In the working life of many accessibility-aware software professionals there usually is either a personal frustation when facing a digital barrier or, if non-disabled, a moment of clarity when they realise what accessibility is and why it matters.
For me, that lightbulb moment was an assistive technology demo by Graham Armfield at WordCamp Edinburgh 2015.
The start of the journey
During his presentation, Graham introduced and demonstrated two software packages that are used to navigate the web by people with various impairments or disabilities (motor, visual or cognitive): Dragon Naturally Speaking, a voice recognition software, and NVDA, a screen reader.
I was a freelance website developer at the time and being in that room had a huge impact on my work. It sparked my journey of learning about accessibility and prompted me to aim for all my subsequent client work to be WCAG 2.x, level AA, compliant.
Where has this path taken me
I stopped freelancing about 5 years ago to work full time as a software engineer. Nowadays, my work is mostly in the backend with perhaps about only 20% of it being frontend.
It may seem unusual that I am writing this post not being an “accesibility expert” but a “normal software developer”, albeit one who is accessibility-minded.
There is value in that.
Being accessibility-aware adds a perspective to the conversations and helps make accessibility part of the team’s workflow.
I am also not alone. I have the priviledge of working in a company where many people, both from technical and non-technical teams, share the same interest. Together, we are improving the accessibility of our collective work.
I strongly believe that, in the software industry, accessibility work should be part and parcel of everyone’s routine, just like retrospectives, pull requests and unit tests are.
The learning journey never ends
Since that first talk in 2015, I have attended, listened to, and read many more talks and articles.
A few of my current highlights are:
- The a11y weekly newsletter,
- The AbilityNet online courses (both live and pre-recorded),
- The WebAIM project reports, and
- The yearly, online, and free AxeCon conference by Deque
As well as, of course, any articles or talks by accessibility experts such as Adrian Roselli, Léonie Watson, Scott O’Hara, Sara Soueidan, and Rian Rietveld.
What’s in the pipeline just now?
I am currently half way through Sara Soueidan’s Digital Accessibility course. The course is very thorough and technical, so it is taking me longer than I hoped to complete it.
Expect to see a post about it when I’m done!
And you, do you have a ny favourite accessibility resources? Please share them in the comments below!