Niqui Merret
Bio
Niqui has been a Macromedia instructor in digital design applications for over 8 years, and has been a regular speaker at MMUG meetings in both South Africa and the UK. She has also contributed articles to the Macromedia MX Developers Journal and was previously the Macromedia Director Section Editor for the magazine.
Niqui was one of the earliest eLearning developers in South Africa and her HIV/AIDS product is being used by many South African companies to educate staff on prevention and assisting those living with AIDS in extending their life expectancy, as well as maintaining quality of life. She has also spent time in Mozambique where she assisted UNESCO in compiling an eLearning project on Malaria.
Niqui currently runs a small development studio in Surrey. She is particularly passionate about ensuring accessibility and usability on multiple devices. She is currently examining standards for Flash developers with regard to accessibility and usability, with a view to contributing substantially to the debate.
Session
The Pirates of Accessibility
In 1792, a pirate ship called The Black Axe chased an entire Royal Navy fleet for 300 miles - an event erased from the history books for a rather political reason.
You see, if it ever got out that the British navy was intimidated by a ship helmed by a blind captain and a dyslexic first mate (who to be fair, tried to plot a route 'away' from the Navy fleet) it would, well.. look bad for the 'Empire'.
Funnily enough, the pirates thought they were dueling with only one ship, thanks to a look-out boy with severe tunnel vision - and charged forward like men possessed!
This scared the lunch out of the old navy admirals who figured the charging pirate ship must be hiding some sort of secret weapon. The weapon, historians say, might have been simply a highly agitated crew who kept begging their half-deaf cook for lamb. Pirates don't make good vegans.
Thing is, the cook thought they meant flan. But they couldn't be too upset with him. After all, good flan is good flan...
The point here is that disabled people hold jobs, check their shares online, email their loved ones and of course make excellent pirates. Part of our mission as flash developers is to make the digital media accessible to the widest audience possible.
In this session Niqui will share some insights into these Pirates of Accessibility. Come explore a world of challenges and obstacles through a selection of pirate demos and walk away with a different, more positive opinion of accessibility and your role as a developer.
- eye-patches not included.