So I skipped the June edition (not by design) and now I’m going to just wrap everything up in this two edition in one newsletter. It’s been a busy couple of months! Work, W3C, San Francisco, Smashing Conference. So let’s get to it!
I’ve not recorded any new episodes as I have plenty of them in the can ready to edit and knock out as I stick with the one episode per month format. The latest episode to be out is my episodes with Rachele DiTullio and Ben Myers. Hope you’ll give them a listen/watch (and season one as well) and subscribe. Lots of accessibility talk!
More meetings and trying to get WCAG 2.2 ready for public consumption. Things are going good and WCAG 3 is also being worked on as well. It’s all coming together.
Still working hard and still looking for accessibility team members that have developer experience (React, Tailwind, Jest, Storybook, Vite, HTML/CSS) and accessibility knowledge (WCAG/WAI-ARIA). If you or someone you know would be a good fit in your opinion, please reach out to me on Twitter.
I attended Smashing Conference in San Francisco last week and had a great time. Got to see many people I know and haven’t seen in quite some time, and I got to meet a lot of fantastic people. I made it home after some airline delays and lost luggage and so far have not tested positive, so I’m very grateful for that.
I got to hang out with Erika Hall and Mike Monteiro and they were gracious enough to show me some of San Francisco which is a terrific city. I met the incomparable Rupert and had a photo op. Mike and Erika are wonderful hosts and it was nice to get together with them even though I owed Mike lobster rolls from a bet I shouldn’t have made and the 2-3 days of taunting.
I had a great conversation with Kate Kalcevich, Head of Accessibility Innovation at Fable. Her talk was one of the best that I saw and one I wanted to be there for, it was a great talk over lunch. It’s always great to connect with accessibility people at events.
From the Smashing Conference site:
*“There are many easy ways to integrate accessibility into the work you do every day no matter what your role is. Every small change makes a difference to the overall accessibility of a product. Over time, you can scale up accessibility by incrementally changing your product development process – creating into a practice of inclusion within your organization.”*
I found myself nodding in agreement with the whole talk. Lots of great points and things I picked up during Kate’s talk and it was a pleasure to be there. I’m grateful to have been able to meet Kate and talk about accessibility. Future podcast episode guest for sure.
I have two talks to give at the end of this month in person at Code On The Beach and Javascript and Friends Conference. Excited to be going to see more friends I have met online and my talk got approved for KCDC 2022. So I’ll be in Kansas City as well.
I’ll have more info on where I will be headed to speak more as the year progresses.
Meryl Evans wrote Accessible Virtual Reality: Advice from a Deaf Person on How to Make It Better. Now I’m not big in the VR space, but I am big in the accessibility of things and as always, Meryl knocks it out of the park. A great read.
Raghavendra Satish Peri wrote an article on Accessibility Tools and Resources for Designers. A great list of tools for designers and some of the tools listed are tools I use. Give it a read and check out those tools!
and Henny Swan writes about Accessible Design Systems. I have been more and more interested in the accessibility of design systems lately and the organizations using them. This is a great look and a great read into the topic. Having accessible design systems only lends to an accessible product or site and more.
With the latest going on in the US lately, it appalls me. I’ve written about some issues before and had people unsubscribe, which is fine. If this isn’t your cup of tea because I want to humanize things and not be a robotic tech/accessibility newsletter, that’s your right to unsubscribe.
I believe a woman, and only that woman, has the right to make decisions about her body and her health and no one else. That said, I urge people in the US to donate to organizations that are fighting this gross negligence by one of the branches of our government. The health of women is at risk with this decision. The decision also opens the gates of Hell for many other decisions to be overturned by a corrupt court.
I 100% support my friends that these issues impact. Trans, gay, Black, Brown, disabled, women. When I think of the harm being done to them, it makes me wonder why the hell we can’t respect each other and live peacefully.
Be safe, be vigilant, and be well.
Hopefully, you’re all doing well and staying safe and sound. If you could spread the word about not only the podcast but the newsletter as well, I’d be very grateful.
I’ll make sure I stay awake enough to get the next newsletter out in August, but I’m sure the reprieve was good for your inboxes.
Until next time friend,
— Todd 🦞