Press Kit

Conferences/Events

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2010

2009

2004

Publications (Online and Print)

Books

Magazines

Online

Talk Abstracts

These represent the baseline version of each talk. I tend to adjust the talks to better fit the nature of the event and the target audience.

Everything I Know About Accessibility I Learned from Stack Overflow

Accessibility practitioners are great at talking to one another and getting into the nuances of specs and assistive tech. We also tend to live in a bit of a bubble, taking for granted many of the basics with which developers struggle on a daily basis. In this talk I will explore some of the kinds of questions developers ask one another, often with non-ideal answers, using Stack Overflow as my source.

Fringe Accessibility Techniques (That Shouldn’t Be)

If you’re familiar with accessibility, you may know some of the basics already. We’ll review some newer or more obscure techniques that can help prime you to look at the new hotness features with a more critical eye. Instead of pushing code techniques, we’ll discuss the logic behind these approaches, giving you the opportunity to turn some of these concepts over in your own head instead of just walking away with a shallow checklist.

Implementing Accessibility

An overview of how you can implement accessibility within your organization as well as working it into client and vendor agreements.

Inclusive Usability Testing

Running tests with real users is critical for so many organizations, whether when evaluating MVPs or just as part of iterative updates. For an organization that already has embraced inclusive design, the next step is to integrate it into user testing by incorporating users with disabilities into your normal testing process. I will discuss how to plan for and execute these sessions as well as pitfalls to avoid. Ideally you will walk away with high-level understanding of where to start.

Making Your Site Printable

The push for responsive web design has helped web developers consider how the sites they develop can adapt to different devices, including sizes, screen resolutions, and even contexts. It should now be easier than ever to respond to a format that has existed since the start of the web — print. I’ll walk through the process for making your responsive sites respond to the format we most often forget and show you how to use Google Analytics to track what pages are printed from your site.

Mind Your lang

The lang attribute exists in most pages across the web, though it seems most developers and user interface folks do not understand its impact. We’ll review how browsers put it to use and why you may not want to accept whatever the default value is from your framework / platform of choice. Its proper use has implications for visual design, accessibility, and internationalization & localization.

Prototyping Accessibility (workshop)

Learn some fundamentals of accessibility and how it can benefit you (whether future you from aging or you after something else limits your abilities). We’ll review differing abilities, generate (minimal) user stories and personas, discuss best practices for design and development, prototype some ideas (on paper), and discuss where to get help. This isn’t intended to be a deep dive into technologies, but more of an overall primer for those who aren’t sure where to start with accessibility nor how it helps them.

Responsive Web Design Primer

For many web developers whose jobs don’t allow them to play with all the newest technologies, something like responsive design can be just out of reach. As more users are surfing exclusively on mobile devices, these are skills every web developer, designer, and manager needs to develop. We’ll walk through the background, assorted techniques, how to measure success, and where it’s all going. This is not a coding session, but a planning and strategy session.

Selfish Accessibility

We can pretend that we’re helping others by making web sites and software accessible, but we are really making them better for our future selves. Learn some fundamentals of accessibility and how it can benefit you (whether future you from aging or you after something else limits your abilities). We’ll review simple testing techniques, basic features and enhancements, coming trends, and where to get help. This isn’t intended to be a deep dive into ARIA, but more of an overall primer for those who aren’t sure where to start nor how it helps them.

WordPress Accessibility

With recent announcement that all code submitted to WordPress core (as well as themes) must meet WCAG 2.0 AA, proper accessibility techniques are more important within WordPress than ever. I’ll review some basic and fringe accessibility techniques you can use for your personal and client projects, as well as for contributing to WordPress core.