A presentation at EmberFest 2025 in in Brussels, Belgium by Melanie Sumner Temple
You might notice that I’ve added a last name. My joke is that now everyone in our family has the same last name But holy crap it’s so much paperwork. I do not recommend it.
But that’s just one of the many things that have happened since Dublin last year!
So first, OMG Hi!! Let’s catch up a little bit because the outside world seems VERY WEIRD RN and who has time for small talk?
After Dublin EmberFest last year, my husband and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary in Galway etc and it was magical 10/10 would recommend
Our son Dylan graduated from High School And stood still long enough for a photo with his mother so also 10/10 clearly good parenting
Also Solo Leveling happened, so let’s acknowledge that And then I found out that not only was k-pop a thing but also it was already in my life and I didn’t know And then ….well, kpop demon hunters happened and I guess like, r/thisismylifenow
And in my more r/thisismylifenow news, HashiCorp is now an IBM Company. And yes we still use Ember! And yes they have Carbon! And no we are not going to be ember-carbon because someone there already has that repo! No I don’t know what it’s going to be yet, but if we have time I’ll touch on that later.
So when Marco DM’d me and said “will you speak yes okay thank you” I was like but what do I talk about And honestly y’all, say thank you to Joseph because he was very much the inspo for this talk “Mel just talk about the awesome work ya’ll done, even if you don’t recognize it, what your team has done is really special.”
So that was the inspo for today’s talk
So it’s important to say that we started with management support to do this. That’s been important all along. Anyway, it sorta went something like this
Our CTO was like, hey Design systems seem cool, can we have one of those
And our team that was awesome continued to be awesome and build this awesome thing But as kickass as it was, the reasons why it needed to be the way it was needed to be explained
Because maybe not everyone at the company understood why we needed it, or that they didn’t really have one yet Because as we all know a UI library is not a design system, okay?
So this talk comes not only from making a list of the things that went into what we’ve built as an accessibility program But also as my way of thinking about how to talk about it all And I’ve honestly given it a lot of thought
And I’ve decided, this is all layers. And they’re layers like cake has layers. Because everybody loves cake.
Ok so maybe the cake is a lie BUT the layers are not. So here’s what those layers look like.
Your mileage may vary.
The biggest absolute essential foundation for all of this was a written document that outlined a strategy for accessibility and it included a commitment to doing this and it was…and I mean this part…it was APPROVED BY MANAGEMENT. When you’re in that place and hitting that rock on one side, and that hard place on the other side, having a written document that says NO WE ARE REALLY DOING THIS AND WE MEAN IT is 100% absolutely perfectly and completely important. So write this down. You must have this. Remember that list of things you can’t control as a dev? Who you work with and how they think about accessibility is one of those things! Have a written agreement that you can refer to. It’ll be frequently necessary until one day it isn’t, but even if it is one day again, you’ll have it!!
And then we start to reach OUT to other parts of the company to align so we can have more consistent metrics. Design-led product partners write down the critical user journeys Which I can then write end-to-end a11y automation tests for And if they are critical user journeys, then the reliability team can test those workflows for…well, exactly that, reliability!
And honestly, many spreadsheets later it was like OK BUT I NEED AN EMBER APP FOR THIS
Maybe you’re thinking right now that “that’s nice for you, but…” and you’re thinking about all of your blockers and why your story can’t possibly be as nice as ours is. My message to you is, start where YOU are.
Me. It’s me. I say this. And I genuinely believe it. I think there’s this thing where accessibility is about people, and y’all know I’ve talked about this before, but hearing “you’re a software engineer and you’re failing people with disabilities, what’s wrong with you” FEELS BAD especially since we are often NOT the people who make decisions about the work we do or the apps we create.
I want us to think about why we are at work. Why do we do this? Businesses exist to sell products and services. AKA make money. Money is required for the world we live in, whether we like it or not. If we build for EVERYONE, then we can reach more people and make more money. It also provides commercial differentiation for government contracts.
I think everyone can make accessible products just the way they work. But it requires some fearlessness and we have to cultivate that So watch K-pop demon hunters on Netflix and sing “what it sounds like” at the top of your lungs until you’re not afraid anymore. 😂
OR if you avoid karaoke try some fearless cultivation and remember, its about progress not perfection Try assertive, not aggressive. Try curious, not blaming. Try making it the way we work instead of making it an afterthought. Try including all users, not just the ones with fast connections and beautiful displays Try to have the conversation because it’s part of the expert you were hired to be…or the one you will become
And no, like, I really mean it. There will always be uncertainty It’s the only thing you can count on, really
Because even with my whole awesome story about our accessibility and our layers and everything
IT seemed like we were just like going public, road to a billion dollar company etc And then what felt like three minutes later
We were on the road to becoming a business unit at IBM. Ok it wasn’t really three minutes But it felt that way Because suddenly we were told that we were being acquired by IBM Some days it felt like it would never happen (but we couldn’t talk about it) And other days it felt like it was tomorrow (but we still couldn’t talk about it) But then one day it did happen.
Honestly it was also extra frustrating because we were such a small company by comparison. It took so much just to get as far as we had and I felt like BUT WE JUST FIGURED THIS OUT
The thing is, they’re already doing the things we also decided would be good to do. I think there are still some challenges here Because just because they have this process, doesn’t mean everyone at the giant company does it right So we have this internal awareness that we want this to work and what will that really take?
The thing is, while what we have built has been successful, I don’t know what will come next. I’m not sure anyone really does. But I think it’s okay, because we know what we built is solid, we know what we built is working, and we know that we have prepared ourselves for the future.
To recap: build layers, scale, and profit. Literally. It’s helped us close deals. It will help you do the same.
You do not require permission to create accessible code.
