E60 – Interview with Adrienne McDonnell

Adrienne McDonnell is a front end developer at Elsevier. She says that knowing how to navigate a site with the keyboard is a fundational skill that all developers should know. She also reflects on the fact that all the accessibility specifications are very dense and can be overwhelming for people new to accessibility. 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. You’re listening to episode 60. 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. Nic:    So today I’m speaking with Adrienne McDonnell and I think she’s quite new to the field of accessibility so it’s exciting to have the perspective of someone who hasn’t been doing this for quite a long time. Adrienne thanks for joining us. Adrienne:    Yeah, absolutely. Nic:    Right. I like to let guests introduce themselves. So, can you tell us in a brief introduction… who's, Adrienne McDonnell? Adrienne:    Sure. Hi everyone, I’m Adrienne. I’m from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and I’m a self-taught developer right now I’m working as a software engineer at Elsevier. I started out with front-end design… or development, excuse me and that was… just about three years ago. So, I’m relatively new in my career as a developer as a whole. And started teaching myself about accessibility a year and a half ago. Nic:    Right. Okay, so to get warmed up a little bit tell us something that most people would not know about you. Adrienne:    Let's see… well outside of web development I also am an artist so I… right now I’m focussing on tapestry weaving and bead weaving. Nic:    Tapestry and Bead… that’s amazing. I love fiber arts. I started playing a little bit with… needle felting of wool and obviously it’s not quite as fine work as tapestry but it’s quite a bit of fun. So you said you're working at Elsevier what kind of accessibility do you manage to put in your work there? Adrienne:    Well, I… so I started this position just this past March, and I was brought on right after they had done an accessibility audit on the product that I work on. Nic:    Okay. Adrienne:    Which was great timing for me because I became the main developer that was working on fixing the defects that had been found within the audit. Nic:    Right Adrienne:    So that… that has been a focus of, you know, the last seven months or so that I’ve been working here and… which has been great for me to kind of become the accessibility advocate for our team and just, you know, also just to get a deeper learning for myself. Nic:    Yeah. So… what put you onto accessibility? I mean was it just that you were in place and they had just finished an audit and they say, “Hey. Tag, you’re it” or did you have an interest in that before? How did it happen? Adrienne:    Well, I… I did have an interest in it before. You know, in my first position as a front-end developer… I… I didn’t have… any knowledge of accessibility or developing for accessibility and as a self-taught developer it was not something that ever came up, you know, in kind of, guides to learning front-end development. And so when I got into that first position and realized that there was this whole very important piece of development that I didn’t know… I was kind of horrified that that wasn’t part of, you know, the foundational learning that people like me are getting when you’re teaching you