minutes, this is what's going to happen. [00:12:22] And [00:12:23] Darin Newbold: I would say that that is, in my opinion, that's very important for mobile because talk about the ease of a distraction is, I mean, it's imminent. You're going to get distracted. All right. What else on the, uh, we have navigation as well as, uh, other personalization features. What's, uh, what's your thoughts there that people can take some action on? [00:12:43] Joshua Warren: Yeah. So again, it's, it's just good design, but your navigation should be consistent. Um, the links, the navigational tools options, they should look the same and be in the same place on every page. I know sometimes people really like to have a special section of their website. You have a special experience where the links are a little different. [00:13:01] Um, But that can really, um, basically just increase the cognitive burden for everyone in navigating that page. Um, so that's especially going to present barriers to neurodiverse individuals. And then on the personalization, like we focus so much on, AI and automation and personalization to sell more through, I don't know, the color shoes I'm going to recommend to you, but you can also use that for accessibility. [00:13:26] If there are users on your site that maybe you can give them a toggle saying, Hey, I want the low sensory version of the site, you can remember that with that personalization tool and you can do things like never autoplay audio, never autoplay video and really adapt the experience to their needs. [00:13:43] Darin Newbold: That is neat. [00:13:44] Yeah, that'd be fantastic. Well, what, uh, what kind of tools and resources, um, are out there around neurodiversity and, and helping e commerce sites [00:13:52] Joshua Warren: and the merchants? So there's not enough, um, definitely need for more. Um, but we are going to list in the show notes, um, the WCAG and a few other articles and checklists that you can go through and, um, use that to assess your website. [00:14:06] Darin Newbold: Interesting. All right, man. This was this was a very interesting Josh. Thanks a bunch. And I hope you all enjoyed it as well. We really want to emphasize that. This is an ethical imperative. It's important that businesses, businesses, your business will benefit from having a neuro inclusive design. I definitely can't encourage you enough to take action, to do some learning, educate yourself, learn more. [00:14:31] And then as always invite feedback and experience from, from people that are going to your site, as well as from, uh, the communities that you're involved with. Always ask for that. So Last thoughts, any last words, Josh, you want to add [00:14:45] Joshua Warren: to this? Um, this is like so many of the things we talk about. [00:14:48] Something you can apply today, but something that's quickly changing. So definitely, if you have feedback, if you have ideas, if you're involved in groups that have come up with some, some really good ideas for neuro inclusive design, please reach out, share them with us. I would love to do a follow up episode kind of featuring those things. [00:15:04] Yes, we [00:15:05] Darin Newbold: would love that. Definitely, definitely. All right, well, as always, we want to thank you. for taking the time to listen to Josh and I in Commerce Today. Definitely encourage you to, uh, to share our podcast and share the awareness of what we're doing. We're very excited about it, and we'd love to continue to get more and more people involved. [00:15:22] And then, uh, also, please subscribe to our YouTube channel where we have, uh, the further Data, further information and, and things that are out there as well as follow creativity on, uh, on LinkedIn. And we want to do everything we can to get that, uh, help that support for the, uh, for the podcast. And that, that way you're also notified of any future episodes and, and especially when we have the live streams. [00:15:45] So with all of that, again, we appreciate you being here and with that, we'll see you next time.