July 10, 2025 • 53 mins
Maxwell Ivey, better known as The Blind Blogger, grew up in a large extended family, which managed carnival rides. Now a serial online entrepreneur, he is an American accessibility expert advocating for more inclusion of people with disabilities. Here, the 59-year-old talks about how a small button being relocated on a screen can throw off his screen-reader and send his day into chaos, the importance of “alt text” for images and why companies must make accessibility a priority. The aim, he says, is to go from “accessibility to usability to enjoyability for all abilities”.
Maxwell also hosts the podcasts What's Your Excuse and The Accessibility Advantage.
Follow Maxwell Ivey: LinkedIn | Instagram | Website
Timestamps
01:15 On being called The Blind Blogger
05:08 On losing his sight at the age of 12; growing up in a large extended family
12:30 Resilience is a habit
13:42 How website design changes affect him
15:42 No longer a big user of Twitter (now X)
21:20 Accessibility in design improves the overall user experience
23:15 Conversations in accessibility with businesses
28:20 On social platforms such as LinkedIn and Instagram
33:35 Impact of AI; positive review for JC Penny
44:34 Determined positivity
Follow Anuradha on LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
Email: swishingmindsets@gmail.com
Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed are personal. Listener discretion is advised.
Maxwell also hosts the podcasts What's Your Excuse and The Accessibility Advantage.
Follow Maxwell Ivey: LinkedIn | Instagram | Website
Timestamps
01:15 On being called The Blind Blogger
05:08 On losing his sight at the age of 12; growing up in a large extended family
12:30 Resilience is a habit
13:42 How website design changes affect him
15:42 No longer a big user of Twitter (now X)
21:20 Accessibility in design improves the overall user experience
23:15 Conversations in accessibility with businesses
28:20 On social platforms such as LinkedIn and Instagram
33:35 Impact of AI; positive review for JC Penny
44:34 Determined positivity
Follow Anuradha on LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
Email: swishingmindsets@gmail.com
Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed are personal. Listener discretion is advised.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Just do it as good as you can and do
it better the next time, because if you're waiting on
that Sunday, you'll be waiting the rest you are.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hi, Welcome to Swishing Mindsets. I'm an Radha and today
I'm speaking to Mixwell Ivy, better known as the Blind Blogger,
a serial online entrepreneur from the US. He is an
accessibility expert advocating for more inclusion of people with disabilities. Hi, Maxwell,
how are you great to have you here?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I've done fine. It's good to be here, and I
hope you're doing good today as well.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I am very happy to be talking to you. So,
you know, you call yourself the Blind Blogger, and you
know I was reading about you and I check your Instagram,
et cetera. And you say that a lot of people
try to mask their disabilities online because they're not sure
of how people will react to them, especially when it
comes to work, etc. But you decided to be upfront
(01:06):
about it. So could you tell us a little about that,
You know, how you came to call yourself the Blind Blogger?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Sure? So I did not actually choose the name the
Blind Blogger on my own. I had been promoting the
work I was doing online on Facebook and Lincoln at
that time, and as a former shorthand some of the
people in the communities I was part of started calling
(01:35):
me the blind blogger because I was the only blind
person they knew who was also a blogger. And it's
actually pretty common if you have a disability, that you're
going to be the only one, if not one of
a very small number of people that somebody may know
that has a disability or is differently able. So I
(01:57):
just naturally became the blind blogger, like the singer on
American Idol became blind Joe, you know so. And when
I finally accepted that, I wanted to talk more about
being an entrepreneur who is blind, and I asked people
what I should call myself. They said, well, we've been
calling you the blind blogger for a couple of years now,
so what else would you be? And I thought nothing
(02:21):
of it. But once I filed for the domain name
and announced that I was going to do that, there
was a lot of objection to my choosing the name.
People who I knew who were cited thought that I
was too talented, too good a storyteller. I didn't need
to lean into my vision loss to be successful online,
(02:42):
and many people who were visually impaired were upset that
I was playing the quote blind card blind card unquote.
And so there were some people that I lost as
friends or as online acquaintance because of becoming the blind Blogger.
And it wasn't until recently that I realized just how
(03:04):
powerful a decision that was, even though I didn't know
it at the time. But at the time it was
just a cool name, I name people had been using
for me, and I took it and did the work.
But you know, looking back now, I can see that
the reason I was the blind blogger is so few
people with disabilities were open about their disability online if
we go back eight, ten, twelve years ago, and the
(03:28):
idea was is that since disclosing a disability in in
person interviews for looking for work was often a problem,
that disclosing disability online might prevent you from being a
success in this new arena. So most people just decided
to hide in out of fear of what, you know,
(03:49):
that they might be rejected or thought less of because
of it. I figured that if nobody heard about who
I was or what I was doing, that they they
wouldn't hire me or buy from me. So I couldn't
see anything other to do than be who I was.
So over time it's been cool to see how now
(04:10):
there's a real openness and you know, you can't go
anywhere on social media and not run across people who
have an emoticon or a sticker in their profile or
their posts reference a disability, whether that's a physical or
a neurological or developmental disability. It's it's all out there,
(04:34):
and I feel like I was part of that, whether
I knew it at the time or not.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yes, you were ahead of your time, one might say, actually, yeah, yeah,
so you know you you know from people saying that
you're using the blind card, you know, and you know
you've said that it's turned out to be quite powerful
for you, right or stating it up front. So tell
me about your experience with losing your sight. What I
(04:59):
read is that you know you were ten years old
when you lost your sight, right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Yeah, So I just turned fifty nine in April. So
I started losing my vision gradually when I was five
or six years old, but I had a big drop
off envision when I entered junior high school, so about
eleven or twelve years old, I went from say, using
thick glasses to being determined legally blind and starting to
(05:32):
learn to use a white cane, starting to learn to rebrail,
and depending on audio and brail for most of my
reading material. So that would have been about and my
vision stayed constant until I went off to college. But
by the time I graduated from college it was down
to what it is now, which is light perception. And
(05:53):
I can see right light if I look directly at
the source where the light is supposed to be coming from.
But I can't tell shapes, shadows, or colors, just that
light is either there or not there.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
So how has the transition been for you? And even emotionally,
you know, I'm I mean, I can see that, you know,
you've been talking about determined positivity and things like that,
But I'm sure it didn't come naturally or easily. Rather,
you know, in the beginning, how has it been for you?
You know, maybe it might inspire others, you know, on
that journey.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Right right, Well, I think part of it comes from
the fact that, at least in the beginning, it was
gradual and it was not a surprise. Although with something
like liziting your vision, even knowing it's coming can still
be very frustrating. But you know, I'm part of a
large family that there were my my grandfather and grandmother
(06:47):
had six kids, so and we all lived on the
same piece of property together, so there were lots of us.
We went to school together, and so the other thing
is is you know, having solid family members teachers also
(07:10):
later becoming involved in scouting, that that helped you. But
I also think growing up in a family of people
that operated carnival rides, you learned from an early age
that you're never going to have all the resources, time
or money that you want. You learned from from very
(07:33):
early that you're going to have to overcome setbacks and adversity.
So it kind of gets baked into your DNA as
you're as you're growing up. So I feel like the
whole idea of you know, you just have to find
a way to get to next week, just find a
way to get opened this week, that you know, really
(07:56):
really helps you have a positive mindset. And then you know,
some of these other things have built upon that over
my lifetime because I spent after college, has spent over
fifteen years working in the in the family business, and
since then, I've spent getting close to twenty years now
working online, and there have been many days where working
(08:19):
online was much more challenging than setting up and taking
down carnival rides, especially when you have to depend on
a screen reader and on you know, the Internet, where
things change rapidly from day to day, and what was
best practices last week is not best practices today. And
(08:41):
a lot of the people who are developing the websites
and apps that I depend on even now still don't
really appreciate how much they affect my lives when they
make even the smallest changes in a website or an
app that I use on a regular basis, you know.
So it's as far as positivity and finding solutions. The
(09:04):
finding solutions comes from from the traveling business and also
from online because I've had to you know, back when
I first started, accessibility was so non existent. I had
to teach myself to code HTML, which is not something
anybody should want to do or have to do, but
I had to. And but it was, you know, out
of a desire to find a solution that was the
(09:25):
only solution available. You know, I did a lot of
things in the carnival business, that were distasteful, you know,
got greasy and dirty and uh, you know, spent spent
nights on sides of the roads and things did because we
had to do them. And I feel like that, you know,
is is really built into what I'm doing, what I've
been continuing to do. And as I tell people all
(09:46):
the day that most people that know something about resilience
know it because they've been through stuff and they've had
to pick themselves up off the ground numerous times to
the point where they get pretty good at it. You know,
for me, one of the things people talk about is
the many different things I've done, even in my online career,
you know, selling youth rides, coaching, podcasting, speaking, traveling, and
(10:15):
you know, the thing is that I just continue to
keep going, moving forward, looking to find the thing that
I'm really good at, that people want to pay me for,
that I can make a sustainable living at. And just
continuing to move forward is one of those things that
I do because you know, I've done it. I have,
(10:38):
and most people that are listening to us, they've done
things in their lives that are very challenging and they
may or may not have been successful. But if they'll
think about it and think about it from a positive mindset.
You know, find a time in their day when they're
feeling pretty good about themselves. If I look back through
the challenges they've had, they'll find that they learn things
(10:59):
that they overcame, things that they're stronger than they think
they are some of the time. But we don't always
take the time to sit down and make a list
of the things we've accomplished or survived in some cases.
But you know, people who have even now that are
trying to they're trying to do new things while they
(11:20):
continue to go to work, they discount to them, you know,
caring for family members, caring for pets, education, unrealistic expectations
from their bosses, transportation to and from work, shopping, cleaning.
You know, so many things that make it hard to
(11:41):
try to do something new. But you know, we can
all look back in times of our lives where we've
been through more challenging things and take strength from those
and also take ideas from those. So yeah, I'm pretty
good at overcoming adversity in the finding the positive things.
But I've been doing it a long time, and at
(12:03):
this point I have systems in place to can remind
myself to keep doing the things that have kept me healthy,
you know, going on on now online for almost twenty years.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Yeah, and I can see that you're doing a lot online,
and I'm going to come back to you know, what
you've said about. You know, I would have written read
on what you've written about, you know, determined positivity. So
I want to come back to that later. But what
you're saying is true, you know, Like what I can
infer is that resilience is actually a habit that you
build right.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Exactly. Yes, it's like anything else. The difficult part is
finding is finding a way to build that habit or
to recognize that. You know, so we don't always celebrate
the things that we feel are less than successful. But
you know, we celebrate our accomplishments and our successes and
our wins. But sometimes we need to just take the
(12:59):
time and go, well, that wasn't one hundred percent the
way I wanted it turned out, but I'm still here.
You know, I learned something from it. I can can
apply that in what I'm going to try next.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
You know, yeah, absolutely, And you know what you said
is just about getting from one day to the next,
one week to the next, that's what it is, really
and wonderful. You know, you mentioned something about, you know,
building online businesses and being online, teaching yourself coding and HTML,
and you also said that, you know, when websites they
tweak their design or make like really small changes, it's
(13:32):
very difficult for you in terms of accessibility. Could you,
you know, talk about that a little bit, you know,
explain that a bit for you know, Yeah, you were listening.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Right, So, so like, for example, if wherever you live,
I'm sure you have a routine as far as how
you would get to and from your house to and
from work, or to a favorite restaurant or to a
favorite theater. So just imagine if you got up tomorrow
and the roads weren't where they were yesterday, or the
(14:05):
signs weren't aren't where they were yesterday, or maybe the
signs are in different languages or in different fonts, or
the words say different things that maybe you don't quite comprehend,
but they mean the same things as they meant yesterday.
So in the online world, when you use adaptive technology,
it takes somebody like me. Whether you use a screen
(14:28):
reader like I do, or screen magnification like some people
with vision loss but more vision than I have, or
use mechanical switch devices for people who are missing limbs
or paraplegic, quadriplegic, et cetera. It takes you longer to
navigate a website or an app, and you have to
(14:50):
build up a map in your head of where things
are on that particular site, or what tools you do
you have for navigation, what you do with those tools
each time you come back to the same website. So if,
for example, you go to a website and they have
(15:14):
moved an important button from one place on the screen
to another part of the screen, or they've changed the
text name of the button, or the button still says
the same thing, but they've changed it from a text
name to graphical characters representing text, or they've replaced it
(15:34):
with an image, and the image just the images, and
all the images just say image. So, for example, I'm
not a big user of Twitter anymore since it became X,
I haven't spent much time on it. I've been focusing
more of my time on LinkedIn as a as an
intentional practice from a business. But a few years ago
(15:56):
they moved the new button from I think it was
the top left part of the screen to the bottom
right part of the screen, so it wasn't where it
was supposed to be, and I couldn't find it. And
it wasn't until about halfway through the day before I
had the time or somebody told me that they had
(16:19):
relocated it to the bottom right of the screen. And
once I knew where it was, then I could tell
my screen reader to look for the text that says
tweet text and then route my cursor to that part
of the screen in it would and it would find it.
But that was a very small change that caused a
lot of problems. One of the websites that I used
(16:44):
to use for finding podcasts hosts to reach out to
for the longest time, their URL structure used dashes, and
then all of a sudden they decided to change urlstruction
to underlines. Well, I had saved some of my searches
(17:10):
and some of my favorite pages within that web page
in my in my bookmark sections so I could go
back to them. Well, now I couldn't go back to them,
and now I couldn't enter those URLs from memory if
I wanted to, I had to go back to the
(17:31):
homepage and start all over remapping their website, so I
could find my way back to the pages on the
site that I wanted to use. So those are the
kind of things that happen. And sometimes you'll you'll use
the site and they will they'll change text to graphic text,
(17:54):
and for somebody who can see it, it doesn't look
like anything's changed. But my screen reader only can deal
with graphics. If somebody goes in and adds what's called
the alternative text description so that my computer knows it's
there and knows what it is. But these are really
small things. So just imagine what would happen if somebody
(18:17):
decided that they were going to totally redesign the site,
add a new menu with menu items that had never
been there before, or add a bunch of pages, or
to eat a bunch of pages, or change the way
that you navigate the website, because not all websites are
(18:38):
built to be navigated with keyboards. Some of them don't
even care if you have a keyboard. They expect you
to have newer computers where you can use wipes and
hovers and rots, even from a laptop or a desktop computer.
So when people update a website, most people don't consider
(19:00):
adaptive technology or accessibility in general. But those who do
quite often don't think about, well, what's going to happen
when I post this latest update, and so I tell people.
You know, when you're considering updating a website, whether you
know you have people with disabilities using your products or
services or not, you really should send out an announcement,
(19:25):
either through your mailing list or your social media feeds,
and say we are are considering or planning on making
the following updates to our website. We don't expect that
they will affect anybody, even people who depend on accessibility,
but we want you to know what's going to happen,
and then after it happens, the best case would be
(19:48):
to follow up with their community and see if anybody
had any issues with it, as opposed to waiting until
somebody gets frustrated or angry enough to contact them through
their customer servi or technical support teams. You know, that's
that's what really should be done when it comes to
maintaining accessibility, because most people just don't realize how fragile
(20:11):
accessibility is, how little it can take to ruin the
day of somebody who depends on the screen reader or
a screen magnifier. And right now, the estimates say about
five percent of the web is totally accessible, And of
course I don't necessarily believe that anybody gets to one
(20:31):
hundred percent accessibility. That's I guess the number they use
to talk about the subject. But it of those people,
of the five percent that is accessible, I'm sure that
there's probably twenty or thirty percent of that group that
at least some of the time is not accessible due
(20:52):
to updates.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah, you know, when you're telling me, just imagining what
a minefield it is to navigate, you know, I get frustrated.
So even for people it is difficult, you know, when
there's a small design change, even if it's Facebook or
Instagram or Twitter or Netflix or anything, you're like, oh
my god, why did they have to change it? You know,
but I can imagine like anybody else you know's got
(21:14):
any challenge site.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Yeah, yes, yeah, And you know that's a that's a
very good point because, especially when it comes to people
using mobile devices, a lot of the stuff that frustrates
people with visional loss or other disabilities also frustrates your
able body consumers. And one of the points that I make,
and I feel like our community doesn't do a good
enough job at this, which is that accessibility or when
(21:39):
you improve accessibility, you almost always will improve the overall
user experience of everyone else that buys your product or service.
And I feel like our community does you know a
good job of emphasizing compliance. You know the possible penalties
if you fail to make your stuff accessible, But compliance
(22:01):
and fear only gets you so far, and a lot
of people will still ignore it. But when we help
business owners to understand that accessibility improves the overall ex
user experience is respected by the search engines and AI
so can generate more organic traffic and gives you a
(22:22):
shot at this huge, mostly untapped market of loyal consumers.
We can emphasize the positive reasons behind improving accessibility more.
I feel like then we're going to get more businesses
that will adopt it and will not just meet the
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines a WCAG minimums, but they'll go
beyond that to the full user experience and going from
(22:48):
accessibility to usability or enjoyability for everybody of all abilities.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Absolutely, the enjoyability is key. But tell me, I'm curious
to know the conversations that you have with business owners,
website managers, or product designers, et cetera. You know, when
you talk about accessibility, what is the change that you've
been managed to effect and how does you know some
conversations that you've had right.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Well, the firstest thing is is I generally like to
start the conversation before I need to have a conversation,
because quite often a business owner is only going to
hear from somebody like me when we're having a problem
with their software or their website. So I believe one
of the best things we can do is to approach
(23:36):
the subject with a positive, non threatening attitude towards a
business owner and have empathy for the fact that they have.
They have so many challenges on their plates already that
addressing accessibility is just one more thing they have to
figure out in their in their daily lives, or within
their corporate structure if they're a big company. So have
(23:56):
some understanding that this is difficult for them both comprehend
and to implement. So I start by being non threatening.
I will reach out and I will say that I
am a visually impaired person. I use this particular software.
I'm about to try to use your product or service
through your website or your app. I don't anticipate any problems,
(24:19):
but if I have them, I didn't want the first
time you heard from me to be with a complaint.
And then if I do have problems, I reach out
to these people, and I don't insist that they fix
it right away, or that they fixed it with the
solution that I would personally prefer. I find that the
(24:39):
best way to get improvements is to explain the problem
and offer some solutions, and be willing to listen to
their solution. And sometimes a short term workaround will allow
for conversation to come up with a better long term fix.
(25:00):
And another thing I'm big on is, at least to me,
accessibility should be about accomplishing the purpose of a website
or an app. So to me, accessibility could mean they
improve it so that I can do everything by myself
without assistance. It could mean that they improve it where
(25:22):
some things I do with the help of somebody from
customer service. And it could be that, in some very
rare cases that the only way to accomplish the purpose
of doing business with them is to allow them to
do certain functions for me. And so the best example
(25:43):
I have of that last category is with images uploads,
because everybody you know, there are so many social media networks,
and even beyond networks, there are so many websites where
when you create a profile or use them, they want
you to give them an image. And uploading an image
and having it look like it's supposed to on screen
(26:06):
when you can't see the process you're going through to
upload it. It's one of those things it's very, very
difficult to make accessible where the end product will turn
out the way you want to turn out. So I
love it when I click on the website and it
asks me to upload a photo, and then off to
the side it'll say, if you have any problems at
(26:26):
all uploading a photo, or if you have issues around accessibility,
or you need some sort of accommodation and submitting the
images or other media, we need just send an email
to this address and we will help you take care
of it. So done for you, done with you do
(26:47):
it yourself. Different levels of accessibility I believe is important
because accessibility really needs to be a process. When the
business owner, the sole proprietor, when they have this idea
that they have to figure this new thing out, they
have to do it today, they have to get completely
up to speed overnight, and they have to do it
(27:09):
the way other people are telling them to do it,
rather than the way that their all creative problem solving
would say would accomplish the same purpose. These are things
that cause the frustration and the anger among business owners. So,
you know, talking about different ways accessibility can be accomplished,
(27:29):
talking about it as if it's a process rather than
a perfection that has to be achieved overnight. Just you know,
just showing empathy for all the challenges in the life
of a business owner and being willing to work with
them as long as they, on the other side, are
showing a sincere interest and are willing to put in
(27:53):
regular effort to make their product, services and content more accessible.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Absolutely, as you've you know, you've said before in your post,
et cetera, communication is key, you know. But tell me
you're very active, as you said, you know, on LinkedIn
and also Instagram, as I see any suggestions for these
platforms and any good points that you see in terms
of accessibility, right.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Well, I would say that they have all figured out
that images need to come with the alternative text and
when people upload photos, they can definitely now add the
alternative text. They've figured out that videos and audios need
to have transcripts and close captions, and they've they've added
(28:42):
ways you can you can add that. But the one
thing most of the social networks could do that would
really help would be would be to prompt people more clearly,
so that the person, the busy person who's uploading those
photos and videos doesn't have to remind themselves that they
have to add this information. You know, if you add
(29:06):
a photo to Instagram or to LinkedIn, or you know,
to any of the content management systems like WordPress, it
is going to prompt you. But sometimes those prompts aren't
really all that clear, and sometimes the prompts can be
turned off, and sometimes the prompts just don't trigger. So basically,
(29:27):
anything that would remind users to add those things will
be very helpful. I think that there's a future with
using artificial intelligence to to help content creators add the
alternative text descriptions in the close captions is positive, but
(29:51):
at least for the time being, people can't depend on
AI to do that for them, or on AI to
describe things, or the person using the screen reader. But
that's something another thing that I've been told that the
Adobe is working on and some of the other people
(30:13):
are working on. If they if they were fixed this,
this would be a real game changer for images and video.
Is right now, when you create an alt text description
that basically tells screen readers and search engines what the
image is, that description doesn't travel. You have to create
(30:34):
that description or copy and paste that description every place
that you post that photo. Same goes for a transcript
or close captions, you have to add that every place
you put that video. They're working on technology that would
allow you to add the alternative text to the media
itself and then have that travel across social media or websites,
(30:56):
so that wherever the image or video go, that text
would go with it. So not having to create or
copy and paste that text multiple times would really be
a big help for most people. Or if the business
or if the companies could use AI to start extracting
the text from people's images on the social media platforms,
(31:19):
because then again people could just do it once on
their computer or wherever they saved their files to, that
would be a big change because you know, as we
both know, there's just I mean, I'm on five social
media networks and I basically resist a lot of them
just out of lack of time, effort, and fatigue. So,
(31:44):
given all the many networks that people out there who
really work at being influencers are involved in, if there
were some way to have the text stay with the
image of the video, or to have the websites grab
that information from your files directly, both of those will
be a big game changer for people with disabilities in
(32:06):
my opinion. And just one last thought about Instagram, and
this is research I recently came across as part of
an article I wrote. The company i wrote the article
for did some research and sent this to me. Apparently,
any for people under the age of forty, thirty seven
(32:27):
percent of those people will not watch a video if
it doesn't have closed captions. And this was a survey
done among people who don't have hearing impairment, and the
answer is obvious. These are people watching videos at work
or in school, or on transit or places where they
(32:48):
don't want everybody else hearing the audio, but they still
want to be able to enjoy the videos. But think
about thirty seven percent of your potential audience won't watch
your video on Instagram or Facebook if it doesn't have
close captions. So so another example where improving accessibility improves
your opportunities for all the other users you deal with.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Yeah, absolutely, because you're right, everybody prefers close captions down
because you can watch it in a private space without audience.
And tell me, what about you mentioned AI? So has EI,
you know, change things for you as it has for
the you know, everybody really in this world today chat, yeah,
(33:33):
you know other stuff?
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. AI is one of those
mixed bags because, on the one hand, people with disabilities
are not naturally concerned that AI is going to cause
them to lose some of the jobs that there are
are capable of doing, and that the rest of the
world accepts that that we are capable of doing. And
(33:56):
when you're in a community has an unemployment rate of
seventy seventy five percent, uh, the idea that something might
come along and take away work is very is very scary,
even more so than to the general population, because you know,
the pot I don't know what the unappointment rate is
where you live, but here in the US, it's about
(34:17):
four and a half percent, you know, four and a
half percent compared to seventy or seventy five percent, so
we're naturally more concerned about AI. I personally believe that
the things that makes easier over time are going to
outweigh the things that it compromises over time. I don't
believe that, at least in the US and other westernized countries.
(34:40):
I don't believe that people with disabilities are going to
end up backing institutions, are begging those street corners, or
you know, forced to go back to jobs like tuning
pianos for blind people as an example. But there are
some jobs such you know, having to do with inputing data,
you know, some of the more routine computer based jobs
(35:04):
that are eventually going to be replaced or require less
total bodies to do those jobs because of the But
on the other side, there are things where AI can help.
AI can help somewhat with image description. AI can help
with help us with completing forms. There are some cases
(35:27):
other cases where AI can help us with information. I
am not and I'm not a spokesperson for jcpenny, but
in the last few months I've been using their website
because I had a I had a payment processing issue
with the web with the website for larger sized men's
clothes I was using, they caused me to stop using them.
(35:50):
So the first time I used J. C. Penny's website,
I was buying some some dress slacks for a speaking
appearance and I go I put them in my cart,
and it says you should be a vi as a
pop up, and the pop up was coded to where
it actually announced it to my screen reader instead of
(36:13):
just putting it on the screen and me having to
figure out what was there that was causing the thing
to make the noise that there was. So it said
that this particular brand runs small, you should consider ordering
an ext size larger. And I did that and I
was very happy with the pants because nobody wants to
be at a professional event and have tight clothes, so
(36:34):
it worked out really good. And then the same website,
when I went to check out, instead of me having
to use a third party widget or search for coupons,
I went to check out, it said, are you aware
that this coupon is available for almost half off of
(36:54):
what you're fixing to buy, And of course I didn't know,
so it said, all you have to do is click
the button to accept this and we'll adjust your cart,
so you know there's a few occasions right quick where
I'm very very well benefited from somebody using AI. I
wish people would use AI precise charts and for color descriptions,
(37:16):
because quite often I go to websites and I run
across these weird, funky color names that I have no
idea what the heck they are, because, as I like
to tell people, when I could see in color, there
were only twenty four crayons in my box of crayos,
So there's a lot of colors out there. I don't
know what the heck they are. I wish they'd use
people would use AI to add descriptions for those, and
(37:38):
so I feel like there's some things AI will be
able to do. And there's some really encouraging research on
how AI is being used by the search engines and
how accessibility is becoming more and more important to creating
organic traffic. And basically, when you think about generative AI,
(38:03):
which is what we have right now, you're having a
conversation with the bots. So basically, when the bots crawl
a website, the bots are having a conversation with the website.
The bots only know what the website tells them about itself.
So accessibility is a way where a website can tell
(38:25):
the bot a lot more about itself than if you don't.
So like when you every time you add a heading,
you're giving the bot information as to what's on that
section of the screen. Whenever you add the alternative text
for an image or a transcript, you're telling the bot
what else is on that screen. When you give it
(38:46):
detailed labels for buttons and links, you know, you're telling
when you when you create text that is written in
a you know, in a in what's called a medium
level Lanth level of reading level, you're helping the bots
get to know who your website is and who you are.
(39:08):
So accessibility is becoming more and more important to the
search engines. And the one thing I learned is is
when business owners find out that something either can make
them money or cost them money, they're more likely to
pay attention to it, even if they only do it
at a low level. So I find that it's important
(39:31):
that AI and the improving search engine algorithms are giving
more and more credit to accessibility, and that websites that
ignore accessibility best practices are not going to compete as
well against their competition in the search engines. If they
(39:52):
don't embrace accessibility, so I'm encouraged by that. I'm actually
going to post an episode for my podcast as The
Accessibility Advantage later today where I interviewed Jason Barnard, who's
an expert on AI and search engines, and he was
very very clear just how critical building accessibility is going
(40:17):
to be to maintaining your place or or building a
new place with and in the in the world of
the search engines and the the AI bots that people
are using to find information in businesses to purchase.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
From nowadays, wonderful. I'm glad that the conversation is growing
and you know, thanks to AI, thinks are becoming a
little easier. I hope it gets you know better over time.
So tell me you mentioned you mentioned your podcast The
Accessibility Advantage. You have another called What's You Excuse? So
could you talk about your podcast? What there about?
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Right? So, What's Your Excuse is the one I've had
for a while. I'm currently looking for guests so that
I can restart it. For a while, I was the
paid host of another podcast called Hearsay Shorts from a
company called AUDIOI, which I still write for their blog
and do other content for them. But I'm not hosting
(41:13):
their podcast anymore, so I paused, what's your excuse? While
I was working for them on their podcast, and now
I'm looking for some new guests I can restart it.
I interview people who have overcome adversity in their lives
or who continue to live through difficult circumstances, and it's
more about how they manage to do it than what
(41:37):
they managed to do. I feel there are a lot
of inspirational shows out there that focus too much on
the horrible events or too much on the amazing person
they are now. I feel like those are great parts
of the story, but the important part is what can
(41:58):
you teach my listeners today that will help them do
what you've done? So I try to focus in on
actionable tools and techniques, and then the accessibility advantage is
relatively new podcasts. I still haven't made it to ten episodes,
but I'm I think I'll be at eight or nine
(42:20):
as of today, and on there. I'm looking to advocate
for accessibility by showing people that it's in their best interest,
and I'm going to have several different kinds of content.
I'm doing interviews with people who have embraced accessibility to
(42:40):
their benefit. I'm going to be doing interviews with people
who have a business and are curious about how would
they implement accessibility, Where would they start. I would actually
love to do some conversations with people that are that
are before and after where people can see them learn
(43:02):
about accessibility and implement it in their business and then
receive the benefits of improving accessibility. I'm going to do
some short tutorials on single subjects that many people still
don't know about, such as keyboard keyboard navigation first, or
how images aren't just all text, that how you use emoticon,
(43:27):
stickers and gifts can can also affect accessibility. And I
point on doing some case studies of clients that book
that hire me to improve accessibility to their websites, So
basically a variety of content that makes the case that
accessibility is in everyone's best interest.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Yeah, it's great that you're leading the conversation. I've heard
your song as well on Instagram that you posted a
couple of them on what's the Excuse?
Speaker 3 (43:57):
Yes I have. Yeah, I face my peer of singing
in public, and I've written three songs. If you don't
ask what's your excuse? And my latest one, don't wait
on some day.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
For us. Are you in the mood?
Speaker 1 (44:12):
No?
Speaker 3 (44:12):
You? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (44:12):
I can sing?
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Okay, yeah. I As I tell people, don't ever ask
somebody who sings if they want to sing, because the
answer will never be no. Ok yeah yeah yeah. So
if if you don't have any other questions you would
like me to address, I'd be happy to finish with
the bile.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
So there's just one more question. You know you've talked
about determined positivity, so finally I would like you to
explain that you know sure.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
So over time, I've learned that when things have been hard,
one of the best things I can do is to
try to find something good that could come from it.
And some days that requires sitting down and making a
physical list of things that you can be grateful for.
(45:02):
Some people will say it's a gratitude exercise. Me, I'm
trying to find something positive to happen, whether it was
a person I met, something I learned, an event that
happened that wasn't related to what I was trying to
do at the time, and what I've learned over time
that is that positive positivity, joy, happiness. These are things
that one we we can decide to be in that
(45:26):
state or not be in that state. But just like
anything else that's lost, we can look for it. So
how do you find things that are missing? The first
thing you do is you decide that they are there somewhere.
And once you've decided that something is in a particular location,
then you can just keep looking forward until you find it.
(45:46):
And I like to say the best example of this
is a television remote. You know, the TV remote can't
be outside, it has to be somewhere in the house
or the apartment, and you just keep looking until you
find it. If you can't find it on your own,
then maybe you invite the family members to come help
you look. And sometimes by the time you find the remote,
(46:08):
your show may be over, or the couch the living
room may need to be cleaned up again. But that's
how you find it. You decide it's there and you
keep looking. And so by deciding and doing this as
a regular practice, then when you have a really bad setback,
you can you have that process built in and you
(46:31):
you know, if you've been doing it long enough, you
won't even have to think about it, or you won't
think about it for very long before you transition from
grief to okay? How do I move forward from this?
And I'm not telling people to avoid grieving. Sometimes we
do have to We do have to allow things to
(46:51):
work through our systems before even a practice of positivity
can help you. But I would say start by every day,
either at the beginning or the end of the day,
think of one thing that occurred during that day that
you can be thankful for, that's positive, happy, joyful, whatever
word you want to use for it. And then work
(47:11):
up to three things a day at five things a day.
And then once this becomes a regular part of your day,
then you know when something minor bad happens, it won't
affect your mood as much as it would have before.
And when something really bad happens, then you know you're
you're more prepared to recover from it more quickly. We
(47:33):
still have to go through the stages, we still have
to grieve, and in some cases, depending on how bad
the event was, we may have to have some depression,
we may even have to have some professional therapy. But
in a lot of cases, we can get back to
who we were before more quickly because we have built
up this practice of seeking out the positive and we've
(47:55):
built up this this mental or emotional muscle in this area.
And you know, one of my favorite examples is, back
when my primary job was was helping people sell their
used amusement park or carnival equipment I had made. I
(48:18):
had made a sale of a double dick or carousel
that had been in storage for a decade. It was
sold within thirty minutes using my LinkedIn community. The owner
was in New Jersey, the buyer was in Australia. The
ride was seen, purchased, moved, and reinstalled in under sixty days,
which is would be like snapping your fingers compared to
(48:41):
most anything else you would buy in the course of
your life. And then the guy decided not to pay me,
and I chased him on the phone and on the
net for a while before finally excepting he wasn't going
to pay me. And then once he did, I was like, man,
this is horrible because he owed me twenty five thousand dollars.
We had been looking at cars, you know, so for
(49:06):
a few days it was very hard to deal with
that setback. But then I started thinking, Okay, what are
the positives here. Well, the first thing was when I
announced I made the sale, the traffic to my website
went up five hundred percent. People started emailing me asking
me if I could find them a particular piece of
(49:27):
equipment they had been looking for, or if I thought
there was a chance I could sell their piece of
junk that had been sitting in their barn for twenty years.
I was recognized by the mutual of Omaha website as
having an AHA moment in the business, and they gave
me one hundred dollars cash reward that I used to
buy first new clothes I had bought in a long time.
(49:50):
You know, there were many good things that happened. Plus
the fact that I could had built a community were
I could sell a ride of that size and value
in such a short period of time validated my model
so other and of course I decided that from then
(50:12):
on I actually had to have a contract, not just
a handshake or an email. So it was a very
bad moment. It took a few days to get over
once I accepted that I was not going to get paid,
But I had this practice of finding positive things and
that helped me move on more quickly than I would
have without it.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
I love that, you know, because if it is there,
that's what you're seeing. You just have to find it.
The positive is there, that's wonderful and great story.
Speaker 3 (50:41):
Yes, yeah, it's there. It's always there. It's sometimes harder
to find it. Sometimes you need help to find it.
Sometimes having those friends either online or a person who
will help you find it is really critical to finding it.
And some days, you know, you're just like, Okay, I've looked,
and I've looked, and I ain't found it. I'm going
to have to try again this afternoon of tomorrow and
see if I could find it.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
You know. Yeah, it's a process, but it's a commit
twin ts yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
Yeah, and and and just like anything else we do.
I say this quite often of coaches and gurus that
one of the biggest things, I think one of the
most destructive things they do is failing to make it
clear that any of the practices they teach will take
time to build up in your system before they will
be successful for you. Because you can take anything you want.
(51:33):
You can do vision board, you can do gratitude, you
can do immersion, you know you you can do positive affirmations.
You can There's so many different tools out there, but
none of them will work the first day, or the
tenth day or the thirtieth day. Some of them are
only going to work for you, are only going to
(51:55):
be there when you need them to work for you
if you have practiced them on a regular basis. So
I have practiced my positive, finding the positive, finding solutions,
asking for help. You know, I've practiced these things. At
this point in my life. I'm really good at them.
But there are still some days, especially in the positive,
(52:16):
where I may have to get a little help to
find the positive right that minute.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Absolutely, it's always good to ask for a little help. Now,
I think it's time for the song. Are you ready?
Speaker 3 (52:28):
Yeah? Yeah, Okay. So this is a song I just
recently finished, while it feels recently. So this is about
just going ahead and doing what we can what we
can now, because I've talked and written about not waiting
on the mythical day we call someday. So I had
this song in my heart and thought it could be
(52:50):
great that put more pressure on me, making me on away.
Then I I took some good advice and sang it anyway.
This song couldn't change anywise if I kept saying someday,
(53:13):
Because you'll never have enough courage you'll never have enough time,
you'll never have enough money, you'll never have enough spine.
Just do it as good as you can, and do
(53:36):
it better the next time, because if you're waiting on that, someday,
you'll be waiting the rest or your live.
Speaker 2 (53:49):
Thank you back, so that was wonderful. Thank you for
doing this.
Speaker 3 (53:54):
You're gray. Welcome
Just do it as good as you can and do
it better the next time, because if you're waiting on
that Sunday, you'll be waiting the rest you are.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hi, Welcome to Swishing Mindsets. I'm an Radha and today
I'm speaking to Mixwell Ivy, better known as the Blind Blogger,
a serial online entrepreneur from the US. He is an
accessibility expert advocating for more inclusion of people with disabilities. Hi, Maxwell,
how are you great to have you here?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
I've done fine. It's good to be here, and I
hope you're doing good today as well.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I am very happy to be talking to you. So,
you know, you call yourself the Blind Blogger, and you
know I was reading about you and I check your Instagram,
et cetera. And you say that a lot of people
try to mask their disabilities online because they're not sure
of how people will react to them, especially when it
comes to work, etc. But you decided to be upfront
(01:06):
about it. So could you tell us a little about that,
You know, how you came to call yourself the Blind Blogger?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Sure? So I did not actually choose the name the
Blind Blogger on my own. I had been promoting the
work I was doing online on Facebook and Lincoln at
that time, and as a former shorthand some of the
people in the communities I was part of started calling
(01:35):
me the blind blogger because I was the only blind
person they knew who was also a blogger. And it's
actually pretty common if you have a disability, that you're
going to be the only one, if not one of
a very small number of people that somebody may know
that has a disability or is differently able. So I
(01:57):
just naturally became the blind blogger, like the singer on
American Idol became blind Joe, you know so. And when
I finally accepted that, I wanted to talk more about
being an entrepreneur who is blind, and I asked people
what I should call myself. They said, well, we've been
calling you the blind blogger for a couple of years now,
so what else would you be? And I thought nothing
(02:21):
of it. But once I filed for the domain name
and announced that I was going to do that, there
was a lot of objection to my choosing the name.
People who I knew who were cited thought that I
was too talented, too good a storyteller. I didn't need
to lean into my vision loss to be successful online,
(02:42):
and many people who were visually impaired were upset that
I was playing the quote blind card blind card unquote.
And so there were some people that I lost as
friends or as online acquaintance because of becoming the blind Blogger.
And it wasn't until recently that I realized just how
(03:04):
powerful a decision that was, even though I didn't know
it at the time. But at the time it was
just a cool name, I name people had been using
for me, and I took it and did the work.
But you know, looking back now, I can see that
the reason I was the blind blogger is so few
people with disabilities were open about their disability online if
we go back eight, ten, twelve years ago, and the
(03:28):
idea was is that since disclosing a disability in in
person interviews for looking for work was often a problem,
that disclosing disability online might prevent you from being a
success in this new arena. So most people just decided
to hide in out of fear of what, you know,
(03:49):
that they might be rejected or thought less of because
of it. I figured that if nobody heard about who
I was or what I was doing, that they they
wouldn't hire me or buy from me. So I couldn't
see anything other to do than be who I was.
So over time it's been cool to see how now
(04:10):
there's a real openness and you know, you can't go
anywhere on social media and not run across people who
have an emoticon or a sticker in their profile or
their posts reference a disability, whether that's a physical or
a neurological or developmental disability. It's it's all out there,
(04:34):
and I feel like I was part of that, whether
I knew it at the time or not.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yes, you were ahead of your time, one might say, actually, yeah, yeah,
so you know you you know from people saying that
you're using the blind card, you know, and you know
you've said that it's turned out to be quite powerful
for you, right or stating it up front. So tell
me about your experience with losing your sight. What I
(04:59):
read is that you know you were ten years old
when you lost your sight, right, yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Yeah, So I just turned fifty nine in April. So
I started losing my vision gradually when I was five
or six years old, but I had a big drop
off envision when I entered junior high school, so about
eleven or twelve years old, I went from say, using
thick glasses to being determined legally blind and starting to
(05:32):
learn to use a white cane, starting to learn to rebrail,
and depending on audio and brail for most of my
reading material. So that would have been about and my
vision stayed constant until I went off to college. But
by the time I graduated from college it was down
to what it is now, which is light perception. And
(05:53):
I can see right light if I look directly at
the source where the light is supposed to be coming from.
But I can't tell shapes, shadows, or colors, just that
light is either there or not there.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
So how has the transition been for you? And even emotionally,
you know, I'm I mean, I can see that, you know,
you've been talking about determined positivity and things like that,
But I'm sure it didn't come naturally or easily. Rather,
you know, in the beginning, how has it been for you?
You know, maybe it might inspire others, you know, on
that journey.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Right right, Well, I think part of it comes from
the fact that, at least in the beginning, it was
gradual and it was not a surprise. Although with something
like liziting your vision, even knowing it's coming can still
be very frustrating. But you know, I'm part of a
large family that there were my my grandfather and grandmother
(06:47):
had six kids, so and we all lived on the
same piece of property together, so there were lots of us.
We went to school together, and so the other thing
is is you know, having solid family members teachers also
(07:10):
later becoming involved in scouting, that that helped you. But
I also think growing up in a family of people
that operated carnival rides, you learned from an early age
that you're never going to have all the resources, time
or money that you want. You learned from from very
(07:33):
early that you're going to have to overcome setbacks and adversity.
So it kind of gets baked into your DNA as
you're as you're growing up. So I feel like the
whole idea of you know, you just have to find
a way to get to next week, just find a
way to get opened this week, that you know, really
(07:56):
really helps you have a positive mindset. And then you know,
some of these other things have built upon that over
my lifetime because I spent after college, has spent over
fifteen years working in the in the family business, and
since then, I've spent getting close to twenty years now
working online, and there have been many days where working
(08:19):
online was much more challenging than setting up and taking
down carnival rides, especially when you have to depend on
a screen reader and on you know, the Internet, where
things change rapidly from day to day, and what was
best practices last week is not best practices today. And
(08:41):
a lot of the people who are developing the websites
and apps that I depend on even now still don't
really appreciate how much they affect my lives when they
make even the smallest changes in a website or an
app that I use on a regular basis, you know.
So it's as far as positivity and finding solutions. The
(09:04):
finding solutions comes from from the traveling business and also
from online because I've had to you know, back when
I first started, accessibility was so non existent. I had
to teach myself to code HTML, which is not something
anybody should want to do or have to do, but
I had to. And but it was, you know, out
of a desire to find a solution that was the
(09:25):
only solution available. You know, I did a lot of
things in the carnival business, that were distasteful, you know,
got greasy and dirty and uh, you know, spent spent
nights on sides of the roads and things did because we
had to do them. And I feel like that, you know,
is is really built into what I'm doing, what I've
been continuing to do. And as I tell people all
(09:46):
the day that most people that know something about resilience
know it because they've been through stuff and they've had
to pick themselves up off the ground numerous times to
the point where they get pretty good at it. You know,
for me, one of the things people talk about is
the many different things I've done, even in my online career,
you know, selling youth rides, coaching, podcasting, speaking, traveling, and
(10:15):
you know, the thing is that I just continue to
keep going, moving forward, looking to find the thing that
I'm really good at, that people want to pay me for,
that I can make a sustainable living at. And just
continuing to move forward is one of those things that
I do because you know, I've done it. I have,
(10:38):
and most people that are listening to us, they've done
things in their lives that are very challenging and they
may or may not have been successful. But if they'll
think about it and think about it from a positive mindset.
You know, find a time in their day when they're
feeling pretty good about themselves. If I look back through
the challenges they've had, they'll find that they learn things
(10:59):
that they overcame, things that they're stronger than they think
they are some of the time. But we don't always
take the time to sit down and make a list
of the things we've accomplished or survived in some cases.
But you know, people who have even now that are
trying to they're trying to do new things while they
(11:20):
continue to go to work, they discount to them, you know,
caring for family members, caring for pets, education, unrealistic expectations
from their bosses, transportation to and from work, shopping, cleaning.
You know, so many things that make it hard to
(11:41):
try to do something new. But you know, we can
all look back in times of our lives where we've
been through more challenging things and take strength from those
and also take ideas from those. So yeah, I'm pretty
good at overcoming adversity in the finding the positive things.
But I've been doing it a long time, and at
(12:03):
this point I have systems in place to can remind
myself to keep doing the things that have kept me healthy,
you know, going on on now online for almost twenty years.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Yeah, and I can see that you're doing a lot online,
and I'm going to come back to you know, what
you've said about. You know, I would have written read
on what you've written about, you know, determined positivity. So
I want to come back to that later. But what
you're saying is true, you know, Like what I can
infer is that resilience is actually a habit that you
build right.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Exactly. Yes, it's like anything else. The difficult part is
finding is finding a way to build that habit or
to recognize that. You know, so we don't always celebrate
the things that we feel are less than successful. But
you know, we celebrate our accomplishments and our successes and
our wins. But sometimes we need to just take the
(12:59):
time and go, well, that wasn't one hundred percent the
way I wanted it turned out, but I'm still here.
You know, I learned something from it. I can can
apply that in what I'm going to try next.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
You know, yeah, absolutely, And you know what you said
is just about getting from one day to the next,
one week to the next, that's what it is, really
and wonderful. You know, you mentioned something about, you know,
building online businesses and being online, teaching yourself coding and HTML,
and you also said that, you know, when websites they
tweak their design or make like really small changes, it's
(13:32):
very difficult for you in terms of accessibility. Could you,
you know, talk about that a little bit, you know,
explain that a bit for you know, Yeah, you were listening.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Right, So, so like, for example, if wherever you live,
I'm sure you have a routine as far as how
you would get to and from your house to and
from work, or to a favorite restaurant or to a
favorite theater. So just imagine if you got up tomorrow
and the roads weren't where they were yesterday, or the
(14:05):
signs weren't aren't where they were yesterday, or maybe the
signs are in different languages or in different fonts, or
the words say different things that maybe you don't quite comprehend,
but they mean the same things as they meant yesterday.
So in the online world, when you use adaptive technology,
it takes somebody like me. Whether you use a screen
(14:28):
reader like I do, or screen magnification like some people
with vision loss but more vision than I have, or
use mechanical switch devices for people who are missing limbs
or paraplegic, quadriplegic, et cetera. It takes you longer to
navigate a website or an app, and you have to
(14:50):
build up a map in your head of where things
are on that particular site, or what tools you do
you have for navigation, what you do with those tools
each time you come back to the same website. So if,
for example, you go to a website and they have
(15:14):
moved an important button from one place on the screen
to another part of the screen, or they've changed the
text name of the button, or the button still says
the same thing, but they've changed it from a text
name to graphical characters representing text, or they've replaced it
(15:34):
with an image, and the image just the images, and
all the images just say image. So, for example, I'm
not a big user of Twitter anymore since it became X,
I haven't spent much time on it. I've been focusing
more of my time on LinkedIn as a as an
intentional practice from a business. But a few years ago
(15:56):
they moved the new button from I think it was
the top left part of the screen to the bottom
right part of the screen, so it wasn't where it
was supposed to be, and I couldn't find it. And
it wasn't until about halfway through the day before I
had the time or somebody told me that they had
(16:19):
relocated it to the bottom right of the screen. And
once I knew where it was, then I could tell
my screen reader to look for the text that says
tweet text and then route my cursor to that part
of the screen in it would and it would find it.
But that was a very small change that caused a
lot of problems. One of the websites that I used
(16:44):
to use for finding podcasts hosts to reach out to
for the longest time, their URL structure used dashes, and
then all of a sudden they decided to change urlstruction
to underlines. Well, I had saved some of my searches
(17:10):
and some of my favorite pages within that web page
in my in my bookmark sections so I could go
back to them. Well, now I couldn't go back to them,
and now I couldn't enter those URLs from memory if
I wanted to, I had to go back to the
(17:31):
homepage and start all over remapping their website, so I
could find my way back to the pages on the
site that I wanted to use. So those are the
kind of things that happen. And sometimes you'll you'll use
the site and they will they'll change text to graphic text,
(17:54):
and for somebody who can see it, it doesn't look
like anything's changed. But my screen reader only can deal
with graphics. If somebody goes in and adds what's called
the alternative text description so that my computer knows it's
there and knows what it is. But these are really
small things. So just imagine what would happen if somebody
(18:17):
decided that they were going to totally redesign the site,
add a new menu with menu items that had never
been there before, or add a bunch of pages, or
to eat a bunch of pages, or change the way
that you navigate the website, because not all websites are
(18:38):
built to be navigated with keyboards. Some of them don't
even care if you have a keyboard. They expect you
to have newer computers where you can use wipes and
hovers and rots, even from a laptop or a desktop computer.
So when people update a website, most people don't consider
(19:00):
adaptive technology or accessibility in general. But those who do
quite often don't think about, well, what's going to happen
when I post this latest update, and so I tell people.
You know, when you're considering updating a website, whether you
know you have people with disabilities using your products or
services or not, you really should send out an announcement,
(19:25):
either through your mailing list or your social media feeds,
and say we are are considering or planning on making
the following updates to our website. We don't expect that
they will affect anybody, even people who depend on accessibility,
but we want you to know what's going to happen,
and then after it happens, the best case would be
(19:48):
to follow up with their community and see if anybody
had any issues with it, as opposed to waiting until
somebody gets frustrated or angry enough to contact them through
their customer servi or technical support teams. You know, that's
that's what really should be done when it comes to
maintaining accessibility, because most people just don't realize how fragile
(20:11):
accessibility is, how little it can take to ruin the
day of somebody who depends on the screen reader or
a screen magnifier. And right now, the estimates say about
five percent of the web is totally accessible, And of
course I don't necessarily believe that anybody gets to one
(20:31):
hundred percent accessibility. That's I guess the number they use
to talk about the subject. But it of those people,
of the five percent that is accessible, I'm sure that
there's probably twenty or thirty percent of that group that
at least some of the time is not accessible due
(20:52):
to updates.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah, you know, when you're telling me, just imagining what
a minefield it is to navigate, you know, I get frustrated.
So even for people it is difficult, you know, when
there's a small design change, even if it's Facebook or
Instagram or Twitter or Netflix or anything, you're like, oh
my god, why did they have to change it? You know,
but I can imagine like anybody else you know's got
(21:14):
any challenge site.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Yeah, yes, yeah, And you know that's a that's a
very good point because, especially when it comes to people
using mobile devices, a lot of the stuff that frustrates
people with visional loss or other disabilities also frustrates your
able body consumers. And one of the points that I make,
and I feel like our community doesn't do a good
enough job at this, which is that accessibility or when
(21:39):
you improve accessibility, you almost always will improve the overall
user experience of everyone else that buys your product or service.
And I feel like our community does you know a
good job of emphasizing compliance. You know the possible penalties
if you fail to make your stuff accessible, But compliance
(22:01):
and fear only gets you so far, and a lot
of people will still ignore it. But when we help
business owners to understand that accessibility improves the overall ex
user experience is respected by the search engines and AI
so can generate more organic traffic and gives you a
(22:22):
shot at this huge, mostly untapped market of loyal consumers.
We can emphasize the positive reasons behind improving accessibility more.
I feel like then we're going to get more businesses
that will adopt it and will not just meet the
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines a WCAG minimums, but they'll go
beyond that to the full user experience and going from
(22:48):
accessibility to usability or enjoyability for everybody of all abilities.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Absolutely, the enjoyability is key. But tell me, I'm curious
to know the conversations that you have with business owners,
website managers, or product designers, et cetera. You know, when
you talk about accessibility, what is the change that you've
been managed to effect and how does you know some
conversations that you've had right.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Well, the firstest thing is is I generally like to
start the conversation before I need to have a conversation,
because quite often a business owner is only going to
hear from somebody like me when we're having a problem
with their software or their website. So I believe one
of the best things we can do is to approach
(23:36):
the subject with a positive, non threatening attitude towards a
business owner and have empathy for the fact that they have.
They have so many challenges on their plates already that
addressing accessibility is just one more thing they have to
figure out in their in their daily lives, or within
their corporate structure if they're a big company. So have
(23:56):
some understanding that this is difficult for them both comprehend
and to implement. So I start by being non threatening.
I will reach out and I will say that I
am a visually impaired person. I use this particular software.
I'm about to try to use your product or service
through your website or your app. I don't anticipate any problems,
(24:19):
but if I have them, I didn't want the first
time you heard from me to be with a complaint.
And then if I do have problems, I reach out
to these people, and I don't insist that they fix
it right away, or that they fixed it with the
solution that I would personally prefer. I find that the
(24:39):
best way to get improvements is to explain the problem
and offer some solutions, and be willing to listen to
their solution. And sometimes a short term workaround will allow
for conversation to come up with a better long term fix.
(25:00):
And another thing I'm big on is, at least to me,
accessibility should be about accomplishing the purpose of a website
or an app. So to me, accessibility could mean they
improve it so that I can do everything by myself
without assistance. It could mean that they improve it where
(25:22):
some things I do with the help of somebody from
customer service. And it could be that, in some very
rare cases that the only way to accomplish the purpose
of doing business with them is to allow them to
do certain functions for me. And so the best example
(25:43):
I have of that last category is with images uploads,
because everybody you know, there are so many social media networks,
and even beyond networks, there are so many websites where
when you create a profile or use them, they want
you to give them an image. And uploading an image
and having it look like it's supposed to on screen
(26:06):
when you can't see the process you're going through to
upload it. It's one of those things it's very, very
difficult to make accessible where the end product will turn
out the way you want to turn out. So I
love it when I click on the website and it
asks me to upload a photo, and then off to
the side it'll say, if you have any problems at
(26:26):
all uploading a photo, or if you have issues around accessibility,
or you need some sort of accommodation and submitting the
images or other media, we need just send an email
to this address and we will help you take care
of it. So done for you, done with you do
(26:47):
it yourself. Different levels of accessibility I believe is important
because accessibility really needs to be a process. When the
business owner, the sole proprietor, when they have this idea
that they have to figure this new thing out, they
have to do it today, they have to get completely
up to speed overnight, and they have to do it
(27:09):
the way other people are telling them to do it,
rather than the way that their all creative problem solving
would say would accomplish the same purpose. These are things
that cause the frustration and the anger among business owners. So,
you know, talking about different ways accessibility can be accomplished,
(27:29):
talking about it as if it's a process rather than
a perfection that has to be achieved overnight. Just you know,
just showing empathy for all the challenges in the life
of a business owner and being willing to work with
them as long as they, on the other side, are
showing a sincere interest and are willing to put in
(27:53):
regular effort to make their product, services and content more accessible.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Absolutely, as you've you know, you've said before in your post,
et cetera, communication is key, you know. But tell me
you're very active, as you said, you know, on LinkedIn
and also Instagram, as I see any suggestions for these
platforms and any good points that you see in terms
of accessibility, right.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Well, I would say that they have all figured out
that images need to come with the alternative text and
when people upload photos, they can definitely now add the
alternative text. They've figured out that videos and audios need
to have transcripts and close captions, and they've they've added
(28:42):
ways you can you can add that. But the one
thing most of the social networks could do that would
really help would be would be to prompt people more clearly,
so that the person, the busy person who's uploading those
photos and videos doesn't have to remind themselves that they
have to add this information. You know, if you add
(29:06):
a photo to Instagram or to LinkedIn, or you know,
to any of the content management systems like WordPress, it
is going to prompt you. But sometimes those prompts aren't
really all that clear, and sometimes the prompts can be
turned off, and sometimes the prompts just don't trigger. So basically,
(29:27):
anything that would remind users to add those things will
be very helpful. I think that there's a future with
using artificial intelligence to to help content creators add the
alternative text descriptions in the close captions is positive, but
(29:51):
at least for the time being, people can't depend on
AI to do that for them, or on AI to
describe things, or the person using the screen reader. But
that's something another thing that I've been told that the
Adobe is working on and some of the other people
(30:13):
are working on. If they if they were fixed this,
this would be a real game changer for images and video.
Is right now, when you create an alt text description
that basically tells screen readers and search engines what the
image is, that description doesn't travel. You have to create
(30:34):
that description or copy and paste that description every place
that you post that photo. Same goes for a transcript
or close captions, you have to add that every place
you put that video. They're working on technology that would
allow you to add the alternative text to the media
itself and then have that travel across social media or websites,
(30:56):
so that wherever the image or video go, that text
would go with it. So not having to create or
copy and paste that text multiple times would really be
a big help for most people. Or if the business
or if the companies could use AI to start extracting
the text from people's images on the social media platforms,
(31:19):
because then again people could just do it once on
their computer or wherever they saved their files to, that
would be a big change because you know, as we
both know, there's just I mean, I'm on five social
media networks and I basically resist a lot of them
just out of lack of time, effort, and fatigue. So,
(31:44):
given all the many networks that people out there who
really work at being influencers are involved in, if there
were some way to have the text stay with the
image of the video, or to have the websites grab
that information from your files directly, both of those will
be a big game changer for people with disabilities in
(32:06):
my opinion. And just one last thought about Instagram, and
this is research I recently came across as part of
an article I wrote. The company i wrote the article
for did some research and sent this to me. Apparently,
any for people under the age of forty, thirty seven
(32:27):
percent of those people will not watch a video if
it doesn't have closed captions. And this was a survey
done among people who don't have hearing impairment, and the
answer is obvious. These are people watching videos at work
or in school, or on transit or places where they
(32:48):
don't want everybody else hearing the audio, but they still
want to be able to enjoy the videos. But think
about thirty seven percent of your potential audience won't watch
your video on Instagram or Facebook if it doesn't have
close captions. So so another example where improving accessibility improves
your opportunities for all the other users you deal with.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Yeah, absolutely, because you're right, everybody prefers close captions down
because you can watch it in a private space without audience.
And tell me, what about you mentioned AI? So has EI,
you know, change things for you as it has for
the you know, everybody really in this world today chat, yeah,
(33:33):
you know other stuff?
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. AI is one of those
mixed bags because, on the one hand, people with disabilities
are not naturally concerned that AI is going to cause
them to lose some of the jobs that there are
are capable of doing, and that the rest of the
world accepts that that we are capable of doing. And
(33:56):
when you're in a community has an unemployment rate of
seventy seventy five percent, uh, the idea that something might
come along and take away work is very is very scary,
even more so than to the general population, because you know,
the pot I don't know what the unappointment rate is
where you live, but here in the US, it's about
(34:17):
four and a half percent, you know, four and a
half percent compared to seventy or seventy five percent, so
we're naturally more concerned about AI. I personally believe that
the things that makes easier over time are going to
outweigh the things that it compromises over time. I don't
believe that, at least in the US and other westernized countries.
(34:40):
I don't believe that people with disabilities are going to
end up backing institutions, are begging those street corners, or
you know, forced to go back to jobs like tuning
pianos for blind people as an example. But there are
some jobs such you know, having to do with inputing data,
you know, some of the more routine computer based jobs
(35:04):
that are eventually going to be replaced or require less
total bodies to do those jobs because of the But
on the other side, there are things where AI can help.
AI can help somewhat with image description. AI can help
with help us with completing forms. There are some cases
(35:27):
other cases where AI can help us with information. I
am not and I'm not a spokesperson for jcpenny, but
in the last few months I've been using their website
because I had a I had a payment processing issue
with the web with the website for larger sized men's
clothes I was using, they caused me to stop using them.
(35:50):
So the first time I used J. C. Penny's website,
I was buying some some dress slacks for a speaking
appearance and I go I put them in my cart,
and it says you should be a vi as a
pop up, and the pop up was coded to where
it actually announced it to my screen reader instead of
(36:13):
just putting it on the screen and me having to
figure out what was there that was causing the thing
to make the noise that there was. So it said
that this particular brand runs small, you should consider ordering
an ext size larger. And I did that and I
was very happy with the pants because nobody wants to
be at a professional event and have tight clothes, so
(36:34):
it worked out really good. And then the same website,
when I went to check out, instead of me having
to use a third party widget or search for coupons,
I went to check out, it said, are you aware
that this coupon is available for almost half off of
(36:54):
what you're fixing to buy, And of course I didn't know,
so it said, all you have to do is click
the button to accept this and we'll adjust your cart,
so you know there's a few occasions right quick where
I'm very very well benefited from somebody using AI. I
wish people would use AI precise charts and for color descriptions,
(37:16):
because quite often I go to websites and I run
across these weird, funky color names that I have no
idea what the heck they are, because, as I like
to tell people, when I could see in color, there
were only twenty four crayons in my box of crayos,
So there's a lot of colors out there. I don't
know what the heck they are. I wish they'd use
people would use AI to add descriptions for those, and
(37:38):
so I feel like there's some things AI will be
able to do. And there's some really encouraging research on
how AI is being used by the search engines and
how accessibility is becoming more and more important to creating
organic traffic. And basically, when you think about generative AI,
(38:03):
which is what we have right now, you're having a
conversation with the bots. So basically, when the bots crawl
a website, the bots are having a conversation with the website.
The bots only know what the website tells them about itself.
So accessibility is a way where a website can tell
(38:25):
the bot a lot more about itself than if you don't.
So like when you every time you add a heading,
you're giving the bot information as to what's on that
section of the screen. Whenever you add the alternative text
for an image or a transcript, you're telling the bot
what else is on that screen. When you give it
(38:46):
detailed labels for buttons and links, you know, you're telling
when you when you create text that is written in
a you know, in a in what's called a medium
level Lanth level of reading level, you're helping the bots
get to know who your website is and who you are.
(39:08):
So accessibility is becoming more and more important to the
search engines. And the one thing I learned is is
when business owners find out that something either can make
them money or cost them money, they're more likely to
pay attention to it, even if they only do it
at a low level. So I find that it's important
(39:31):
that AI and the improving search engine algorithms are giving
more and more credit to accessibility, and that websites that
ignore accessibility best practices are not going to compete as
well against their competition in the search engines. If they
(39:52):
don't embrace accessibility, so I'm encouraged by that. I'm actually
going to post an episode for my podcast as The
Accessibility Advantage later today where I interviewed Jason Barnard, who's
an expert on AI and search engines, and he was
very very clear just how critical building accessibility is going
(40:17):
to be to maintaining your place or or building a
new place with and in the in the world of
the search engines and the the AI bots that people
are using to find information in businesses to purchase.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
From nowadays, wonderful. I'm glad that the conversation is growing
and you know, thanks to AI, thinks are becoming a
little easier. I hope it gets you know better over time.
So tell me you mentioned you mentioned your podcast The
Accessibility Advantage. You have another called What's You Excuse? So
could you talk about your podcast? What there about?
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Right? So, What's Your Excuse is the one I've had
for a while. I'm currently looking for guests so that
I can restart it. For a while, I was the
paid host of another podcast called Hearsay Shorts from a
company called AUDIOI, which I still write for their blog
and do other content for them. But I'm not hosting
(41:13):
their podcast anymore, so I paused, what's your excuse? While
I was working for them on their podcast, and now
I'm looking for some new guests I can restart it.
I interview people who have overcome adversity in their lives
or who continue to live through difficult circumstances, and it's
more about how they manage to do it than what
(41:37):
they managed to do. I feel there are a lot
of inspirational shows out there that focus too much on
the horrible events or too much on the amazing person
they are now. I feel like those are great parts
of the story, but the important part is what can
(41:58):
you teach my listeners today that will help them do
what you've done? So I try to focus in on
actionable tools and techniques, and then the accessibility advantage is
relatively new podcasts. I still haven't made it to ten episodes,
but I'm I think I'll be at eight or nine
(42:20):
as of today, and on there. I'm looking to advocate
for accessibility by showing people that it's in their best interest,
and I'm going to have several different kinds of content.
I'm doing interviews with people who have embraced accessibility to
(42:40):
their benefit. I'm going to be doing interviews with people
who have a business and are curious about how would
they implement accessibility, Where would they start. I would actually
love to do some conversations with people that are that
are before and after where people can see them learn
(43:02):
about accessibility and implement it in their business and then
receive the benefits of improving accessibility. I'm going to do
some short tutorials on single subjects that many people still
don't know about, such as keyboard keyboard navigation first, or
how images aren't just all text, that how you use emoticon,
(43:27):
stickers and gifts can can also affect accessibility. And I
point on doing some case studies of clients that book
that hire me to improve accessibility to their websites, So
basically a variety of content that makes the case that
accessibility is in everyone's best interest.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Yeah, it's great that you're leading the conversation. I've heard
your song as well on Instagram that you posted a
couple of them on what's the Excuse?
Speaker 3 (43:57):
Yes I have. Yeah, I face my peer of singing
in public, and I've written three songs. If you don't
ask what's your excuse? And my latest one, don't wait
on some day.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
For us. Are you in the mood?
Speaker 1 (44:12):
No?
Speaker 3 (44:12):
You? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (44:12):
I can sing?
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Okay, yeah. I As I tell people, don't ever ask
somebody who sings if they want to sing, because the
answer will never be no. Ok yeah yeah yeah. So
if if you don't have any other questions you would
like me to address, I'd be happy to finish with
the bile.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
So there's just one more question. You know you've talked
about determined positivity, so finally I would like you to
explain that you know sure.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
So over time, I've learned that when things have been hard,
one of the best things I can do is to
try to find something good that could come from it.
And some days that requires sitting down and making a
physical list of things that you can be grateful for.
(45:02):
Some people will say it's a gratitude exercise. Me, I'm
trying to find something positive to happen, whether it was
a person I met, something I learned, an event that
happened that wasn't related to what I was trying to
do at the time, and what I've learned over time
that is that positive positivity, joy, happiness. These are things
that one we we can decide to be in that
(45:26):
state or not be in that state. But just like
anything else that's lost, we can look for it. So
how do you find things that are missing? The first
thing you do is you decide that they are there somewhere.
And once you've decided that something is in a particular location,
then you can just keep looking forward until you find it.
(45:46):
And I like to say the best example of this
is a television remote. You know, the TV remote can't
be outside, it has to be somewhere in the house
or the apartment, and you just keep looking until you
find it. If you can't find it on your own,
then maybe you invite the family members to come help
you look. And sometimes by the time you find the remote,
(46:08):
your show may be over, or the couch the living
room may need to be cleaned up again. But that's
how you find it. You decide it's there and you
keep looking. And so by deciding and doing this as
a regular practice, then when you have a really bad setback,
you can you have that process built in and you
(46:31):
you know, if you've been doing it long enough, you
won't even have to think about it, or you won't
think about it for very long before you transition from
grief to okay? How do I move forward from this?
And I'm not telling people to avoid grieving. Sometimes we
do have to We do have to allow things to
(46:51):
work through our systems before even a practice of positivity
can help you. But I would say start by every day,
either at the beginning or the end of the day,
think of one thing that occurred during that day that
you can be thankful for, that's positive, happy, joyful, whatever
word you want to use for it. And then work
(47:11):
up to three things a day at five things a day.
And then once this becomes a regular part of your day,
then you know when something minor bad happens, it won't
affect your mood as much as it would have before.
And when something really bad happens, then you know you're
you're more prepared to recover from it more quickly. We
(47:33):
still have to go through the stages, we still have
to grieve, and in some cases, depending on how bad
the event was, we may have to have some depression,
we may even have to have some professional therapy. But
in a lot of cases, we can get back to
who we were before more quickly because we have built
up this practice of seeking out the positive and we've
(47:55):
built up this this mental or emotional muscle in this area.
And you know, one of my favorite examples is, back
when my primary job was was helping people sell their
used amusement park or carnival equipment I had made. I
(48:18):
had made a sale of a double dick or carousel
that had been in storage for a decade. It was
sold within thirty minutes using my LinkedIn community. The owner
was in New Jersey, the buyer was in Australia. The
ride was seen, purchased, moved, and reinstalled in under sixty days,
which is would be like snapping your fingers compared to
(48:41):
most anything else you would buy in the course of
your life. And then the guy decided not to pay me,
and I chased him on the phone and on the
net for a while before finally excepting he wasn't going
to pay me. And then once he did, I was like, man,
this is horrible because he owed me twenty five thousand dollars.
We had been looking at cars, you know, so for
(49:06):
a few days it was very hard to deal with
that setback. But then I started thinking, Okay, what are
the positives here. Well, the first thing was when I
announced I made the sale, the traffic to my website
went up five hundred percent. People started emailing me asking
me if I could find them a particular piece of
(49:27):
equipment they had been looking for, or if I thought
there was a chance I could sell their piece of
junk that had been sitting in their barn for twenty years.
I was recognized by the mutual of Omaha website as
having an AHA moment in the business, and they gave
me one hundred dollars cash reward that I used to
buy first new clothes I had bought in a long time.
(49:50):
You know, there were many good things that happened. Plus
the fact that I could had built a community were
I could sell a ride of that size and value
in such a short period of time validated my model
so other and of course I decided that from then
(50:12):
on I actually had to have a contract, not just
a handshake or an email. So it was a very
bad moment. It took a few days to get over
once I accepted that I was not going to get paid,
But I had this practice of finding positive things and
that helped me move on more quickly than I would
have without it.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
I love that, you know, because if it is there,
that's what you're seeing. You just have to find it.
The positive is there, that's wonderful and great story.
Speaker 3 (50:41):
Yes, yeah, it's there. It's always there. It's sometimes harder
to find it. Sometimes you need help to find it.
Sometimes having those friends either online or a person who
will help you find it is really critical to finding it.
And some days, you know, you're just like, Okay, I've looked,
and I've looked, and I ain't found it. I'm going
to have to try again this afternoon of tomorrow and
see if I could find it.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
You know. Yeah, it's a process, but it's a commit
twin ts yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
Yeah, and and and just like anything else we do.
I say this quite often of coaches and gurus that
one of the biggest things, I think one of the
most destructive things they do is failing to make it
clear that any of the practices they teach will take
time to build up in your system before they will
be successful for you. Because you can take anything you want.
(51:33):
You can do vision board, you can do gratitude, you
can do immersion, you know you you can do positive affirmations.
You can There's so many different tools out there, but
none of them will work the first day, or the
tenth day or the thirtieth day. Some of them are
only going to work for you, are only going to
(51:55):
be there when you need them to work for you
if you have practiced them on a regular basis. So
I have practiced my positive, finding the positive, finding solutions,
asking for help. You know, I've practiced these things. At
this point in my life. I'm really good at them.
But there are still some days, especially in the positive,
(52:16):
where I may have to get a little help to
find the positive right that minute.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Absolutely, it's always good to ask for a little help. Now,
I think it's time for the song. Are you ready?
Speaker 3 (52:28):
Yeah? Yeah, Okay. So this is a song I just
recently finished, while it feels recently. So this is about
just going ahead and doing what we can what we
can now, because I've talked and written about not waiting
on the mythical day we call someday. So I had
this song in my heart and thought it could be
(52:50):
great that put more pressure on me, making me on away.
Then I I took some good advice and sang it anyway.
This song couldn't change anywise if I kept saying someday,
(53:13):
Because you'll never have enough courage you'll never have enough time,
you'll never have enough money, you'll never have enough spine.
Just do it as good as you can, and do
(53:36):
it better the next time, because if you're waiting on that, someday,
you'll be waiting the rest or your live.
Speaker 2 (53:49):
Thank you back, so that was wonderful. Thank you for
doing this.
Speaker 3 (53:54):
You're gray. Welcome
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