Sowmya Sridharamurthy
Engineering Manager- Quality
Company: LYTHO
Stream: В
Time: 14:00 - 14:45
Country: Netherlands
Language: English
Talk: Accessibility an after thought
About Speaker
Sowmya Sridharamurthy is a seasoned product quality leader currently working as SDET Manager at Lytho. With 14+ years of experience handling product right from inception to delivery she has worked on diverse software solutions- ERP, SAAS, Mobile APPs, Web applications. She has a proven track record of successful implementations of result driven test processes. Mentors teams in building effective strategy and implementations to achieve ROI through test automation. Being an Accessibility advocate, sowmya is keen on driving inclusive software development. Sowmya is active community builder and runs “APIans” meet-up group from Amsterdam.
Talk: Accessibility an after thought
If we are quizzed who would like to do inclusive development? it's pretty Eversden everyone
would rise their hand in all enthusiasm. But when asked about how many teams are performing
inclusive development right from design to delivery. I am sure you may see hardly any hands up
in the air.
Accessibility has always been cursed with unsaid and untold bias. There is an inherent stigma
within software development teams that, implementing accessibility guidelines for Web content
is an additional burden and takes more time which can hamper our delivery timeline.
The root cause for this stigma stems from various dimensions
1. Business hardly prioritizes web accessibility, unless it's legally required.
2. Product owners and UX designers are not educated about what is needed to get things rolling
3. Developers have hardly any say in this topic.
4. Software testers though 100% in agreement to do accessibility testing, they can only
recommend it but has little to no say in driving decision.
Accessibility should be driven top-down, businesses should emphasize the value of inclusive
development. We have to educate people in not gauging accessibility as additional baggage.
Inclusive development is a shared activity within the development fabric. Right from UX
designers to testers, everyone has a part to play. In this talk, I would like to share my journey in
helping development teams seamlessly onboard an inclusive development mindset.