Prepping for my First Hackathon

An accessibility focused Hackathon through Devpost

Hi everyone! It has been about 3 weeks since I officially started my job search after graduating from the Flatiron School. Since graduating, I have been told from a multitude of resources that Hackathons are a great way for me to meet new people, contribute my skills to a team setting (even though I’m doing my first hackathon alone), and showcase to companies that I am focusing on continuing my education post bootcamp. The job search itself feels like a full-time job that I’m always working overtime in, and this hackathon will come as a fun way to take a break, and still do what I enjoy (which is writing code!).

The hackathon that I am partaking in is called “Hack-ccessible”, specifically for creating applications that are designed in a way that can be used by individuals with disabilities. The sad reality is that most sites and applications now are not designed with this in mind, including ones that we utilize on a daily basis.

What is web accessibility and why is it important?

As mentioned above, web accessibility is the ability to design and develop applications that can be used successfully by individuals with disabilities. These can include, but are not limited to neurological, visual, speech, cognitive, auditory, or physical. Thankfully, there are many technologies that have been created over the years that can assist with these issues (such as speech to text, text to speech, websites that allow for color theme changes, or to change the size and weight of text, etc).

However, web accessibility is not limited to only those with disabilities. According to w3.org, it keeps in mind those:

• who are older and have abilities changing due to aging
• “temporary disabilities” like an injury
• “situational limitations”
• those with slower internet or limited bandwidth

The web is an enormous resource for people for many reasons, such as ecommerce, employment, entertainment, education(just to name a few), and it’s necessary for every individual to have access to these resources regardless of having a disability or not. It’s also a strong case for businesses to have strong accessibility to extend reach.

What am I going to create for my project?

I plan on creating an Instagram mock-up that allows for greater accessibility reach. Most of the aspects I mentioned above are already utilized by Instagram, however they can be buried deep within the settings. I wanted to create a menu that is always accessible from the main page, and the user can toggle to quickly change between themes.

For the caption section, I would like to create a button that allows for image description for those that have visual impairments. If possible, I would like to add the ability to read text back to the user.

With that being said, I’m very excited! This will be my first larger project since graduating, and the ability to add my new knowledge of accessibility will be something I look forward to bringing to any of my future developer jobs. I will be posting a follow up on how the experience went. :)