By: Molly, Accessibility Intern for Minnesota IT Services

At the beginning of the summer, I started as the Accessibility Intern. When I started in the position I had very little idea of what an accessibility intern did and even less of an idea of what to expect out of my day to day work. Unsurprisingly, my first day was a whirlwind. But, now that the storm has calmed down, and indeed is almost over, I have the chance to reflect a little bit on what an accessibility intern does, what my day to day looked like, and importantly, what this means for me going forward.

What does an accessibility intern do? Well, I help make digital content accessible. Sorry, that’s sort of vague, isn’t it? Let me try again and take it step by step. Firstly, what do I use to do my job?

A few tools of the trade I use included Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, a keyboard, a screen reader, and lots of food to snack on.

I use Microsoft Word to create documents. Documents like reference guides, reports, checklists, and questionnaires. To make the documents I use headings, paragraph and list styles, alternative text with pictures, and other accessibility best practices. That way my source documents start out as accessible bases. Sometimes the documents stay in this format. Sometimes they are converted to other formats, like PDFs.

With PDFs I move onto Acrobat. In Acrobat I run the accessibility checker and fix any errors that are found. I check the tags, adding and removing ones as needed. The most common tags I run into are paragraph tags, list tags, and link tags. I also use Acrobat to create fillable forms. Forms are common for questionnaires or surveys or other similar documents.

Another tool I use a lot of is the keyboard. Prior to this internship I used keyboard shortcuts, such as CTRL + B to create bolded font or ALT + 0250 to create the ‘ú’, or the letter ‘u’ with an acute accent. But I never realized that those were keyboard shortcuts and I certainly didn’t realize how much more you can do with a keyboard. TAB and SHIFT + TAB were the two most important keyboard shortcuts I learned. I use them a lot during keyboard testing to navigate webpages and documents. I will say here that a full keyboard is superior to a laptop keyboard when it comes to testing. For example, keyboard testing often uses the F keys. On a laptop, you have to hold down the function key in order to use those F keys, and learn different key stroke combinations. Using a full keyboard reduces the number of keys you need to press at the same time.

The screen reader I use is called JAWS and it is one of the most commonly used screen readers in the United States. I switched my screen voice to the “David” voice, so I call my machine David. Using David, I comb through digital content, such as a web page or a PDF, and listen for errors. Common errors are text not being correctly coded or tagged and images missing alternative text. This means that screen readers won’t read what is there. When David finds errors in my documents, I go back and fix the source document and then have David check again.

My final tool of the trade: food. The food is just a me thing. I find I tend to be more focused and less grumpy with a belly full of snacks.

That’s what I use to work, but what do I work on? In general, the projects I work on are both large and small. One large project was checking mobile apps for accessibility. For a smaller project I worked on creating a checklist for how to make documents accessible. A third project was a card sort. Card sorts are used to determine information structure for websites or documents. During the first card sort I asked participants to group questions into categories; during the second one I asked them to sort the same questions into pre-determined categories. An important part to this card sort was the diversity of participants, some individuals used screen readers, some had accessibility experience, and some didn’t. That diversity allowed me to get the best possible feedback for my card sort.

For those projects that involve evaluating something for accessibility, there are tests upon tests to complete – and not the standardized ones taken in school. There are keyboard tests, screen reader tests, tests with switches, tests for color contrast, and many others. Testing requires time and patience. It’s smart to do the testing once, go do something else, and then come back and redo the test again to verify the results. That way my findings are more accurate. And during the break between tests I have time to go grab more food.

For those projects that involve the creation of content, there are drafts upon drafts upon drafts. With every draft there are paragraphs that get cut, sentences that are rearranged and words that are added. The end goal is to create a product that is polished, easy to understand, and informative. Sometimes it takes several days and several bags of chips to come up with a final product. But it always feels so good to turn in the final version!

So, that’s what I do for this internship; using software like Microsoft and JAWs and the keyboard I make digital content, like PDFs and webpages, accessible!

This internship was one amazing and informative ride. I have learned a lot about accessibility in terms of what it is, what standards there are, and how to create accessible digital content. I tend to draft a lot of papers and create presentations so, some of the most practical things I learned from this internship, I can easily implement outside of this job. Finally, a very important take away from this internship is my newfound ability to advocate for digital accessibility and the benefit of diversity in teams. I have a base of knowledge with which to make suggestions to encourage the implementation and normalization of digital accessibility in any setting. And while it may seem like only one voice advocating for accessibility can’t change anything, in the words of Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” I am not the only advocate and many voices together makes an unstoppable force for change.