Alex Marositz talks about screen reader use and the lack of progress of accessibility on the web

Alex says that "running into the same barriers every time a new platform or app is released is very frustrating. It's realizing some of my students are struggling with the same kind of issues I was struggling with 30 years ago when I was a student." Thanks to Fable for sponsoring the transcript for this episode. Transcript Nic Hi, I'm Nic Steenhout. And you're listening to the accessibility rules soundbite, a series of short podcasts where disabled people explain their impairments and what barriers they encounter on the web. As usual, transcripts are available for this episode and all other episodes at the time of publication from the website at https://a11yryules.com. Thanks to Fable for sponsoring this show. Fable is a leading accessibility platform powered by disabled people. Fable moves organizations from worrying about compliance to building incredible accessible user experience. They do that through product testing, and custom courses. You can learn more about how Fable can work for your team at https://makeitfable.com/nic. Today I'm talking with Alex Marositz. It's Hey, Alex, how are you? Alex Hi, good morning. Nic Good morning. So you reached out and you said after I asked you said yeah, I'm game to have you ask me some questions. So here's my first question. What is your disability or your impairment, Alex? Alex Well, yeah, I guess I am blind. And I use a screen reader and electronic Braille display to access the computer and the internet. A little bit about me is I spent 12 years teaching assistive technology and access technology and training students to use it in the in the community college system. And then I spent the last three years doing accessibility audits and testing for accessibility and kind of handling the compliance piece. And then about four days ago, I started a new job, which is exactly why I reached out to yo. I was kind of going through a little bit of a switching roles a bit coming back to the community colleges, and I had some some time on my hands and just was participating in the accessibility community overall. So aside from that, I do write for the top tech tidbits flying blind website and participate in some of the other accessibility spaces. I'd say kind of just throughout my career, you're right, kind of the basis of that was having to learn accessible technology, and how to use a screen reader and mix sort of Braille and auditory learning styles. But that's on the computer now. Nic I'm going to get away from my usual questions, because you are the right person to ask this. I'm going to circle back to my other questions. But as someone who has done education and teaching people how to use screen readers for for good portion of time. And as someone who has also worked in the accessibility field, what would you say your top one or two tips for people doing accessibility testing fairly new to it? What would you say the two top tips are for someone looking to learn how to use a screen reader for testing if they are sighted users? Alex You know, that's a good question. And I can only tell you what's kind of helped me, and I feel has kind of set me apart in that space is try to find some time engaging in an activity that you enjoy doing or something like that. Volunteer in some way with an organization that involves disabled people in some way. So I don't know if that means volunteering at an at a youth camp sports camp for persons with disabilities or find something in your area and actually just get to know you know a little bit about the culture and the lives of the people whose work you'll be impacting moving forward. And I just I can't tell you how valuable that is interacting with students every day for 12 or 13 years really gave me sort of a unique perspective and also just kind of oriented the work that I was doing in a better way. You know, knowing what WCAG standards for example are going to impact which folks is a little bit easier to understand when