S1:E13
[00:00:00] Todd Libby: Welcome to the Front End Nerdery Podcast, a podcast about front end development and design. I'm your host Todd Libby. My guest today is owner and lead engineer, teacher, speaker, biking, and outdoor enthusiast. And one of my favorite things, and I have to call you this, just fitting, queen of pies because I love the pie pictures, Marcy Sutton. Marcy, how are you today?
[00:00:33] Marcy Sutton: I'm doing wonderful. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:35] Todd: Yeah. Thank you for coming on. Why don't you tell listeners a little bit about yourself?
[00:00:40] Marcy: Sure thing. I am a web developer and I love accessibility. So, I spend all of my time thinking about how to make websites more accessible. And I've gone independent in the last year.
And so, I'm right now, I'm focused on workshops, but I also consult with organizations on accessibility engineering and dabbling into design as well. Really finally, living the dream.
[00:01:09] Todd: Yeah, that's great. And when I saw that you went, on your own, I was like, yeah that's, that’s awesome, that's terrific. I did that for a number of years, and it was great.
And I just, after a while, I said I gotta get back on a, on a team. But I am very happy to see that you started your own thing. And it's great to see. So, my first question, we can jump right into the questions, is how did you get started in your web development design journey?
[00:01:38] Marcy: Yeah, so originally, I went to school for photojournalism, and it was a totally different market, a different job landscape back then in early two thousands and web stuff was always my interest.
Even before then I was building HTML sites with GeoCities. And they were probably very inaccessible, but it was geeky and nerdy. And I love making stuff, especially stuff that I could show, you know, I could say, hey, check out my website. And so, through photojournalism, you had to build a website to showcase your photography.
And it's kind of funny, my origin. I mean, I was already doing HTML, but really what solidified it was that the Flash class was full. When I went to take it, the Flash ActionScript class, it's like, dang it. So, I took the HTML class and really loved it. And that was huge in my path in being a web developer. I did dabble in ActionScript and Flash there for a while.
Cause it was, you know, the cool technology to use. But as we all know, it was a dead end, so to speak, but some of those skills really translated into JavaScript. And so, I've got more and more senior as a web developer as years went by cause I went into that instead of photography and I discovered accessibility in my second job as a web developer.
And once I learned about it, I couldn't, I just couldn't turn that part of my brain off. You know, it's like learning that you can make a difference in the world. Like how could you not want to do that at that point?
[00:03:22] Todd: Right
[00:03:23] Marcy: And I met more and more colleagues with disabilities. I went to the CSUN conference, and I felt so validated when I went there because people were talking about tab index and ARIA and all of these really cool technologies.
I was like, this is, this is it. These are my people. And so that's really like, I'm still on that track, you know, I'm still like this, this is it for me. And so, yeah, it's really cool to get, to make a difference in the world and to like see those light bulbs go on with other people. Like, yeah, it can be a little dark sometimes when we look at websites and we're like, did they not hear us at all?
[00:04:02] Todd: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:04:03] Marcy: But we're still, we're still making an impact in the world and yeah. Just keep beating that drum.
[00:04:05] Todd: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I remember it was one of the first sites that I built was GeoCities. I did what I, I tried them all out. Angelfire, Tripod, GeoCities, whatever there was, seemed like hundreds of them. So, I mean, you just touched on upon it a little bit of it, you know, and my second question was going to be what got you into specializing in accessibility.
Can you go any farther into that?
[00:04:35] Marcy: Yeah. So, my origin story, I was working at an agency, and they had really big name clients, Target being the big one that really made the biggest impact because Target had been sued for their checkout not being accessible. And so, everything I made for them. It was just built into those projects that I would pair with folks on their QA team.
I went to Minneapolis a number of times, and it was just hugely instrumental. I, I didn't know anything about accessibility. At that time there were blogs that I could read, like 456Bereastreet.com, I think is Roger Johansen's blog. And just there was way less information. There were, I mean, we had Firebug as a debugging tool, like nothing like what we have now in terms of tooling and how just the wealth of information that's out there.
But I felt that human connection. I just felt like this is so cool. Why isn't everyone doing this? And I would sneak it into other projects for X-Box or Nintendo or whatever, and they didn't care. You know, it wasn't part of their requirements, not to say not that they weren't cool projects. They were amazing.
It just wasn't part of the requirements. I think now I'm seeing that companies like Nintendo you know, they, they are, they, they seem to have gotten the memo that it's important. So that's great because gaming should be for everyone, and websites should be for everyone. And so, yeah, it's just been a really neat journey to go, woah there's so many cool design and development challenges here. I love it. It's so cool.
[00:06:14] Todd: Yeah. And we're seeing more and more, places that are opening up positions. I am anyways. I don't know about you. But more and more positions with people that are well versed in accessibility, and you know that front end specialty.
So, it's good to see. So, you talk about accessibility for internal tools a lot, and I've been to a few of your workshops, which we'll get to in a few minutes, but how important is accessibility for internal tools?
[00:06:49] Marcy: Very important. And unfortunately, I think that's, we often hear, well, it's only for external facing stuff, you know? Cause I think companies, they have a lot of priorities. They're juggling a lot of things. I feel like they can only do so much. And so, if you have a fully abled team and you don't have colleagues with disabilities on your team, that bias really, I mean, it's not that it's crept in it's in your face, you know?
And so, I think they, they draw the line where they think it's acceptable to do so. And I think they, you know, it's hard to talk about intent. I mean, it's just, there's such a bias there that like the impact is that you make it very hard to hire people with disabilities on your teams when you're tooling is all inaccessible.
And so, as a team member, you can get a little bit worn out, being an accessibility specialist on a team when not only are you working on the projects that are in front of you, but you're also like, what about this HR tool that we're using? Like now all of a sudden, it's not really part of my job, but I'm reaching out to this HR tooling company and being like, hey, are you making your thing accessible?
And so, it's like the, the problem space just grows and grows and grows when you're, you're you take it that seriously, because, like we need people with disabilities on our teams. They're going to give the best information about their experience in using things. And so, it's not only the, the work that we're putting out as products or services, it's about the actual employment experience for people with disabilities.
And so that can be a little bit, depressing to people.
[00:08:31] Todd: Yeah. And what are some of the biggest accessibility issues you see in internal tooling that you've come across?
[00:08:37] Marcy: Gosh, I mean, it's for anything, a, a web-based tool, it's all the basics. you know, lack of keyboard, accessibility, I mean the worst one I've ever seen, I mean, I'm going to name it.
It's called Rippling. it's an HR tool and it's, it's kind of a funny inspiration for like the most inaccessible markup I've ever seen. Like, I, I think of examples from that real product that was being advertised all over San Francisco when I visited last and they had like divs for headings and divs, it was just like divs all the way down.
And you couldn't, you couldn't do anything with a keyboard. I mean, you could just for an HR tool where you're looking up your, you know, your 401k information and your health insurance and all that stuff, like you wouldn't be able to hire people with disabilities and have that tool. And so, it's like, you're putting a barrier, like by choosing that tool, there's so many barriers that people face, that's just really unfair and it's, it's sad.
I reached out to Rippling and they were like, oh, cool. We'll pass this on. And yeah, they would like change the color of the logo, but not fix anything.
[00:09:49] Todd: Yeah
[00:09:50] Marcy: But then there's another tool that, that company I worked out at that time, they use another tool called Lattice, which was for performance reviews.
And that team was really eager to fix stuff. Like I haven't checked it recently, but it was like, completely different response. Like one team just went yeah, yeah, yeah. The other team was like, oh my gosh, tell us more. And I got on a call with them, and they were, they were hungry to fix it. So, I have hope that if we collectively, you know, if you see stuff that your company has procured, like reach out to them.
I've been, I've met with another group, recently that was similar where they, they like booked a call with me to follow up. I mean, it's.
[00:10:31] Todd: Oh wow
[00:10:32] Marcy: There are teams out there who really care. They just don't know about it yet. And so, it is possible, and we can make such an impact in the world because then when those tools are adopted, like they might not be perfect.
But at least it's not just like clickable divs all the way down, you know?
[00:10:50] Todd: Yeah
[00:10:51] Marcy: So, it's very, very passionate about this.
[00:10:54] Todd: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It's it, you know, I never really thought about that, and I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't that part of your talk at An Event Apart when I saw you?
[00:11:07] Marcy: It might've been, it might've been, I, I at the time, you know, with an HR tool, if you can't get a demo version that doesn't have all of your own personal details, that's kind of a security risk. And so,
[00:11:16] Todd: Yeah.
[00:11:17] Marcy: it's not like here's my social security number. So, I had to like recreate it kind of, I think it was actually my Clarity talk in Garbage Pail Components. But I tried to recreate something that took those elements of just like not and thinking about accessibility at all. But they're selling the product and they're advertising.
And gosh, I wish people would just like, here's a free list of feedback fix this, this, this, and this. And like, it's like handing it to them on a platter and they
[00:11:48] Todd: Yeah.
[00:11:48] Marcy: still are like, yeah, whatever.
[00:11:50] Todd: Yeah, yeah. Well, that's, that kind of reminds me of, so you know, everything with the accessibility overlays lately, I reached out to a couple of sites and they're like, you know, thanks a lot, we're going to get on this blah, blah, blah.
Not a change since the overlays are still there. And it's like, you know, I, I, I, I can't bring myself to, you know, to go to these sites anymore because they use that overlay. And even though it doesn't affect me, it it's just something that, because I'm in accessibility, I don't want to use a product with something like that, or I don't want to visit a website with something like that, because I guess that's just the way that the way I think about it.
[00:12:35] Marcy: Well, it's almost like, it's almost like, you know, paying with your dollars, you know, you're, you're paying with your clicks and your attention.
[00:12:42] Todd: Yeah.
[00:12:42] Marcy: And if you just don't use the service, that sends a message. you know, and if collectively we do that, yeah, my pessimistic side doesn't know that will really make a dent cause like they just won't have your clicks.
But, but yeah, there's definitely that culture of we don't really care about this. We're just going to do shortcuts.
[00:13:02] Todd: Yup.
[00:13:03] Marcy: I mean, hopefully some of the companies in that position with the overlays, it's just a temporary measure. You know, but my fear is that they are not planning a redesign anytime soon.
[00:13:13] Todd: Yeah.
[00:13:14] Marcy: And the overlays are this persistent shortcut that just really doesn't need to be that way, you know? It's like some of the stuff is really not that complicated. But people are scared, you know, they're scared of lawsuits, and I worked with a group recently that said that they had a lawyer inquire about, you know, trying to do one of the drive by lawsuits. And they had an accessibility statement on their website that they had crafted, you know, with counsel.
And it was enough to like the lawyer went away. And so, I think there's, if you're working on it, you've got an accessibility statement, like I think the overlay is, yeah, it's unnecessary if you're
[00:13:55] Todd: Yeah.
[00:13:56] Marcy: really working on it, you know?
[00:13:57] Todd: Yeah. And one site in particular, so I go on there, I clicked, you know, I clicked that little icon, the overlay comes up and then all of a sudden, a sign up form for a modal for a newsletter comes up then an ad comes up, and then another, then another ad comes up in the header it's like, stuff like that, I'm like, okay, I need to get out of here. I need to get out of here. Cause I can’t
[00:14:26] Marcy: And then an overlay. Oh man.
[00:14:27] Todd: Yeah. Yeah. And you know it’s, I don't know. I have a lot of thoughts on this, but I've already had people come at me from, from a certain company on Twitter. So, yeah.
[00:14:43] Marcy: Oh, wow. Yeah, I've gotten one of the emails before. We just want to talk. It's like a weird hostage situation.
[00:14:50] Todd: Exactly. Yeah.
[00:14:51] Marcy: Like you don't want to talk, you want a one way conversation.
[00:14:55] Todd: Yeah. Yeah. So, getting to your own company. Again congratulations.
[00:15:02] Marcy: Thank you.
[00:15:03] Todd: What should listeners know about what you do and how you can help them.
[00:15:08] Marcy: Yes. So, I am really focused on what I absolutely love to do, which is accessibility engineering. And so having worked as a senior, individual contributor and at the lead level, I'm that person that you can hire to come in and be like a lead on your team for, you know, three to six months or something like that.
Maybe longer if it's a great fit. Yeah, but really coming in showing teams how to do accessibility at a higher level. so being able to come in and just like get dropped into a code base, be effective technically, provide comments on code reviews. And it's really like being an acting member of an engineering team and also talking to the design teams or creative teams as well.
As a hired expert that hopefully, you know, my goal in doing that is to get teams up to speed where they don't need me anymore after six months or something. Cause there's ample documentation. You know, the root causes of the problems have been addressed, you know, like if engineering keeps getting handed designs that are impossible to make accessible like let's solve that at the root of the problem. Which is that creative needs to get up to speed with accessibility as well.
And so, with each contract I've had, I'm getting closer and closer into like, what is, what is the sweet spot of what I like to do? And my last one really hit it. I got to do engineering work, you know, nitty gritty stuff, like making a calendar widget, more accessible.
Talking about automated testing approaches and it was awesome, and I would have kept going, I could have, but I'm really wanting to focus on workshops. Because part of my reason for starting a business is that I realized, I, funny enough, it was like right as the pandemic started, but I realized that life short, and I don't want to work 60 hours a week for a company.
[00:17:03] Todd: Yup.
[00:17:04] Marcy: I was super burned out just like working way too hard and not taking care of myself. And so independent work allows me to work a little bit less and but focus on the things that are important to me. And so, workshops I've enjoyed doing for a long time, but they were always on top of my regular job.
And I'm like, oh, no wonder I was burned out. So, by pausing for a moment on my billable contract work, I can get up to, up to speed on my workshop stuff. Kind of get that to a good place. And then I'll, I'll probably start with another client at some point.
[00:17:39] Todd: Yeah. So, here's a question, and I actually don't have on my list of questions here. Have you ever, and you probably have, have you ever, you know, been hired by someone that doesn't have any team or, or one person dedicated to accessibility?
[00:18:07] Marcy: Just to rephrase the question. Have I worked on a team where they don't have an accessibility person?
[00:18:08] Todd: Yeah.
[00:18:09] Marcy: Yeah. I mean, the, the group I just worked with, they had one champion, but they were really just like a software engineer who knew some things and cared about it. But yeah, a lot of companies don't have specialists and I have some mixed feelings about the specialist roles. Like you need people who are knowledgeable to really push stuff forward. At the same time, those individuals can be sort of set up to fail if the whole organization they're like, they got it, you, I’m like it's one person, you know, and you're a huge team.
Like that one person can only be so effective. And so, yeah, like, especially as a consultant too, like when I come in and then I leave again, you know, I really want there, them to be self-sufficient, and get up to speed. And so, a lot of my message is trying to build bridges across teams and get people talking and let them know that it's not just an engineering discipline.
You know, it's really the PM's need to know about it. The, you know, content writers need to know about it. And so, trying to get the responsibility spread around more is super important.
[00:19:20] Todd: Yeah, so speaking of workshops, I've been to a few and they're terrific. I always, you know, take one or two things from them and I’m able to use that in my routine. So, and I suggest people attend them because they're terrific. Can you tell listeners a little bit, about them as well? And I know you got some going on and I miss the early birds.
I was just like, oh man, I've been so busy, but can you tell the listeners about, the workshops that are coming up that you have?
[00:19:55] Marcy: Sure thing. Yeah. So, the sort of, in a nutshell, the goal of these workshops is to bottle up some of that experience that if I went and worked on a team, you know, what types of things would I be doing, to evaluate parts of code bases and make stuff accessible like that being bottled up into a series of workshops.
And so, my personal workshop series is under the banner Testing Accessibility. And really the name came about because the domain was available like a couple of years ago, I was like, really, it's available? But the goal is as developers, we should be testing our stuff. Like you might not be a QA person, you're a developer or even a, you know, more on the design develop, kind of straddling that line.
But the goal is to just be testing it all the time, you know, be like fluidly thinking about accessibility and testing it with our day-to-day work. And so, I have a series of workshops coming up starting this Wednesday, I have the first one on manual testing and tools and it lays the groundwork for all of the later workshops.
It’s starting with pretty like vanilla HTML, CSS and JavaScript, which in today's software development landscape is like, it's so refreshing. It's kind of weird like
[00:21:34] Todd: Yup.
[00:21:35] Marcy: I spent so much time in React and picked up VUE the other day on a project. And so, writing just, you know, straight, basic HTML, CSS and JavaScript is really fun to me.
[00:21:27] Todd: Yup. Oh yeah.
[00:21:28] Marcy: But it also, it also means that that first workshop is more applicable to people who aren't writing React yet.
Cause sometimes, you know, it just goes from zero to 60 and people who are just getting started are like, wait, what am I, where does the CSS go? There's just so many concepts that for this first one, I opted to really keep it simple so we can focus on what is rendered. What is happening for the keyboard, like remove some of those like layered concepts that just aren't really necessary to learn about the rendered output of a page.
And then in later, workshops in that series we'll get into things like automated testing, for more JavaScript, heavy applications, the mechanics of keyboard and screen reader, accessibility, like really diving deep into ARIA and focus management and all kinds of things like that. And so, it'll gradually like get more and more detailed as each of these workshops in the series goes on.
And yeah, it's taken me a while to get ev, to get to this point. I had to make sure my independent business was viable in the pandemic. And so, it's like, all right, now is the time.
[00:22:44] Todd: Yeah.
[00:22:45] Marcy: So, yeah, I start that journey this Wednesday, I'm pretty excited.
[00:22:47] Todd: Well, I'll definitely, you know, get a link in the show notes for that. And you said they are going on; how often will we be going on?
[00:22:56] Marcy: Periodically. So, the structure is that this first set the way that I'm doing it, it's partnership with Egghead. And so there will be a series of live workshops that are kind of, for me to get the material really nailed down. And then the, the kind of final goal will be to have a recorded product version.
So, if you miss the live workshops, have no fear, there will be a, like a really sweet accessible version of it that will just kind of live on. It's sort of like Kent C Dodds. He's got his testing JavaScript and Epic React and all of those things. But there's this live workshop part that comes first and I'm excited for those because I just, well I miss people.
So, building community is really great. And I love hearing people say like, this it's like me at CSUN when I'm like, this is it, you know.
[00:23:48] Todd: Yeah.
[00:23:49] Marcy: People we like to connect and, you know, share knowledge and get tips from our peers. And so, I'm super excited. There's a live workshop component. That'll be great.
[00:24:01] Todd: So, yeah, the, you know, I, I, you know, we talked about this before about, you know, getting back to conferences and, and stuff and, you know, the, the thing I'm looking forward to, and like, you know, I had mentioned earlier before we started recording, I, I have one I'm going to a November. Actually, yes. It's like three weeks away. Let's Connect.Tech in Atlanta.
So, that'll be my first one since what, 2019. So, it's like a little trepidation, but also, it's like I want to see people. I want to be able to fist bump or whatever. It's like
[00:24:46] Marcy: Elbow bump.
[00:24:47] Todd: gonna be, elbow bump. Well, and I know that, you know, it might be a little longer, but do you have any plans on, on doing any conferences like next year or do you just want to, cause I, I know a few people I've spoken to have said yes and I kind of, you know, definitely understand, you know, they just want to, it's one of those wait and see kinda things, feel everything out, everything like that.
Is, is that the approach you're taking, or do you have anything scheduled?
[00:25:18] Marcy: I have one tentatively scheduled I'm SmashingConf, San Francisco, which I'm really thrilled about because it's west coast and they're just really fun conferences. And I have done quite a few of those. And so, after such a long break, because my last one was, I think Accessibility Toronto in 2019, like right at the end of the year.
So it was, you know, right before the world totally changed.
[00:25:45] Todd: Right.
[00:25:46] Marcy: But I realized so much of what was making me burned out was just, I was running on empty, you know, trying to prep for talks and procrastinating a little bit, traveling a lot, not taking care of my body. And so, I will go about this differently. You know, really keep moving.
I remember recording Frontend Masters, and I was not moving my body enough and my hands were getting tingly. So that's not cool and super scary. So, I'm already thinking about like, okay, if I'm going to introduce travel and conferences, I want to be choosy about communities that I, and places that I go, just because I'm not gonna, I don't want the volume that I had before.
I want things to be meaningful. And while I'm there, I really wanna, you know, go for walks, you know, maybe find friends at the conference to go for walks with, and just try to go about it differently because I think I I've left out caring for myself. I was just so like trying to get to the next talk and trying to like, all my energy was going outward, and it was super out of balance.
And so, as I think of what to schedule, I want to make sure it's sustainable. Cause it just, there's so many conferences and so many great opportunities to connect with people, but you can't do it all, you know?
[00:27:04] Todd: Right.
[00:27:05] Marcy: So that's, that's how I'm thinking about conferences, and I have accepted one, but I am not eager to load up my calendar.
[00:27:13] Todd: Yeah. Yeah, and yeah, I thought of that. Cause I have been seeing some dev conferences here and there, and it’s like I don't know if I can do that right now, plus, you know, I moved almost across country, so, that took place and, you know, among a couple other things, but yeah.
[00:27:30] Marcy: Oh wait, I did think of one more actually.
[00:27:32] Todd: Okay.
[00:27:33] Marcy: and it's coming up really soon, Cascadia JS.
[00:27:34] Todd: Okay, yeah.
[00:27:35] Marcy: I am doing some workshops there, they're different than my Testing Accessibility workshops, but I'm sort of like, I don't, yeah, I don't really know about my plans to go to the conference cause I'm definitely still concerned about, the Delta variant and COVID, they're doing a virtual part.
You can also go in person. I’m not really, yeah, I'm sort of undecided about how much to participate just for safety sake, but I really am excited that that's happening and excited to connect with people somehow.
[00:28:03] Todd: Yeah.
[00:28:04] Marcy: so yeah, how can I forget Cascadia?
[00:28:05] Todd: Yeah, we’ll throw that in the show notes as well. So, you know, I, I you know, see your pictures on Twitter when, you know, out hiking and biking and, you know, it looks like, you know, you're doing the self-care thing. And, you know, how
dog barking
[00:28:19] Marcy: Oops
[00:28:20] Todd: There’s the dog.
[00:28:21] Marcy: I have a dog
[00:28:22] Todd: Can you talk, you know, about self-care and you know, how much that's, cause it seems to me and correct me if I'm wrong, but you know, it seems to me like it, it's changed an awful lot with you in, in the past year maybe, maybe 2?
[00:28:36] Marcy: Oh yeah, yeah. In the past two years
[00:28:39] Todd: Yeah.
[00:28:40] Marcy: I mean, to be honest, my life completely flipped upside down when the pandemic started.
And I remember those, experiences of being like, I can't go on like this, like the tingling hands, I mean, just really unhappy, like deep inside. And so, I always loved hiking and biking, but it was the first thing to go, you know, it's just like, ah, whatever, I'll exercise later, it's the first thing to go.
But I realized over time that like, I just couldn't keep doing that. And so, self-care has become paramount. Like it's the first thing. It's like other things go like, oh, I'll work later. You know, it just because it became so important that now my body will be like, you need to move, you haven't moved yet today.
And kind of funny, I mean, I, I got the apple watch to be like, hey you need to move, and it's actually been really effective. It doesn't work great when you're out in the wilderness because the battery life is terrible.
[00:29:31] Todd: Yeah.
[00:29:32] Marcy: And I'm really excited that I get out there enough that I'm like, I don't need this thing anymore. Because it really fills my cup back up and that's something I wish more people in our industry would do.
Like I keep seeing these tweets about people. Like, I dunno if it's a joke or meme, but they're like, let's touch grass. Like, do you, are you that like, do you not get outside? Cause like go lay in the grass. I mean, it's really wet here right now, so maybe not here,
[00:30:01] Todd: Yeah.
[00:30:02] Marcy: But like getting outside and away from the computer is so essential because you just, we just can't function like in work mind all the time.
And so, yeah, I'm a pretty big advocate for that, you know, actual work-life balance. and that's going to look different for everyone. Like not everyone wants to go be out, you know, living in a van for two weeks, or hiking, I mean maybe, you know, wheelchair accessible places might change, you know, where you can go, but it's still that idea of giving your body and your mind a chance to move around, not think about work.
Like just, yeah, I can't stress that enough.
[00:30:45] Todd: Yeah.
[00:30:46] Marcy: How important that is.
[00:30:47] Todd: Yeah, and that's a good reminder to me because I need to get up and walk out the front door and make sure that I, you know, get outside, maybe take a walk around. It's changed a lot since I moved, because I could go out either go to the ocean. I could go into the woods, hiking a mountain. Now I mean, I got to walk around, you know, the concrete jungle here. So, but still I got to get out because I I've been lacking in getting out. It it's actually, I can feel the change as well. As far as my weight, I bought this apple watch and, you know, it's, like I said, telling me to get up. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to get up, and
[00:31:37] Marcy: Yeah.
[00:31:38] Todd: So, I, I
[00:31:39] Marcy: It was, it was effective for me too. I was like, oh man, I've been sitting all day. Okay. I need to get moving.
[00:31:45] Todd: Yeah, yeah. This thing has made a difference actually.
[00:31:47] Marcy: Nice.
[00:31:48] Todd: So yeah, in the, in the self-care is something that I finally cause I'm like flighty on occasion. So, it's like, you know, I’ll forget and then all of a sudden something, or someone will remind me, you know, it's time to take care of yourself.
I usually shut down on a weekend and just enjoy the weekend. But this past weekend I did some stuff, but for the first time, and I don't know how long, because I’ve been working for so long, but yeah, that, that self-care is something that I'm really big on now. And, and, yeah, because you know, all these pictures I see of you in the mountains, just like, so, from back east, you know, the mountains, aren't that big.
And I look at the scenery behind you and I'm like, man, I wish I, you know, I, I mean, I could go out there and hike around, but it's just totally different and it wouldn't be something that will be something to do as far as, even around here, because now that I'm in Arizona, it's hot in, it's just, I don't know if I want to walk, you know, like around, what they get for all around out there, but we'll see.
[00:33:04] Marcy: I think you're in the right time of year, might not be too hot.
[00:33:07] Todd: It's not that bad
[00:33:08] Marcy: Great, yeah. I love Arizona, especially for mountain biking and getting out on trails. Yeah. I think no matter where you are finding something, some place to go to can be really refreshing. And I'm just so curious, like where does that go? Where does that connect to? You know? And so that's part of what gets me out so deep and so far into the mountains is just this innate curiosity of like, where does this go?
[00:33:35] Todd: Right.
[00:33:35] Marcy: And you know, having the ability to take photographs out there really, nourishes that part of me that wanted to be a photojournalist. And so, it's really neat to get to show people where I'm hiking into. Cause it's often like. I mean, it could take me six hours to hike into these places.
[00:33:52] Todd: Right.
[00:33:52] Marcy: And so, it's like a little, you know, a little portal that I'm showing people into this world.
And, especially when trails are really hard to access. I mean, you have to hike in there on foot. I mean, it's, it takes a long time to get there. And so, I love being able to share that and hopefully inspire, you know, colleagues like yourself to go find stuff near you,
[00:34:14] Todd: Yup.
[00:34:14] Marcy: Because there's always something.
[00:34:16] Todd: Yeah.
[00:34:17] Marcy: Somewhere fun to go. And maybe you'll meet people on the trail because I love talking to people on the trail and
[00:34:22] Todd: Yeah.
[00:34:23] Marcy: I've like met, met, who's now a pretty close friend on the mountain bike trail right by my house. So, it can be a great way to gain some community and go see
[00:34:31] Todd: Yeah.
[00:34:31] Marcy: a place you haven't seen before.
[00:34:34] Todd: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Now, now we are on the topic of pictures and the, you know, all the pictures of the scenery and stuff like that. Now I got to get to the pies because
[00:34:49] Marcy: Oh yes
[00:34:49] Todd: every time, every time I see a picture of a pie, I'm like, that looks amazing. So how has that, you know, how's that going? You know, the pie baking and, and how has that helped you, you know, with the self-care, has it?
[00:35:03] Marcy: Oh, it's, it's definitely related. And, and getting out for exercises related too so that I can eat the pie. But I took a pie workshop from a woman named Kate McDermott, her website’s artofthepie.com. And I took an in-person pie workshop years ago that my mom had gifted me this, this pie workshop. I think that was probably about 10 years ago.
And now I just. It's like muscle memory now. And, and folks will be like, why don't you just buy a pie or buy a pie crust? And I'm like, no.
[00:35:38] Todd: Yeah, yeah
[00:35:38] Marcy: But I really enjoy using seasonal fruits to put in there, like this summer, my partner suggested blueberry and lo and behold, we discovered that's like both of our favorite. Although mixed berry and apple and pumpkin are all really great, but, cooking and baking for me is it's this warm, like comforting space where I can make stuff that nourishes me and my family.
It makes me feel really good about myself because I have, I've made something, you know? It's, I sometimes have a screen to reference a recipe or something, but it's, it's tactile and it's there smells and tastes. And it's been something that's given me immense joy and I'm really getting deeper and deeper into it.
I'm reading the book called Salt Fat Acid Heat
[00:36:27] Todd: Yes
[00:36:28] Marcy: And kind of learning about like using your senses to just see what's going on, or smell or, you know, listen like the apple pies. I remember Kate McDermott saying, you know, they're done when you hear this whoop whoop sound of the bubbles, you know, in the pie filling.
And so, it just takes me completely out of work brain. And I think that's really great to have something like that. Like for some folks that might be video games. I personally I'm like too much screen time. I can't do it, but cooking is it's even like my, my safe idea. If I'm having a rough time or something I, I now use the, even the idea of cooking as kind of a grounding safe concept.
Because it's, it's family oriented. I learned from my mom and my sister. And it's just really great to make something that you’re like wow, this tastes better than most restaurants in my city and it was cheaper to make.
[00:37:23] Todd: Yeah
[00:37:23] Marcy: So yeah, the, the baking part was kind of the, my entryway into learning how much cooking meant to me. So, it's great to hear that you're excited about pies.
[00:37:35] Todd: Yeah, oh I love me a pie.
[00:37:36] Marcy: Oh my gosh, me too. That it's, it's really, they're worth the effort for sure.
[00:37:41] Todd: Yeah, yeah. And blueberry is one of my favorites cause when living in Maine that's like one of the blueberry states is a lot of blueberry production there. So that was a big, you go out and find a big, huge blueberry patch and just pick all the wild blueberries you could.
[00:37:58] Marcy: Yeah
[00:37:58] Todd: Make pies from them. So yeah
[00:37:59] Marcy: One for me, one for the bucket. Three for me one for the bucket
[00:38:04] Todd: Exactly, yes, yes. Yeah, and, and again you know, cooking is something I love to do. I did it for a long time, professionally between, you know, I guess, lack of better term gigs when I was doing freelance stuff. When I was doing WordPress and PHP development. So, I was working in restaurants and it's just like getting to just shut everything down and then go into the kitchen and make stuff.
Just, you know, I want to make this and just doing it. It's just, yeah. There's a lot of
[00:38:45] Marcy: Sounds like fun.
[00:38:46] Todd: Yeah, it used, you know, like I said, that family element to it, so, you know, it's, it's, it's something I love to do.
[00:38:53] Marcy: And did you say your new job is something restaurant related? Did I hear that?
[00:38:58] Todd: Yeah. It's they do, they sell wholesale, they lots of stuff, Webstaurant Store.
[00:39:04] Marcy: That's a perfect combo. I love it
[00:39:06] Todd: I know
[00:39:07] Marcy: when our paths and our interests kind of collide. That's so cool.
[00:39:09] Todd: Now I'm afraid of, I'm going to start spending a lot of money on the website for cooking gear and stuff. So yeah.
[00:39:19] Marcy: I bought this whisk with a screen reader.
[00:39:21] Todd: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, as we, getting down on time. Coming up on the three questions I ask everybody during the podcast. So, I'm going to get into those questions. You're ready?
[00:39:35] Marcy: Yep.
[00:39:36] Todd: Okay. What about the web these days excites you and keeps you excited in what you do?
[00:39:44] Marcy: Oh, gosh. I think to me, there's kind of something stable about it that keeps me excited. Like more than all of the, like there's new technologies all the time, the stability I see and that there's this human element that we are always going to have to make stuff accessible. And so even in the face of like, oh my gosh, I blinked. And there's like three new technologies that I don't know what people are talking about.
[00:40:11] Todd: Yup
[00:40:12] Marcy: We still need to apply this user experience mindset to the web. And so that gets me excited and it frees me from fear of, I don't know what those new three things are or 10 things or whatever, but those principles are always there. And so that gives me confidence and excitement that like, I have something to offer, you know, we as engineers, we have something to offer by being passionate and curious about making stuff more accessible.
[00:40:45] Todd: Definitely, definitely. That's actually, so from my job is a bit of a ColdFusion element that involves like I’m actually seeing ColdFusion code for the first time in I don't know how long, I think since
[00:41:01] Marcy: That’s like an old one, isn’t it? You’re like
[00:41:02] Todd: Yeah, yes
[00:41:03] Marcy: reach forward and reach back sometimes.
[00:41:07] Todd: Yeah. That's I, I think the last time I touched it was 5.5, five or 5.5, but yeah, it's been a while and it's like, wow, you know.
[00:41:16] Marcy: People are getting the job done with all kinds of technologies
[00:41:20] Todd: Yeah
[00:41:21] Marcy: aren't they?
[00:41:23] Todd: Oh yeah, it's still it ColdFusion is still pretty relevant too. It's, you know, it's not, I don't know of a lot of people that, you know, still develop in it, but there it's still out there. So, yeah. Second question is, if there were one thing you could change about the web that we know today, what would that be?
[00:41:44] Marcy: Oh, it's gotta be this overlay thing.
[00:41:49] Todd: Yeah, yeah
[00:41:50] Marcy: I mean, just that like shortcut mindset of, there's just something really perverse about it that it makes me feel ill. You know? Like there's this dark undercurrent with the whole overlay thing that just really bums me out because we've been trying so hard to like do it the right way and really break it down for people.
So that it's like, not as daunting, you know, even though accessibility can be challenging. I think if the marketing efforts weren't so heavy handed and so, like, gross. Like maybe there's a way it could be more successful, but that ship has sailed. So yeah, it's gotta be the overlay situation. It's just like, ugh, icky, you know?
[00:42:32] Todd: And I just, I don't know if you saw it, but they, there were one company in particular they got the woman that originally did the voice of Siri to do an advertisement for them or something.
[00:42:47] Marcy: Ugh
[00:42:48] Todd: How, you know, how worse can it get? With
[00:42:51] Marcy: Oh man.
[00:42:51] Todd: And I guess there was,
[00:42:52] Marcy: Gross
[00:42:53] Todd: Yeah, there was a, a commercial, another company used that used a bunch of disabled people. It's like, people are pointing out, oh, that's ableist and all this stuff, it's just like, it just doesn't like you said makes you ill. It makes me ill, you know. And. It's just like, I, I
[00:43:16] Marcy: It's like, it’s bullying
[00:43:16] Todd: Yeah
[00:43:17] Marcy: It’s like a bullying tactic.
[00:43:17] Todd: Yeah
[00:43:18] Marcy: Yeah. I don't like that, yeah.
[00:43:22] Todd: I said, you know, if, if a line of job, one line of JavaScript makes your site accessible about as me putting on a pair of Nike's makes me Michael Jordan. You know, it doesn't. It doesn’t.
[00:43:36] Marcy: That is a great way to put it.
[00:43:40] Todd: It doesn’t.
[00:43:41] Marcy: Yeah.
[00:43:41] Todd: So, and I, you know, and I'll put this in the show notes as well. We get the overlay fact sheet, I don't know if you had signed that or not, but
[00:43:49] Marcy: I did. Yup
[00:43:50] Todd: Yeah, I did too, because that's, you know, over, I think it's over 600 people now and, you know
[00:43:57] Marcy: Wow
[00:43:57] Todd: our colleagues have signed it. But yeah, that's, that's a big hurdle now. It's like, we don't have like disabled people don't have hurdles enough already as it is now, we got to have this going on.
[00:44:13] Marcy: Yeah, they're like you will like it.
[00:44:16] Todd: Yeah, it, it's,
[00:44:16] Marcy: Ugh
[00:44:18] Todd: it’s got the element they're funded by, by VC. So, it's kind of got that, you know, greasy element to it. You know that
[00:44:23] Marcy: Yeah, yeah
[00:44:24] Todd: Dark web-ish kind of feel.
[00:44:26] Marcy: It does, yeah.
[00:44:28] Todd: Yeah
[00:44:28] Marcy: VC money can feel like the, the under, what do they call it in stranger things? The like upside down, it feels like that
[00:44:37] Todd: Yeah
[00:44:37] Marcy: I've been in a company where you could feel the VC money come in and just like the mood changes and everything turns dark.
And it's, it I will say I have worked with one VC funded startup for accessibility, that doesn't feel like that. And so not to be like, not all startups, but,
[00:44:53] Todd: Right
[00:44:53] Marcy: It can, it can be really dark and like people's, intentions are not good.
[00:45:01] Todd: Yeah
[00:45:01] Marcy: Yeah. Yeah. Let's think more about pie.
[00:45:06] Todd: Yeah, yes, definitely. The last question I have, is, and we've, you know, touched on this a little bit during the, during the talk here is the favorite part of front end develop that you really liked the most that you nerd out over?
[00:45:23] Marcy: Oh yeah. It's gotta be interactions and mechanics of keyboard
[00:45:27] Todd: Yeah
[00:45:27] Marcy: accessibility and screen reader accessibility, focus management. Yeah, like probing tab index and, you know, making things more ergonomic, if you can't use a mouse. I just, I love that stuff.
And I love teaching people about it cause. You know, I like, I love it and I enjoy it and I can teach people, you know, the, the basic mechanics of it and we can get really detailed. But there's so many scenarios that. It's it just depends. Like what's going to be the best experience on like what the actual design that you're implementing.
So, I love workshops because collectively we're going to be solving so many different variations of all these, all of these patterns, that it's really cool to like, share that knowledge and excitement for it. So yeah, it's like I enjoy doing it and I really enjoy teaching it too.
[00:46:19] Todd: You mentioned no mouse. And you had, what, what, what is it called? No mouse day, or, or
[00:46:24] Marcy: No mouse days? Yeah.
[00:46:26] Todd: Yeah
[00:46:28] Marcy: I made, I made as a total gag and then it like went viral kind of.
[00:46:34] Todd: Yeah, yeah
[00:46:34] Marcy: Yeah
[00:46:35] Todd: That is one of the hardest things I have ever done. That's try to operate a website, without a mouse, and then you gotta say that's really a daunting thing.
[00:46:44] Marcy: Yeah. The, the package, if people aren't familiar it's, it's just an NPM package that injects a CSS style sheet that turns off the mouse cursor for everything. And so, you can't cheat when you have that enabled. And in the spirit of the gosh, what is it like? I forget the name of the University of Washington had this effort to get people to turn their mouse off at least one day a week.
And so, I had this NPM package to do that.
[00:47:09] Todd: Yeah
[00:47:09] Marcy: Because if you can't use a thing with your mouse, I mean, you, you learn really quickly that you have
[00:47:15] Todd: Yeah
[00:47:15] Marcy: to make stuff more accessible and
[00:47:18] Todd: Yup
[00:47:18] Marcy: yeah, I wish people would just, make testing without the mouse, a regular habit, like, every day, every week. Cause we could really make a big impact, like how many banking sites and you know, utility websites aren't like just don't work without a mouse. I'm like, how did this happen? So yeah,
[00:47:40] Todd: One of one now that you mentioned though, you know, the banking website, but one of that I had to go on, the IRS website and it was a nightmare. I'll just leave it at that.
[00:47:52] Marcy: Oh, bummer. Well, hopefully it's just like design aesthetic, and not that it was
[00:47:56] Todd: Yup
[00:47:56] Marcy: completely inaccessible because
[00:47:58] Todd: Not completely, but
[00:48:00] Marcy: Yeah.
[00:48:00] Todd: Not good either, so.
[00:48:01] Marcy: Yeah.
[00:48:01] Todd: So, we've come to the end. I have, you know, had a great conversation today and, you know, definitely had to get the questions in about the pies because
[00:48:15] Marcy: Important stuff.
[00:48:16] Todd: Yes, the important stuff. So, to close out the podcast with my guests, letting the listeners know what they have currently going on and where people can find you online.
[00:48:26] Marcy: Sure thing. Yeah. So, my focus, as I mentioned right now is on workshops and my testing accessibility project is really kicking off this week with a series of live workshops that if you can't make those, I got you, we'll have a recorded version of each of those later.
And, yeah, you can find me on my website, it's marcysutton.com. You can find me on Twitter, although I'm using that less and less these days, just to spend more time with, you know, my friends and family and that self-care we talked about gets me away from the screen.
[00:48:59] Todd: Yup
[00:49:00] Marcy: But if you want to see what I'm really up to, you could always check my Instagram. That's Marcy Sutton. That's where all my, like a lot more hiking and pie baking and all kinds of stuff goes.
[00:49:12] Todd: Alright, and again, thank you Marcy, for spending time today, you know, talking to me and chatting. And, it was again, a great conversation and, look forward to, seeing some of those, workshops that you have going on, hopefully. And if not, definitely catch them when they come out on video.
[00:49:31] Marcy: Thank you, Todd
[00:49:32] Todd: Thank you.
[00:49:32] Marcy: It's super awesome to catch up with you. Cause
[00:49:35] Todd: Yeah
[00:49:35] Marcy: I really miss people
[00:49:38] Todd: Yeah
[00:49:38] Marcy: like nerd out with, with my colleagues, you know? It’s great.
[00:49:43] Todd: Yeah. That's actually part of the reason why I named the podcast the way I did, because you know, it's like nerd out over things and just, you know, we tried to connect and there was like, you know, I got to do something over this pandemic. So, I was like, meh, I'll do a podcast. See how it goes.
[00:50:01] Marcy: Love it. Thank you for creating it. This is awesome.
[00:50:05] Todd: Thank you. Thank you, listeners, for tuning in to the Front End Nerdery Podcast, I'll be back next time, with a new guest, new conversation about front end design development and other topics, especially accessibility. If you would please rate this podcast on your podcast device of choice, like, subscribe and watch on the Front End Nerdery YouTube channel. Links to transcripts and show notes are there. I'm Todd Libby and this has been the Front End Nerdery Podcast. Thanks. And we'll see you next time.