Amber Hinds

Get to know Amber 🎙️

Can you start by painting a picture of what a typical day looks like for you? What fuels your passion for the work you do, and how does it tie into your involvement with WCEU?

As a leader of a company that delivers both accessibility services and products, plus contributes a lot to accessibility in the WordPress community, my days are split between client work, strategic planning on our plugins, and creating a lot of digital content on website accessibility and accessibility in the WordPress space. I’m not sure there is a typical day! In a typical month, I spend a lot of time screen reader testing websites and consulting on accessibility with clients – days without meetings are few and far between. I also run the WordPress Accessibility Meetup, which meets twice per month, and record a podcast. I do a lot of Q/A work on our custom builds and spend time thinking about how we can make our plugin, Equalize Digital Accessibility Checker, more useful.

I got started in accessibility incidentally – because we had clients who were requesting it. As I learned more and more about accessibility, I realized that it was something I really wanted to focus on. Making things both accessible and beautiful is a fun challenge, and it really appeals to my inner perfectionist who loves quality code. There is a ton of overlap between accessibility, overall usability, and search engine optimization, so it felt like a natural next step as we started building enterprise websites. As I became friends with people who’re blind or rely on assistive technology, accessibility took on a more personal face. It just feels like the right thing to do to make sure all people have access to the same tools and information on the web; it appeals to my sense of justice.

In 2020, I started the WordPress Accessibility Meetup. I also started speaking more on accessibility-related topics because I noticed there wasn’t a ton of information on how to build accessible WordPress sites out there. The first step to building a better internet is education. I’m excited to be giving a workshop on accessibility testing at WCEU, to help attendees learn more about accessibility. 

What sparked your interest in becoming a speaker at WCEU? Was there a particular moment or experience that motivated you to share your insights with this community?

This will be my first year attending WCEU. It’s an interesting year for web accessibility in Europe because of the European Accessibility Act, a directive that requires all websites, including website for private businesses to be accessible and conform to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 AA. Websites must be compliant, and enforcement begins in June 2025, so web developers, agencies, and content creators have a year to fix their websites. There’s still a lot of confusion about how even to know if a website is accessible and compliant with the European Accessibility Act. My hope is to provide clarity on how to identify issues and make accessibility feel less overwhelming.

For those awaiting your talk, could you give us a preview of what we can expect to learn from your talk? Any sneak peeks?

I’ll be leading a workshop, which means an opportunity to dive in and do some actual testing on your website. If you’re looking for new tools or want to try using a screen reader for the first time, it’s the the perfect talk to attend. You also don’t have to be a developer. There are lots of things that non-technical people can do to test for accessibility and either fix right in the editor or flag for a developer.

Is it your first time at a WCEU or WordPress event? Any standout memories or lessons learned that you’d like to share?

It’ll be my first time at WCEU, but I’ve attended lots of WordPress events in the states. I’m looking forward to seeing how the WordPress community in Europe compares to that in the United States. The biggest lesson I’ve learned from attending WordCamps in the past is that you take so much away from other attendees. If you go with your team members or a friend, you’ll get so much more out of the event if you don’t spend a ton of time with them. Introduce yourself to new people, whether in the sponsor halls or before a session, and sit with someone new at lunch. A lot of my best take aways from WordCamps came from outside the sessions.

Looking beyond the scheduled sessions, what do you hope attendees will take away from their overall experience at WCEU? How can they leverage the event to enhance their professional development or personal growth? 

As a proponent of accessibility, I hope that people will spend more time thinking about how to ensure their websites or WordPress plugins work for people with disabilities. If you haven’t heard about accessibility before, definitely make a point of attending at least one accessibility talk. 

Outside the sessions, think about how you can connect to the WordPress community, whether as a contributor or by building more social media connections and staying in touch with people you meet after the event. My business has grown immensely thanks to connections I made at WordPress Meetups and WordCamps. You never know which connections you make will help you grow to the next level.