Mile Two is excited to launch our very own Accessibility Month in October! Inclusion is a strong value at Mile Two, and we believe that equal access to digital content and applications should be ensured for everyone. Accessibility standards are often not met across the software industry due to a lack of awareness and a shortage of expertise. We created Accessibility Month to address any accessibility issues within our organization and extend these values into every product we build.
What is Mile Two Accessibility Month?
Mile Two Accessibility Month consists of nine talks presented over the course of five Lunch & Learns throughout the month of October. During these sessions, employees will share their research and proposed methods for incorporating accessibility in the areas of project management, UX/UI design, software engineering, and quality assurance. We asked speakers to research the problem space in their functional area to discover how to build accessible products (tools, methods, processes); to hypothesize a way of incorporating their research into our current processes (new standards, documentation); and to share their findings with the rest of the Mile Two Crew. The final goal will be to implement these new tools, methods, and processes across the company.
Accessibility Month Sessions and Speakers
Want to know more? Check out our scheduled speakers and their presentations below!
Accessible Software By Design – Jonny Butler
Accessibility should not be an afterthought, a nuisance, or a barrier to delivering great software, but rather an opportunity to support a more complete user base.
Section 508: The Government’s Response to Accessibility – Ren Estep
For your site to be considered accessible in the eyes of the law, it must be Section 508 compliant, but often when project managers, creators, developers, and QA professionals are asked what it means to be section 508 compliant, the answers often come back with uncertainty.
The Designer’s Accessibility Toolbox – Amanda Neff
Many tools are available to aid designers, from color palette generators to testing tools. We’ll explore those and develop an understanding of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
Pour: What is it Good For? (A Whole Lot) – Kayla Sturgeon
POUR stands for perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust and refers to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines checklist of accessibility guidelines.
Engineering for Everyone – Chase Buttery
We will explore why it is important to develop software that is accessible to everyone and look at real-life examples of how much accessibility can impact someone with a disability.
Give Inaccessibility the Axe – Lindsay Huling
Without a strong knowledge of the topic, accessibility standards can seem daunting and overwhelming. With help from the Chrome extension Axe, we have a way to understand how the products we create fit into the realm of accessibility.
Accessibility Testing Strategy – Jason Brooks
Accessibility testing is important and we will examine what all goes into the process; when to execute, how to test, test strategy, test standards, and accessibility testing tools.
Investigating Sound Structure for Standards – Sarah Gorman
Like an API allows multiple consumptions and uses of data, building the frontend with a solid structure allows multiple assistive technologies to consume and use its content.
Accessibility: How Are Project Managers Critical to the Process? – Jennifer Vasquez
Accessibility means equivalent access to everyone using software and it should be treated like all other defined requirements, not just a “nice-to-have” or an afterthought.
