As 2023 wraps I wanted to summarize some personal reflections about my accessibility activities.
Loved doing dozens of audits of websites and native mobile applications
I am really happy I got many opportunities to do professional website and native mobile application audits, some of them will hopefully result in helping hundred of thousands of people when they are fixed.
Unfortunately some clients just want an overview for their accessibility statements, but I could feel some clients that really wanted to fix the things I reported. Ideally all reported things should be fixed as soon as possible, but when the accessibility culture and maturity isn’t there yet it may just be an overwhelming list of issues that are inputs for accessibility statements until product is upgraded (and then same mistakes may be repeated if somebody doesn’t make sure people learn from past mistakes).
I feel that I need to become a native mobile application developer to really understand the techniques available there, so that I can be even better with providing valuable accessibility remediation counseling. WCAG and web are quite compatible, but sometimes I really feel that native mobile applications need better possibilities when it comes to interpreting possible solutions for WCAG.
Web Accessibility Specialist certified for additional three years
I got my International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP) certification automatically prolonged as I collected enough credentials in the past years. So I am still certified Web Accessibility Specialist (WAS), for additional three years.
There are some accessibility veterans out there that don’t like the certification, especially as some accessibility overlay vendors are members, but also because certification is not the same as practical experience. In my opinion WAS is a benefit for me, but I do agree that without practical work and learning it’s just proof that I could manage to pass some questions about accessibility. Passing a list of questions doesn’t proof that we are really good at accessibility, it may only proof that we are good at figuring out tests. But at the same time I did appreciate getting through the whole body of knowledge and getting also feedback on some parts of the test that I need to work on.
It’s a journey, continuous learning is required and I can understand that getting certified alone is not optimal. But still we don’t have anything better at the moment. I hope that with time questions will be replaced with more hands-on evaluation where candidates must actually solve problems for end users instead of picking A, B, C or D.
Speaker at first official Global Accessibility Awareness Day in Slovenia
I was honored to be a part of first official Slovenian Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) that collected a lot of professionals doing amazing accessibility efforts in Slovenia. I contributed as a part of A11y.si institute, where I volunteer and it was amazing to present in two sessions. First one was focused on reporting of automatic accessibility testing of public sector in Slovenia and the other session was more of a best practices presentation on how to be better at accessibility. Networking was normally a big part of the conference and I am happy that I met other experts from academia and corporations.
Writing academic articles on accessibility
I like to write, this blog is kind of proof for that, but I have not wrote on academic level for a long time. So this was an amazing experience. Contributing to three articles where I was a lead contributor in one and presenting an article on a academic conference was very exciting. I need to thank AccessibleEU and Institute A11y.si for this honor.
It’s not so easy to cooperate on ideas, getting feedback from anonymous peers and act on it, being uncertain about acceptance. It is kind of stressful at times, but worth of time and effort when it’s published.
I learned a lot and will probably do it again if I get more chances. It takes some time but when we cooperate to get the message about accessibility out there it is worth of it. It’s obvious that we all need to contribute and spread the awareness as it’s still not there yet.
Some posts on this blog were highlighted by veterans
I like to write, mainly for myself, as a log, but also to spread awareness. And sometimes add my perspectives and hopefully also teach. I don’t do any promotion of my blogs on social media, just to see what can be done without promotion and after years of regular blogging it finally happened.
Some posts were even shared by veteran accessibility organizations and people and I feel very honored about it. This motivates me to write even better posts and I will try to keep on weekly posts also in the future. It takes some time and effort to write a post, sometimes it even takes a lot of time and preparation, but I feel that I need to spread the awareness and hopefully answer questions others have, in a similar manner that I sometimes get the answers for from veterans in the field.
Starting with pro-bono accessibility project dUUgnad.no
Accessibility community is very caring and I learn a lot from veterans sharing their knowledge, so in July I decided to start a pro-bono accessibility project dUUgnad.no targeting Norwegian non-profit organizations at the moment.
The idea is to offer free accessibility counseling to Norwegian organizations registered in Frivillighetsregisteret (Register of Non-Profit Organisations).
I really believe that organizations that help people need to have their digital presence accessible, so that they can also help people with disabilities. Until now we have helped with some basic accessibility improvements and will continue to do so in the future.
