Everyone has a role to play – what's yours?

Inclusive Design 24 celebrates efforts worldwide to ensure people with disabilities have full and equal access to the web. To this end, we will be holding 24 completely free one-hour webinars on all things accessibility. The sessions range from beginner to advanced and are aimed at everyone from executives to web developers.

This year, we will go beyond accessibility compliance. The focus for #ID24 2017 is levelling up – taking your skills and knowledge beyond the basics and beyond compliance.

How to join

No sign-up. No registration. All sessions will be streamed live and publicly on YouTube – see the entire playlist for the event. Live captions for each session will be available.

Have a question for a presenter? No problem! Tweet your questions to @paciellogroup using the #ID24 hashtag and our moderators will make sure they get them answered for you.

Sessions

All times shown for your current local time ( UTC )

0:00 (0:00 UTC) Cordelia McGee-Tubb Accessible Comics!!!

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Let's geek out about two things many of us love: comics and accessibility! The comics medium is incredibly expressive, but because it's so visual, it often ignores audiences with vision impairments. How can we make comics a more inclusive medium that everyone can enjoy? In this talk, we'll examine some existing techniques, like transcription, and discuss some new and innovative ways of creating non-visual comics from the outset.

About the speaker

Cordelia McGee-Tubb is a cartoonist and web developer who cares a ton about accessibility. By day, she leads web accessibility at Dropbox. By night, she recently completed her MFA in Comics and is working on her first comic book. Cordelia teaches computer skills to senior citizens and hopes someone will do the same for her eventually.

1:00 (1:00 UTC) Eric Bailey Designing for Inclusion with Media Queries

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Did you know that media queries aren't just limited to screen size? This talk will dive into some lesser-known media queries that can help developers and designers create and test better UX for people browsing the web using assistive technologies.

About the speaker

Eric is a Boston-based user experience designer who helps create straightforward solutions that address a person’s practical, physical, cognitive, and emotional needs using accessible, performant, device-agnostic technology.

2:00 (2:00 UTC) Jason Kiss Practical Accessibility Assessment: Getting past compliance testing

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Based on its 2014 Web Standards Self-Assessments, the New Zealand Government is moving to a more practical, reusable assessment methodology the emphasises learning and indicators of accessibility over comprehensive compliance testing.

About the speaker

Jason Kiss is Senior Advisor and lead on web standards and accessibility for the New Zealand Government. He also advises on .govt.nz domain name management, and is a contributing editor on the W3C’s HTML Accessibility API Mappings specification.

3:00 (3:00 UTC) Bryce Johnson Friction that fits - Unlocking universal fun

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Inclusive game design is as difficult as it is valuable. Here’s why: we usually make software accessible for people with disabilities by removing barriers and reducing friction, but being challenged (conflict + resolution) is why we play games. In this talk, we’ll take examples of friction in gaming, examine them with an inclusive design lens, and show how we can tailor the experiences to make them playable without sacrificing what makes games fun.

About the speaker

Bryce is a senior designer for Xbox who, through mucho grinding, unlocked the achievement of launching the Xbox One. Back in his homeland, Canada, he designed the first digital library for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind where he learned to think beyond conventional accessibility practices. Currently he has the greatest job in the world applying the Microsoft Inclusive Design practice to gaming. As a lead in the Xbox Gaming for Everyone initiative he works to make the Xbox services, hardware, and games inclusive and fun for people of all abilities.

4:00 (4:00 UTC) Russ Weakly Creating accessible "floating" labels

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This presentation explores how to create accessible, usable "floating" labels - where the label moves above form controls based on user interaction.

About the speaker

Russ Weakley is a author, speaker and CSS expert, with a detailed knowledge of web design and development. Russ runs the Web Standards Group and has produced a series of widely acclaimed online tutorials on CSS, Responsive Web Design and web development.

5:00 (5:00 UTC) Eric Eggert ARIA Serious?

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Developers adopt ARIA more and more. Often they are under the impression that they are improving their project this way. However, effective ARIA requires proper planning and an understanding of what users expect on the web. This talk shows some of the pitfalls and describes how to implement ARIA on top of a strong HTML5 foundation and how to work with user expectations.

About the speaker

Eric Eggert is a web developer and accessibility educator, based in Essen, Germany. From December 2013 on, he worked for W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative. Since April 2016 he works for the Austin-based non-profit Knowbility and is also a Fellow in W3C on behalf of Knowbility where he continues his work on educational material with the Education and Outreach Working Group.

6:00 (6:00 UTC) Chaals McCathie Nevile SVG accessibility

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How to make data visualisation and interactive graphics that are accessible in today's browsers.

About the speaker

Chaals is old and tired, but sometimes does some useful stuff, including in accessibility.

7:00 (7:00 UTC) Andrew Arch From technical conformance to user-centred design in the Australian Government

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The Australian government has moved from a technical conformance approach to web accessibility to a broader user-needs based approach. This requires an understanding and consideration of users' needs - all users' needs - from the outset and takes a user-centred approach to design and development of government services.

About the speaker

Andrew Arch currently works in the Digital Transformation Agency in the Australian Government. He has the primary responsibility for accessibility and inclusivity issues for people with disability, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, older people and other diverse groups. He works across the product teams, and other government agencies, to ensure diversity is considered in their user research, service design and development. Andrew also has a strong interest in broader digital inclusion issues.

Andrew has worked with the web since 1994. He has a long history with web accessibility, including working with the W3C in Europe on age-related accessibility issues and with Vision Australia as manager of their web accessibility consulting and training practice. More recently he was part of the team in the Department of Finance responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Web Accessibility National Transition Strategy for government to adopt WCAG 2.0.

Andrew is also a long-term member of the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative's (WAI) Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) that develops strategies and resources to promote awareness, understanding, and implementation of web accessibility. The EOWG also supports the work of other WAI Working Groups to increase public awareness, understanding, and successful implementation of WAI guidelines

8:00 (8:00 UTC) Henny Swan Inclusive Design Principles

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Inclusive design is about putting people first. It's about designing for the needs of people with permanent, temporary, situational, or changing disabilities – all of us really. These principles are a springboard for taking your products beyond accessibility, making them intuitive and easy to use for disabled people while showcasing beautiful design for all.

They are intended for use by anyone involved in the design and development of websites and applications: designers, user experience professionals, developers, product owners, idea makers, innovators, artists and thinkers. They are intended for use in the design process to help ensure teams create products that are flexible and accommodating.

Henny will walk you through the reasons why the team – Léonie Watson, Ian Pouncey, Heydon Pickering and herself – put these principles together, how they inform the design process, and share some examples and stories to illustrate each.

About the speaker

Henny Swan is a User Experience and Design Lead with The Paciello Group. Prior to TPG she worked at the BBC where she was lead author on the BBC Mobile Accessibility Standards and Guidelines, UX lead for accessibility and looked after BBC iPlayer, the BBC Standard Media Player, the 2012 Olympics, Weather and Sport. Henny has also worked as a Web Evangelist in the Developer Relations team at Opera Software ASA, and as a Senior Accessibility Consultant at the Royal National Institute of Blind People in the UK where she set up the RNIB Web Access Centre. Henny has been involved with Web Standards and Accessibility since 2001, actively participating in W3C initiatives such as the Web Accessibility Initiative Education and Outreach Working Group and the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group. She is also a former lead of the International Liaison Group within the Web Standards Project (WaSP).

9:00 (9:00 UTC) Florian Sanders, Aurélie Houssin and Nathalie Dufour. Frenchies, trains and web accessibility

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Today/tonight, let’s talk about trains and digital accessibility here in France. To do so, I will be joined by two ladies who have done a tremendous job for digital accessibility awareness within the French railway company. Together, we worked on the certification of 20 websites with contributors spread all around France and many PDF documents to deal with. We will share with you some tips and good practices, like the typical processes we have used for most of our projects to ensure accessibility from the start to the end of the project. To put it shortly ? This talk will be the perfect opportunity to get behind the scenes of a client - service provider relationship in the field of web accessibility.

About the speakers

Florian has been working as a digital accessibility expert for almost 2 years at SNCF. In 2016, he joined Access42, the consulting company in charge of writing the reference document about digital accessibility for the French government. Florian is now working as an expert on many projects for the French railway company, guiding a few of them through the French certification process.

Aurélie is in charge of developing the checkout process for the SNCF regional railway websites and mobile applications. She discovered digital accessibility when redesigning these websites 5 years ago. She decided the project must be inclusive and certified with the AA level of the French regulation, which the sites obtained last year. Since then, she has been lobbying for digital accessibility awareness within the railway company.

Nathalie is in charge of e-commercialising annual season tickets for SNCF regional railway services. Following Aurélie’s footsteps, in early January 2017, she launched a website featuring personal customer’s account. This enabled each subscriber to manage its contract autonomously. The website is designed to be accessible to all users.

10:00 (10:00 UTC) Johan Huijkman Accessibility is dead. Long live usability

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Why should we focus on usability instead of accessibility? Because accessibility is about people. And as superfluous as it may sound it is still necessary to keep telling this to ourselves everyday. When deadlines approach and budgets get more tight it is difficult to maintain the right focus. It is very convenient then to have a long list of todo’s that you can tick off. Which is how WCAG often are seen: A long list of obligations. So how do we keep the right focus when we need to juggle budgets, deadlines, fantastic designs and advanced techniques? By seeing accessibility for what it really is: usability. And to do so we need the right tools and some guidance. This talk will provide you with the latter. Because the right guides are the most important tools you need.

About the speaker

Johan Huijkman is an Accessibility Engineer at Q42 in Amsterdam. More than once he has been called Obi-Wan Kenobi by his co-workers. Not only because he is older than the rest. And not only because he gives advice when he wasn’t asked for it. But mainly because he helps to maintain the right focus during complex projects.

11:00 (11:00 UTC) Nidhi Arora Democratising Knowledge

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We were faced with a challenge - how do we make knowledge accessible to those who cannot use google, Wikipedia, and other great tools that have democratised knowledge for us. And we found a solution.

About the speaker

Nidhi Arora is the co founder of Topgain - a consulting firm dedicated to IT Strategy excellence in India's mid sized businesses. She is also the Founder of Esha - an organisation that works towards Dignity, Empowerment and Enablement of the visually challenged. As a social entrepreneur, she spearheads 3 important initiatives in the area of visual disability – creating Blind Entrepreneurs (www.braillecards.org) and creating and maintaining India’s largest online audio library in Indian languages (www.clabil.org) and General Public sensitisation to the needs of the specially abled.

12:00 (12:00 UTC) Shwetank Dixit Accessible Smart Cities: The Way Forward

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Cities are increasingly using ICT and IoT based solutions to make their cities 'smart'. These 'smart cities' are by using technology, data and high performance network infrastructure in clever ways to solve urban problems. In this talk, we'll take a look at what some cities around the world are doing in this regard, and what to keep in mind so that the cities of the future don't leave anyone behind.

About the speaker

Shwetank Dixit works at BarrierBreak as Head of Accessibility Innovation and Research. He is looking at how to use technology, standards and policy in new ways to make society more inclusive. Previously he worked at Opera, where he was Product Manager of its extensions platform, and a member of its developer relations team. His interests include accessibility, open web standards, browser extensions and Batman.

13:00 (13:00 UTC) Makoto Ueki Designing Accessible Web Content for Older Users

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Accessible web design for people with disabilities often benefits older users. Findings from usability tests with older users show common issues for accessible web design.

About the speaker

Web Accessibility Consultant in Japan. Makoto has been contributing to the JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard) Working Group and W3C WCAG Working Group as a web accessibility expert. And he has been a chairman of the Web accessibility Committee in Japan (WAIC) since 2012.

14:00 (14:00 UTC) Suzanne Clarke Making accessible games at the BBC

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Working in partnership with digital agencies, local charities, academics and care givers, the BBC have embarked on a ground-breaking research project to understand the needs of game players with varying access needs. The findings of this research will be shared at the talk, alongside some inspiring stories from our audience.

About the speaker

Suzanne has worked as a visual designer for over 15 years, and has worked at the Children’s BBC for 2 years, where she designs and represents the needs of younger audiences, especially children who might be underserved or overlooked. As a User Experience Designer, Suzanne enjoys bridging the gap between assumed needs, and actual needs, and enjoys talking to peers from all professions to increase her understanding of emerging technologies and produce best in class creative solutions.

15:00 (15:00 UTC) Molly Ford-Williams Go Hack Yourself

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When we design we should encompass the variety of humans in our society, and the circumstances that disable all of us. In this presentation I will explore some ideas about how we can hack our own abilities, so we are more universal in our design thinking.

About the speaker

Hi! I'm Molly. I'm a Graphic and Communication Design student at the University of Leeds, currently on a placement year and graduating in 2018.

16:00 (16:00 UTC) Jared Smith Rethinking Color and Contrast

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Avoiding reliance on color and ensuring sufficient contrast are core aspects of web accessibility, yet WCAG color errors are pervasive on the web. This session will re-examine current accessibility guidelines and our beliefs on color to provide practical recommendations for using colors for optimal accessibility.

About the speaker

Jared Smith is the Associate Director of WebAIM. He is a highly demanded presenter and trainer and has provided web accessibility training to thousands of developers throughout the world. With over 16 years experience working in the web design, development, and accessibility field, he brings a wealth of knowledge and experience that is used to help others create and maintain highly accessible web content.

17:00 (17:00 UTC) Jesse Beach Scaling accessibility improvements with tools and process at Facebook

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At Facebook, we talk about scaling accessibility. We expect the influence of our team to grow faster than the size of our team. Through process and tools, we push responsibility for accessibility support to product builders so that our team can focus on innovating. In the time we win back, we are shifting accessibility from remediation work to UX design.

About the speaker

Jesse Beach's technology career started in linguistic research, shifted to UX design and then landed solidly in front end development. At Facebook, she channels her energies into building rock solid, beautiful and accessible interfaces. And whenever possible, Jesse staunchly advocates for diversity and inclusion in technology.

18:00 (18:00 UTC) Cynthia Shelly 52 Usability Studies in a CSUN booth

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Hear about Starbucks experience of running 52 fast accessibility user tests in 3 days at a conference. Spoiler: we got a ton of data in a cost-effective way.

About the speaker

Cynthia is a technical product manager at Starbucks, focusing on digital accessibility. She has been involved in Web Accessibility since 2000, and was part of the working groups who wrote WCAG 2.0, WAI-ARIA and HTML5.

19:00 (19:00 UTC) Lainey Feingold What is Compliance? Using the Law to Frame Accessibility as a Civil Right

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Digital access is about more than standards, testing, and policy. It’s also about the civil rights of disabled people who need accessibility to participate fully in 21st century society. In the United States, legal advocacy recognizes digital accessibility as a civil right. Designed for folks in the accessibility trenches, this session will be a fast paced review of how the law has increased accessibility and usability of the digital space – and what’s ahead given the current political climate.

About the speaker

Lainey Feingold is a U.S. disability rights lawyer and author who works with the blind community on technology, digital, and information access issues. She is widely recognized for negotiating landmark accessibility agreements without lawsuits with organizations as diverse as Walmart, Bank of America, the City and County of San Francisco, Anthem, Inc. and Major League Baseball.  Her book, Structured Negotiation, A Winning Alternative to Lawsuits, is a nuts and bolts guide to the process she and her clients have used for two decades, presented in an easy-to-understand format for lawyers and non-lawyers alike.  The book is full of stories of the disability rights and accessibility issues Lainey has worked on and the people she has worked with. Lainey Feingold is the individual recipient of the 2017 American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution "Lawyer as Problem Solver" Award. She has also twice received a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year (CLAY) award for her digital accessibility Structured Negotiation work.

20:00 (20:00 UTC) Jennifer Krul and Janna Cameron Enhancing technology through inclusive UX research

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Creating a truly accessible experience requires more than compliant markup; it requires UX research with real people. Not sure how to go about collecting feedback from people with disabilities? In this talk, Janna and Jennifer share insights, lessons learned, and personal stories from their experience conducting UX research with people with cognitive impairments and people who are blind and low vision.

About the speakers

Jennifer is currently the Chief Experience Officer at Emmetros, a tech company focused on creating accessible software for people with early- to mid-stage dementia. A long-time user advocate, Jennifer has a passion for understanding user needs and seeing those needs reflected in clear, elegant, and accessible products. She is delighted to use her experience to help make a difference in lives of people living with memory loss.

By working closely with developers, designers and end users to develop a fuller understanding of how people with disabilities use the web, Janna has parlayed a passion for user research into a career that has helped remove barriers to web applications. Janna is a Senior UX Designer for Manulife / John Hancock. Prior to Manulife, she worked for a decade as an accessibility champion in EdTech.

21:00 (21:00 UTC) Chris O'Brien Thinking Beyond Described Video with Integrated Described Video (IDV)

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Learn strategies for creating rich, inclusive video content using Integrated Described Video (IDV).

About the speaker

Chris is the Accessibility Officer for Accessible Media Inc (AMI), a national not-for-profit broadcaster in Canada committed to making Accessible Media for all Canadians. Chris is the Chair of the Described Video Best Practices committee in Canada, W3C Invited Expert for the Web and TV Interest Group, member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Disability Advisory Committee (DAC) Video Programming subcommittee, Accessibility Strand Advisor for Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA), and member of the Mohawk College Program Advisory Committee (PAC).

22:00 (22:00 UTC) Birkir Gunnarsson ARIA 51, when a powerful standard is used wrong

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Real world developers often think they use ARIA to make websites accessible, occasionally with tragically comic results.

About the speaker

Birkir is the real (from a genetic point of view) accessibility Viking (even if he believes Karl Groves has earned an honorary title of accessibility Viking). Born as a result of 800 years of Icelandic inbreading he lost his sight due to a genetic defect at age 5. Since then he has never looked back (after all, how could he?).

After graduating from Yale University with degrees in Computer Science and Economics, and spending 7 years working as a financial analyst for two banks who both failed spectacularly, he turned his attention to accessibility, partly as a result of not having being able to come up with materials for the Certified Financial Analyst (CFA) degree. After working for various Icelandic and European accessibility forces, mostly for the light side, and 3 years at Deque Systems, he took on an accessibility lead position at BB&T Bank, one which he has held for almost a year now. In his job he leads the accessibility efforts of the USA's 6th largest financial institution, not a trivial task, but he enjoys it.

23:00 (23:00 UTC) Denis Boudreau 2017 design trends and their impact on accessibility

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Current Web design trends have a huge impact on the user experience of people with disabilities and the elderly. Come find out why, and how!

About the speaker

Denis Boudreau is a Principal Web Accessibility Consultant, Strategist and Trainer working for Deque Systems. He is a member of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in the Education and Outreach Working Group, advocating social inclusion on the Web for the past 16 years. Denis has been running the a11yMTL monthly meetings and annual conference in Montreal, Canada since 2010. An admitted nerd with an unhealthy fixation on UX and digital inclusion, he has a passion for design that emotionally resonates, is beautifully engaging, and delightfully accessible.