- Welcome to TPGi's "Real People, Real Stories" podcast, where you'll find interesting and diverse stories from folks working to make the world a more inclusive place. Hey, welcome to the "Real People, Real Stories" podcast, brought to you by TPGi. I am your host, Mark Miller, thanking you for helping us keep it accessible. Hey, do us a favor. If you're enjoying the "Real People, Real Stories" podcast, share it, tell someone about it. Hey, even link to it from your accessible website. Brandon, welcome to the podcast. It's fantastic to have you with us today. - Thank you for having me. - You are welcome. So I just want to, first of all, I just wanna let the listeners know how this came about. My good friend David Sloan, who I do another podcast with, we do "The State of Accessibility Update," and we worked together as colleagues. I was leaving M-Enabling this year, and I saw you and David chatting, and you were talking about maps of all things. And David used to be a cryptographer. So I was headed to the airport, so I didn't get a chance to catch up with you. So this is really our time to catch up after that. But tell me a little bit about what you and David were chatting about that day, as M-Enabling was wrapping up. - My company, XR Navigation, is the creator of Audiom which is the world's first inclusive digital map viewer and editor. So it allows blind people, people with mobility impairments, different learning disabilities, colorblind users, anybody who's unable to access geographic maps to become a photographer like what David was in his previous life. - Previous previous life, yeah. So this is really interesting to me because I can remember back over a decade ago when I was first getting into this industry and I was in Boston at an accessibility meetup in Boston, and there was a young woman, PhD student that I had a long conversation with and an entire session talking about how the heck we would make maps accessible. So can you just take a moment and let me know, like high level what makes a map accessible? What can you do to make something that's a very visual experience, right, into something that can be accessed, and you said a whole bunch of things? But I think the big challenge was for people who are blind, right? That are using screen readers. - They're definitely the ones that are binarily you cannot access any map information right now, yes. But there are a lot of other people who have trouble accessing maps, but blind people are definitely, that's me. I'm blind myself, and that's why we got started in this. So traditionally maps, the approach to map accessibility has been find the main point or the purpose of this map, and let's see if we can communicate that in alternative mode somehow. So for something like election results or COVID statistics, this would traditionally be represented as a table. For something like navigating around a university campus, this would be communicated through turn-by-turn directions. The problem is that none of those options communicate the spatial information that makes a map a map. For example, there is very little to no distance, direction, shape, size, orientation or general layout of all the points, polygons and lines in the text alternatives that have traditionally been used to make maps accessible. So that's been kind of our whole entire ambition is how do we figure out, how do we communicate all those elements of distance, direction, shape, size, orientation in general, layout of points, polygons and lines, visually, textually, tactilely, and auditorily. - So you brought up a really interesting point here right in the beginning of this that I guess I hadn't stepped back to quite think about yet, and that's the fact that when we say map, when I say map, the image that pops into my head is like maybe a map of the world on somebody's wall or like one of those fold out maps that you would get at a gas station years ago to figure out what road to take next, something like that. But when we really think about maps, you're talking about things like heat maps as well, right? And all sorts of different types of maps. And it makes sense, and recently we just had an election. So everybody was watching TV and watching a map around the Electoral College and who was getting what votes. You mentioned COVID, that was certainly a time when we were looking at heat maps and all sorts of... So it's really that basic concept of a map stretches into all sorts of different ways that we might use that map to consume different types of information. And it makes sense, right? Like a heat map is a quick visual way to understand maybe geographically who's got more, who's got less. So yeah, a table seems like an okay way to do that, but you're really going beyond that. So I guess my big question for you, Brandon, is the way that you described that map and the way that you described that sort of spatial orientation, why do we need that? Like if that's what you're solving for, what was lacking that's causing you to solve for that? - Have you seen a digital map in the last week? Like a Google Map, an Apple Map, a weather map, anything? - Of course, yeah. - Yeah, yeah. Able-bodied people view around 300 maps a year. Contrast that with blind people who view less than one. - Wow. - That's the gap we're trying to close here. If you give a blind person, or really most people a table that just says, you know, Santa Clara County has this many COVID cases, Marin County has this many COVID cases. If a blind person only views less than one map a year, how are they gonna know where those counties are in relationship to each other? There's absolutely impossible to answer questions like what county bordering Santa Clara County has the highest number of COVID cases? That's a very simple question to answer with a map. You cannot answer that with the table. It's impossible. - That makes sense. Well, and I can also see, like we were, before we heated up the mics here where we were just talking about where we live, right? And you're out in California with your parents right now, but you live in Georgia, and I live up here in New Hampshire. And that's the, as you say, that like if we were looking at anything, any statistics across that heat map, for example, and your way over there in California and I'm in New Hampshire, as soon as I, a person with vision, looks at that map, I understand the distance, like how great of a distance there is without having to do anything else between California and New Hampshire, for example. So if it's COVID cases and I'm worried about COVID and California's red hot and New Hampshire's not, I'm not like, "Oh it borders," you know. It's gonna be right there. I see that there's some time. So it totally makes sense that, particularly the quick acquisition I would think of that data where it's like geographically speaking or locationally speaking, I get a good sense of where all this stuff sits on the map. So that makes total sense to me. And I also, just you've got me thinking, right? Like, you asked me the question, like have I seen a Google Map in the past week. And yeah, yeah, pull 'em up all the time. And one of the reasons why I do that is somebody may say like, "Oh, I went to Aruba recently," or "I was down in the Congo," or something like that. And I'm like, "Oh, well, I kind of know where that is. Let me pull up a map and really understand where that is in the world." And it's that orientation, it's that understanding for me where that thing that somebody may be talking about or referencing is in relation to where I am or the things that I know that are important to me. So your solution is gonna make that type of experience and knowledge accessible to people who have vision disabilities. - Yeah, it does make it completely accessible. And we've done academic studies showing that this is the case. It's almost as effective as a visual map at communicating the spatial information non-visually. And is what I'm getting my PhD researching. This is what I'm doing my PhD on, researching non-visual digital maps and around digital map accessibility in general. And just kind of to step out a little bit, there are about 40 professions that are require use of digital maps like oceanographer, meteorologist, epidemiologist, janitor, the people who do crowd control for venues, facility managers, and I can just go on and on and on. All these professions require the use of maps. To plan the M-Enabling summit, you had to have a map. - Yeah, that's a good point. So those jobs, just generally speaking, those are not accessible to people who are blind or are, I don't know if this is a way to speak- - I know two- - Less accessible or? - Yeah, I know two oceanographers who are blind, and they pretty much became blind already after they were already oceanographers. So there are very few, like it's one of those things where you really have to be willing to put up with a ton of inaccessibility in order to go into that profession. And a lot of blind people are like, "I don't want to do my that, I don't wanna do that to myself. I'm not that masochistic to go into a." One of the issues that we have when talking to places you they're like, "Well, how many blind people are there accessing geographic maps?" Well, not not that many because they don't even know they exist, A, and B, you guys don't have accessible maps. So even if they did come like, you would have to implement the maps like now in order to make them accessible for when the blind person does come. And there are so many things, activities in the world that require maps, like booking airplane seats or booking seats at concert venues. And these are also completely inaccessible tasks right now for blind people. And those are probably more poignant than many of the other epidemiological tasks, for example, that you might do. - Well, in asking how many blind people are accessing maps is almost like saying how many people are using a room that's locked and only one person has the key or something. - That's exactly it. - Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. So can you tell me, can you give me a sense of the experience that you would have viewing one of these accessible maps and how it's conveying that information that was previously not available and accessible until you did this work- - Yeah- - to you? - So the current like Google Maps experience, for example, is "Map region graphic clickable blank." That's what my screen reader says. So it's not helpful. - I didn't even understand what you just said. - "Map region." Yeah, "Map region graphic clickable blank." - It still doesn't make sense. I know what all the words mean, but it doesn't make any sense to me. - Exactly. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. It's not helpful. It's completely useless. So that's the problem. And there are some turn-by-turn directions, but again, it just doesn't convey any of the spatial information. So we're trying to make that map region, graphic clickable blank area turn into something that low vision users can zoom in up to 200% without squashing the interface elements, adjust the border with the features to make them easier to see, switch between using patterns or colors for users who are colorblind, make everything fully accessible using the keyboard. So all the points, polygons and lines, all the different elements on that map need to be fully accessible with a keyboard. You can't just make the zooming and panning accessible with a keyboard because tables, especially if it's an interactive map, you need to be able to select each feature. So the non-visual experience that we've done is very similar to a video game where users hear the name and sound of objects as they move their little character over them with their arrow keys, touch screen or other controller. And they'll hear things like "Fillmore Street," and then the sound of a concrete footstep. So that's the real basic idea of how Audiom works. - Got it. - And it's a web component that can be embedded into any website or app and can either supplement or completely replace existing map viewers. So the idea is that places like Google Maps can embed Audiom's experience into their current viewer. Or if you've got an existing Google Map on your website, you can have a button next to it that says "Activate inclusive map" to have a separate but equal solution or just completely replace your inaccessible Google Map with Audiom. And the nice thing about Audiom is that the visual experience and the audio experience are running on the exact same data. You mentioned earlier that maps are very visual. That's absolutely not the case. There's nothing inherently visual about a map. There is vector data that is powering that map. It's literally numbers in a list that define a map, and that's it. So there's nothing that says visual when you read those numbers. And so we said let's step back and say this is a map representation, not a map visualization. So how do we represent this map in a way that is understandable in these different sensory modalities, so textual, auditory, tactile, that kind of thing. - Yeah. Yeah, so I mean, that's very interesting, right? Just in terms of the problem solving aspect of it. Because if you're a person with vision and your experience since birth has been consuming that data through vision, it's hard. It's hard to stop and think about what you just said, right? But that makes total total sense that that, it's almost like the visual aspect of it is an alternative representation of the underlying data. - In fact, the web accessibility guidelines mentions that visual representations are optional and they're not necessary. But the textual representation is the only required one in order to meet the web accessibility, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. So the vision representation is kind of a nice to have. - Got it. So in the case of like, if I, just that common kind of experience that we're talking about before where somebody says, "Hey, this is where I live," and I go, "Okay, well I'm gonna pull up a Google Map so I have an idea of where that is." And you can zoom in and outta that map. So I might look at that map from the standpoint of all of the states in the United States being together or all of the continents. Or I might zoom down to a specific state and see all the towns, all of the streets. I'm assuming with your solution and with my, you mentioned this character moving around, if I'm in that state view, we'll call it, right? And I'm making this up because I'm not a cryptographer and I don't do the work you do, but hopefully it's making sense to you. My character can step from state to state to state and I can get the relative position of those states versus if I go down a level and I'm looking town to town to town, I can do the same thing there, and I can do the same- - Yeah. So it really, and to your point, all that data exists, so it just depends on what level of data I'm looking at. - Yeah. - Yeah? - And you can, you can move from state to state, or you can move meter by meter, kilometer, whatever, 10 kilometers. And every step size changes how far you're moving. And so depending if you're more interested in continents or more interested in, you can change the step size and the amount of data that's shown on- - So cool. - that rendered map. - So in everything that you're talking about, this has been done. You guys have working examples of this. - Yeah, for sure. - Is it in use yet, Brandon? - Yeah, yeah. The M-Enabling summit actually had our accessible map on their website. - That's beautiful. So is there someplace somebody can go right now and play around with it, so to speak? - Yeah, for sure. We have our interactive demo at our website, which is xrnavigation.io. And if you're blind and are interested to use this for personal use you can go to Audiom, audiom.net. And we've got a viewer there where you can enter in your address and go and explore around- - Oh great. your address, yeah, that way. - So just the fact that you all exist sort of solves that scenario that I threw out there, right? So people who are blind now can use your website to say, "Geez, let me check out where this is. I'm talking to Brandon, he said he is in California. Let me look and see where this is on the map." They just go to your website to do that right now. - Yeah, for sure. I mean, there's a lot of other elements that are present in something like Google Maps, where you like save locations and it tells you what people want to go and view, your recommended restaurants that you should go visit. All that kind of stuff we don't necessarily have, but we need people who want to have all that information to go to people at Google Maps and report that this is possible, it's possible to make the Google Maps experience accessible and work with places like XR Navigation to make that experience fully accessible. And in fact, the National Federation of the Blind just passed a resolution in July calling on all federal agencies and institutions of higher education to adopt inclusive digital maps that basically define what I was describing earlier around digital map accessibility. So this is not something that we're just pushing. 50,000 blind people have emailed all the federal agencies and higher education institutions that said, "We want inclusive maps, both for creating those maps internally and also for viewing those maps as both a student or a user or stakeholder at that location or facility, or on the map for data analytics purposes." So there this is like a big issue for a lot of people out there. And this is not just us saying it. - Got it. - And we do, we did get an accessibility conformance report from Level Access that shows WCAG AAA compliance. So it's the first map viewer out there to have even met web accessibility guidelines, WCAG, single A compliance, but we met AAA. So that was pretty awesome. - So taking a step back, other than the fact you obviously have a vested interest in this because you're blind, so you knew your experience wasn't what it should be, so that totally makes sense. But aside from that, like why maps, why you, what brought you to this mission? - Well, I have a lot of experience where a map would've been super useful. So personally, that is 100% driving this issue. Data representation in general, so graphs, charts, diagrams, maps, there's been a lot of research around making things like charts and graphs accessible. I would say, Highcharts for example is a really awesome version of how you make an accessible chart. But they hadn't solved the maps issue yet, and nobody had really sat down and solved this problem yet. I came in to my inclusive design master's degree and was looking at different data representations, 'cause I knew I wanted to work on data representations, 'cause those are just a nightmare for blind people, just in general. And my instructor gave me the challenge of representing Napoleon's march, that Sankey diagram where it shows the number of troops with a large number going to, I think it was Moscow. And then going back to Mineurs after their campaign, and it showed where all the battles were. It showed the number of troops, it showed temperature. And so how do we make that accessible? That was like basically my first task in my master's degrees. How do I make this accessible? And the underlying information, there was a map. And I was like, "Wow, this map situation is not, like, I don't even have a base layer for this." I didn't even know what a base layer was at that point. And so it was this situation where it was just smack in the face. Like this is so inaccessible right now. Like, I don't even, I can't even conceptualize how far, or the distance it there is between all these different countries. And so that's what kind of got me inspired to really begin researching maps specifically. And then as I started thinking about my life, there are so many situa-, excuse me, situations of when I would need a map. Like I went to my university and had to go to the Admissions department like the next day or they were gonna drop me from classes, and I didn't know where that was. And the assistive technology, the disability department requires a week notice in order to get you to a location if you're gonna take their transportation. So it was like, "How am I gonna get there?" There's no way for me to get there because I have no clue how to get there, and I'm a new student. So that's a situation where a map would be super helpful. - You know, as you're telling that story about writing, having to represent, I don't remember what you call it in Napoleon, I should know it, I just saw that in a movie. - The Sankey diagram. - The Sankey diagram, yeah. I just saw that movie which was okay. But it really did strike me that what you didn't have was the basics, right? Like if somebody had given me an assignment around that, whatever it is, all that that you described around the map and the locations and all that, that would've just been given, right? That would've been very easy data to obtain, to understand, and it would've been the where I would've worked from. - Yeah. - In your case, that didn't exist, so that's where you had to initially work to. - Yeah. - Just getting that. And so it makes total sense to me that that would inspire you to go like, "I don't wanna do that again. I wanna start where everybody else starts next time. So let's create something that allows me and people after me to do the same thing." - Yeah. - That's , right? And again it's really impressive, Brandon, because I think back to over a decade ago when people were discussing this problem, but it sounds like you've actually solved it in a way that nobody else has. - I mean, so I definitely want to give a lot of credit to the blind people who have built what are called audio games, which are games that can be played completely using audio that are often made by and for blind people. And this is where we took our inspiration. Audio games do show maps. They have maps of imaginary worlds, maps where you can move troops around and attack different fortresses or go through different landscapes, maps of the world when you're driving airplanes around the world in these games. And there are tons of maps. And the problem is that those conventions around these different ways of representing maps just hadn't been applied to the real world just because Google and Apple and all these places and never hired audio game developers to build out their map experiences, so that's what I did. - That's brilliant. That's brilliant. So let me ask you this, because it really seems like, and maybe what you've done isn't anything brand new to your point, right? It's more collating a lot of existing things and applying it in the right places, and then probably- - Yeah, that's it. - on top of that a little bit, right? But having done that, has that made other things, like you had mentioned all these different graphs and how difficult graphing and data in general is from an accessibility standpoint, which makes sense, right? If you've got a picture, it needs to be described according to some certain parameters. If you've got a page you wanna read, it needs to be semantically correct. Like some of these things we've got, we figured it out, we know how to do it makes sense. But there's still things out there like maps that we don't do as good of a job or can't at all make accessible. Are you starting to see this creating bridges to other problem areas for accessibility? - 100%. Yeah. And to your point around how do, we do have guidelines or we don't have guidelines on how to access images, so this is, the big issue is around images and diagrams and different types of, for lack of a better word, visual-only content that that's on a lot of websites and whatnot. So there is this idea that if a blind person or somebody who's really facing this problem can just sit down for a good amount of time and think about the problem and iterate on solutions and run co-design with other blind people, they can figure out just about any problem, right? Like, there's nothing that's too hard to solve if you've got the time and resources to really solve it. And it's not expensive. I mean, it is expensive in the grand, like it at the time, but like in the grand scheme of things paying $10 million to make an accessible map experience, like doesn't seem globally that expensive. We've spent hundreds of billions of dollars on the visual representation alone. So this is like not that expensive in the grand scheme of things. So if we can just get people who are so suffering, or not necessarily suffering, but who are facing these issues to solve the problems for themselves, that's how we're gonna really make progress. And that's where I think, that's kind of why, one of the reasons why I'm getting my PhD is so that I can build a lab of researchers to solve some of these big giant issues around accessibility and all the different problems that blind people are facing in the world and are trying to find unique alternatives to solve those issues. And they've got them, the issues. Like, it's not that a blind person has never viewed a map. Like, they have workarounds. They're workarounds, like, to get a transit route, you call a transit agent and sit, get on the phone with them and ask them to look at the map and describe to you in excruciating detail how to get from your house to the bus stop, go along the bus route, get off the bus, which direction you walk, when you get out of that bus, what you're gonna pass, if there any crosswalks, if there's construction work, all this information, excruciating detail that you can just get if you have a map. - Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that's a really good point, right? 'Cause it is we're supposed to be striving for equivalent experiences, and that's not equivalent. - Yeah. - That's not even remotely equivalent. And I think you even, I was thinking when you were telling your story about having to, what was it? You had to go get your update your- - Yeah, I had to go to the Admissions Office. - The Admissions Office. - Yeah. - And then if you were late, and maybe it seems to me like what you were left with was like calling a friend and saying, "Hey, can you get me here?" - That's it. - Maybe you don't wanna do that. - Maybe you don't have any friends. - You don't have any- But also maybe it's too personal. Maybe you're like, you feel a little, even if you feel a little embarrassed because you should have done this, you know, you should have taken care of this ahead of time or you shouldn't have let this situation occur, which we all have happen, right? Like I fought with my administration, my administration office at my college for all sorts of reasons, and I thought it was right, and they thought they were right. But maybe that's not something I wanna bring my friends into. - And if you're disabled and you're trying to ask your friends for help, you feel like a burden. - Right. - You don't... It is one of the reasons why disabled people don't get out of their house. Like, this is one of the biggest reasons why different disabled people are not, like, venturing outta their door is because it's nerve wracking. They feel like a burden if they're asking for help. There's so many blind people in particular that just don't leave their house. It's really, really sad, but it's keeping them from opportunities and socializing and getting out of their little bubbles, and that is so important to bring innovation and diversity into the world. And so maps are just one of the pieces in there that need to be accessible in order for, you know, to build confidence and get people out and meeting each other. - Well, and in a world where we're really worried about our personal information staying personal, that's the other reason, right? - Maybe you don't wanna share all this stuff with somebody else just because you need their help in a way that somebody with vision or whatever wouldn't need it. - Exactly. - I totally appreciate that. - Yeah. - So tell me, Brandon, then, this is really cool, right? And I hope you're proud of the work that you've done and the team and the people that have helped you do it. And you said you're heading for your PhD. Where do you see like XR Navigation and these accessible maps, the Audiom, I guess, brand moving from here? - Our goal is that every, our vision is that every map is accessible to anyone. And we're building the platform that other tools can use to make that happen. So our ultimate vision is that tools like Google Maps and Apple Maps and Esri and Bing Maps and all these different tools that are out there, Mapbox, all the different map providers that are out there use Audiom or integrate Audiom into their platform by default. If Esri and Google implemented Audiom by default, that would make 90% of all maps on the web accessible instantly. - Wow. - It's so powerful. Otherwise, we are doing what we're doing right now, and we are going one map at a time and making that accessible, which is fine and shows that we know what we're doing, and that we can do it. But working with these bigger map providers is where we need to go. And companies like TPGi or Level Access or DQ who are working with these bigger companies definitely need to tell them, "Hey, your map is inaccessible, your maps, plural, are inaccessible and here's there is definitely a way to make those accessible, and you need to do it." Like, Audiom's not the only way to make a map accessible. So it's not that we've got monopoly on this process. It's the fact that blind people and people who are keyboard-only users and all these different people, low-vision users, need to have a fully WCAG AA compliant experience, period. And that means you need to have full access to all the distance, direction, shape, size, orientation, and general layout of all the points, polygons and lines. And if you don't have that, it's not accessible. - So you mentioned one thing, which was, and you mentioned the context of people who are blind, that they could email Google and say, "Hey, we need this." And then you mentioned companies like us, putting the pressure on which we- - Everybody needs to put the pressure on these folks. - Everybody needs to put the pressure on. - They know the maps are inaccessible. They just need people to tell them, "Hey, you need to get, like, you need to do this." - So for the listeners out here that are listening to this podcast right now, and they're wondering like, "Oh man, this Brandon's making a lot of sense here, what can I do?" What would you specifically, would you say sighted, blind, it doesn't matter, shoot Google an email and say- - Yeah. - This needs to be done. - Everybody shoot Google an email. There are feedback buttons on almost all the pages for Google. Sometimes need to hunt for it. But yeah, accessibility@esri.com, I wanna say, is the Esri email address. So those would be things like your hurricane maps or temperature maps or government planning maps. There's a new planning, transit planning plan that just came out for our transit agency in Atlanta, and I can't view that map to see what changed for my area. So I can't give feedback on that map. That's the kind of situation where you need to email these folks and be like, "Hey, do you have this in alternative, in a textual only format? Or do you have this in a way that's accessible for colorblind users or a keyboard-only users?" And you don't even need to be that kind of person. Like you can just ask if they've got it in an accessible format because they don't- - Enough people ask for it, they're gonna make it. - Yeah. - So let's flip the script then a little bit. What if I'm Google or I'm one of these transit people and I'm listening to this podcast, and I think, "Man, I need to do this," right? And I love what Brandon's talking about, and I think maybe Audiom is the way for me to approach this, or I wanna look at that. What's the next step? Do they go to your website? Do they give you a call? - Yeah. - Like how would I obtain that so I could integrate it with something like Google Maps if I were- - Email me and you can go to our website. There's a contact form on every single page. Go ahead and fill that out and send me a message. And that's where you would contact- - And you are the- - Actually most of the places already have somebody who's, you know, I've been in contact with at those places. So they should know how to get in contact with me already. But anyway, yeah, if they don't know, email TPGi, you can get get in contact with me. Or just go to my website xrnavigation.io. Or David and I are going to be writing some blog posts on how to make maps accessible. And so you guys can read those as well. - That's brilliant. Well, and I can imagine too, like you've got third parties, so there's so many softwares out there that use Google Maps, right? They kind of suck in Google Maps and use it. - Yeah. - And so that's the other area where I see these people saying, "Hey, wait a minute, we're trying to create. You can look up real estate listings on our site, and you can look at it on a map, and we're making everything else accessible. We'd love this third-party map that we're pulling in to be accessible too." So I can see where those folks might wanna reach out to you, might wanna reach out to those third-party companies and start to draw this bridge and make a demand that those be made accessible so that they have their whole product accessible. - That's what needs to happen. - So that would be the other, yeah, that would be the other. And then there's some large companies out there that create big experiences that use these major, major maps that exist out there. - Yeah. Yep, 100%. And most of them do use something like Google Maps or Esri or Mapbox or one of these other places. So it is a very, luckily in one respect, it is a very top heavy industry, but in other respects, like if we can't get into those companies, it's just gonna be very difficult to make the maps accessible without completely replacing them. So like Google Maps, for example, everyone was like, "Can you show Google Map data?" Unfortunately, Google doesn't make their data available for anybody to view. - Right. - You can look at the picture, which is, a graphic that is graphic blank, but that's it. They don't provide any of the inherently amodal data that left bracket, left bracket, one, comma, one, right bracket, comma, left bracket, you know, that kind of thing, which is what a map is underneath. They don't give that information to everybody. So we have to use OpenStreetMap data, which is kind of the open source version of Google Maps data to make our maps. - Got it. Well, is there anything else that we need to know before we wrap up, Brandon? - I think that's it. Maps are everywhere. Please go and identify as you're going through your day, like, "I'm using a map" or, "Oh, hey look, I just viewed a map." And just think about all these different maps that are in your life. And even just one email to accessibility@esri.com, or accessibility@google.com, those are just gonna make a huge difference. Or Apple, you know, all these different companies that have maps, they need to be accessible. They need to know their maps are inaccessible. So that's just our biggest call is please email these folks. Tell them that you want their maps to be accessible. And that's the biggest takeaway. - Biggest takeaway. Got it. Well, listen, I'm so glad I ran into you at M-Enabling talking to our good friend, Dr. David Sloan. And I'm really glad that we got a chance to have the conversation that we couldn't have that day and do it in this public forum so that other people can understand what you do and the importance of accessibility in general, but particularly these areas like maps where I think people think accessibility has been completely solved, but you and I know that it's certainly hasn't, but that there's still a lot of good work going on. Thanks for sharing all that with us today. - Yeah, and if you want your maps accessible, visit xrnavigation.io and send us a message. - Yep, and we'll post a bunch of links alongside of this podcast as well. So if you're not catching it as Brandon's saying it, it'll be on the page too and you can go right there. Well, this is Mark Miller, thanking Brandon, and reminding you to keep it accessible. This podcast has been brought to you by TPGi, the experts in digital accessibility. Stay tuned for more "Real People, Real Stories" podcasts coming soon.