How to make / improvise your own accessibility and adaptive devices and mods. Crash Course.

Aaron Esau (he/him)

This is a crash course in how to help you as a disabled person (or anyone) to improve accessibility. We will discuss figuring out what the problem is, sift through possible solutions and how to test and iterate to a working solution for the user.

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Practical Styling in Forced Colors Mode

Mike Herchel (he/him)

Forced colors is when assistive technology actively changes your website’s colors to accommodate people with limited vision. The most common technology that uses this is Windows high contrast mode, which according to Microsoft, is used by 4% of Windows users worldwide.

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From Disabled Veteran to Full-Stack Drupal Developer

Edmund Dunn (he/him)

As of August 2020, there are over 4.7 million disabled veterans in the United States. They are all dealing with a variety of disabilities connected to their time in the service. To say this is an under-represented group is an understatement. With the right help, these veterans can transition into the tech industry which is chronically short of developers of all stripes.

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Introducing ARRM: Assigning Ownership to Get Things Done

Jen Chadwick, Bill Tyler, SeAn Kelly

The Accessibility Roles and Responsibilities Mapping (ARRM) Methodology is a proposed W3C resource through the Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG). It’s also been described as a “gift to digital teams” as they start to shift left and implement accessibility efforts earlier in their processes. The ARRM is a highly effective tool when you’re identifying what tasks need to be done – the next important question after “how” and “when” is “who”. It’s a flexible and adaptive framework that can be applied at an organizational level or project level - assigning ownership of those tasks in a collaborative team exercise, where they also find solutions. The outcomes are team collaboration, education, clarity, ownership, and finally empowerment.

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Fostering Inclusion in Technology: Ten Tips for a Better Sense of Belonging

Nikki Flores (she/her)

Those of us who work in technology know how to work with multifaceted and diverse teams to solve complex issues for our end users. Becoming stronger, more empathetic communicators who foster diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) across the organization is a continuous goal and many would say we are all a work-in-progress. In this talk, we ask “How do we better foster a sense of inclusion and allow for different types of people, with varied abilities and skills, to work together to solve problems for the future?” We'll present ten tips for fostering more inclusion in technology, based on a compilation of tips presented through a previously-published blog series.

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