Driving Inclusion: How CRS Data's Bilingual and ADA Updates Help Users Serve Their Communities

Are the tools your organization offers accessible to your entire membership base?

By that, we don't simply mean are those tools easy to access via computer, but rather are they accessible to everyone--including those agents and brokers who have visual impairments or speak a language other than English? Inclusively designed technology means that more of your membership base can benefit from the tools you provide.

CRS Data recently enhanced its MLS Tax Suite with bilingual reporting options and an update that meets the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Standards for Accessible Design. Today, we'll take a closer look at those updates and how they are helping organizations better serve their members and their community at large.

ADA Compliance

The average user of the MLS Tax Suite may not have noticed the ADA-compliant design changes that their product experience and development teams made. They're subtle changes that include deepening and adjusting color contrast, adding alt-text to images, and improving navigational elements with improved labels, headings, and more.

To real estate professionals with visual impairments, however, these changes make all the difference. Just ask Daniel Jones.

"CRS Data's pursuit of ADA compliance makes me smile," says Jones, CEO of North Carolina Regional MLS (NCRMLS). "I have personal experience within my family with blindness and deafness. Not just one person, but several—it's a genetic thing. I know the personal challenges, and the amount of energy one has to go through in order to communicate and listen."

ADA compliance is unusual from a functionality standpoint, CRS Data points out. There's no ADA button that you press. ADA-compliant design blends in so that people don't even realize that that functionality is there.

"There are not a lot of companies that will say, 'We're taking on ADA compliance!' and be accountable like that. Yet CRS Data did," says Jones. "CRS is, from my experience, a continuously progressive company. The staff of CRS haven't shrugged their shoulders and said, 'This is all we can do.' They've always strived to achieve the impossible since we started working with them."

Jones continues, "There's such a small group of people that need this ADA compliance, but CRS thought of them too. That's what makes me smile."

Bilingual Reporting

Did you know that the U.S. has the second-largest population of Spanish speakers in the world? Only Mexico has more. And Spanish speakers aren't just concentrated in places like Florida, California, and the Southwest—Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in every U.S. state, and Spanish speakers account for 13% of the nation's overall population.

That's a major reason why CRS Data sought to add Spanish-language reporting options to the MLS Tax Suite. Now not only can Spanish-speaking agents create reports in their own language, they can also share those reports with their Spanish-speaking clients.

"We made bilingual changes based both on user feedback and our own research," says Jess Bobrek of CRS Data. "We saw market trends and our own demographic data and knew it could be extremely beneficial."

Bobrek did the base Spanish translation herself with the help of Zoraida "Zoe" Ballew, a Realtor who originally hails from Ecuador and now practices real estate in the greater Knoxville area.

"I helped to translate the information in an accurate way because translation can be tricky sometimes," says Ballew. "When you are in front of a product that is not translating correctly, you are lost."

Ballew says that she's proud of CRS Data for taking the step of making the MLS Tax Suite bilingual. "I know for sure that being bilingual will help a lot of people."

For more insight on CRS Data's ADA/bilingual enhancements, watch the video below:

To learn more about CRS Data, visit CRSData.com.