Allison Sheridan of the NosillaCast Podcast (hosted at podfeet.com) presented this at Blogworld Expo in October 2010 in Las Vegas. It focused on how to make both your podcast and your blog more accessibile to try and capture some of the 600,000 people worldwide who are visually or hearing impaired.

1. Allison Sheridan
NosillaCast Mac Podcast
http://podfeet.com
Twitter @podfeet

2. Write This Down
slideshare.net/nosillacast
Pencils Down.

3. How to Increase Your
Audience Through
Accessibility

4. Why Does Allison Do This?
Follow My Leader by James Garfied
Mom
Because it’s fun

5. What Problem are We Trying to Solve?

6. What Problem are We Trying to Solve?
I want more listeners

7. What Problem are We Trying to Solve?
I want more listeners
I want more readers

8. What Problem are We Trying to Solve?
I want more listeners
I want more readers
I want a bigger audience

9. How Have You Tried to Increase
Your Audience?

10. How Have You Tried to Increase
Your Audience?
Redesigning
Your Website

11. How Have You Tried to Increase
Your Audience?
Redesigning
Giveaways
Your Website

12. How Have You Tried to Increase
Your Audience?
Redesigning
Giveaways
Your Website
Link
Swapping

13. How Have You Tried to Increase
Your Audience?
Redesigning
Giveaways
Your Website
Link Spamming
Swapping Message Boards

14. How Have You Tried to Increase
Your Audience?
Redesigning
Giveaways
Your Website
Link Spamming
Swapping Message Boards
Search Engine Optimization

15. How Have You Tried to Increase
Your Audience?
Redesigning
Giveaways
Your Website
Link Spamming
Swapping Message Boards
Search Engine Optimization
... Even Creating Better Content

16. 314 million people
worldwide
are Visually Impaired

17. 314 million people
worldwide
are Visually Impaired
278 million people have
moderate to profound
Hearing Impairment

18. 314 million people
worldwide
are Visually Impaired
278 million people have
moderate to profound
Hearing Impairment
More people than are on
Facebook

19. How do I get a piece of that action?

20. Podcasting Tips

21. Podcasting
Think about what Audio (and Video) Podcasting has
done for the blind!
The world opened up for them - all subjects are
accessible to them now
If you only blog, maybe consider an audio version of
your thoughts
A lot more work but HUGE reward
Format matters
MP3 instead of, or including AAC
Header size in XML even matters
Not 6000x600 dpi

22. Podcast Script
Audio Podcasts are great for the blind, but
what about the deaf?
If you use a script - PUBLISH it!
But then people won’t listen?

23. Consider
a Transcription
Service
Might only be practical for
businesses
$36-45/hour of audio
(more if you want it quickly)

24. Do It Yourself Transcription
Free Express Scribe Transcription Playback Software
http://www.nch.com.au/scribe/index.html
Helps you slow down/speed up audio so you can
type it yourself
Link with ($180) Dragon Naturally Speaking or
Dragon Dictate http://nuance.com to transcribe
automatically
Buy $149 MacSpeech Scribe from http://nuance.com
“MacSpeech Scribe is versatile; it easily allows transcription from spoken-word
audio recordings made on Mac, iPhone and digital recorders, and supports a
variety of audio file formats, including .wav, .aif, .aiff, .m4v, .mp4, and .m4a.”
Note: I haven’t tried these!

25. Talk About Accessibility
This sounds funny - just talk about it?
Is the product or service you’re talking about
accessible? (credit Dan Eckmeier)
Are you telling your story in a way the blind can hear
and the deaf can read?
If you find a visual-only CAPTCHA, write to the
webmaster and tell them about reCAPTCHA
Be genuine - only do this if you believe it’s important

26. Blogging/Website Tips

27. Visual-Only CAPTCHAs
(or how NOT to get a piece of that action)
Visual-only CAPTCHA courtesy of reddit.com

28. Without a CAPTCHA, How do I Keep
Spammers Off My Site?
As a Web Designer, try reCAPTCHA Instead!
Free from http://www.captcha.net/
Audio Option!
Click to Play

29. Alt-Tags Allow Screen Readers
Describe Your Images
Image Insertion window
from Feeder
(reinventedsoftware.com)
When you insert an image, it
should ALWAYS have an Alt-Tag
This tells the blind reader what
they’re “looking” at - because
your image name is probably
DCIM4076
<img src="http://podfeet.com/
<img alt="..."> NosillaCast/NC_2010_09_19/bab.png"
alt="greyscale picture of baker bruce,
beard, glasses, thoughtful expression"
style="float: left; margin: 5px;"/>

30. Heading Tags Allow Blind to Skip to
Interesting Sections
HTML heading tags look like <h3>This is Cool</h3>
I used to do it wrong - used bold to show sections
<em>This isn’t Cool</em>
Screen readers can easily jump to these heading tags

31. Video Embed Problem
Video can be interesting even for the blind
Video embeds like from YouTube are problematic
Screenreaders can’t find the controls on embedded
YouTube Videos
Screenreaders CAN find the controls on YouTube
proper

32. Video Embed Solution
Solution Courtesy of:
Slau of Sessions With Slau
Big Al Wagner of Home
Studio Guru
Insert tiny text that says something like
“using a screenreader? click here”
and link to the source video (e.g. YouTube)

33. What’s the Effect of All This?

34. A Few of My New Friends
Scott Howell calls us “sightlings”
Dan Eckmeier suggests making accessibility part of all
reviews
Slau of Sessions with Slau
Darrell Shandrow of the Blind Access journal
Susan Gerhart took me to Disability Expo
Dr. Robert Carter & Jenny Axler of Tech Doctor
Podcast
Down a Blind Alley With Shane Jackson (who is an
Apple Specialist)
My Mom on the show

35. James from the UK
Hello. it was good to read about Michael Gorman on your site. I am a
new Mac user been a PC user for a great number of years. I come to
such sites like this now and again I can’t hear Mp3 files but it’s great
that you put a text version of the info on your site.
As above Blind people are starting to really enjoy Mac’s because they
are very accessible to us, But Not to just Blind people. I am a
Deafblind iMac and Mac mini user and I am very Pleased with apples
OS Because with Leopard and its Braille display support us Deafblind
people can USE a Mac for the first Time. I have always wished to buy
a mac but because there was no real Braille support I could not buy
one. But with buying my first Mac an iMac within three weeks I bought
a Mac mini for beside my bed so I could read e-mail and go on the
net. and I hope to buy one of the new version of the mac mini when or
if it comes out next year, That how much I like them.
So I am a very very happy Mac user there are not that many Deafblind
mac users out there and even fewer here in the UK. All the best to
you.
http://www.podfeet.com/wordpress/2008/10/26/175-california-council-for-the-blind-humanware-keytweak/

36. Link Bait
ReCAPTCHA http://www.captcha.net/
Sessions With Slau http://sessionswithslau.com
Big Al Wagner of Home Studio Guru
http://homestudioguru.com
Darrell Shandrow’s Blind Access Journal
http://blindaccessjournal.com
The Tech Doctor Podcast with Dr. Robert Carter
& Jenny Axler http://www.dr-carter.com/