[CATO] Podcast with Eugene Woo, Chief Executive Officer of Venngage

Mon Jun 24 09:00:28 PDT 2024

I had started trying to talk up Venngage as an alternative to Canva here at Highline, and have run into one fairly major stumbling block: Canva lets free accounts export (incaccessible) PDFs; Venngage’s free level will only provide links to web versions of designs, any sort of export requires a paid account, and it’s not until you hit the “Business” ($24/month/user) level that you get PDF export (the $10/month “Premium” level only includes PNG export).

I like what I’ve seen of Venngage, and Eugene does seem like a good person with good intentions (I’ve interacted with him via an a11y Slack board), but that cost barrier means I’m going to get more leverage out of telling people “please send me your Canva newsletters so I can fix them before sending them out” than “please commit to at least $288/year _and_ learning how to use Venngage’s accessibility tools _and_ checking the output _and_ maybe still sending final versions to me for final tweaks”.

(Eventually if the remediation workload gets big enough that I can convince the college to spend the money, maybe there’s a chance of getting an institutional Venngage account…but if my remediation workload does start to get that big, I’d prefer to start with trying to get approval to spend the money on CommonLook rather than Venngage.)

My guess is that that cost barrier will be impacting a lot of other people/institutions as well, even with the new regulations.

Michael Hanscom (he/him), Accessible Technology Program Manager, Highline College
mhanscom at highline.edu<mailto:mhanscom at highline.edu> | Building 25-516 | 206.592.3383
Accessible Technology Zoom Lobby: W 3:30-4:15pm/Th 3-3:45pm https://highline.zoom.us/my/mhanscom
Access Services: 206.592.3857 | access at highline.edu<mailto:access at highline.edu> | https://access.highline.edu<https://access.highline.edu/>

From: CATO <cato-bounces at lists.ctc.edu> on behalf of Monica Olsson via CATO <cato at lists.ctc.edu>
Date: Tuesday, June 18, 2024 at 12:48 PM
To: cato at lists.ctc.edu <cato at lists.ctc.edu>
Cc: Monica Olsson <molsson at sbctc.edu>
Subject: Re: [CATO] Podcast with Eugene Woo, Chief Executive Officer of Venngage
CAUTION: This email originated from outside Highline College. Do not click links or open attachments unless you validate the sender and know the content is safe. If you are unsure, contact the Help Desk at x4357 (206-592-4357) or email helpdesk at highline.edu.
Thanks for sharing, Vicki. I listened to most of the podcast. I like their approach at Venngage; it sounds like their goal is to make it easier for non-designers to create accessible graphics without a ton of extra work involved. That is definitely something I can get behind. I enjoyed Eugene's sharing about his own learning journey and owning that the product is not perfect, but they keep chipping away at improvements. It will be interesting to see overtime if Canva users in the public sector jump ships to Venngave with the ADA title two reguations.

[Title: SBCTC logo - Description: Compass]

Monica M. Olsson (she/her/hers)

Policy Associate – Accessible IT Coordinator

Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges

•Email: molsson at sbctc.edu<mailto:molsson at sbctc.edu> • Phone: 360-704-3922

The power of the Web is in its universality.
Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.

Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web

[cid:1b82a275-a162-4fef-a26f-4ea551558c47]<https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/user/321a279c65664c04a18fa34a96e959ab@sbctc.edu?anonymous&ep=signature>
Book time to meet with me<https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/user/321a279c65664c04a18fa34a96e959ab@sbctc.edu?anonymous&ep=signature>
________________________________
From: CATO <cato-bounces at lists.ctc.edu> on behalf of Vicki Walton via CATO <cato at lists.ctc.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 14, 2024 10:15 AM
To: cato at lists.ctc.edu <cato at lists.ctc.edu>
Cc: Vicki Walton <vwalton at sbctc.edu>
Subject: [CATO] Podcast with Eugene Woo, Chief Executive Officer of Venngage

[Sent from outside SBCTC]

Hello CATO,

Here is a podcast called #1 Accessible Infographic Creator — With Eugene Woo<https://creative-boost.com/accessible-infographic-creator/?unapproved=44220&moderation-hash=af703c92185c9376e7c0eceaa8fe221f#comment-44220> with Colleen Gratzer and Eugene Woo, Chief Executive Officer of Venngage.

I greatly appreciate all the content from this podcast, which also provides a transcript. The host discusses the accessibility features, highlighting how they enhance the application.

We, Meridith Hatch, Monica Olsson and Doug Hayman and I, met Eugene at the 2023 Accessing Higher Ground conference. In fact, he sat at our table during the evening keynote speaker and dinner. Super nice guy!

Just a bit of background on Colleen. She is a designer, accessibility specialist, educator, and mentor. I met her when I took her course called  Foundations of Website Accessibility<https://creative-boost.com/website-accessibility-course/>.  It was a fabulous course and I really liked working with Colleen.  I continue to follow her content and this one showed up in my inbox this week so I just felt it would be valuable to share about Venngage.

Enjoy!

[Title: SBCTC logo - Description: Compass]Vicki Walton

Pronouns: they/them

Web Accessibility Specialist/IT Quality Assurance Tester

Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges

vwalton at sbctc.edu• office: 360-704-4343• website: www.sbctc.edu<https://www.sbctc.edu/default.aspx>

Accessibility is a fundamental right

Accessibility is not a checkbox. Accessibility is a mindset that can lead to a very powerful sense of inclusion.

~ Maayan Ziv founder and CEO AccessNow

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