The Importance of Accessibility: KotlinConf Edition
KotlinConf 2025: Accessibility in Jetpack Compose - A Sneak Peak
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Do you ever prioritize or take into account how accessible your app is or an app you use often? Do you ever consider how accessible the apps you use or build are? Well, it is an important aspect of any app to make sure your product is inclusive to users of all abilities. But before we get into the importance of accessibility, I am excited to say that I will be speaking at KotlinConf 2025 in Denmark this month! 🎤 It is crazy to think I have the opportunity at this stage in my career to give a presentation at a conference run by Jetbrains! I am super excited and nervous at the same time 😅. The topic of my presentation is Building Inclusive Jetpack Compose Apps: Leveraging Kotlin and the Accessibility Scanner.
So this newsletter will be a little sneak peak. Now have you ever imagined using your app without one of your senses? Take your eyesight for example. Could you utilize your app if you couldn’t see the screen? Now if you are thinking, “Vanessa how is that possible? 🤔”. Well, there are tools called screen readers like TalkBack, in Android’s case, that read to the user that may not be able to see/read the screen for various reasons. The tool will tell the user if something is a button, what something says, and what actions they can take to navigate the app experience, to name a few, all through audio feedback.
Since a significant percentage of the population have some sort of disability, you can shift your mindset to evaluate your app and see if you are accounting for that subgroup of the market. While more accessibility can improve the quality of your app and in turn benefit your business, you also need to think about that it isn’t only about business but a way to be in the world, feel included, and be able to use tools or products to your advantage. If you put yourself in another user’s shoes that may not have the same advantages or abilities as you, you may be surprised what you didn’t take into account when developing your app for your customers or fellow developers to use.
Since I am just giving you a little snippet of my talk, I hope this preview gets you thinking more critically about how you can bake accessibility into your development process from the very start. Remember, accessibility shouldn’t be an afterthought but a requirement throughout the development process. That’s all for today, I am not sure if any of the KotlinConf talks are live streamed but I will definitely share a link to the recording when it becomes available. For now, here is my speaker page.
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