Welcome to the lab

I wrote the title of this post last, and now I feel like I should come up with a lab name. But before we do that, let me explain why you landed on an inaccessible site talking about accessibility.

And yes, it is intentional.

• Do I really need a website? 🤔
• Ideas followed me outside the nine-to-five 💭
• A place for experiments 🧪

Do I really need a website? 🤔

A web developer should have a website, right? I mean, most professionals do. It feels like the modern version of a CV. And so, doesn't it make sense for someone with experience in the web to have one as well? Even create it themselves? Well, not for me, not until now.

The truth is I always found little benefit in having one. Every time I thought about it, it felt like work, which can be a valid sentiment considering that my 9-to-5 is mainly focused on working with UX. The difference is that my day job feels more than work. And it is true, I do get paid for it, but I'm lucky to say that I still enjoy most of it.

On the other hand, creating a site for myself felt like the type of work you HAVE to do, not that you CHOOSE to do. The most challenging part? I didn't know what to put in it. My work experience and background? Isn't that what LinkedIn is for? There isn't a service or a product I wanted to provide or a business to promote. And I didn't find value in a blog for sharing random thoughts online; it felt nerve-wracking, or I use Twitter.

Yeah, right... look at me now...

Ideas followed me outside the nine-to-five 💭

Then, something started happening. For every UX or website I try, I find myself asking the same question over and over again "What will it take to make this accessible?" Between broken, difficult-to-use, confusing experiences, I wonder what they could be if I try to recreate them with accessibility in mind. Because when something is created with accessibility in mind, you also get usability. The UX tends to be simpler and self-explanatory, and, as a result, most of the features created for accessibility benefits all users in general and open opportunities for more innovation.

Did you know that the new Microsoft 365 Copilot leverages transcription to provide meeting recaps in Teams?

"So... why are more people not doing it?" This question can have its own post, but for a short answer, I believe that most people do not know how to fix certain things, or even what to fix. We consider a broken experience when we cannot complete a task, but if we only know one way to interact with an interface, can we really know if it is broken? And if we follow that mindset, adding alternatives sometimes ends up being considered as just enhancements in the experience; not necessary, but nice to have.

Now, imagine these:

Wouldn't it be nice to skip to a section of a blog post? *cough* recipe

How about importing that recipe to a to-do app?

Wouldn't it be nice to search for something mentioned in a podcast?

Wouldn't it be nice for any website to be read aloud in the background?

Interestingly, I think these solutions also create accessible experiences, and I couldn't stop wondering what it would take to implement them. I'm sure my friends are tired of hearing me saying, "how cool it will be to..." Eventually, I decided I wanted to try and see, and for that, I needed... finally... a website. ✨

A place for experiments 🧪

So, did I create an inaccessible site? Not intentionally, but intentionally. If I wanted to explore solutions for the web experience, I needed a web problem. At least one I can tweak, try, and modify. I wanted to see what it takes to fix different accessible experiences and have a place to invite others to try them.

Here, I started with a blog, which comes with its benefits. Now I also have a place to upload all my thoughts about this. Will it always be a blog? Uncertain. I want this to be a space where I can try different ideas for different purposes for any type of site and see what it takes to make them accessible.

If you are curious about all this, like me, I invite you to stop by from time to time and catch up on what's new.

Now, let the experiments begin.

And, where is the name? Hey, this is the alpha alpha alpha version. Maybe when we get to the beta beta beta beta version.