Category: conference

Upcoming Accessibility Events (2024)

Post author By Dennis
Post date January 17, 2024
3 Comments on Upcoming Accessibility Events (2024)

Mark your calendar! Here are some terrific digital accessibility events coming up in 2024. Please add any good ones that I missed in the comments.

Feb 20-22, axe-con by Deque Systems, online.
April 6, Accessibility Camp Toronto, Toronto, Canada, #A11yTOCamp #a11yTO
April 30-May 1, ACCESS by 3PlayMedia, online.
March 7, Ability Summit by Microsoft, online.
March 18-22, 39th Annual CSUN Assistive Technology Conference in Anaheim, CA.
May 13-16, AccessU 2024 in Austin, Texas.
May 16, Global Accessibility Awareness Day @gaadfdn #GAAD
May 27-28, Accessible Canada – Accessible World Conference in Montreal, Quebec.
June 14, Accessibility Summer Camp, by ICT, online.
July 3-8, Orlando, Florida, NFB National Convention,
July 8 -12, ICCHP – International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs, JKU Linz, Austria.
July 30, HighEdWeb 2024 Accessibility Summit, @highEdWeb, online.
September 12, Inclusive Design 24 @ID24Conf #ID24, online.
TBD, Web Accessibility in Mind Conference by WebAIM and Pope Tech, online.
October 3-4, Accessibility Toronto Conference, in Toronto, Canada, @a11yTO #a11yTOConf
October 15-17, M-Enabling Summit, Washington DC, @mEnablingSummit
November 11-15, 27th Annual Accessing Higher Ground in Denver, CO, hybrid.

Accessibility Toronto Conference 2019 Summary

Post author By Dennis
Post date November 3, 2019
No Comments on Accessibility Toronto Conference 2019 Summary

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?

Presentation Resources (partial)

Fault Text: The Modern Challenge Of Working With ALT TEXT (PDF) by Henri Helvetica
Accessibility for Content Creators (Google Slides) by Caitlin Cashin
These aren’t the SCs you’re looking for… (Slideshare) by Patrick Lauke
Screen Readers and CSS: Going Out of Style (and into Content)? by CB Averitt
Garbage Pail Components by Marcy Sutton
JavaScript And Accessibility: An Unconventional Romance by Lindsey Kopacz
Civil Rights or Shakedowns: Ethics of the Digital Accessibility Legal Space by Lainey Feingold

Tweets

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.

— Cordelia (@cordeliadillon) October 27, 2019

https://twitter.com/AidanA11y/status/1187433905407889408

https://twitter.com/arigaud_ca/status/1187723968142348289

https://twitter.com/ewaccess/status/1187398456823951361

Besides @a11yTOPuppet, another unexpected hit from #a11yTOWeek was a height-adjustable lectern/desk. Nice! #a11y https://t.co/8aRoNGBbbI

— Dennis Lembrée (@dennisl) October 27, 2019

https://twitter.com/ewaccess/status/1187820847492468742

https://twitter.com/Susan_Till/status/1187814103764656129

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 #A11yToConf pic.twitter.com/BtUQvGulFR

— Shell Little @ BlueSky (@ShellELittle) October 24, 2019

Other Reviews

Community in Toronto: What Made the #A11yTO Conferences So Spectacular? by LFLegal
a11yWeekTO Recap by Adrian Roselli
Accessibility Toronto 2019 by Margie Chubin

conference event

Digital Accessibility Events in 2019

Post author By Dennis
Post date January 3, 2019
17 Comments on Digital Accessibility Events in 2019

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.

Portland Accessibility and User Experience Meetup, Portland OR, Jan. 14.
ATIA Conference, Orlando FL, Jan. 29-Feb. 2 (Assistive Technology Industry Association).
Accessibility Camp Bay Area, March 9, San Francisco CA, hosted by LinkedIn.
CSUN Assistive Technology Conference, Anaheim CA, March 11-15.
Digital Accessibility Legal Summit, Anaheim CA, March 12.
axe-Hackathon, Anaheim CA, March 16.
Funka Accessibility Days, Stockholm Sweden, April 9-10.
Web4All 2019 conference, San Francisco CA, May 13-14, the theme is personalization.
John Slatin AccessU Accessibility Conference, Austin TX, May 14-17, by Knowbility.
Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), worldwide, May 16.
Accessibility Toronto Camp, Toronto Canada, May 18.
Accessibility Camp Seattle, Seattle WA, May 18.
Accessibility Conference at the University of Guelph, Guelph Ontario Canada, May 27-29.
Web Accessibility Summit, Missouri State University, Springfield MO, May 29.
TechAccessOK, Oklahoma City OK, June 6-7.
M-Enabling Summit, Washington DC, June 17-19.
ICT Accessibility Testing Symposium, Washington DC, Oct. 1-2.
ACCESS by 3Play Media, Boston MA, Oct. 3 [around video accessibility].
Paris Web, Paris France, Oct. 10-12.
Accessibility Toronto Conference, Toronto Canada, Oct. 24-25.
Accessibility Scotland, Edinburgh Scotland, Oct. 25.
A11yCamp, Sydney Australia, 12-15 Nov.
Accessing Higher Ground, Westminster CO (Denver area), Nov. 18-22.
TechSharePro by AbilityNet, London UK, Nov. 21-21.
Also look for dates in 2020 for OZeWAI (Australia) and ICCHP (Austria).

Webinars and more!

IAAP live webinars (archived also available).
3PlayMedia webinars
A11yTalks (YouTube) @A11YTalks
A11y Rules podcast
AccessMeetups Twitter list, curated by your truly.
Also note that if you’re speaking, it’s just as good (if not better) to speak at an event; here’s a list of UX and design conferences in 2019.

conference event roundup

Accessibility Toronto Conference 2018 Review

Post author By Dennis
Post date October 24, 2018
No Comments on Accessibility Toronto Conference 2018 Review

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.

Welcome To My World
by @SteveFaulkner

Assistive Technology: Training, UX And Design: What Devs Need To Know About UX And Aging
by @SassyOutwater

Finding The Place Where Accessibility And SEO Happily Co-Exist
by @CarieFisher

If It’s Interactive, It Needs A Focus Style
by Eric Bailey @ericwbailey

A Primer On The Designer’s A11y Responsibility
by Hala Anwar @halathinkeths

The Dark Side Of The Grid
by Manuel Matuzović @mmatuzo

Creating Accessible React Apps
by Scott Vinkle @svinkle

Making Bulb More Accessible
Related article: Making Bulb accessible – introducing the new Bulb site
by Heydon Pickering @heydonworks

Photos

Billy kicking off the event

Grinch don’t like bad captions

John Foliot talking WCAG

Makoto and Leonie on stage introducing Hala.

Collection of A11yTO 2018 photos on Google Photos

Tweets

https://twitter.com/aardrian/status/1052299576563159041

Assistive tech isn’t just screen readers! #a11yTOConf pic.twitter.com/fF5kxo0ysb

— Katelyn Lemay (@lemayke) October 15, 2018

https://twitter.com/mmatuzo/status/1052255673034133505

Audible gasps from the audience as @shepazu demos a tool to explore table data with a screen reader.

Not just reading the data out in order but asking and answering questions: “What are the top 5?” “How does C compare to N?”#a11yTOConf

— Stephanie Hobson (@stephaniehobson) October 15, 2018

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

— Web Axe (@webaxe) October 15, 2018

React code doesn't have to be inaccessible any more than hip-hop has to be misogynist.

— front-end.social/@heydon (@heydonworks) February 9, 2018

https://twitter.com/aardrian/status/1051909502851837955

Last Thoughts

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!)

Here’s the review of last year’s conference (2017), Accessibility Toronto Conference a big success!

conference csun microsoft

CSUN 2018 Conference Preview

Post author By Dennis
Post date March 1, 2018
No Comments on CSUN 2018 Conference Preview

The 33rd annual CSUN Assistive Technology Conference will be held March 19-23, 2018 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel in San Diego, California. (It’s reportedly the last year in San Diego as the conference will move back to the LA area in 2019.) The keynote speaker is Daniel Goldstein, an attorney who has been involved in the field of disability rights for almost 35 years. If you can’t make it there, catch the keynote live stream on YouTube (5:30 PM PST Tuesday, March 20).

CSUN Assistive Technology Conference

Here are session schedules by companies well-known in the digital accessibility industry:

Deque Systems (@DequeSystems)
IBM sessions (@IBMAccess)
The Paciello Group at CSUN 2018 (@PacielloGroup)
Microsoft Accessibility sessions slated for CSUN 2018 (@MSFTEnable)
Level Access (@LevelAccessA11y)
AccessibilityOz (@AccessibilityOz)

Lainey Feingold‏ (@LFLegal) will be presenting her very popular Digital Accessibility Legal Update a few times, in large rooms, so everyone can attend, yay.

Notable events:

Deque Party and Accessible Karaoke: Palm Foyer, Wednesday, March 21, 6:30-10:00PM.
3rd Annual aXe Hackathon; Saturday, March 24th 10:00AM-3:00PM, at Downtown Works, 550 West B Street (short distance from conference venue).
Microsoft Reception: Thursday, March 22, 7-9PM, Seaview Room (lobby level).
Google party, if you’re lucky enough to get an invite (not very inclusive!)

Web Axe author Dennis Lembree (@DennisL) will be co-presenting two sessions:

If you’re new to the CSUN conference, you may want to check these out:

Webinar: The Viking & The Lumberjack Present: The complete newb’s guide to CSUN, Mar 5, 2018 12PM in Eastern Time
CSUN For Newbies by @JohnFoliot
CSUN Tips & Tricks by @PaulJAdam
Guide to Attending #CSUNATC17 on a Budget by @BlindBargains

Scheduling info:

CSUN 2018 Schedule (Google Sheet).
Check the Program Addendum for any conference schedule changes.
CSUN schedule in Daisy format.

More info:

The Exhibit Hall is free to attend but you must register.
List of game accessibility talks at CSUN 2018 curated by Ian Hamilton.
Twitter account is @CSUNCOD; hash tag is #CSUNATC18
Last year’s Web Axe CSUN17 Review.