Ashleigh Lodge
Accessibility Advocate & Speaker; Leader, Enterprise Apps, Neovation Learning Solutions
Winnipeg, Canada
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Ashleigh is the leader of the Enterprise Apps team at Neovation Learning Solutions in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She manages a team of over 20 developers, UX designers and QA analysts as they create and maintain eLearning SaaS products. A graduate of the Computer/Analyst Programmer (CAP) program at Red River College, she has held various development and management roles in the tech industry for over 12 years. Additionally, Ashleigh is on the board of Level It Up, an organization that supports autistic job seekers in finding STEAM roles and careers.
Ashleigh is a vocal advocate for accessibility and inclusive design, working to make digital websites, apps and products more accessible to users of all types and abilities. She has spoken about accessibility to a variety of audiences, including at Prairie Dev Con Winnipeg, Regina and Calgary, Confoo Montreal, and at TedxWinnipeg 2019, where she brought the idea and foundations of digital accessibility to an audience of nearly 700 Winnipeggers. Ashleigh has also published articles on digital accessibility in Code Magazine, and an article on including accessibility in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives for the Learning Guild.
In her free time, Ashleigh consumes a truly frightening amount of pop culture media, including movies, TV shows, comic books and novels. You can usually find her with Pokémon Go and Pikmin Bloom open on her phone, no matter where she is or what she's (supposed to be) doing.
Area of Expertise
Topics
How I learned to stop worrying (mostly) and love (tolerate) the bomb (AI)
AI, AI, AI. Everything is about AI recently, and I don't know about you, but I'm sick of hearing about it, and reading about it, and talking about it.
But. Like it or not, AI is here, and it's here to stay, so we all need to figure out how we can make use of this tool in a way that matches our own needs and responsibilities, but also our own ethical and social concerns.
This session will explore reasons for and against using AI, discuss use cases where AI can be valuable, and help guide you through creating your own framework for acceptable, ethical use of these tools, in your professional and personal life.
As the manager of a team of designers, developers and QA analysts I've been deeply aware of and involved in implementing AI tools over the last year, but I haven't made much use of them myself.
That changed recently (although probably not as much as my boss would hope), and I'd like to talk to people who are approaching AI the way I have, and how they can make small changes and take tiny steps towards integrating AI into their own work, without (entirely) compromising on personal values.
Surviving the AI-first apocalypse: A tale of transition and triumph
In early 2026 my team shifted from AI-assisted to AI-first design, development, and QA practices. Everything we build starts with an AI prompt or command, not an empty screen or file.
This was a massive mindset shift for everyone, especially given the ultimate goal of moving 10x, 20x, 100x faster across the board. It was hard (almost impossible) to believe this was achievable when there was no map or framework to follow. The team also had concerns about losing knowledge and skill, and how AI handles crucial topics like security, performance, and accessibility.
This session will explore what it was like to transition to AI-first tooling and processes, and how to support and encourage your team during a period of constant disruption and change.
Earlier this year my boss made the decision to pause work on our newest SaaS project and have us all (dev, UX, QA) investigate and then implement AI-first practices across the board.
I'd like to share how we got through this, key problems to be on the lookout for, and how and why we succeeded (mostly). Attendees are almost certainly going through their own transitions, even if they're not as all encompassing as ours. I hope that some of the lessons we learned will be valuable to them, and help them avoid some of the Winnipeg-sized potholes we fell into.
AI & Accessibility: NOPE! (well, maybe)
AI is everywhere these days, and digital accessibility is no different. Except for how it is different. Accessibility is fundamentally about people and how they use websites and apps, and making things easier (or even possible) for those who can't do that in the "standard" way.
So where does this leave us with AI and accessibility? Well, it certainly can be a useful tool in some situations, but less so in others. In this session we'll dive into what makes digital accessibility such a unique use case for AI, when and how you should use it, and when you definitely shouldn't.
I've been talking about accessibility for a while now, and suddenly all anyone wants to know is how AI is going to mean we never have to think about accessibility ever again, and isn't that great?!
I'm not so sure it is great, based on my experience with tools like Claude and the "accessible" code it generates. It also feels like we're removing the actual users, actual disabled people from the equation even more than they have been so far.
I'd like to walk people through why I see this as an issue, what appropriate use cases for AI might be regarding accessibility, and where it is and remains crucial to have the human element.
What is digital accessibility and why does it matter?
Do you know what accessibility is and why it's critical for 20% or more of your users? Have you ever heard of WCAG, POUR or ARIA?
Accessibility should be a key element of our processes, but many people haven't even heard of it.
In this introductory session you'll learn about assistive devices and technologies, accessibility standards and tools, and come away with quick and easy next steps for making your sites and applications more accessible to all users, including disabled ones.
Accessibility should be fundamental to the development process, but it isn’t. Most dev/designer/PMs haven’t even heard about it, let alone understand what it actually means. I want to give a basic intro + next steps so people can introduce a11y & inclusive design into their own companies/workflows.
POURing over your website: Accessibility Guidelines & Tools
Have you ever looked at the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)? Like most standards documents, they’re dry and not very clear, so let’s make them more accessible!
I’ll strip the WCAG docs down to their basics and introduce various tools you can use to check the accessibility of your website or app. Whether it’s an audit tool such as aXe or WAVE, a colour contrast tool built into your browser, or a colour-blindness simulator, you’ll learn how to use these tools, interpret the results, and create an accessibility checklist and a plan for fixing common issues.
Once people have been introduced to accessibility concepts, they’re going to need to know how to implement those in the real world. This talk will boil the WCAG guidelines down to their fundamentals and introduce various tools to check and verify accessibility. I will be discussing things like browser dev tools, linters and CI/CD environments, but at a very high level.
First Rule of ARIA: Don't Use ARIA
What do you know about ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications)? If you've heard of it, you might know that it's for making websites more accessible, right? What if I told you that bad ARIA is actually worse than no ARIA at all?
Some accessibility is built-in to web dev, so ARIA isn't always needed. But when it is, it's crucial to understand what you're doing, so you don't end up with a site that's less accessible than when you started.
I want to help people understand why the the first rule of ARIA is don't use ARIA, and conversely, when ARIA *should* be used, and how to do so in a way that doesn't actually do the opposite of what you're hoping for (ie. making sites less accessible).
Easy Accessibility Wins: Better Accessibility in Five Minutes or Less
Once people are aware of digital accessibility, the biggest roadblocks are lack of knowledge and experience, and organizations who are unwilling to dedicate time to it without a solid business case.
We’ll walk through quick, easy and meaningful fixes that you can make in five minutes or less, along with why these are crucial accessibility issues, and how you can approach your leaders about prioritizing accessibility every day.
I’ve been interested in accessibility for years, but for many years at my organization it was not considered a priority, if it was considered at all. Because accessibility is so important to me, I figured out little changes I could make during the normal course of my work, like adding in alt text where it was missing or properly associating form labels with their controls.
In this way I slowly improved the accessibility of our products without making it a major issue, and because I did keep bringing it up and sharing these little fixes with my team mates, accessibility eventually became a priority and one of the pillars of our Product team at Neovation.
I'd like to share my knowledge and experience to help other developers, designers, product managers etc start their own accessibility journey.
Conversations That Matter
Be honest: how many times have you needed to have a conversation with someone, but have avoided it because you know it will be awful. Or what about those times when a conversation takes a sharp left turn and suddenly everyone's shouting at each other, or maybe someone's stormed out and now nothing is going to get decided. There are skills you can learn to have better conversations, whether they're at work, with family or friends, or even complete strangers.
So-called soft skills aren't necessarily strong suits for a lot of technical people, myself included. I was lucky to attend a training session on this topic, and it was one of the most valuable courses I've ever attended. I hope to bring as much of that information to conference attendees as possible, so we can all have better, more productive conversations.
Accessibility Audit Survival Guide
Whether it's your first accessibility audit or your fiftieth there's a lot of stress and uncertainty involved - but they don't have to be something to be dreaded. Knowledge is power, so this session will give you information on why you or your company may want to have an accessibility audit performed, what an accessibility audit is, what areas it may cover (functionality, content), how the process works and the general timeline to be expected, what you'll receive from your audit team, and lastly how to deal with the results and move forward in a way that improves accessibility now and going forward.
Having recently worked with a variety of clients on accessibility audits, there is a lack of knowledge and an expectations gap of what can be and will be provided during the process of an accessibility audit, and I think it would be beneficial for team members at all levels - leadership certainly, but also the developers, designers and QA analysts who will be receiving the feedback and expected to implement bug fixes and process changes - to attend a session on accessibility audits and take some of the mystery out of the process.
Problem Solving From Beginner to Expert: No Shouting Required
As people gain experience in their role or at their company/organization, how they approach and solve problems changes - but not always for the better. We've all been in a room where everyone is shouting at each other but nothing ever gets fixed, and we all know there has to be a better way, but what is it?
This session will walk you through the three stages of problem solving, how to recognize them in yourself and others, how to coach someone (including yourself) to move beyond their current stage by asking good questions and giving good answers, and ultimately, how solving a problem doesn't have to be done at the top of our lungs.
As a leader I've found that people move through stages of solving problems, starting from a panicky OH NO HALP response and eventually moving into a calm, focused, informed and supportive state where solutions are found and implemented quickly and with confidence. However, not everyone knows how to move themselves, or their team members from one stage to another and that can lead to people getting stuck and causing ripple effects throughout their team. I've used these tools with my team, and myself and they have been effective in getting people to think about how they solve problems, rather than just jumping in to "solve" them.
Screen Reader 101
What is a screen reader? How do they work? Who uses them?
Screen readers are essential tools for many disabled users and navigating via a screen reader is also a very different experience from navigating visually.
Learn about the history of screen readers, how they work under the hood, how users navigate and use websites with a screen reader, and how you can ensure users are supported and able to use your sites and apps with ease.
A lot of people are interested in and committed to digital accessibility, but specialized tools like screen readers can be an intimidating hurdle to overcome. I'd like to properly introduce people to these tools, and show them the basic skills they'll need to start validating and testing digital accessibility on their own.
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