Over the past few years, I have been lucky enough to publicly speak about my work and offer learning opportunities.
I’ve collected recordings and slides here, mainly to help keep me organized.
My approach to presenting: As a rule, I only give presentations or lead workshops when I am able to provide a unique perspective, knowledge set or experience. There are many people available to share their expertise in web accessibility, design systems and digital strategy, and I don’t want to take away from their opportunity. However, when I feel there is a presentation or workshop I am uniquely positioned to deliver, I’m excited to do so!
Upcoming presentations
Design Systems: The Key to Sustained Web Accessibility?
Does having an accessible design system translate to having accessible digital products?
Join me as I present my findings on the connections between organizations with design systems, organizations with accessible websites, and organizations with both.
This new presentation is slated for two upcoming conferences.
John Slatin AccessU Conference
Date: May 15, 2024
Learn more about the talk on the AccessU Conference website.
University of Guelph Accessibility Conference
Date: May 30, 2024
More details about the talk will be posted soon. In the meantime, learn about the conference on the University of Guelph Accessibility Conference website.
Beyond Accessibility Basics: Charting a Path for the GOV.UK Design System
I’ll be enhancing my ‘design systems accessibility strategy’ talk for the upcoming John Slatin AccessU Conference!
Date: May 15, 2024
Read the full presentation description on the AccessU conference website.
So far this presentation has come in 45-minute and 20-minute versions. Now, it will be enriched and expanded to a 75-minute version. That means there is more time to cover the nuances of handling web accessibility for major organizations and design systems.
In this presentation, you’ll learn:
- how to collaboratively build a practical accessibility strategy
- six ‘priority levels’ that can be used to prioritize most web accessibility work
- the hidden benefits of accessibility documentation within teams
2024 presentations
So far in 2024, I’ve created 2 different presentations. Learn more about these presentations on their dedicated pages:
- Don’t sleep on WCAG 2.2: it helps real people
- Beyond accessibility basics: Charting a path for the GOV.UK Design System
2023 workshops
As part of my work on the GOV.UK Design System team, we developed two workshop series during 2023. Learn more about these workshops on their dedicate pages:
2022 presentations
Accessibility in design systems
For Design System Day 2022, I developed and moderated a 1-hour keynote panel discussion, to explore the intersection between accessibility and design systems.
Learn more about the keynote panel on the GOV.UK Design System website.
Watch a recording of the keynote panel on YouTube.
The six panelists come from a varied set of UK civil service, broader public sector and private sector organizations. They all had one thing in common: working on web accessibility for a design system. This allowed us to contrast a range of experiences and ideas related to improving web accessibility within and through a design system.
In addition to myself, the panelists were:
- Anna E. Cook, Senior designer for accessibility on Azure, Microsoft
- Michael Cheung, Frontend developer working on accessibility for the design system, NHS Digital
- Philip Strain, Product lead for accessibility & design systems, Miro
- Shabana Ali, Accessibility frontend developer, HMRC
- Sophie Beaumont, Accessibility lead, BBC WebCore
Creation of the panel and selection of panelists was supported by Imran Hussein.
Improving web accessibility at the scale of a government
I presented on my recent experiences in improving web accessibility within large governmental organizations at a weekly Civic Tech Toronto hacknight in November 2022.
Watch a recording of the presentation on YouTube.
Digitizing services is a massive and ongoing project for governments around the world. If done correctly, this work can make taxes, permits and even healthcare simpler, faster and better for everyone. And since things like taxes aren’t optional, ‘everyone’ needs to be a term that includes people with disabilities and access needs.
But how exactly can a government build enough digital tools to encompass the work of an entire civil service, while keeping accessibility in mind?
This presentation doesn’t provide a full answer, but explores how the UK Government’s centralized design system helps improve accessibility for hundreds of digital services, nudging everyone towards a more accessible future.