Avtar Nanrey - Frontend Architect/Developer

Accessibility Basics

Posted on December 20, 2022 by Avtar Nanrey

What is ARIA?

ARIA stands for “Accessible Rich Internet Applications”

What all browsers support ARIA?

Firefox 3.6 or greater
Chrome
Safari
Edge
Opera
IE 9 or greater

ARIA-enabled screen readers?

JAWS 10 or greater
NVDA 2011.2 or greater
VoiceOver on OSX Lion or newer

Basic Disability Concepts

Our Diverse Abilities

Roughly 1 in every 5 people (about 20%) has a disability of some kind. We can categorize the disabilities in three main categories:

Recognizable Disabilities

It mainly consists the physical aspects which are visible to everyone around you in most cases. If somebody is blind, do not have the ability to move most of their body due to permanent injury, or somebody is missing one or both of their arms and legs.

Hidden Disabilities

Hidden disabilities are not always immediately obvious. If somebody is deaf, have reading disorders or somebody experience seizures from time to time can’t be seen even they are setting beside you.

Temporary Disabilities

Those disabilities which are caused by accidents/injury or surgery, which reduces person’s mobility.

Age-Related Disabilities

With age people tend to loose our sight, our heading, our mobility, and our congnition.

What disabilities affect the use of web?

The disabilities that matter most in term of their effect on web use are disabilities in eyes, ears, hands, and brain.

Print or Reading Disability

A bling person cannot read a newspaper same as a sighted person can’t read a blank newspaper. A blind person can’t read any printed text on Building Signs, Packaging, Business cards or Postal mail sent to their home without some sorf of help or assistive technology. Printed materials are everywhere which creates a big problem for a blind person.

What are the common methods blind people use to read?

A friend or a family member could read it for them
Listen to a recording
Braille copy if available
Find radio or television version of the same item.

All of these methods work but still they are dependent on others or there is a limitation for person or audio version to be available. Braille versions are expensive and less than 10% Americans can read braille.

In this chellenge, Digital Text and “Screen Readers” solves the problem. With the invention of computers, text became digital, and evantually speech synthesizers were invented, allowing blind people to listen to text read out loud by the computer itself. Screen Readers allow blind people to access information independently, without having to have direct assistance from anyone else. It gives them independence.

But for this the content have to be accissible. That is the situations sometimes people with disabilities face in this digital age. Many resources are still not created with accessibility in mind. They exlcude people who are blind, and people who have other type of disabilities.

Assistive Technologies

Assistive technologies are the tools and technologies designed specifically to compensate people with disabilities for their lack of ability in certain tasks. One of the most common assistive technologies are wheelchair, canes and hearing aid. But if you look closely, most of us do not have a perfect vision. So we use Glasses or contacts to aid our vision. But those are so common that we take them for granted that they are normal. But imperfect vision is a disability as well when not corrected.

Assistive Technologies and the Web

Over the time technologies have been inveted to aid disabilities for computer and web use. Following table give us a brief summary of few.

Assistive Technology	Disability
Screen Readers	Blindness Low Vision Cognitive Disabilities
Refreshable Braille Devices	Blindness
Screen Enlargers	Low Vision
Color Enhancement Overlays or Glasses	Color Blindness Cognitive Disabilities
Captions and Transcripts	Deafness
Head Wand Mouth Stick Alternative Keyboards Eye Gaze Tracking Voice Activation	Motor Disabilities
Augmentative Communication Aids	Congnitive Disabilties

Assistive technologies don’t solve everything, they just increase the possibilities for the people with disabilties to use web, which can be impossible otherwise. It is like a wheelchair and a cane in real world, which gives them some possibility but they are unable to fill the gaps with those technologies. So it is extreamly important for poeple to create the enviornments and webpages with accessibility in mind. The web world is not the problem, the web world is a part of the solution.

8 Social Media Copywriting Tips for Engagement

Posted on September 26, 2014 by Avtar Nanrey

There was a time when most of the small or mid-level Indian companies where mistaking social media as another platform to drive traffic to their website. But 2014 is going to be a milestone in the Indian digital market scenario. Small and mid-level companies are moving to professional agencies to handle their social media marketing for them. These companies are now understanding the importance of social media, as it gives them a multipurpose media platform to fulfil their marketing, branding, CRM and sales activities. Everybody wants to get on to the bandwagon of Social Media Marketing to get maximum likes on their pages, post likes, post comments and shares. The customer is more focused on spreading word of mouth marketing rather than the number of likes or followers on their social profiles and pages.
With this in mind, it’s certainly time to start taking Social Media Marketing more seriously. The following copywriting tips are worth remembering when using any social media platform:

1. Be straight, but a little mysterious.

The force multiplier is an effective social media copywriting process. In summary:
a) Get to the point immediately,
b) have something new (and useful) to say and
c) don’t say too much too fast. Be a little mysterious.

Give your followers a human touch in your copy by starting sentences with words like “I”, “We”, etc. or tell a good story or inspire your user to share their experience by showing that you’re just like them.
If you want people to click on your link or you want to write sale-centric content then get back to basics. Just get straight to the point. People who read your story don’t like a story end at “Click Here”.

2. Get back to basics

We are in the business of helping customers:

• believing there is a better way
• realizing they just found it (on your blog) and
• ACTING—taking a first step toward what they want (giving you a lead)

Infographic or video content that makes customers respond does one thing really well:

Answers questions in ways that makes potential buyers think, “Yes, yes, YES … I can take action on that. That will probably create results for me. Now, how can I get my hands on more of those kinds of insights/tips?

This is the key to using a social media to create more engagement and leads to sell. Make it your goal.

Once you take this simple idea and turn it into a habit you will start generating more leads. Ask yourself, today, “Am I giving the reader/viewer enough reason to comment on my Facebook update?”

3. Focus everything you’ve got on headlines

The world has been reduced to headlines. Period. Effective headlines get right to the point—appeal to emotional and tangible desires of prospects in ways they cannot resist acting on.

4. Make readers crave more of your content

Effective content makes followers hungry for more content. Every piece of content you write should make readers crave more. Take each social media tidbit, article, blog post, update and ask yourself, “Did what I just say make the reader want to hear more?” This is one of my best social media copywriting tips.

5. Use active sentences

The way you write on social media sites is so important. Remember that the goal is to spark interest and enhance engagement. If you’re sending a tweet, or updating your status, you want to write something that will improve your Click through Rate. So be sure to always use active sentences containing strong action verbs. For example, “Google recommends +1s” rather than “+1s are recommended by Google”. Active sentences are those where the subject (Google) performs the action of the verb (Recommend). Always look to use powerful verbs rather than words like, ‘are’, ‘is’ or ‘am’.

6. Be creative

As mentioned above, it’s important to focus on getting the user to click on a link, or to look at something you have shared or liked. One way of doing this is to be more creative with your posts or updates. For example, instead of tweeting, “Here is a list of copywriting tips for social media”, you could create excitement and suspense by saying, “For tips on improving your copywriting for social media, follow this link”, or “Are you looking for copywriting tips for your social media campaigns? Here are the tips you need”.

7. Give it a break

Giving a break does not stand for don’t post anything on your social profiles. The regularity is so important. But as well as only writing around your product can become a boring social media strategy. So we can give a break to that content strategy by putting some emotional topics like reminding our user some childhood moments by sharing your targeted users’ childhood cartoon characters or video game. And never miss to write immediately about the current affair or breaking news with some twist. (Just keep in mind that will your brand image allow you to post about that particular topic?).

8. Enjoy it!

The whole point of social media is to actively engage with others in a slightly less formal way. This is why for anyone tweeting regularly, or commenting on an interesting topic, it’s important to enjoy the experience and not hard sell or put people off from interacting with you. Potential customers and clients would rather take time to talk and engage with a brand that is enjoying the company of others, rather than abruptly trying to push their products or services onto them.
Above anything else, it’s important for anyone engaging with social media to have fun with it. This will show in the way you write. It shouldn’t be perceived as a burden, but rather an integral part of online marketing. The above mentioned social media copywriting tips can be used by anyone straightaway.

If you have anymore that you would like to share, please do so below. I’ll be interested in hearing your thoughts.

QR CODE : An intelligent marketing tool

Posted on July 25, 2014 by Avtar Nanrey

Quick Response or QR codes are two-dimensional computer generated images. These codes are the next and enhanced version to the traditional bar codes. These are loaded with much more information. QR codes can encode URLs, images, music and Japanese Kanji and Kana symbols. All you need to do is scan the QR code with the QR code reader installed in your smart phone. QR codes are frequently used in magazines ads and flyers from where people can scan them and access the information online.

How does a QR Code reader work?

To use a QR code you first need to have a smart phone with internet connection and a QR code reader installed. You can choose from any of the free QR code readers available for android, iPhone and Windows Phone like QR Droid, Scan and RedLaser respectively. Once you have your QR Code reader ready, follow these simple steps:
Step 1: Place the QR code in a well lit area.
Step 2: Keep your phone camera over the QR code and scan it using the QR code reader app.
Step 3: The reader will read the code and direct you to the information linked with the code.

Using QR Codes for marketing

QR codes are a smart marketing tool. Add the code to your print ads, flyers or any other material. When a person scans the code, they will be directed to a web page where you can list out detailed information of your product and services. So while you attract attention of your customer with your copy, you can direct him to much more relevant information via QR code.

Benefits of using QR Codes

QR Codes, if used properly, can benefit your marketing campaign in many ways. They can:

Provide detailed information to customers about product and services
Can be used to send business cards, leaflets, etc.
Can be used for registering new customers in programs
Conduct surveys and take customer feedback
Provide detailed information to customers about product and services
Can be used to send business cards, leaflets, etc.
Can be used for registering new customers in programs
Conduct surveys and take customer feedback
Direct customers to avail discount coupons
Can direct people to your social media profile
Increase website traffic
It makes it easy for users to share your content online on social media platforms

Generate your own QR Code

There are a number of free as well as paid sites and apps, like QRStuff and Esponce, available to help you generate QR Codes. Once you have generated your Quick Response code you can download it and print it or use it as an image on your online page.

QR Codes – Best Practice

Relevance: QR codes should serve a purpose. Use them only when you are sure why you want to use them and what you wish to achieve.
Code Size: QR code should be at least 1 inch by 1 inch in size so that it can easily be scanned using smart phones.
Colour Matters: The colours used are preferably black and white. Other colours can also be used keeping in mind that the dark and light areas should be in high contrast.
Placement: Ensure that the QR code is placed where it is easily visible and convenient to scan.
Linking: Link the QR code to a website that is mobile optimized; remember your user will be viewing this content on his mobile phone.
Short URLs: Keep your URL short. The more data you store in your QR code, the smaller dots it will have. Thus making it difficult to scan. You can use URL shorteners like Tiny, Bitly or Google URL Shortener.
Test Code: Once everything is done, remember to test the QR code using different smart phones.
Track: QR code generators let you track the number of people who scanned your QR Code. Track the data, analyze it and use it to plan your future campaigns.

You can also hire professional assistance. There are a number of companies that help in generating QR codes and tracking and managing the service.

Difference between Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Avtar Nanrey

Let’s first understand what are Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing. Digital marketing is marketing with the help of electronic devices like computers, tablets, mobile phone etc. It can also be offline using electronic devices that do not relay on the internet like basic digital signage, etc.

We can segregate it further according to online and offline mediums:

Online: Social media marketing, Pay Per Click (PPC), Email Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Blogging, Video Streaming, Viral Marketing, Online Banner Ads and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) etc.

Offline: TV, Radio, Digital Signage, SMS, etc.

Social media marketing is a part of online digital marketing. It is used to reach out to people on social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube and interact with them.

Difference between Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing

Digital marketing is a marketing strategy.
Social media marketing is a part of the digital marketing strategy.

Digital marketing use various electronic channels of marketing.
Social media marketing uses various social media platforms.

Digital marketing includes online as well as offline channels.
Social media marketing is purely a part of online marketing.

Digital marketing is focused at all target audiences and they respond to digital marketing according to their level of interest.
Social media marketing is more focused and involves people who have common interests, and audiences are involved only through mutual consent.

How to choose the right social media platform?
In the beginning of every social media campaign you need to be clear about the objectives for which you are using social media then accordingly make the right choice i.e. choose the right social media platform. The table below suggests the most preferred social media platform choice according to your objective.

Objective	Social Media Platforms
Objective	Facebook	Twitter	LinkedIn	Google+	Pinterest	YouTube
Increase website traffic	√	√			√
Improve GSRP				√		√
Increase brand awareness	√	√	√	√	√	√
Customer engagement	√	√		√
Advertising opportunity	√	√	√			√
Network building			√
Lead generation	√	√	√

Interesting Digital and Social Media Statistics 2013

74% of marketers believe that Facebook is important for their lead generation strategy.
Twitter’s fastest growing age demographics are 55 to 64 years old.
Around 46% of web users turn to social media for making purchases.
Social media generates almost double the marketing leads of trade shows, telemarketing, daily mail or PPC.
A Facebook post gets 75% of possible engagement in its first 5 hours.
40% of marketers use Google+.
5.5 billion people get online via mobile and 1.5 billion via desktops.
31% companies report that they are just starting to develop a mobile strategy or have no mobile strategy at all.
70% of brand marketers (and 60% of agency professionals) view social media advertising as more valuable for building brand awareness than for driving direct response.
More than half of all Facebook members have used the social network via a smartphone and 33% use a phone as their primary means of Facebook access.

Reference: CRN, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Mashable, Business Insider, Mobile Marketer, Forrest, Internet Retailer, The Economist, AllThingsD, Digital Insights, Heidi Cohen, State of Digital.

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