Hello and welcome back to the premise. Hey, Chad.
Hello. It's been a while.
It's been a while. What season are we in?
I don't know. Five, six, seven? Not sure.
We are in our fifth season. It's pretty awesome. And I am really excited to be kicking. Kicking off this season with Bello miguel Cipriani on this day, global accessible awareness day. Bello, welcome to the premise.
Hello. Hello. Thanks for having me.
So good to have you. So I'm going to read your bio. we'll start there and then we'll jump into the conversation. But some of our listeners might remember that we interviewed Bello back in season one, episode seven. So this is kind. Kind of a follow up. We're going to be talking about accessibility and publishing in books and storytelling.
But let's start with your bio, Bello. Miguel Cipriani is a digital inclusion strategist who became passionate about making online spaces accessible after being blinded by a group of men in 2007. His books and articles on disability issues have received numerous awards and international recognition. He has guest lectured at Yale, and in 2020 he was appointed by Governor Tim Walts to the Minnesota Council on
Disability. Through his digital access consulting firm, Olab Media, he has helped countless organizations build inclusive websites and apps. HuffPost referred to him as an agent of change, and SF Weekly named him one of the best disability advocates. Tony Coelho, the primary author and sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities act, called Bello an important voice in disability writing. You can follow Olap media on Instagram and Facebook. Bella, what are your handles so people can follow you?
They could, look me up through media for both Instagram, LinkedIn, and, Facebook.
Okay. And while we're at it, your, website.
Yes. Bello cipriani.com, comma, also olipmedia.com, awesome.
Well, Bello, it is so awesome to have you back. We've known each other for 15 m years, maybe.
Yeah, that's about right.
It's been a while. We got to work with Bello on his first book, a memoir, which was published back in, Was it 2008? I forget what year that book was published.
2011.
Okay. Okay. So 2011. And here you are, you're publishing other books. You're doing so many amazing things. But let's. Let's start with why we're here today. Today is global accessible awareness day. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about what that means and why we're here to talk about it today?
Yes. you know, global accessibility awareness day falls, always, in May, in the middle of the month, it floats around a little bit. It's like a Thursday.
Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I think it's the third Thursday of May every year.
Yeah, correct. And so, you know, this is a day that was, you know, that where people, focus and, bring attention to the need for, digital inclusion and digital accessibility as it comes to digital spaces. And there's a foundation behind it now, but it was a long time in the making. People were, you know, at least advocates, in various, different communities.
You know, the deaf community, the blind community, the neurodivergent community were coming together and, you know, wanted to, just bring some attention around inclusion in digital spaces.
Ironically, today, when we tried to get on to do this podcast, the platform we were using was completely not accessible and we had to switch platforms.
That happens to me a lot, you know, especially because there's, you know, I think people were using Zoom a lot. Zoom is the most accessible, platform out there, 100% accessible. You know, I could use it. my friends who have other disabilities could use it. I have a friend who doesn't have hands, and he's able to use it because he has a foot pedal, and it connects with his foot pedal really well. It's just, you know, some people, there's other platforms now, and it happens to me a lot.
That actually, happened to me earlier today. I was in this, event, and I, had to switch to zoom because of, you know, there was nothing labeled on the page. So it's something that happens a lot. you know, I feel that sometimes, you know, organizations kind of overlook accessibility. And I think that is the point of, you know, of, global accessibility awareness day is to make accessibility a core part of anything you do.
Absolutely. Well, looking at you.
Riverside FM yeah, and us,
I mean, we didn't even look to see. We just, you know, we just grabbed it. And that's. I think that's the point. People need to be more aware. And how embarrassing. When you, when you came on, you called me and you said, well, I just, you know, none of these buttons are labeled. And, you know, I'm just not able to. And I thought, oh, well, maybe I can tell you where to look on the page. And it's like, okay, no, that's not the answer. Let's just go to zoom.
And you were saying earlier that zoom is 100% accessible.
It didn't start out that way. they had a couple bugs, but during the pandemic, they really got their stuff together and they have an accessibility team and they're making updates. And, and when it comes to accessibility, let me just say that there's different levels of accessibility. I think that, some organizations just do provide the very basic. Other organizations go beyond and above, and Zoom is definitely an organization that goes above and beyond. And there's other organizations like Apple
is phenomenal with accessibility. I could buy any product off the shelf and I can make it work for me. and, you know, Microsoft is pretty good too. Google's great. They all tend to be large organizations that have the resources to have big teams of accessibility experts like myself, where, it becomes more challenging, for organizations that are small to mid sized companies where they don't have the, resources to hire a full time accessibility
person. And then they're often having to make these choices on their own and they don't know what to look for, you know. And so that's what, you know, I kind of start off with, you know, saying, you know, first of all, be aware that accessibility is important. It's not just about, you know, helping people with disabilities. It's about making your, providing all users with a more inclusive experience.
Speaking of experiences, talk to us about the experience today and just, you know, how you use the Internet and what that is like for you. You don't necessarily have to use today as an example, but it might be a good one.
Yeah. so I am completely blind, which means I, see no color, no light perception, everything's pitch black. And I use a screen reader and it's a device, it's a software that I, it's available through my laptop. I also have one on my phone and it reads what's on the screen to me in a phonics voice, kind of like Alexa. And that's how I do my day to day work. I've had different, you
know, jobs. You've seen me go through all these jobs where, you know, I've been a college professor, I've been a journalist, now I'm a small business owner. and, you know, I've done all those things with, with my, screen reading software. And so I often, you know, I don't use a mouse.
That's important to bring up because a lot of the times, and this is just like an FYI, if you have to use a mouse to process something on a website or on a website or with a tool, then it's not accessible because that means it's not keyboard accessible.
So how do you click things? How does that work?
Keyboard, accessible means that someone can access the, fully access the product service through their keyboard. And so for example, with, zoom, I hit the tab key and it reads the buttons to me. It says, join, zoom, meeting button. Then I hit enter. And then it says, then I tab around, it says, you know, test your audio, turn, on your camera, you know, I don't know what else it says. It reads everything to me as I tap
around. I could also use the arrow keys to move around and just read the elements because everything's labeled correctly and I hit enter. that's, you know, what keyboard accessible means that anyone could access it with a keyboard, have, the full experience with the keyboard. They're not, you know, they don't have to have a mouse because not everyone could use a mouse.
So is it like it's reading to you and you tap one, it tells you what it is, tap twice, you've clicked it or you wait for the next prompt. I'm just curious how it actually works from the perspective of tapping.
Sure. No. So you tap, you hit the tab key, which is on the top left of your keyboard. Most people don't really use the tab key much, but it's one that for anyone who is using any type of assistive software, it's very popular. So you tab around, the different elements on a website or on a tool, or use the arrows and it reads what's on there. And if the things are not labeled correctly, it'll read that too. It would say graphic. Graphic.
Graphic or unlabeled element like you were hearing with the, other tool we were using.
So you don't know if you should hit enter or what you should do.
Exactly. Sometimes I have to count the unlabeled buttons to see what makes sense. to hit, like, I was able to get into the, you know, use that as an example, get into the application. But I couldn't unmute myself because I didn't know how to do that. I think I kept getting a message that was saying, hit the microphone icon. I'm like, okay, how you need site to do that? Yeah, you
know, and if you're gonna. It probably, there's probably other things wrong with it too, because when I was tabbing, I heard other elements popping up, but there was, nothing related to settings. So again, talking about, major components or accessibility as you're looking for the tools that you're using, if they're keyboard accessible, that is a very good sign.
Nice. Thank you for that. Yeah, that makes sense. It kind of like, it reminds me of using a spreadsheet, tabbing through and hitting enter and choosing your, your spaces that way. It, I think I read somewhere that there are 1 billion people alive today with some form of disability or impairment.
Absolutely. You know, the you know, there's different organizations that have different statistics. You know, some say four and five. Some say, I'm sorry, One in four people is one statistic that I've heard have a disability. Let's, say, I think it's a four ah to. Out of ten people have a disability. You know, these are different organizations assessing different regions and groups. You know, it fluctuates.
And something that you have to take into consideration that there's people with chronic illness, so they move into disability, you know, and then they move back out of it, you know, it's temporary. Right. And an example of that is, you know, someone who gets a lot of migraines when, when they have an episode, they're not able to read for as long.
Right, sure. Or, or some, for some, some of my, I have a friend who when she gets migrate, she actually can't see color that well because she's in so much pain.
Sure. Yeah.
But even, even when you're in pain and you're doing these things, you still, you still have to, you know, buy groceries online and do get stuff done and order your medications and so, it's something that's, you know, it's something to keep in mind.
I actually have a friend who's a writer, very prolific writer, and she recently has been going through issues with her eyes and she couldn't see for, I think, three months. they were giving her different medications and, you know, she could see a little bit of light. It wasn't completely black, but, you know, for all intents and purposes, she was blind for three months and she was considering, what am I going to do? How am I going to keep writing? You know, what's available to me if this is
a permanent situation for me. So you're right. Like, it just, there's so many people who need this important day and who can continue living their life right. In the way that they know it anyway.
Yeah. And, you know, people, I mean, there's Siri, right. And like on the Apple platform. And, and Siri was, you know, was really, you know, as used as an accessibility feature, but not everyone uses, you know, Siri.
Right.
You don't have to be blind to. To use Siri. Everyone uses Siri. another example of that is, you know, the automatic doors at grocery stores. Right? Like, they were really designed for people who are wheelchair users, but, you know, I benefit from them. I love it when the doors just open on their own. Right. So there's, you know, tools that have, offer, like a universal design.
And that's another principle of accessibility. It's universal design for learning or universal design where you make it accessible to a point where everyone benefits.
I like this concept, this idea of universal design, that it is for everyone, not just those who have sight or those who can hear. That's kind of a beautiful way to look at it, as opposed to make it accessible. Make it universal to everyone, definitely.
And there, you know, there is a lot of, you know, universal design is really used a lot in the classroom, course design. and it's a principle that I use all the time. Right. but I think that, you know, because of policy and, and law and, you know, especially because there are some businesses that get sued for having inaccessible products. Right. you know, accessibility is sort of like the foundational term.
Yeah. I would like to know how much has changed since you first found yourself rendered blind and had to completely change your life and relearn everything. How much has changed and gotten better for you since that time?
I think that there's a lot more awareness. I think, you know, technology improved, oh, my God, like a thousand times. And so, you know, when I, when I first became blind, I had a BlackBerry. I couldn't use my BlackBerry anymore. M and I could only use a phone that I could feel the buttons, which left me to this little old fashioned flip phone, and that's all I could do. I had to give that up for a
while. There was a company in Spain, that developed the software where if you have a Windows mobile phone and you bought the software, you could have access to your phone and email. And I was so excited about that. I bought my Windows mobile phone, paid $1,000 for that, and then the software was another $600. Wow. The experience was, like, not that great. It was just barely accessible, you know? So again, it's all about, you know, giving the people the bare minimum. Right. now we have, you know,
iPhone. I have an iPhone that has Siri, and even the Android phones now it has talkback, you know. and so, and those are built in. You have to pay extra. So I feel like there's a lot, a lot of organizations with built in accessibility into their devices and their services, which has been wonderful. where I feel there's a big gap is if I stay within the. With big
companies, I could always find accessibility. It's when I venture into the small business, mid sized companies where I run into trouble. And that's problematic because, you know, 70% of businesses, of the economy, at least in the US, are small businesses. So an example for that is, you know, making restaurant reservations are hard for me, reserving concert tickets, things that are
local. Anytime people say, let's do something local, I cringe because I know that they don't have the resource to make things accessible and it's not going to be easy.
So what are you doing to change that?
I'm launching my online learning academy and it's called Olip Academy and it's through my consulting firm, Olap Media. And we're launching our, image course, today, May 16. And it's called, the course is called image accessibility. And, you know, accessibility is a field in its own right. You know, I have my doctorate in accessibility.
so you have several doctorates, though, let's be clear. Don't you have more than one doctorate?
No, I just have a couple masters.
Okay. That's what it is. I'm like, I know you have a lot of education, so go on. You have a doctorate in accessibility, which. Who knew? I had no idea that was a doctorate.
Yeah. And so whenever, whenever someone could get a doctorate in something, that means that there's a lot of information there, you know, and so, when it comes to, you know, accessibility and it being a field in its own right, it's humongous. I mean, there's so many things. There's plain language, that's color accessibility, there's design. I mean, whenever I talk to, you know, small business owners, which is, you know, my, most of my clients or course creators, they get overwhelmed. They don't
know, they know it's important. But just having to learn all these new skits is scary. And I always tell them, you know, start with your images on anything you make, start adding alt text and then the rest will come naturally. So that's what this, this course focuses on, is how to write effective alt text. And, you know, something that people may not be aware of. But when you have, alt text on your images, on your website that are well written, they make your website rank higher.
Mm
And then they, they pop up in image searches on, on Google.
Absolutely.
So you get more traffic and so what my clients have seen, you know, and I'll just, you know, say the sidestep for a second, that a lot of my clients are coming to me because they've had a judgment letter, which means so that someone complain about them, and they have, you know, three months, sometimes six months to make the changes, or, you know, wow.
Wow.
Yeah.
And so, so it's a reactionary thing.
Yeah. So they're not very happy often when they're talking to me.
Right.
But as, they're doing, making all these changes, they're seeing how their businesses are improving. And something that they've seen a lot is they say, like, wow, our traffic has almost doubled because we added alt text.
You know, it's funny that you say that is, I used to. I mean, just all of our listeners, if they remember, Chad and I have a company called monkey see media, and we built websites for authors. And I remember when we were using alts tags, and no one else was for SEO reasons. And you pointed out to me, gosh, must have been 2011. You know, it's important because people don't know what that image is. It's not just book cover. What does the book cover look like? Walk us through how to write an alt
tag. Alt tag text for a book cover on a website. What would you do for a book cover?
you know, you don't want to overwhelm the, you know, the reader, the screen reader, user with too much information. I would say, you know, keep it to, two sentences and highlight what's most important. I, you know, something that I've seen, I've seen where it's the opposite. Or like, I almost feel bad doing this, but, saying, this, but the NASA, writes the worst old text.
Well, maybe they should hire you. You.
And, and I, and I know that, you know, those pictures that they take in space are just gorgeous, and there's so much to tell. Right, right. But I sometimes, when I've, I've heard one of their descriptions, I, like, walk away, go get coffee and come back and it's still reading the description.
Oh, my gosh. Yeah. That's too much.
The crazy thing to me is that, the screen reader that you're using, because I've heard you using it while we've done, I think, training. It is amazing how quickly that's flying by, all that information.
Yeah, no, there's a lot that. It's reading really quickly.
M that's interesting. Yeah. Okay, so really long descriptions aren't necessarily good for the user because that's what we're talking about here. So when we first started using alt tags, it was for SEO purposes and it worked 100%. But people need to think about who's listening and is this a good experience for them? Is it serving their needs?
Absolutely. And something that really people are starting to do now is there's alt text, that's a label on the image, but then people are adding sometimes visual descriptions to describe the, and that's really for individuals who are neurodivergent. And I encourage my, and I had some of my clients say, well, I have to do alt text and the visual description, that's so much. And they're like, no, listen, they serve different purposes. We're going to make the visual description slightly
different. Just go with it, trust me, because I know the experience. And so what ended up happening is they were saying they had the alt text, which only blind people could hear through their software. But then on the bottom they have visual description and they just had two sentences describing the picture. And then they went into their story. And these are, you know, people, small businesses, you know, mostly
retailers, right? They started getting a lot more engagement in social media because people who are in mobile devices could understand the picture better.
Right. And I think for us it's an, image description. That's the same thing, right? Visual description. And are those two different things?
You know, I think that for a visual description, you're looking at different things. So for example, alt text might say, you know, I'm gonna use your name, you know, book cover of Jennifer, black book cover with Jennifer's name written in silver, in cursive with butterflies around it, right? the visual description wouldn't need the cursive because they could see that it's cursive,
right. The visual description would be more like the book cover of Jennifer, which has her name and flowers and butterflies around it, just because people may not be able to see that detail.
And then there's audio, description in video. So it's like you've got all these things. Yeah, because we used to do some work for the federal government for national park Service, and I had to do videos for them that had audio description in them.
Yes, yes. That's, you know, audio, description is whenever you, there's a secondary audio track that describes any non spoken scenes to the blind person. And so for example, if you know, Jennifer, and I are in a coffee shop, right? And we sit down like the descriptive body would say, you know, Jennifer and bellow, or, you know, right before it happens, is Bella, bellow and Jennifer sitting at a coffee shop, dress dressed with smart clothes or something like that, you know? And, you know,
descriptive audio has become such a big staple. Like, you know, Netflix is great about descriptive audio, and Hulu and Amazon M Prime are picking up, again, you know, when you ask me how things change, I feel like when I first became blind in 2007, and you know what? I did meet you in 2009 because it took me so long to get my book stuff ready. So we worked for a while
before I actually got the book published. But, I felt like back in those days, I was like, begging for an ounce, for a grain of accessibility versus now I have options.
Well, you used to rely on friends and people to help you, and that's just not, that's just not tenable. You know, not everyone has people who can help them, and not everyone wants to ask for help either. You shouldn't have.
It's all of those things. Yeah, for sure.
Has there been anything that has gotten worse over that amount of time.
Or.
Has it just all been better?
Accessibility has become a hot topic for a lot of, you know, states. You know, some states, and especially states in the south, a lot of, you know, small business owners are saying, you know, you can't tell me what to do with my website. This is my business, my website. If you don't, if you can access them, you're not my client. And a lot of the states in the south are actually, you know, when. When accessibility, cases come into the courts, they get thrown out.
And there's, almost like, you know, accessibility, which was making such a good wave up until, you know, very recently now is. It's almost seen that it's becoming segmented where, you know, states like California or Minnesota or Massachusetts, you know, the northern states, the west, the states are really behind accessibility versus, places like Texas. It's not.
Interesting. Wow.
Why am I not surprised?
Yeah. Wow. That's a whole other podcast right there. I want to bring it back to audio if we can. not that we can't get political here. We can, but we were talking the other day about audiobooks and how one would just assume that audiobooks are just 100% accessible. But that's not the case.
Absolutely. it all depends on the platform that you're using. and, ensuring that your books are labeled correctly, that the tracks have names, is not just track five or track zero. Five. How my screen reader would read it. and small details that make a big difference. I think that, I don't know, again, whenever I get anything from Penguin or, Simon and Schuster, their audiobooks are pretty accessible. everything's labeled correctly.
But whenever I, you know, I've gotten books from other presses, I've, you know, the, ebooks are not accessible and the audiobooks have, I'm not able to pick the chapter that I want to listen to. I have to listen to the whole thing through.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
So it makes it going back and forth challenging, especially if it's a book that's a resource book where you want to jump around. It's just not possible. So I feel that there's some work to be done there. I, will be teaching, an accessibility publishing class. I'm working on it now. And I'm going to be teaching that how to make sure that your audiobooks, ebooks and hardcover books are accessible.
I think the publishing world really needs to come on board with this.
Yeah. If for the only reason that it expands their audience.
Totally, totally.
That's an easy one, I think, to justify. Right.
And I wonder, like, you know, because what we're talking about, like, it isn't necessarily expensive, it doesn't cost you any more to label your tracks properly. It just takes some knowledge to know that you need to do it.
Yeah. It's like the alt text. The field is there. Just add a few words. Right.
Yeah, exactly. And people still don't know what, alt text is. And then so our listeners know it's alternative text is really where that came from, alternative to being able to see it. Right, correct. So tell us about your learning platform that you're developing.
Well, I, you know, I'm, I'm a coach, you know, so I'm coaching, you know, my clients through making their spaces more accessible. And I'm hoping to be able to work with more people and reach more people. And so I'm releasing this image, accessibility course today, and I'm hoping to release more in, the summer and in the fall. And I just want to give people a clear guidance on how to make things accessible. you know, I'll be the first to say that accessibility guidelines are not very accessible.
They're hard to understand. They're very technical.
Wow. Now that's irony.
It really is. And, you know, the, the disability movement was really. The access digital accessibility movement was really, you know, brought by, you know, a lot of attorneys and a lot of engineers and, you know, some of.
The most opaque people on the planet.
Right, exactly. And so you have these guidelines, these WCAG guidelines that are, you know, great, but not very accessible. You know, they do all, you know, my, I have a, you know, my doctor is in education and my emphasis is in accessibility, learning accessibility. And so they do all the typical pitfalls of teaching where you define something with the same word. Yellow is yellow. You know, there's a lot of that in the, in the WCAG, you know, criteria, where like, you know, understanding
criteria one. Well, you have to understand criteria two and it's a hyperlink and you go somewhere else and then before you know it, 20 minutes went by. You still don't know, you know, the answer that, you know, you're still only not closer to knowing what you wanted to know. And so, I really I use that as a foundation, but I break it up and you know, and make it more, more digestible for people.
How can people find this?
They could go to olapacademy.com dot.
Okay, let's talk about AI and how AI is going to affect and is affecting accessibility.
It is affecting accessibility a big time. And there's, you know, some, some good wins and some things that are just not not ideal. So I mean, there's automatic captions for videos, that are AI generated. And for someone on a budget doing a live event. If that's all the best you can do, that's the best you can do. I wouldn't use AI for a film or anything like that. I would hire a professional to do it. they just make so many
mistakes. I feel that whatever AI renders, it's usually a starting point. It's not the end all, be all that also carries on to accessibility. Unfortunately, there's all these AI tools, accessibility, AI tools that over promise. And you could just, even if you type in WCAG accessibility, you get all the ads and they say stuff like download our AI, accessibility solution and become 508 compliant or 508
compliant immediately. And that is not true because for 508 compliancy you need to have your PDF's accessible. And how can an automated tool on your website format a PDF that's a file attachment? M do you know what I mean?
Well, and tell us what. Yeah, yeah. And explain to our listeners what it means for a PDF to be accessible.
Yeah, so an accessible PDF has all text, it has headers, it has you know, the attributes that allow screen readers to use it. It has the focus order correctly. you know, I would say that accessible PDF's, it's its own, it's its own beast. It sounds like it takes time to learn, but once you learn it, you know, you are able to produce something of high, high value for sure.
Can you do all of this through Adobe?
yeah, you could use Adobe. You could use, you know, and, you know, and that's what m most, if you're using Adobe, you know, you're going to be using the, you know, the different layers and you have to pay attention to the articles. Layers need to make sure the articles and, you know, and the objects are all reading correctly. Probably, again, I might be getting too technical here, but PDF's are its own
beast. I always tell people, start with alt text, move on to plain language, then move on to doing some color, and design, and then tackle PDF. Because by the time you get PDF, you already have some of those components, so those things will be easier. So when a PDF, when you format a PDF, you already know how to do alt text, you already know how to write in plain language, you already know how to, you know, lay things out in color.
Right, right.
You'll just, you'll just be dealing with the layers and focus reader, focus order and the objects on the page. So it's definitely, it's not, you know, it's something that I wouldn't, I wouldn't recommend that. That's the first class someone takes.
Good to know. Yeah. You know, I also want to talk about like the importance of fonts and spacing and colors and, you know, you mentioned neurodivergent earlier. Can you tell us, our listeners, what that means to be neurodivergent?
Well, you know, neurodivergent is, you know, it encompasses a lot of different communities. You know, someone who is autistic would be considered neurodivergent. Someone who has a learning disability is neurodivergent. you know, I, lost my sight from an assault and I have a traumatic brain injury, so I'm neurodivergent. how it affects me is I cannot track time. I have to have timers and, you know, on me all the time. I
can't tell how much time goes by. I'm like a cat or a dog, you know, they can't tell time either, the passing of time. And so, you know, for me, how it works, for how it affects me is studying, you know, I literally have to have a timer, otherwise I lose track. And, and when you have yeah, exactly. When you have activities that are being timed, that's super stressful for me. So all these different, conditions and diagnoses will be considered neurodivergent and dyslexia as well? Absolutely.
So the fonts we choose when we're putting together a book or an ebook, a website, all of these things really matter. And I've taught design for many, many years in our business, and it's not just about creating something that's pretty. And people need to look beyond a pretty package. Is it accessible? Is this
font easy to read? Like an example that I used to tell people, is typically when you're reading a book on paper, you're going to use serif fonts because the serifs lead one digit to another one, you know, integer to another. And online, you actually have a screen that's like jiggling. Even though your brain may be refreshing the screen faster, it's actually moving. So sans serif fonts work better online. So these are just like little things that people
just don't know about. And all of these things matter when it comes to accessible type, right?
Yes. Color fonts, book size, contrast, contrast. People who are neurodivergent are using a lot of apps to highlight, their books, whatever they're reading. and your book needs to be optimized to allow those features to work correctly.
I'm impressed to hear that Simon and Schuster and some of the big, the big five publishers are actually creating accessible books. Almost, a little surprised, honestly.
You know, I was surprised when I first found one that was successful. Maybe a couple years. Again, it's still pretty new. It's two, three years ago, you know, they, you know, just the biggest. Organize the big organizations, just have more resources.
The threat of a lawsuit is a hell of a motivator.
That's a good point, yeah. Okay, so let's talk about colorblindness. How do people create a website that the colorblind can actually see?
So I do something that's very different. So most people who do what I do, accessibility, they really stick to the WCAG, the different criteria, and they treat it like it's, the different standards, 1.11.2, and follow those criteria really closely. I found that not to be effective when I teach accessibility. So I kind of break it into three groups. And if, you know, if you could keep, remember these three groups and make things accessible for a three, you will create
something accessible. So the three groups that I have is neurodivergent mobility and sensory m. And the sensory community encompasses deaf, visually, impaired, blind, and colorblind. And because it's a sensory thing that's rendering the color the way it is. And something, you know, I've been working with different, you know, research, institutes on getting more research on color blindness.
And the statistics just really kind of, you know, surprised me because it's something like, you know, three out of ten people, have color blindness, some form of color blindness. but the people that have color blindness, like, half of them don't know that they're colorblind.
M you know, Chad and I used to have this argument about this, this duffel bag that I was convinced was gray, and Chad said was green. And then we brought it out into, like, the light in the sunlight, and I was like, okay, yeah, I guess it is green, and it has green tones, but still in a dark room, it looks great to me.
And that's very, you know, green is one of the hardest colors for most, people with any form of, color blindness to detect green and red. And, you know, this doesn't mean that your designs can't, you know, have green or red. They just can't be the primary colors. They could be background colors, you know, not anything that needs attention. I, you know, with some of my clients that, ah, you know, they're e commerce, you know, clients selling products
online. They were so used to the red, you know, the call to action red button.
Yeah.
You know, and they were just horrified that I said, most people can't see that.
And you're like, what? Yeah, exactly.
And then they're like, and then they, then they change it. And I would, you know, I actually suggested blue, and, you know, and they were not having it. And they're like, we changed it to green.
Oh, the other one. Awesome.
Add a lot of yellow to this green, and they turned into a neon green. And m. It was not pretty. And I just said, let's test it out. No, this is accessibility. Like, there. This is the one thing, again, accessibility. It's a field of study, just like anything else. You have to test things out. you can't just rely on theory and let's just test it out. And their sales went through the roof.
Nice.
They had, well, specifically, they had a 42% increase.
That's incredible. Bellow. Yeah, that's incredible.
So, yeah, neon green. And so then I actually took that to my other client, and I said, you know what? My other client tried this neon green button thing. It's not pretty, but he got really good results. And she's a different client, and she says, I'll try anything. You know, she was also very sad to give up her red button. And she went to the neon green and she had success.
Wow. What about yellow? Can we go yellow instead of neon green?
You know, you could do yellow if you have some border surrounded.
Oh, thank God. I don't know if I can. I can do neon green.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, Well, here's change. Right. So. But I think that, I don't know, these are just results that I've had. Right.
You know, so we are balancing between, you know, good design and accessible design, what's actually working. So it's a really good conversation. Can we have both?
I think so.
I think so. Chad's like, I don't know.
I don't know. I've seen, I only say this because I spend a lot of time in adobe products. And they've got one product called color. And they have accessibility. Like, you can choose what, you're aiming for, whether it's color blindness or various settings within color palettes. And some of them are just, oh, so bad.
M well, I mean, there's got to be a way to do both. Oh, boy.
It's a balancing act, right?
Is, is what we consider good design going to change?
And that's the thing.
Yeah.
Certainly did in the eighties, didn't it?
Sure. Yeah. Neon was the thing, right? I wore neon, I have to admit it. Although I'd rather not. yeah. Yeah.
And I'll say this, that, you know, I didn't use the neon green on, you know, my, website. My buttons are blue. And the reason that I choose blue is because I know that, that, by far, is, you know, the color that's easiest for anyone to see.
M it's also a very common color. So from a psychological perspective, you know, I've always thought of blue, as a pretty bad color for a call to action because it makes, it's while it's trusted, you know, banks, universities all use blue. It's just not the color your eyes are going to see first. If, of course, you're not neurodivergent or having, you know, any kind of color blindness, but it's like the kind of color that makes you, like, stop and like,
well, maybe I'll think about taking action. Right. So now we've got two different fields of thought called with regard to a call to action button. So I'll be interested to see how this plays out.
You know, I look at organizations, that have done, have adopted accessibility and good design and are doing really well. And I look at apple. You know, their products are 100% accessible and their products are pretty.
Absolutely. Well, that's a really good example to point to someone who's doing it well. That's great. So there's other things to consider. Okay. There's color, there's, you know, font choice really matters. But, you know, I mentioned earlier spacing, the amount of spacing between the letters or the leading. The spacing between the lines. also how wide paragraphs are, if people can actually read them.
There's, you know, there's also a part of accessibility that, you know, that, that's, around plain language. and plain language is, you know, making your writing more accessible and, you know, how long should paragraphs be? And, you know, that sort of, stuff. And, you know, with plain language, I use plain language in my writing and, you know, I teach creative writing, you know, and a lot of my m students have said like, oh, I can't use this. I. You're
stifling my creativity. but then they do it, they use it and they see how, you know, it makes it, makes it easier to read certain sections, break up, you know, bigger scenes and so on. so, yeah, no, all those things, you know. You know what? I'm going to say something really bold, but I think that, you know, people who make things are artists. And there's this almost this unwritten rule about art where it's like you can't filter it or move it or shape
it, you know? And I feel like sometimes as artists, and I've been a part of this too, we forget that we're also providing a, user experience through your art, you know? And, you know, and if you are an artist that really wants to reach a wide audience, then you make sure that your experience is as inclusive as possible.
And also, there's not an artist on the planet that wouldn't tell you that limitations, breed creativity, right?
Mm.
So if you limit yourself to simple language or you limit yourself to color palettes that are accessible, you then learn to use those to your benefit.
I like that idea. Some sort of a contest, like putting these parameters out, like, okay, what do you got? Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That's cool.
Yeah, that's great, Chad. It, reminds me of, I had this neighborhood that gave me like five sacks of potatoes.
You learn what to do with potatoes.
What am I gonna do with it? And I started making all these things with potatoes and cooking them different way, potato soup and wedges. And I just learned all these things and I was like, wow. You know, like if I really push myself, I made it work.
You took the challenge.
I did.
And now you eat potatoes.
I do.
So take the potato challenge, people.
That's exactly right. There is something else you mentioned to me that I found really interesting. M this idea of the type of paper. Like, for example, if it has any kind of a glossy sheen to it, there are people who use, like, take a photograph of it. So explain to me what you were talking about and why this is important in the publishing world.
You know, certain, certain types of, pages and specifically glossy are hard for some newer, divergent people to read because, the lighting bounces off the page and affects the reading. specifically for people who may have dysgraphia as a condition that affects a lot, but also, for people who are visually impaired or might be light sensitive. you know, for example, for me, I remember very clearly where I, you know, I use my phone to take pictures of, you know, books and papers and
it turns into a PDF on my book. on my, on my phone and it reads it to me. And there was some, a book that I was taking a picture of and every other, like five, fifth or 6th word was missing and I couldn't figure out why. And it wasn't until I asked somebody who said, what's up with this book? And it's like, well, it's kind of glossy. And I realized that it was the lighting, the flash from, you know, my camera when I was taking the picture. And so, yeah. And so I just ended
up not using that book. you know, I couldn't work with that book.
Yeah. Wow. And that's too bad, right? A simple design choice made that book, completely inaccessible to you.
Correct.
Yeah. Wow.
Well, so now we have to produce both matte and gloss covers.
Well, that's a good point. Yeah.
With glossy books, I cannot stand a mat cover. I m have this tactile response to it that does not work with my hands. And I will not read a book that has this particular matte finish on it.
I think he's. I always laugh about it, but then we have a new team member here at Monkey C media and he was talking to me and he said this matte, I just can't stand touching it. And I was like, oh my gosh, Chad's not alone. Okay. But that's totally different, right? I assume your emotional response to the COVID treatment, your hand's emotional response, bringing it back, you know, today being global accessible awareness day.
Bello, is there, like, one piece of advice, like, you want to give our listeners? Because, I mean, we're really. Most of our listeners are either authors or readers, you know, but they're enmeshed or want to be enmeshed in the publishing industry. Is there something you want people to take away from this podcast?
You know, I hear this a lot from other writers. So, like I said, I teach a lot of creative writing classes, and so I have a lot of students who, you know, ask me about making their websites or, you know, how to make a good author website or, you know, what to do with their social media. And, you know, and, a lot of the time is, you know, you don't have to become an accessibility expert to
practice digital accessibility. I would say that, you know, making sure that your, you know, your author websites accessible, making sure that your books are accessible. You know, if you're, if you have an agent, your agent can negotiate that, you know, that your publisher ensure that, you know, your. Your book is made in accessible formats. there are, there's one non profit called bookshare, and the
website's bookshare.org. And, they're a nonprofit that support people with print disabilities, people who, for whatever reason, cannot read print books. and, you know, authors could donate their manuscript to that and becomes part of that library. And every time I say that, you know, authors cringe. Like, I'm not giving my work for free. And yada, yada, yada. And I said, no, it's a good thing. It's. It's not free to the world. It's just people who are members of
this nonprofit. And, you know, you could actually get some publicity through those. Through those channels, too. And, I had this one author friend who ended up doing that, and she said that, she started seeing more people posting reviews because it was on that system.
Oh, wow. Yeah. That's a great piece of advice, especially for our audience.
And it's true, you know, for me, whenever I look at, you know, someone's book, I go look at it there to see if it's there, if it's accessible. And then I go buy. I still go buy it, though.
Oh, nice. Yeah. And I think that's true. Right. I want to support, and I like having actual physical books. So you buy. When you say you buy it. Do you buy it digitally or do you buy a print copy?
About 98% of the time, I buy the cheapest version because I know it's not going to be accessible. You know, I'm not going to buy a paperback that's, you know, 20 something dollars. I buy that ebook that's like, you know, $12.
Yeah.
And I open it and it's like, image, image, blah, blah, blah. You know, what you heard earlier?
Yeah.
It's not accessible. But then I go to bookshare and I download it, and I access that that way.
Oh, wow. So you still want to support them, but you get to experience it through bookshare.org dot.
Because I say to myself, if they took the time to donate to the library, then they did think about me. Maybe they don't have that as a priority. I was, you know, at least a thought in the process.
Right.
Are books still being published in braille?
You know, braille literacy is very low within the blind community. I think last report that I saw, I think it's like only 7% of the blind community reads braille. I, don't read in braille. I just use it to label my devices, like I braille, like on my, my kitchen equipment. And, you know, my spices have braille, but I would not use it to read, you know, anything long at 7%.
I mean, that's shockingly low. So that means, you know, ultimately, a blind person walking around their house is unable to. Well, Spice is a great example if you want to cook. how do you know which spice you're using if you can't read braille?
You know, I think most blind people, I'm not. I can't speak for most blind people, but at least, like, you know, part of a lot of different blind communities. Like, they're using a lot of apps. They take pictures of their devices, and it reads a text to them.
unless it's glossy.
Yeah, they're using, you know, different, there's devices that you could scan barcodes and that, you know, and then that tells you what the product is, too, through the barcode. so there's a lot of different tools out there, but braille literacy is pretty low.
Hm. I've always found it just incredible to think about reading through your fingers and reading through bumps. That's just such for me, a mind boggling feat to learn a whole new language. And how old were you when you became blind?
I was 26. So I was in my mid twenties learning braille. And it was hard. I had a really hard time with it, but, you know, I did it and I keep up with it. And I would say that I still keep in touch with the people who I. Who are in my braille class, and I would say about half of them tell me I lost it. I stopped using it and I lost it.
M it's going to be a lost language at this rate.
I don't think it'll be a lost language. I think there's always going to be people who use it. but I, you know, I mean, I still use it. If I, you know, if I go to a restaurant and they offer me the braille menu, I'll take it. I'll read. I'll read a restaurant menu with braille. I'm not going to read a novel in braille, though.
How often does a restaurant have a braille menu, you know?
not very often. If I were to quantify my experience, I'd be, like, maybe 30% of the time.
No, I think that's quite a bit, actually. I'm surprised.
Yeah, I'm going to start asking.
I'm curious. And Chaz, like, why? I don't know. I find that fascinating and good on him. Right. That's very. That's very cool. I feel proud of those 30 percenters. I want to talk about your books. unless there's something else you want to talk about, you know, that you want people to know. I think my takeaway, actually, is that it's not as hard as you think to make your products accessible and to make them available and universal, as we.
Started out, saying, I agree, you know, and, I'll admit I'll put myself out there, you know, raise my hand and say that, you know, because accessibility is such a large field, you know, when it came to alt text and image accessibility, I was like, yeah, we need this and this. But then when it came down to plain language, I was like, oh, my goodness, I'm a writer. Can I really? You know, that was the one part that was hard for me, and I realized that, you know, I'm uncomfortable with this and
why. And I had to really sit down and figure out why, you know, and I practice and I teach it, but I feel like there's things that. Aspects of accessibility that are always hard for some. For some people.
Well, tell. Give us an example of what. Why was plain language hard for you? Because you like to use colorful language or, What do you mean?
Well, you know, plain language, you know, it's. There's, you know, if there's reading level, there's a lot of different components to it. And I didn't want to start writing with any of these things in mind. You know, I want to just. And you don't, you know, that was one of my misconceptions. I was like, yeah, I'm just gonna. You don't actually apply the plain language until you go into the editing phase. Right?
So it wasn't, I had all these fears, I had made up all these rules, and it wasn't, I really sat down and studied it and took, you know, and by the way, by means study it, because there isn't, there weren't any classes. There were just people writing articles about it. And it wasn't until I was like, you know, I was afraid of this. And there is, there really isn't much I could actually create my own model and teach it to others because the way it's being presented to people, it's
scary. And I think that's something that, you know, you know, as a. I went to seminary school, right. I don't know if you knew that.
But I went to seminary school, and.
You know, I have my master's in theology and religion. And so when you're talking to people, people really get this uncomfortable when they're presented with change, any type of change. That's one very common thing, right. The other one is when they are, not given any options. When people are denied choice, they get upset. And I was studying with this buddhist monk where he said, life is all about choices. That's why we're here. We have the option to choose
always. You know that when you're on the right path, when you always have choices. If you have no choices, then there's something wrong with your path. And I really feel that that applies a lot to accessibility because, you know, I get. I always get some type of pushback from people in different spaces. You know, people are on board with this, all the great. Yeah. Captions. Yeah, yeah. Plain language. Oh, I don't. My writer friends, you know, scoff at the plain language,
and I did, too. You know, and there's always, you know, people have hiccups or, you know, hang ups or some of these things, and it's that not, you know, being taken away, the option to choose. And it wasn't until I started taking these, you know, designing my courses that I realized, like, no, there's still choices. And even with plain language, like, there's different levels of plain language, right. And, you know, I think that the type of books that I write are, you
know, memoir and, literary fiction. Like, I could handle that. I don't need to, add graphics or do these other things that are part of plain language, or be mindful of the, adjectives or my expression. I could still do this.
Within this confinement, give me an example of plain language. Because you just said there's levels. So maybe give an example of two options. Choose whatever you want.
Sure. So I would say that, with plain language, you want to be mindful of adjectives, you want to be mindful of adverbs. Those are one to be mindful of. And you just want to, Here's an example. So I would say Jennifer sat alone in her kitchen. That's plain language, right? a creative writer might say Jennifer was playing with her and popping her gum, wearing her pink sweater in her kitchen, laughing when the phone rang. You know, that's what most creative writer people would
say. And I would just, I think the first one, you know, works too. It all depends of what it is. You know, the second one example, that would not be a good intro sentence.
So, I mean, are you talking about using plain language, like in stories, or are we just talking about like, alt text and image descriptions? Okay. Now that I have, I gotta say, I feel a little pushed back on that myself. And then what's, and then what's the point of it? Like, it's just easier to digest.
for readability.
Okay.
And there's a lot of information online on readability and writing, making sure that your work is readable to your audience.
So, like, if I'm writing an article about, you know, design or even podcasting or, you know, whatever, because I, I write in my blog marketing tips once a week. So using plain language there would really behoove me because it would be more accessible to all and universal to more people.
I think plain language is absolutely necessary if you're teaching. Because you're teaching just the core. Right. I think that in fiction and more creative spaces, you have more creative license to admit. And here's an example of plain language. I'm working on, graphic memoir. And in the graphic memoir, I used the term, you know, my m home. My home, flashback to its edwardian period time. And what I was trying to say is that my home, like, the electricity was,
like, it was. All these things were falling apart, like it was going back to its original time when it was built.
Right, right. And you could have said just that.
Exactly.
okay, so you're currently writing a graphic memoir.
I am.
I find that really interesting. What made that. What made you decide to do that?
So, back in 2021, the, institute in literature in Germany flew me to Germany for a book festival. Frankfurt. no, it was, at the institute. The institute on Literature.
Oh, okay. Gotcha. Gotcha.
Munster, Germany. And so I got to stay, you know, I got to read at this castle, you know, and it was such an amazing experience. And, you know, I'm not sure if I ever shared this with you, but, after the US, my best. My biggest sales come from Germany.
Wow, that's pretty cool.
Yeah. The US, Germany, and France. and so when I was in Germany, I was sitting in this, you know, like, this little, small, little group of people that were all independent publishers and small, small presses, and they were asking about, you know, graphic memoirs, because apparently that's, like, really popular. And they were kind of doing, like, a round robin, and they said, oh, you so and so
what do you think about, you know, graphic memoirs? Oh, I think they're popular, and we're doing two next year, and they're walking around, you know, kind of going around, and when they got to me, they said, oh, I'm sorry, bello. Yeah. We realized you could never have a graphic memoir.
That sounds like a challenge.
The hell I can't.
And I was like, I remember waking up the next morning, like, my jaw.
Hurt, because I was like, do not tell me no.
Yeah, exactly. Right? So I was thinking. So I was. And I connected with this local artist here in Minneapolis, and, you know, I had. I had this essay that I put together, and, it's a piece that's, 20,000 words, which is, you know, too short for, like, an essay in an anthology, but not long enough for, like, a memoir book. And so I, you know, and it's just the way the piece ended up to be. It just couldn't, you know, make it shorter
or do anything else with it. And I just decided that with 27,000 words, what if we had some pictures and make it a graphic memoir?
That's cool.
And so that's what we're doing. And in making the whole process accessible, we started touching my manuscript, and we're like, hey, hey, hey. But through a lot of deep breathing and contemplation, I realized that it only made my language more accessible, and m more people could understand it. And I remember testing, you know, working with, you know, people who are neurodivergent,
you know, who were autistic or, you know, who would. I would play different excerpts of the book, and they would literally say, I don't know what that means. And the second time with the plain language, like, oh, that's beautiful.
Oh, wow. Wow. Are you publishing this through ola books?
I, Yes, but I applied for a grant, and so that's, what I'm kind of hoping comes through, and then I'll. And then I'll release it. This is how, you know, Oled books. We're a small press, and everything we do is through grants.
Yeah. And you have a book coming out in, I think, early June, is that right?
July. Yeah. We have an anthology.
Tell us more about that.
the anthology is called accessing parenthood, and it is, a collection of stories by individuals, who identify as having a disability and are also parenting.
Right? Yeah. And I've read, actually, quite a few of the stories. It's a really good book. I, hope a lot of people read it. We helped design the COVID on this book, and it was a really interesting experience working with you and your team and making sure the colors were right, working with all these things, with the fonts. and, yeah, I, you know, starting with let's design a pretty book cover, too. Let's make sure this is accessible across
the board. And one of the things that happened is the grass is sort of a pinkish. We kind of did this interesting color study, I guess, where, we use all these different colors, and it's really pretty. It looks very painterly. It looks kind of like a, like a degas or something. But I really appreciated the process. And working with your team.
No, we. We love the COVID And, you know, I printed a, I printed the COVID out, and I have it on my desk here. And I love it when people, you know, anyone who comes by and looks at it, they're like, oh, that's so pretty.
That's awesome. Well, okay, so let's come. What's the pub date on that one?
July. we are waiting for a couple things. this week, we'll be setting the pub date probably in the next week or so.
Okay. Okay. And people can look to olibbooks.com for that?
Yes.
And I just want to tell our readers that bellow has several books out blind. A memoir. Fantastic. you also wrote midday, dreams, which I guess falls under literary fiction. It's a short novella. And, your first book with Ola books was firsts coming of age stories by people with disabilities. So there's a lot of great stuff that you've put out there. Bellow. I hope people will check it out. thank you for joining us today on this global accessible awareness day. It's been a real pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, well, until next time, because, you know, I can't not have you back. We're definitely going to find more things to talk about when we bellow.
I, hope so, considering the rate of your output.
Yeah, exactly. You just never cease to amaze and impress and, Delight. That's it. Amaze and impress and delight me with everything you're doing for the community, both in books and the accessibility community. So thank you.
Thank you.
You can learn more about Bello Cipriani and his books, his projects, his learning [email protected]. Until next time, please like us. And I haven't done this in so long, I don't have a script in front of me.
Please like and subscribe.
Please like us and subscribe to the premise everywhere you get your podcasts. And, we'll probably rerecord that ending and that's it. Thanks a lot. Bye.