[HYBRID] Guy Barker - Accessible Apps + Cliff Agius - Maui, the new stuff

This will be a Hybrid Event, with both speakers in person, and the event streamed on Zoom too.

Our Talks:

Empowering All Your Users: Simple Steps for Building Accessible App Experiences - Guy Barker

No-one should be blocked from employment, communication, creativity, or enjoyment due to constraints in the apps they use. Never has it been easier for devs to build accessible apps which fully support everyone, so learn some simple steps which have incredible impact!

Today a few simple design and dev considerations can make the difference between an app being usable and unusable for many people. Many UI frameworks support apps being built to empower all users, regardless of how those users interact with their devices. In this talk, I’ll demo a .NET MAUI app specifically designed to highlight considerations around accessibility, including some of the app’s features impacting the experience for blind and partially sighted users, and users who use voice input or switch input. While this app is built using .NET MAUI, the principles around accessibility apply to any app. As an example of the sorts of things I’ll demo with the accessible .NET MAUI app, here's "Accessible Solitaire being played with a variety of iOS assistive technologies", https://youtu.be/-x8_wRw7UXM.

The app I’ll be demoing is the Accessible Solitaire app, freely available at the Apple, Google, and Microsoft Stores, and will show how one simple .NET MAUI property can make or break the usability of an app. The app code is publicly available for reference. While the app itself may seem quite basic, one user who’s blind has said that with the app, he’s completed a game of solitaire for the first time in his life. With .NET MAUI, the steps for supporting everyone on iOS, Android, and Windows is not the complicated part of building your app.

After the talk, you’ll be able to consider how you can deliver more usable experiences for more people with your own apps!

Maui, the New Stuff: What’s new in .NET 10 for Maui - Cliff Agius:

Cliff will introduce us to all the latest changes in .NET 10 coming to Maui!

Our Speakers:

Guy Barker:

Guy worked for more than twenty years as a developer at Microsoft, with most of his time focused on accessibility. In the Windows Accessibility Team he worked on the Narrator screen reader, Magnifier, On-Screen Keyboard, and UI Automation, the API that powers all accessibility in Windows. He later worked in Apps teams, again focusing on the accessibility of those apps, and finally as an accessibility consultant helping product teams across Microsoft. In his own time, Guy explored many accessibility-related topics, building free experimental assistive technology tools and soliciting feedback.

How to find Guy:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/guybarker

Cliff Agius:

Clifford Agius, Freelance .NET Developer and also blogs from time to time, is currently a three-time Developer Technologies & IoT MVP, specialising in Xamarin/.NET MAUI and IoT. By day, an airline pilot flying Airbus A320 aircraft around Europe and when not doing that, Clifford freelances as a .NET developer. An active member of the .NET community, he is a regular speaker at conferences and meet-ups around the world.

Clifford graduated as an engineer from the Ford Technical Training Centre in 1995. After 11 years as an electrical/mechanical engineer working with Robotics and PLC Programming, he trained to become an Airline Pilot in 2001. Clifford became a Microsoft Valued Professional (MVP) in 2020.

How to find Cliff:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clifford-agius/
Personal Site: https://www.cliffordagius.co.uk/

How to find us:

We'll be in person at the BJSS (Now CGI) building on King Street in Nottingham city centre and live on Zoom from 6.30PM Uk Time.