I’m Micha Rodriguez, a technical writer at Deque Systems - a trailblazer in the world of digital equality over the past 25 years. I’m new-ish to the tech world. I learned how to code during covid. Even though the resources I used to learn didn’t always emphasize the importance of digital accessibility, it’s something I have been passionate about from the beginning. I am always trying to incorporate accessibility in the projects I work on, and I also advocate for others to do the same.

While it’s important to recognize that 1 in 4 users is living with disability, one of the main takeaways of this talk is that accessibility is for EVERYONE. Ultimately we are improving the user experience for all of our users when we apply best practices for accessibility. We’ll talk about types of disability and the ways that people interact with websites. We’ll look at how to get started with accessible web development, because what’s important is that you start somewhere! You can always add to your a11y toolkit, but you don’t have to be an expert to address some of the main culprits of inaccessible websites. In this talk, I’ll offer several tools that you can add to your kit today!