What My Favourite Two Accessibility Tricks Have In Common

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What My Favourite Two Accessibility Tricks Have In Common

I have three top accessibility hacks. One I came up with myself when I was off with stress once and that is my paper planner. I finally found the right one for me and it works really well. But the other two are more in the virtual world. And they both came from the same Lead. I want to decipher what they have in common 

As they are the two things that have made me feel the most supported in my life. Ever ever 

What are they? Blocking out time to do specific work in my calendar including name and ticket number (and writing out all the details of what I want to do and achieve in this block)

and

Writing verbose commit messages

What do the two have in common?

They both force me to write out the ticket number many times 

Every time I commit the first thing I do is I write out the branch number and since there are often 3-4 commits per one of my PRs at least then this really helps to consolidate the ticket number in my head. It is really helpful for me to remember the ticket number so I can quickly associate things with it 

This is how my autistic brain works

I love numbers. Numbers feel a certain way for me

And so having those numbers associated with my tickets really works. Similarly: every time I write out a block for one of my tickets in my calendar 

I am forced to write down the ticket number

And since it takes at least six or seven blocks
  • It focuses me
  • And it focuses my attention

It externalises things 

And it puts things into boxes
It externalises things
And it puts things into boxes 

It makes things visible 

It makes the visible invisible
It takes abstract software work and makes it tangible. So does writing tickets and use cases and user stories and acceptance criteria 
A view of the hills in the Lake District from a hostel window
View from my youth hostel in the Lake District in September. Oh how I loved it there. I made friends with all the staff and I dance my heart out. I even wild swam although I would never do it again on my own omg 


It makes the intangible tangible
It makes the invisible visible
And it gives form to the abstract 


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