Interview with Alisa Smith, Accessibility Evangelist
Q&A with Alisa Smith, who is presenting at the CreativePro Design + Accessibility Summit
Alisa Smith is a Accessibility Evangelist for AudioEye. She’s also speaking at the CreativePro Design + Accessibility Summit, which takes place October 8-11 online, with a session on how to implement accessibility programs in your organization.
We thought it would be fun to get to know her better with some Q&A.
Why do you like teaching accessibility?
It’s a joy to observe people as they awaken to the world of accessibility! A critical part of making the web more accessible is increasing awareness and educating people about their role in digital accessibility because everyone has a part to play. Once they understand the scope of the problem, that about 96% of homepages have detectable errors, most immediately want to make a positive impact. I like to stoke that enthusiasm by offering quick, easy, and meaningful tasks like using headings in docs and webpages, enabling captions for conferencing, and YouTube content. Simply adding alt text to the silly gifs in your Slack messages or memes in social media posts lets everyone in on the joke! These solutions create lasting habits people can take anywhere.
What’s the most common mistake you see designers making with regard to accessibility?
Designers choose to display that image in their UI for a reason, then do not write a description or leave it to the developer to write it. It’s not a “Dog on the beach,” it’s a “Golden Retriever running along the water’s edge.” It’s not a “Blue striped shirt,” it’s a “Light blue short-sleeved spread collared shirt with three gray horizontal stripes across the chest.” Images are opportunities to make an impression or a sale. Make that experience rich for all users!
What’s one indispensable #a11y resource you rely on?
There are so many good resources from the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative! They are accurate and peer-reviewed, and there’s something there for everyone, from code samples for developers and testers to WCAG guideline rationale for designers and organizational policy plans for leadership.
How do you think AI technology will affect accessibility in the near term and long term?
I am not an AI expert, but AI can already help developers create more accessible solutions when they are not well-versed in accessible coding techniques. What I hope for the future is that AI tools can analyze code to determine the authors’ intent and correct some of the more egregious barriers people encounter daily.
What are you most excited to share in your upcoming session?
I can’t wait to share how to create a culture of proactive accessibility rather than extinguish people’s interest by being the accessibility enforcer.
This article was last modified on April 28, 2025
This article was first published on July 19, 2024
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