The next WPCampus virtual summit, "Leading on Accessibility in Higher Education", is happening September 17th at 10am ET, and we are excited to share the schedule! We have an amazing lineup of speakers ready to share their work and inspire you with new strategies on how to push for change. This event is free and open to all, and you can register here.
Building a culture of accessibility requires leadership. Advocating for complex conversations and large-scale change is difficult but crucial, and it cannot be done alone. More campus champions are stepping up every day, encouraging their institutions to re-evaluate practices and demonstrating to their campuses that accessibility is possible, approachable, and necessary. Join us on September 17th to hear their stories.
Schedule
- 10:00-10:45am - Featured Interview: “Driving Accessibility in WordPress” with Amber Hinds
- 10:50-11:20am - “Distributed Accessibility” with Stephanie Leary
- 11:25-11:55am - “Become an Accessibility Influencer - Practical tips for growing your advocacy, reach, and understanding” with Erich Mansur
- 12:00-12:30pm - “Just Say No….to PDFs” with Kerri Richardson & Pablo Moore
- 12:30-01:00pm - WPCampus After Hours
Session Descriptions
10:00-10:45am - Featured Interview: “Driving Accessibility in Wordpress” with Amber Hinds
Amber Hinds is CEO of Equalize Digital, a mission-driven organization that has audited hundreds of WordPress sites for accessibility and builds the Accessibility Checker plugin. She's a contributing member of the WordPress core accessibility team, lead organizer of the WordPress Accessibility Meetup, and co-lead organizer of WordPress Accessibility Day. Since 2010 she's led teams building sites and web applications for nonprofits, K-12 and higher ed institutions, government agencies, and businesses of all sizes, work that's made her a vocal advocate for baking accessibility into the platform itself rather than bolting it on after the fact.
In this Q&A, Amber will talk about what it's like to lead within WordPress's accessibility community, where core's accessibility priorities are headed, including a possible dedicated accessibility plugin and a major overhaul of the accessibility-ready theme standards, and how her agency's work auditing sites at scale has given her a unique perspective on plugins, page builders, and accessibility.
10:50-11:20am - “Distributed Accessibility” with Stephanie Leary
Incorporating accessibility into an organization’s practices takes time: time to train, time to implement, time to iterate and improve. We often feel impatience and frustration in accessibility work—these standards have been around for decades! Why aren’t we there yet?—but playing the long game offers opportunities to make changes beyond the HTML.
In this session, we’ll talk about ways to take advantage of lags in development timelines to incorporate accessibility into other aspects of your organization’s digital strategy. By stepping through user journeys, we’ll examine communication pathways, budget priorities, management considerations, and other administrative changes that can be done in parallel to developers’ work. Distributing the work throughout the organization builds sympathy, momentum, and trust for the developers’ tasks, and removes barriers that exist outside the website.
11:25-11:55am - “Become an Accessibility Influencer - Practical tips for growing your advocacy, reach, and understanding” with Erich Mansur
This 30-minute session will give an overview of current work in accessibility, recent advancements (including AI), and the vital importance of having contributions from experts and non-experts alike. Participants will come away with clear, actionable steps they can take to grow their influence and motivate those around them to also want to get involved.
Presenter Erich Manser is a consultant on Harvard University's Digital Accessibility Services team. Throughout Erich's 25+ year career working in digital accessibility, including with some of the industry's largest tech firms and now in higher ed at Harvard, he has been a strong believer in the importance of "making accessibility real", and moving beyond simple standards compliance. His critical analysis of the current accessibility landscape, including important challenges and opportunities, provide practical guidance on small actions which can be taken right away to drive change and influence others.
12:00-12:30pm - “Just Say No….to PDFs” with Kerri Richardson & Pablo Moore
How we removed over 900 PDFs in less than a year with one word.
It seems easy enough to just say “we’re not hosting PDFs on our website anymore.” But what really goes into that decision, and how do you communicate it to a group of people who have relied on PDFs for years? This session will walk you through how to implement this declaration successfully, from gaining leadership buy-in to communicating effectively, to doing your research and being prepared with alternate solutions. Discover how one word can alter your website for good.
Our presentation will teach you:
- How to say no without being mean
- How to do your research (and cite your sources!)
- How to gain leadership buy-in
- How to provide alternative solutions
- How to start the process and ensure compliance continually
- How to address exceptions
12:30-01:00pm - WPCampus After Hours
After the final session, we’ll end the day with a more informal get-together where attendees can discuss the day’s presentations and catch up.