E71 – Interview with Chris DeMars – Part 2

Chris tells us "the biggest challenge that [the accessibility community is] going to have, and it currently stands now, is the never-ending library framework" Thanks to Twilio for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Make sure you have a look at: Their blog: https://www.twilio.com/blog Their channel on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/twilio Diversity event tickets: https://go.twilio.com/margaret/ Transcript Nic:    Welcome to the Accessibility Rules Podcast. This is episode 71. I’m Nic Steenhout, and I talk with people involved in one way or another with web accessibility. If you’re interested in accessibility, hey, this show’s for you. To get today’s show notes or transcript, head out to https://a11yrules.com. Thanks to Twilio for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Twilio connect the world with the leading platform for voice, SMS, and video at Twilio.com. Welcome back to the Accessibility Rules podcast everyone. In this episode, I’m continuing my conversation with Chris DeMars. Last show was awesome. We spoke about blueberry muffins and compared that to accessibility. We talked about Chris managing to roll out an accessible app despite very short buy-in from everybody else in the company and a few other things so if you haven’t checked it out I strongly suggest you do. Welcome back, Chris. How are you? Chris:    I’m doing good, Nic. How are you? Nic:    I’m doing alright. I’ve fumbled a few words today, but that’s alright. That’s part of live podcasting, even if you don’t do it live. Chris:    That’s right Nic:    That’s right. So, last week we finished talking a little bit about your greatest achievement. Let’s flip that and start with… What would your greatest frustration be in terms of accessibility? Chris:    Oh the greatest frustration I would have in web accessibility … Oh, let me see, let me see, let me see… It would probably have to be the passion behind it. I know when we were talking before you have some developers out there who are super passionate. Marcy being one of them, yourself and a handful of other people. Then you have some devs out there that just either don’t care or they’re just uneducated as to the importance of it. I think more education should be out there.  And another huge frustration, and I’ve heard this countless times, and I’ve experienced this myself… traditional schooling, if you go to university or four-year college, 2-year college, whatever the case may be… even, I’ve heard some boot camps… nobody is teaching this stuff. And that’s a problem. You're .. most universities are teaching stuff their students need to know today to get a job besides theory and traditional computer science. But, I think accessibility in a web program, it should be taught, and there’s not enough people out there doing it. I think Marcy mentioned it in one of her episodes with you that she wanted to maybe get into teaching and that can only be something cool. You know? Teach web accessibility somewhere outside of a meetup. Outside of a conference workshop. I think that would be a cool idea. Nic:    How do you get, say Bootcamp organizers to add accessibility to the curriculum? Chris:    That’s a good question. I know, knew or know a couple or not really organizers but instructors… well, I did at least … I don’t know. I guess… it’s kind of the same way you would in a company, right? Show why it’s important … I mean, they should already know it’s important. Especially if they’re teaching a front end Bootcamp, right? You should already know this. This is not news to anybody. Maybe ten, fifteen years ago… yeah, I could see why you wouldn’t want to do it because it wasn’t a huge thing. Even though it was a huge thing at the time but a lot of us were uneducated that long ago. I think it’s just explaining the importance. If they don’t already know and maybe, see if they can set time aside in the curriculum to go over some introductory wins. I d