Speaker 1: Welcome to the IAP, The Interactive Accessibility podcast, bringing you the people, technology and ideas, helping to make your world accessible to everyone. Mark Miller: Hey, welcome to the IAP, The Interactive Accessibility podcast brought to you by The Pociella Group and it's affiliate Interactive Accessibility. I'm your host thanking you, Mark Miller, thanking you for helping us keep it accessible. Do us a favor. If you're enjoying the IAP, share it. Tell someone about it. Hey, either link to it from your accessible website. So thanks guys for joining us. We have a really special version of the IAP today, because we're starting a new series at The Pociella Group. The series is called real stories and really what we're trying to do here with real people, real stories is we're trying to explore the why we do what we do. A lot of, at TPG, we work real hard to make websites accessible across the globe so that people with disabilities can access the content, perform the actions on those websites. And that's a job. That's a business. That's something that we go to work, we get in front of our computers and we do every day. And sometimes when you're head down in that work mode, it can be really easy to lose the perspective on why you even have a job like that in the first place. So with real people, real stories, we want to talk to real people. We want to get their real stories and we want to really explore and remind ourselves why we do this. I've got several people with me today. I've got my wonderful producer, Marissa who's with us a lot. Welcome Marissa. Marissa: Hello. Mark Miller: We also have another TPG employee that also works with Marissa in the marketing group. He's actually the head of our marketing group, Brad, so welcome Brad and our guest today is another employee of the company, Rebecca Bridges. We're talking today with Rebecca about the challenges that she's had with this pandemic that we're facing. Ever since COVID-19 has come out, it has really changed the way that we're all going about our day. And what we really want to explore with Rebecca is, how that is affecting her and her unique challenges. I'm going to leave her to let you know what those unique challenges are. But welcome everybody. Marissa, it's great to have you on the podcast as always and Brad, welcome to your first episode. Before we get started with Rebecca, do you guys have anything to add about this new series that we're going to be starting real people, real stories? Marissa: I do not, but I'm very excited about it. Mark Miller: Cool. Brad: Yeah. And thank you for having me out here. It's great to be with you guys and to be able to discuss this. Mark Miller: Great. It's great having you Brad, and I hope this is the first move in a long habit. Rebecca, welcome to the IEP. Rebecca Bridges: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Mark Miller: Yeah, you bet. So let's just start off a little bit, tell people about yourself. We'll start there and then we can dig into this whole pandemic shelter in place thing that we're all dealing with. Rebecca Bridges: Sure, absolutely. I live in the Northern Virginia area, and I have been an employee here with The Pociella Group for a little over two years. I started mid February of 2018 and have really enjoyed my time. I am a mother of two. I have a four month old and a five and a half year old, and a husband and we also live with our two guide dogs. My husband has one and I have one. I am totally blind and my husband is also totally blind. Our children are sighted. And yeah, so that's ... I guess in terms of what I do here at The Pociella Group, I am a senior project manager. I work very closely with our engineers and our clients, to ensure that the work is getting done to everyone's satisfaction. I enjoy the aspects of my job, including working with my team. We have a great team here at the company. And then I really enjoy getting to know my clients I consider that really a high point of my job, and really working with them to understand their challenges. Everybody's a little bit unique and really to establish a relationship of trust with them, and really to help them make a difference and make their products better. So, yeah, just a little bit about me. Mark Miller: Well, thank you. Thank you for all that. The big thing that we're here to talk about, is that you had mentioned that you and your husband both are blind, right? Thus the two guide dogs I'm sure. When this pandemic kind of hit and we had to make a lot of changes, TPG, I feel like The Pociella Group as a company, we weren't affected quite the same as some of the other companies out there, because we already have a work from home model anyways. But there was a lot of things outside of that, that really, I know for me personally changed. I can't go to the gym anymore. I can't do activities that I would do outside of the house. And when you do leave, like the grocery store is difficult, a lot of things are difficult. What's hard for me to imagine though, is how you and your husband have a unique set of challenges. I'm sure that you do a great job accommodating for it that are different, where you interact with the world in a way that's different than I have or that I do. What I'm really interested in is how this pandemic has affected you guys? The ways I imagine it, I know you're more tactile probably in the way that you explore your environment. I'm wondering if that causes more fear for you. I don't know, talk to me about how you guys have had to adjust. Rebecca Bridges: Sure. Before the pandemic, I live in a very metropolitan area, so we're able to, back in the day when we could leave our houses, I could get two hour grocery delivery. We ordered a lot of stuff on Amazon. We would walk to the pharmacy or the coffee shop. I did a lot of my work in the coffee shop when I wasn't in client meetings, which is great. That's an awesome thing about working remotely is, you can work from anywhere and you're accessible from everywhere. Life was pretty easy, pretty good. We could get around in Uber's or in places where we, to get to places where we didn't walk, like for instance my son's school is just far enough that I can't quite walk there or it wouldn't make sense to walk there. So we would, we take him there in the morning and then my husband takes him there and goes to work. And then, I pick them up from the bus in the afternoon, walk to the bus stop, et cetera. Life was pretty, everything was pretty easy in terms of getting access to what we needed. There's a lot, you know ... When you get into a situation like this, I'll just preface my comments by saying there's a lot that I feel like I have taken for granted, or that I took for granted before the pandemic, like my two hour grocery delivery. So these days, some of the challenges that we face are simply, well, one of them is getting access to grocery items and other things. So please don't worry, we are fine. We have a fridge full of food. But we have to plan ahead a lot more. So when I want something from Amazon, because some of their distribution channels have changed or slowed down or whatever because of COVID, it takes longer. So you don't get that ... A lot of us are Amazon Prime people, so it's like, "Oh, I need diapers. Oh, they can be here tomorrow. No problem." Well, now it might take five days, so I have to know five days out when I need that thing, so I can accommodate. Things like paper towel and toilet paper, you're lucky if you can find any of that on Amazon before June. So really planning ahead is one thing and groceries are similar. So we us services like Shipped through Target, I think Target owns them. And then Instacart is another popular one that we're used to using. And so we've had to really plan ahead. So let's try to schedule a grocery order 10 days out. And sometimes they'll just say, "We don't have anything, nothing, nothing, nothing, no delivery windows." You might, when I'm feeding the baby at three in the morning, I might have to check my phone to see if I can find a delivery slot for 10 days from now or whatever. I think really, we already had to plan ahead a lot just by the nature of not being able to drive and having to make some accommodations for things. I feel like my husband and I do a pretty good job of doing that, but this has really, this is like planning ahead times 10, like really taking stock of what it is that we have, what it is that we need, when we're going to need it and really being very thoughtful. We've also, we're very fortunate that we have a good community of friends in the area. Sometimes I'll just text a friend or a couple of friends and say, "Hey, when you're out next time, if you're headed to the store, can you let me know? If you could maybe grab a thing or two for me," things like that, I'm a very independent person and probably to a fault. I don't like asking for help ever. It's a weakness of mine. My husband tells me. I'm sorry- Marissa: Or a strength. Rebecca Bridges: Yes, possibly so. But I figure, okay, I feel a little better about it if I say, "Hey, if you're going somewhere, can you maybe pick up this thing for me?" And that's worked out really well. Mark Miller: [crosstalk 00:10:49] is not really an option for you guys? Like you can't discover, it's six in the evening, we don't have this ingredient for food or we've run out of- Rebecca Bridges: No. Mark Miller: ... you're making, we've run out of this. There's really not a great option for you guys to say like, "Well, we'll walk down to the store or we'll run to the store?" You're really relying on knowing ahead of time what you need period? Rebecca Bridges: We are because for a couple of reasons. One is, so when I go to a store, even if I were to walk down to my drug store, my pharmacy, I know they have milk. When the pandemic started within a week or so, I'm like, "Oh, I need milk." I had to go to two different, I went to Walgreens first and I went to CVS, because they're like the closest to my house until I could find milk, because my husband drinks like a million gallons of milk a week. It's not that many, but- Marissa: Strong-willed. Mark Miller: Very, very close to a million? Rebecca Bridges: Right, right. So one of the challenges that I have, they talk about the social distancing and they really, you need to be six feet away. Well, it's very difficult to maintain a distance of six feet from someone who might be assisting me. If I go into a store I may have to ask someone where the milk is like, where is it? Oh, can you find 1%? And of course, one of the challenges, and I've seen a little bit of this on, my friends have posted some things on social media, but when you're traveling with a guide dog as well, social distancing is not part of a dog's training. So a dog doesn't know that they have to be, that I have to be six feet away from the person we're following or that's walking with me or whatever. I'm right next to them and I've actually heard of people, others in public places have gotten upset with people who are blind, because they're not maintaining the social distance. Well, I have no way of knowing that you're there. So that's a big concern. I don't like doing that. I do have a couple of options. One way of getting around is, there is a service a subscription service called IRA. I don't know if you've heard it. Mark Miller: Yeah. We did a podcast a few years back on it. Rebecca Bridges: Right. So IRA is very super. That is a service that allows, especially trained virtual agents to through an app, get access to the video feed on your phone and your audio so that they can direct you. If I'm in a store and I want to find the milk, we walk around and we find the milk. That's one thing. That's one option for navigating, but generally going to a store is not something that I want to do, because it's very difficult to maintain that social distance and have to worry about that. And also one other note on that is that, because I don't drive and I don't have my own car, self-driving cars are unfortunately not quite ready yet, and I can't wait for when they are. But because I don't have access to my own vehicle, I have to, if I need to go somewhere, I am not within ... I'm less than six feet away from someone who's driving my taxi or Uber or my friend, and so it's very difficult to maintain the social distance. And when you ride in an Uber or a taxi, you don't know who's been there before you. You don't know if the driver is well or not. They don't know if you are, frankly. It's a little bit of a [crosstalk 00:14:38]. Mark Miller: I'd agree with you. I don't think I would get in an Uber nowadays. It seems like that would be a real tough thing to try and deal with. One of the things that you said that I wanted to unpack a little bit, is you were talking about people becoming frustrated with people who are blind, because they aren't social distancing because they don't know. They don't know how far you, how are you supposed to know how far away you are from somebody? If you had people around you that in a polite way were saying, "Hey, I'm here or you're getting close," or is there a kind of like an etiquette or a protocol that you would appreciate that would make sense to you that would give you that information, and obviously not being rude, but what would help you if we were to send a message out to the world like, "Hey, if you're in the vicinity of somebody who's blind," what would you say, let them know where they are or? Rebecca Bridges: That's a really good question. And it's so weird that we even have to think about that Mark Miller: Where I come from and this is, I can imagine me going like, "Excuse me, ma'am, you're closer than six feet," with all the right intentions, but not having to come across ... I would be fumbling to try and figure out if I didn't ... If I knew you, I would just tell you, say, "Hey, Rebecca, back off. What are you doing?" Marissa: Lady, get away from me. Mark Miller: If I don't know you, then I've got this weird, awkward situation. Rebecca Bridges: So one way to do it, at least ... So for me, I would just want somebody to say something to me or to talk, like just speak, whether it's to me or to your friend on your cell phone, because I just need to know that you're around and I will back away from you gladly. That's just me. That would be the first thing I would do. Mark Miller: Literally what you want people that do is just a friendly, hi? Rebecca Bridges: Yeah. Mark Miller: Like, "Hey, ma'am how you doing? What do you think [crosstalk 00:16:37]?" Rebecca Bridges: Yeah, be regular. I wouldn't want to be like, "Don't come near me." That would not be- Marissa: [inaudible 00:16:45] access. Mark Miller: Like [inaudible 00:16:46] like from mud flaps, like back off. Rebecca Bridges: Like, [inaudible 00:16:51] like the taboo buzzer. Probably not. But I think just saying hello or making a sound, I just need to know something ... I was standing in line at a Walgreens a few weeks ago, because I had no choice, but to go out and when I heard someone behind me or in front of me, I would try to move accordingly and shift or if I'm walking ... I'll take my son out for walks sometimes or both my kids, and if I hear someone I stop and let them like go around me or I back away and I tell them, "Okay, we're going to stop and wait for this person. They're on the street in front of us and we're going to let them go by." Brad: I'd imagine giving a fake cough for clearing your throat would not be the best way to achieve that at this time? Rebecca Bridges: Not at this juncture probably not. You'll scare them. Brad: Excuse me. Mark Miller: I think like the [inaudible 00:17:51] like bird call like [inaudible 00:17:52]. Rebecca Bridges: Yes. Mark Miller: No, that's interesting. Do your children help? Do they get it? Can they, if you're out for a walk with them, will they be like, "Hey mom, hold up, we're getting close to this person." Rebecca Bridges: My five year old, he knows that the definition is six feet, but I don't think he knows what that is. He's like, "Oh, that's as tall as my friend. Madeline's dad." Mark Miller: Technically bringing Madeline's dad over to the lead between you and the person [crosstalk 00:18:27]. Rebecca Bridges: No, that's feasible. Mark Miller: You can't do that. Rebecca Bridges: Right. So he doesn't, I think he understands like the technical aspect, like the language around it. But I don't think he understands literally what that means. I am generally the one that is very aware of what's around me and I listen very intently and I will instruct him, "Okay, we're going to stop now or we're going to, or they have stopped or whatever." And I'm the one that pretty much leads that charge even though I can't see. Marissa: It's really interesting that some people may think of it's more polite not to say anything and just kind of fume in silence, and in this situation that's the exact opposite of what you want to do. Just making any type of sound like even just a hello, how's it going? That is exactly what they need to do, and it's amusing. Ironic, I guess. Mark Miller: I live up in New England. So you'd be in real trouble in New England because we're crotchety. We don't say hi to each other, but in the South that's like just standard politeness. And it's interesting to me that the accommodation here is to just be friendly and polite. Like that's what you're asking for. I will say, and I don't know how, what you would say about this Rebecca, but being fortunate that I am, that I've known a lot of people who are blind and been around a lot of people that are blind. There is an amazing capacity. If I closed my eyes and tried to navigate, I would not have near the clue that most blind people I've met do of what's around me. So I think that, you were talking about, you're being the mom and you're stopping your child who sighted, and you're saying, "We're going to wait here for a little while." My guess is, you're probably getting that pretty darn right based on what I've seen of that. And I don't know if you feel like that, or if it's still a point of nervousness for you, and you're not quite sure or. Rebecca Bridges: Yeah. I think you're right. I can hear people's feet. I pay attention to different sounds and cues. If you're close enough to me that I can really sense you're there without moving or saying anything then I know you're too close to me. Marissa: Yeah, that's [crosstalk 00:20:43]. Rebecca Bridges: Right. Mark Miller: Or you should probably jump in the shower, right? Marissa: That's it [crosstalk 00:20:52] you should stay after [inaudible 00:20:54]. Rebecca Bridges: Yeah. But it's interesting that this is like a whole new world that we're living in. It's like a weird alternate reality. I was telling a friend of mine, I feel like it's Groundhog Day every day. Mark Miller: I've heard a lot of people say that. People literally, like a friend of mine literally didn't realize it was Saturday. He was supposed to show up on zoom for something on a Saturday and we didn't see him. And I'm like, "Hey, what happened? And he's like, "I forgot it was Saturday." Marissa: I forgot which day was today. I had to look at the calendar like, "Oh, okay, it's Thursday." Great. Mark Miller: Let me ask you Rebecca. This is coming from my ignorance, but I imagine that if you're blind, you're much more tactile than somebody who has sight to explore your environment, and understand maybe what's in front of you. Maybe you're at a store, you've got to do a little more touching of your environment, to really get your credit card in the credit card machine or whatever the case might be right. Is not the case and is there an extra precaution, or does it make you nervous being out in public just because you do rely on touching so much to figure that stuff out? Rebecca Bridges: So I generally ... Yes and no. Yes, there is the whole idea that, "Oh, I might have to touch that credit card thing and punch my number in or something," but I'm generally not, I'm not one of those people that goes in a store, starts like feeling around on shelf for something. I pretty much ask someone to point me right to it, and then we grab it and I get out of there. Mark Miller: [crosstalk 00:22:37] for you? Rebecca Bridges: Well, yeah. I wouldn't come to your house and start feeling around on your counters, just because I wanted to know what was there. That's not how I roll. I am more tactical in terms of, yes, I have to find the credit card machine and I have to figure out where it is and I might accidentally touch the counter instead, or I might touch something that's like on display next to it. So one way that I have gotten around that is, I'll wear, put something over my hand. I'm still waiting for my order of gloves to come from Amazon, but I do pick up after my dog, so I have little bag. And so it's not the sexy look or anything, but it does the job, like you'd grab a bag and throw it on your hand and you reached for the credit card machine. And then when you're done, you slip it inside out and you toss it. Marissa: That's a good idea. Rebecca Bridges: So that's one way. In those cases, I have Apple Pay, so if somebody can just point me in the direction of the reader, it'll just ding and we're done. So that's another way that I've gotten around things like that, but I'm not too nervous about that, because again, you put something over your hand, you throw it out when you're done. I haven't gone out really that much, because we're all staying away from each other, and if I go out, hopefully the place I'm going to, maybe it has automatic doors or maybe I put something over my hand to open the door, those kinds of things. So I don't think it's too much different at least right now, because I'm not really out there all the time. Mark Miller: Yeah. It doesn't sound a whole lot different to be honest. I think that there's probably some small percentage, like you said, like if I were to ... I look at the credit card machine and I really plan it out, like if I touch this with my sleeve and I put the card in this way, I don't have contact with anything. I would imagine that you like you said, you're a little more likely to kind of get your hands on the counter for a minute, but that sounds like a real minimal thing in the whole big picture of the challenges for accessibility. But it's really interesting because I think you are accommodating a lot, especially with that type of stuff in the same way as a lot of other people are, and I know people are wearing gloves and I've seen the dog bag trick, I think more than in once. One of the real things you were talking about is, automatically opening doors and stuff like that, one of the things that I think may come out of this pandemic is foot, is more doors out in public being operated with your feet. Marissa: Yeah, and like trash cans. I want to open the trash cans, it's disgusting. Rebecca Bridges: Oh yeah. Marissa: The pedal trashcan should be everywhere. Rebecca Bridges: Well, I didn't like them before the pandemic. The bathroom that doesn't put the trashcan next to the door hand [crosstalk 00:25:50], oh, so bad. Brad: One thing I've noticed is that, I definitely pay attention to how much more things I have to touch, from the touch screens at the self checkout to the ATMS, to the gas pumps. And I started using my knuckle, like my finger just to try to do it. But even that isn't really achieving much. I like to have a baggie much more so, but it's definitely something that I've noticed. I think you'll probably see to that point of more like foot controls or things that open up automatic; I think we hope to see a lot of different types of changes that will create more sanitized or clean environments moving forward, even after this. Mark Miller: Yeah. We're talking about the handshake going away because of all that. Marissa: I hate the handshake. Mark Miller: Not to get into a subject that's too off putting here, but I would imagine that public bathrooms are not a great experience in general. As a person who's sighted, I plan my trip through them pretty carefully. Are there certain things that are really, especially in a pandemic, that is just the one area where you're filtering a bunch of people through there that touch a bunch of things. Rebecca Bridges: I had a very ... It's funny that you mentioned that. Yeah, so public bathrooms, every time I go into one, I always think to myself, "Why can't they have a universal design for bathrooms where it's like, okay, the door is here and it always goes that way to the stalls, that way to the sinks." It's these kinds of things ... Anyway, the soap is at this level, like sometimes it's at your head and sometimes it's next to the sink and sometimes it's ... And the paper towels are sometimes in the middle of the counter, sometimes they're over on the wall or behind you. God knows they- Mark Miller: Off-putting environment. Rebecca Bridges: Public bathrooms are scary, not scary literally, but I think kind of scary now. Yes. It's funny that you should mention that because we last, was it last weekend, let me see. I don't even know what day it is. Anyway, last weekend we ordered carry out from one of our favorite places, our neighborhood restaurants, we want to support the local folks. So we ordered take out and we're like, "This is a great excuse to just get out and walk. Everyone is going to go walk and we're ready." We got our masks on and we're ready to roll. So we all go out and we walk to the restaurant we're almost there and my five-year-old, "Mommy, I need to go potty." Marissa: Oh, no. Rebecca Bridges: And I'm just like, "Why didn't you go before?" Mark Miller: [inaudible 00:28:24] public bathrooms with kids too. Rebecca Bridges: Oh, yes. I'm like, "Oh no," but the good news ... So again, he is sighted, so the good news is, generally five-year-olds while they have oops- Mark Miller: We lost your video there Rebecca. Rebecca Bridges: Sorry. Mark Miller: There you go. You're back. Rebecca Bridges: My phone was telling me, it was warning me about my battery. What my five-year-old, if you're in a place like a toy store, they want to touch everything. But thankfully if you're in a bathroom, they don't. So that's good news. Mark Miller: And do they get the lay of the land? Have you got them kind of like [inaudible 00:29:08] like, "Hey mom, the sinks are here?" Rebecca Bridges: Absolutely. Mark Miller: That's fantastic. Rebecca Bridges: Yeah, so I'm like, okay- Mark Miller: They're like little assistive technologies that you gave birth to? Rebecca Bridges: Yeah, sort of. Early on my husband used to tell people, yeah, we're raising a butler and it used to make me mad, like, "No, you can't say that because people might think that's true, because it's not." Mark Miller: That's awesome. Rebecca Bridges: But yeah, so he'll say ... We give him strict instructions, like, "Okay, I will open the door. We will not touch anything. We will walk in and I'm going to close, we're going to go into the stall and I'm going to close it. You're going to do what you need to do." So give them specific instructions we get that done, but of course, so yes, public bathrooms are not ideal because everyone is laid out differently. Even like single ones, even like the handicap accessible ones or whatever they call them now, the family bathrooms, they're a little bit better, a lot better, but even still you might touch the changing table instead when you're looking for, where's the sink or where's the like, so there's lots of hand washing in public bathrooms. Mark Miller: This is the million dollar idea in here, like an app that has the layout of bathrooms that you could jump into before you went to a public bathroom or something like it's ... I think standardizing public bathrooms, that seems like a tall order, especially since so many of might already exists, but that would be a problem to solve, to somehow be able to give you an idea of what you're dealing, at least a general layout so you know where the sinks are versus the stalls versus the paper towels. Rebecca Bridges: Well, and there are typically ... There are techniques for that. One thing is you just, you listen. When you're in there and there's somebody else in there, you could figure out where things are. Mark Miller: That makes sense. Enough said. Enough said. Rebecca Bridges: You hear the paper towels or the blowers or whatever or the sink and you kind of, sometimes I'll just stand back and wait and give it a second when I go in, to try to get the lay of the land before I start feeling around. Or if you're traveling with a dog, you can say, "Find the door," and the dog might find a door to an open stall, or if you're using your cane, you can ... There are ways that you can explore without just reaching your hands out when you're just touching stuff. There are techniques. So it's not just like a total "hands-on experiment." It really is, there are ways that we can, that we figure out where things are without actually using our hands. Mark Miller: And we all have our favorite public bathrooms that we run across on a regular basis. You guys must really have that where you know where everything is, "I'm going to go here before we get to a place I don't know," and all that. Rebecca Bridges: Yeah, probably. Probably, I don't really think that much about it at least before the pandemic I didn't. You can just as easily get probably COVID-19 from maybe sitting next to somebody in a sports arena as you could going into bathroom. I'm not going to let that stress me out too much. Marissa: Rebecca, let me ask you, have you had any stories from friends that have been different from your own? Are there any experiences you want to relay? Rebecca Bridges: That's a good question. I think a lot of us, we have a lot of shared experiences in terms of navigating food delivery and all these other things. I think everybody's experiences are a little bit unique depending on the composition of their family, or what their situation is. One of the things that we haven't talked about yet that I definitely want to make sure that we do, is the idea that now one of the big changes since the beginning of the pandemic, is that a lot of us parents we're now teachers. Well, we're not really. I could never be a teacher, but to be clear. We are default home, kind of teaching and basically getting by. So not only are we working fulltime and doing all of that, but we are now the de facto teacher for our kids at home. And that I think has been a whole different wrinkle in our lives that has really been probably one of the most challenging aspects for me, in addition to the grocery delivery and those types of things. So my son is in kindergarten and he has, there are a couple of ways that we access his learning materials. The school has sent home some, early on when the plan was, "Hey, we're only going to be closed for a month." They sent home some worksheets, and then we were also using an app to do some activities with the kids. And now that school is closed for the rest of the school year, it's a little bit different in that they've basically only sent home these packets. They're not requiring that kids K through two have technology access, because the school doesn't provide devices, the County doesn't, so they're not going to require, they don't want kids to fall behind. If you don't have a device, that's okay. But basically the long and short of it is, so I am now ... We use paper copies or an app to do our schooling. There are a few challenges there in that, the materials, whether they're in the app or on paper are not fully accessible to me as my son's parent. Now my son does not, he's not required to have, he doesn't have an IEP. He doesn't have a disability, so individualized education plan. So they're not required, the County is not required to make the materials accessible to him, but they are required. So they're not required to teach him if I can't, but they are required to make it so that I as the parent can access those materials. One of the challenges that I'm running up against, in the printable PDF stuff, there are a lot of untagged images. It's like read this line together, and it's just an image. And I don't know if that's a copyright issue or like read this elephant and carwash story and then do these exercises. Then I open up this document and it's like elephant and carwash PDF in a Google doc, that is a picture. Marissa: No. Rebecca Bridges: I don't know what that is. Then in the app that I'm using, a lot of the app is somewhat accessible. The buttons are labeled. Sometimes it's difficult to get focus and things like that, but it's somewhat accessible, but the nature of the activities that the children are asked to do, especially in kindergarten, there's a lot of tracing. There's a lot of moving letters and words around. So you can imagine that those activities are not accessible to me. I might be able to set my son up and say, "Okay, you need to find these sentences and well, I don't know what they are, but you need to unscramble them and do these things." And like, he'll be like, "Yeah, mom, I'm done. I did it." Mark Miller: I'm really glad you brought that up for a couple of reasons. One is that, I'm on the phone a lot. I'm on the phone a lot with people who are just realizing that making a website accessible is something for the very first time in their life. Depending on the nature of that website, I can get a lot of comments like, "Well, this website is for X, Y, and Z, and it's not really something blind people would do anyways." I think we have to make it accessible for legal reasons. I am pretty good at having them take pause and say, "Look, I'm shocked every day at what blind people do." I would not for a moment even just because I can't think of how a blind person might engage in something, I would not for a moment assume that they're not doing it. I'm surprised every day by all sorts of people with different disabilities that do all sorts of things that you would think that they wouldn't do, but where there's a will, there's a way. I think your story Rebecca is interesting because, you're an example of where, you're not even the direct consumer of that content, but by nature of being a parent who's blind helping a child that's sighted, it's important to you. So even, you take that and you take it one step removed. It's just illustrative of how we, you can't come up with, in your imagination, all the scenarios in which somebody might need to access something. You should just make it accessible, because they could, something you can imagine could come up. And the second thing, I just want to point out to the listeners right now, that you of anybody on earth know what you're doing, right? You work for a company that very specifically makes digital materials and things accessible. So if anybody could figure it out, if anybody could make something not accessible, accessible, if anybody could work around, you could do it and you're struggling. So imagine that parent who's blind, that isn't in an industry like this, that is just, doesn't have that technical background and that background and accessibility could be even more difficult. Rebecca Bridges: Well, I think, so real quick, I'm going to put my cord in here so that I don't run out of juice. I hope you edit this, Mark Miller: We will not edit. This is part of the [crosstalk 00:39:47]. Marissa: It's live. Mark Miller: It's a beautiful thing. This is [inaudible 00:39:50]. You do what you got to do, and we will be wrapping up in a minute by the way Rebecca. We'll [inaudible 00:39:59]. Rebecca Bridges: You're fine. Is that okay now? I tried to put [crosstalk 00:40:03]. Mark Miller: Yeah, I appreciate. Marissa: Yeah, yeah, good. Mark Miller: You're back. Rebecca Bridges: Well, it's interesting that you say that because actually it's almost, it is nice to work for a company that focuses on digital accessibility, but it's very different when you live it. When you live this experience and I can't, just ... What I would love to do is to just go to one of you all and say, "This thing isn't working, go sell us to them." I don't know if we can, I don't know [crosstalk 00:40:40]. Mark Miller: We don't really do it by the way. Rebecca Bridges: That's a weird dynamic. Or what if, the other option that we have is to advocate or to litigate as a parent, not as an employee of this company. So then that's a whole nother ball of wax, we probably shouldn't talk about here, but it does present some challenges. I guess to talk about how I have gotten around them, so obviously one of them is I have reached ... It is important that when these types of things come up, that I have a role to play as an advocate for myself and my son's education, where my children's education, where I need to be reaching out to the County and saying, "Hey, are you aware that this stuff is not accessible? And by law, it has to be, so let's work on it." I'm not even as concerned about it today, as I am for the future. I got 18 more years of this with my kids. So I need this fixed. And it may not be in the shortterm, it might be a long game. But in the shortterm, what I have done, and again, I shouldn't have to do this, but what I have done is I have taken those lessons that have been sent home, and because I can't read what they're doing, I have the exact thing. I have said, "Okay, we're not going to do it with this line, but I'm going to go get some, we're going to get a different book. We're going to get a different thing, and we're going to explore the same concept." I've basically created my own lessons for him- Marissa: Oh, that's clever. Rebecca Bridges: ... based on ... Well, it is, but who has time for that? It's a lot of added stress that, if I don't do that then my kid loses and I don't, or at least I feel like he doesn't. He'll probably be fine, but I don't want- Mark Miller: It's only natural for you to want to dig in and solve these things. That's what moms do. Rebecca Bridges: Yeah. Well, right. And then, so it's like, okay. I have other friends who have kids similar ages, who have referred me to a couple of other websites that have content I can use and those kinds of things. I've gone out and looked for alternate resources other than the ones provided by my County, because, or I've just created my own homegrown lessons for him based on the concepts that are being taught here, but not everybody has the resources to do that or the time to do that. I do feel fortunate in that way that I'm able to do that for him. But it is a source of frustration, I think, to your point, and for those listening. It is very important. You can't underscore ... Making something accessible, isn't about just protecting yourself from litigation. It's something that, things like closed captioning, it benefits everyone. It's not just something that you should do just so that nobody comes after you. This is something, it's about people's lives and people's livelihoods. And if we want all people to be a part of the workforce, if we want to grow kids to be smart, productive adults, and we want people to be able to participate in the workforce, we need to, accessibility is really a great equalizer. It's something that really, with a little bit of thought and planning is not that hard to do. Mark Miller: Well said. I think what you're saying is that they're real people that have real stories. Rebecca Bridges: Yes. This is real life people. Mark Miller: That would be a great name for a series, wouldn't it? No, but that's a public way to bring it around, because you're absolutely right. I think that it's challenging for, not everybody knows somebody who's blind or is exposed to somebody who's blind. So to keep it in the front of your mind and make it a part of your daily activities, to make sure that things are accessible to people who are blind, or have other types of disabilities is a challenge and I think you said it Rebecca when yopu said, really advocacy is the key. Nobody wants to go to litigation. Nobody wants to call up and complain and be difficult. Nobody wants those things, but if we can advocate, if we can continue the conversations and the awareness, then people who maybe don't know somebody who's blind, but do understand that they are real people that have real stories and they really exist, and it's part of our forwarding our society that it'll get included. I think you're really onto something. Nobody can put it into better words than you just did. It's from somebody who's experiencing it. But with that, we have to wrap things up. So Marissa, Brad, Rebecca, is there anything that you guys want to add before we close this out? Marissa: No, Rebecca you've been great. Thank you. Brad: This has been fantastic just to hear you and get that perspective, so thank you as well. Rebecca Bridges: You're welcome. If there's anything you wanted to follow up on or that didn't come out right, let me know. This is fun. I really enjoyed it. Mark Miller: I think what Rebecca's saying is that, she's got the stardom bug. She wants to be on the podcast again. Rebecca Bridges: Sure, sure. Mark Miller: Absolute fans again, right? Absolutely. We really appreciate your participation and hey, this podcast is opened ... We want guess hosts from all over the company. If you want to get on the other side of the desk and be a host and not just a guest, that is open to you as well Rebecca. Rebecca Bridges: That would be awesome. Mark Miller: I think your perspective would be fantastic in that role, but anyways, thank you so much for being on the show and really love ... There's just some soundbites in there from you that are fantastic, and I really think summarize, to bring it back to the beginning of the show, why we do what we do and why it's important. I really, really appreciate that. I really appreciate that perspective. It's not a perspective that I could share. It only comes from somebody who does this, so thank you. That's it folks. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for listening. I hope that you enjoyed this. We're going to continue to develop this real people, real stories concept. So stay tuned, keep listening to the podcast and watch how it evolves over time here with us. This is Mark Miller thanking Rebecca, Brad, and Marissa, and reminding you to keep it accessible. Speaker 1: The IAP, Interactive Accessibility Podcast is brought to you by Interactive Accessibility, the accessibility experts. You can find their access matters blog at interactiveaccessibility.com/blog.