DEV Community: Fen Slattery

Nevertheless, Fen coded and found their people.

Fen Slattery — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 16:20:45 +0000

Hi, I'm Fen, my pronouns are they/them. I'm a nonbinary trans person, and although I'm not a woman, I'm writing this on International Women's Day about my experience in women's spaces. For most of my life, I thought I was a woman. Surprise, I'm not!

(Brief aside before we dive in: this post is not the place to learn about the basics of being transgender. If you're looking for those basics, I recommend this thread I wrote about Trans 101 or this short zine I wrote about pronouns).

When I started my career as a developer, I thought I'd feel at home in "women in tech" spaces, like meetups and conferences and women's organizations within my coding bootcamp. Participating in those spaces early in my career, though, was what finally made me confront the fact that I was trans.

Like lots of trans people, I started off by fiercely advocating for inclusion of trans people under the guise of "being an ally." Whenever conversations came up in women in tech spaces about what it means to Be a Woman, I was always the one to jump in and talk about gender. Whenever people were introducing themselves, I was always the one to encourage others to introduce themselves with pronouns, too. Whenever a new women in tech event was announced, I was always the one to politely ask if it would be a safe and welcoming place for trans women and nonbinary people.

I told myself I was doing all this to help others, but really, it was mainly to help myself. I felt not only out of place, but I felt this gnawing ache in my core telling me that something was Wrong. I didn't share the experience of taking comfort in my womanhood, and proudly being a woman against the external pressures of the patriarchy. I liked wearing jeans and hoodies, while others bemoaned not feeling comfortable wearing skirts in the workplace. I didn't want cute laptop stickers with the words "she" or "woman" or "girls" on them. I didn't want to share my experiences being treated poorly in the industry because I was a woman. I mean, sure, I was treated poorly in the way everyone else was, but something didn't feel right. I didn't like this feeling of being "one of the girls", taking refuge from the male-dominated industry. Yes, I liked the idea of feeling safe, but this didn't feel safe like I'd hoped it would.

When I first tested the waters of coming out, I didn't start by telling my wife or my friends or my family I was trans. Nope! I started by telling complete strangers at women in tech events. I introduced myself, saying I use they/them pronouns. I couldn't withstand the awful feeling anymore of being treated as "one of the girls" in those spaces, and hoped that if I started asking for different pronouns, it would stop.

Meanwhile, I kept using she/her pronouns and saying I was a woman in every other area of my life. Of course, my friends who were also in these women in tech spaces began to gently ask me if I'd like they/them pronouns in other places. I would panic and say something like "Uh, no thanks! I'm only using they/them pronouns here to remind people that non-women exist! I'd much prefer she/her everywhere else!" (All of that was a lie, sorry friends!)

Gender dysphoria is an intense state of distress as a result of the sex and gender a person is assigned at birth. Whenever I would share my experiences with being in women in tech spaces and talk about how incredibly uncomfortable and existentially Other I felt, my trans friends would gently suggest that what I was feeling was dysphoria. My response, unsurprisingly, was something like "Nuh uh! It's just that women in tech spaces suck! I'm not trans!" (Again, a lie, but I didn't realize it at the time.) My friends never pushed it, of course, but every time I'd return from a women in tech event and share how I felt, their gentle response was "That's dysphoria, friend."

As I write this, I keep returning to the feeling that I need to defend myself, that I need to cite evidence and science to prove to would-be jerks in the comments that being trans is real, being nonbinary is real, and that I'm real. And then I remember why I'm writing this. This isn't for you, cisgender folks, although I'm sure you're cool. This is for my fellow trans folks in tech, who feel alone, who feel othered and unwelcome. This is for my fellow AFAB folks who feel so damn uncomfortable in women's spaces, but have no idea why yet.

Sometimes I think it would be so much easier to just be quiet, to stop talking about being trans, to stop correcting people when they call me a woman. I'd fit in easier. I'd be treated like "one of the girls" in women in tech spaces. I'd get put on lists of "10 women you should be following this Women's Day." I wouldn't constantly be asked to educate people on the basics of being trans. I wouldn't have to justify my existence as a trans person, and prove that I'm real somehow.

But no. If I go back to pretending to be a woman, that dysphoria would hit me like a freight train. I'd still be educating people on the basics of being trans, just again under the guise of "being an ally". I'd still be having to prove that trans people are real to jerks on the internet. I'd still be doing all this work I do for trans inclusion.

And, let's be real, I still get incorrectly treated like "one of the girls" or "pretty much a woman, right?" in women in tech spaces. I still get incorrectly put on lists of "women you should follow" and have to find a way to politely correct whoever put me on the list. I don't want to be treated like a woman, to feel that dysphoria, to be in pain. But in our eagerness to create "women in tech" spaces, so many people have decided that if you're not a man, then you're a woman. And all women share some fundamental experiences, the same suffering. And if you're ever had those experiences, then you're pretty much a woman. If you've ever suffered for being "not a man", then you're a woman, right?

I've stopped participating in women in tech spaces almost entirely since coming out as a nonbinary transgender person. That doesn't mean I haven't tried to be present, though. Like I did when I thought I was cis, I'm still the one to ask "are trans women and nonbinary people welcome at your event?" I'm still the one to ask if there will be gender-neutral restrooms. I'm still the one to encourage everyone to introduce themselves with pronouns. I'm still the one to ask event organizers to not require legal IDs for admission, because many trans folks don't have legal IDs that match our names and genders. I'm still the one to criticize "women and nonbinary people in tech" spaces for treating nonbinary people like an afterthought, for treating us like "one of the girls", for not actually doing anything to make the space safe for trans people.

I've found my home in spaces aimed at LGBTQ+ people in tech. Where I'm not the token nonbinary person, fighting to be safe and seen. In spaces populated by queer people, I don't have to be loud, and I'm not seen as "Fen, the nonbinary person who teaches us all about trans stuff." Instead, I'm "Fen, who knows about accessibility and front end and making zines and giving talks." In spaces that do a good job of being safe and inclusive of trans people, me being nonbinary is boring. I like it that way.

HTML Headings: Not Just "Big, Bigger, Biggest"

Fen Slattery — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 17:44:39 +0000

A common error I see most junior web developers (and lots of non-junior folks!) make is misusing heading tags. I recently reviewed some code for a friend who's diving into front end development at a bootcamp, and reminded them to respect semantic rules for heading tags, mentioning that it's important for accessibility reasons.

Their response was super encouraging: "I didn't realize there were semantic reasons [for heading tags] outside of like -- being big bigger biggest! So that's pretty cool."

So wait, what are headings actually for then, if not to make some text bigger than others? Answer: structure and semantics! Semantic HTML elements, like <form>, <table>, and <h1> clearly define their contents for both the browser and assistive technologies like screen readers. These elements have purposes that aren't just visual, although it's easy to assume that some elements (particularly heading tags) have purely visual purposes based on default browser styling.

So what's the purpose of heading tags?

Heading tags provide a structured hierarchy for the page, like an outline. A first-level heading tag (<h1>) is the most important, and describes the entire page. It should usually be pretty similar to the <title> attribute for the page. <h2>tags describe large sections of content, with <h3> tags describing sub-sections, <h4> tags describing sub-sub-sections, etc. Each page needs to have exactly one <h1>. You don't have to use the rest of the heading elements, but you can't skip any and they can't be out of order. For example, if you use an <h3> element, you have to have an <h2> somewhere above it.

But what do I do if I want a bigger heading?

It can be tempting to use whatever heading tag corresponds to the size of text you want, but remember that heading tags aren't about text size, that's what font-size in CSS is for. Front end languages follow the separation of concerns principle. That is, each part of the code has a distinct purpose. In front end development, HTML is about structure and content, CSS is about presentation, and JS is about interaction. This means that our semantic HTML elements aren't about presentation, since that's the job of our CSS. If we want heading tags to look a certain way, we use CSS to achieve it.

What does this have to do with accessibility?

People who use assistive technology, such as screen readers, use heading tags to navigate and quickly jump to areas of a page. This is similar to how sighted users will visually skim a page via headings and other text. Headings are an integral part of web accessibility, and are discussed in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) under 1.3.1: Info and Relationships and 2.4.6: Headings and Labels.

Learn more:

How to structure headings for web accessibility by Amani Ali
The HTML Section Heading elements in the Mozilla Developer Network documentation
Designing for Screenreader Compatibility by WebAIM

What do you wish you knew about digital accessibility?

Fen Slattery — Mon, 10 Dec 2018 20:26:44 +0000

Digital accessibility has become a more popular topic in recent years, and lawsuits against inaccessible websites are becoming more and more common. As developers, we have an ethical responsibility to help empower people to use the technology we create, but so often we're under-educated about exactly how to build things with accessibility in mind.

As the Accessibility Lead at my company and a front end engineer, I have a wealth of knowledge to share with the dev.to community, and I'd love to know what resources I can share! What do you want to know about digital accessibility? Folks with accessibility experience: what do you wish someone taught you when you were just starting off? What resources and guides don't exist yet, that you'd like to link others to?

Header image from WOCinTechChat

My favorite stock photo source, WOCinTech Chat

Fen Slattery — Sat, 10 Nov 2018 00:19:58 +0000

A quick search for "programmer" or "coder" on some of the most common stock photo websites turns up, unsurprisingly, mostly photos of white men (and the occasional white woman.) Often in American society, men the default person, and white women are the default "woman."

WOCinTech chat has written about this problem, including how women of color are underrepresented both in the tech industry and also in stock photos of people working in our industry. As a result, they've done a series of three photo shoots of women of color who work in tech to be freely used as stock photos! These photos shouldn't just be used when writing about diversity and inclusion in our industry, but also when you need a stock photo of a programmer, or a pair of hands at a keyboard.

The full album of photos are available on their Flickr, and are licensed under a Creative Commons (Attribution) license, which means you simply need to give credit whenever you use the images for any purpose.

I've made a point to use their stock photos when I need photos of programmers or other people doing tech work, and here's just a sampling of the awesome variety of images they have available:

So, if you need a stock photo of someone doing tech work (a header image on dev.to, for example!) consider checking out #WOCinTech chat's stock photo gallery!

What can tech employers do to support your mental health?

Fen Slattery — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 17:09:03 +0000

We've seen lots of posts on dev.to about mental health, and there are organizations like Open Sourcing Mental Illness working to change how we talk about mental health in the tech community.

If you're a person with mental illness, what are some things your employer does to support you and your needs? What could they improve? How can fellow developers help you feel more included in our industry?

Image from #WOCinTech

What are your best tips for working from home?

Fen Slattery — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 15:34:28 +0000

I had a great conversation yesterday with some coworkers about working from home, including why some prefer it and others hate it, and our productivity tips. I've been working from home more frequently for health reasons, and I'm trying to get better at it! For example, I make an effort to get dressed and ready every day as though I was going into the office. Then, I try to leave my house for a few minutes, even if it's just for a walk around the block.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on how to most effectively work from home! What do you do to make your space more welcoming? How do you make sure you stay on task, or conversely, how do you make sure you remember to stop working at a certain time? How do you communicate with your team when you work remotely? I'm interested both in productivity tips, as well as self care tips, as I know that lots of folks feel more anxious and pressured to get things done when they work from home.

An Organizer's Guide to Pronoun Buttons

Fen Slattery — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 01:47:08 +0000

As a transgender person who attends and organizes tech meetups and conferences, I spend a lot of time answering questions about how to be more inclusive of trans and nonbinary folks. In this... not-so-short guide I've answered almost all of the questions I get about how to use pronoun buttons or stickers at tech events. Hopefully this will be helpful to you, whether you're a trans person looking for a resource to point others to, or a cis person looking to be a better ally!

What’s a pronoun button?

A pronoun button is a small pinback button (or sticker) worn by a person to indicate what their personal pronoun is. These are worn by attendees along with their name tag at events, such as conferences and meetups. Many trans and nonbinary (enby) folks also wear pronoun buttons as part of our day-to-day life.

Okay, but why have them at events?

Simple, it helps us trans and non binary people to be safe. If everyone wears them, it helps remind attendees that pronouns shouldn’t be assumed, and that we should respect the pronouns other people use. It’s not right or good to assume someone’s pronouns, as getting them wrong can cause physical and social dysphoria. In addition, when trans and enby folks are pressured to disclose our status (as can happen when we are misgendered), it opens us up to potential emotional, mental, and physical harm.

When everyone at an event has a pronoun button, no one needs to assume anyone else’s pronouns, and that’s a good thing.

Also, supplying pronoun buttons makes it very clear that trans inclusion is important to your conference and that people will be supported when we need to be gendered correctly. It also makes it very clear to attendees that anti-transgender bigotry won’t be tolerated.

So I just provide some buttons that have some pronouns and I’m good, right?

Definitely not. You’re going to have to do some educational work with your attendees and other folks running the event. Luckily, I’m here to help you out!

Note: they’re not “preferred pronouns,” they’re just pronouns.

My pronouns aren’t a preference, they’re my pronouns. They’re mandatory. Don’t refer to pronouns as “preferred” at any point during your event, otherwise people are likely to get the idea that it’s optional to respect the pronouns of other people

Why not just print pronouns on badges?

It’s totally appropriate to ask attendees for pronouns when they register, but don’t print them on their name tags or badges ahead of time. Instead, provide stickers or pinback buttons or something that they can apply themselves the day of the event. This helps a bunch of different people, including:

Genderfluid folks, who might use different pronouns at different times. They can’t necessarily know which pronouns they’ll use at the day of the event, and they might change the ones they use throughout the day.
People whose pronouns change between registration and the event. For example, someone who publicly comes out as trans after registering might now have a different name and use different pronouns. (Be sure to let people change the name on their badge the day-of!)
Folks who aren’t sure if they’ll feel safe, and closeted folks. I’ve definitely gone to events where I wasn’t sure if it was safe to be openly nonbinary, and then later elected to grab a “they/them” button after I felt more comfortable.

How do I get buttons?

There are lots of sites online where you can get custom buttons made, and I especially recommend you check out companies run by trans people for this! You can also order sets of pronoun buttons online, instead of having a design custom-made for your event.

Other options include buying a button maker (they’re about $130 online) and making a bunch of buttons yourself. I’ve done this before for an event, and it saved money and was lots of fun! Plus, now we own a button maker!

Stickers are a cheaper option than buttons, although they can’t be reused. They’re a lot easier to transport, though!

The least expensive option of all is just having a marker available for attendees to write their pronouns on their nametags. For low-budget events, this is a perfectly fine solution, although you’ll have to spend a little more time explaining things to your attendees at check-in.

What pronoun options should I need?

If you ask people for their pronouns on their event registration forms, just get buttons with every pronoun that was provided, plus some other common ones. Don’t forget, only ask for pronouns ahead of time if you actually need them for anything, and be sure to explain what you’re using them for.

If you don’t have any data on the pronouns your attendees use, you can estimate which buttons to get based on your expected audience and the common pronouns they use.

For example, for an event aimed at programmers (a field with way more men than other genders), I might get about 45% he/him, 40% she/her, 10% they/them, and 5% with blanks. For an event aimed at women and non binary people in tech, I might get 70% she/her, 20% they/them, and 10% blanks.

An event specifically aimed at transgender and nonbinary people will have very different needs, though! Then I’d suggest getting a good mix of she/her, he/him, they/them, several neopronouns, and blanks.

Wait, what’s a neopronoun?

Neopronouns are pronouns that aren’t they/them, she/her, or he/him. Lots of folks use them! Some neopronouns are:

ze/hir
xe/xir
fae/faer
ey/em

And there are lots more! Just as we can’t assume the pronouns someone uses, we also can’t assume that they use more common pronouns, so we need to either have neopronoun buttons available or have plenty of blank buttons for people to fill in. In fact, always have blank buttons in case of cool neopronouns you didn’t think of, or if you run out of other buttons you need.

How do I give out the buttons?

My recommendation is to just have the buttons out on a table at check-in, with both a sign explaining what they’re for, as well as having staff nearby to explain them.

Make sure the person staffing this area is well-informed about pronouns and the use of the buttons at your event (heck, show them this guide!). They should be patient and able to explain pronoun buttons again and again. They should be able to politely and firmly address unkind or accidentally rude questions, keeping your code of conduct in mind.

What do I put on the sign explaining buttons?

Your sign by the buttons should be simple, and instructing people to take a pronoun button for themselves. Use encouraging, inclusive language and invite attendees to ask an organizer for more information.

An example:

Please grab a pronoun button for your name badge!
These let us all know how to address one another,
and help everyone feel more comfortable.
When you meet someone, look for their pronoun button!
Any questions? We’re happy to help, see an organizer!

Who should be the staffer explaining pronoun buttons?

It’s super important to not make a transgender or non binary person be the one staffing this table! It shouldn’t be our job to do this educational work, especially at an event when a staffer will be explaining things over and over. Find a cis ally who can do this work, who trans and enby people trust. (Of course, if a trans of enby person wants to be the one staffing the pronoun button table, let them!)

What if someone won’t take a button?

That’s okay! As I mentioned before, some folks might not be sure if they feel safe taking their pronoun yet. There are also people who prefer not to have pronouns used for them, and instead prefer their name just be used instead.

Encourage people to take a button, but don’t pressure them or make it mandatory.

What if people want more than one button?

Always let people take more than one button! This accommodates genderfluid folks, whose pronouns can change, and people who don’t want to be out 100% of the time. As long as no one is taking armfuls of buttons, it’s fine! (And if someone is taking armfuls, chat with them about how you can help them get pronoun buttons for their event!)

How do I make sure my attendees understand pronouns?

There’s some educational work you’ll need to do, and you need to do it in a way that’s safe and not harmful to your trans and non binary attendees.

Before you event even begins, share information about potential attendees about the pronoun buttons you’ll have, similarly to how you’d share other inclusion or accessibility information. For example, a simple line on your website like, “Pronoun buttons for all attendees” will do the trick. In your code of conduct, make sure to include that you expect attendees to do their best to respect everyone, including by being attentive to pronoun buttons and using pronouns correctly.

At the beginning of your event, during other announcement you’d make to attendees, talk about the pronoun buttons. You should remind people that you code of conduct prohibits harassment or discrimination on the basis of gender identity and presentation.

Then, actually enforce your code of conduct!

What do I say during event announcements?

Here’s an example:

As you might have noticed at registration, we have pronoun buttons available for everyone! If you haven’t grabbed one yet, we encourage you to do so after our opening talk.

Look at pronoun buttons when meeting someone new, and ask for their pronouns if they aren’t wearing a button. Then, use those pronouns when talking about them! Understand that not everyone is comfortable sharing, and you should default to just using their name or a neutral pronoun (like they/them) in place of a pronoun if you don’t know their pronouns.

We also encourage you to introduce yourself using your pronouns, like, “Hi, my name is Fen, my pronouns are they/them!”

What if an attendee isn’t using pronouns correctly?

If you find that someone is having a hard time understanding how to use pronouns correctly, take them aside and answer their questions. Understand that using different pronouns and asking for them is difficult for someone people to do at first, including neurodivergent folks. Help people learn to just simply apologize, use the correct pronoun, and move on if they mess up someone’s pronouns.

Making accidental mistakes with pronouns is okay, just don’t let people do it repeatedly. Think of it like accidentally stepping on someone’s toes. If you do it once, it’s no problem, you just apologize and move on. However, if an attendee is stepping on the toes of everyone they meet, you need to step in.

Conversely, remember that many trans and nonbinary people have our metaphorical toes stepped on everyday. Sure, someone misgendering us once isn't a big deal, but when are toes are stepped on constantly, it hurts even more.

What if an attendee isn’t using pronouns correctly, and not just because they’re having a hard time?

If they’re intentionally disregarding pronouns or being disrespectful, consult your code of conduct and take action to make your event safer. I’d personally consider it similar to harassment.

What if a lot of people are messing up pronouns?

Take them aside and deal with it privately, no matter what. Don’t address the entire group, assuming that everyone is having a hard time using pronouns correctly.

Don’t make a post-break announcement about how you’re seeing lots of people disregard buttons. And absolutely don’t have the entire room practice misgendering someone, and then practice apologizing for it as a way to deal with it.

Yes, this happened at a conference I was at once. Yes, I walked out. This makes your trans and nonbinary attendees feel incredibly othered and unsafe. It makes it seem like you assume your audience is all cisgender, privileged folks, which isn’t true. This makes trans and enby people feel like we don’t exist, or we’re some weird “other” tiny group that doesn’t matter.

If you absolutely have to make some sort of public statement about it, keep it similar to your opening announcement about looking at pronoun buttons. Remember that you likely have trans attendees, whether you know it or not.

Who should be doing this work of correcting people and helping attendees who are having a hard time understanding pronouns?

Don’t require trans and non binary people to be a part of this educational work about pronouns and pronoun buttons at your event. Don’t pressure us to do this work; we have to do it all the time. Cis organizers should handle the bulk of the work, if possible.

How do I know if I’m doing this correctly?

If you want to know how you’re doing, ask a trans or enby organizer or attendee if they’re comfortable talking with you about their experience. If they say yes, then ask for feedback.

Heck, you ideally should be paying someone (a trans or nonbinary person) to check over your plans for the event to ensure it’s actually inclusive of trans and enby people.

So, remember:

Have pronoun buttons or stickers available
Educate your attendees about using pronouns
Enforce your code of conduct
Pay a trans or nonbinary person to help you make sure you’re doing this right!

Looking for a trans person to educate you or your organization further?

Contact me at fenslattery.com! This guide is also available as a print-ready zine, and it's pay-what-you-want. (Cisgender folks, if you learned something, please buy a copy or throw me some $$$ on ko.fi!) Looking for more basic info about pronouns? Check out my pronouns 101 zine!

Today I learned: how to generate music with Sonic Pi!

Fen Slattery — Wed, 03 Oct 2018 16:16:42 +0000

Sonic Pi is a live-coding music program that uses Ruby to generate synth music. Ever since I learned about Algorave earlier this year, I've been really interested in trying out generating music with code, and Sonic Pi seemed like a great place to start.

Sonic Pi is free and open-source, and available for Windows, macOS, and Raspberry Pi. It has a fantastic built-in tutorial that had me writing music right away, and I was really pleased with the quality of the tutorial. I already know Ruby and some intermediate music theory, but it doesn't assume any prior programming or music knowledge.

In about two hours or so, I completed the tutorial and whipped together some rad synth sounds to have on in the background while I code. Check it out on Soundcloud, the code is below!

live_loop :background do
  sample :loop_garzul
  use_synth :prophet
  play :c1, release: 4, cutoff: rrand(70, 130)
  sleep 4
  play :c2, release: 4, cutoff: rrand(70, 130)
end

live_loop :middle do
  sync :background
  use_random_seed 4923
  use_synth :tb303
  notes = (scale :c2, :minor_pentatonic, num_octaves: 1)
  sleep 4
  8.times do
    play notes.choose, release: 1, cutoff: rrand(30, 50), amp: 0.3
    sleep 0.5
  end

  sleep 4

  8.times do
    play notes.choose, release: 1, cutoff: rrand(30, 50), amp: 0.3
    sleep 0.5
  end
end

There's a pretty active Sonic Pi Twitter account that shares recent creations (some of which can fit in a single tweet!) as well as a forum which I haven't explored much. Have you used Sonic Pi or something else to generate music? Let me know in the comments!

Have you ever live streamed your coding process?

Fen Slattery — Tue, 25 Sep 2018 18:49:25 +0000

I've been wanting to try out streaming my coding process on a site like Twitch, but I'm a bit intimidated! I've streamed video games before, but never something with multiple windows. If I'm streaming front end web work, for example, I'd want my audience to see my editor and my browser at minimum, and ideally also the design I'm following. I've watched streamers code before, but they're usually doing work that only happens in an editor and a terminal.

I'd love your thoughts!

Have you ever watched a coding live stream? What did you like about it, and what do you wish they did differently?

Have you ever live streaming your coding process? What tips do you have?

Tips for Your First Tech Talk

Fen Slattery — Tue, 25 Sep 2018 17:03:40 +0000

As someone who's given a bunch of talks at tech events, I get asked a lot by new speakers for advice. I've found there are lots of helpful resources for how to construct a talk, but not a lot for actually delivering the talk you worked so hard to write.

I've gathered some of my best tips on how to give talks below! These apply whether you're giving a super short lightning talk at a local meetup, or an hour-long in-depth technical talk at an international conference, or anything in between.

How the heck do I make slides that look good?

I prefer Deckset if I want minimalist slides that have code, and I'd like that code to automatically have syntax highlighting. Deckset is pretty cheap ($29, and 50% off for students and teachers) and available for MacOS. You write your content out in Markdown, and slides are generated automatically! It's especially great for folks who don't want to fiddle with the appearance of their slides, and for devs who prefer to write in their editor of choice. There's a lot of preset themes, but you can also customize them to your liking.

If I want to customize my slides a bit more, in some way that I can't do with Markdown and Deckset, I prefer Google Slides. I'll also use Google Slides if I know I'll be presenting using someone else's computer, as Deckset slides can only be exported as pdfs. I use Slides Carnival for fancy (free!) premade slide themes, or make my own if I've got the time.

It's important to make sure your slides are accessible to your audience, too! Your slides need to be readable by your audience, and look good no matter the lighting situation in the room. Emily Gorcenski has written a great guide on how to create accessible slides, including guidelines about colors, font sizes, and word count per slide.

How do I make sure people share my talk?

I'm a huge believer in the power of live-tweeting talks, aka posting about the talk you're watching in real-time on Twitter. Make it as easy as possible for your audience to live-tweet you, by sharing your Twitter handle on at least an early slide, if not on every slide. This will make it easier for attendees to attribute your ideas to you, and you'll get notifications about their posts. Also, if there's a hashtag for the event you're speaking at, be sure to remind attendees of it early on it your talk. (The event organizers will also appreciate you helping to build their brand!) Jess Unrein has written a helpful post on how to live-tweet as an audience member, and also how to make your talk more live-tweetable.

Before your talk, post your slides somewhere online and either provide a link to it at the beginning of your talk. This will make your talk more accessible, allow people to follow along on their phone/laptop, and will make it easier for attendees to share your slides with others. I recommend using Google Slides, Slideshare, and Speaker Deck as places to share your slides.

I use Tweetdeck to schedule a tweet for the time when my talk is scheduled to begin, usually something like:

My talk [title of talk] at [conference hashtag] is starting now! My slides are available here, follow along! [link to slides]

How can I make sure that everyone can understand me during the talk?

If a microphone is made available to you, always use it! Even if the room is small, even if you don't want to have to hold the mic, even if you think you can talk loud enough, always use a microphone. It's there to make your talk accessible to everyone in the audience. Don't assume that everyone can hear you just fine without it, and don't make your audience members out themselves as someone with limited hearing in order to get you to use the mic. Also, if there's live-captioning at the event, the microphone (or a second one) is used as part of the live-captioning system.

If there's no microphone available, be sure to talk loudly and clearly, and enunciate the words you say. If possible, practice speaking a few sentences in the space ahead of time, and have someone walk throughout the audience area and tell you if you're loud enough. At the beginning of your talk, encourage the audience to let you know if you're speaking too quietly.

When you're communicating with the event organizers beforehand, be sure to ask if a microphone will be available. Definitely mention to them that it's important to you for accessibility reasons!

How do I help my audience learn more?

I really recommend including some "helpful links" or "resources for learning more" somewhere related to your talk, like in a thread on Twitter, in the description of your slides wherever you've shared them publicly, or as a page on your personal website. This allows your audience to dive in and learn more right away, as well as introducing them to other experts and work they may not be familiar with.

For new speakers, if you have the option to not take audience questions, don't take audience questions! Unless you have a small, kind audience, questions can be very overwhelming and frustrating. At some tech events, people like to ask "gotcha" questions to test how much you know and make themselves look good, or just share their opinion with no question. These kinds of audience questions, in my experience, are more commonly asked of members of marginalized groups in tech, and don't really help anyone.

Instead, at the end of your talk, encourage your audience to ask you questions on email, Twitter, or later in the halls of the conference if you feel comfortable. I love getting asked questions on Twitter, as I can share the answer with lots of folks, including people who weren't at my talk. It also gives me time to think about my answer and research it, if I want.

If you do feel comfortable taking questions, remember that it's always okay to say that you don't know the answer to a question. I like to say, "I'm not sure! You should research it and then email me the answer, so I know!" It empowers the audience to do some learning and become experts, and it also still positions you as an expert who would like to learn more.

What questions do you have about speaking at tech events? Ask me in the comments!