Joe Dolson is plug-in and theme developer, a contributing developer to WordPress, a web accessibility consultant, and most heavily involved with the Make WordPress Accessible team. Joe is speaking on Automating Accessibility at WordCamp Minneapolis.

What got you into working with WordPress?

Blogger.com. Basically, I’d built a blog using Blogger, and found it to be a horrible experience – so I needed to find something better. WordPress filled that slot very nicely.

What do you like best about WordPress?

It’s easy to use, easy to extend, and most importantly easy to update. Knowing that a security update can be applied with nothing more than the click of a button (or even just something that happens while I sleep) is incredibly valuable.

What WordPress project has been your favorite?

I’m primarily a plug-in developer, and my favorite projects are usually the ones that I work on for myself. I’ve loved working on My Tickets and My Calendar. They’re complex projects with a lot of opportunities to learn new things.

What’s your WordPress design preference?
○ Starter Theme   ○ Free Theme   ○ Premium Theme   ○ Framework   ○ Other

It used to always be bespoke. But lately I’ve used my own theme.

What would we not guess about you outside of WordCamp?

I’m a classically trained violinist, and have been performing on the violin for over 30 years. I’ve been the concertmaster of the Twin Cities’ GLBTA affiliated orchestra the Minnesota Philharmonic since 2001.

What do you like about WordCamps?

Being self-employed, I spend way too much of my time working with WordPress alone in my basement office. WordCamps are a place where I can get out and chat with a huge number of people who *also* spend all day working with WordPress – and where I can hope to inspire them to take a new look at web accessibility in the WordPress-based project.