- [Kari] Hello everyone, thanks for joining us today. Just gonna give a few minutes for everyone to get rolled into the room here before we get started. So just be patient with us, we will begin momentarily. Again, good morning, good afternoon. My name is Kari Kernen. I am the Sales Development Manager here at TPGi. Gonna get, wait one more minute before we get started. Just let a few more people keep rolling into the room, so just hang tight with us. Thanks again everyone for joining us today for, "Don't Hesitate to Communicate, Vispero's Own Blindness/Vision Impairment and Diversity Awareness Workshop". Just wanna go over a few housekeeping items before we get started. This session is being recorded and we will email everyone the recording after the event. We have captions available, so feel free to use them as needed. We will have some time for some live Q and A at the end. Please use the Q and A box and we will answer as many of the questions as we can during the presentation. If we don't get to your question, we will reach out to you after, make sure that we get you an answer there. There will also be a little bit of audience participation. So I've got the chat turned on. Feel free to pipe in your responses into the chat box to any of the questions that Amy may ask. But if you have questions of your own for our host, please put those into the Q and A box. And lastly, if anyone needs any accessibility support training, usability testing, in the email that we send out afterwards, there will also be a link where you can schedule some time to speak with one of our experts. And with that, I will let Amy get started and provide an introduction of herself.

- Well thank you so much, Kari for your introduction. Hi everyone, my name is Amy Albin. And to get us started, we're on slide one now, but let's move to slide two. "I'll Hear You Later!" Imagine a sighted person and a blind and vision impaired person are saying goodbye to each other. The sighted person, in order to be sensitive to the fact that the blind and vision impaired person can't see, instead of saying, "I'll see you later", they say, "Goodbye, I'll hear you later". Now, the question I would ask you, and you don't have to raise your hand or put it in the chat box, but just think about it. Do you think that it's appropriate to say, "I'll hear you later", to a blind or vision impaired person? My answer would be, it's not necessary, because blind and vision impaired people use words like see all the time, as we will see in future slides. And I hope you see what I did there. Now we move to slide three, "Housekeeping". Kari did go through a lot of this, so I will just take this opportunity to talk a little bit more about myself. My name is Amy Albin. I've been the Human Resources Intern at The Sparrow since September, 2022. I've been totally blind since birth. While much of this workshop has been inspired by research, both from organizations of and for the blind, as well as by employees of The Sparrow, I draw heavily from my own experiences and opinions. Another blind or vision impaired person giving this workshop might give a completely different workshop, but I think a lot of it would be similar. So other than that, this is a safe space and have fun. Slide four, "Don't Hesitate to Communicate". This is a big theme for this workshop. In fact, it is the title. Communicate honestly and respectfully whether the person is sighted or blind or vision impaired. If you take nothing else away from this workshop, that's the message that I want you to get today. Many things in this workshop apply not just to blind or vision impaired people, but also to other people who are seen as different or part of marginalized groups. And a lot of these techniques can be used to communicate with people in all aspects of your life. Slide five, make mistakes and move on with buzz words. So, it can be helpful to mutually agree on a word that you can say to discuss uncomfortable topics when you wanna bring something up that might be a little bit scary. And ideally the word should be something fun, something that will make people laugh, to ease the tension. And so, some of us at The Sparrow have decided to use the word buzz. But the word could be anything that works for you. So the idea is that when someone says the word, let's just use buzz for example. So when someone says buzz, everyone else stops and listens. So, you can say buzz if someone is giving a presentation and there is an inaccessible chart and you want to let them know that you can't access it. The presenter should stop. And then you can ask them to describe the chart. A buzz word can give us the courage so we don't hesitate to communicate. And then our second theme is, make mistakes and move on because you know what? We're not gonna get it right the first time, the second, the third, or even the fourth time. When I got here this afternoon, I, it took me, I had a camera issue and it took quite a while to get it working. So we all make mistakes, but the key is that we can move on from them. And speaking of mistakes, it looks like I left some blank slides here by accident, but it's okay because I can just move to this slide right here. So, each blind and vision impaired person and each sighted person is unique. We each have different skill levels, we've had different opportunities growing up and now at different levels of acceptance of disability and difference. So don't hesitate to communicate with each person as an individual and as always, make mistakes and move on. Now Kari, I'm wondering are there any, is anyone putting buzz in the chat right now and-

- [Kari] Nope, I don't see any buzzes. No one has our buzz.

- Well the reason- The reason I ask is because the blank slides were actually not a mistake. I left them there intentionally and then said let's move to this slide right here and didn't say the title or the slide number. And that's inaccessible. And I wanted to know if anyone would say buzz. But anyway, now we move to slide nine, "Need to Know Who's BVI? Why?" I've had people ask me, I've had people ask me, especially in virtual environments, how do we know who's blind or vision impaired? And what I would say is, it's important to not necessarily know who's blind or impaired, but to know what accommodations people need without putting people on the spot to disclose whether or not they're blind or vision impaired. So something you can do is, this is something I ask everyone I work with, whether I think they're sighted or blind or vision impaired. Please let me know If you ever need any accommodations to make your experience here more accessible. Feel free to talk to me in private or to the larger group, whichever you prefer. And the big thing with this is make sure that you're actually doing that. If you say it, it would be important then to make sure that you ask everyone if they need accommodations, whether they look like they're blind or vision impaired or whether they look like they're sighted. Because there are other disabilities too that might be hidden as well. So if you treat everyone equally in that regard, it's helpful that people won't feel singled out. People who are blind or vision impaired can choose to disclose that. "By the way, I'm vision impaired. I will tell you the accommodations I need. Please don't hesitate to communicate any questions you may have." But no one should feel pressured to disclose their vision status or any other ability status to people who don't need to know for legal reasons. Slide 10, "The Ordinary Words You Say Are Okay". It's okay to use phrases like, I'll see you later. As we discussed before, there's no need to say, "I'll hear you later", because no one says that. It's okay to talk about line of sight in a business context. For example, forecasting. It's also okay to talk about visual experiences that you have had, like the beautiful sunset you might have seen last night. Because while I might not know I'm well, I might not have ever experienced a sunset, I know what it's like to experience something beautiful, like listening to a great song or even smelling a flower. And I still wanna enjoy those experiences with you. Many of us like to watch TV and movies. So even if I'm technically listening to TV, I say I'm watching TV. Many of us use blind to refer to any degree of visual impairment, from partial site to total blindness. Some of us use terms like vision impaired, low vision, et cetera. It's really up to the person which term they prefer to use. And in my experience I've found that many people will not make a big deal if you use the "wrong" term to describe them. So like if you say, if, I prefer to describe myself as blind, but I'm not gonna get offended if someone calls me low vision or vision impaired. And the reason I use blind and vision impaired throughout this workshop is just to be, to appeal and include as broad an audience as possible. And whether you're blind or vision impaired or sighted, please don't hesitate to communicate if you're ever uncomfortable about any of these words, and as always, make mistakes and move on. Slide 11, "Sometimes Voices Sound the Same, Say Your Name". If you're talking to a blind or vision impaired person, you can say who you are. So like if I come into the webinar and Kari's the panelist and she comes in, she says, "Hi Amy, this is Kari.", there is no need to physically describe herself. What do I mean by that? Sometimes people like to say their hair color, what shirt they're wearing, maybe their height, maybe their race. And from my experience, as well as the other blind and vision impaired people I've talked to, if I want to know what you look like, then I'll be the one to ask you. So there's no need to do that. It's rude to ask me to guess who you are because if I don't know who you are, that's gonna be very awkward for both of us. So please try to avoid that. Not recognizing your voice doesn't mean I don't remember you and it doesn't mean that I don't care about you. Please also let me know if there are animals, like cats or dogs or children in the space with us, especially the physical, if it's a in-person space. Basically any sort of living creature that might move unpredictably, I will want to know that it is there before it jumps on me, licks me, et cetera. Tell me when you're leaving so that I don't talk to a wall. That has happened, it's not fun. But both blind or vision impaired and sighted people are responsible for making sure that everyone's included in activity if they want to be. It is a two-way street. So if you don't know who you're talking to as a blind or vision impaired person or even as a sighted person, it happens to all of us that we forget someone's name or don't recognize someone, don't hesitate to communicate. It's, you can simply say, "Can you tell me who's speaking?" I've, when Kari came into the call today, I said, "Is it Kari?" Because that's what I thought and I was just checking and we were always empowered to do that. Slide 12, a highly recommended topic, "Do I Need Help or Can I Do it Myself?" To get my attention, please say my name and wait for me to respond. If you don't know my name and I think you might be talking to me, I'll ask politely. And if I'm wrong and you were talking to someone else, oh well, made a mistake and move on. If you think I might need help, please ask once and then respect my answer. I was talking to someone who has that habit of asking, "Are you sure?" "Are you sure?" "Are you sure?" Even if the person says no, just because they wanna be helpful. And they don't just do it to people with disabilities, they do it to everyone. The reason this, are you sure, are you sure, might be more upsetting to a person with a disability, such as a blind or vision impaired person is because throughout our lives we've often been seen by others and by society as less capable. So that's why that might be more upsetting. And if I do say, yes, I do need help, I will ask for what I need. Please, please, please don't touch or grab me without my permission unless I'm in immediate physical danger. So you can use common sense on that. If you do this, it might provoke a negative response. What do I mean by that? So, while it might not be true in an audience like this one, as a blind person, I'm often the only blind or vision impaired person that you've ever met. And we often feel this internalized pressure to be the ambassador, the educator, the nice person. But sometimes we don't have the energy to be nice and sometimes it slips and if that personas ever going to slip, it might be when we are touched, grabbed, or steered without our permission. So, you've been warned. Sometimes I'll use a cane or a dog independently. I don't have a dog, but many blind and vision impaired people do. Sometimes I'll wanna take your arm just above the elbow and walk a half step behind. Another big don't is to never touch a cane or pet a working dog guide without the permission of a blind or vision impaired person because you're, this can actually put the person in danger by interfering with their mobility device or animal. As blind and vision impaired people we're responsible for being proactive and asking for help when we need it and not hesitating to communicate. This can go a long way when we're proactive on helping sighted people to see that we are as capable as we know ourselves to be And as always, make mistakes and move on. Slide 13, just some other tips for helping. Some people like to have their hand placed on the back of a chair so they know where to sit. But this is a touch, so please ask first. Some people like to be told where their food is on a plate. So if the mashed potatoes are at the top of the plate, you can say mashed potatoes at 12. And if the peas are at the bottom, you could say peas at six. This is the kind of thing that some people will value a lot more than others. Some people will be fine figuring it out on their own. Other people will ask if they wanna know where their food is. Try not to leave doors partly open. Cabinets open. I've hit my head on kitchen cabinets plenty of times. Or items on the floor. And push chairs in around tables and desks. And don't leave open drink containers around because you might come back and you will have no drink left. Slide 14, "Over There? Over Where?". So when I was preparing for this workshop, I got this example from someone that I said, this is so good, I'm stealing it, but leaving their identity anonymous. So describe where things are. The example is, "At a conference and I need the laptop charger. Where is it?" You can say, "It's under the table to your left about two feet". As soon as you lift the table skirt, feel immediately right with your hand and it's there coiled up with a tie. The tie is rubber with raised bumps on it. Now I don't know about you, but to me, that answer is quite a lot better than, "Where is the laptop charger?" "Oh, it's there." Slide 15, "Don't be Amazed that I'm Not Fazed". So, a lot of times if you're unfamiliar with blind or vision impaired people, you might be really impressed with almost everything we do and you might want to compliment us. So, here are some tips. Would you compliment a sighted person in the same situation? For example, if a blind or vision impaired person writes a really good report, or dare I say, leads a really great workshop, maybe, it doesn't matter if they're blind or vision impaired or if they're sighted, you think it was a great quality piece of work or a good outfit, you can compliment them. I love being lavished with praise when it's genuinely deserved praise. But what if you wanna compliment me on something that would be ordinary for a sighted person, like walking to the office or eating lunch, cutting up meat with a knife and a fork? Well, it turns out that blind or vision impaired people, many of us do these ordinary tasks all the time and it's not a big deal for us, even though it may be for you because it's the first time you're seeing a blind or vision impaired person doing this. And so, we might find the compliment a bit patronizing even if that is not how you see it at all. But this is something that might take some getting used to. So as always, make mistakes and move on. Slide 16, "You Have a Choice How You Use Your Voice". So please don't talk to a blind or vision impaired person louder, slower, in a higher pitch baby talk. "Are you all enjoying the workshop today?" Yeah, you don't need to do that. And people will talk to me like that, even though I'm an adult. Also, please don't talk to the person next to me instead of me directly. I was at a restaurant a couple months ago and I was with a friend and the server asked my friend, does she, meaning me, want a braille menu? Instead of asking me. So please try not to do that. And don't hesitate to communicate if someone is doing one of these things, either to you or to someone around you, even if it's unintentional. And make mistakes and move on. Slide 17, "Expectations, Accommodations". So, if you're working with some blind or vision impaired colleagues, or maybe even just one, you might be wondering how much you can ask of me at work, or if things will take me extra time. This might come into your head even when you're thinking of whether or not to hire a blind or vision impaired person. So, keep expectations the same for me as you would for a sighted person. Because it turns out that blind and vision impaired people are qualified for lots of different types of jobs. Almost every job you could think of. But we do use accommodations. But as a blind person, I am responsible for asking for those accommodations. Also, blind and vision impaired and sighted people need to tell each other when there's room for improvement. Is the document inaccessible? If you as a blind or vision impaired person or if you as a sighted person notices that a document is inaccessible, you can say something to the person who created it. Is there an issue with hygiene? The reason I mentioned this is because some people assume that if someone has some sort of a hygiene issue or any other kind of issue, they go right to, "Well it's 'cause they're blind." "It's 'cause they're vision impaired." And what I would say to that is no, just treat that like you would if it were a sighted person. The example that I like to use is if you are eating lunch with a colleague and you notice they have a piece of food in between their teeth, you might not wanna tell them because you might wanna be nice and not embarrass them. But when you think about it, they'll be going to meeting after meeting throughout the rest of their day with that food in their teeth, embarrassing themselves without even knowing it. So therefore, it is helpful to mention that to the person because if you were in their situation, you would wanna know. And it's okay to do it one-on-one. You don't have to do it in a group full of people. But do let people know. Because throughout this workshop, one of my main themes has been, make mistakes and move on. But if we don't know that we've made a mistake, we can't move on. Slide 18, "Make Accessibility Complete When You Meet." These tips will apply to both virtual and face-to-face meetings. So try to send materials ahead of time to all participants. So if you're gonna have slides, charts, a lot of times when we share our screen, a person using JAWS or another screen reader might not be able to have access to that screen share. So it's helpful to send things ahead of time. Include text descriptions of any images. So you can use what's known as alt text or alternative text. If you don't know how to do that, it's also helpful to just put a quick description of your image. Like if you're putting an image in the chat, just put a quick description as text so that everyone can follow it. Let someone know if there is a problem with their camera. Like if they're not centered, if they're, they have a problem with their background, or if their camera's not working at all. If something visually interesting happens, like a child or a cat or a dog walks into the room, it's helpful to explain, you know, especially if everyone starts laughing. It, yeah, don't leave us out. If you're giving a presentation, it's helpful to describe what you're talking about in detail even if you have already sent the slides ahead of time. So for example, if someone sends me an Excel document and then they're giving a presentation and I'm in the group with everyone, I've got JAWS and I've got the Excel document, and then they say, "As shown here, we can see that revenue has increased." Okay, well it doesn't matter that I don't have the, that it, okay, well it doesn't matter that I have the document because I still don't know where here is. So, instead you can say, "As shown on the third column of the 2022 sales row, we can see that revenue has increased." So just being very descriptive. And you can also do all of these things without disclosing who is blind or vision impaired. So imagine I'm the only blind or vision impaired person in the room. Would you say, "Okay, as shown here, and Amy, it's the, it's the last row." Would you do that, in a room full of people? Well, I would prefer if you just said, "As shown in the last row, revenue has increased." And that way you're talking to everyone, but you're still giving me, as the blind vision impaired person the information that I need. If something's unclear or inaccessible and you don't know how to make it clear or accessible, please, don't hesitate to communicate. I like to say it's a two-way street. So if I'm a blind or vision impaired person and a bunch of people start laughing and I don't know why, I'm also empowered to ask, "Hey, can someone please tell me what's going on?" So we look out for each other and we look out for ourselves. But as always, make mistakes and move on. Slide 19, "Don't Make Something Just for Me Because I Can't See." Make things like documents accessible to everyone. I've heard of people making a document that's, has images for the sighted people and then making a separate one without images for me. You don't need to do that because the great thing about alt text, alternative text, is that you can do both in one document, where you can have the images that sighted people can see, and then you can have the descriptions that blind vision impaired people can pick up, with their screen readers, with their braille displays. If you feel that you or someone else is being singled out, as always, don't hesitate to communicate, make mistakes and move on because we're all on the same team. The human team. Slide 20, "I Can't See, But Get to Know the Whole Me." While it may not be true for everyone, many of us are perfectly comfortable talking about our blindness or vision impairment, but it can get boring. What do I mean by that? I had a friend who used to spend hours trying to explain to me what it felt like to look at the color gray, despite my repeated protestations that I have been blind since birth. And so no matter what you say, I won't know what you're talking about. So that kind of thing can get a little bit boring. If you wanna change a conversation topic, you can. Be direct and redirect. "Hey, I'd really like to talk about the meeting notes right now if that's okay with you." Blindness and vision impairment is not the only thing about me, it's one of many characteristics I have. For example, I also have a master's degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. I have two younger siblings and I'm a singer, just to name a few other traits about me. So please, don't hesitate to communicate about a wide range of topics. Yes, even movies. But as always, make mistakes and move on. Now, that is the last slide of pure dos and don'ts. And now we have story time on slide 21 here. I am going to go through the story and then I just want all of you to think about what the people are doing well and what they're doing differently in these situations. So we have Sammy and Briana, two women who just met yesterday and we can assume they're work colleagues, have agreed to meet for lunch. So we can remember that Sammy S is sighted and then Briana B is blind. And since I'm talking about one person here, I'll just use the word blind because that's how she chooses to refer to herself. I say blind and vision impaired when I'm talking about the population in general. So, we will start on slide 22, "Entrance". Briana enters the cafeteria alone with her cane. Sammy says, "Wow, you got here all by yourself. That's amazing. The hallways are like a maze. Even I get lost in this building." Briana says, "Thank you. I have all sorts of techniques for traveling and living independently. I'll be happy to answer any questions." So the question that I would like you all to think about, is Sammy's compliment likely to be welcomed by Briana? So you may put yes or no in the chat, you don't have to, but just think about it for a few seconds. So, my view on this, yeah, my view on this is that it is not appropriate or necessary or likely to be welcomed by Briana because she's complimenting her for finding the building by herself, the cafeteria by herself, which would be something that is very ordinary for a sighted person, and in fact very ordinary for blind and vision impaired people as well. So moving on, slide 23, "Walking." Sammy grabs Briana's arm and says, "Let's order." Briana lets Sammy steer her to the counter. So, the question, is this situation going well right now, yes or no? Okay, so all of you have had really good chat responses so far. I love the participation and I love you all not hesitating to communicate. It makes me so happy. So a lot of you are saying no, and I would agree to that because not only did she touch her without her permission, she steered her and Briana let her do it. She didn't advocate for herself. And a lot of times as a blind person, I wish that I had advocated when I didn't. And I wish that I could turn back the clock, which is exactly what happens here on slide 24, titled, "Turn Back the Clock." Sammy grabs Briana's arm and says, "Let's order". This time, Briana says, "Sammy, thanks so much for your help. I know you don't mean any harm, but I feel uncomfortable being touched without being asked. Will you please let go of my arm and let me hold yours instead?" Sammy says, "I'm sorry, thanks for letting me know." Briana holds Sammy's arm and they walk to the counter. Much better. And we see in that example, unlike the previous one, that Briana did not hesitate to communicate. And so Sammy was able to move on from her mistake. Slide 25, "Ordering." So now we have Daniel. Daniel works behind the counter. Daniel says, and you can imagine Sammy and Briana are both there together. And Daniel says, "Hi Sammy, I see you have a new friend. What will you be ordering?" Sammy says, "I'll have a cheeseburger." Daniel says, "And what will your friend be having?" Sammy says, "Briana, tell Daniel what you want." So my question for all of you, is this situation going well right now? Yes or no? "Daniel should speak to Briana directly". Yes, I agree that yes and no. Daniel should speak to Briana directly and also, Sammy could do a bit better job advocating for Briana. She could say, when he says, what will your friend be having? She could say, "Well her name's Briana, you can ask her." And right now by saying, "Briana, tell him what you want", she's a bit of reinforcing the notion that Briana's not capable. But let's see how Briana handles it. Slide 26, "Briana's Answer." Briana says, "Hi Daniel. I'll have chicken with rice and mashed potatoes. By the way, I'm Briana, if you wanna talk to me, you can call my name to get my attention and I'll respond. It's great to meet you." Daniel hands Briana her plate. So this is really great because Briana, while she might internally be feeling really upset at Daniel and even really upset at Sammy for not sticking up for her, she doesn't let any of that show. She's nice and she's direct and she also says, it's nice to meet you, it's great to meet you. Showing that she wants to be friendly with him. And Daniel seems to get the message at the end because he hands Briana her plate instead of handing it to Sammy. Slide 27, "Plate." Sammy says, "Can I bring your plate to the table for you?" Briana says, "Yes, thank you so much." Sammy says, "Sometimes I eat with George, one of our other blind employees. He always asks me to carry his plate because he's afraid he'll spill it. One time, he tried to carry it himself and he spilled his food all over." So the question, are Sammy's comments about George appropriate? Yes or no? Okay, I'm gonna say no. And the reason I say no is because Sammy's blabbing and Briana can actually explain why this is bad in a way much better than I can. Although actually that's not true because I created Briana. But you all get the idea. Slide 28, "Plate ." Briana says, "Sammy, you're awesome for carrying my plate. Can I say something?" So she starts delicately. "If I ever spilled anything I wouldn't want everyone to know. George may feel the same." Sammy says, "You're right. I shouldn't be blabbing like that. Thanks for calling me out. And keep reminding me if I do it again." They walk to the table together. So in this example, we see that once again, Briana didn't hesitate to communicate, and Sammy this time made a pretty big mistake, but she was still able to move on. Let's see if Sammy can redeem herself. Slide 29, "Talking." Sammy says, "I know you're um, your vision..." Briana says, "I'm blind." Sammy says, "Yeah, I know you're, uh, blind." So she's having a little bit of trouble with the word blind here. But then she says, "But I've always wondered if you can see in your dreams." Briana says, "That's a great question. I can't see in my dreams because I was blind from birth and never had visual input. But people who became blind later in life might see in their dreams." Sammy says, "That's fascinating. So are other people in your family blind?" Briana says, "Yeah, my brother. Anyway, I'm coming in at 8:00 AM tomorrow to start working on the project." Sammy says, "How do you get to work by yourself?" So we see that Briana's trying to move the conversation along right now, and Sammy's not into it. Slide 30, "More Talking." Briana says, "I take the train. I saw this guy on the train today and I told him a bit about what we do here at this company." And Sammy says, "You saw him?" And Briana, she's getting irritated at this point because Sammy is like, how can you see him? You're blind. That's the implication there. And Briana sighs, "Okay, I met him". Like, stop being so pedantic, Sammy. And then, so we can assume that Briana is a little bit annoyed by this point, but because Briana is a stock character of infinite patience and good role modeling, she puts herself together and she says, "Sammy, I appreciate your thoughtfulness, but it's okay. I use words like, see and look, just like you." Sammy says, "Oh, that makes sense. So tell me your plans for the project. I promise I won't ask too many questions about how you do it as a blind person." And Briana, she's laughing now. She says, "You know what, I will. I'll give you a quick demo tomorrow morning. Anyway, my first goal is.." Et cetera, et cetera. And they talk happily now, continue talking happily. So, it seems like they are comfortable now. And then let's see what happens. slide 31 when they say goodbye. So lunch is over. Sammy says, "I'll see you later." And Briana says, "I'll see you soon." So it seems that they are both now in a very comfortable spot and they're friendly with each other because each of them didn't hesitate to communicate, make mistakes and move on. So that concludes this portion. If we have time for questions, which we do. I've seen a lot coming into the chat. Kari, do you wanna ask different, like what might be in the Q and A and then-

- [Kari] Yeah.

- I'll just answer, start answering?

- [Kari] Yeah, so the first question that we got in the Q and A says, "Is it okay to use the term vision impaired? I always thought it was bad to use the word impaired. Is that a personal preference?"

- Okay. I would say definitely personal preference on that one. Thanks for asking. Yeah, some people don't like the word impaired. Other people use the word impaired. So, I would say just ask whomever you're dealing with. Okay, next question, Kari.

- [Kari] Okay, our next question is, "What are your thoughts on describing yourself and your background at the start of presentations to individuals who don't know you, such as the start of a training or a webinar?"

- Okay, that's a good question. So I, if, I believe in describing relevant information. So when I started I said, you know my name, I said I was the intern, I said that I've been blind since birth. All things that I think are relevant to the topic. But you know, I didn't say necessarily what I'm wearing, I didn't say about my hair color. So I think those, I think it's kind of a slippery slope because once you start describing where do you stop? So I think it's important to describe the things that you believe are relevant. And I also think that, you know, I can also say that I'm a white female and you can say that that's a relevant piece of information as well. But that's what I would say. Whatever you want the people to know, you can describe. And thanks for asking. Kari.

- [Kari] Yeah, the next question we have, "Is it valuable to include colors in alt text and image description? Does it matter to you to know that someone is wearing a blue shirt in comparison to its just a shirt? Thank you so much."

- Ah, that is such a good question. To me personally, it doesn't matter. I don't really care what color it is. But I would say with alt text, it's important to think about the context. So if it's a fashion show, then yes, describing the shirt detail and the color and the design would be helpful. But if it just happens to be the person who is giving the presentation about, I don't know, maybe a budget, I don't really care if their shirt is blue or any other color. But again, that's just sort of a use your own judgment and, but try to get the information that is essential. One thing I'll add about alt text is, we have an option to mark something as decorative image. So if it's just like a border, I don't really want that whole description. So if I see decorative image, I know, okay, that doesn't really matter. It's not essential. But great question. Okay, Kari.

- [Kari] Next question. "Do you have any advice for someone who has trouble describing things in the moment? Like someone who wants to help describe where something is, they can't find the right words or get the words out?"

- That is such a good question about describing things in the moment. I would say as much as you can, try to have the descriptions ahead of time. So like if someone's gonna be watching a video and you have the ability to watch that video ahead of time and prepare a written description, you can do that. But at the same time, if it is something more spontaneous, I would say just be natural. Like imagine that you were talking to someone on the phone about it. You might not necessarily worry about, oh, am I saying the right thing? They're blind. You know, just, I would always rather like that if I'm in a conversation with someone, that they're talking to me in a natural, comfortable way, rather than tripping over the words to do the perfectly right thing for me. Thanks for asking.

- [Kari] And another question we have here, "Instead of vision impaired, what are your thoughts on vision challenged?"

- Okay, so that sort of goes to a previous person asked, it's personal preference. Whatever term you, whatever term the person prefers to use. I just prefer blind. A lot of people prefer vision impaired. A lot of people find the word challenged to be some sort of a cutesy euphemism that they don't like, but other people do use challenged. So I'll, whenever it comes to language, I will pretty much always say personal preference. Thank you for asking.

- [Kari] Here's a personal but fun question.

- Okay.

- [Kari] "Do you have any TV or movie recommendations for BVI people?" My family mem-

- I should've known that one was coming.

- [Kari] No, "My family member has recently lost vision and I'd love to be more inclusive at family gatherings."

- Okay. So I, my personal preference, and I don't know if it's just because I'm blind, but my personal preference is for sort of older low budget kind of movies with a lot of dialogue. So one of my favorite movies is, I don't know how old it is, but it's called "Cube". And it's a one room scenario where the people, a bunch of people are like stuck in a maze and they have to figure out how to get out and they don't remember how they got there. And so there's a lot of conversation, there's a lot of figuring out, you know, who's gonna be good, who's gonna be evil when it comes to, you know, who's gonna save their own skin. That's a great movie with a lot of dialogue. Another one that I like personally, like a really old movie, it's called, "12 Angry Men". It's about a jury and about how one person on the jury manages to change the mind of everyone else. And again, it's like a one room kind of movie. But I also like, I also liked Disney movies when I was a kid, "Camp Rock", "High School Musical", all of those things. But they might not be as suitable for adults, obviously. Oh, that's cool, Bruce. That's really awesome. Okay.

- [Kari] Let's see, we have a-

- Oh yeah, an audio description. Someone mentioned audio description, that's another good thing too. You go to, if you're going to a movie, you can get audio description and I think they have them at all AMC Theaters and on Netflix original movies you can get audio description as well. Great point.

- [Kari] And then another question we have here, "If describing a color is irrelevant, then how would I describe myself to a blind person? Do I need to mention my height, my handedness, my weight? What is going to help create a warm space that isn't creepy or weird?"

- That is such a good question. So, for the one thing I would say, you probably don't need to describe your handedness because you know, that's not something I would, a sighted person would see. But I think if you wanna say your race, if you think that's relevant to the discussion. When I say, let me just be very clear, when I say color doesn't matter, I'm talking in terms of clothing, shirts, a lot of times it might not matter to me. That's all I meant by that comment. So I'll just say what I said before, just describe whatever you think is relevant.

- [Kari] And then had another question here. "If you like word movies, have you seen 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead?'"

- I've heard that phrase but I've not seen the movie. I know it was from some Shakespeare play. But whoever recommended it, thanks so much. And that is, that's on my list.

- [Kari] Looks like it was from Hamlet.

- Oh, okay. Thanks for let me know, I should have known that.

- [Kari] Lets see, we also have here, how do you feel about the term differently abled?

- So, how do I feel about the term? I'll just give you my answer. I think, I think that it's a euphemism. I think we're all differently abled. And here's how I put it. Disability is a powerful word because it's in our laws. We don't have Americans With Different Abilities Act, we don't have Americans Who Are Challenged Act, but we do have the Americans With Disabilities Act. And so in my personal opinion, I embrace the word disability, but that is again, up to each individual. But since you asked how I personally felt about it, I gave you my answer.

- [Kari] The last question we had here in the Q and A box, how do you present so well? I struggle so hard when presenting.

- Aww, thank you. I appreciate that. Well, you know, throughout going to school, I'm a recent graduate, we did have a lot of presentations and I did do this workshop internally three times for employees at Vispero as well. But see that's a great example of- Thank you so much for the compliment and that's a great example of a good compliment because it's something that you could say to someone, whether they're blind, vision, impaired, sighted, whatever. And thank you so much and I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for the congratulations. So.

- [Kari] And that is it for our questions through here.

- So I just have a few more things I want to end with before you, so we have some resources. We have slide 33, there's a feedback form. Kari, if you wanna put that in the chat and the materials. I wanna get everyone's feedback. Thank you. So please fill that out, because while some people might compliment my presentation, I do wanna make it even better. So if you fill out that form, that will help me. And slide 34, my final thoughts. Don't hesitate to communicate, make mistakes and move on. And remember, keep calm and don't be scared. I'm only blind or vision impaired. Thank you so much everyone.

- [Kari] And we did have one last question. I'll go ahead and answer and her, "In the previous iterations of this presentation, did other people say buzz when you showed the inaccessible slide?" And having been in her previous, yes, a few people did catch it and did mention the buzz word. So just wanna let everyone know. Again, thanks everyone for joining us. Thank you Amy, so much for a great presentation. And if you didn't get a chance to capture the links, capture any information that you wanted, the, a copy of the presentation, as well as the recording, and the transcription will be sent out later this week. And if you have any follow up questions, feel free to reach out to Ida. It's I D A at TPGi.com and either someone from our team can answer or we will get your additional questions over to Amy. As well as please use her feedback link. She is happy to get any and all feedback from you as well.

- I wish I could respond to everyone here. Thanks so much, everyone.

- [Kari] I'll send you the save chat later, Amy, so you can have time to read through the comments and et cetera.

- Perfect.

- [Kari] All right, thank you everyone for joining us today. We will hope to see you again at our next webinar.