It’s been a while since I posted about the popular CSUN Assistive Technology Conference in southern California. Here are a few great reviews from this year’s event. (Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to attend for the last few years.)
The third annual Accessibility Toronto Conference was held recently at TELUS in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. On Twitter, the hash tag is #a11yTO and the account is @a11yTO.
And for the first time, both an Accessibility In Real Life conference (#a11yIRL) and a conference dedicated to accessible gaming (#a11yTOGaming). They were run the day before and after the main conference. All events were a big success!
The week even included a few social events in the evening including an entertaining karaoke party hosted by Shopify and a Tweetup hosted by Slack.
A theme which seemed to emerge from the conferences collectively was: Design *with* people with disabilities, not *for* people with disabilities.
Other notables from the conference were the adjustable desk on stage and a video puppet which reminded attendees when the sessions are about to start!
See below for a list of available presentation resources (from the a11yTO conference), selected tweets, and a few excellent conference reviews. See you there next year?
My “Can’t let it go” for this week, an example in @ShellELittle’s #a11yTOConf talk on dark patterns: some companies literally photoshop a hair onto images to get users to swipe thru carousels (by trying to swipe the hair off the screen). That level of manipulation is astounding.
Scott talks about how autoplay is HTML, shouldn't it be accessible? It's annoying and also a barrier for people like me who have #ADHD. Believing HTML is good out the gate is a disservice to your users. @scottohara#A11yToConfpic.twitter.com/BtUQvGulFR
Happy new year! Below is a list of many great conferences and events targeting digital accessibility which are coming up in 2019! I’m sure some are missing; please leave others in comments.
The second Accessibility Toronto Conference was another success! It was held at TELUS in beautiful downtown Toronto, Canada. Hosted by the lovely Léonie Watson (@LeonieWatson) and the always entertaining Makoto Ueki (@mak_en).
Accessibility Toronto Conference hash tag #a11yTOConf
Presentation Resources (partial list)
If your presentation resource is not listed, please leave a comment or contact me on Twitter at @WebAxe.
Sustaining Accessibility – Risks: 1. critical employee turnover 2. inadequate accessible training 3. changes in regulatory requirements 4. inadequate oversight in product mgmt 5. loss of tech interoperability by @sambhavi#a11y#a11yTOConf
Unfortunately, Eric Wright (@EWAccess) wasn’t able to give his presentation “Speech Recognition Solutions” due to breaking his ankle while he was in Toronto for the conference. Feel better Eric!
Was great to meet several folks in person for the first time whom I had known for a while online including Heydon Pickering, Eric Bailey, and Manuel Matuzović.
I discovered Steam Whistle pilsner (brewed in Toronto) which was very good!
Billy Gregory announced that the event will take place again next year in the same location (and Cordelia and Heydon invited to host!)
