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In this first episode of the fifth season Jeniffer and Chad welcome Belo Cipriani for his second interview with them. This episode was timed to air on Global Accessibility Awareness Day because Belo is not only an author and advocate but a digital inclusion strategist.
This conversation will expose you to just how much the lack of accessibility is hidden from those that don’t require it. You’ll learn a lot!
Belo also talks about all the ways the world is becoming more accessible and what he’s doing to help with that.
Creators & Guests
Host
Producer
Chad Thompson
Chad Thompson, co-founder of Monkey C Media, offers professional photography and videography services. He has an eye for detail and a command of lighting that gives him the ability to show his subjects at their very best. You can count on seeing Chad around South Park on his bicycle with a camera slung over his shoulder. If he has never taken a picture of you, chances are good you have never met him.
What is The Premise?
Here on The Premise Jeniffer and Chad Thompson talk to storytellers of all types. From authors to musicians, poets, screenwriters, and comedians we get down to the tiny grain of sand that becomes a pearl—getting to the story behind the storyteller.
Jeniffer: Hello and welcome back to the premise.
Hey, Chad.
Chad: Hello. It's been a while.
Jeniffer: It's been a while. What season are we in?
Chad: I don't know. Five, six, seven? Not sure.
Jeniffer: We are in our fifth season. It's pretty awesome. And I
am really excited to be kicking. Kicking off
this season with Bello miguel
Cipriani on this day, global
accessible awareness day.
Bello, welcome to the premise.
Belo: Hello. Hello. Thanks for having me.
Jeniffer: So good to have you. So I'm going to read your bio.
we'll start there and then we'll jump into the conversation. But some of
our listeners might remember that we interviewed Bello back
in season one, episode seven.
So this is kind. Kind of a follow up. We're going to be talking about
accessibility and publishing in books
and storytelling.
But let's start with your bio, Bello. Miguel
Cipriani is a digital inclusion
strategist who became passionate about making
online spaces accessible after being blinded by a
group of men in 2007. His books
and articles on disability issues have received
numerous awards and international recognition.
He has guest lectured at Yale, and
in 2020 he was appointed by Governor Tim
Walts to the Minnesota Council on
Disability. Through his digital access consulting
firm, Olab Media, he has helped countless
organizations build inclusive websites and
apps. HuffPost referred to him as an agent
of change, and SF Weekly named him one of
the best disability advocates. Tony
Coelho, the primary author and sponsor of the
Americans with Disabilities act, called Bello an
important voice in disability writing. You can
follow Olap media on Instagram and
Facebook. Bella, what are your handles so people can follow
you?
Belo: They could, look me up through media
for both Instagram,
LinkedIn, and, Facebook.
Jeniffer: Okay. And while we're at
it, your, website.
Belo: Yes. Bello cipriani.com, comma, also
olipmedia.com, awesome.
Jeniffer: Well, Bello, it is so awesome
to have you back. We've known each other for
15 m years, maybe.
Belo: Yeah, that's about right.
Jeniffer: It's been a while. We got to work with Bello on his
first book, a memoir, which was published back
in, Was it
2008? I forget what
year that book was published.
Belo: 2011.
Jeniffer: Okay. Okay. So 2011. And
here you are, you're publishing other books. You're doing so
many amazing things. But let's.
Let's start with why we're here today. Today
is global accessible awareness day.
Can you tell our listeners a little bit about what that means
and why we're here to talk about it today?
Belo: Yes. you know, global accessibility awareness
day falls, always, in May, in
the middle of the month, it floats around a little bit.
It's like a Thursday.
Jeniffer: Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I think it's the third Thursday
of May every year.
Belo: Yeah, correct. And so, you
know, this is a day that was, you know, that
where people, focus and, bring attention
to the need for, digital inclusion and digital accessibility
as it comes to digital spaces.
And there's a foundation behind it now, but it
was a long time in the making. People were, you know, at least
advocates, in various, different communities.
You know, the deaf community, the blind community, the
neurodivergent community were coming together and, you know, wanted
to, just bring some attention around
inclusion in digital spaces.
Jeniffer: Ironically, today, when we tried to get on to
do this podcast, the platform we were using was
completely not accessible and we had to switch
platforms.
Belo: That happens to me a lot, you know,
especially because there's, you know, I think people were using Zoom a
lot. Zoom is the most accessible, platform
out there, 100% accessible. You know,
I could use it. my friends who have other disabilities
could use it. I have a friend who doesn't have hands, and he's
able to use it because he has a foot pedal, and it connects with his foot
pedal really well. It's just, you know, some
people, there's other platforms now, and it happens to me a lot.
That actually, happened to me earlier today. I was in
this, event, and I, had to switch to
zoom because of, you know, there was nothing labeled on the
page. So it's something that happens a lot. you know,
I feel that sometimes, you know, organizations kind
of overlook accessibility. And I think that is the
point of, you know, of, global accessibility awareness
day is to make accessibility a core part
of anything you do.
Jeniffer: Absolutely. Well, looking at you.
Chad: Riverside FM yeah, and us,
Jeniffer: I mean, we didn't even look to see. We just, you know, we just
grabbed it. And that's. I think that's the point. People need to be more
aware. And how embarrassing. When you, when
you came on, you called me and you said, well, I just, you know, none of these
buttons are labeled. And, you know, I'm just not able to. And I
thought, oh, well, maybe I can tell you where to look on the page. And it's like, okay,
no, that's not the answer. Let's just go to zoom.
And you were saying earlier that zoom is 100%
accessible.
Belo: It didn't start out that way. they had a couple bugs,
but during the pandemic, they really got their stuff
together and they have an accessibility team
and they're making updates. And,
and when it comes to accessibility,
let me just say that
there's different levels of accessibility. I think that, some
organizations just do provide the very basic.
Other organizations go beyond and above, and
Zoom is definitely an organization that goes above and
beyond. And there's other organizations like Apple
is phenomenal with accessibility. I could buy any
product off the shelf and I can make it work for
me. and, you know, Microsoft is pretty
good too. Google's great. They all tend to be large
organizations that have the resources to have big
teams of accessibility experts like myself, where,
it becomes more challenging, for organizations that are
small to mid sized companies where they don't have the,
resources to hire a full time accessibility
person. And then they're often having to make these
choices on their own and they don't know what to
look for, you know. And so that's what, you know, I kind of start
off with, you know, saying, you know, first of all, be
aware that accessibility is important. It's not
just about, you know, helping people with disabilities. It's
about making your, providing all users
with a more inclusive experience.
Jeniffer: Speaking of experiences, talk to us about the
experience today and just, you know, how you
use the Internet and what that is like for you.
You don't necessarily have to use today as an example, but it might be
a good one.
Belo: Yeah. so I am completely blind, which
means I, see no color, no light
perception, everything's pitch black. And I use a screen
reader and it's a device, it's a software that
I, it's available through my laptop. I also have one
on my phone and it reads what's on the screen to
me in a phonics voice, kind of like
Alexa. And that's how I
do my day to day work. I've had different, you
know, jobs. You've seen me go through all these jobs
where, you know, I've been a college professor, I've been a
journalist, now I'm a small business owner.
and, you know, I've done all those things with, with
my, screen reading software. And so I
often, you know, I don't use a mouse.
That's important to bring up
because a lot of the times, and this is just like
an FYI, if you have to use a
mouse to process something
on a website or on a website
or with a tool, then it's not accessible because that
means it's not keyboard accessible.
Jeniffer: So how do you click things? How does that work?
Belo: Keyboard, accessible
means that
someone can access the,
fully access the product service through
their keyboard. And so for example, with,
zoom, I hit the
tab key and it reads the buttons to me. It says,
join, zoom, meeting button. Then I hit enter.
And then it says, then I tab around, it says, you know, test
your audio, turn, on your camera, you
know, I don't know what else it says. It reads everything to me as I tap
around. I could also use the arrow keys to move around and
just read the elements because everything's labeled
correctly and I hit enter.
that's, you know, what keyboard accessible
means that anyone could access it with a
keyboard, have, the full experience with the keyboard. They're
not, you know, they don't have to have a mouse because not everyone could use
a mouse.
Jeniffer: So is it like it's reading to you and you tap
one, it tells you what it is, tap twice,
you've clicked it or you wait for the
next prompt. I'm just curious how
it actually works from the perspective
of tapping.
Belo: Sure. No. So you tap, you hit the
tab key, which is on the top left of your keyboard.
Most people don't really use the tab key much,
but it's one that for anyone who is
using any type of assistive software, it's very
popular. So you tab around, the different elements on
a website or on a tool, or use the arrows
and it reads what's on there. And if the things are not labeled
correctly, it'll read that too. It would say graphic. Graphic.
Graphic or unlabeled element like you were hearing
with the, other tool we were using.
Jeniffer: So you don't know if you should hit enter or what you should do.
Belo: Exactly. Sometimes I have to count
the unlabeled buttons to see what makes sense.
to hit, like, I was able to get into the, you know, use
that as an example, get into the application.
But I couldn't unmute myself because I didn't know how to do
that. I think I kept getting a message that was saying, hit the
microphone icon. I'm like, okay, how
you need site to do that? Yeah, you
know, and if you're gonna. It probably, there's
probably other things wrong with it too, because when I was
tabbing, I heard other elements popping
up, but there was, nothing related to
settings. So
again, talking about, major
components or accessibility as you're
looking for the tools that you're using,
if they're keyboard accessible, that is
a very good sign.
Jeniffer: Nice. Thank you for that. Yeah, that makes sense.
It kind of like, it reminds me of using a spreadsheet, tabbing
through and hitting enter and choosing your,
your spaces that way.
It, I think I read somewhere that there are 1
billion people alive today with some
form of disability or impairment.
Belo: Absolutely. You know, the
you know, there's different organizations that have
different statistics. You know, some say four and
five. Some say, I'm sorry, One in four people is
one statistic that I've heard have a disability. Let's, say,
I think it's a four ah to. Out of
ten people have a disability.
You know, these are different organizations assessing different
regions and groups. You know, it fluctuates.
And something that you have to take into consideration that there's people
with chronic illness, so they move into
disability, you know, and then they move back out of it,
you know, it's temporary. Right. And an example
of that is, you know, someone who gets a lot
of migraines when, when they have
an episode, they're not able to read for as long.
Right, sure. Or, or some, for some, some of
my, I have a friend who when she gets migrate, she actually can't see
color that well because she's in so much pain.
Jeniffer: Sure. Yeah.
Belo: But even, even when you're in pain and you're doing
these things, you still, you still have to, you know, buy groceries online and
do get stuff done and order your medications and
so, it's something that's, you
know, it's something to keep in mind.
Jeniffer: I actually have a friend who's a writer, very prolific writer,
and she recently has been going through issues with her
eyes and she couldn't see for, I think,
three months. they were giving her different medications
and, you know, she could see a little bit of light. It wasn't completely black,
but, you know, for all intents and purposes, she was
blind for three months and she was considering, what am I going to do? How
am I going to keep writing? You know, what's available to me if this is
a permanent situation for me. So
you're right. Like, it just, there's so
many people who need this
important day and who can continue
living their life right. In the way that they
know it anyway.
Belo: Yeah. And, you know, people, I mean,
there's Siri, right. And like on the
Apple platform. And, and Siri was,
you know, was really, you know,
as used as an accessibility feature, but not everyone
uses, you know, Siri.
Jeniffer: Right.
Belo: You don't have to be blind to. To use Siri. Everyone uses
Siri. another example of that is, you know, the automatic
doors at grocery stores. Right? Like, they
were really designed for people who are
wheelchair users, but, you know, I benefit from
them. I love it when the doors just open on their own.
Right. So there's, you know, tools that have,
offer, like a universal design.
And that's another principle of accessibility. It's
universal design for learning or universal design
where you make it
accessible to a point where everyone
benefits.
Jeniffer: I like this concept, this idea of universal
design, that it is for
everyone, not just those who have sight or
those who can hear. That's kind of a beautiful way to look at it, as
opposed to make it accessible. Make it
universal to everyone, definitely.
Belo: And there, you know, there is a lot
of, you know, universal design
is really used a lot in the classroom,
course design. and it's a
principle that I use all the time. Right.
but I think that, you know, because of
policy and, and law
and, you know, especially because there are some businesses
that get sued for having inaccessible products. Right.
you know, accessibility is sort of like the
foundational term.
Jeniffer: Yeah.
I would like to know how much has changed since you
first found yourself rendered
blind and had to completely change your life and relearn
everything. How much has changed and gotten
better for you since that time?
Belo: I think that there's a lot
more awareness. I think, you know, technology
improved, oh, my God, like
a thousand times. And so, you know, when I,
when I first became blind, I
had a BlackBerry. I couldn't use
my BlackBerry anymore. M and I
could only use a phone that I could feel the
buttons, which left me to this little old
fashioned flip phone, and that's all I could
do. I had to give that up for a
while. There was a company in
Spain, that
developed the software where if you have a Windows
mobile phone and you bought the software, you
could have access to your phone and email.
And I was so excited about that. I bought
my Windows mobile phone, paid $1,000 for
that, and then the software was another $600.
Wow. The experience was,
like, not that great. It was just barely
accessible, you know? So again,
it's all about, you know, giving the people the bare minimum.
Right. now we have, you know,
iPhone. I have an iPhone that has Siri, and
even the Android phones now it has talkback,
you know. and so, and those are built in. You have to pay
extra. So I feel like there's a lot, a lot of
organizations with built in accessibility into their
devices and their services, which has been
wonderful. where I feel there's a big gap
is if I stay within the. With big
companies, I could always find accessibility. It's
when I venture into the small
business, mid sized companies where I run into trouble.
And that's problematic because, you know,
70% of businesses, of the economy,
at least in the US, are small businesses.
So an example for that is, you know, making
restaurant reservations are hard for me,
reserving concert tickets, things that are
local. Anytime people say, let's do something local, I
cringe because I know that they don't have the resource
to make things accessible and it's not going to be easy.
Jeniffer: So what are you doing to change that?
Belo: I'm launching my online learning academy
and it's called Olip Academy and it's through my
consulting firm, Olap Media. And we're
launching our, image course, today,
May 16. And it's called, the course is called
image accessibility. And, you know,
accessibility is a field in its own right.
You know, I have my doctorate in accessibility.
Jeniffer: so you have several
doctorates, though, let's be clear. Don't you have more than one
doctorate?
Belo: No, I just have a couple masters.
Jeniffer: Okay. That's what it is. I'm like, I know you have a lot of education,
so go on. You have a doctorate in accessibility, which. Who knew?
I had no idea that was a doctorate.
Belo: Yeah. And so whenever, whenever someone could get a
doctorate in something, that means that there's a lot of
information there, you know, and so, when
it comes to, you know, accessibility
and it being a field in its own right, it's
humongous. I mean, there's so many things. There's plain language, that's
color accessibility, there's design. I mean,
whenever I talk to, you know, small business
owners, which is, you know, my,
most of my clients or course creators, they get overwhelmed. They don't
know, they know it's important. But just having
to learn all these new skits is scary. And I always tell them, you know,
start with your images on anything you make,
start adding alt text and then the rest will come naturally.
So that's what this, this course focuses on, is how
to write effective alt text. And,
you know, something that people may not be aware of. But when you
have, alt text on your images, on your
website that are well written, they make your
website rank higher.
Jeniffer: Mm
Belo: And then they, they pop up in image searches on,
on Google.
Jeniffer: Absolutely.
Belo: So you get more traffic and so what my clients have seen,
you know, and I'll just, you know, say the sidestep for
a second, that a lot of my clients are coming to me because
they've had a judgment letter, which means so that
someone complain about them, and they have, you know, three
months, sometimes six months to make the changes, or, you
know, wow.
Jeniffer: Wow.
Belo: Yeah.
Jeniffer: And so, so it's a reactionary thing.
Belo: Yeah. So they're not very happy often when they're talking to
me.
Jeniffer: Right.
Belo: But as, they're doing, making all these changes, they're seeing how their
businesses are improving. And something that they've seen a lot is they say,
like, wow, our traffic has almost doubled because we
added alt text.
Jeniffer: You know, it's funny that you say that is, I used to. I mean,
just all of our listeners, if they remember, Chad and I have a company
called monkey see media, and we built websites for
authors. And I remember when we were using
alts tags, and no one else was for
SEO reasons. And you pointed out to me,
gosh, must have been 2011. You know, it's important
because people don't know what that image is. It's not just book
cover. What does the book cover look like?
Walk us through how to write an alt
tag. Alt tag text for
a book cover on a website. What would you do
for a book cover?
Belo: you know, you don't want to overwhelm
the, you know, the reader, the screen
reader, user with too much information. I would
say, you know, keep it to, two
sentences and highlight what's most
important. I, you know, something that I've
seen, I've seen where it's the opposite. Or
like, I almost feel bad doing this, but, saying, this, but
the NASA, writes the worst
old text.
Jeniffer: Well, maybe they should hire you. You.
Belo: And, and I, and I know that,
you know, those pictures that they take in space are just
gorgeous, and there's so much to tell. Right,
right. But I sometimes, when I've, I've heard one
of their descriptions, I, like, walk away, go get coffee and
come back and it's still reading the description.
Jeniffer: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. That's too much.
Chad: The crazy thing to me is that, the screen reader that you're using, because I've
heard you using it while we've done, I think, training.
It is amazing how
quickly that's flying by, all that information.
Belo: Yeah, no, there's a
lot that. It's reading really quickly.
Jeniffer: M that's interesting.
Yeah. Okay, so really long
descriptions aren't necessarily good for the user because that's what we're
talking about here. So when we first started using alt tags,
it was for SEO purposes and it worked 100%.
But people need to think about who's listening and is this a good
experience for them? Is it serving their needs?
Belo: Absolutely. And something that
really people are starting to do now is
there's alt text, that's a
label on the image, but then people are adding sometimes
visual descriptions to describe the, and
that's really for individuals who are
neurodivergent.
And I encourage my, and I had
some of my clients say, well, I have to do alt text and
the visual description, that's so much.
And they're like, no, listen, they serve different
purposes. We're going to make the visual description slightly
different. Just go with it, trust me,
because I know the experience. And so what
ended up happening is they were saying they had the alt text, which
only blind people could hear through their software. But then on the bottom they
have visual description and they just had two sentences describing the
picture. And then they went into their story. And these are, you know,
people, small businesses, you know, mostly
retailers, right? They started getting a lot
more engagement in social media because people who are in mobile
devices could understand the picture better.
Jeniffer: Right. And I think for us it's an, image
description. That's the same thing, right? Visual description. And
are those two different things?
Belo: You know, I think
that for a visual description,
you're looking at different things. So for example, alt
text might say, you know, I'm gonna use
your name, you know, book cover of
Jennifer, black book
cover with Jennifer's name written in silver,
in cursive with butterflies around
it, right?
Belo: the visual description wouldn't need
the cursive because they could see that it's cursive,
right. The visual description would be more like
the book cover of Jennifer, which has her
name and
flowers and butterflies around
it, just because people may not be able to see
that detail.
Chad: And then there's audio, description
in video. So it's like you've got all these
things. Yeah, because we used to do some work for the federal
government for national park Service, and I had to do
videos for them that had audio
description in them.
Belo: Yes, yes. That's, you know,
audio, description is whenever you, there's a secondary
audio track that describes any non
spoken scenes to the blind person. And so for
example, if you know,
Jennifer, and I are in a coffee shop, right? And we sit
down like the descriptive body would say,
you know, Jennifer and bellow, or, you know, right before
it happens, is Bella, bellow and Jennifer sitting at a coffee
shop, dress dressed with smart clothes or something like
that, you know? And, you know,
descriptive audio has become such a big staple. Like, you know,
Netflix is great about descriptive audio, and
Hulu and Amazon M Prime are
picking up, again, you know, when you ask me
how things change, I feel like when I first became
blind in 2007, and you know what? I did
meet you in 2009 because it took me so long to
get my book stuff ready. So we worked for a while
before I actually got the book published. But, I
felt like back in those days, I was like,
begging for
an ounce, for a grain of accessibility
versus now I have options.
Jeniffer: Well, you used to rely on friends and people to help you,
and that's just not, that's
just not tenable. You know, not everyone has people who can
help them, and not everyone wants to ask for help either.
You shouldn't have.
Belo: It's all of those things. Yeah, for sure.
Chad: Has there been anything that has gotten worse over
that amount of time.
Belo: Or.
Chad: Has it just all been better?
Belo: Accessibility has become a hot topic
for a lot of, you know,
states. You know, some states, and especially
states in the south, a lot of, you
know, small business owners are saying, you know, you can't tell me what
to do with my website. This is my business, my website.
If you don't, if you can access them, you're not my
client. And a
lot of the states in the south are actually, you know,
when. When accessibility, cases come into the
courts, they get thrown out.
And there's, almost
like, you know, accessibility, which was making such a good
wave up until, you know, very recently now
is. It's almost seen that it's becoming segmented
where, you know, states like California
or Minnesota or Massachusetts, you know, the northern states, the
west, the states are really behind
accessibility versus, places like
Texas. It's not.
Jeniffer: Interesting. Wow.
Chad: Why am I not surprised?
Jeniffer: Yeah. Wow. That's a whole other podcast right
there.
I want to bring it back to audio if we can. not
that we can't get political here. We can, but we
were talking the other day about audiobooks and how one
would just assume that audiobooks are just 100%
accessible. But that's not the case.
Belo: Absolutely. it all depends on the
platform that you're using. and, ensuring that
your books are labeled
correctly, that the tracks have
names, is not just track five or
track zero. Five. How my screen reader would read
it. and small
details that make a big difference. I think
that, I don't know,
again, whenever I get anything from
Penguin or, Simon and
Schuster, their audiobooks are pretty
accessible. everything's labeled correctly.
But whenever I, you know, I've gotten books
from other presses, I've,
you know, the, ebooks are not accessible
and the audiobooks have, I'm not able to pick the
chapter that I want to listen to. I have
to listen to the whole thing through.
Jeniffer: Oh, wow. Yeah.
Belo: So it makes it going back and forth
challenging, especially if it's a book that's
a resource book where you want to jump around. It's just not
possible. So I feel that there's
some work to be done there. I, will be
teaching, an accessibility publishing
class. I'm working on it now. And
I'm going to be teaching that how to make sure that your
audiobooks, ebooks and hardcover books are accessible.
Jeniffer: I think the publishing world really needs to come on
board with this.
Chad: Yeah. If for the only reason that it expands their audience.
Jeniffer: Totally, totally.
Chad: That's an easy one, I think, to justify. Right.
Jeniffer: And I wonder, like, you know, because what we're talking about,
like, it isn't necessarily expensive, it
doesn't cost you any more to label your tracks
properly. It just takes some knowledge to know that you need to do
it.
Belo: Yeah. It's like the alt text. The field is there. Just add a
few words. Right.
Jeniffer: Yeah, exactly. And people still don't know what, alt text is.
And then so our listeners know it's
alternative text is really where that came from,
alternative to being able to see
it. Right, correct.
So tell us about your learning platform that you're
developing.
Belo: Well, I, you know, I'm, I'm
a coach, you know, so I'm coaching, you know,
my clients through making their spaces more accessible. And I'm
hoping to be able to work with more people and reach more people. And
so I'm releasing this image,
accessibility course today, and I'm hoping to
release more in, the summer and in the fall. And
I just want to give people a clear
guidance on how to make things accessible. you
know, I'll be the first to say that
accessibility
guidelines are not very accessible.
They're hard to understand. They're very technical.
Jeniffer: Wow. Now that's irony.
Belo: It really is. And, you know, the, the disability
movement was really. The access digital accessibility movement
was really, you know, brought by, you know, a lot of attorneys
and a lot of engineers and, you
know, some of.
Chad: The most opaque people on the planet.
Belo: Right, exactly. And
so you have these guidelines, these WCAG
guidelines that are, you know, great, but not very
accessible. You know, they do all, you know,
my, I have a, you know, my doctor is in education and
my emphasis is in accessibility, learning
accessibility. And so they do all the
typical pitfalls of teaching where you define
something with the same word.
Yellow is yellow. You know,
there's a lot of that in the, in the WCAG, you know,
criteria, where like, you know, understanding
criteria one. Well, you have to understand criteria two and it's a
hyperlink and you go somewhere else and then before you know
it, 20 minutes went by. You still don't know, you know, the answer that,
you know, you're still only not closer to knowing what
you wanted to know. And so, I really I use
that as a foundation, but I break it up
and you know, and make it more, more
digestible for people.
Jeniffer: How can people find this?
Belo: They could go to olapacademy.com dot.
Jeniffer: Okay, let's talk about AI and how AI
is going to affect and is affecting accessibility.
Belo: It is affecting accessibility a big
time. And there's, you know, some, some good wins and some things that
are just not not ideal.
So I mean, there's automatic
captions for videos, that are AI
generated. And for someone on a budget
doing a live event.
If that's all the best you can do, that's the best you can do.
I wouldn't use AI for
a film or anything like that. I would hire a professional
to do it. they just make so many
mistakes. I
feel that whatever AI renders, it's usually a starting point.
It's not the end all, be all that
also carries on to accessibility.
Unfortunately, there's all these
AI tools, accessibility, AI tools that over
promise. And you could just, even
if you type in WCAG accessibility, you get all
the ads and they say stuff like
download our AI, accessibility solution and become
508 compliant or 508
compliant immediately. And
that is not true because for 508
compliancy you need to have your PDF's
accessible. And how can an automated tool
on your website format a PDF
that's a file attachment? M do you know what I
mean?
Jeniffer: Well, and tell us what. Yeah, yeah. And explain to
our listeners what it means for a PDF to be accessible.
Belo: Yeah, so an accessible PDF has all
text, it has headers, it
has you know, the attributes that allow screen readers to
use it. It has the focus order correctly.
you know, I would say that
accessible PDF's, it's its own,
it's its own beast. It sounds like it takes
time to learn, but once you learn it, you
know, you are able to produce something of high, high
value for sure.
Jeniffer: Can you do all of this through Adobe?
Belo: yeah, you could use Adobe. You could use, you know, and, you know,
and that's what m most, if you're using Adobe, you know, you're
going to be using the, you know, the different layers and you
have to pay attention to the articles. Layers need to make sure the
articles and, you know, and the objects are all
reading correctly. Probably,
again, I might be getting too
technical here, but PDF's are its own
beast. I always tell people, start with alt
text, move on to plain language, then
move on to doing
some color, and design, and
then tackle PDF. Because by the time you get
PDF, you already have some of those components, so
those things will be easier. So when a
PDF, when you format a PDF, you already know how to do alt text, you
already know how to write in plain language, you already know how to, you know,
lay things out in color.
Jeniffer: Right, right.
Belo: You'll just, you'll just be dealing with the layers and focus
reader, focus order and the objects on the
page. So it's definitely,
it's not, you know, it's something that
I wouldn't, I wouldn't recommend that. That's the first class someone
takes.
Jeniffer: Good to know. Yeah.
You know, I also want to talk about like the importance of
fonts and spacing and colors and, you know, you
mentioned neurodivergent earlier. Can you tell
us, our listeners, what that means to
be neurodivergent?
Belo: Well, you know, neurodivergent is, you know,
it encompasses a lot of different communities. You know, someone who
is autistic would be considered neurodivergent.
Someone who has a learning disability is
neurodivergent. you know, I, lost
my sight from an assault and I have a traumatic brain injury,
so I'm neurodivergent. how it affects
me is I cannot track time. I have to
have timers and, you know, on me all the time. I
can't tell how much time goes by. I'm like a cat or a dog, you know,
they can't tell time either, the passing of time.
And so, you know, for me, how it works, for how
it affects me is studying, you know, I literally have to have
a timer, otherwise I lose track. And,
and when you have
yeah, exactly. When you have activities that are being
timed, that's super stressful for me. So
all these different, conditions and
diagnoses will be considered neurodivergent and
dyslexia as well? Absolutely.
Jeniffer: So the fonts we choose when we're putting together a book
or an ebook, a website,
all of these things really matter. And
I've taught design for many, many years in our business,
and it's not just
about creating something that's pretty. And people need to look beyond
a pretty package. Is it accessible? Is this
font easy to read? Like an example that I used to tell
people, is
typically when you're reading a book on
paper, you're going to use serif fonts because the serifs
lead one digit to another one, you know, integer
to another. And online, you
actually have a screen that's like jiggling. Even though your
brain may be refreshing the screen faster, it's
actually moving. So sans serif fonts
work better online. So these are just like little things that people
just don't know about. And all of these things matter
when it comes to accessible type, right?
Belo: Yes. Color fonts,
book size, contrast,
contrast. People who
are neurodivergent are using a lot of apps to
highlight, their books, whatever
they're reading. and your book needs to
be optimized to allow those features to work correctly.
Jeniffer: I'm impressed to hear that Simon and Schuster and some of the big, the
big five publishers are actually creating
accessible books. Almost,
a little surprised, honestly.
Belo: You know, I was surprised when I first found
one that was successful. Maybe a couple years. Again,
it's still pretty new. It's two, three years ago,
you know, they, you know, just the biggest. Organize the
big organizations, just have more resources.
Chad: The threat of a lawsuit is a hell of a motivator.
Jeniffer: That's a good point, yeah.
Okay, so let's talk about colorblindness. How do people
create a website that the colorblind can
actually see?
Belo: So I do something that's very
different. So most people who do what I do, accessibility,
they really stick to the WCAG, the
different criteria, and they treat it like
it's, the different standards,
1.11.2, and follow those criteria
really closely. I found that not to be effective when I teach
accessibility. So I kind of break it into three groups.
And if, you know, if you could keep, remember these three groups
and make things accessible for a three, you will create
something accessible. So the three groups that I have is
neurodivergent mobility
and sensory m. And the
sensory community encompasses deaf,
visually, impaired, blind, and
colorblind. And because
it's a sensory thing that's rendering the
color the way it is. And something, you know, I've
been working with different, you know, research,
institutes on getting more research on color blindness.
And the statistics just really kind of, you
know, surprised me because it's something like, you
know, three out of ten people, have color
blindness, some form of color blindness.
but the people that have color blindness, like, half of them don't know that
they're colorblind.
Jeniffer: M you know, Chad and I used to have this argument about this, this duffel
bag that I was convinced
was gray, and Chad said was green.
And then we brought it out into, like, the light in the sunlight, and I was
like, okay, yeah, I guess it is green, and it
has green tones, but still in a dark room, it looks great to
me.
Belo: And that's very, you know, green is one of the hardest
colors for most, people
with any form of, color blindness to detect
green and red. And, you know, this
doesn't mean that your designs can't, you know, have green or
red. They just can't be the primary colors.
They could be background colors, you know, not
anything that needs attention. I, you
know, with some of my clients that, ah,
you know, they're e commerce, you know, clients selling products
online. They were so used to the red, you know,
the call to action red button.
Jeniffer: Yeah.
Belo: You know, and they were just horrified that I said, most people can't
see that.
Jeniffer: And you're like, what? Yeah, exactly.
Belo: And then they're like, and then they, then
they change it. And I would, you know,
I actually suggested blue, and, you know,
and they were not having it. And they're like, we changed
it to green.
Chad: Oh, the other one. Awesome.
Belo: Add a lot of yellow to this green, and they turned
into a neon green. And m.
It was not pretty. And I just said, let's test
it out. No, this is accessibility. Like, there. This is
the one thing, again, accessibility. It's a field of study, just
like anything else. You have to test things out. you can't just
rely on theory and let's just test it out.
And their sales went through the roof.
Jeniffer: Nice.
Belo: They had, well, specifically, they had a
42% increase.
Jeniffer: That's incredible. Bellow. Yeah,
that's incredible.
Belo: So, yeah, neon green. And so then I actually took that to my
other client, and I said, you know what? My other client tried
this neon green button thing. It's not
pretty, but he got really good results.
And she's a different client, and she
says, I'll try anything. You know,
she was also very sad to give up her red button.
And she went to the neon green and she had success.
Jeniffer: Wow. What about yellow? Can we go yellow instead of neon
green?
Belo: You know, you could do yellow if you have some border
surrounded.
Chad: Oh, thank God. I don't
know if I can. I can do neon green.
Belo: Yeah. Yeah. You know, Well, here's
change. Right. So. But I think that,
I don't know, these are just results that I've had. Right.
Jeniffer: You know, so we are
balancing between, you know, good design
and accessible design, what's actually
working. So it's a really good
conversation. Can we have both?
Belo: I think so.
Jeniffer: I think so. Chad's like, I don't know.
Chad: I don't know. I've seen, I only say this because
I spend a lot of time in adobe products.
Chad: And they've got one product called color.
And they have accessibility. Like, you
can choose what, you're aiming for, whether it's color
blindness or various
settings within color palettes. And some
of them are just, oh, so bad.
Jeniffer: M well, I mean, there's got to be a way to do both. Oh,
boy.
Chad: It's a balancing act, right?
Jeniffer: Is, is what we consider good design going to
change?
Chad: And that's the thing.
Jeniffer: Yeah.
Chad: Certainly did in the eighties, didn't it?
Jeniffer: Sure. Yeah. Neon was the thing, right? I wore
neon, I have to admit it. Although I'd rather
not. yeah. Yeah.
Belo: And I'll say this, that, you know, I didn't use the
neon green on, you know, my,
website. My buttons are blue. And the
reason that I choose blue is because I know that,
that, by far, is, you know, the
color that's easiest for anyone to see.
Jeniffer: M it's also a very common
color. So from a psychological perspective,
you know, I've always thought of blue, as a pretty bad
color for a call to action because it makes,
it's while
it's trusted, you know, banks, universities all use
blue. It's just not the color your eyes are going to see first. If, of
course, you're not neurodivergent or
having, you know, any kind of color blindness,
but it's like the kind of color that makes you, like, stop and like,
well, maybe I'll think about taking action. Right.
So now we've got two different
fields of thought called with
regard to a call to action button. So I'll be interested to see
how this plays out.
Belo: You know, I look at organizations,
that have done, have adopted accessibility
and good design and are doing really well. And I look at
apple.
Belo: You know, their products are 100% accessible and
their products are pretty.
Jeniffer: Absolutely. Well, that's a really good example to point
to someone who's doing it well. That's great.
So there's other things to consider. Okay. There's color,
there's, you know, font choice really matters. But, you
know, I mentioned earlier spacing, the amount of
spacing between the letters or the leading. The
spacing between the lines. also how wide
paragraphs are, if people can actually read them.
Belo: There's, you know, there's also a part of
accessibility that, you know, that, that's, around plain
language. and plain language is, you know,
making your writing more accessible and,
you know, how long should
paragraphs be? And, you know, that
sort of, stuff. And, you know, with plain language,
I use plain language in my writing and,
you know, I teach creative writing, you know, and a lot of my
m students have said like, oh, I can't use this. I. You're
stifling my creativity. but then
they do it, they use it and they see how, you know,
it makes it, makes it easier to read certain
sections, break up, you know, bigger scenes and so
on. so, yeah, no, all those things, you
know. You know what?
I'm going to say something really bold, but I think that, you know,
people who make things are artists.
And there's this almost this unwritten rule about
art where it's like you can't filter it or move it or shape
it, you know? And I feel like
sometimes as artists, and I've been a part of this too, we
forget that we're also providing a, user experience
through your art, you know? And, you
know, and if you are an artist that really wants
to reach a wide audience, then you make sure that your
experience is as inclusive as possible.
Chad: And also, there's not an artist on the planet that wouldn't tell you
that limitations, breed
creativity, right?
Jeniffer: Mm.
Chad: So if you limit yourself to simple language
or you limit yourself to color palettes that are
accessible, you
then learn to use those to your benefit.
Jeniffer: I like that idea. Some sort of a
contest, like putting these parameters out, like, okay, what do you
got? Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That's
cool.
Belo: Yeah, that's great, Chad. It, reminds me
of, I had this neighborhood
that gave me like five sacks of
potatoes.
Chad: You learn what to do with potatoes.
Belo: What am I gonna do with it? And I started making
all these things with potatoes and cooking them different way, potato
soup and wedges. And I just learned all
these things and I was like, wow. You know, like if I really push
myself, I made it work.
Jeniffer: You took the challenge.
Belo: I did.
Jeniffer: And now you eat potatoes.
Belo: I do.
Chad: So take the potato challenge, people.
Jeniffer: That's exactly right.
There is something else you mentioned to me that I found really
interesting. M this idea of the type of
paper. Like, for example, if it has any kind of a
glossy sheen to it, there
are people who use, like, take a photograph of it. So explain to
me what you were talking about and why this is important in the
publishing world.
Belo: You know, certain, certain types of,
pages and specifically glossy are hard for some newer,
divergent people to read because, the lighting bounces off
the page and affects the
reading. specifically for people who may have
dysgraphia as a condition that affects a lot, but
also, for people who are visually impaired or might be light
sensitive. you know, for example, for me, I remember
very clearly where I, you know, I use my phone
to take pictures of, you know, books and papers and
it turns into a PDF on my book. on my, on my phone
and it reads it to me. And there was
some, a book that I was taking a picture of and every
other, like five, fifth or 6th word was
missing and I couldn't figure out why. And
it wasn't until I asked somebody who said, what's up with this book? And it's
like, well, it's kind of glossy. And I realized that it was
the lighting, the flash from, you know, my camera
when I was taking the picture.
And so, yeah. And so I just ended
up not using that book. you know, I
couldn't work with that book.
Jeniffer: Yeah. Wow. And that's too bad, right? A simple
design choice made that book, completely
inaccessible to you.
Belo: Correct.
Jeniffer: Yeah. Wow.
Chad: Well, so now we have to produce both matte and gloss
covers.
Jeniffer: Well, that's a good point. Yeah.
Chad: With glossy books, I cannot stand a mat cover. I m
have this tactile response to it that does not
work with my hands. And I will not read a
book that has this
particular matte finish on it.
Jeniffer: I think he's. I always laugh about it, but then
we have a new team member here at Monkey C media
and he was talking to me and he said this matte, I just can't
stand touching it. And I was like, oh my gosh, Chad's not
alone. Okay. But that's totally different, right?
I assume your emotional response to the COVID
treatment, your hand's emotional
response, bringing it
back, you
know, today being global accessible
awareness day.
Bello, is there, like, one
piece of advice, like, you want to give our listeners?
Because, I mean, we're really. Most of our listeners are either authors
or readers, you know, but they're enmeshed or want to
be enmeshed in the publishing industry. Is there something you want people to take
away from this podcast?
Belo: You know, I hear this a lot from other
writers. So, like I said, I teach
a lot of creative writing classes, and so I have a lot of students who, you know,
ask me about making their websites or, you know, how to
make a good author website or, you know, what to do
with their social media. And, you
know, and, a lot of the time is, you know,
you don't have to become an accessibility expert to
practice digital accessibility. I would
say that, you know, making sure that your, you know, your author
websites accessible, making sure that your books are
accessible. You know, if you're, if you
have an agent, your agent can negotiate that, you know,
that your publisher ensure that, you know, your.
Your book is made in accessible formats.
there are, there's one non profit
called bookshare, and the
website's bookshare.org. And,
they're a nonprofit that support people with print disabilities, people
who, for whatever reason, cannot read print books.
and, you know, authors could donate their
manuscript to that and becomes part of that library.
And every time I say that, you know, authors cringe. Like,
I'm not giving my work for free. And yada, yada,
yada. And I said, no, it's a good thing. It's.
It's not free to the world. It's just people who are members of
this nonprofit. And, you know, you could
actually get some publicity through those. Through those channels,
too. And, I had this one
author friend who ended up doing that, and
she said that, she started seeing more people posting
reviews because it was on that
system.
Jeniffer: Oh, wow. Yeah. That's a great piece of advice, especially for
our audience.
Belo: And it's true, you know, for me, whenever I look
at, you know, someone's book, I go look at it there to
see if it's there, if it's accessible.
Belo: And then I go buy. I still go buy it, though.
Jeniffer: Oh, nice. Yeah. And I think that's true.
Right. I want to support, and I like having actual physical
books. So you buy. When you say you buy it. Do
you buy it digitally or do you buy a print copy?
Belo: About 98% of the time, I
buy the cheapest version because I know it's not going to be
accessible. You know, I'm not going to buy a paperback that's, you know, 20 something
dollars. I buy that ebook that's like, you know, $12.
Jeniffer: Yeah.
Belo: And I open it and it's like, image, image, blah, blah, blah. You
know, what you heard earlier?
Jeniffer: Yeah.
Belo: It's not accessible. But then I go to bookshare and I download it, and I
access that that way.
Jeniffer: Oh, wow. So you still want to support them, but
you get to experience it through bookshare.org dot.
Belo: Because I say to myself, if they took the time to
donate to the library, then they did think
about me. Maybe they don't have that as a priority. I
was, you know, at least a thought in the process.
Chad: Right.
Jeniffer: Are books still being published in braille?
Belo: You know, braille literacy is very
low within the blind community. I think
last report that I saw, I think it's like only
7% of the blind community reads
braille. I, don't read in braille. I just
use it to label my devices, like I
braille, like on my, my kitchen equipment.
And, you know, my spices have braille,
but I would not use it to read, you know, anything
long at 7%.
Jeniffer: I mean, that's shockingly low.
So that means, you know, ultimately, a blind person
walking around their house is unable to. Well, Spice is a great
example if you want to cook. how do you know which spice you're
using if you can't read braille?
Belo: You know, I think most blind people, I'm not. I can't speak for
most blind people, but at least, like, you know, part of a lot of
different blind communities. Like, they're using a
lot of apps. They take pictures of their devices, and it
reads a text to them.
Jeniffer: unless it's glossy.
Belo: Yeah, they're using, you know, different, there's
devices that you could scan barcodes and that, you know, and
then that tells you what the product is, too, through the
barcode. so there's a lot of different tools out there,
but braille literacy is pretty
low.
Jeniffer: Hm. I've always found it
just incredible to think about reading through your
fingers and reading through bumps.
That's just such for
me, a mind boggling feat to learn a whole new
language. And how old were you when you became blind?
Belo: I was 26. So I was in my mid
twenties learning braille. And it was hard.
I had a really hard time with it, but, you know, I did it and
I keep up with it. And I would say that I still keep
in touch with the people who I. Who are in my braille class, and I would
say about half of them tell me I lost it. I stopped
using it and I lost it.
Jeniffer: M it's going to be a lost language at
this rate.
Belo: I don't think it'll be a lost language. I think there's always going to be people
who use it. but I, you
know, I mean, I
still use it. If I, you know, if I go to a restaurant and they
offer me the braille menu, I'll take it. I'll read. I'll read a restaurant menu with
braille. I'm not going to read a novel in braille, though.
Jeniffer: How often does a restaurant have a braille menu,
you know?
Belo: not very often. If I were to quantify my experience, I'd be,
like, maybe 30% of the time.
Jeniffer: No, I think that's quite a bit, actually. I'm surprised.
Belo: Yeah, I'm going to start asking.
Jeniffer: I'm curious. And Chaz, like, why? I don't know. I
find that fascinating and good on him. Right. That's very.
That's very cool. I feel proud of
those 30 percenters.
I want to talk about your books. unless there's something else you want to
talk about, you know, that you want people to know.
I think my takeaway, actually, is
that it's not as hard as you think to make your products
accessible and to make them available
and universal, as we.
Belo: Started out, saying, I agree, you know,
and, I'll admit I'll put
myself out there, you know, raise my hand and say that, you
know, because accessibility is such
a large field, you know,
when it came to alt text and image accessibility, I was like,
yeah, we need this and this. But then when it came down to plain language, I
was like, oh, my goodness, I'm a writer. Can I really? You know,
that was the one part that was hard for me, and I realized
that, you know, I'm uncomfortable with this and
why. And I had to really sit down and figure out why, you
know, and I practice and I teach it, but I feel like
there's things that. Aspects of accessibility
that are always hard for some. For some people.
Jeniffer: Well, tell. Give us an example of what. Why was plain language hard
for you? Because you like to use colorful language
or, What do you mean?
Belo: Well, you know, plain language, you know, it's.
There's, you know, if there's
reading level, there's a lot of different components to it. And I didn't want
to start writing with any of these things in mind. You know, I want
to just. And you don't, you know, that was one of my
misconceptions. I was like, yeah, I'm just gonna. You don't
actually apply the plain language until you go into the editing phase. Right?
So it wasn't, I had all these fears, I had made
up all these rules, and it wasn't, I really sat down
and studied it and took, you know, and by the way, by means
study it, because there isn't, there weren't any classes. There were just people
writing articles about it. And it wasn't until
I was like, you know, I was afraid of this. And there is, there really
isn't much I could actually
create my own model and teach it to
others because the way it's being presented to people, it's
scary. And I think that's something that, you
know, you know, as a. I went to
seminary school, right. I don't know if you knew that.
Jeniffer: But I went to seminary school, and.
Belo: You know, I have my master's in theology and religion. And
so when you're talking to
people, people really
get this uncomfortable when they're presented
with change, any type of change.
That's one very common thing, right. The other one
is when they are,
not given any options. When people are denied
choice, they get upset.
And I was studying with this buddhist
monk where he said, life is all about choices.
That's why we're here. We have the option to choose
always. You know that when you're on the right
path, when you always have choices. If you have no choices,
then there's something wrong with your path. And I really feel
that that applies a lot to accessibility because,
you know, I get. I
always get some type of pushback from people in different spaces. You
know, people are on board with this, all the great. Yeah. Captions. Yeah,
yeah. Plain language. Oh, I don't. My writer
friends, you know, scoff at the plain language,
and I did, too. You know, and there's
always, you know, people have hiccups or, you know,
hang ups or some of these things, and it's that not, you know, being taken
away, the option to choose. And it wasn't
until I started taking these, you know, designing my
courses that I realized, like, no, there's still choices.
And even with plain language, like, there's different levels of plain
language, right. And, you know, I think
that the type of books that I write are, you
know, memoir and, literary fiction. Like,
I could handle that. I don't need to,
add graphics or do these other things that are part of plain
language, or be mindful of the,
adjectives or my expression.
I could still do this.
Jeniffer: Within this confinement,
give me an example of plain language. Because you just
said there's levels. So
maybe give an example of two options.
Choose whatever you want.
Belo: Sure. So I would say that,
with plain language, you want to be mindful of
adjectives, you want to be mindful
of adverbs.
Those are one to be mindful of. And you just want
to, Here's an example. So I
would say Jennifer sat alone in her
kitchen. That's plain language, right?
a creative writer might say Jennifer was playing with her
and popping her gum, wearing her pink sweater
in her kitchen, laughing when the phone rang.
Belo: You know, that's what most creative writer people would
say. And
I would just, I think the first one,
you know, works too. It all depends
of what it is. You know, the second one
example, that would not be a good intro
sentence.
Jeniffer: So, I mean, are you talking about using plain language, like in
stories, or are we just talking about like, alt
text and image descriptions?
Okay.
Now that I have, I gotta say, I feel a little
pushed back on that myself. And then what's, and then
what's the point of it? Like, it's just easier to
digest.
Belo: for readability.
Jeniffer: Okay.
Belo: And there's a lot of information online on readability
and writing, making sure that your work is
readable to your audience.
Jeniffer: So, like, if I'm writing an article about, you know,
design or even podcasting or, you know, whatever,
because I, I write in my blog marketing tips once a
week. So using plain language there would really
behoove me because it would be more accessible to
all and universal to more
people.
Belo: I think plain language is absolutely
necessary if you're teaching.
Belo: Because you're teaching just the core. Right. I think that
in fiction and more creative spaces, you have more
creative license to admit. And here's an example
of plain language. I'm working on,
graphic memoir. And in the
graphic memoir, I used the term,
you know, my m home. My home,
flashback to its edwardian period time.
And what I was trying to say is that my
home, like, the electricity was,
like, it was. All these things were falling apart, like it was going back to its
original time when it was built.
Jeniffer: Right, right. And you could have said just
that.
Belo: Exactly.
Jeniffer: okay, so you're currently writing a graphic
memoir.
Belo: I am.
Jeniffer: I find that really interesting. What made
that. What made you decide to do that?
Belo: So, back in 2021, the, institute
in literature in Germany flew me to Germany for
a book festival. Frankfurt. no, it
was, at the institute. The institute on
Literature.
Jeniffer: Oh, okay. Gotcha. Gotcha.
Belo: Munster, Germany. And so I got to stay, you
know, I got to read at this castle,
you know, and it was such an amazing experience.
And, you know, I'm not sure if I ever shared this with you, but,
after the US, my best.
My biggest sales come from Germany.
Jeniffer: Wow, that's pretty cool.
Belo: Yeah. The US, Germany, and France.
and so when I was in Germany, I was sitting in this,
you know, like, this little,
small, little group of people that were all independent
publishers and small, small
presses, and they were asking about, you know, graphic
memoirs, because apparently that's, like, really popular. And
they were kind of doing, like, a round robin, and they said, oh, you so and so
what do you think about, you know, graphic memoirs? Oh, I think
they're popular, and we're doing two next year, and they're
walking around, you know, kind of going around, and when they got to me, they said,
oh, I'm sorry, bello. Yeah. We realized you could never
have a graphic memoir.
Jeniffer: That sounds like a challenge.
Chad: The hell I can't.
Belo: And I was like, I remember waking up the next
morning, like, my jaw.
Jeniffer: Hurt, because I was like, do not tell
me no.
Belo: Yeah, exactly. Right? So I was thinking.
So I was. And I connected with this local artist here in
Minneapolis, and, you know, I had. I had this essay
that I put together, and,
it's a piece that's, 20,000 words,
which is, you know, too short for, like, an essay in an
anthology, but not long enough for, like, a memoir book.
And so I, you know, and it's just the way the piece
ended up to be. It just couldn't, you
know, make it shorter
or do anything else with it. And I just
decided that with 27,000 words, what
if we had some pictures and make it a graphic
memoir?
Jeniffer: That's cool.
Belo: And so that's what we're doing.
And in making the whole process
accessible, we started touching my manuscript, and we're like, hey,
hey, hey.
But through a lot of deep breathing and
contemplation, I realized that it only made
my language more accessible, and m more
people could understand it. And I remember testing, you
know, working with, you know, people who are neurodivergent,
you know, who were autistic or, you know, who would. I
would play different excerpts of
the book, and they would literally say, I don't know what that
means. And the second time with the plain language, like, oh,
that's beautiful.
Jeniffer: Oh, wow. Wow. Are
you publishing this through ola books?
Belo: I, Yes, but I applied for a
grant, and so that's, what I'm kind of
hoping comes through, and then I'll. And then I'll release it.
This is how, you know, Oled books. We're a small press, and
everything we do is through grants.
Jeniffer: Yeah. And you have a book coming out in, I think,
early June, is that right?
Belo: July. Yeah. We have an anthology.
Jeniffer: Tell us more about that.
Belo: the anthology is called accessing parenthood,
and it is, a collection of stories
by individuals, who
identify as having a disability and are also
parenting.
Jeniffer: Right? Yeah. And I've read, actually, quite
a few of the stories. It's a really good
book. I, hope a lot of people read it.
We helped design the COVID on this book, and it was a
really interesting experience working with you and your team and making sure the
colors were right, working with all these things, with the
fonts. and, yeah,
I, you know, starting with
let's design a pretty book cover, too.
Let's make sure this is accessible across
the board. And one of the things that happened is the grass is sort of
a pinkish. We kind of did this interesting
color study, I guess,
where, we use all these different colors, and it's
really pretty. It looks very painterly. It looks kind of like
a, like a degas or
something. But I really appreciated the process.
And working with your team.
Belo: No, we. We love the COVID And, you know,
I printed a, I printed the COVID out, and
I have it on my desk here. And I love
it when people, you know, anyone who
comes by and looks at it, they're like, oh, that's so pretty.
Jeniffer: That's awesome.
Well, okay, so let's come. What's the pub date on that
one?
Belo: July. we are waiting for a couple things. this week,
we'll be setting the pub date probably in the next week or so.
Jeniffer: Okay. Okay. And people can look to olibbooks.com for
that?
Belo: Yes.
Jeniffer: And I just want to tell our readers that bellow has several books out blind.
A memoir. Fantastic. you also
wrote midday, dreams,
which I guess falls under literary fiction. It's
a short novella.
And, your first book with Ola books was
firsts coming of age stories by people with
disabilities. So there's a lot of great stuff that
you've put out there. Bellow. I hope people will check it out.
thank you for joining us today on this global
accessible awareness day. It's been a real pleasure.
Belo: Thanks for having me.
Jeniffer: Yeah, well, until next time, because, you know,
I can't not have you back. We're definitely going to find
more things to talk about when we bellow.
Chad: I, hope so, considering the rate of your
output.
Jeniffer: Yeah, exactly. You just never cease
to amaze and impress and, Delight. That's
it. Amaze and impress and delight me with everything
you're doing for the community, both in books and
the accessibility community. So thank you.
Belo: Thank you.
Jeniffer: You can learn more about Bello Cipriani
and his books, his projects, his
learning
platform@olebmedia.com.
Until next time, please like us. And
I haven't done this in so long, I don't have a script in front of me.
Chad: Please like and subscribe.
Jeniffer: Please like us and subscribe to the
premise everywhere you get your podcasts. And, we'll probably
rerecord that ending and that's it. Thanks a lot.
Bye.