Writing proper alt text is hard. But it doesn’t have to be. There’s a minimum standard and an advanced approach. People who need alt text will appreciate you for the former and love you for the latter. Alt text is also a whole lot more than the alt attribute. That’s just one of the many ways to make content accessible. In fact, there are a number of considerations for writing great alt text.
In this presentation, Mark Wyner will help you understand the spectrum of options so you can take good care of your audience. We’ll walk through implementation methods, phonetics, composition, complex sources, and tackling social media.
Let’s give screen readers and other assistive technologies something to talk about.
The event begins at 6:00pm; join early, starting at 5:45pm for networking.
Mark Wyner is an autodidactic polymath with over two decades of experience in design and development. His approach prioritizes usability, accessibility, and inclusivity. He’s also an antifascist humanitarian. So diversity and equity are overarching principles for everything he does in this space. Currently, as the Lead Product Designer at BookNook. His pronouns are he/him/his. You can follow him on Mastodon or his accessibility writings on his website.
If you have any accommodation requests, don’t hesitate to contact us before the event to discuss.
RSVPs are appreciated but not strictly required. Please RSVP with one of the following:
]]>This one-hour tour of the Portland Art Museum will include a tour of accessibility features, followed by an exploration of the museum’s tactile graphics.
The studio has been reserved - so we will have a quiet place to talk and explore the tactiles. Personal belongings can be left in this area during the tour, as the studio will be securely locked.
This tour is being offered free of charge, but an RSVP is required. Once the tour is completed, food and beverages can be purchased at Coquelico within the Portland Art Museum. Attendees can continue to tour the museum if they wish.
Museum Staff Request: Please avoid wearing scented body and laundry products, as well as essential oils.
Accessibility Request: The Portland Art Museum (PAM) now has elevators and an accessible entrance. Here are further details on the PAM’s accessibility offerings. Please let us know if you have any accommodation requests, such as stools, etc.
Where to Meet: The lobby, more details to come. Please look for our logo.
If you have any accommodation requests, don’t hesitate to contact us before the event to discuss.
An RSVP is required for this event. Please RSVP with one of the following to attend:
]]>Often relegated to episodic efforts such as late-stage audits and ad hoc projects, digital accessibility is most effective and efficient when it is the organization’s default mode of operation. Making the shift to continuous accessibility leads to better outcomes across the board, including improving the experience of disabled users, mitigating the risk of accessibility-related lawsuits, improving brand reputation, and even creating a positive return on investment (ROI).
In this talk we provide practical strategies for embedding accessibility into daily routines and technical systems, demonstrating how to start small and scale over time. Key topics include:
A real world case study illustrates how the strategic application of automated regression testing and clear bug prioritization led to a profound cultural shift where accessibility is treated like any other product quality concern. Attendees will leave with actionable ideas for initiating and sustaining cultural change, making the case for accessibility as a core business principle.
The event begins at 6:00pm; join early, starting at 5:45pm for networking.
Devon Persing is your neighbor to the north in Seattle, WA. Before joining “big” tech as an accessibility specialist around 2012, she worked in “small” tech as a UI designer, front-end web developer, and usability advocate in libraries, higher education, and local government. She has an MS in Information and is disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent, and as a result her approach to digital accessibility centers information literacy, organization dynamics, and disability justice. Her current focus as a solo consultant is on helping people do accessibility work that is more holistic, inclusive, cooperative, and sustainable. She wrote a book called The Accessibility Operations Guidebook with that goal in mind.
Portlander by birth and by choice, Andrew Hedges is COO for Assistiv Labs, an accessibility tooling company based in the PNW. His 28-year career as a web developer and engineering leader has taken him to companies from Apple to Zapier. As a longtime advocate for improving the usability of websites for people with disabilities, Andrew would love nothing more than for accessibility to become the default so we can finally realize the original promise of the web to democratize access to information for everyone.
If you have any accommodation requests, don’t hesitate to contact us before the event to discuss.
RSVP with one of the following for the meeting’s video link:
]]>Kick off your new year reading list with the late Alice Wong’s memoir Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life. Find it at your library* or a local bookstore like Powell’s.
Join in-person at Hostel Cafe in NW Portland, or via video call.
*Worldcat is a unified search engine that shows the nearest library that has your item.
If you have any accommodation requests, don’t hesitate to contact us before the event to discuss.
If you’re joining virtually, RSVP with one of the following for the meeting’s video link:
]]>This talk explores the incredible power of tiny CSS snippets that create big accessibility improvements, proving that sometimes the most impactful code is measured in lines, not libraries. We’ll dive deep into practical, copy-paste-ready CSS solutions that require minimal implementation time but deliver maximum inclusivity. Each snippet comes with real-world context, showing exactly how these small changes impact actual users.
The event begins at 6:00pm; join early, starting at 5:45pm for networking.
Mike Mai is an expert in design systems, web accessibility, HTML/CSS, and typography. His design philosophy is rooted in a fundamental understanding of the web. Mike’s passion for typography, cultivated during my BFA in Graphic Design at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, directly informed my decision to pursue web design professionally. He considers typography to be the most critical foundation of any website, given its text-centric nature, making typeface selection and typesetting my first order of business on any new projects.
Mike firmly believes that design is about solving problems, a principle instilled by a formative mentor. This conviction drove his path to specializing in accessible web design. While strong typographic forms are important, they must be balanced with robust function and an intuitive user experience. He is committed to ensuring all his designs are usable, useful, and truly inclusive.
If you have any accommodation requests, don’t hesitate to contact us before the event to discuss.
RSVP with one of the following for the meeting’s video link:
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