so picture this I am on my way to LC
industries to meet with Vaughn and I
arrive at the complex that houses the
company it's a one-story building set
off the main road just a bit and it has
an industrial or kind of manufacturing
feel to it the visitor parking spaces
are conveniently located just a few
steps from the front door and on this
particular day I appear to be the only
visitor so I get my choice of spots LC
Industries is Lobby sits between two
interior glass walls situated in the
middle of each of these glass walls as a
door that leads off to some part of the
building after checking in with the
receptionist I take a nearby seat to
wait for Vaughn before too long she
enters through the glass door to the
right greets me and begins to lead me
back to her desk I'm struck by the ease
by which Vaughn was able to cruise along
the interior maze of hallways within LC
industries as she quickly swung her
walking cane back and forth across the
floor she asked me how I'd been since
our last meeting I answered but was
cognizant of wanting to keep my answer
short so that I could allow her to
concentrate on maneuvering through the
hallways we moved along at a quick clip
and as she chatted a bit more I realized
that Vaughn knew exactly where we were
going and it was me who was more worried
about getting lost
Vaughn must have had the whole layout of
LC industries memorized later I asked
her about this and she shared that
rather than counting the number of
footsteps that might be needed to get
from one place to the next she relied on
that maze layout and knew which way to
go when she encountered corners and
certain obstacles Vaughn has the ability
to visualize her entire environment so
here's an interesting observation you my
listener were not with me during my
visit to LC industries but were you able
to visualize any of the description of
my visit how is that possible I wondered
if this ability to visualize can be
translated to images on the Internet
I wanted to ask Vaughn though how
someone unable to see an image can
determine what's in the picture
basically
so with images you have to add alt text
to them and these are explained okay
they're essentially invisible text you
you code in with the image so that the
screen reader can read them but they're
not necessarily visible because you set
it up to be that way
don't make them it doesn't so a lot of
images with they'll just be added on
without any of that with any of the alt
text and so you might see like the URL
for the image or a bunch of random
characters and I was talking to somebody
about that earlier I was like well when
I'm on the web it's such a common thing
for me to see things like that where
it's just a bunch of characters that I
don't even pay attention and so when I
like an accessible image it's pretty
it's pretty impressive
it seemed frustrating that images
sighted people take for granted could be
completely unavailable to Vaughn I asked
her to share a little more about her
experience with these inaccessible
images there's not enough accessible
images out there there's actually very
little to be honest so what do you what
kinds of images usually come across yeah
where you have this experience bond went
on to describe a recent experience with
inaccessible images it wasn't actually a
website I wasn't an email so this
organization and it was kind of targeted
to her people who are blind as well so
they know this kind of stuff yes it's
interesting sometimes you'll get
websites that are geared towards people
who are blind but they don't consider
that accessibility and then we have some
that do so I kind of thought both so
there's one that wasn't and then more
recently I saw an email that actually
does have alt text so the image was
accessible made it a little a little
better for experience in module 3 you'll
learn how to use alt text and long
description to make images available to
all of your students an important
takeaway from this interview is that
it's important that instructional images
have a description that is helpful to
students Vonn gives a great example with
infographic yeah things like that we're
in educational setting where you might
have something like a flow chart or a
pie chart or whatever if those in those
kinds of situation I do wish there are
they are accessible as we wrap things up
I asked Vaughn if she had any advice for
those who would be just learning what it
means to make images accessible I just
consider if the image is going to be of
value you know if it's going to convey
important an important piece of
information that's not in the text that
describe what you wanted to convey to to
the user okay yeah you don't really know
if somebody will find value in that it
was wonderful talking with Vaughn and
learning more about her perspective on
how digital learning content can be more
accessible I appreciated her time as
well as LC Industries for allowing me to
visit an interview Vaughn