David Macdonald
Invited Expert at Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AG)
Huntsville, Ontario, Canada
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolDavid Macdonald is a veteran accessibility expert and long‑standing W3C Invited Expert who has shaped WCAG 2.x, WAI‑ARIA, and HTML accessibility standards since 2002. He combines deep standards work—co‑editing "Using ARIA" and contributing to WCAG evaluation methodology—with hands‑on consulting, having led high‑profile government accessibility efforts (including the Donna Jodhan case and Accessible Canada Act) and audited major corporate and transportation web estates. As president of CanAdapt Solutions he trains and coaches teams on practical WCAG implementation, and his GitHub contributions include adding concrete success criteria to the canonical wcag repository that improve interaction and assistive‑tech compatibility. He remains active in certification and community building as an IAAP Certification Committee member and frequent keynote speaker, while also doing direct accommodations work to stay grounded in users’ lived experience. Bilingual in English and French and based in Huntsville, Ontario, he blends policy, technical authorship, and real‑world remediation with a knack for translating standards into usable practices.
12 years of coding experience
B. Com (Magna cum Laude), information systems, disability, management, accessibility, policy, GPA of 8.7 (on 10), B. Com (Magna cum Laude), information systems, disability, management, accessibility, policy, GPA of 8.7 (on 10) at University of Ottawa / Université d'OttawaSecondary Diploma, Special interest in Electronics, Secondary Diploma, Special interest in Electronics at Rideau High School
English, French
Github Skills (4)
wcag10
html10
accessibility10
css4
Programming languages (13)
Github contributions (5)
w3c/wcag
Feb 2017 - Jun 2022
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
Role in this project:
Accessibility Specialist
Accessibility SpecialistContributions:1 review, 161 commits, 10 PRs in 5 years 4 months
Contributions summary:David primarily contributed to the project by updating the `guidelines/index.html` file. They implemented several new accessibility success criteria (SC) focused on enhancing user experiences, especially in areas related to content changes, pointer gestures, touch interaction with assistive technology, and character key shortcuts. The contributions involved adding and modifying content, defining key terms, and making editorial improvements to improve the clarity and precision of the guidelines, including refining the definition of "primary purpose".
a11yattributionaxeguidelineswcag
w3c/using-aria
May 2013 - Oct 2018
Using ARIA
Contributions:94 commits, 4 PRs, 53 pushes in 5 years 5 months
aria
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