By Karen Mardahl | Senior Member
Where can a curious technical communicator learn more about accessibility and usability (or UX/user experience)?
Unconferences
Unconferences are a great place to start “in real life.” These are informal conferences where agendas are created on the spot and where all are more than welcome to contribute actively.
There are unconferences with an accessibility theme in Seattle, London, Toronto, Boston, Perth, Los Angeles, and more. Find them at www.accessibilitycamp.org/events.shtml.
There are free or inexpensive UX camps (camps are also informal gatherings) such as http://uxcampeurope.org or http://uxcampdc.com/.
Search Lanyrd for future events tagged “UX” and “camp” (http://lanyrd.com/search/?context=future&q=ux+camp) or “accessibility” and “camp” (http://lanyrd.com/search/?q=
accessibility&context=future).
Don’t equate informal with lower standards. Very knowledgeable people attend these events, and it’s an excellent place to get started.
UX Book Clubs
Even more informal events are the UX book clubs. You can finally get those books read and discuss them with others at the same time. Follow https://twitter.com/uxbookclub for possible news about an event in your area. Why not start one yourself in your area? Just meet up at a local café after reading the books and start talking! For inspiration, check out the stream of books read by the UX Book Club in Copenhagen: http://uxbookclub.dk/. There are more resources at www.uxbookclub.org/ as well. Unfortunately, this site is not completely up to date; it has had spam attacks in the past. Use with caution.
Online Events
There are several online events throughout the year.
- Global Accessibility Awareness Day on 9 May 2013 with meetups and online events: http://globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org/
- The Accessibility Summit from Environment for Humans, a two-day online conference 10–11 September 2013: http://lanyrd.com/2013/accessibility-summit/
- World Usability Day on 14 November 2013: www.worldusabilityday.org/
Monitor the KeyContent site at http://keycontent.org/tiki-calendar.php and on Twitter at @keycontent for notification about many valuable events around the world for technical communicators curious about accessibility and usability.
Karen Mardahl is a technical author at SimCorp, an investment management software company based in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 2012, she was a keynote speaker for the special accessibility track at Technical Communication UK conference (TCUK). She gets passionate about accessibility on Twitter at @kmdk and especially at @stcaccess where she tweets for STC’s AccessAbility SIG.
