Modern Web | State of A11Y

right in yeah hi everyone  and welcome to modern web   we're really excited about this call um we have  a great call for you in store today as we discuss   the state of accessibility this is the unofficial  part two we did have part one in may of 2021.   uh if you do have any questions during the  call be sure to post them in the live chat yes thank you everybody for being  very patient one moment while i uh   share my screen this is the joys of doing live  events everybody you're seeing the sausage be made okay one moment i guess we're just going to share my  whole screen and hope for the best   all right thank you everybody as we said for  joining us here on the state of accessibility   uh please be patient as we uh get going here  but um first of all we want to thank our   sponsors our sponsors include this dot  labs a software development consultancy that offers architectural guidance staff  augmentation on-demand subject matter   experts temporary ctos one-on-one pairing  mentorship and open source strategy support   if that sounds interesting to you please feel  free to reach out to us at hi this dot dot co   state of accessibility is also brought to you by  open deck secure an open source cloud agnostic   edge development framework need help getting  started on multi-cloud serverless on the edge use   open deck secure to simplify the setup so you jump  into building the product you're passionate about   learn more at their website decksecure.com open  dash source if you like or support what we're   doing be part of the community by visiting our  project at github and follow us on our journey as i mentioned i happen to work for this dot one  of our sponsors today uh we are also hiring so   if you like the interesting people and  characters that you see on screen here   and you think that that sounds like a team  that you would want to be a better a part of   please feel free to reach out to us at jobs.co  and of course if you're interested in working   with any of our clients like we enjoy working  with our clients any of the ones that you see   on screen twilio google roblox t-mobile and  many more please reach out to us at jobs.co   as far as some upcoming events uh this month we  have our javascript marathon returning that'll   be from november 15 to the 19th we have our  monthly mentoring women in tech meeting which   is going to be hosted on november 17th at 7 00 am  graphql contributor days december 7th to december   7th state of angular ecosystem on december 9th  and our state of react coming up on december   14th so if you enjoy this event if this is your  first one welcome if you enjoy this we have many   more events just like this that are coming  up so please enjoy our host for today myself   uh i'm rob osell i'm a team lead and software  architect at this dot labs certainly on the   less experienced side of our accessibility um  of our panelists but certainly somebody that has   become quite passionate and quite interested in  this topic over the last couple years and doing   different uh work for clients and audits and  and being responsible for these things on   different projects so super excited to soak  up the wisdom of our panelists here today   and my name is daisy nolan i'm a front-end  software engineer at tranual uh you can   follow me on twitter at daisy underscore nolan  i am really um like entry into accessibility   i was diagnosed with epilepsy at 16 and so  understand how important it is and as well as   i taught special education to students and so  really excited for today's call so we have an   amazing group of panelists joining us today so i'm  gonna let them uh just introduce themselves to you   so starting with carrie saving the best for last  uh so i'll go first my name is carrie fisher i   am a recovering front-end developer where i  worked for 15 years and now i'm proceeded into   the accessibility space having learned a little  bit and i want to fix all of those things i did   incorrectly originally but i'm also a consultant  for accessibility and also i'm a phd student in   hci at iowa state and this is my last semester  so i'm super excited about that and i'll be   able to dive into my research for digital  accessibility so looking forward to that nick nick i think you are muted i was muted  classic uh so i'm nick steenhout i'm an   independent accessibility consultant i've been  doing accessibility for a very very long time   mostly i work with fortune 500 clients  to make sure that a their websites are   accessible but also that they develop a culture  of inclusion and accessibility within the company   if i may i would like to plug my podcast the  accessibility rules soundbite which is a series   of short conversations with disabled people where  they can tell us what barriers they experience   on the web because it's nice to hear from the  experts but it's really powerful to hear from   the people that we're doing this work for so  that's a one one y r u l dot accessibility rules i love that podcast nick always provides a  transcript and that's rare in the podcast world   um hi my name is anna e cook i'm a senior  accessibility designer at northwestern mutual   my job is to help empower my organization's  designers to make their work more   accessible and more inclusive by default  i've been interested in working with an   accessibility specialization as a designer  for the past well for most of my career but   more so in the last few years so it's been  a thrill and i get that it's a thrill that   i get to be on a panel with such amazing  folks and i get to chat with you all today all right marcy hello i'm marcy sutton i'm a  front-end developer and accessibility person   i learned when i was getting into accessibility  and i met other people who were into it that it   was really my community i care so much about  making the web more accessible that i haven't   ever been able to turn that part of my brain off  once i learned about it so now i am an independent   web developer and i work with organizations on  accessibility engineering and design reviews   and some training of workshops because really  we're all in this together and so sharing   knowledge hopefully we can make a dent in the  inaccessibility in the world so happy to be here hi i'm tim winfred um i am a front-end  web developer and javascript developer at   curative i came from fandango previously  where i sort of helped bring the world of   accessibility into light over there  got challenged with the task in 2018   um and didn't really have anybody to look  up to internally with accessibility so   sort of spearheaded that and brought it to uh  curative where i am now um on twitter i talk about   a lot of accessibility topics as well as imposter  syndrome because my add and anxiety just like make   being a web developer a little crazy sometimes so  that's a little bit about me thanks for having me um i guess it is my turn and i think i'm the  last person uh and i realized my camera is   all over the place so but that's that's the day  after daylight savings uh time ends um but i'm   crystal preston watson and um currently i am the  senior digital accessibility analyst at salesforce   um i um and if you're like what is that um i  actually um do a lot of research um auditing and   kind of uh investigating of internal digital  tools and processes and um anything that um   um people at seo source use uh internally to make  sure that they are accessible and inclusive for   all people to use to make sure they can do their  job to the best of their ability and uh before   that um i've been in uh quality assurance  um and i was kind of the accessibility lead   uh co accessibility lead at uh salesforce.org  um and uh i've also um a long time ago was a um   front-end developer a web editor at  a newspaper i've done a lot of things   that's me great thank you so much for um for being  here and being on the panelist i'm really excited   um to you know go ahead and start so um in our  last conversation so that was you know may 2021   um but since then there had been some edits to the  wcag 2.2 is there anyone here that has knowledge   um with some of those edits and that  can share with their audience about   what's being worked through um and or  what's been you know tweaked and changed i don't want to volunteer if somebody  else is on the committee but i   recently had to do i did a workshop which we  included 2.2 and 3-0 so i know a little bit   about it and all the inner workings  but some really exciting stuff going on i want to hear what you've got to say kerry no   no it's not it's not what i have to say it's what  we have to say um w3c and all of that so i've been   i you know we follow it as as we do and some of  the things that i found would which is kind of   interesting uh based on that is that we're getting  some more success criteria we're getting nine   uh but everything else for the most part is  coming back over from two o and two one um there's   an additional um change where focus visible went  from level double a and two one to level a and the   2.2 draft uh last draft that i looked at so some  really kind of interesting stuff but some of these   are really kind of things that we're maybe already  doing already talking about and some of these are   are are different so the nine i'll run off the  nine real quick and they're levels but then maybe   we can talk about some of these some of these  i'm like having a hard time processing even how   we would use those or integrate those so the first  kind of ones that i see here are the double a and   aaa with focus appearance uh so again that's  you know we're already used to focus appearance   so that you know focus indicator as we're tabbing  through but now we're gonna have a color contrast   um minimum three three one i believe on the  double a and four point five uh to one for the   triple a so i feel like that one's pretty easy  to understand the other ones we have here are   page break navigation and what it sounds like  to me on this is you have page break locators   and a way to navigate throughout so it almost  sounds like old school anchoring like we used to   have and some pages still use it some websites use  it to get to different sections within the page   so i thought that was interesting and that's  single a so that's kind of one that will   impact pretty much everybody dragging movements is  the next one on there so making sure that we can   single point and drag um and making sure that that  functionality is in place so that's a double a   then we have the target size minimum which i know  that our anna you i know that you talked about   as well so that's going up to double a and we're  having some more uh 24 by 24 minimum which seems   still kind of small but uh that was interesting  and then the next couple ones are the ones that   i think are a little bit newer to um our  conversation is the consistent help and   that's a level or level a so each page has um  information for finding help so that could be   like human contact or contact us page phone number  that sort of thing and that's really interesting   because i feel like we have that on a lot of  websites but it hasn't been in book cag before   so that's going to be interesting to see how that  and again that's a so it's affecting everyone   and we have visible controls so kind of extending  some of the things that we've already done   but when a receiving pointer hover or keyboard  focus it needs to be visible and that information   needs to be to identify what those user  components are doing and what's available   so that's going to be interesting that's double  a so two more accessible authent authentication   each step in the authentication process relies  on cognitive function tests at least one other   method must be available for our users and that's  an a so that's going to have a big impact and then   the last one is redundant entry and that is  also an a so information previously entered   or provided by user like if you're filling out  a form um that would either be auto populated or   um available for the user to  select maybe as like a drop down   so those are the like the big nine right and that  one is kind of a double the focus appearance so   so i said a lot of words but now you can all  discuss that it's so interesting yeah yeah   so we did have a question in the chat about do  you all have any idea when 2.2 will be official nick i think you're muted but i  want to hear what you've got to say   too jeez i keep doing that um last i heard uh  it was gonna go live at the end of quarter four   this year i'm not holding my breath there's uh  there's not enough advance right now so probably   my my gut feel is probably by mid-year next year  is going to come through what i really like about   2.2 is that as kerry was saying it's  actually quantifying some things that as   advocates we were already saying we need to  do this as a best practice thing so now we're   going to be able to say yeah actually it's got  to be done the other aspect is it's exploring   an area of accessibility that hasn't been explored  before which is cognitive accessibility and this   is why it's taking time to do and there's  not that many new success criteria because   quantifying and guiding people on how to make uh  accessibility for folks with cognitive impairments   is really difficult but we're we're  getting there so that that's gonna be good as a relatively person i do appreciate the  guidelines as they were written um that they   do give seemingly clear guidance on how we  should be proceeding on to to support people   in in those areas so the idea of pulling  help consistent help and auto filling   details not making people re-enter them or  giving people alternative authentication paths   i love the degree to which uh ux intersects with  accessibility that these are just great patterns   for everybody but certainly it's great that this  is spelled out this way because it will make   it a lot easier for teams to do the right thing  going forward that's a curb cut effect isn't it   you build a cup cut for wheelchair  users and suddenly parents with   strollers and kids on skateboards and delivery  people with heavy packages we all benefit   i think as a designer one of the things we tend to  we have not emphasized accessibility for designers   traditionally but that's happening more and more  and one of the things uh that you see in these   in these criteria and all wcag criteria  is that the harmony between usability and   accessibility is really intertwined and so  having these guidelines uh updated you know   we're already talking about it with designers in  my organization though they are not established   yet um because it helps them really understand  and contextualize better usability as a whole   um though even if it didn't it would still  be important to make things accessible did anybody else have anything  to add about the the 2.2 updates i was just going to add kind of tagging off of  what nick was saying not only do we not know   when exactly it'll be official i don't believe  it will also be official but you also have that   lag time like if you think about it like i  know we have some clients still that aren't   on 2-0 right and 2-1 came out in 2018 so there is  a little bit of a lag even once they're they're in   so and it's unfortunate and and we're always kind  of chasing the the tech dragon so to speak where   it's almost like we're being reactive so i'm  looking forward to some of the things that people   are are thinking about ahead of time when like the  3-0 and beyond where we're going to be a little   bit more proactive and and this idea that there's  all these new technologies that really don't fall   under a lot of these umbrellas like i'm thinking  um you know like ai or vr xr ar that kind of space   where we're trying to figure things out on the  ground and it would be nice to have something like   more of a umbrella that covered all of  digital technology and it's almost like   you know you have this umbrella and then you  have like little pockets where it's like okay   if you're doing this then you kind of follow these  pathways so it would be kind of interesting to see   maybe some of that happen and we'll  again be a little bit more proactive um   sorry i did what is sorry if i spoke over you um  yeah and kind of um going following up a little   bit what you said um i would hope that maybe  3.0 would go a little bit more into um mobile   accessibility because i i love that we did get  that um you know more success criteria in 2.1   that um really touched upon mobile accessibility  i know for me um when i got started with mobile   accessibility that uh with with 2.0 i was  spending a lot of time trying to be like   okay how does this translate for them you know  for native uh ios and android and then you know   2.1 became you know the standard after i was  not really in the bowl space and you know but   i still get a lot of questions from people because  they're like so how do you know they're like okay   i have 2.1 and then you know we have orientated  we have success parking around orientation and   and other you know and other things dealing with  mobile but they're like we need more because   you know you know when it comes to mobile when it  comes to ai and um you know virtual reality things   are just moving at this you know speed of light  and that you know you have a lot of people who are   new to accessibility and but also are in this  these spaces and they're just like ah how do i   how do i interpret this how do i make this f you  know uh you know how do i translate this into   my particular area of technology um you know  that may not you know that isn't you know   desktop or you know um desktop  web i think that's a great perk   oh no i was just taking off what crystal said  one little comment is just like i think sometimes   that's what people use as an excuse to hide and  be like oh this doesn't pertain to me because   it's not explicit in these requirements and so  i feel like it's a it's a bad idea overall to   make it so detailed in that sense like making it  more broad all tech then you can't you can't hide   yeah that was uh the great perspective and  great example that was the first uh piece   of accessibility i ever saw one of my my students  couldn't interact with a game of theirs um they're   they were having like more and more vision loss  like each month and it was just getting worse and   they came up to me and was very upset because the  game they were playing they they couldn't interact   and couldn't you know see things and so i mean  i always thought you know oh web accessibility   accessibility just for the web but you always  you know i always forget about you know games   and you know all different types of technology  that's actually one of the things that's why   wcag is slated to become ag  just accessibility guidelines   that's why the cold name is actually  silver ag is the uh the uh uh yeah periodic table thank you i was having a  brain fight for for silver um so yeah the the hope   there is that it's going to cover anything  that is digital in terms of accessibility   but things are so far away there's so much  work to be there and things keep changing i   i think that really talking seriously  about silver is wasting time at this point sure so one of the things you know this comes  up in many different areas of web development   as well some people struggle with trying to  understand how much they should pay attention   to tc39 or to this standards body or this  faster moving one and this slower moving one   so we just uh we're speaking about wcag but  kind of curious uh y'all's opinions on the   degree to which um people that are interested in  accessibility how closely should they be following   every ebb and flow of this should  they be waiting for a final version   uh i get it for sort of longs for people  that are super interested in this we   follow all those developments but how should  people interact with this and are there any other   faster moving bodies that maybe have been starting  to try to quantify these things in a less um less   official capacity but just as a way to help people  learn and and get and learn new techniques or   learn new things that might eventually become  standards are there any other sort of best   practices uh lists or places or bodies that you  all recommend or look to for this kind of stuff one thing to remember is that  the standards the guideline   are the starting point they're not  the target so it's really important   to understand what the current standard  is as we were talking about 2.2 it's mixing in some of the best practice  so some of the stuff we're saying   hey you have to do this for accessibility but  we don't have the backing of the standard so   it's important to know the standard and it  helps to know what's coming down the pipe   but ultimately if someone really wants to learn  and go beyond the standard which is super there's   so many resources out there to understand what  accessibility is about and accessibility is not   about the standards the standard are here to help  us so it's it's a very complex thing we can learn   a little bit about everything fairly quickly  but to really understand what's what we need   to get our hands dirty and just do it and talk to  other people who do it reach out to accessibility   experts using the a11y hashtag on twitter go on  the web accessibility slack read what's on the y   website there's really great resources there as  starting points and that's really where you're   going to build your skills to a point where  you really get it and just run audits test   you know use your keyboard only on your favorite  websites the one you're doing the one you're using   download uh nvda if you're on windows enable  voiceover look at how things work inform yourself   and test it that's really by doing you will become  good at it yeah at the end of the oh go ahead tim   i was just gonna chime in and say for me a lot of  my stuff has just come from connecting on twitter   and linkedin with a lot of people who talk about  these things there's so much evolving regularly   on it and there's so many events to attend like  if you wanted you can attend an accessibility   conference every other weekend you know every  week um attend events like this online and   pick up the information and as you do it you'll  start to notice like the hardest part is actually   going beyond the simple stuff um because the  conversation usually stays down there because   there are so many people who are looking to get  into it or learn about it so once you get that   sort of base level then you have things like  axe con from dq which is how i met crystal   um and you know as you're able to dig into it  a little bit deeper so there's so many places   twitter is a fantastic community for accessibility  conversations yeah i would say twitter is also   great for disability conversations which there's  accessibility twitter and disability twitter and   it's really important to like have both of those  things but as far as what cag fits into everything   at the end of the day it's really um important  to make sure it works for users like more than   you know what version of the standard are we  on it's like does it work there is the fact   however that in organizations there are certain  folks in management roles in particular who   they really care about compliance and often it's  because they're juggling a lot of things they   have a lot of priorities and so they're trying  to not overwork their team so they're trying to   prioritize like what's what's the most critical  thing what's going to be a big risk for a lawsuit   and so as you're trying to prioritize and pick  the things that are the most critical to work on   what cag can help to try and get some like  information around what's the most important   thing um and sometimes if something is just a best  practice it might fall below that watermark of   what is absolutely critical so i think it's really  great that the new standards are working in things   that have been best practices like nick was  saying because that means that when we're in those   conversations about prioritization we can point  to this new standard and say up you got to do it   instead of the like do we really have to do  this it's like yeah your website doesn't work   with the keyboard you got to make it work but  some folks really want that standard to just   make double triple sure that it's more important  than some other critical bug on their website um that yeah liberty said it's very important when  you're working with um yeah with teams and within   you know some of these uh within the company  because you do have that you do have people   that's that's their that's their thing that's  their that's their job it is compliance and you   you know and maybe they have a concern about  accessibility for a personal but you know their   job it comes out of compliance and that they um  you know and they you know they can only they feel   they can only do so much um but that's why for me  i and this will probably give me a lot of people i   i loved when when people reach out to  me especially those who are very new to   like web development accessibility because um  you know i definitely let them know about you   know the standards and guidelines but you know i  kind of tried to a part of like taking it beyond   um you know that and really learning how to  research things because it gets you know i   if you get too focused on like well this is what  this thing says that you you really yeah you   start to want to only want to conform to that you  know as a you know especially as a web developer   so i kind of you know impart a lot of okay you  have these you know you said you have you know   what cad 2.1 and you have these guidelines and  you know really you know showing them how to   take this and then go beyond that and really start  to dig in to you know feel like i future proofing   um their you know their their work in and thinking  you know beyond the guidelines um i i really think   that's a huge key to especially um you know inside  of huger um companies in and uh um just you know   and corporations is really you know helping those  newer um you know developers and people who are   getting into uh web development to really not just  understand the kind of baseline for accessibility   but really kind of you know know how to um to  learn beyond and and really start you know and   do their own kind of like um investigation  uh into how to go beyond these guidelines so i'm kind of curious um like with the rise  of remote working and remote you know learning   um how do y'all think that the past  year has changed accessibility standards   or at least the importance of  accessibility in general like do you think   we will continue to see focus on accessibility  as jobs and schools move back in person i think it it was a positive outcome  of a terrible situation because   things have improved and and some of  the things we've been asking for for   users um for disabled users specifically for years  are coming about right i mean it used to be that   super small examples like zoom you know you  have to used to have to integrate with otter   ai or somebody to transcribe and now they  have some of that built in for free and   you just can toggle something is it perfect no  because it's ai generated you know captioning   but is it better than the alternative which is  nothing i would i would argue yes it's better and   just this morning we were reading a article out of  peloton plus microsoft ai and about the live trans   transcriptions they have on their classes and  things like that with merrill evans who's like   a big proponent of captioning um and one of  those big hurdles was you know integrating that   technology that ai to make it a better experience  is it perfect probably not do we have a lot   further to go yes but it is definitely a start  and i think that kind of shut down in some ways   kind of put a highlight on that because we were  all forced to be in that kind of situation that's   just one example i'm sure you all have more i uh i  want to add to this one um i keep seeing i think i   i totally agree with what kerry said and always  well put carrie one of the things i'm seeing   as people try to go back to quote-unquote normal  is the de-emphasis of accessibility and it's   it's really unfortunate because during the  pandemic we learned how essential all of us need   how much all of us need accessibility and the  idea that we should return back to what was is   it's not what we should be doing across the board  and i keep seeing and i forgive my you know i'm a   little frustrated because i see these big  organizations who are really emphasizing   how we can be more productive in an office or  things like that but we need to look at people's   productivity very differently and we need to  enable people to meet those expected productivity   progress needs across the board and so i guess  what i'm slowly rambling about here is that   um there was great product progress in  terms of accessibility let's keep going   even as people are getting more  vaccinated we have so much room to do more   uh and i i just want to see more leaders  working towards this because if we collectively   look at remote work as less productive what does  that say about the people who need to be remote   what does that say about the people who need  accessibility productivity is not met by in person   it is met through many different things sorry  i'm getting political here but uh but i'd love   to see more we saw just a touch of that in the  pandemic and there's so much room to do to do more   um yeah there's oh i'm so sorry sorry just want  to say anna never apologize for your passion   your frustration is mild compared to my  outright anger as to what's been happening for decades disabled folks were asking for the  very accommodations that happened overnight just   about overnight in the work from home covid  situation and we were met with oh it's too   difficult it's too expensive we can't make this  happen and suddenly boom everything was possible   because everybody needed that and now that  we're going back to quote-unquote normal these   accommodations are being pulled away uh whereas  we've had 18 months 20 months to show that it   works so there was a lot of great stuff happening  in terms of work from home and some large   companies have decided okay we'll keep hybrid  or we're not going back to the office or whatnot   but overall we it's like we dangled access to a  large segment of our society and then we decided   we're going to take it away so anna you're a  little bit frustrated i'm outright angry about it   there i said it okay you made me feel bad now  because i was a half glass full kind of girl   and now i'm going to have to retract  no i'm just happy for this small things   yeah sorry i just want to make sure you  everything you said was totally on point   it's both things because accessibility is  political and you should be outraged when it yeah   what we've seen happen i mean that  is right to be upset about it i   i personally have like the duality of like  ah that's frustrating but it kind of fuels me   to see this little sliver of hope that there will  be folks who also lived through this experience   will be like oh yeah i see the importance of  accessibility in digital properties now so i think   we do have a lot of opportunities to like point  to it as an example of the need for accessible   tooling and you know products that get procured  like hr tooling and all of these online services   so i think it's both things like we have that  glimmer of hope and that example to point to but   it also is a we don't we won't don't want to go  forward being like oh well back to discrimination   so yeah i think there's there's that  duality to it that we're living through   um there's a one of my favorite uh dorothy  parker uh quotes i'm gonna bastardize it um   in office work is it natural it's just common uh  in dorothy is she that it's uh you can look up the   uh the actual quote because it's a very good  quote and you know i have been remote before   um the pandemic happened and one of the  things is that yeah um i do my best work um   remotely um i don't like being in the office  mainly because i don't like open office plans and   i mix into someone who has social  anxiety usually open office plans are um   just you know they're you know though they're  you know they're pushed as oh you're going to   um you know have you know you're going to work  better with you know with your team and it's never   like that because it's you know it's because you  need to have a lot of space to do that and also   yeah they're never really um you know there's no  focus on making these spaces accessible so you do   have and so um with you know and also what comes  along with you know with remote work and also   intersection of uh especially when it comes to  um not just disability but there have there are   studies are being done especially when it comes  to like race where a lot of um employees um and   people of color also really benefit from uh remote  work and the you know a lot of transgressions and   micro trends uh that happen in uh actual physical  environments and so i do hope to see and i'm not   saying that in office means you know for everyone  you know um that is uh you know who you know who   has disabilities or is a person of color um you  know you know shouldn't be in office but people   have different working styles people we need to  enable people to you know to do the best work   they can and for a lot of people that is remote  and that you know and there's some people like i   have my husband my husband loves you know going  into office i'm just like that's that's awesome   for you that gets us you know time away from each  other but you know for me i do i do my best work   and i feel i've done my best work since i've been  100 remote these last like two and a half years i've heard some from some folks who feel you know  um like a friend of mine who has adhd mentioned   that she prefers big in the office because it  helps her focus better and i think when it comes   to how we look at work uh and the future of how we  work you know flexibility is really the key people   as crystal mentioned uh some folks work better in  an office environment others work well from home   personally you know i i i could i i like  the idea of having flexibility and you know   gosh it doesn't hurt that i can hug my cat as many  times as i want each day but that honestly i mean   helps with my anxiety and things like that too so  i really think flexibility i wish more leadership   business leadership and organizational leadership  acknowledged that flexibility we could do it   before why can't we do it now and you know  that people can thrive in both environments circling back to accessibility um i i i love  this discussion but we're talking accessibility   and maybe we veered off a bit  this thing of working from home is   excellent if we have a culture of inclusion and  accessibility and that means having tools that are   accessible to our workers um zoo meetings open  captions that kind of stuff and that's getting   better because we had to do so much work in the  last 18 months but it doesn't remove the burden of   what we do for tools used internally even  if we're in the office and i'm hoping that   the work that's happened it's not just about  making the web accessible it's about making   communications tool accessible  whether it's slack teams   zoom intranet whichever and that's where  we need to make sure that as organizations   we provide tools that are accessible because i  guarantee you if you think oh but we don't have   any disabled employees yes you do uh 26 percent  of the us population has a disability that's one   in four it's likely not a visible disability  maybe it's someone who's got um colorblindness   maybe someone who's got adhd maybe someone got  traumatic brain injury when they were playing   football as a kid and they have concentration  issues or maybe the the flashing stuff is going to   create migraines or seizures or whatever so  we have to make sure that the tools we use   to work whether remotely or in office are  accessible accessibility is not just about the web i think with this i also feel like there's to go  off of what nick said there's a big thing about   actually training people about the tools that  exist um my mother as she is aged her eyesight   has gone down and i didn't even before i got  in to accessibility i didn't realize that it   was an accessibility feature to increase the text  size for her um and as soon as i did she was like   oh my god my life is so much better um so just  simple things like that that people don't realize   you know are an accessibility feature sometimes  um that they sort of see as like they shame   themselves for needing it oh i'm aging i need this  so i feel like moving forward the training not   just on the people who are creating the technology  but like putting that information up front a lot   of a lot of phones do it as well but the tech size  as well but especially for the older demographic   you know they have struggled in this digital world  a lot more learning to teach some of these 60 70   year old teachers who are learning to teach online  we're struggling more than the students so i i   think that's a big area of accessibility concern  as well and to kind of like expound on what   like tim is saying but there's also situational  limitations such as you know i wear glasses what   happens if i break them i don't have them i broke  my arm you know maybe my keyboard's not working   but so you would definitely want to to make  accessible because you never know what's going to   happen you know bandwidth is why not everybody has  the same internet speed so you know making your   site accessible it's not just making it accessible  for people with disabilities it's for everybody   uh everybody can benefit and you know it works  out of the box most of the time and it helps   with seo there's so many more benefits um you know  that's one you know nick you mentioned that people   said their users are not disabled so thank  you for you know sharing that that's one that   it always hurts when i hear people say that  and i'm like i'm you know i have epilepsy   i do have a disability you you never can  tell what you know somebody is dealing with   um i i just want to say with tim i and this is  something where you know um it is important to   really start you know i think you know in this  when it comes to accessibility um it's one of the   things why i push um really you know talking about  uh you know the intersection of just not just   with uh disability but also thinking about  social economic reasons and also culture in um   and uh in race because not everyone experience um  you know disability the same um there are there   is a focus you know when it comes to not you  know forgetting that you know when people get   older that you know they're having issues and  that you know they become a uns you know kind   of unseen population um that um that may not  get you know people to reach out and really   you know show them the different tools that they  have access to but then also um when it comes to   one of the reasons why i'm so focused on mobile  accessibility because a lot of people don't   um have you know desktop um computers their  main computer is a a phone um or you know or   some kind of you know a you know a tablet and  you know and so um really um making sure that   you know they have you know access to tool these  tools accessible tools and making sure that these   devices are accessible is a huge you know thing  and also really getting education out there um   not just you know i i love twitter and i you  know um but that's only twitter only reads a   very um you know kind of a particular group there  are so many people out there that um that don't   are on twitter they don't care about twitter they  will never be on twitter and they really um you   know and it's one of those things i feel like  it is you know i have the you know i have the   the at least the energy right now to really try to  seek that out it's really important to make sure   that yeah it's not just about creators and making  sure they understand accessibility but really   teaching helping others who are who need that  accessibility to get you know the education   and knowledge that they need um so they can  um because a lot of people may not even know   that these things could be accessible to them  and that they could you know they don't have to   participate in you know you know in one  particular way and they have access to things   i have to plug um crystal's accessibility talks  real quick i popped it in the chat for us at the   if you want to pop that link in there but brooke  with accessible taste the economics of access   she gave a talk back in may  on on that youtube channel   and it was it blew my mind it was phenomenal  and there's some things that even having been   in the accessibility community for a long time i  hadn't really thought about um you know and ruled   populations on top of that with maybe broadband  and you know there's a lot of different kind of   pockets of accessibility or where accessibility  could extend beyond what we're already even   talking about today but check out that talk  by crystal i love all crystal stocks uh for   sure but that was that was one of the ones where  just like it gave me goosebumps the whole time so it's interesting oh please yeah just i've been  prodded to to tell a story that happened to me   in terms of um you know accessibility is good for  everyone i i'm a wheelchair user and i've been   doing web accessibility for years and years and  years but in pool six years ago already in 2015 i   ended up slipping on iced pavement and falling off  the sidewalk and i broke my scaphoid bone that's   the bone at the base of the thumb right here  and i ended up in a cast that was going from my   fingers to my elbow my thumb was encased and um  someone very helpfully told me hey you're gonna   go round and round in circles now pushing your  wheelchair um so a couple weeks later a drunk   driver burned through a red light and crashed  into my car and as it happens i broke the left   scaphoid bone and ended up in a cast the same cast  so i joked and i said well i can go straight now the point is as an accessibility expert knowing  about accessibility i went from being able to   type 80 words a minute and interacting with the  web and my computers in ways that was really good   to being very limited and frustrated i knew the  tools out there but i had to learn the tools in a   way that was an actually everyday user rather than  as a tester so accessibility really does benefit   everyone i was able to pivot and keep doing my  job because the tools were out there to be used   we keep saying this and i think it's really  important accessibility benefits everyone   at the same time we have to be careful not to  re-raise the population for whom we're doing   this work which is disabled people so the  primary focus is really for disabled folks   but it does benefit everyone from the nitwit  who breaks both his arms in a tweak period   to the mother who has a sick baby and  her only way to access information is   well she's juggling a baby in one arm she has  access to the web on our phone and there's so   many levels of accessibility at play here we  really have to think about all these things yeah yeah i hear that as somebody with a  small child i can't tell you the amount of   times i've had to try and contort my finger to  hit a keyboard command and hit my mouse button   because i have my child in my other hand um one  of the things that's come up here and i think   this is interesting is is the different ways  that people are engaging with our interfaces   natively how they understand it this has been a  historical problem with teaching generations that   didn't grow up with computers how to use keyboards  and mice that that problem continues in many   households and in many families my mine included  um but something that's sort of interesting   and i've seen develop more recently are are  we're getting users online now who for whom   touch was their primary interface um and actually  keyboards and mice are also uh an issue because   they're sort of not primary to them and so this  is going to start becoming not just users but also   developers who are developing from that mindset  and a challenge for developers who come from   a different mindset and developing for them so  i think where i'm overall wrapping this up is   what are ways that we can be better at um helping  broadcasting how our tools can be used the   features that we add like onboarding new users  and like getting and reaching them where they   are you know especially in mobile where so much  is hidden behind swipes and um and different uh   you know configurations and moves that you have  to make that you may have never used before how   do we get better at um onboard users on board  ourselves and and give people different avenues um i guess i'm going to jump in it's kind of like  how when you're actually building this technology   documentation is very key because um it's like  when you're you know you're on a team and you're   you know building out a feature um it's you  know i it's kind of one of the things i do not   miss being a developer of you know people of  the teammates who would not um document things   i'm not saying you need to write war and peace  again but you know the you know it's like well   my code is the documentation i'm like no it's  not it isn't it absolutely not the documentation   and i need to have some kind of understanding you  know we are not going to mind meld here with your   with it and and i think that's the same bringing  that same energy when you're building to your your   users is that you know as there's there's that  um let's say you know when you assume things you   make a ass out of you and me my grandmother loves  saying that and like and so i think it's really   about making you know giving that information to  um to users and so when it you know that's why   having you know like an accessible you know you  know along with you know that i i actually don't   you know when you have like your technology making  sure you know you can have like a separate like   this is what all we're doing for accessibility  which is great but also in the documentation as   itself of like this is how you use our product or  our feature that that accessibility information is   ingrained in that as well um and so that's kind  of the number like my thing i can say that's the   number one thing is having that information  and also again taking it back to the basics i   know a lot of us talk about you know semantic  code and things like that you know if you're   building with the the the solid building blocks  uh and that's not just code but also design   and you know and other things you're really going  to you know you're putting yourself in a great   position if you're just starting out with ever  the new hotness and you're like and not having   the understanding of the the fundamentals  you're just setting yourself up for failure   yeah uh marcy please go ahead oh thanks i was just  gonna add on that along with the documentation   piece your interfaces should be intuitive you know  keeping things as simple as possible will make it   easier for people to figure them out you know that  um kind of onboarding new user step i mean setting   expert level tools aside because i think there's  that you know things like photoshop or pro tools   like there's always going to be these expert  level pro tools however i think for a lot more   a lot more basic and general audience tooling and  websites making them as intuitively designed as   possible can help with that and then you know not  assuming that people can figure them out that's   where the documentation comes in but i've worked  with plenty of stakeholders and people in power   positions who are convinced that their code is  intuitive enough and those are usually the folks   that say now it's self-documenting and i would say  put it in front of people let's let's survey some   users and people with disabilities and  find out how intuitive this really is   because we make a lot of assumptions that really  feed into our own biases that something might be   intuitive so i think over time you know you learn  some of those tricks about what is intuitive   because you've had that feedback from people  to to help you understand that um so i think   it is really a design challenge in intuition as  well as documentation that can that could help there's also a dichotomy between where do we  put accessibility features in our programs   do we stick them under accessibility settings  where people who don't have disabilities will   never think about going looking for them or do  we mainstream them if you want throughout all   the other preferences or do we do both because  maybe maybe it's going to be easier to to do   that and every time i can i propose to do both  have your settings in two places at the same time   one under accessibility where someone is looking  for accessibility will find them easily but where   one someone who may think oh this font is so small  how can i make it bigger they are not necessarily   going to think about going into accessibility  they might go into display or or anything else so   you know it goes back to what marcy was saying and  crystal was saying making intuitive make it easy   to find the the places to switch stuff so many  people everybody's of course right on uh on the   money as it were but so many people who benefit  from accessibility um don't understand that they   have disabilities or don't see themselves in a  as needing accessibility and so and then there's   people who who understand that they they do  benefit from accessibility and so having intuitive   um adaptable interfaces that understand levels of  interactivity beyond visual is just a great start   and then of course hearing from you know actually  making space for users to give feedback instead of   spending hours in meetings debating what where  this button should go um is those are just the   core starting points of basic accessibility  and um you know i think that uh all the time   when i'm talking with like my family there's so  many things that they they're using like um my   my grandmother for example has text enlarged on  her phone that makes it easier for her to read   and she she knows that she can use that in or  access that in her settings um in accessibility   but it just it makes so much sense for her and  she doesn't think about it in terms of i am this   or i am not it just is better usability um and  so i think everybody of course uh hears right   right as always both is important see and i think  that this is the future of accessibility just like   what ana was saying and nick and everybody else  here on the panel is that giving users choice   and giving them accessible choices right we  have that dark mode light mode prefers reduce   motion options things like that right i can see a  future where we have that beyond right like all of   the things i set in my operating system they go  out to everything that i own even like bluetooth   over to my phone or something right so one  ruling just said it all or one rule just at all   uh or one studying to rule them all that's what  i meant uh one of those things but it's this idea   that giving people the choice that's really going  to be the future because how can i know what seven   billion people really want what exact combination  because you're talking about operating systems and   devices and ats and preferences right and and even  situational preferences like we've talked about   in other terms as well so i i'm really excited  about this i know that we're we're just like   at the cusp and just starting to get our toes  like in the water for that but it's like it's   fascinating to me and i think that's where you  know people like anna and designers and ux people   are really gonna push that that accessibility into  the forefront and really make it more mainstream what is yeah i i like to bring that i bring  this up as an example when you don't uh when   you kind of hide your accessibility um features  away one of the things that you get is um one   of the one of the most asked questions of me a  lot of times is how do i get voice over to stop   uh talking to me and because they'll you know  someone will accidentally you know cut on voice   over on their kim on either their phone or on  their desk on their on the desktop and they don't   know how to um to you know shut it off and so they  you know i'll you know i'll get a question of like   a slack or something how do i stop this and also  if you go on if you go if you just like search for   this voiceover a lot of the voiceover articles  are how to shut off voiceover and the thing is   is that you know and this is like i and now  i i know i'm focused on voiceover but this is   kind of indicative of a lot of when you hide it  behind things and you know so not you're you're   you're not providing that for  all your users and like you know   it's it might be harder for someone who um is  you know um undergoing visual impairment and   now is finding themselves in need and so it's  harder from them maybe you know they don't have   information and they may not they may not discover  you know voiceover until someone tells them about   that but you also have it for people who are like  how do i shut this off and then you know this then   it becomes a tool of annoyance uh instead of  like you know when i turn on a certain thing   and i'm like oh i can shut this off here then you  know for a lot of people it's like oh no this is   you know accessibility things are quote unquote  annoying um and so i that's why you know yeah   both is really good especially to really kind  of you know stop this kind of weird like um you   know accessibility things are or you know kind  of weird or whatever annoying to some people great now this is a topic that i've sort of had  in case i ever got a chance to talk to marcy again   and um but i love it because each of you in turn  has been talking about this subject a lot lately   and it's it's running tests tests with real  users and um marcy one of the articles that   you've written in the past this might be a while  ago now uh but it was really really impactful   to me it was about um user testing  of accessible client-side routing   i do a lot of work with some of the like angular  react view single page application frameworks and   routing is one of the hardest things to  get right because it bypasses all of the   browser's natural um things that it gives you  for accessibility and announcing when route   changes and where the user is at the on the  new route and what stood out to me wasn't just   the the rigor of the study but also that the  conclusions weren't necessarily that definitive   they they sort of suggested things but there were  others that preferred very different things and   so i was kind of curious to go around and maybe  give stories about testing um how people should   design their tests and and how to interpret  those results if those results are ambiguous sure yeah i could start off  um yeah oh client-side routing   i like the more time i've spent on it the more  i think we should just banish it to the sun   because it is really hard to make something  that works for everyone you know in that study   i did it when i worked at gatsby and so routing  was part of the framework it used to reach ui   or reach router which i hear with react router  they're not handling focus anymore which   oh gosh i just yeah it's a tough one because  what we want to do is try and replace some of   the behavior that the browser gives you for free  when you have traditional html page reloads you   know the focus is reset to the top of the page  the screen reader will start reading you know   something has happened you didn't just click a  link and stay where you were and not realize that   the view has updated but in a javascript framework  we have the opportunity to do something that's   more guided and we're trying to replace some of  the behavior that's taken away by the browser not   doing that in a java you know dynamic javascript  view but maybe we can improve on it like that's   where i started off doing that study was that i  thought we could make it better potentially but   some of the things that worked really well for  screen reader users didn't work so well for um   you know sighted keyboard users for example or  or folks with low vision for example focusing   on headings which are not interactive elements and  so if you're moving focus to a heading that might   work great for a screen reader user but not for  everyone else so in the study i tried to distill   all of those findings into something that could  work for everyone which is kind of impossible   really and so um anna made a point about making  things adaptable and so i wonder in more complex   web applications if having settings that  can help folks tell us what they prefer   like for focus rings always being visible  um you know things like that to make it   more configurable but then at that point i  mean who's gonna go through those settings   and actually change those i'm not sure so i've  just ended up with more questions than i have   answers unfortunately but my hope um you know long  term would be that not only javascript frameworks   would you know give a rip and do something about  it because most of them don't but i think the   what we're i think what a lot of folks are  hoping for and just sort of paralyze not   doing anything is that browsers will handle it  natively i think that would be the ideal outcome   uh yeah i i love hearing this from mercy because  i the more i've been trying to learn about this   is just personal i've been trying to learn  more about frameworks because so many teens   are using them now and uh and long story short  javascript makes my brain hurt but um one day   maybe i'll get it but i you know the thing about  adaptability that i think is really interesting   is uh as designers we're so focused  on the visual aspects of design   and we when we look at web experiences we have  to let go of that a little bit and think about   in-depth user experience like real i mean  ui is important and visual is important but   so much of that is already adaptable and in the  future you know users may have settings on their   computer set up to just make things work a certain  way throughout web experiences now i'm being   imaginative at this particular moment but for  example we've got dark mode where if you have if   you have the settings on your computer established  to go to dark mode at certain times of day like i   do um you can get that set up where heck i think  twitter will respect that setting if i remember   correctly i might be wrong so somebody please feel  free to correct me but i think more and more we'll   see experiences that are inherently adaptable  and that kind of makes us think about what design   really is and design respectively looks at users  preferences and says okay we're going to respect   those preferences um i mean that's a brand has  no value if it doesn't if it's not usable um   so so i think that that's really exciting  part of the future we might be looking at i think a big part of it too is technology um  that the device you're on the browser you're using   ios i think is notorious um for having like  focus management issues um and stuff that i've   developed and you know i've been told sometimes  you just have to do your best to make it work   and if the technology isn't there yet don't hack  your way because they can change it tomorrow   and then it breaks everything else so it's like  you know a lot of old buildings didn't have ramps   and then ramps were decided to be the normal  thing required and then all buildings and then   elevators you know all of that all of those  things that made it more accessible in the future   those older items aren't i mean buildings  and architecture is a whole nother thing   but you know digital technology it's it's the same  thing it's like if we try to hack around it now   and make it work momentarily how's that going to  work in the future you know everything for years   and web development was like use a div use a div  use a div and then now we're going back to the the   more semantic stuff um for a lot of it and it's  it's just fascinating how it's like you you learn   the fundamentals you break the rules and then  you realize wow those rules were set for a reason   so i think that's what is going to happen with  things like react and the front-end frameworks   as as they evolve it's going to be like a  marriage between the technologies and the   frameworks that are going to eventually get to  a point but right now we're just not there and   you can only hack your way through so much of it  tim thank you for mentioning learning the basics   html really is the basics and i actually have a  pinned tweet on my twitter stream because about   70 of the errors i find when i do accessibility  audits are directly related to bad use of html   html is not that difficult to learn i think  if i remember the stats right a five-year-old   knows about 300 words of their native language  there are about 115 html tags to learn so it's   not much to ask developers to understand html  better than a five-year-old knows their language   so just do it learn html and and you will resolve  so much of your accessibility issues right off the   bat you will not have accessibility experts  repeat for to you for 20 years use the alt   attribute you will not have them on at you to  don't try and make a custom select use native   html and you will not have so many accessibility  headaches if you use html properly and yes it is   a pet peeve of mine html isn't a coding language  why would we um do we have another five hours   i will not just before i forget um i also  want to emphasize that designers should become   more familiar with html you don't have  to learn how to write it but you should   know what's native and you should know what  semantics but you're not reinventing the wheel   and so that we're not asking developers to go  out and create this really intense like select   multi-select interaction where we could just use  a set of checklists you know so so get familiar   with what exists because it'll make things  more accessible by default in your design   there's um ian pouncy uh one of our  colleague has this great metaphor he says accessibility if if a designer gives  a photo of a cake to a developer   the developer is going to have to try and  interpret what they're supposed to bake   but if the designer actually knows enough  html to say okay this is a heading and this is   that and actually gives the recipe chances are the  developer is going to be able to replicate what   the designer had in mind properly to start with  and i think that that goes back to what you're   saying anna i i would so love for designers to  have a modicum of understanding of html to to make   that happen you know a lot of the the people who  are developing and on the designing side as well   are watching tutorials and people who are i i  just tweeted about this this morning because i   was watching a jess testing tutorial yesterday  and the guy was talking ab about some way of   targeting elements and he was like so if you  notice this input element doesn't have a label   and i went straight to the comments and i was  like that input element should have a label   don't teach people how to work around you know  doing things in an inaccessible way just because   that's what you know so there's that knowledge  transfer i went to a coding boot camp and   the topic of accessibility was never mentioned  you know you have people who are learning online   through coding bootcamps through self teaching  through even school and accessibility is not   once brought up it's the same thing with people  who are trying to learn react and their javascript   skills are like still very beginner it's like  you can't jump to react without having learned   so it's you shouldn't be jumping to styling with  css because css is you know going to make things   crazy until you've learned the basics of html  and how to make your html work for everybody   um i actually um and i ended up going to a boot  camp uh because i felt like um i don't know why   and this is after i had worked as a friend you  know developer and i thought well maybe this   is a way to you know kind of uh brush up this  through my skills after being in you know qe   for a while and that was the main thing and this  is why i feel like it is you know um the kind of   basics are a lot of um newer uh developers and  you know and it's not just uh there's boot camps   for ux and other things there's not a lot of a  lot of the newer people who are coming up into   uh into web development into technology don't have  these fundamentals because a lot of these uh these   programs are not teaching them that that you know  i i remember being in the the first couple weeks   and you know their you know html and css was  really brushed over to get to the front of the   javascript um uh frameworks but then even then it  was like this is javascript and then it was like   okay now we're gonna go to you know react and then  you know it's like i was like okay cool but can we   like one learn about html and kind of like what  you know html and not just talk about divs also   everyone's like css is hard and it's like yeah  it's hard when you don't actually learn about css   and then it's like is it you know react or view or  angular or what you know it wasn't angular because   that when i went you know it was like all about  react uh and i was outlier learning about view   um you know it was like that's you know you don't  need to know html and css because you know react   and i'm like in what world am i in and that's what  it you know and and that's why i've uh created   videos to talk about like hey let's let's learn  let's learn the basics because you're spinning   you're you're kind of reinventing the wheel uh  and and a lot of these like you know it's like   these are supposed to be uh make things a  little bit easier these are you know you're   but you're really complicating things you're  making things way complicated you're like   you know when you can make a a page honestly  just using html css but you know some people   are like but now i have to add javascript and  it's like why why do you have a javascript and   it's like simple isn't sexy i think that's what  it is i mean honestly i mean this is all what   you're coming down to like the fundamentals like  there's over 87 javascript languages that are   individual right now you know obviously  some are more popular than the others but   why is it that we need that many languages  to do essentially you know similar things so   this idea this fundamental like i think of html a  lot as kind of a skeleton and uh css is the skin   and javascript as like the functionality so i  think about it it's like how could i function   without that proper skeleton and that you know  skin keeping it all together because i'd just   be like a blob you know with no bones kind  of jello around like anyway so that's what i   my picture when i think of javascript it is  essential for certain you know functionality   but if you don't have that underlying structure  in places there's no point right i mean well great no bones about it there we go   um another amazing conversation has gone by very  quickly of course this is an important topic this   will certainly not be the last time that we'll be  covering it here or that any of these fine people   will be covering it every single day on their  twitter account um i want to throw it around   to everyone to give kind of their last thought  or any shout outs or plugs that you want to do   i will start out and just pitch um one of the  things for anybody that was just listening to   that conversation and you said what do you mean  i thought all of the divs that i used were quite   accessible um if you want to like start playing  with this other than reading the wiki the wcag   guidelines which are written quite clearly another  tool that i've really enjoyed going through with   people especially in the context of frameworks is  the w3 has a wai aria practice repository which   has tons of examples of controls that are often  implemented using um frameworks and tells you   very specifically what key presses should uh react  in what ways what roles should go in what places   and different ideas on ways to put things  together it is just a fun activity to just go   through that list and rebuild them yourself and  your technology of choice just to see how they   they work out so if you haven't done anything with  accessibility that might be a fun place to start   um and that's it for me desi do you have anything  yeah so the best analogy i've ever heard is um   accessibility is a marathon not a sprint so if  you you know hear all of this and say oh man i   have to go to work and make all this accessible  uh you just need to start building a habit you're   not going to wake up tomorrow and say let me go  run a marathon you know it's going to take a lot   of time and training just make that first step  um shout out i really love marcy sutton's um   emails um i get you know that help me learn how  to write accessibility or better accessibility   uh as well as like testing so shout outs  there and there are some great extensions and   um a lot of great um oh my goodness like to-do  lists that help you know like what you need to   be doing for accessibility uh if you ever want to  chat you can follow me on twitter at jc underscore   nolan i'm going to go ahead and send it  off to tim if tim has any final thoughts   sure um i think that the easiest way if you're  looking to get started is literally go to your   site and do a keyboard pass on it if you can't i  was at fandingo and couldn't even get through the   the seat map flow because it was all built in  dims um and had to turn them into check boxes   with roles long story um but so start with  the keyboard path see if you can get there   that's the most fundamental basic way to start  your accessibility journey if you're looking more   advanced what i would start saying is learn  how to google in a way that like you know   you do as a developer as a designer um some of  the overarching themes are keyboard screen reader   and touch screen as crystal mentioned with with a  mobile devices is huge and mouse you think you you   might not think of that as an accessible thing  but as was brought up you know the mouse is not   something that everybody is using nowadays um and  then to go from there is the color contrast and   all of that design related stuff and um cognitive  issues as i mentioned i have adhd issues and one   of the most annoying things i've found is  clicking on a little form input that's like   add your birthday um or add a date or something  and it has the the pre-filled in stuff and then i   or it's like the email and the labels inside of  it and i click in it and i was like wait was that   email or username you know things like that just  anything display wise um visual there's so much   to dig into um and i would just create a checklist  for yourself through each one of those what do i   know about that like you said go find checklist  um and last thing that i'll shout out is dq   i mentioned it earlier they have axe pro  for testing your site they have ax con   and then if you're a developer they have  x core so go check out all their act suite great carry i don't know that i can say much more than my  skeleton blobby story the way my mind works   is a little weird um but you know i think  one of the things that i find fundamental   both at the very beginning of my career to today  is the community right and being involved with the   accessibility community and hearing the different  perspectives of the people who with these actual   disabilities right i can only speak for my  own experience so i like to hear about others   experiences so that's kind of getting into that ux  realm um so i mean any way that you can connect i   think is is key because it's going to help you  in any part of your career and then definitely   a shout out to marcy and the group that started  the uh w3c ali slack the web ally slack it's   where i met some of my best friends i met a lot of  you all there or on twitter so um yeah super yeah   definitely uh do a shout out to that and marcy  and definitely if anyone's interested let us know   because we got spammed a few years ago so now it's  invite only but if you know somebody in the group   they can let you in um but yeah so thanks marci  and thanks everyone for doing that as well anna uh as always i think the part of the reason  these sessions always go so fast is because i   get to speak with some of my favorite people and  it makes it really fills my cup so to speak and   i will say that uh getting to the accessibility  community has made my career so much more fun and   uh that slack is amazing um in december  i'm gonna be doing a talk with a11y   talks called why we need more accessibility  designers uh or inclusive designers um and so   i think if you're interested in that i  would highly encourage folks to go to that   i cannot stop talking about accessibility and  inclusive design so it's nice for me to have an   opportunity to find that into a proper context  but if you also are curious about my day-to-day   thoughts um you can follow me on twitter at anna  e cook uh and i know the e it's it's the brand   you may see that i have a label as a ketchup  design advocate and we can talk about that   later um but mostly talk about accessibility  and inclusive design so thank you awesome nick um well i happen to be on twitter as well  uh vavrum v-a-v-r-o-o-m i tweet a lot so   uh beware i guess the one thing i would like to  remind people is accessibility is everybody's job   from the designers to the qa testers and for the  qa testers i would like you to think that chances   are you can't just run automated test suites  like you do for everything else you do have to   do a little bit of manual work there so it will  pay to oh learn html and and figure things out   in terms of shout out i would like to thank every  non-accessibility organization and conference that   actually include accessibility speakers in  their lineup because that is so important to   to get people thinking maybe maybe you're going  to see the program and you don't want to go   watch the accessibility session and  that's fine but it's there and it'll get   you thinking about it so please include us  more and more and more awesome great marcy yeah   thanks to those conferences as well because  that's been a big part of my career and seeing   those light bulbs go on from people who happen  to be in the audience when i did one of those   talks now they are accessibility champions so  it really does that ripple effect is very real   so as far as plugging things i could say one more  thing about the web accessibility slack i'm the   lead admin over there and any member can invite  people so if you know someone that's in there   we can invite you or you could reach out to  us on twitter i'm marcie sutton on twitter   and my goal with accessibility moving forward  is to keep seeing those light bulbs go on by   doing some accessibility trainings  and my little slice of the world is   since i am a senior interactive developer  i would say i do a lot of javascript   having worked on some javascript frameworks and so  being able to speak that language with developers   i love talking about the interactions and  mechanics that apply within the javascript world   but i'm always talking about the basics as well  and the culture of accessibility because as nick   said we can only get so far with automated testing  and we have to remember that we're building things   for people and people have a wide range of  abilities so i use that sort of position and   audience to sure we talk about the complex things  but we always have to bring it back to the basics   and so if you want to get in on that i've got some  workshops coming up from my testing accessibility   project and it's really the goal of it is to teach  developers to incorporate accessibility testing   into your day-to-day work and i have a free email  course that's been mentioned a few times you can   subscribe to get those emails and then there are  some workshops coming up starting on november 17th   i have a full day workshop on automated testing  with javascript and then i'm going to take a   little pause in december and then start back up  in january so eventually there will be a thing   you know a larger project that you can watch  on your own time but i'm doing some live stuff   until then so thanks so much for having me great  and crystal yeah um i'll i'll be brief but um   uh yeah follow i everybody on here has twitter i  would say if you're not following everyone that's   on here please do uh myself included though i'm  more of a i'd i like to do a trolley post with a   little bit of education in um and there'll be more  of that in 2022 as i take a film course so they're   going to even be elevated uh all about trolls  trolling controlling for the good of accessibility   um but i and just kind of really quick um i just  want to say accessibility is a civil and in human   right so it is not a nice you know nice to have  it's not something that you should push off until   but you know into your second mvp you need to  do it right now um also um you know kind of   as well uh pay pay uh pay your disabled testers  um you know don't don't be asking for freebies   you know people gotta live they gotta eat  uh and so please do that so if you're asking   people to sit here and test your stuff then uh  you need to put you need to pull out the cash   and pay them and you know what you know and  nothing about us without us so that's it for me   wonderful what a great note to end on thank you  so much uh everybody for participating on this   panel all of our guests here today thank you to  our sponsors this dot labs and open deck secure   and thank you everybody that uh is watching  this either live or in the future thank you   to those of you that participated in  the chat and contributed questions   and we hope to see you all next time for  our next conversation so thank you very

Channel: This Dot Media

Views: 418

Keywords: a11y, accessibility, web accessibility, state of a11y

Id: VrivLM3ITSA

Length: 90min 12sec (5412 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 09 2021