Podcasts about microsoft narrator

  • 11PODCASTS
  • 13EPISODES
  • 48mAVG DURATION
  • ?INFREQUENT EPISODES
  • Jul 28, 2024LATEST

POPULARITY

20172018201920202021202220232024


Best podcasts about microsoft narrator

Latest podcast episodes about microsoft narrator

ACB Community
20240727 Basics With BITS

ACB Community

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 28, 2024 58:51


20240727 Basics With BITS Originally Broadcasted July 27, 2024, on ACB Media 5   Participants joined BITS, as we get down to basics, and provide a gentle helping hand to assist you in becoming more confident when using your technology. This time, we looked at Microsoft Narrator, and how using this built in screen reader can get you out of a jam when your primary screen reader stops working and leaves you dead in the water.

basics bits acb media microsoft narrator
Unstoppable Mindset
Episode 152 – Unstoppable Founder and CEO of IROC MBS with Cori Fonville Foster

Unstoppable Mindset

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 11, 2023 68:41


Meet our guest this episode, Cori Fonville Foster. Cori is a market at heart although she didn't start out by founding her own company. However, after experiencing a rare eye disease she left a career in the medical industry and started her own marketing firm. Her story by any definition shows why I call her “unstoppable” and I think you will too. Cori had a wide variety of experiences while growing up since her mother was in the military and, like many, served in places around the world. Yes, Cori got to go along and experience many places and peoples. We have had a number of guests on Unstoppable Mindset who had a relationship with military parents. Pretty much all of them seem to want to learn and grow from their childhood experiences and often end up in fields where they get to serve others. Cori spends time discussing with me her story of losing most of her eyesight and how she came to discover that she was still as normal as anyone. I had no idea when I first met her on LinkedIn that Cori was blind, and again, blindness does not necessarily mean a complete lack of eyesight. Cori's story shows us all just how unstoppable she is. Near the end of this episode Cori and I discussed an organization called Bookshare. This is a nonprofit established to provide a method of providing any book to persons who cannot use print to read. Its services are covered under current copyright laws as you will learn if you visit www.bookshare.org. About the Guest: Cori Fonville Foster is the CEO of IROC Marketable Business Solutions, a small business marketing firm that supports coaches, consultants, speakers, and authors as they learn to unlock their full potential and monetize their passions. Cori has always had a desire for helping others, which led her to pursue a career in the medical field early on. However, after complications from a rare, disabling eye condition, Cori decided to pivot and start her own business. As an entrepreneur herself, Cori quickly realized the gaps in services and support for small business owners with great products and services, who lacked the knowledge and funds to scale like larger businesses. In response, she founded IROC MBS to help small business owners across the U.S. and Canada start, run, and scale their businesses. Through her work with IROC MBS, Cori has helped countless entrepreneurs feel empowered to live life on their own terms. Her expertise in marketing and business strategy, combined with her passion for helping others succeed, has made her a sought-after speaker and consultant. Whether she's delivering a keynote speech or working one-on-one with clients, Cori is dedicated to empowering others to achieve their full potential. Ways to connect with Cori: Website: https://www.irocmarketablebusinesssolutions.com/ https://www.tiktok.com/@iroc.mbs https://www.facebook.com/IROCMBS https://www.instagram.com/irocmbs/ https://twitter.com/Cori_Iroc88 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoH8-TfdC7rIkwCPjCUk3LQ https://www.linkedin.com/in/cori-fonville-foster-72750ba8/ About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Welcome once again to unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. It's fun when we get to do all three of those in one podcast. You know, sometimes we have people who come on who happened to have a disability, which means we can deal with inclusion because a lot of times diversity doesn't. But of course diversity is relevant. And then the unexpected comes along, which is always fun. Today, Cori Fonville Foster our guest, I think can represent all three of those. She can make her own comments about that if she would like. So Cori, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 01:58 I am so excited to be here for our conversation today.   Michael Hingson ** 02:02 So it's okay to say that you represent all three of those. Yes. safe assumption. Cool. Well, why don't we start by you telling us a little bit about you, kind of where you were born your younger life and the the early quarry and we'll go from there. Oh, my God   Cori Fonville Foster ** 02:22 is the early quarry Well, I'm a native to Virginia. But I only stayed here till I was about seven. My mother was in the army. And so I was lucky enough to get to travel to Texas, we were stationed in Germany, Hawaii, and then back here to Virginia. So we just made a big circle. And I really enjoyed just traveling as a child and exploring other people's cultures and getting to know you know what people wanted to do in life, just hearing the different stories that individuals had. But I did go to high school here in Virginia. And then I went to Virginia Commonwealth University, where I thought I wanted to be a psych major, and then and then found out that was not for me. But even through all that I kind of figured that what I found to be a common theme throughout all of my years was this idea of like of wanting to help people. And so while didn't finish it, VCU, I did find kind of a new passion in the medical field with helping people in that way.   Michael Hingson ** 03:29 What was school like in other countries and so on? How did you cope with all that? Because it must have been a little bit of a challenge moving around.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 03:38 Actually, I really liked it. I was never afraid to be the new kid. Especially because I went to a lot of areas where there was a lot of military. So I was definitely not the only new kid there. Texas Killeen, Texas. People are familiar deep in the heart of Texas. Lots of military there. And the only thing I had to realize that I was I thought I was country being from Virginia, but I was very country. Once I left Texas, Germany, I went to school on base but I did have to take German classes and Hawaii we actually had to take Japanese classes and hula dancing classes. That was part of the curriculum, but all in all school to school. I did. I didn't really like going to school, but school was school. Do you   Michael Hingson ** 04:21 remember any of your Japanese   Cori Fonville Foster ** 04:23 and not not even   Michael Hingson ** 04:26 about hula dancing? Oh,   Cori Fonville Foster ** 04:29 yes, actually, I do remember a little bit of hula dancing. That was fun. But ya know, the language just kind of fell off. I have like a little bit of German last, but not much not even enough to have a whole conversation.   Michael Hingson ** 04:42 Yeah. If you don't use it, it does kind of go away. But I'll bet if you really got put back in that situation again, some of it would come back.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 04:51 Yeah, probably so.   Michael Hingson ** 04:54 So you went to college and tell us then about going into the medical profession.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 05:00 Yeah, so I went to college, like I said, trying to be a psych major. I don't know how I ended up. Getting in there. I was early decision, I knew exactly what I wanted to do got in there my first semester, and found out how long psychologists actually go to school. And I realized, that is not what I wanted to do, I didn't want to spend all this time in school. And so after a year and a half, I left, but I ended up kind of landing myself in a nursing home. As not not as a as a, as a person living there. But as a worker. And I really fell in love with, you know, helping individuals that needed more support that you know, physically needed more support, so needed people to help possibly feed them, help them move around, bathed them, that kind of stuff. I was like, Okay, this is cool, not so much mental concerns, but even physical needs, like everyday needs. And I found that that was a lot more rewarding for me.   Michael Hingson ** 05:54 Ah, so then what did you do with that? So you, you didn't stay in college? Did you go back to college ever? Or?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 06:01 Yeah, I did. I went back to school. I did. I did a lot of home health work for a while. And I realized that I wanted to have more education in the medical field. So I went back to school, I have a associate's degree as a medical assistant. And then I was actually in school to become a registered nurse when my condition flared up. And unfortunately, I wasn't able to complete that degree, I was three credits away from graduating as a registered nurse. But unfortunately, but I guess fortunately, too, I found my true calling after that. But I did have to leave school and leave work, and basically go out on disability. Very, very close to the finish line of becoming a registered nurse.   Michael Hingson ** 06:43 Well, what was the eye condition? What happened?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 06:46 Yeah, so I have a rare condition called UV itis, it's a inflammatory condition. It's very rare. And the kind I have is even more rare, because usually, they can find out like what makes you you know, have this condition. But in my case, they call it idiopathic, meaning they basically don't know why I have it, I just do. So they treat the symptoms. And so I actually got diagnosed in high school, and lost all the vision in my left eye, my first year in college, but then nothing else. It just like, got calm, I had no issues, until I was about 20 to 23, somewhere in there. And that's when it flared up again. And it was just so bad that the doctors couldn't kind of get ahead of it. And they basically sat me down and said that they thought I was gonna go completely blind. From the condition. I did not go completely blind. That's that's a little longer story. But I did have to, like I said, discontinue my studies, and leave the job that I had been working at for quite a while. What did   Michael Hingson ** 07:51 you then go and do them move. So as a result, you you weren't a nurse, you weren't going to be able to be a nurse, although you'd worked at that, but you obviously gained a lot of knowledge and so on. So what did you then go off and do?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 08:02 Yeah, so after I had to go out on disability for about six months, I actually did nothing. I had, I had no coping skills as as a person that was visually impaired. Because before the flare up, that flare up that sent me out, I had 2020 of my right eye. So I was still kind of living life as a very able to visually abled person. And so when my vision quickly dissipated, I didn't really know what to do. I didn't know how to read Braille, I didn't know how to use a cane. I didn't know anything. So I just kind of was sad and depressed for about six months didn't do anything. Didn't know that there was lots of support out there. Unfortunately, I didn't have really great doctors at the time. And now I do thankfully, but I didn't have I didn't know that I could reach out and ask for help and get resources. So I did nothing for six months. And then after the six months, I decided to start a business. Why not? Where you're in the in the pits of despair, I started a business because I wanted something to do. I didn't want to be in the house and I wanted to make income. And again, I didn't know that. At the time. I didn't know that people who couldn't see could work. Now I've learned a lot that we are just as capable as everyone else. But then I back then I didn't know so I started my first business it was called Iraq marketable. I'm sorry, Iraq, my buddy. And so that's what it was called. And I sold like handmade soaps and bath bombs and body butters and you know, just a lot of handmade things for women to take like bubble baths, basically. But it was a cool business and I got to talk to a lot of small business owners, which was really cool to hear all their amazing stories and that kind of led me into starting the business that I run now.   Michael Hingson ** 09:46 So how did you learn how to make soaps and, and all those sorts of things that was totally different than the kinds of things that you had been studying for?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 09:56 Yeah, it was definitely like a complete one ad I like to learn period, like, I just like to learn things. And I needed to find something that I could do with the vision that I had. And so I was just YouTubing different things. And I would see people make, you know, different little bars of soap or make their own body butter, which can be used like a lotion on their skin. I was like, that seems cool. Let me try that. And it wasn't a lot of money to invest, because I didn't have any because I was unemployed. And at that time, I hadn't gotten my first disability check. So I was like, Okay, this seems, you know, easy enough. And my mother was a crafter. So I knew that she knew about like vending events. And I was like, okay, I can do this, I can do it at my own pace, I can do it with the vision that I have. And I just a lot of trial and error. But I got real good at it. I made I made some good money doing it, though. So I'm kind of proud of myself. While it was a little business that kind of came out of nowhere. It definitely was a lucrative business, that game gave me a lot of confidence. Because like I said, before, that I didn't think that, like I had a future because I was like, I can't see, like, this is it for me that you know, I just, it was like the world came crashing down, I really felt like, there was nothing that I was going to be able to accomplish, because I couldn't see. And so that gave me just a little bit of confidence to say, Okay, you're not, you know, helpless, you can do something, you can be productive. And that kind of gave me the confidence also to advocate for myself, I ended up firing my doctors getting a new team of doctors that helped me finding that organizations were out there that can support me, I actually connected with your organization, someone who was completely blind, that was like, girl, you can work you can do different stuff. And I was like, Really, she was like, yeah, she had written a book. And it really opened my eyes that this was not something that was going to limit my capabilities.   Michael Hingson ** 11:47 So what did the doctors tell you? I should have asked that earlier, I suppose. But what did the doctors tell you when they decided that you weren't going to be able to see again,   Cori Fonville Foster ** 11:57 I'm telling you, I had a really bad doctor, she literally just sat me down, it was very matter of fact. And she said, your eyes are angry. That's the words you use. And she says there's nothing we can do about it, we can't do surgery, there's no drop, she said, You need to just go ahead and quit your job, go home and collect disability. That's what that's literally what she told me. And because I didn't know any better, I did believe that for a long while, like a good. I said six months to a year I thought okay, the only thing I have the choice I have was to go home and go blind. And that's it. But like, so once I got a little confidence, and I found new doctors, they told me that, you know, while there was no cure, they could fight. And if I was willing to fight, they would try to preserve the vision I had, and they got me connected with people that can teach me how to live in my new normal.   Michael Hingson ** 12:46 Yeah, and that's exactly what it is, is a new normal. You know, I had a similar experience with a doctor a number of years ago, in that I was dealing with a lot of eye pain, which turned out to be glaucoma, eye pressure, and so on. But the doctor, by the way, I had already secured many years before a master's degree in physics. So I had a little bit of knowledge about one thing or another. And this doctor would only say to me, your eyes are mad at you. They're angry. And, you know, I said, What do you mean, they're, my eyes are mad at me. But they are and there's nothing we can do. And I said, What do you mean by mad at me, he wouldn't deal with the issue. And he couldn't take eye pressure. Because being having been blind since birth, I didn't know anything about controlling my eyes and looking up and looking down. And when he was trying to take high pressure, he kept saying look up and I said, When are you going to understand, I don't know how to do that. You know, when I said if you're going to treat me this way, I'm leaving, I'm not going to pay you a sin. And I'm going to make sure other people know how you treat blind people. And, you know, and that's exactly what I did. My wife was in the room at the time and heard the whole thing. And she agreed. It was it was not a good experience. And there's no need for that. And it's unfortunate that the Optima logical world doesn't get some of the training that they need to recognize that they're not failures just because the person can't see. And that it is high time that we stop preaching here now talking about blind and visually impaired and equating us to vision. You know, blind and low vision is one thing, but when we hear things like visually impaired, why do I need to be creative, equated to how much vision I have or don't have. And blindness is a characteristic and low vision is a characteristic. But doctors don't learn those things and the schools don't teach them that which is so unfortunate.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 14:55 Yeah, I agree. And I've had so many instances where people don't get The condition and they don't, they don't treat us with care I ended up in where you say God call me triggered me. Because I remember I my pressure got really high one time. I mean, it was like at 40. It was crazy. I felt like a giant was squeezing my head.   Michael Hingson ** 15:13 I was 70 Once I know what it is. And yeah,   Cori Fonville Foster ** 15:17 and so for people listening who are not visually impaired, like right now I'm in like the single digits. So So you know, you're not supposed to be in the doubles. But yeah, I went to the emergency room. And the nurse practitioner on call, didn't know how to use the pressure machine, she sat next to me on the bed, I'm in tears. And she pulls out the instructions to the machine that she was about to poke in my eye. And she's like reading it. And I was like, Can you please go out the room, read what you got to read, get yourself together and come back confidently, because you're about to touch my eyeball, which is already in pain, I ended up having to have emergency surgery the next day to get my pressure lowered. And it's just like, that kind of stuff just drives me crazy. Because I again, I was on the other side of that I was in the medical field. I was you know, we're helping doctors see patients and I'm like, why would you do that when somebody is in such need, right? They need you to support them, calm them down, give them reassurance and instead, they make us more scared, or less confident in not only their abilities, but our outcomes. And it's just a horrible place to be because I've had several eye surgeries. Now I've gone through several doctors and different prognosis. And it's just, you know, you want people that at least believe that, you know, they're gonna give you the best care and the best options for you. And sometimes, oftentimes, that's not what we get.   Michael Hingson ** 16:37 Well, and you want people who believe that you're a person. And that eyesight isn't the only thing in town. And that's what's so unfortunate is that so much of our society thinks that without eyesight, you're not really a whole person at all. And that's just not true.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 16:54 Yeah, you're right.   Michael Hingson ** 16:56 And that's one of the reasons that I tend to, when I'm talking with people and hear the term get away from visually impaired, it's like deaf people who will tell you that they don't like the word hearing impaired because they don't want to be acquainted with or compared with its deaf or hard of hearing. And that's really the way it ought to be with blindness. It isn't all about eyesight. And unfortunately, there are too many people who have no vision anyway, that is to say, they may see really well, but they don't have any vision. And that's a different story. But we won't worry   Cori Fonville Foster ** 17:31 about that today. Just a bar right there. I like that one.   Michael Hingson ** 17:35 Yeah. And in my book center dog, one of the phrases is don't let your sight get in the way your vision and it happens all too often. Definitely, it is one one of the major things, it's an issue. So you, you are black women, women woman living with or working with a disability, which you obviously have learned to recognize is not really the disability at all. It's more what the public views it as but how does all that work in your business? And now that you've got IROC up and running, are you still doing Soper? What is IROC morphed into?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 18:14 Yes, IROC is no longer doing so we have grown up at there doing my first business, I found that there was a gap in the market for small business owners trying to market their businesses and get them out to the world. And so now I own IROC markable business solutions. We are a small business marketing, and coaching firm, where we've actually been able to help hundreds of entrepreneurs all over the US and into Canada, market their small businesses and get in front of their target audience. So it's been a definite big change. But like you said, I don't see my quote unquote, disability as a disability, I just consider myself to be differently abled, there are things that I do, and I just have to do them differently than quote unquote, the norm. But that doesn't mean I'm incapable. Very few things have stumped me. And usually, once I'm stumped, I go and find a way to get around it. But it's just like anybody else. Nobody's gonna be good at everything. Nobody's going to get something, you know, done amazingly, their first time through. And so I learned and even since my diagnosis, I've done makeup for people. I've done photos for people. Right before this podcast, I was editing video content for a client. I am not my disability. I really, I definitely use my story to inspire others, because I want people to realize that they're capable of doing amazing things, but I am not consumed or defined by my condition. It's just a part of, you know, the who I am. It's, it's just one little piece. It's not even a big piece. It's one little piece of who Cori is, but it doesn't stop the show.   Michael Hingson ** 19:56 And it shouldn't. On the other hand, Cory Let's get really serious here, Bed Bath and Beyond has just announced that they're going to be going bankrupt, there might be a great soap market out there.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 20:10 I don't know. I'm not gonna lie to you. Because I tried to go back and do it. It's a lot of hands on work. Our team now to help me, I don't want to go back to just being by myself. That's a lot.   Michael Hingson ** 20:23 Yeah, no, I understand. And, and so you're doing that all over the country? Well, tell us a little bit more about what you do.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 20:31 Yeah, so I always tell people, I got into business very untraditionally. Because like I said, I didn't know what I wanted to be, when I grew up at the time, I was just trying to kind of find myself in my new world of, of having this condition and finding a way to still help people because that's always been my mission in life, is to help people in some way. And so through that, and through the business, we're able to do coaching, right, we talk to individuals, and help them identify their goals, figure out who their clientele is, we also help them turn their passion into profit. Meaning that they find something that they're really good at really passionate about, and we help them monetize that thing. And then we offer them marketing services, like building their websites, working on email campaigns, working on their social media management, those types of things to kind of help them along. And I mentioned me being in the business, not traditionally, because that's our target audience, people who didn't come into business with a business degree or come into business with tons of investors and capital, there are people who really just genuinely want to help other people through the thing that is their gift. And so that's really the people that we really enjoy working with them. It has been just an amazing ride thus far.   Michael Hingson ** 21:51 Do you focus a lot on businesses with persons with disabilities? Is that an issue? Do you focus in more on the broad market or what?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 22:03 So we have had many individuals who identify as people with disabilities, seen and unseen. So we've had people with MS, we've had people that just have really bad anxiety, who have come from a lot of trauma, have physical conditions. I mean, the list goes on and on. But again, my disability is just one little aspect of me. So I don't go out searching for individuals that that identify as having disability, but we do definitely welcome them. And I feel that I am uniquely positioned in the fact that I understand there their worries, and their sometimes lack of confidence as they build up their business, because they're worried that people will see them as less than I know, I definitely did. When I started, I said, I used to not even tell people I was legally blind, I would say, you know, I'm just kind of keep going on unless they asked me, because I thought that they would be like, Well, how is she going to get this done? But now that I've been in business, and people have seen my work, I'm like, Look, this is who I am. And guess what, I'm going to be amazing. And I just happen to be legally blind as well. So yeah, don't go on my way looking for but we definitely do attract people who can can resonate with my story for sure.   Michael Hingson ** 23:22 So what specific kinds of things do you actually then do to help companies? Maybe a better way to put it is, what kind of problems do people bring to you? And how do you solve them.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 23:34 So the majority of people who come to us are really struggling with solidifying their marketing plan, they have an idea, they think it's going to work, or maybe they've even been doing it for people for free. Like I work with service based businesses, mostly. So these are coaches and consultants. That's why I said they like to help other people, because they are working with different target audiences trying to solve their problems. So they come to me, they say, Hey, I have this idea, or I've been doing this thing. And I really want to take it to the next level. So through our coaching program, we really work kind of hand in hand, I call it a white glove service. And we help them identify what their goals are, we put times behind it, we keep them accountable. And then we give them tools, techniques, guides, scripts, all the things they need to actually achieve that. So basically, we're a business coaching service, but then we also provide those tangible, practical elements they need to do the thing that is called business.   Michael Hingson ** 24:33 So do you oftentimes end up having to help people maybe even restructure their business, do things more efficiently change their operation to to become better at what they do?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 24:47 Absolutely. A lot of what we do is kind of go in and look at the systems or lack thereof with their systems. We do something called a brand audit, where we go in and kind of look like how are you doing this? How are you structuring it? Because usually a lot of new entrepreneurs are having issues with burnout. They're trying to do all the things themselves, and in the most tiresome ways, and so we teach them about outsourcing, we teach them about working with their CEO mindset. And then of course, building confidence to sell because that is something that a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with as well.   Michael Hingson ** 25:22 Yeah. And we're also afraid of failing, what do you what do you say to somebody who says I'm afraid of failing?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 25:30 That is, that's a great question only because I almost want to laugh. I talked to my clients about this all the time, who say they're afraid to fail, I always tell people, you're not afraid to fail. Because when you know that you have a gift, and that you have a talent or you have a product that people need, and you don't act on it, you're already failing, you're doing it every day that you don't work towards your goal, that you don't strive for greatness. And so you're not afraid to fail, because you're already doing it, what you're afraid of is success. Because if you weren't afraid of success, you wouldn't worry about the what ifs, you would just keep going until you hit that hit that success, and really make that mark that you're trying to make. So I always say people aren't really afraid of fit failure at all. They're definitely afraid of what success will look like on them.   Michael Hingson ** 26:16 Very good point. And the other part about it is that oftentimes people don't recognize that failure is in what they define as failure is probably one of the best learning experiences around because what does failure really means? Alright, something didn't work. So hopefully, you're smart enough to realize I won't do that again, and you start to think about other things to do that may make it more successful.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 26:43 Absolutely. They call it faultless. And failing forward, you take every failure as a learning experience, and you move forward.   Michael Hingson ** 26:51 Exactly what should happen. And all too often, we don't tend to teach people about that, you know, a very strange example of that is guide dogs. For years, even the guide dog schools would say that the dogs that didn't make it as guide dogs failed, and they just didn't measure up. And so they had to go do other things, they finally realized that that was the wrong terminology, because they weren't failures. The reality is that not every dog is meant to be a guide dog. And it's like with people, not everyone can do every particular job, which is what you said before. So the guide dog school started saying their career changed. Some of them have gone on to be cancer, detecting dogs or diabetic detecting dogs or in so insulin reactions and issues, seizure, detections, any number of different things. But they're not failures. And that's one of the things that we really need to get over is recognizing or not recognizing that a failure or our expectation of something that goes a particular way that doesn't go that way, is really the opportunity to explore something different. Absolutely. And you know, all too often, we really need to do some of that. Well, so for a person with a disability and putting it in air quotes, what are some of the challenges that you and others with disabilities have had in starting businesses and moving forward with them?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 28:27 I think for me, I struggled. One was confidence, because I didn't know how others were going to perceive me. Like I said, as someone who, I guess, in my eyes visibly looks like, there's something going on. I think some people don't know that like is like something's off with their face. I'm not sure what it what it is. Because people don't know what blindness looks like. And sometimes I and sometimes people actually will get mad at me because I didn't think I was legally blind. And they were to think I was making it up. And it's, it's been both ways. So I was kind of lost comp will not lost confidence. But I lacked confidence early on, and just that fear of what people were going to think. But then also the practical things of like how I was going to get things done, my eyes get really tired. I've had a lot of surgeries on my eyes and eyes are just like any other muscle where they get fatigued. And now I have really bad light sensitivity. And so I can't sit in front of the computer for a long time. I can't go outside a lot without shades and even with shaved, my eyes get really sensitive. And so I have to be really cautious about the types of activities I do the places I go. So that I can still work. I have to take lots of breaks. And so sometimes that impedes on work. And I have to find a way to make a schedule that allows for those breaks. And that's why one of the reasons why I actually stayed working for myself because I did later find out that yes, people who are blind can work and do work and are amazing workers. But because of my light sensitivity In my fatigue, I decided that it would be best for me and less frustrating if I work from home and work for myself so that I could take breaks and didn't have to worry about explaining myself to others because I'm the boss, and I take a break when I need to. And if my eyes get too much sun exposure, I can go lay down and close my eyes or put a mask over my eyes or whatever I need to do to take care of me. So some of the things I've had to learn a business are definitely how to do everything, how to what computer devices you use, what apps will help, some websites do not allow me to zoom in, it's the most stressful thing ever, different apps will allow me to zoom in. So I can't see how to do things I've had to learn how to do workarounds for that, when I have surgeries and can't see it all, I have to quickly figure out how to listen well, because they have a lot of apps out there that will talk to you. And my condition is a little different than some people who are consistently blind. And that I feel like they get the skills because they use it all the time. But I can go from being able to drive to not being able to see my face really quickly, like within three days time. And so I have to quickly pick up those skills of listening well, so I can use all those amazing apps to help me navigate the TV, my phone, the computer, all kinds of things. And luckily, there are amazing software's out there. But I have had those challenges and just navigating that as I build my business. And as I just live my day to day life.   Michael Hingson ** 31:34 Have you learned to use things like screen readers, such as JAWS, and so on to verbalize what comes across the computer? So you don't have to necessarily strain your eyes as much can I recognize that you can go from not seeing well to seeing fairly well. But have you thought about the concept of maybe using a screen reader regularly might ease some of the eye strain and and make for an easier process and use it to augment what you do get to be able to do when you can see.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 32:04 Yeah, I've been playing more with that lately, since I had a I had an emergency eye surgery a couple of months ago, and I've been trying to use the technology more, I'm just really, I'm really impatient. I'm not gonna lie to you, I am very impatient. And so sometimes I'm like, Ah, it takes forever because a lot of times it'll it'll read. So I've used apps where it'll read to me, like where a button is like when I pass over it. But then I have to hit the button like twice. And this is like ah, so oftentimes I get frustrated and take it off. But I have been getting better at trying out different apps and different software's and trying to use them more consistently. Even like using my walking cane, I try to remember to go back and use it more often. Because what tends to happen is when I really need it, I haven't used it in a month. And then I'm like, oh my god, I gotta learn this fast. And then I have all the anxiety around kind of getting back acclimated. So yeah, I have been trying to use them more consistently, because with consistency comes confidence and the tool. But like I said, I just I'm really impatient. So it's been a struggle, that is definitely something that I continue to struggle with.   Michael Hingson ** 33:12 Well, but the other side of it is that you, you may find that it helps another way. So for example is talking about using a cane. If you're using a cane, and you use it regularly. One of the things is that people will know you're blind, and that may or may not build barriers, but for a lot of people, hopefully it won't, because you're already doing what you do. And worst case had opens up the opportunity to have a conversation about it. Well, the same thing with different technologies you talked about when you find a button and you have to tap it twice. That's when you're using a touchscreen. But on the other hand with your computer, you can use a program such as JAWS, or NVDA, or Microsoft Narrator which is built into Windows and actually verbalize whatever comes across the screen and still use your keyboard the way you normally do. And then the point of doing that consistently, is that you use your your eyesight to complement and enhance what you get with a screen reader or using the technology as opposed to just using one or the other. Because you have the ability and the opportunity to use both. Does that make sense?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 34:23 Well, absolutely. And as I said, I'm just I'm just now trying to do it more often. But I definitely see the benefits and doing it for sure. And I said I I like to be really honest about the fact that I've had this condition now for many years. But over the last, I don't know, four or five years. I've had the harder time because I've had the biggest changes in my vision really fast. And so I've had to get over. People are looking at me and again what did the people think? And I had one lady who was helping me with my came and learning how to do that. And she was like, Why do you care so much? What people? What are people what people are thinking that are looking at you, you can't see them anyway. And I was like, Well, that's true. Because I just felt like they're looking at me. And she was like, but you can't see them. So don't worry about it. And I was like, well, she is right. So it's a it's an emotional and like a mental block that I'm I'm fighting to overcome. And I don't want people to think that, you know, none of us go through that, because I definitely do. Because I do care what people think, and I shouldn't. And that has definitely kind of guided some of the choices I've made in my accessibility. But like you said, it's kind of limiting me sometimes. And so I definitely, like I said, I'm coming to a place now more of acceptance. And now I am learning more and trying to utilize, like you said, all these different things that are available to me so that I can do even more and do it for longer, because they don't know how long I'll have vision and how much vision I'll have. So I definitely will probably forever be using these tools. And I need to get pretty good at them pretty quick really quickly.   Michael Hingson ** 36:11 Yeah, that's the of course major issue that, that especially if your eye condition, or any eye condition deteriorates more consistently, then you need to, or get to depending on how you want to view it utilize those technologies? And isn't it better to really become familiar with them, while you still have access to both worlds rather than waiting until suddenly now you're in a different position? It's it's adopting a different mindset. And you said something interesting when you worry about what people think it caused me to think about something that I hadn't ever really expressed or thought of and that is, should we worry about what people think or worry about what they know. And that's really the issue the problem with most people and what they think is, the reality is they don't know. And they're thinking based on erroneous information and wrong assumptions. And so, like it or not, we all get to be teachers. But that's really it right? It's matter of what they really know, not what they think. So I think your friend was right, it shouldn't really matter to you what they think it's more a matter of what they know. And you know, like you and me in and are and others, there are things that are acceptable in society to do, you don't wear two different colored shoes, or you're not supposed to anyway, or any number of things like that, and you develop develop techniques. So you don't have to do that. But those are our different issues, then you're using a cane to travel around, which should certainly be okay. And even if you do it every day consistently, you get more comfortable with it. But the other part about it is that other people start to recognize maybe it's not such a bad thing after all.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 38:12 Yeah, I agree. It definitely is a mindset shift. And I think most people go through some type of confidence hit when they are seeing or feel that they're different than I hate using the word normal, because nobody's normal, but then what people expect to be the normal thing. But like I said, I am every day, every day, and I'm excited because this is a different feeling. I'm everyday, getting more and more comfortable with me. Right? Like, I'm great at certain things already. Like I've known one amazing business person, I know my grades, I'm a great mom and a great wife. But being a visibly disabled person, I wasn't always the greatest at out of like I said, fear, you know, self doubt, whatever the case may be. And now I'm just like, hey, this is me, you like it or not. And I'm gonna do what I need to do to be amazing and everything. So I love that, you know, I'm getting to meet people like you and others who are out here rocking it, regardless of what people perceive as issues or you know, different things that make life tougher, everybody's life is gonna be different. And this is my life. And I'm excited that I now feel more capable of, you know, doing it on my own terms.   Michael Hingson ** 39:27 The biggest problem, I think, with blindness is that more people haven't tried it. Now, the problem with saying that is, you can't just put a blindfold on and suddenly you're an expert at being blind. You know, that's one of the reasons that a number of us don't like this concept that some organizations and restaurants have started dining in the dark. Because if you go into a restaurant, and it's totally dark, and they take you to a table and they sit you down, and you get your food and things fall off your fork and all that. What have you really learned you certainly haven't learned How to eat like a blind person. You haven't learned the techniques, it doesn't train you, which continues to reinforce misconceptions and the wrong stereotypes. And that's what we really need to get over somehow is dealing with those stereotypes. And so it is important that we all do work toward helping others recognize that blindness isn't what they think it is, and that in reality, it's just another characteristic, like being male or female or being left handed or anything like that.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 40:36 Yeah, definitely. Even though the left handed people are weirdos. Oh,   Michael Hingson ** 40:41 you tell them? Yeah, well, some of them are. But there are some pretty weirdo right handed people too. So I won't go there. But But I hear what you're I hear you know, it's an issue. And you know, that's an interesting question. If you're left handed, is your brain so different that you don't work in function in the world like the rest of us, and I'm not ready to go there. I don't buy that. But I hear what you're saying. And you're picking on your mom, that's what you're doing?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 41:10 Definitely. She's a lefty.   Michael Hingson ** 41:12 She's a lefty. Hey, there's some good lefty baseball pitchers. So be nice. Okay. Well, when you're doing your work, and you're you're working with businesses, and so on, what do you do in general to make sure that as they go forward, they tend to be more inclusive of people with disabilities. And so when do you educate them? Do you have the opportunity to educate them? Does that ever enter into what you do?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 41:43 Yeah, when I have the opportunity, I definitely do. So something that a lot of coaches have right now, our courses, like on demand courses, they're just the thing everybody wants, because it's great passive income. And I do talk to them about that, because people will have courses where there are, there's no way for people who have trouble hearing to access it. Like they're just they have a video with just them talking. So I'll say Well, hey, you know, maybe if you had the the the transcripts available as a form of the course that would be great because it can read it. And then also having maybe captions for those who need captions, making sure they're using technology that like I said, zoom for people like me who struggle to see that you people can zoom in some are more friendly than others. And then just thinking about in general people's learning styles, because again, I work with people who also have that are autistic, have ADD ADHD etc. And so I also talked about that, like making sure that you're thinking about how people learn, some people cannot sit for long periods of time. And so they need quick bites, some people lose focus easily. And so we talked about, just think about who your audience is, and what their needs are, oftentimes, as entrepreneurs, we think about ourselves and what we would like, but you really have to be cognizant of what your audience needs and what they like. And so we talk about accessibility from all the viewpoints, not just, oh, people can go like the most common ones people can't see or they can't hear. It's like, No, how do people think, how do they access information? How do they learn, and make sure that you are addressing those things as well. But we definitely have those conversations about just you know, different things, especially when it comes to websites, like how do people access your website? I'm still updating mine as I learn more things as well. So yeah, when the opportunity presents itself, we definitely have those conversations. But I'll be honest, I'm still learning as well. And I think that if people go into life in general, saying that they're open to learning and growing, that's just where we need to all be because nobody knows everything. Like you said, people go to that dinner and the document like, okay, now I know, but you don't. And it takes really being open to understand listening, and then adjusting as needed. And so I tell my clients just be open to changing and adjusting, just like I'm open to changing and adjusting as I grow as well.   Michael Hingson ** 44:12 One of the things that I've encouraged people to do is instead of doing things like dining in the dark, is get a white cane, and a pair of glasses, since that's part of the typical stereotype. But the whole point is for you to continue to be able to see what's going on around you and walk down the street using a cane and look at how people react to you. That's going to teach you more about the issues that we face as blind people rather than dealing with things that are going to continue to reinforce stereotypes because people will look at you weird people will move away from you and so on. And those are the barriers that we really need to address and deal with and in society and all of us who are born blind or my wife who was in a wheelchair for her whole life or other people in terms of things that they have that are so called disabilities when, especially when they're visible. You see firsthand how people react to you. And that is where the real story is.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 45:17 Yeah, definitely. That's what I said that was one of my biggest issues is like, yeah, people looking at you. Because when I was going through cane training, I could see I wasn't in a flare. And like I said, when people's when I first started, people's head would turn, like you said, they jump out the way or, or they will be mean and not get out the way. It's like, why would you do that? I told you, in our previous conversation about when I traveled by myself, I was treated so horribly, I was lost at the airport, the people forgot about me that were supposed to get me from point A to point B, people were making comments to each other about me, and it's just not nice. Like we should all strive to be good humans. And when in doubt, you don't know what to say Just don't say anything at all. Because we can hear like people will like ants can hear. I don't know why people think we can't. But it's like, Don't talk about me like I'm a child or less van. Because you see that I am moving throughout the world, definitely, then you might assume I should.   Michael Hingson ** 46:17 My wife and I and my inlaws went to Spain in 1992. And I remember, we got to Madrid, I think it was, and the people decided I had to sit somewhere special being blind, not even my wife, and I was separated from them, the rest of the family, and they wouldn't even tell the rest of the family where I was. And finally, we got connected again. But I can tell you that the airline personnel heard a great deal about it, from me and from other people, because it is inappropriate for them to make a lot of the assumptions that they do. And now, of course, part of the problem was that, it would have been a major challenge for me to go wander around and try to find them because even finding people who would speak English that I could communicate with to say, Help me find a lady in a wheelchair or whatever. That tends to be part of the issue. But the bottom line is that you're right, people just don't think. And again, they make assumptions. And so oftentimes, we do have to take stance, I would react differently today, if I were put in the same situation, because I wouldn't even allow us to get separated. And if people didn't like that, then fine. Let them call the police or whoever, and we'll have a discussion about it. But absolutely.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 47:50 And I think that's the thing, too. The more confidence you get, the more you're capable of advocating for yourself, because you're right stuff that happened in the beginning. Even like with doctors, I let them for years, treat me any kind of way. And now it's like, oh, Nah, you can quickly be fired. If you don't believe real easy. You're not gonna try for me good day. For sure, I will not be disrespected anymore.   Michael Hingson ** 48:15 Well, in addition to your business, you I think you do a lot of speaking.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 48:20 Yes, I do. I do a lot of speaking on building your confidence. Because I really think that that's a major cornerstone and being able to achieve anything that you want whether you want to be an entrepreneur, whether you want to be a writer, whether you want to be I don't know, Baker, whatever you want to do. Confidence plays a big role. And so I use something called the aarC framework when I talk and when I teach and train and work with my clients, and it's all about taking small actions to build your confidence now, I don't like people to get stuck in the mindset and the what is the woulda, coulda shoulda us of things. I say, You know what, figure out what your goal is and take action. And those actions will feed your confidence. Because if you never tried that you only are working around the assumption that you won't succeed, right? I was like, Oh, I can't have a business. I can't make money. I can't. I got there was so many things I thought I couldn't do and it wasn't until I started trying to do those things that I was like, okay, all right, I can't do this. And now I can do more. And I can do even more. And so when I do speaking engagements, I'm always talking about building confidence, basically to unlock your full potential as a person in general.   Michael Hingson ** 49:30 Yeah. And it's, it's, of course, still all about education more than anything else. So how do you how do you find speaking engagements and how does all that work for you?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 49:44 It's always a constant battle. Like I don't have a cool story like you do. I was like, Wow, man, your story's amazing. But I do I use my network. And I also pitch to different conferences and apply to different conferences and I also host my own events. I do a lot of podcasting. Like I'm on your podcast today. But I do a lot of podcasting. And I talk about some entrepreneur things. Some does mom things because I'm a mom, I'm a homeschooling mom, too. But like I said, the overall theme for me is always about confidence.   Michael Hingson ** 50:17 You have your own podcast,   Cori Fonville Foster ** 50:19 I do have my own podcast. Yes, it's called I run business with confidence, podcast, let's Sorry, no cute name. But I wanted people to understand the premise. It's about business owners building their confidence. And we have experts that come on weekly, and talk about their business journey hurdles, they've overcome their unique perspective. And then of course, giving people some real tangible things to implement in their business, to move them forward so that we can all have amazing businesses and rock them with confidence.   Michael Hingson ** 50:51 So as a speaker who's been out there, and who's been all over the place, what advice do you have for other speakers, much less other speakers with disabilities? What What kind of advice do you offer for people? Or would you suggest   Cori Fonville Foster ** 51:05 authentically you, I think for any speaker that identifies a have a disability or not, you seen a lot of times you fall into the trap of trying to imitate, or copy or duplicate somebody else's personality or their style, do you and do what you need to get the job done. I, I always worry about what I shouldn't say worried, but I'm always concerned about things like am I going to be able to see time clock since the end of stages and make eye contact or are a little like I'm making eye contact, I should say, with the audience and different things like that, guys, just be you show up people like my personality, I don't think they care if I'm actually looking at them or not. Which is great. Because that used to be a thing like, oh, you know, I have to do this and that, but no, I'm me. I show up as my goofy self. I tell my stories, I I laugh with everybody, you know, I make them feel something, I give them my strategies, my techniques, and then people go away with something that's amazing. And so I would just encourage anyone out there, if you're going to do speaking, be you use your stories, your frameworks and get your point across in your own very special way.   Michael Hingson ** 52:18 And I absolutely agree with you, the most important thing that we as speakers can do is be ourselves. I once was encouraged when I was first starting out, I was encouraged to write speeches and read them. And I didn't like that idea, because I didn't think that that was necessarily my style. But I tried it a couple of times, and then listen to myself and heard how horrible it really was. But more important. What I noticed is that when I talked with an audience that is, as a speaker, I don't talk to an audience, I want to talk with them, they may not be saying anything. But it is important that I connect with them. And that really means talking with them talking at whatever levels that they are at and trying to strike a chord by talking about things they want to hear about, in addition to the things that I would like them to understand. That's all part of being authentic. And that's what's really necessary for any speaker to be truly effective.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 53:23 Absolutely. And it's funny that you mentioned writing down I actually, I don't know if you've heard of Toastmasters, but I was in leadership with their organization for a while and they do a lot of public speaking. So I will work with a lot of new public speakers. And some people were very much like, I must write this down. And some people did bullets. And some people like to speak from the cuff. And I'll just say do what works for you try out different methods for sure. For all our listeners out there, try what works for you. I do have people that really cannot do speeches, if they don't write them down word for word, they won't read them in public, of course, but they really like they want to make sure that they hit all the words that they planned. And they prefer to kind of work off of that. And then I'm a bullet girl, I like to outline my speeches, and then just talk through them. Like I'm talking with the audience. And every time I do a speech, even if it's on the same topic, it's gonna always be a little differently different. Even if there's a like a slide deck that goes with it, I'm going to speak based on the topic, but then kind of change it depending on my mood for the day. And then I like I said, I have some clients that I've worked with who just off the cuff. They know how much time they have, and they just go and I more power to them. I would ramble on forever. And so I prefer to have a little bit of structure, but with a lot of freedom. Well, and   Michael Hingson ** 54:41 you can do that no matter how you speak and there's nothing wrong with that. I will use notes, especially when I'm speaking to an audience and I've interacted with the event sponsors and they talk about certain things they want in the messaging and so on. I will make sure I have notes of that I deal with those issues, but I also believe that again, a speech that is the most effective is one that you're truly having a conversation with the audience over. And so the notes are important. And there's nothing wrong with that. But reading a speech, I've heard some people do that it just doesn't really go over very well. Sounds really nice way to do. Yeah, well, have you written any books.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 55:28 So I haven't, but I'm in the process of writing a book, I'm super excited, it should launch depending on when this podcast comes out. It may or may not be out, but it's gonna be summer 2023. And it's about monetizing your passion with confidence. So same same lines as what I do, but I wanted it available for individuals who want it, to read it on their own and pass it in and you know, do like that first step before they went into like a course or a coaching program. So I'm really excited. My very first book, but it's been a long time coming. So it'll be on the shelves, summer 2023,   Michael Hingson ** 56:03 you have a publisher, are you publishing it yourself?   Cori Fonville Foster ** 56:07 I have a self publishing I am a do it yourself kind of girl. I'm actually trying to figure out how to do the audio part of the book myself. But we're still in the research phases of that, but it'll happen.   Michael Hingson ** 56:18 Well, an audible has a way to do that, where you can actually, if you choose to and can do it. Well, you can read your own book, but you can certainly go to audible and learn about how to do an audio version of your book. So there's a lot of value in doing that. And of course, having an audio copy of it makes it accessible for other people. And the other thing that you could consider Have you ever heard of bookshare.org? I have not Bookshare as there used to be a company called Napster. Are you familiar with Napster? So Napster was the thing where you could go off and share records and all that, and it got to the issue and the point where the problem was people were violating copyrights and so on. Well, Bookshare in a sense, is is the Napster of books for people who have a need to have alternative ways of getting books that are normally in print, the difference is that an organization like Bookshare is covered under the copyright laws. So doing it is legal. And you can take any book provide an electronic version of it, and they will put it out in their system. And it is something that's available, they can also even do on demand, converting it to Braille. So something to look at. But I would also suggest so that you can make some money, looking at if you want to read it or get someone else to read it. Look at doing that on Audible, because you may find that that's another revenue source.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 57:45 Absolutely. That's one of my main things I wanted to build on Audible, because that is how I read books. My eyes do not like trying to read paper books. And there are some there are many times I would say actually 50% of the time, if not more, where I cannot read the print and a book. So it's the only way that I can really enjoy book is through an audible audio version. And so I wanted to make sure that others can read listen to my book as well. I would hate to have a book out that I can't read that would be awful.   Michael Hingson ** 58:15 Have you have you learned any Braille? Or have you tried to do I have   Cori Fonville Foster ** 58:20 not? And it is not even on my to do list? Because yes, that is just it's an undertaking, maybe in the next five to 10 years, but right now I'm just like, I cannot put another thing on my plate. Just kind of be honest. I don't even read regular we'll just like I I get tired fast. So yeah, I'm like, it's definitely something that I know I will have to do eventually. Not yet.   Michael Hingson ** 58:47 Have you become a patron of using the Library of Congress National Library Service and getting books that way? Okay. Yeah, gotten that. That's, and by the way, although that isn't a revenue source, once your print book is out, that is something that you could submit, and they may or may not make that book available through National Library Service, but Audible is a better revenue source anyway.   Cori Fonville Foster ** 59:13 Yeah. And I didn't even know that that existed until I connected with the organization was like, oh, you know, are you able to read books? And I was like, No, I haven't read a book in a year. Like, I'm just sitting around, not doing anything. And they're like, hey, this, this is available, they'll send it to you for free. I was like, Really, I even had a newspaper. It was like a, like a radio station or newspaper that they gave us free echo dots. And so they would read the paper and everything in it that like opened up my world to because yeah, I just didn't have a lot of access. And I shouldn't know when all this was happening in the beginning. I definitely was in a different financial place. You guys can read through the line. So there wa

Greater Than Code
243: Equitable Design: We Don't Know What We Don't Know with Jennifer Strickland

Greater Than Code

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 28, 2021 57:53


02:51 - Jennifer's Superpower: Kindness & Empathy * Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-complex-ptsd-2797491) (C-PTSD) 07:37 - Equitable Design and Inclusive Design * Section 508 (https://www.section508.gov/) Compliance * Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/) (WCAG) * HmntyCentrd (https://hmntycntrd.com/) * Creative Reaction Lab (https://www.creativereactionlab.com/) 15:43 - Biases and Prejudices * Self-Awareness * Daniel Kahneman's System 1 & System 2 Thinking (https://www.marketingsociety.com/think-piece/system-1-and-system-2-thinking) * Jennifer Strickland: “You're Killing Your Users!” (https://vimeo.com/506548868) 22:57 - So...What do we do? How do we get people to care? * Caring About People Who Aren't You * Listening * Using Web Standards and Prioritizing Web Accessibility * Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman (https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Web-Standards-Jeffrey-Zeldman/dp/0321616952) * Bulletproof Web Design by Dan Cederholm (https://www.amazon.com/Bulletproof-Web-Design-flexibility-protecting/dp/0321509021) * Progressive Enhancement * Casey's Cheat Sheet (https://moritzgiessmann.de/accessibility-cheatsheet/) * Jennifer Strickland: “Ohana for Digital Service Design” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfsZlkm59BE) * Self-Care 33:22 - How Ego Plays Into These Things * Actions Impact Others * For, With, and By * Indi Young (https://indiyoung.com/) 44:05 - Empathy and Accessibility * Testability/Writing Tests * Screen Readers * TalkBack (https://support.google.com/accessibility/android/answer/6283677?hl=en) * Microsoft Narrator (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/complete-guide-to-narrator-e4397a0d-ef4f-b386-d8ae-c172f109bdb1) * NVDA (https://www.nvaccess.org/about-nvda/) * Jaws (https://www.freedomscientific.com/products/software/jaws/) * Heydon Pickering (https://twitter.com/heydonworks/status/969520320754438144) Reflections: Casey: Animals can have cognitive disabilities too. Damien: Equitable design initiatives and destroying the tenants of white supremacy. Jennifer: Rest is key. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: MANDO: Hello, friends! Welcome to Greater Than Code, Episode number 243. My name is Mando Escamilla and I'm here with my wonderful friend, Damien Burke. DAMIEN: Thank you, Mando, and I am here with our wonderful friend, Casey Watts. CASEY: Hi, I'm Casey, and we're all here today with Jennifer Strickland. With more than 25 years of experience across the product lifecycle, Jennifer aims to ensure no one is excluded from products and services. She first heard of Ohana in Disney's Lilo & Stitch, “Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind, or forgotten.” People don't know what they don't know and are often unaware of the corners they cut that exclude people. Empathy, compassion, and humility are vital to communication about these issues. That's Jennifer focus in equitable design initiatives. Welcome, Jennifer! JENNIFER: Hi! DAMIEN: You're welcome. MANDO: Hi, Jennifer. So glad you're here. JENNIFER: I'm so intrigued. [laughs] And I'm like 243 and this is the first I'm hearing of it?! DAMIEN: Or you can go back and listen to them all. MANDO: Yeah. CASEY: That must be 5, almost 6 years? JENNIFER: Do you have transcripts of them all? CASEY: Yes. JENNIFER: Great! MANDO: Yeah. I think we do. I think they're all transcribed now. JENNIFER: I'm one of those people [chuckles] that prefers to read things than listen. DAMIEN: I can relate to that. CASEY: I really enjoy Coursera courses. They have this interface where you can listen, watch the video, and there's a transcript that moves and highlights sentence by sentence. I want that for everything. MANDO: Oh, yeah. That's fantastic. It's like closed captioning [laughs] for your audio as well. JENNIFER: You can also choose the speed, which I appreciate. I generally want to speed things up, which yes, now that I'm getting older, I have to realize life is worth slowing down for. But when you're in a life where survival is what you're focused on, because you have a bunch of things that are slowing your roll and survival is the first thing in your mind, you tend to take all the jobs, work all the jobs, do all of the things because it's how you get out of poverty, or whatever your thing is. So I've realized how much I've multitasked and worked and worked and worked and I'm realizing that there is a part of the equality is lost there, but we don't all have the privilege of slowing down. DAMIEN: I can relate to that, too. So I believe every one of our past 243 episodes, we asked our guests the same question. You should know this is coming. Jennifer, what is your superpower and how did you acquire it? JENNIFER: I don't know for sure. People have told me that I'm the kindest person they've ever met, people have said I'm the most empathetic person I've ever met, and I'm willing to bet that they're the same thing. To the people, they just see them differently. I acquired being empathetic and kind because of my dysfunction in my invisible disabilities. I have complex post-traumatic stress disorder from childhood trauma and then repeated life trauma, and the way it manifests itself is trying to anticipate other people's needs, emotions, moods, and all of that and not make people mad. So that's a negative with a golden edge. Life is full of shit; how you respond to it shows who you are and rather than molesting kids, or hurting people, I chose to do what I could to make sure that no one else goes through that and also, to try to minimize it coming at me anymore, too. [chuckles] But there's positive ways of doing it. You don't have to be like the people who were crappy to you and the same goes like, you're in D.C.? Man, they're terrible drivers and it's like, [laughter] everybody's taking their bad day and putting it out on the people they encounter, whether it's in the store, or on the roads. I was like, “Don't do that.” Like, how did it feel when your boss treated you like you were garbage, why would you treat anyone else like garbage? Be the change, so to speak. But we're all where we are and like I said in my bio, “You don't know what you don't know.” I realized earlier this week that it actually comes from Donald Rumsfeld who said, “Unknown unknowns.” I'm like, “Oh my God. Oh my God.” MANDO: You can find good in lots of places, right? [laughs] JENNIFER: If you choose to. MANDO: Absolutely. Yeah. JENNIFER: Look at, what's come out of the horror last year. We talk about shit that we didn't use to talk about. Yeah, it's more exhausting when lots of people, but I think in the long run, it will help move us in the right direction. I hope. MANDO: Yeah. That's absolutely the hope, isn't it? JENNIFER: We don't know what we don't know at this time. My sister was volunteering at the zoo and she worked in the Ape House, which I was super jealous of. There's an orangutan there named Lucy who I love and Lucy loves bags, pouches, and lipstick. So I brought a backpack with a pouch and some old lipstick in it and I asked a volunteer if I could draw on the glass. They gave me permission so I made big motions as I opened the backpack and I opened the pouch and you see Lucy and her eyes are like, she's starting to side-eye me like something's going on. And then she runs over and hops up full-time with her toes on the window cell and she's like right up there. So I'm drawing on the glass with the lipstick and she's loving it, reaches her hand behind, poops into her hand, takes the poop and repeats this little actions on the glass. MANDO: [laughs] Which is amazing. It's hilarious so that's amazing. JENNIFER: It's fantastic. I just think she's the bomb. My sister would always send pictures and tell me about what Lucy got into and stuff. Lucy lived with people who would dress her in people clothing and so, she's the only one of the orangutans that didn't grow up only around orangutans so the other orangutans exclude her and treat her like she's a weirdo and she's also the one who likes to wear clothes. Like my sister gave her an FBI t-shirt so she wears the FBI t-shirt and things like that. She's special in my heart. Like I love the Lucy with all of it. DAMIEN: Well, that's a pretty good display of your super empathetic superpower there. [laughter] And it sounds like it might be really also related to the equitable design initiatives? JENNIFER: Yeah. So I'm really grateful. I currently work at a place that although one would think that it would be a big, scary place because of some of the work that we do. I've found more people who know what equity is and care about what equity is. The place I worked before, I talked about inclusive design because that's everywhere else I've worked, it's common that that's what you're doing these days. But they told me, “Don't say that word, it's activism,” and I was stunned. And then I'm like, “It's all in GSA documents here,” and they were like, “Oh,” and they were the ones that were really bad about like prioritizing accessibility and meeting section 508 compliance and just moving it off to put those issues in the backlog. The client's happy, no one's complained, they think we're doing great work. It's like, you're brushing it all under the rug and you're telling them what you've done and you're dealing with people who don't know what section 508 is either because who does? Very few people really know what it means to be section 508 compliant because it's this mystery container. What is in this? What is this? What is this thing? DAMIEN: So for our listeners who don't know, can you tell us a bit what section 508 is? JENNIFER: Sure. So section 508 means that anything paid for with federal funds must be section 508 compliant, which means it must meet WCAG 2.0 success criteria and WCAG is Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. If you're ever looking for some really complicated, dense, hard to understand reading, I recommend opening up the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. I think the people that are on the working groups with me would probably agree and that's what we're all working towards trying to improve them. But I think that they make the job harder. So rather than just pointing at them and complaining like a lot of people do on Twitter, or deciding “I'm going to create a business and make money off of making this clear for people,” I decided instead to join and try to make it better. So the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are based on Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust, POUR. Pour like this, not poor like me. [laughs] So there's just a bunch of accessibility criteria that you have to meet to make your work section 508 compliant. It's so hard to read and so hard to understand that I feel for everybody like of course, you don't know what section 508 compliance is. It's really, really hard to read. But if somebody who is an accessibility specialist tells you and writes up an issue ticket, you don't argue with them. You don't say, “This isn't a thing,” you say, “Okay, how soon do I need to fix it?” and you listen to them, but that's not what I experienced previously. Where I am now, it's amazing. In the place I worked before here, like just the contracting, they welcomed everything I said to them regarding accessibility. So I just clearly worked at a contractor that was doing a lot of lip service and not talking the talk, not walking the talk, sorry. [laughs] Super frustrating. Because accessibility is only a piece of it. I am older probably than anybody on this call and I'm a woman working in tech and I identify as non-binary. The arguments I've had about they/them all my life have been stupid, but I'm just like, “Why do I have to be female?” It's just, why do I have to be one, or the other? Anyway, everyone has always argued with me so I'm so grateful for the young ones now for pushing all that. I'm Black, Native, Mexican, and white all smushed together and my grandma wouldn't let me in the house because apparently my father was too dark so therefore, I'm too dark. Hello? Look at this! [laughter] Currently, some people are big on the one drop rule and I always say to people, “If you hate me, or want to exclude me so much because somewhere in me you know there is this and how do you feel about so-and-so? I'm done with you and you are bad people and we've got to fight this stupidity.” I have also invisible disabilities. So I'm full of all these intersectional things of exclusion. I personally experience a lot of it and then I have the empathy so I'm always feeling fuzzy people who are excluded. So what am I supposed to do with the fact that I'm smart, relatively able-bodied, and have privilege of being lighter skin so I can be a really good Trojan horse? I have to be an advocate like, what else am I supposed to do with my life? Be a privileged piece of poop that just wants to get rich and famous, like a lot of people in tech? Nope. And I don't want to be virtue signaling and savior complex either and that's where equitable design has been a wonderful thing to learn more about. HmntyCntrd.com and Creative Reaction Lab out in Missouri, those are two places where people can do a lot of learning about equity and truly inclusion, and challenging the tenants of white supremacy in our working ways. I'm still trying to find better ways of saying the tenants of white supremacy because if you say that in the workplace, that sounds real bad, especially a few months back before when someone else was in office. When you say the tenants of white supremacy in the workplace, people are going to get a little rankled because that's not stuff we talk about in the workplace. DAMIEN: Well, it's not just the workplace. JENNIFER: Ah, yes. DAMIEN: They don't like that at sports bars either. Ask me how I know. MANDO: No, they sure don't. [laughter] JENNIFER: We should go to sports bars together. [laughs] Except I'm too scared to go to them right now unless they're outdoors. But when we talk to people about the actual individual tenants about power hoarding, perfectionism, worship of the written word, and things like that, people can really relate and then you watch their faces and they go, “Yeah, I do feel put my place by these things and prevented from succeeding, progressing, all of these things.” These are things that we've all been ingrained to believe are the way we evaluate what's good and what's bad. But we don't have to. We can talk about this stuff when we can reject those things and replace them with other things. But I'm going to be spending the rest of my life trying to dismantle my biases. I'm okay with my prejudices because even since I was a kid, I recognized that we were all prejudice and it's okay. It's our knee jerk first assumption, but you always have to keep an open mind, but that prejudice is there to protect you, but you always have to question it and go, “What is that prejudice? Is that bullshit? Is it right? Is it wrong?” And always looking at yourself, it's always doing that what you call self-awareness stuff, and always be expanding it, changing it, and moving it. But prejudice? Prejudice has a place to protect, speaking as someone who's had guns in her face, knives through her throat, and various other yucky things, I know that when I told myself, “Oh, you're being prejudiced, push yourself out into that vulnerable feeling,” things didn't go very well. So instead, recognize “Okay, what are you thinking in this moment about this situation? Okay, how can you proceed and keep an open mind while being self-protective?” DAMIEN: Yeah, it sounds like you're talking about Daniel Kahneman's System 1 and System 2 Thinking. We have these instinctive reactions to things and a lot of them are learned—I think they're all learned actually. But they're instinctive and they're not things we decide consciously. They're there to protect us because they're way faster, way more efficient than most of what we are as humans as thinking and enacting beings. But then we also have our rational mind where we can use to examine those things and so, it's important to utilize both. It's also important to know where your instinctive responses are harmful and how to modify them so that they're not harmful. And that is the word. JENNIFER: I've never heard of it. Thanks for putting that in there. Power accretion principles is that it? CASEY: Oh, that's something else. JENNIFER: Oh. CASEY: Type 1 and type 2 thinking. JENNIFER: But I know with a lot of my therapy work as a trauma survivor, I have to evaluate a lot of what I think and how I react to things to change them to respond things. But there are parts of having CPTSD that I am not going to be able to do that, too. Like they're things where for example, in that old workplace where there was just this constant invalidation and dismissal of the work, which was very triggering as a rape survivor/incest survivor, that I feel really bad and it made me feel really unsafe all the time. So I felt very emotional in the moment and so, I'd have to breathe through my nose, breathe out to my mouth, feel my tummy, made sure I can feel myself breathing deeply, and try to calmly explain the dire consequences of some of these decisions. People tend to think that the design and development decisions we make when we're building for the web, it's no big deal if you screw it up. It's not like an architect making a mistake in a building and the building falls down. But when you make a mistake, that means a medical locator application doesn't load for an entire minute on a slow 3G connection—when your audience is people who are financially challenged and therefore, unlikely to have always high-speed, or new devices—you are making a design decision that is literally killing people. When you make a design decision, or development decision not to QA your work on mobile, tablet, and desktop, and somebody else has to find out that your Contact Us options don't open on mobile so people in crisis can't reach your crisis line. People are dying. I'm not exaggerating. I have a talk I give called You're Killing Your Users and it got rejected from this conference and one of the reviewers wrote, “The title is sensationalism. No one dies from our decision,” and I was just like, “Oh my God, oh my God.” MANDO: [laughs] Like, that's the point. JENNIFER: What a privileged life you live. What a wonderfully privileged life! There's a difference between actions and thoughts and it's okay for me to think, “I really hope you fall a flight of stairs and wind up with a disability and leave the things that you're now trying to put kibosh on.” But that's not me saying, “I'm going to go push you down a flight of stairs,” or that I really do wish that on someone. It's emotional venting, like how could you possibly close yourself off to even listening to this stuff? That's the thing that like, how do we get to a point in tech where so many people in tech act like the bad stereotype of surgeons who have this God complex, that there are particular entities working in government tech right now that are told, “You're going to save government from itself. You've got the answers. You are the ones that are going to help government shift and make things better for the citizen, or the people that use it.” But the people that they hire don't know what they don't know and they keep doing really horrible things. Like, they don't follow the rules, they don't take the time to learn the rules and so, they put user personal identifying information, personal health information on the public server without realizing it that's a no-no and then it has to be wiped, but it can never really fully be wiped. And then they make decisions like, “Oh, well now we're only worried about the stuff that's public facing. We're not worried about the stuff that's internally facing.” Even though, the internally facing people are all some of the vulnerable people that we're serving. I'm neutralizing a lot of what I'm talking about. [chuckles] MANDO: Of course. [laughter] DAMIEN: Well, convinced me of the problems. It was an easy sell for me. Now, what do we do? JENNIFER: The first thing we do is we all give a fuck about other people. That's the big thing, right? Like, how do I convince you that you should care about people who aren't you? MANDO: Yeah. CASEY: I always think about the spectrum of caring. I don't have a good word for it, but there are active and passive supporters—and you can be vocal, or quiet—like loud, or quiet. I want more people to be going around the circle of it so if they're vocally opposed, just be quiet, quietly opposed, maybe be quietly in support, and if you're quietly in support, maybe speak up about it. I want to nudge people along around this, the four quadrants. A lot of people only focus on getting people who passively care to be more vocal about it. That's a big one. That's a big transition. But I also like to focus on the other two transitions; getting a lot of people to be quiet about a thing that as opposed. Anyway, everywhere along that process is useful. JENNIFER: I think it's important to hear the people who were opposed because otherwise, how are we ever going to help understand and how are we going to understand if maybe where we've got a big blind spot? Like, we have to talk about this stuff in a way that's thoughtful. I come from a place in tech where in the late 90s, I was like, “I want to move from doing print to onscreen and printing environmental to that because it looks like a lot of stuff has gone to this web thing.” I picked up Jeffrey Zeldman's Designing with Web Standards and Dan Cederholm's Bulletproof Web Design and all of them talk about using web standards and web standards means that you prioritize accessibility from the beginning. So the first thing you build is just HTML tagging your content and everyone can use it. It's not going to be fancy, but it's going to be completely usable. And then you layer things on through progressive enhancement to improve the experience for people with fancy phones, or whatever. I don't know why, but that's not how everybody's coming into doing digital work. They're coming in through React out of the box, thinking that React out of the box is – and it's like nope, you have to build in the framework because nobody put the framework in React. React is just a bunch of hinges and loops, but you have to put the quality wood in and the quality glass panes and the handles that everybody can use. I'm not sure if that analogy is even going to work. But one of the things I realized talking with colleagues today is I tend to jump to three steps in when I really need to go back, start at the beginning, and say, “Here are the terms. This is what section 508 is. This is what accessibility is. This is what A11Y is. This is WCAG, this is how it's pronounced, this is what it means, and this is the history of it.” I think understanding history of section 508 and what WCAG is also vital in the first version of WCAG section 508, it adopted part of what was WCAG 1.0, but it wasn't like a one to one for 1.0, it was just some of it and then it updated in 2017, or 2018, I forget. Without my cheat sheet, I can't remember this stuff. Like I got other things to keep in my brain. CASEY: I just pulled up my favorite cheat sheet and I put it in the chat sidebar here. JENNIFER: Oh, thank you. It's in my slides for Ohana for Digital Service Design that I gave at WX Summit and I think I also gave it recently in another thing. Oh, UXPA DC. But the thing is, the changes only recently happened where it went to WCAG 2.0 was 2018, I think it got updated. So all those people that were resisting me in 2018, 2019, 2020 likely never realized that there was a refresh that they need to pay attention to and I kept trying to like say, “No, you don't understand, section 508 means more now.” Technically, the access board that defines what section 508 is talking about moving it to 2.1, or 2.2 and those include these things. So we should get ahead of the ball, ahead of the curve, or whatever you want to call it and we should be doing 2.1 and 2.2 and even beyond thinking about compliance and that sort of stuff. The reason we want to do human beings is that 2.1 and 2.2 are for people who are cognitively fatigued and I don't think there's anyone who's been through the pandemic who is not cognitively fatigued. If you are, you are just a robot. I don't know. I don't know who could not be not cognitive fatigue. And then the other people that also helps are mobile users. So if you look at any site, look at their usage stats, everything moving up and up and up in mobile devices. There's some people who don't have computers that they only have phones. So it just seems silly not to be supporting those folks. But we need, I don't know. I need to think more about how to get there, how to be more effective in helping people care, how to be more effective in teaching people. One of the big pieces I've learned in the last six months is the first step is self-care—sleep, exercise, eat, or maybe those two need to be back and forth. I haven't decided yet because I'm still trying to get the sleep workout. Before I moved to D.C., I was a runner, hiker, I had a sit spot at the local pond where I would hang out with the fishes and the turtles and the frogs and the birds and here, I overlook the Pentagon and there's swarms of helicopters. I grow lots of green things to put between me and it, but it's hard. The running is stuck because I don't feel safe and things like that. I live in an antiseptic neighborhood intentionally because I knew every time I went into D.C. and I saw what I see, I lose hope because I can't not care. It kills me that I have to walk by people who clearly need – this is a messed up world. We talk about the developing world as the place where people are dying on the side of the road. Do you have blinders on like, it's happening here? I don't know what to do. I care too much. So what do we do? What do you think? DAMIEN: Well, I think you have a hint. You've worked at places that are really resistant to accessibility and accessibility to improvements, and you've worked at some that are very welcoming and eager to implement them. So what were the differences? What do you think was the source of that dichotomy? JENNIFER: I think at the place I worked after I left the hellhole; the product owner was an Asian woman and the other designer was from India. Whereas, before the other place was a white woman and a white man and another white man who was in charge. And then the place I work now, it's a lot of people who are very neurodiverse. I work at MITRE, which is an FFRDC, which is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center. It's full of lots of smart people who are very bookish. It's funny when I was a little kid, I was in the gifted and talented kids and so, they would put us into these class sessions where we were to brainstorm and I love brainstorming. I love imagining things. I remember thinking, “I want to work in a think tank and just all I do all the time is brainstorm and we'd figure out a way to use some of those things!” And I feel a little bit like I'm there now, which is cool and they treat one another really well at MITRE, which is nice. Not to say it's perfect there. Nowhere is perfect. But compared to a lot of places, it's better. I think it's the people are taking the time to listen, taking the time to ask questions. The people I work with don't have a lot of ego, generally. At least not the ones I'm working with. I hear that they do exist there, but I haven't run into many of them. Whereas, the other place, there was a lot of virtue signaling and a lot of savior complex. Actually, very little savior conflicts. They didn't really care about saving anyone, sorry. Snark! [laughs] DAMIEN: Can you tell us a little more about ego and how ego plays into these things? JENNIFER: How do you think ego plays into these things? DAMIEN: Well, I think it causes people to one up and turn questions around it on me, that's one way. Ego means a lot of things to a lot of different people, which is why I asked the question. I think it was introduced to English by Freud and I don't want to use a Freudian theory for anything ever. [laughter] And then when I talk to people about death of the ego and [inaudible] and all of these things, it seems really unpleasant. People like their self-identity, people like being themselves, and they don't want to stop being themselves. So I'm not sure how that's related to what you were saying. CASEY: The way I'm hearing you use ego here sounds like self-centered, thinking about your own perspective, not taking the time and effort and energy to think about other people's perspectives. And if you don't have a diverse set of experiences to lean on your own, you're missing out on a lot. JENNIFER: Yeah. I tend to think about, I guess, it's my dysfunction. Once again, it's like, how do my actions impact others? Why are other people thinking about how their actions impact others? When you're out in public and you've got to cut the cheese, are you going to do it when there are a lot of people around? Are you going to take a stinky deuce in a public bathroom that you know other people in there? If you think about the community around you, you would go find a private one if you cared at all. But most people don't care and they think, “I do what I got to do.” I just think we need to think a little bit more about the consequences of our actions and I tweeted yesterday, or this morning about how – oh, it was yesterday. I was watching TV and a new, one of those food delivery commercials came on. This one, they send you a stove, you get a little oven, and you cook all of their meals in this little throwaway dishes. So you have no dishes, nothing. How much are we going to just keep creating crap? When you think about all of this takeout and delivery, there's just so much trash we generate. We should be taxing the bleep out of companies that make these sorts of things like, Amazon should have the bleep taxed out of it because of all the cardboard and I'm just as guilty because I ordered the thing and the box of staples arrives in a box. It has a plastic bubble wrap all around it. Like it's just a box at $2.50 staples, but I couldn't be bothered to go – I don't know if they have them at Walgreens. Like for real, I don't know. We need to do better. We need to think about the consequences of these decisions and not just do it like, that's the thing that tech has been doing is let's make an MVP and see if it has wheels. Let's make a prototype, but do the thing. Okay, let's do the thing. Oh, it's got wheels. Oh, it's growing, it's growing, it's growing, it's growing. Who cares about the consequences of all of it? Who cares? Your kids, your grandkids someday maybe will when the world is gone. We talk about climate change. We talk about 120-degree temperatures in Seattle and Portland, the ocean on fire, the beaches are eroding, like the ice cap—most of the Arctic is having a 100 and some odd degree temperature day. Like we are screwing it up and our legislation isn't keeping pace with the advances in technology that are just drawing things. Where are the people who care in the cycle and how are they interrupting the VCs who just want to like be the next big tech? Everybody wants to be the next Zuckerberg, or Jack, or Bezos, or Gates, or whatever, and nobody has to deal with the consequences of their actions and their consequences of those design and development decisions. That's where I think it's ego, it's self-centeredness, it's wanting to be famous, it's wanting to be rich instead of really, truly wanting to make the world a better place. I know my definition of better. We've got four different visions of what better is going to be and that's hard work. Maybe it is easier to just focus on getting famous and getting rich than it is on doing the hard work of taking four different visions of what good is and trying to find the way forward. DAMIEN: Making the world a better place. The world will be a better place when I'm rich and famous. But that also means – and that's the truth. [laughter] But what else you said was being empathetic and having a diverse – well, marginalized people in charge where you can see that that's why the impact that things are having on other people. It's not just about me being rich and famous, but it's also about things being better for other people, too. JENNIFER: Yeah. I don't necessarily mean marginalized people have to be in charge. DAMIEN: Right. I took that jump based on your description of the places you worked for. I should have specified that. I wasn't clear enough. JENNIFER: I do have to say that in general, when I've worked for people who aren't the status quo, more often than not, they bring a compassionate, empathetic approach. Not always. There have been some that are just clearly driven and power hungry, and I can't fault them either because it's got to take a lot to come up from wherever and fight through the dog-eat-dog world. But in the project work, there's the for, with and by. The general ways that we redesign and build things for people, then the next piece is we design and build things with the people that we're serving, but the newer way of doing things is that we don't design and build the things, the people that we're serving design the things and tell us what they want to design, and then we figure out how to make sure that it's built the way they tell us to. That goes against the Steve Jobs approach where Steve Jobs said people don't know what they want sort of thing. Wasn't that was he said? DAMIEN: Yeah. Well, there was Henry Ford who said, “If you ask people what they wanted, they would've said faster horses.” JENNIFER: Right. D And Steve Jobs kind of did the same thing. JENNIFER: Right. And we, as designers, have to be able to work with that and pull that out and suss it out and make sure that we translate it into something useful and then iterate with to make sure that we get it. Like when I do research, listening sessions with folks, I have to use my experience doing this work to know what are the – like, Indi Young's inner thinking, reactions, and guiding principles. Those are the things that will help guide you on what people are really wanting and needing and what their purpose is. So you make sure that whatever your understanding is closer to what they're really saying, because they don't know what can be built. They don't know what goes on, but they do know what their purpose is and what they need. Maybe they don't even know what they need, but they do know what their purpose is, or you keep validating things. CASEY: I want to amplify, you said Indi Young. I read a lot of her work and she just says so many things that I wish someone would say, and she's been saying them for a while. I just didn't know about her. Indi Young. JENNIFER: It's I-N-D-I and Y-O-U-N-G. I am so grateful that I got to take her courses. I paid for them all myself, except for one class—I let that other place pay for one through my continuing ed, but I wanted to do it so badly that I paid for all myself. The same thing with all the Creative Reaction Lab and HmntyCntrd stuff; I paid for those out of my own money that probably could have gone to a vacation, [chuckles] or buying a car, or something. But contributing to our society in a responsible and productive way, figuring out how to get my language framework better. Like you said earlier, Damien, I'm really good at pointing out what the problems are. I worry about figuring out how we solve them, because I don't really have the ego to think that I know what the answer is, but I'm very interested in working with others to figure out how we solve them. I have some ideas, but how do you tell a React developer that you really have to learn HTML, you have to learn schematic HTML. That's like learning the alphabet. I don't understand. CASEY: Well, I have some ideas around that. Amber is my go-to framework and they have accessibility baked into the introduction tutorial series. They have like 13 condoned add-ons that do accessibility related things. At the conference, there's always a whole bunch of accessibility tracks. Amber is like happy path accessibility right front and center. React probably has things like that. We could have React's onboarding docs grow in that direction, that would be great, and have more React add-ons to do that that are condoned and supported by the community could have the same path. And it could probably even use a lot of the same core code even. The same principles apply. JENNIFER: If you want to work together and come up with some stuff to go to React conferences, or work with the React team, or whatever. 
CASEY: Sounds fun. DAMIEN: Well, one of the things you talked about the way you described it and made it sound like empathy was so much of the core of it. In order to care about accessibility, you have to empathize with people who need that functionality. You have to empathize with people who are on 3G flip phones. That's not a thing, is it? [laughs] But nonetheless, empathizing. JENNIFER: A flat screen phone, a smartphone looking thing and it's still – if anyone's on a slow 3G, it's still going to be a miserable experience. DAMIEN: Yeah, 3G with a 5-year-old Android OS. JENNIFER: But I don't think it's necessarily that people have to empathize. In an ideal world would, but maybe they could be motivated by other things like fast. Like, do you want to fast cumulative layout shift? Do you want like a great core vitals Google score? Do you want a great Google Lighthouse score? Do you want the clear Axe DevTools scan? Like when I get a 100% little person zooming in a wheelchair screen instead of issues found. Especially if I do it the first time and like, I hadn't been scanning all along and I just go to check it for the first time and it's clean, I'm like, “Yes!” [laughs] CASEY: Automation helps a lot. JENNIFER: Yeah. CASEY: When I worked at USCIS, I don't know what this meant, but they said we cannot automate these tests. I think we can and they didn't do it yet, but I've always been of baffled. I think half of it, you can automate tests around and we had none at the time. JENNIFER: Yeah, you catch 30 to 50% of the accessibility issues via the Axe rule set and JSX Alley and all that. You can catch 30 to 50. CASEY: Sounds great. JENNIFER: That's still better than catching none of them. Still not great, but it's still better than nothing. They're not here to tell us why they can't, but adding things into your end-to-end test shouldn't be that hard if you know how to write tests. I don't personally know how to write tests. I want to. I don't know. Like, I have to choose which thing am I going to work on? I'm working on an acquisition project, defining the requirements and the scope and the red tape of what a contract will be and it's such foreign territory for me. There's a lot of pieces there that I never ever thought I would be dealing with and my head hurts all the time. I feel stupid all the time, but that's okay. If you're not doing something you haven't done before, maybe you're not learning, it's growing. I'm growing. I'm definitely growing, but in different ways and I miss the code thing of I have a to-do list where I really want to get good at Docker, now I want to learn few, things like that and I want to get back to learning Python because Python, I think is super cool. CASEY: There's one thing I wanted to mention earlier that I just remembered. One thing that was eye-opening to me for accessibility concerns is when I heard that screen reader has existed, which was several years into my programming career. I didn't know they were a thing at all. I think it's more common now that people know about them today than 10, 15 years ago. But I still haven't seen someone use a screen reader and that would be really important for me as a developer. I'm not developing software lately either so I'm not really coding that. But if anyone hasn't, you should use a screen reader on your computer if you're developing software that might have to be used by one. JENNIFER: So everyone on a Mac has voiceover. Everyone on an iPhone has voiceover. It's really hard on the iPhone, I feel like I can't, oh, it's really hard. I've heard great things about Talkback on Android. And then on Windows, newer versions have Microsoft Narrator, which is a built-in screen reader. You can also download NVDA for free and install it. It depends on how much money you want to spend. There a bunch of different ways to get Jaws, do Jaws, too. Chrome has Chromebox so you can get another screen reader that way. CASEY: So many options. It's kind of overwhelming. If I had to recommend one for a Windows user and one for a Mac user, would you recommend the built-in ones just to start with, to play with something? JENNIFER: So everywhere I've tested, whether it was at the financial institution, or the insurance place, or the government place, we always had to test with Jaws, NVDA, and voiceover. I test with voiceover because it's what I have on my machine, because I'm usually working on a Mac. But the way I look at the screen reader is the number of people who are using screen readers is significantly fewer than the number of people with cognitive considerations. So I try to use good semantic markup, basic web standards so that things will work; things have always been pretty great in screen readers because of that. I try to keep my code from being too complicated, or my UI is from being complicated, which might do some visual designers seem somewhat boring to some of them. [chuckles] CASEY: Do you ever turn off CSS for the test? JENNIFER: Yes, and if it makes sense that way, then I know I'm doing it right and is it still usable without JavaScript. Better yet, Heydon Pickering's way of like, it's not usable unless you turn off the JavaScript, that was fabulous. I pissed off so many people. But to me, I try to focus on other things like how clear is, how clean is it? Can I tab through the whole UI? Can I operate it with just a keyboard? Your keyboard is your best assistive tech tester. You don't skip. If you can tap through anything without getting stuck, excellent. If you don't skip over nav items. CASEY: My biggest pet peeve is when websites don't work when you zoom in, because all of my devices I zoom in not because my vision is bad, but because for my posture. I want to be able to see my screen from a far distance and not lean in and craning my neck over laptop and my phone, both and a lot of websites break. JENNIFER: Yeah. CASEY: You zoom in the text at all, you can't read anything. JENNIFER: Yeah. At the one place I worked before, we required two steps of zoom in and two steps of zoom out, and it still had to be functional. I don't see that in most places; they don't bother to say things like that. CASEY: Yeah. JENNIFER: At the government, too – CASEY: I wonder how common it is if people do that. I do it so I think it's very common, but I don't know the right. [laughter] JENNIFER: But that's how the world is, right? I can tell you that once you hit this old age and your eyes start to turn against you and things are too small, or too light, you suddenly understand the importance of all of these things so much more. So for all of those designers doing your thin gray text on white backgrounds, or thin gray text on gray backgrounds, or your tiny little 12 and under pixels for your legaleas, karma is out to get you. [chuckles] We've all done it. Like there was a time I thought nobody cared about the legaleas. That's not true. Even your footer on your website should be big enough for people to read. Otherwise, they think I'm signing away my soul to zoom because I can't read it. If you can zoom it in, that's great. But some apps disable the zoom. DAMIEN: So we usually end on a series of reflections. How do you feel about moving to that? JENNIFER Sure! DAMIEN: We let our guests go last. Casey, do you have a reflection you want to share with us? CASEY: I'm thinking back to Mando's dog and I thought it was interesting, Jennifer, that you linked your experiences with the dog's experiences. Like, some of the symptoms you have might be similar if a dog has CPTSD, too and I think that's really insightful. I think a lot of animals have that kind of set up, but we don't treat them like we treat humans with those issues even if they're similar. DAMIEN: It was in your bio, equitable design initiatives, I really want it to dig into that because that fascinates me and I guess, if draws that bridge between things that I think are very important, or very important for me, both accessibility, that sort of work, especially in software design, because that's where I'm at. And then destroying the tenants of white supremacy and being able to connect those as things that work together and seeing how they work together. Yeah, that's what I'm going to be reflecting on. JENNIFER: Yeah. Whenever we're doing our work, looking for opportunities to surface and put it out for everyone to look at who has power, if this changes who has power, if this doesn't change who has power, what is motivating the players, are people motivated by making sure that no one's excluded, or are people motivated by making sure that their career moves forward, or they don't get in trouble rather than truly serving? I still am in the mindset of serving the people with a purpose that we're aiming to meet the needs of kind of thing. I still have that mindset. A lot of the prep work, we're still talking about the people we aim to serve and it's still about getting them into the cycle. That is a very big position of power that a designer has and acknowledging that that's power and that I wield that power in a way that I consider responsible, which is to make sure that we are including people who are historically underrepresented, especially in those discussions. I'm really proud of a remote design challenge where all of our research participants were either people of color, or people with disabilities. Man, the findings insights were so juicy. There was so much that we could do with what we got. It was really awesome. So by equitable design initiatives, it's really just thinking about acknowledging the power that we have and trying to make sure we do what we can to share it, transfer it, being really respectful of other perspectives. I've always thought of it as infinite curiosity about others and some people have accused me being nosy and they didn't realize it's not about getting up in their private business. It's just, I want to be gracious and respect others. What I will reflect on was how I really need to rest. I will continue to reflect on how I rest is key. I'm making a conscious decision for the next couple of months to not volunteer because I tend to do too much, as Casey may, or may not know. [chuckles] Yeah, I want to wake up in the morning and feel energized and ready to take full advantage of, which is not the right way to phrase it, but show up as my best self and well-prepared for the work. Especially since I now have found myself a new incredibly compassionate, smart place that genuinely aims to improve equity and social justice, and do things for the environment and how grateful I am. I totally thought this place was just about let's them all and it's so not. [laughs] So there's so many wonderful people. I highly recommend everybody come work with me if you care about things. DAMIEN: That's awesome. Well, thank you so much, Jennifer for being our guest today. It's been a pleasure. The author's affiliation with The MITRE Corporation is provided for identification purposes only, and is not intended to convey or imply MITRE's concurrence with, or support for, thepositions, opinions, or viewpoints expressed by the author. ©2021 The MITRE Corporation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Approved for public release. Distribution unlimited 21-2206. Special Guest: Jennifer Strickland.

Sound Prints
Sound Prints - December 13, 2020

Sound Prints

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 13, 2020


First COVID-19 vaccines arrive in Louisville for nationwide distribution; Microsoft Narrator improvements and update; Mammoth Cave tour

Sound Prints
Sound Prints - December 13, 2020

Sound Prints

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 13, 2020 59:00


First COVID-19 vaccines arrive in Louisville for nationwide distribution; Microsoft Narrator improvements and update; Mammoth Cave tour

ACB Events
Community Call - No Geek Speak Arena 2

ACB Events

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 26, 2020 59:23


Join Rachel and Tyson for part 2 of the discussion about windows based screen readers, with this session focusing on Microsoft Narrator. They will also touch on the different browsers commonly used including the newest Microsoft Edge, and then hold an open Q&A for your screen reader and browser questions.

RNIB Tech Talk
330: RNIB Reading services, Microsoft Narrator, and EasyReader

RNIB Tech Talk

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 9, 2020 57:43


Steven's here, Robin's there, and Andy is... somewhere! Yes, it's Tech Talk o'clock! On today's show, we hear from RNIB Library and Newsagent Manager James Bartlett, who chats to Rowland Myers about the RNIB's online accessible book library, Steven gives a demo of how to set up and access the service using the Dolphin EasyReader app, and Robin tells us all about the updates to Narrator, and gives a rather eye-opening horse/donkey analogy! Also on this weeks episode: Andy McNab vs Hamish Macbeth, details about the impending Windows update, chocolate in the fridge, Linux, ElBraille, NVDA vs Narrator, Apple Watch recommendations, Andy's confusion regarding the how Amazon name each new Fire HD, and who remembers Clippy? We do jest about the email inbox overflowing, but in all honesty the show would be a shell of its former self without your correspondence! So come natter with us at TechTalk@RNIB.org.uk (mailto:techtalk@RNIB.org.uk) and we'll read them out - and whisper it quietly... rumours around that the next show will be more focused towards emails, so now is a good time to write in! Until then, stay safe! 

TechLynneTalks Podcast
Queue the JAWS theme

TechLynneTalks Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 25, 2019 39:34


TLT93: Volume out of Control JAWS update Microsoft Soundscape Beacon Fail JAWS Help times 3 NVDA ssaves the day! A lovely Album Revisited An unexpected gift A really Quick demo of the Microsoft Narrator screen reader

jaws queue nvda microsoft narrator
Double Tap Canada
Episode 57: Microsoft Narrator and the Letter Bag

Double Tap Canada

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 15, 2018 56:43


technology microsoft letter aira steven scott microsoft narrator double tap canada
Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides, News, and Reviews
Getting Started with Narrator: Basic Keyboard Commands and Navigation

Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides, News, and Reviews

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 23, 2018 29:37


In this Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides, News and Reviews podcast, we continue our “getting Started with Narrator” series. This series enables one to learn how to use Microsoft Narrator by following along with the “Get Started with Narrator,” located on the Microsoft Support Pages. This series is our companion series to our Monthly Narrator […]

Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides, News, and Reviews
Getting Started with Narrator, Activating Narrator

Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides, News, and Reviews

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 26, 2018 14:51


In this Blind Vet Tech Quick Guides, News and Reviews podcast, we embark upon our “getting Started with Narrator” series. This series enables one to learn how to use Microsoft Narrator by following along with the “Get Started with Narrator,” located on the Microsoft Support Pages. This series is our companion series to our Monthly […]

Main Menu
Main Menu for Fri, 21 Aug 2015 00:00:00 -0400

Main Menu

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 20, 2015


On MainMenu this week We get the latest about access to Windows 10. Mark Soliman from AI Squared brings us a two part tutorial on installing Windows 10 using Window-Eyes and Microsoft Narrator together. Then Joseph Lee introduces us to NVDA Release 2015.3.

windows main menu window eyes ai squared microsoft narrator
AccSell -- Accessibility Central
第3回: Webアクセシビリティー

AccSell -- Accessibility Central

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 2, 2012 27:48


今回は、「Webアクセシビリティーって?」というところからスタートして、あれこれ話しています。 Webアクセシビリティーって? Webのアクセシビリティーは制作者だけに責任があるものなの? スクリーン・リーダーって何? こんな内容をお送りします。 収録後記 Webのアクセシビリティーの向上のために、様々な人がそれぞれの立場でいろいろな取り組みをしています。今回のポッドキャストで何となく全体像をつかんでいただけたかもしれません。今後、そういったいろいろな現場で活躍していらっしゃる方などをポッドキャストやメールマガジンの中で紹介していくようなこともできたら良いな、と何となく考えています。「こんな人がいるよ」とか「こんな取り組みがあるよ」とか、そんな情報もお寄せください。 (中根 雅文) 三度目まして! これが第3回となるポッドキャストですが、どことなく三人にはまだまだ堅さが感じられますね(苦笑) 私自身、ポッドキャストは初めてではないものの、音声だけで情報を伝えることの難しさを改めて感じていたりもします。とはいえ、この三人のことですから、回を重ねるごとにそれぞれの本性というか、キャラクターが出てくることでしょう。「こんなテーマやトピックについて語ってほしい」というリクエストもお待ちしています!(植木 真) スクリーンリーダーっていうのがなんなのか、やっと知ることができました(え?)。「AccSellの教えてちゃん」をもっと精進しまっす! (山本 和泉) 関連キーワード Web Content Accessibility Guidelines W3Cが策定した、Webコンテンツのアクセシビリティーを確保するために必要な事項をまとめた、コンテンツ制作者向けの指針。1999年5月にバージョン1が発表された後、2008年12月に発表されたバージョン2が現在(2012年10月)における最新版。略称はWCAGで、「ウィーキャグ」トカ「ウーキャグ」とか発音する人もいる。 Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines W3Cが策定した、Webコンテンツを制作するための各種ツール (オーサリング・ツール) に関する開発者向けの指針。オーサリング・ツールが生成するWebページ/サイトのアクセシビリティーを確保するため、またオーサリング・ツールそのもののアクセシビリティーを確保する (障害者など誰にでも使えるようにする) ために必要な事項をまとめている。2000年に初版が策定され、現在次期バージョンの策定作業が進められている。略称はATAGで、「エイタグ」と発音する人もいる。 User Agent Accessibility Guidelines W3Cが策定した、ユーザー・エージェント (ブラウザーなど) に関する開発者向けの指針。Webのアクセシビリティーを向上させるために必要なユーザー・エージェントの振る舞いなどをまとめている。2002年に初版が策定され、現在次期バージョンの検討が進められている。略称はUAAG。 (初期に一部の人が無理矢理適当な発音を試みたことがあったが、定着しなかった。) 関連リンク Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 JAWS for Windows Professional Ver.12.0 日本語版