Piloting Accessibility for Out in Tech hackathon

Every year, a group of LGBTQIA+ individuals who work in the tech industry come together four times to create or enhance websites for LGBTQIA+ organizations around the globe. The websites are built by the community, for the community, as the members believe that true LGBTQIA+ liberation cannot be accomplished without disability justice and equity. The group’s ultimate goal is to uplift and celebrate the queer community, paying homage to LGBTQIA+ visibility which includes the disabled community. To achieve this, I devised actionable steps to ensure that websites are more accessible and inclusive to all.

Diverse, excited and warm group of volunteers smiling and posing after the digital corp hackathon.

Overview

Out in Tech is a non-profit community of LGBTQIA+ tech leaders, providing opportunities to over 40,000 members to advance their careers, grow their networks, and leverage tech for social change. Their Digital Corps program provides web services to LGBTQIA+ activists and social entrepreneurs globally where same-sex relationships are still illegal, built by LGBTQIA+ volunteers using their skills in design, user experience, web development, writing, and project management to leverage change.

Out in Tech’s Digital Corps event is a hackathon where volunteers come together to design and build a website in WordPress (WP) for an organization, write a comprehensive user guide, and collaborate with organization stakeholders.

As a Digital Corp lead and tenured volunteer since 2018, I saw a unique opportunity to incorporate accessibility (a11y) into their volunteer requirements and goals to deliver to our LGBTQIA+ organization partners.

Team

OiT Leads

Out in Tech (OiT) leadership + Leads for each of the teams that facilitate the event, organize website requirements and lead their team of volunteers

A11y Experts

A team of Accessibility (A11y)professionals volunteering to be a11y support for all teams and organizations

OiT Volunteers

A plethora of folks in the LGBTQIA+ community volunteering their UX, UI, developer, content writing, and project management skills to build a website

My role as the a11y program organizer

  • Facilitate a11y requirements during the hackathon event: intro presentation that introduces accessibility goals/support/best practices, monitoring event slack channels and managing a11y consultants
  • Organize logistics with OiT partners and digital corp leads
  • Community outreach and volunteer recruitment for the a11y experts support squad
  • Build training materials to support OiT volunteers and organization partners focused on 7 WCAG criteria with a focus on content administrator audience in WordPress
  • Advise and collaborate with volunteers on accessible solutions
  • Iterate on existing materials and research best practices around accessibility standards and recommendations

Goals

  • Volunteers emerging in their tech careers will get a foundational introduction on what makes a website accessible while getting hands-on experience implementing 6 – 7 WCAG criteria. They can take this experience to apply to their existing jobs and projects.
  • Volunteers get to network with A11y experts and pursue mentorship opportunities after the event. Because Out in Tech is focused on LGBTQIA+ identities in tech, getting folks into a11y profession will diversify the field. 
  • Organizations we build sites for and the communities they support will benefit from delightful, accessible websites!

Challenges

  • Volunteer knowledge base is all over. Many volunteers are just starting out in their careers, and some are further along in their fields.
  • Going up against an existing learning curve. Because the event uses WordPress to build out the websites, some volunteers have little to no prior WordPress experience and will be learning on the fly the day-of. How can we not create a burden for volunteers with these additional a11y steps?
  • How can we make it as easy as possible for volunteers to implement accessibility in a short period of time?
  • What accessibility can we win? 

Method and materials

A11y Foundational Checklist

Resource for volunteers to learn about the 7 WCAG criteria:

  • Alt text for images
  • Heading structure 
  • Accessible fonts and font size
  • Color considerations: Contrast ratio minimums and Use of color
  • Buttons and links 
  • Form considerations 

The information is divided into sections that explain its meaning, the beneficiaries, and steps on how to execute it in WordPress. It is presented in a clear, easy-to-understand, and comprehensive manner, perfect for those who are new to accessibility. This was crucial not only for our volunteers but also for our global organization partners who have English as their second language. We aimed to be more linguistically inclusive so they can also benefit from this foundational checklist.

Snippet of foundational Accessibility Checklist, featuring: Alt text, Color considerations, Font, Headings, Links and Buttons.
Snippet of Links and Buttons section of checklist
Snippet of Images section of checklist

A11y Toolkit

This spreadsheet is intended to support the project manager volunteer roles to divvy up the work between teams, and track progress. PMs are encouraged to self-organize as they are comfortable.

Snippet of Accessibility Starter Pack Tool for tracking and managing checklist items during the event.

Impact

  • Out in Tech volunteers have access to mentorship in the accessibility profession
  • Digital Corp events have a support system to ensure more accessible products for their partners
  • Volunteers bring back a11y knowledge to their jobs and become thought leaders in their roles

Future plans

  • Building an education video library for accessibility best practices in WordPress
  • Organizing quarterly accessibility webinars featuring a11y experts
  • Developing a mentorship pipeline for Out in Tech community and a11y professionals