One thing I’ve always wanted to do was to write a book. I don’t know why, but it just seems like the thing a young, hip professional should do at least once in their career. Especially now that I have quite a few years of experience in the industry. I’m also at a point where I seem to be transitioning from an individual contributor to, perhaps, more of a manager or leader type role? More on that in another post.
What would the topic be? Most likely the thing I know most about: digital accessibility.
There are a handful of really great books already out there on the market. Most of which provide insight into accessibility as a concept or general idea. Other books play into the author’s personal experience with disability in their own life. Usually sharing stories of ableism which they’ve witnessed first hand as dealt by society. Being someone who doesn’t identify with having a disability (other than slowly deteriorating eyesight due to aging) I’ll likely stay clear of nuance which I do not have experience with. Don’t get me wrong. I’d make sure to include some insight into the social aspect of disability. And even a bit of detail into the history of disability. It’s quite fascinating, heartbreaking, and uplifting to read about what disabled people have overcome. I believe the primary theme of the book would be to share technical details of digital accessibility. This has been my main focus of study since 2011.
In reading other books on accessibility, it seems most tend to shy away from technical details. I have a feeling most books do not include information such as this as a result of the industry evolving so quickly. There are so many moving parts; user agents, mobile devices, browsers versions, new CSS and JavaScript features, HTML spec updates, etc. What about technology specific to accessibility; screen readers, braille readers, voice dictation software, zoom software, WCAG, ARIA spec… th list goes on. Perhaps the book could be prefaced, altering the reader to the fact that the content within was written during a specific snapshot in time. There’d need to be “links” in the form of URLs pointing the reader towards where they could get the latest details on the topic at hand. Otherwise, who knows how obsolete the book’s content could become.
Writing a book is something that’s been on my mind for quite some time. Perhaps in the meantime I’ll stick with improving my writing via blog posts. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to stitch them together and output something worthwhile for readers to consume.