by Selina Song, RTC Student Member
It takes vulnerability to tell your story. It takes courage to let others in on your life, your motivations, and why you are the way that you are.
My story in tech starts with being an older sister. My younger sister is on the autism spectrum, so it’s been important to me to center accessibility and inclusion in my decision making, seeing the world through a lens of empathy. My first project was developing the fundraising gala website for a local nonprofit: Friends of Children with Special Needs. When my supervisor, Tapin, informed me that the design may be distracting for students with ADHD and on the autism spectrum, I led a discussion with my team to pinpoint specific priorities and promptly worked to modify the design to be more minimalist. Then, I initiated a full accessibility revamp of the website, with text-to-speech read out, live visual donation updates, and alt text for vision-impaired visitors, changing each iteration based on user feedback and getting approvals from Tapin. Understanding different users’ unique needs was the prerequisite to creating an inclusive product, and keeping their priorities at the forefront of every decision was key to designing for inclusion. My website helped raise $300K to decrease overcrowding and expand access by renovating a new center, opening new special education programs to accommodate 80+ new families of students with disabilities.
Ever since that pivotal project, I’ve centered on designing for inclusion. Whether it’s empowering women in computer science by teaching beginner friendly AI workshops at UCLA and at local LA all-girls’ high schools, advocacy through Rewriting the Code, the Society of Women Engineers, or organizing QWER Hacks, a hackathon for LGBTQ+ individuals and allies, I see my purpose in creating welcoming communities in tech, driving positive social impact in healthcare and education.
It can be really easy to get lost in the day to day, when we’re so busy with classes, homework, coding assignments, dreaded LeetCode, internship applications, that we forget our purpose. We forget the why: why do you care about the work that you do? What drives you and what makes you excited to wake up in the morning?
The next time you start a new project, think beyond the obvious and what is normal, think about groups of users often excluded from conversations, who are underrepresented minorities, international students/immigrants, people with disabilities and various lived experiences. Accessibility might end in -y, but asking why can create a whole new beginning.
Connect with me! I’d love to hear from you 🙂
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/selinasong/
Instagram: @selinasingsong