Our Origin Stories | Beyond Alt Text S1E1

Welcome to Beyond Alt Text! In our first episode, Jacob Wood and Dr. Nicole L'Etoile share how they each found their way to digital accessibility, and why they started this podcast together. Jacob talks about growing up with progressive vision loss, losing the ability to do the things he loved, and getting that control back with assistive technology. That led him to make accessible PDFs for tabletop role-playing games, and later to teach learning designers how to build accessible content. Nicole shares a childhood memory of being left out that has stayed with her, her path from schoolteacher and principal to helping adults learn, and why accessibility work can feel lonely. Jacob closes with the story of a street corner in downtown Portland that changed how he thinks about sharing what he knows. Full transcript and episode page: https://www.beyondalttextpod.com IN THIS EPISODE 0:00 Intro 0:17 Why we started this podcast 0:41 Jacob's story: vision loss and assistive technology 2:56 Making tabletop role-playing games accessible 3:52 From games to learning design 5:13 What are tabletop games? 6:24 Why agency and control matter 9:13 When people don't seem to care 10:16 Standing up for accessibility on a team 11:40 Nicole's story: being left out 12:49 From teacher and principal to adult learning 13:43 Hidden disabilities, and why the work can feel lonely 14:59 A street corner in downtown Portland 17:26 Choosing to include people 19:01 What this podcast is for 20:57 Coming up next: ATD Core 4 TAKEAWAYS Inaccessible content takes away people's control. During onboarding at Wells Fargo, Jacob needed a team lead to read his training courses aloud and click the buttons for him, and he started the job two weeks behind the rest of his group. When you create content without thinking about accessibility from the start, you are choosing to exclude the people you aren't thinking about. Inaccessible content doesn't only cost companies money. It costs people their dignity. You don't need to be the expert. If you know how to do something someone else doesn't, that's something you can share. If you're the one person on your team pushing for accessibility, you're not alone. That's who this show is for. MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE NVDA, the free screen reader for Windows: https://www.nvaccess.org ZoomText, screen magnification software Articulate Storyline and Rise, e-learning authoring tools YOUR HOSTS Jacob Wood Website: https://jacobwood.me LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-wood-writer Dr. Nicole L'Etoile Website: https://www.letoile-education.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicoleletoile/ Have a question, a tip or a story to share? We'd love to hear from you. Visit https://www.beyondalttextpod.com