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