Accessible Means Hackable (Keynote)
Abstract
In 2015, after over a decade of programming, I lost the ability to type. Confronted with a programmer’s worst nightmare, I began the slow process of learning to dictate code. While customizing my environment and relying on configurations and scripts from a wider voice coding community, I simultaneously was confronted with paternalistic attitudes towards disabled people, attached to a framing of accessibility as “accommodation”. Often, accommodations and products for disabled people have a rigid model for their use – but the needs of blind people are just as diverse as the needs of those with sight, and disabled people are perfectly capable of improving on the use model that you offer to them. This is a story and a call for accessible systems that are open and adaptable, that allow people like me the agency to improve the tools they use.
