While sitting in my dorm room at George Mason University in 2016, I came across an event listing from the Center for Accessibility at DC Public Library where people could come in and have conversations about assistive technology. I had been considering starting a blog/website where I would share resources about assistive technology, but I wasn’t sure how to get started as a new accessibility advocate, or if what I had to share would even have value. I decided to go to the event and see what others were sharing, with plans to more or less lurk in the background and observe.
When I arrived at the event the next day, one of the first people to greet me was Mercia Bowser, who referred to me lovingly as “Miss George Mason” and started asking me lots of questions, giving me lists of people to talk to and events to attend, and encouraging me to go ahead and hit publish on my first post. I started attending many of these events and meetups with her encouragement, and I’ll never forget her shouting “you go, Miss George Mason!” when I finished my first ever public talk. Of course, Mercia knew my name was Veronica, but she said that she wanted to make sure I would always know she was cheering me on from the audience and that she would stand out from my “adoring fans.”
Mercia Bowser passed away in February 2021 from COVID-19, and was the subject of numerous tributes from CNN, The New York Times, and other news outlets for her advocacy work and her close relationship with her sister, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser. When I thought about my own way to pay tribute to Mercia, I decided that I would put together a list of tips and advice for new accessibility advocates based on the advice she had given to me over the years, and that I have passed down to others since. So in honor of Mercia, here is my advice for new accessibility advocates or people who want to get started with writing about visual impairment, along with some stories about my early public advocacy work that Mercia was there to witness.
Start with one thing, care about it a lot, and show others why they should care too
One of the reasons why I was so nervous to publish my first few posts on Veroniiiica was that I wasn’t sure what they should be about. The world of low vision assistive technology is so huge, and I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about first, or how to get started. When I mentioned everything I was thinking of writing about on my future website to Mercia and the other people attending the accessibility group, they all responded by telling me to start with one thing.
What is that one thing?
Find one thing you are passionate about, learn everything you can about it, and share what you have learned about it to help others enjoy it too. You can always expand this topic or explore other topics later, but really taking your time to learn about one thing or one area is much easier to approach than trying to be a million things at once. Instead of a grand introduction post, the first post on my blog is about Android accessibility since I knew I would want to share content about accessibility settings in mainstream technology, and how I use them as a student with low vision.
Maybe you’re interested in accessible public transportation or ridesharing services in your community, or you really enjoy a particular hobby, sport, or type of technology and want to share how you participate in it or use it with your visual impairment.
Maybe you have a favorite subject in school and want to share how others with visual impairments can learn it too, or you’re great at a skill and want to teach others. Maybe you have a great way of using a specific software/device, a great way of taking notes and organizing information, or you have a cool “hack” for participating in something with visual impairment. Maybe you really love braille and want to share how it helps you, or maybe there’s another way you access information that you don’t see people talking about as often.
Alternatively, maybe you haven’t met anyone else with the same condition as you before and can create a platform to share how you do different things or use assistive technology with this condition. There are so many great possibilities! What’s important is to know there is no “wrong way” to be visually impaired, and that the spectrum of visual impairment provides options for people to share a variety of perspectives.
Related links
- Make Any Android Smartphone Accessible For $20
- Veronica With Four Eyes Categories
- Why I Study Assistive Technology
- What I Want Congress Members To Know About Assistive Technology
Choose a platform/medium for sharing information that you’ll use often
Another thing to consider is how you will share what you have learned and what advocacy will look like for you. Some people create social media platforms and share pictures or videos, while others might prefer to write articles or blog posts that are published either on their own site or on a website for a well-known organization. One example of an organization that accepts guest posts is Perkins School for the Blind’s Paths to Technology website, which can be a great introduction to accessibility advocacy and learning to write about visual impairment— many posts on Veroniiiica are cross-posted on Paths to Technology as well.
You’ll find an audience no matter what platform you are on, so pick something that you know you can access consistently so that you can focus on content and not on trying to navigate complicated accessibility features, and make sure that your content can also be accessed by other people with visual impairments too. As much as I wish I could joke about this, I had trouble reading my first few blog posts with low vision, and had to learn how to format text with headings and line spacing so I could read it!
Also, there’s no shame with starting out with a pen name or anonymous profile, especially if you don’t necessarily want to disclose your visual impairment publicly. I didn’t share much identifying information about myself when first starting my website other than my first name, and gradually shared other information over time.
Related links
- How To Improve Your Blog Theme For Visually Impaired Users
- Six CSS Accessibility Tweaks I Made For My Website
- A to Z of Assistive Technology for Reading Digital Text
- Paths to Technology | Perkins School for the Blind
- Submission Guidelines for Paths To Technology
Talk to others who are advocating for accessibility
When I attended my first ever accessibility event, I remember thinking of these three things:
- “Wow, that person who is speaking is super cool, I wonder if they would want to talk to me after this event.”
- “I have so much to learn, I’m not sure if anything I say will actually make sense.”
- “Did I just meet five blind people in a row that were all named Rob?”
By the end of the event, I learned that all of these things were true: speakers love to talk to people after events, I can bring a unique perspective to conversations about accessibility, and there really were five different blind people I met named Rob that day.
One of the biggest pieces of advice for new accessibility advocates that are nervous about talking to others is to introduce yourself and then listen to how other people talk about their work or explain different topics. Something that really helped me build my confidence was having people approach me first to introduce themselves, or asking people I have met to introduce me to someone. If I didn’t have a chance to meet them in person, I would follow them on social media and send a message/email instead.
When introducing myself, I would try to prioritize asking questions about the other person’s work and what I could learn from them, and gradually started adding my own thoughts to the conversation once I became more confident in talking about my interests and understanding how people talk about disability or accessibility in different contexts. I try to model this when I introduce myself to new advocates whenever possible, and talk about my own work as well as their own interests.
Did I say a few silly things when I was first starting out? Sure, I spelled my website URL with five I’s or three I’s when talking or repeated things that I was totally wrong about. But many advocates and people in the field extend a lot of patience and grace to newcomers, and will gently provide feedback or educate others about things they might not know about.
Related links
Subscribe to newsletters and find out about events
There are so many fantastic listservs and newsletters from nonprofit organizations and local groups working on accessibility advocacy, and I recommend that all new accessibility advocates connect with local groups or resources to see what is available. Social media can be a great tool for finding hashtags like #a11y (which is used for accessibility content), as well as links to other websites, blogs, and groups for people talking about a specific issue/topic.
I use newsletters and similar social media feeds to find out about upcoming events, both virtual and in-person. When I was first starting out, I appreciated when people would send me links to events they thought I would enjoy or mention that they were going too so that I would know someone there. Many consumer organizations like NFB and ACB post information for their local chapters for members as well.
Related links
- How I Write Research Papers On Accessibility Topics
- Accessibility And Low Vision Twitter Lists To Follow
- BlueSky Accessibility Features For Low Vision
Find opportunities to speak and grow your platform, and just go for it
When I was first starting out, I often felt nervous applying to speak at events or felt like things I wrote weren’t “good enough” to be shared to a wide audience. Seeing other people share my work or recommend that I try/apply for things helped me to realize I wasn’t sharing my posts to the void, and that the best way to improve is to practice and take advantage of opportunities when they come up. Even though I got rejected from a lot of things I applied for, I did get other opportunities that I had never expected to receive.
The story of my first-ever talk
Since I believe in the power of storytelling as an educational tool, here is the story of the first talk I ever gave:
The first time I ever spoke in front of an audience about low vision assistive technology outside of my school was at a White Cane Day event in 2016 when I was 19 years old. This was a few weeks before I published my first blog post, but Mercia had encouraged me to speak and reassured me that I had a valuable perspective to share with the audience as someone who had recently started using a cane with low vision. She told me that I should share “the whole picture” and be “unfiltered” about what it is like for me to navigate unfamiliar environments with low vision. As a result, the introduction to my talk went something like this:
”I have low vision and started using a cane last year, but you can’t really hear me tapping it right now as I try to find a chair since my shoes are so loud. You see, I left campus this morning and got caught in the pouring rain, and I ended up using my phone’s GPS to find the front door of this place, and then used the camera to enlarge the signs. Now my dress and shoes are soaking wet, I can barely see out of my glasses, my hair is a mess, and I squeak wherever I walk, but thanks to the GPS maps for the DC Metro and talking crosswalks, I found where I’m supposed to speak! And I also used my cane!”
Was this the best introduction I could have given? No, but the entire audience was laughing with me as I started sharing more about how I rely on different types of orientation and mobility applications and strategies, and how I had learned to navigate new places as a college student while using the “statement accessory” that is my blindness cane. I had people come up to me afterwards saying how nice it was to hear someone new talk about using a cane, and that I should consider speaking at other upcoming events. Many of the attendees who were blind said that they enjoyed that I gave an honest visual description of what I looked like, and that almost everyone in the audience had been soaked from the rain too. Giving my first talk made it a lot easier for me to feel confident about speaking at subsequent events, and reminded me to always check the weather before going outside!
Related links
- Smartphone Apps For Orientation and Mobility
- Accessible Maps and Wayfinding Tools For Low Vision
- Using GPS Apps On College Campuses: College O&M
- Dealing With Imposter Syndrome: College O&M
- Dealing With Paparazzi/Unwanted Attention: College O&M
- Walking In The Rain: College O&M
Connect with others that have a shared goal
The primary goal of (most) accessibility advocates is to identify and eliminate systemic barriers that prevent people with disabilities from thriving in society. Under this social model of disability, visual impairment is not viewed as a problem to be solved, rather the focus is shifted to things like information being presented in inaccessible formats or spaces being difficult or impossible to navigate nonvisually— the burden is not on any one individual to “overcome” their disability per se, but to eliminate barriers or find ways so that more people can participate or engage with something.
I’m grateful for the extensive communities of practice within the fields of accessibility, visual impairment, and assistive technology, as I have connected with so many other people working towards the same goals as I am and have had the opportunity to learn from them. Just like Mercia gave me a list of people that I should meet, I love helping people connect with others, and learn so much from reading other’s experiences and using storytelling to create positive change.
Related links
- How To Embrace Assistive Technology With Limited Funding
- Why I Study Assistive Technology
- Learning to Self-Advocate
More tips and advice for new accessibility advocates
- When joining a new online group or forum, read through other people’s posts, comments, and pinned posts to get an idea for how the group operates before making your own posts.
- While raising awareness on an issue is important, effective advocates will provide ideas or solutions to “take action” and work towards solving a problem. For example, instead of asking people to add alt text to memes or let them know about strobe lights in a movie, I took action by writing How To Write Alt Text For Memes and The Real Villain In Incredibles 2: Strobe Lights, which provide specific ways that individuals can address an issue (adding their own alt text or adding a content warning for flashing lights)
- Everyone’s experience with disability is unique— visual impairment is a spectrum, not a binary, and individuals are the expert on their own lived experience. Someone who primarily access information in large print will have different things to say compared to someone who primarily accesses information in braille, and individuals should provide space for people to share their own experiences without competing for attention.
Published February 25, 2021. Updated January 2025