Accessibility is a topic of growing interest in the pro audio industry, but it can be daunting to get started. Join an Ableton software team to learn from our experiences and lessons after a year researching screen reader support in the context of desktop music production software. This workshop might be especially interesting for you if you research, define, design, or develop desktop music production software, and if you understand or are curious about accessibility, but don't know how to begin addressing it. If all goes well, then you'll leave this workshop with:
- a greater understanding of accessibility and the current state of accessibility in the pro audio industry
- ideas for how to begin addressing accessibility in your work and/or organisation
- a framework for researching and improving the accessibility of your own product(s)
- tools for testing the screen reader accessibility of your own product(s)
- foundational knowledge of the UX and technical requirements of a screen reader-supporting desktop application, and
- a jump-start on platform APIs for native screen reader support
An outline of the workshop:
Topic 1 - How we started: High level, industry & organisational perspective- What is accessibility?
- Organizational perspective
Topic 2 - What we did first: Make connections & learn- Overview of current situation of accessibility in DAW software
- Research (the story of our own journey)
- Learning about the vision-impaired user experience: Intro to using a screen reader (with demo)
Topic 3 - Where we are now: Start making changes- UX aspects of keyboard-only interaction
- Technical aspects of screen reader support
You do not need to be a developer to participate; we only discuss coding concepts in the final session. Depending on attendance, we may run group breakout sessions to facilitate reflection and discussion.
ALL WORKSHOP SESSIONS CAN BE ACCESSED FROM THE MAIN LOBBY:
https://conference.audio.dev
