Jackie Tidwell found her passion at the intersection of technology and English and has written documentation and UI content for companies of all sizes. For the past 9 years she’s worked at Microsoft, creating content and UI for nearly all Office products, the accessibility guidance in https://aka.ms/officeaccessibility, and content design for the Microsoft 365 admin center, which is used by millions of customers globally. When not trying to save the world from poor UI, Jackie can be found watching horror movies with her partner, spoiling her cat-sons, or designing tattoos for English nerds.

From Seed to Harvest: How Writers Can Nurture Accessibility

Do you think everything should have an ARIA label? What is ARIA? Have you opened a screen reader and immediately closed it because it’s overwhelming? Have you ever opened a screen reader? How do you say WCAG? What is WCAG? Why do people use A11y? Accessibility skills can be daunting, regardless of your experience level. I’ll share the basics of how you can start accessibility conversations in your organization, keep it growing through questions and accountability, and learn the skills to nurture it into a part of the content design process. We all agree that making content and websites accessible is the right thing to do, but we all have a part in its success.

In this workshop you will learn:

• How to spark change in your organization
• History of accessibility in tech
• Relevant terms and acronyms deciphered
• Screen reader 101
• Top ten things you can advocate as a writer
• Free tools to check your accessibility