Introduction

[00:00:00]
>> Marcy Sutton: We're gonna talk about accessibility in JavaScript applications, a topic that I've had kind of in my head space for a couple of years now. And so, with this course, it can get pretty technical. So if you're maybe more familiar with accessibility and less on the JavaScript side or vice versa, maybe you're stronger in JavaScript and less in accessibility, we'll try and wind through that journey.

[00:00:24]
And I'm happy to answer questions, if you have any of them. But my goals for today, are for you to leave this course feeling like you know the concepts that go into making an accessible JavaScript application. Because there's so many of them out there. And we can be purists and say we want static websites because a lot of times those are more accessible.

[00:00:46]
But in the real world, there are a ton of JavaScript applications. So we might as well try to make those more accessible in any ways that we can.
>> Marcy Sutton: So who am I, who is this person who's going to be talking to you today? I'm Marcy Sutton. I'm currently the Head of Learning at Gatsby, which is a website framework startup.

[00:01:05]
There is an Intro to Gatsby course taught by Jason Lengstorf here at Frontend Masters that you could check out. And so I'll be doing some Gatsby development in this course. There's also some Vanilla JavaScript component, so we'll try and cover both of those angles, and I'll get into that a little bit more later.

[00:01:22]
I have worked in accessibility for a number of years and I worked on the aXe core team, which is a tool you'll hear about a little bit later. So I've been working in accessibility testing, so automated testing, learning how to bake accessibility in your application. Once upon a time I worked on the Angular core team.

[00:01:40]
So that's sort of where my journey in JavaScript framework started. And I'm living much more in the React space being on the Gatsby team. But accessibility is something that I can't turn off in my brain. And if I could have an outcome from this course, it would be hopefully that you have that switch flipped in your minds, if you haven't already, that accessibility is a lifestyle and a culture.

[00:02:02]
And it's something that we can take into our work all day, every day. So in Seattle, back in Washington State where I'm from, I co-lead a meetup for accessibility. And there's meetups for accessibility all over the world. So I encourage you to find one in your local area or start one.

[00:02:20]
So how I got into accessibility, I was working as a front end developer at an agency in Seattle, and I was tasked with working on the Target account, the retailer here in Minneapolis. And as part of that engagement, I had to make accessible websites and web applications. And I didn't know anything about accessibility.

[00:02:40]
It was just a something that happened in my career. And I learned from working with Target's QA accessibility team, like how much of an impact I could have in the lives of people with disabilities and really all of us. And so through that work, I just kept getting closer and closer to accessibility.

[00:02:59]
And you can use it in your work in the mainstream, as developers, as designers. You could choose to go into accessibility full time if you like. I think we all have different roles to play. But there's some parts of it that we should all take into our work as technologists.

[00:03:16]
So you can find me on Twitter and Github at Marcy Sutton and my website is marcysutton.com. It's also built with Gatsby.