# First Month as an Accessibility Specialist at Oura

DevFeed: [First Month as an Accessibility Specialist at Oura](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/first-month-as-an-accessibility-specialist-at-oura-38439.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://eevis.codes/blog/2021-11-22/first-month-as-an-accessibility-specialist-at-oura/>)

Author: Eevis Panula

Published: 2023-01-03T08:57:45.598000Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Eevis Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/eevis-blog.md>)

Topics: [Accessibility](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/accessibility.md>), [Front end](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/frontend.md>)

Tags: [accessibility](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/accessibility.md>), [change](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/change.md>), [company](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/company.md>), [feelings](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/feelings.md>), [front-end](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/front-end.md>)

## AI overview

A personal reflection on the author's first month as an accessibility specialist at Oura Health. The author describes being the company's first person in that role, the organization's willingness to improve accessibility, and the relief of being able to focus on accessibility work without having to repeatedly justify or sell it.

## Source excerpt

So, I joined Oura Health in October, and it's been a little bit over a month now. My role is an accessibility specialist, and I'm the first person to be hired in the company in such a role. During the past month, we've had busy times. We launched the new Gen3 ring, and it has brought a bustle. On the other hand, it's been super cool to join the company during such a time. From an accessibility perspective, I know that we aren't there yet. We have a long road to go to change things, but one thing I'm excited about is that there is a will to do that. In this blog post, I'll share some initial thoughts and feelings from the past month. I'm super thrilled about what is coming, and I'm feeling happy that I made this change. I Don't Have to Sell Myself or Accessibility One of the best things has been realizing that I don't need to sell myself to do accessibility-related work anymore. It has been given due to my role. It might sound obvious, but it is not for me. You see, I've been in a position before where I've expressed that I want to do more accessibility-related work. I've been very vocal about that. In the end, I've still been the front-end dev first and foremost, who doesn't have time to look into making the results of my work accessible. If accessibility didn't take too much time, it was ok to think about, but there were never actual resources for that. Those situations happened when I was working in a consultancy. I was sold as a front-end developer, and that was what the customer was paying for. They didn't have accessibility in their roadmaps, so they didn't want to spend money on that. And myself being a consultant, well, I cost money. So I've been super happy that whenever I'm talking about changing things due to accessibility reasons, just saying that is enough. I don't have to justify to people how they benefit from it. That means a lot. It has allowed me to use my skills and energy to actually do something without having to spend a long time selling the ide