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July 13, 2023
Joanne is a trilingual Content Editor focusing on DeveloperRelations.com at Hoopy.
The countdown is on to DevRelCon London 2023! Back in London for the first time since 2019, this year’s event is made up of two days of talks, discussion sessions, networking, and socialising. Among other topics, we’ll be covering developer education, DevRel in a downturn, community data and operations, core skills, DevRel for web3, and more.
Join us to learn, share, and hang out with your fellow DevRel professionals from across the world. And to give you a taste of what’s on offer, here’s our next quick fire speaker interview.
Speaker: Alexandra White
Company: Google
Position: Senior Tech Writer
Talk title: Beyond empathy: Write accessible docs
Alexandra is a technical writer at Google, based in New York City. She writes documentation for web developers and the web ecosystem about the Privacy Sandbox technologies. Before she was a full-time writer, Alexandra was a web developer, a digital marketing manager, and a post-production editor.
Tell us about the talk that you are planning to give at DevRelCon London 2023
My talk ‘Beyond empathy: Write accessible docs’ is all about accessibility. When we talk about accessibility in tech, so often we are talking about software access. Does my website or product meet WCAG standards? But accessibility is so much more than that. Our documentation must also be inclusive and accessible, so that folks can build and use our products effectively. DevRel is responsible for educating and advocating for our products. Shouldn’t that include our documentation too?
Why should people attend your talk? What should they expect to take away from it?
The World Health Organization estimates that about 15% of the world, (that’s 1.3 billion people, not a small number), has some sort of disability. This is an important point for a variety of reasons. I want, of course, to focus on the moral reasons. From a moral perspective, everybody should have an equal opportunity to access everything, and that means we have to create content in a form that is accessible to them.
I know that’s not necessarily the way to get things done. Business perspective is the way to get things done. So, when you factor in the friends and family of those 1.3 billion people, that’s 53% of all consumers who are touched by folks with disabilities. It’s the world’s largest emerging market, and we should be accommodating people with our products. Plain and simple.
What are you most looking forward to at this year’s DevRelCon London event?
I am so excited to attend my first ever DevRelCon! I’ve been writing documentation for over a decade. I’ve been in DevRel on and off, so this is a great opportunity to network with other folks in DevRel, and learn new ideas.
There are so many talks I’m so excited about. There is Tara King’s talk on burnout resilience which is so important right now, and Kevin Lewis’ talk on quantifying impact of our work. It’s both listening to their great ideas, and having those hallway conversations that really make this event special.
To secure your space to hear Alexandra’s talk and more, get your ticket today. You can also become a sponsor of the event to reach the unique DevRelCon audience; get in touch.