{"id":582,"date":"2022-03-23T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/2022\/03\/23\/how-this-journalist-turned-engineer-promotes-equality-and-inclusion-through-digital-allyship\/"},"modified":"2022-03-23T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T16:00:00","slug":"how-this-journalist-turned-engineer-promotes-equality-and-inclusion-through-digital-allyship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/2022\/03\/23\/how-this-journalist-turned-engineer-promotes-equality-and-inclusion-through-digital-allyship\/","title":{"rendered":"How This Journalist-Turned-Engineer Promotes Equality and Inclusion Through Digital Allyship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crystal Preston-Watson is an Accessibility and Quality Engineer based in Denver, Colorado. She is the Senior Digital Accessibility Analyst at Salesforce. Crystal believes that accessibility is a civil and human right and is dedicated to making innovative, inclusive, and accessible applications for everyone.<\/em><\/p>\n

Crystal Preston-Watson\u2019s driving principle as a Senior Digital Accessibility Analyst in Salesforce\u2019s\u00a0Office of Accessibility<\/a>\u00a0is that everyone should be able to do their jobs without any hindrance. As a person with visual impairments, this is an issue Crystal understands all too well.<\/p>\n

But if you\u2019d asked Crystal 15 years ago whether she\u2019d be working at a software company evaluating internal tools for accessibility, she might have thought you were introducing a comedy sketch (something she does for fun in her spare time). At that time, Crystal was pursuing a career in journalism, working first as a freelance writer, then as a web editor for an alternative weekly in Denver, and, finally, as an interactive producer at Rocky Mountain News. In all of these roles, she dabbled with CSS and HTML, which eventually propelled her into freelance web development after the newspaper closed.<\/p>\n

She wrote what she laughingly referred to as \u201cso much bad JavaScript\u201d during that time, using her personal website as a learning ground for her tech career. There wasn\u2019t the wealth of tutorials online at that time that we have today. So, she spent a lot of time reading blog posts, digging into documentation, and searching StackOverflow to skill up.<\/p>\n

In 2013, she pivoted into a quality engineering role where she was introduced to the field of digital accessibility. When Crystal got a work assignment to test an accessibility screen reader, she started reading up on the devices and realized they could help her, too! She noted that accessibility was often seen as an afterthought instead of a core design principle. From then on digital accessibility became a central motivation in her career.<\/p>\n

Concurrently to expanding her career responsibilities in quality engineering, Crystal began speaking at developer conferences about (what else?) accessibility when she noticed that many of them didn\u2019t have any talks on the topic. Her first talk was at an event called\u00a0Develop Denver<\/a>\u00a0and focused on demystifying accessibility. \u201cYou\u2019re never going to break down inaccessibility if the people building the tools don\u2019t know how to build accessibly,\u201d Crystal says. She adds that the message of accessibility is more important than the anxiety she sometimes feels when getting on the stage.<\/p>\n

Crystal joined Salesforce in 2019 as a Quality Engineer focusing on accessibility for Salesforce.org\u2019s Philanthropy Cloud, Nonprofit Cloud, and Education Cloud before transitioning to her current role in the fall of 2021. As a Senior Digital Accessibility Analyst, she works to ensure digital accessibility for all Salesforce employees by evaluating our internal tools, documents, surveys, and processes. Depending on the day, she might spend time looking at reports from employees or speaking with the engineers who built a given tool to fix and improve its accessibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing into this particular role has meant a lot to me, because I know how hard it is to be someone who has a disability and all you\u2019re trying to do is your job, but you\u2019re coming up against blocks along the way,\u201d Crystal shared. \u201cI\u2019m proud to be here because my focus is that everyone should be able to do their job without any sort of issue. The only frustrations you have should be the usual frustrations anyone might have with work, not because a tool or piece of information you need is inaccessible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having worked remotely for much of her career, Crystal has found ways to get into the zone to be successful at work. She has a playlist for every kind of mood, which she cranks up when she\u2019s reviewing tools that have been reported for possible accessibility issues. Her screen reader is a crucial tool for helping her get her work done, along with the native zoom and magnification tools in her devices. She\u2019s also adamant about communicating with her team when she needs to step away to take a break or play with her cats so that she can come back better able to focus \u2014 a helpful reminder for all of us! Outside of work, Crystal recharges by playing a lot of games and doing improv comedy.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in learning more about accessibility, Crystal recommends the following resources.<\/h3>\n

Getting Started with Web Accessibility<\/a>\u00a0on Trailhead \u2014 includes good bite-sized content that is not too overwhelming.Inclusive Design<\/a>\u00a0by Regine Gilbert \u2014 a book not just for UX or designers, even though it has design in the title.Inclusive Design 24<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a free 24-hour conference on YouTube with a variety of good introductory talks but also more advanced contentA11y Talks<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a virtual meetup featuring speakers and conversations around digital accessibility.<\/p>\n

Ready to advance digital accessibility as a member of our team? Explore <\/em>career opportunities<\/em><\/a> at Salesforce.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post How This Journalist-Turned-Engineer Promotes Equality and Inclusion Through Digital Allyship<\/a> appeared first on salesforce-engineering.go-vip.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crystal Preston-Watson is an Accessibility and Quality Engineer based in Denver, Colorado. She is the Senior Digital Accessibility Analyst at Salesforce. Crystal believes that accessibility is a civil and human right and is dedicated to making innovative, inclusive, and accessible applications for everyone. Crystal Preston-Watson\u2019s driving principle as a Senior Digital Accessibility Analyst in Salesforce\u2019s\u00a0Office… Continue reading How This Journalist-Turned-Engineer Promotes Equality and Inclusion Through Digital Allyship<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":745,"url":"https:\/\/fde.cat\/index.php\/2023\/08\/08\/what-is-slacks-secret-for-enhancing-accessibility-to-empower-people-with-disabilities\/","url_meta":{"origin":582,"position":0},"title":"What is Slack\u2019s Secret for Enhancing Accessibility to Empower People with Disabilities?","date":"August 8, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"By Sommer Panage and Scott Nyberg. 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