Unofficial field guide / specimen no. 001

Oh, hello.

I'm Jessica. I make the internet more accessible, ask questions that probably need asking, and have never knowingly let a bad system off the hook.

Meet the human Skip to the chaos

ACCESSIBILITY NERD SYSTEMS THINKER PROFESSIONAL 'BUT WHY?' ENTHUSIAST

Chapter 01 / The human

More than a job title.

Certified accessibility expert. Uncertified collector of big questions. Equal parts practical problem-solver and curious menace.

Jessica works at the intersection of digital accessibility, education, technology, and the stubborn conviction that we can build things better.

She writes, teaches, explains, challenges, and occasionally deploys a well-timed meme to make a complicated idea actually stick.

Her preferred unit of progress? Somebody understanding something they didn't understand five minutes ago.

01 / THE WORK

Make it work for everyone.

CPWA-certified, deeply invested in accessibility, and allergic to check-the-box thinking. Real people are the point.

02 / THE METHOD

Pull the thread.

A broken experience is rarely just one broken thing. Find the incentives, assumptions, and systems underneath it.

03 / THE VIBE

Serious ≠ solemn.

Big ideas. Strong opinions. A soft spot for science fiction. Evidence that a swear word and a thoughtful argument can coexist.

Chapter 02 / Pick a rabbit hole

Choose your own digression.

Three doors. No wrong answers. Open any or all of them.

The accessible web

The web is for people. All of them. Accessibility isn't an optional decorative layer you sprinkle onto something after launch.

Jessica's specialty is turning standards into something humans can understand and teams can actually do.

Side quest: Explain ARIA without summoning a demon.

The big questions

What happens when AI becomes a user of our services? Who gets to choose what “better” means? Why are we so good at optimizing the wrong thing?

Technology is fascinating. The human choices built into it are even more interesting.

Side quest: Have a civilized argument with a dystopia.

The plot twists

Science fiction, games with actual choices, memorable dialogue, and humor that knows exactly when to be inappropriate.

There is room in a serious life for enormous curiosity and ridiculous joy.

Side quest: Don't panic. Obviously.

Chapter 03 / A working theory of everything

Question the default.

“Who does this work for — and who did we forget to ask?”

Whether she's looking at a website, an AI system, a public service, or a particularly baffling process, the question keeps coming back to people. Who benefits? Who is excluded? What happens when somebody tries to use this in the real world?

And after all the thinking, arguing, and investigating comes the useful bit: What do we change?

Chapter 04 / Interactive apparatus

The question machine.

Every good conversation needs somebody willing to ask the inconvenient follow-up.

Press the button. Receive a thought. Side effects may include curiosity and a dramatically longer meeting.

Today's entirely unsolicited question

What are we measuring — and is it actually what matters?

Operates with a mouse, keyboard, or other standard button activation. No mystery gestures required.

Appendix / Field notes

Things worth knowing.

01 / Expertise

Accessibility without the mysticism.

Standards matter. So does explaining them well enough that somebody can act on them.

02 / Communication

There will be analogies.

Possibly cats. Probably a pop-culture reference. Definitely an attempt to make the idea memorable.

03 / Curiosity

The second question is often better.

Simple answers are appealing. They're also occasionally hiding an enormous mess.

04 / Belief

Make things better, not just compliant.

Fix once. Benefit multiple times. Build for how people actually live.

You have reached the end of the beginning

Don't panic.

This is an interpretation, not a complete inventory. No single website could contain an entire human, and trying would be a spectacularly bad information architecture decision.

Back to the beginning

Want the real thing? Read Jessica's writing at jessica11y.com.