The Dreaded First Post
Skynet said it had to be done. So done it was.
My Voice
This blog is meant to just be a way to develop my ideas and my voice. After 20 years of software development overlapping with 10 years in accessibility, I have various opinions on varied topics. Putting these on paper forces me to establsih what those opinions are, work them through in my head, and articluate them on digital paper to make sure they make sense. If anyone reads these, that’s just a bonus.
Why Now?
With the coming of age of AI I believe it’s important for people with well articulated thoughts in tech to share those. I haven’t read a single blog based on the opionions of a disabled Air Force vet working in digital accessibility and with a French accent, so here I am.
What Topics Will I Cover?
I plan on sharing opinions, sure. I also want to share accessibility fails. There are plenty of well intentioned blogs and people out there, and that’s not moving the goal post in meaningful ways so I want to share concrte examples of bad code from a public site and explain how it impacts humans and how to fix it. On the other side of that coin I want to share ways to include accessibility in common situation that are only tengentially related to accessible code and design. This again with the goal in mind to expose what problems it creates for some groups of people, and how to solve the problem.
What’s Your Take On Accessibility?
Many people describe the profession as a way to help people with disabilities in the digital world. I don’t like that definition for a few reasons:
- Most people don’t think of having a disability
- Most people think accessibility and WCAG is about makign the web accessible for blind people
I see digital accessibility as a way to fight off the rampant biases in tech today. I strongly believe that most designers either design for themselves or management, throwing away most heuristics they learn about in school. Most developers only do what they are asked to do and since the design they receive are almost never annotated for accessibility, they either don’t care to bake it in or simply don’t have time. For all these reasons we need digital guard rails. as imperfect as WCAG might be, I think it’s the best weapon we have to fight those biases and ittereate toward better solutions.
It’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it ~ Me, mostly to my kids about to leave their sweater behind
