I avoid using the word “care” when I talk about accessibility, and I believe that part of my success in reaching engineers is that I have avoided that word. I try to avoid all emotion words, really. Many web developers/software engineers get really upset if you use the word “care”, because in doing so, you’re implying some shortcoming on their end if they do not. And heavens forbid a software engineer being forced to face a shortcoming…or a feeling. It is, as memes would suggest, a well-known flaw.

But let me back up a little. I’ve taken up sewing, for a few reasons:

  1. Fast fashion is everywhere and it’s…gross. Clothes do not feel like they are made of any meaningful quality and just feel really gross in my hands and on my skin.
  2. Dollars spent no longer translates to quality. I still almost exclusively buy clothes from Eileen Fisher, but pieces I’ve purchased in the last couple of years can still cost $200-400+ but the quality has decline to the point where they are wearing out faster than older pieces in my wardrobe.
  3. The clothes I really want to buy just don’t exist.
  4. I needed a hobby that was not related to writing code. Honestly, it was mostly this one. I just needed something else to focus on that was not some version of creating new things for the web. This is what happens when you turn your hobby in to your career. Sometimes you forget to find a new hobby. But the lines started to blur between what was a hobby and what was my career, so I had to find a new one.

Now, in taking up a new hobby, I’ve found a whole new world of things I do not know yet. Things that I never had to think about when buying clothes, but are now concerns that I want to make them. I’m thinking about the weight of a material, not just what it is made from. I’m thinking about the materials used in zippers. In buttons. And, as it turns out, the typical crafting store seems to carry the same quality of materials used by fast fashion.

So I’ve dug in and have been researching all of the new questions. Where can I find a place to buy material that also lists the weight of that material? Where can I find reviews for these places? Whose reviews are trustworthy? The list seems endless. But there are also useful resources I have discovered, blogs and YouTube content where I can gain the understanding I seek.

I browse videos that talk about quality and how to discern it. One of the issues I have with those, however informative, is that they still don’t give the answer for quality. They tend to criticize (and rightly so) the quality of major brands by showing how the finishes are of cheap materials, or the garment isn’t lined, or even sewn together properly. They can tell if the threads will break too easily. They will even let you know that even if a garment says it’s constructed from 100% wool or 100% cotton, it could still be sewn together with cheap polyester thread and that’s totally fine for them to do! Ugh. The videos are somewhat informational but mostly depressing and I still don’t actually have the answers I seek.

So…what is quality, then? What does that mean, really?

I came across a video from a YouTube creator: What Does “High Quality” Mean in High Fashion? by Bliss Foster. I will admit it, I only watched past the first five minutes due to his highly entertaining delivery. It’s very different from the types of videos I usually watch. There’s an almost chaotic energy about it. So I watched, because that day was fairly boring, I was fairly entertained. But as he started to describe the ways that checklists will fail, I started to take notice. And then he said something that completely got to me.

“…the definition that we’ve been using for quality was never helping us…the only thing that produces quality is care.”

This also strongly resonated with documentary-type shows I’ve been enjoying, such as Saving Soles from NHK World Japan. Anyway, Bliss goes more into this, and I think it’s worth watching, so I’m not going to quote him more, here. I’m just going to say, go watch the video about quality and absorb what he is saying because it’s important. This message matters.

I am going to stop avoiding emotion words when I talk about digital accessibility, because Bliss is not just right about quality in the clothes we wear. The inclusion of care as an essential component to anything being created is, in fact, what creates the quality. This is why AI can’t get this right. This is why fast fashion can’t get this right. This is why all automation created for engineers will never be the final answer.

The checklist is a useful tool, if we care about the outcomes of what we create. The experience of our users is an outcome of how much we care. Now, when you’re thinking about applications on the web that millions of people can use, it can be daunting to think about that. It’s easier to produce something of quality when you are focused on a single person. I can write a quality love letter to my spouse. I can create a quality garment for myself (well, eventually, anyway, technique matters!). I can cook a quality meal for my family. Not only do I have the experience and technical knowledge to do the thing, I also care. That caring means that I am paying attention to the small details. That caring means that I am not only checking off a checklist, but I understand and care about how those checklist items feed into the holistic picture.

It seems almost at odds to want to care, though. We live in the times of late-stage capitalism. Employers stopped caring for employees, and employees stopped caring about employers. Layoffs are everywhere; the focus is on shareholder value. Not the care of the users. Not the care of the employees. Care is, for the most part, an idea that is banned from society in the sense that it does not contribute to our stated goals and values.

I’ve had developers tell me, straight faced, that it is not their job to care. It is only their job to complete the work outlined in the task they have been given to do. This has always broken my heart to the point where I am determined to rage against the dying of the light, so to speak. I want to care. I want to understand. I want to bring my best self to every single day and give it everything I have to give. I want to care about the outcomes, care about the details, and care about the users and whether or not the changes I am making, or advising to be made, will bring value to their lives. To the jobs they have been given to do. I care about that.

The funny thing is, value is produced from caring. By caring, we produce quality, which in turn produces users who are delighted by our products and want to use them. When did we forget that? We must be satisfied in what we produce. Our customers will be satisfied in what they obtain. This is the kind of positive feedback cycle that makes the world a better place to live in. Why do we shy away from it, then?

Why are we afraid to care? Maybe this is a question we should think about a little more.

Until next time. -M