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Re: What to tell developers about accessibility?

for

From: Elle
Date: May 14, 2012 11:16AM

Congratulations, Karen!



On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 1:25 PM, Karen Mardahl < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> And I forgot the most important message of all in my mail: *THANK YOU* to
> this list. You gave me good ideas, which helped shape my presentation. A
> special thanks to Birkir for some discussions off-list.
>
> To quote Newton, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders
> of giants." Thank you for being giants.
>
> Regards, Karen Mardahl
>
> On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 7:20 PM, Karen Mardahl < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> wrote:
>
> > Hello everyone
> >
> > I gave my presentation to developers last week. Without hearing the
> > detailed evaluations yet, I'm hearing good things about it.
> >
> > My slides are at
> >
> http://www.slideshare.net/kmardahl/build-accessibly-community-day-2012andyou must download them to get at the notes. I am annoyed that
> > Slideshare doesn't make them available. That is where all the juicy stuff
> > is! It also explained why my first slide shows the infographic from
> WebAIM
> > about web accessibility for designers. I think I will do something soon
> on
> > my own blog with this information. As someone preaching about
> > accessibility, I feel uncomfortable when I make material available that
> is
> > not adequately accessible.
> >
> > I had 45 minutes at my disposal, and once I got going on the input, I had
> > a hard time pulling things out. I talked for all those 45 minutes, too! I
> > had hoped to start a dialog, you know, get people talking during the
> > presentation and making a kind of discussion for the whole time, but I
> got
> > nervously excited and passionate and just rambled on and on!
> >
> > The group was small - maybe 25 to 30 people - but they seemed engaged in
> > the topic. There were four slots to choose from in each hour. Later, some
> > asked for my slides because they wanted to hear the topic, but another
> > session had grabbed their attention, too.
> >
> > The biggest surprise of all came the next day. There had been a
> journalist
> > in the audience. He was from Version2.dk, a big Danish site (formerly
> also
> > a newspaper) dedicated to ICT. He wrote up my session and mention of this
> > was on the front page! In fact, it is still there as of this writing
> > because it was the Friday edition - fourth article from the top at
> > http://www.version2.dk/ entitled (lang=da) Web-tilgængelighed i praksis:
> > Prøv en dag ved pc'en uden mus (end lang=da). That means "web
> accessibilty
> > in practice: try a day at your PC without a mouse". I was plugging Global
> > Accessibility Awareness Day and gave that tip in my talk.
> >
> > The link to the article is
> >
> http://www.version2.dk/artikel/saadan-goer-du-dit-website-laesbart-blinde-45348-Google translate may be your friend and translate it from Danish to your
> > language of choice.
> >
> > I was thrilled that the topic of accessibility could make it into such a
> > well-known paper in Denmark.
> >
> > And why was I nervous? I am not a developer and I am awful at using a
> > screen reader. I guess I was afraid of getting into territory where I had
> > no answers. I did, actually. People were asking about dynamic pages, and
> I
> > went blank. I told them to go look at ARIA, referring to the MDN site at
> > https://developer.mozilla.org/en/ARIA and I admitted I was weak on that
> > point (with regard to having an actual discussion right then and there).
> >
> > Now I am all fired up after this. I plan to dig deeper into some of the
> > areas where I am weak and gain more knowledge, just for the sake of
> > learning.
> >
> > Moral of this story: I went outside my comfort zone and I survived. So
> can
> > you!
> >
> > My motivation for doing this was directly influenced by Jennison
> > Ascuncion's challenge at some point in the recent past to go talk about
> > accessibility *outside* the usual accessibility circles. It's hard to
> tell
> > from my slides, but my point was also the low-hanging fruit stuff. I also
> > mentioned web adaptability from the presentation a few years ago by Brian
> > Kelly et al. I said just take one step at a time, echoing Derek
> > Featherstone's recent blog post.
> >
> > PS It is so hard recommending good people to follow on Twitter. After
> much
> > agony, I chose 9 names for this particular crowd. I wish I could have
> given
> > them 100. This is where we, as presenters, need to think of one step at a
> > time. Information overload won't promote accessibility!
> >
> > If we can talk to not-the-usual suspects and just get them to take one
> > step at a time, I think we'll go far.
> >
> > regards, Karen Mardahl
> > http://mardahl.dk
> >
> > > >



--
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the people to gather wood,
divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast
and endless sea.
- Antoine De Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince