The document discusses making DevOps more inclusive. It argues that diversity improves business performance and that customers will demand inclusiveness. It provides tips for making language, images, products, and hiring practices more inclusive by avoiding problematic terms, showing diverse representations, ensuring accessibility, and revising job postings. Tools like AlexJS and Lighthouse can help detect issues. The key is to take action, even in small steps, and not delay in prioritizing inclusiveness.

1. @bkolics
Make DevOps Inclusive
Bertold Kolics
Quality Catalyst at mabl
bertold@mabl.com
The Dog Days of DevOps - 2020 Edition, Cloud Austin Meetup
Austin, TX, USA
August 18, 2020
1

2. @bkolics
Why?
● The right thing to do
● The just thing to do
● It is our moral obligation

3. @bkolics
And ...
it makes business sense, too

4. @bkolics
Performance of Diverse Teams Is Better
● Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter
○ https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter
● References several studies, reviewing thousands of companies to show
how diversity helps these businesses to outperform others

5. @bkolics
Your Customers Are Aging - Design For That
● Michael Larsen - Future Proofing Your Software: Design Inclusively
○ https://www.pnsqc.org/future-proofing-software-design-inclusively/
○ Keynote at 2018 Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference

6. @bkolics
Your Clients Will Demand It
● You may not have that customer in the first place
○ Your reputation, your web site send the wrong message
● Your customer may be
○ Another business that may require suppliers to uphold
certain standards
○ An existing end-user may consider a competitor’s
product if they up their efforts
● You may get less applicants for your job openings
Credit: yeyvibe.com

7. @bkolics
Change Language
● Decide what terms to avoid
○ And what to replace them with
● Review and prioritize implementing changes
○ Job postings
○ Terms used in external and internal documentation
○ Terms used within the software
○ Language used in newsletters
○ Language used in chat such as Slack, Gitter, etc
○ Conducting meetings

8. @bkolics
Meeting Ground Rules at mabl
● Be Empathetic: Put yourself in the speaker's shoes
● Be Respectful: Let the speaker speak. Do not interrupt.
● Be Open-minded: Everyone has something valuable to
contribute. No judgment.

9. @bkolics
Ideas on Non-Inclusive Terms To Avoid
Non-Inclusive Inclusive
he, him, his, she, her, hers they, them, theirs
guys folks, people, you all, y’all
enabled, disabled active/on, inactive/off
master main, primary, leader, main
slave follower, replica, standby
blacklist, whitelist blocklist, allowlist
grandfathered legacy status
sanity check quick check
foo bar example, test, sample

10. @bkolics
Update Photos, Images, Videos
● Often forgotten behind language
○ Poorly picked images send the wrong message
● Show people from underrepresented groups
Source: The Gender Spectrum Collection

11. @bkolics
Make Your Product* Accessible
● Missing Alt text on your site
● Contrast
○ Check dark mode, light mode
● Text Size
● Home work: check out Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
○ https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/
*Product - may be internal

12. @bkolics
Resources On Language, Inclusivity
● Self-Defined
○ A modern dictionary about us. We define our words, but they don't define us. -
https://selfdefined.netlify.app/
● An Incomplete Guide to Inclusive Language for Startups and Tech
○ https://buffer.com/resources/inclusive-language-tech/
● Better Allies
○ https://betterallies.com/ - books & newsletter
● Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design
○ Book by Kat Holmes
○ https://katholmesdesign.com/

13. @bkolics
Tools To The Rescue
Leverage tools to discover problems and to prevent future problems
● AlexJS
○ https://alexjs.com
○ catches insensitive, inconsiderate writing. Set it up as a linter, add as a GitHub Action for
pull requests, merges
● Lighthouse
○ https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse
○ Built-in support for testing for accessibility
● Eslint accessibility checks
○ https://www.npmjs.com/package/eslint-config-react-app#accessibility-checks
● axe - Accessibility Browser Extensions
○ https://www.deque.com/axe/browser-extensions/

14. @bkolics
Revise Hiring Practices
● Who is involved in interviewing?
○ Do you have representation from diverse groups?
● Do you gather feedback from applicants?
○ Even from those who do not get an offer
● Do you use words in your job description that would deter certain
groups from applying?
○ Avoid gender-coded words such as ninja, warrior, rockstar, guru, or dominate
● Do you have a long list of requirements? Trim it
○ Studies show that women are less likely to apply when a long list of requirements are
presented
● Adopt culture-add instead of culture-fit
● Consider recruiters who work with underrepresented groups

15. @bkolics
Case Study: Ultranauts
“[...] Our cognitively diverse teams,
75% of whom are on the autism
spectrum, are uniquely equipped
to improve data and software
quality across a wide range of
industries undergoing digital
transformation.”
Story: https://bit.ly/312HsFW
Company: https://ultranauts.co/

16. @bkolics
So what’s next?
● Take action
● Even small steps
○ You may not get it right for the first time
○ It is OK to learn along the way
● But do not delay
Thank you!
bertold@mabl.com
https://linkedin.com/in/bertold
https://www.slideshare.net/BertoldKolics/
Credit: Edinah for Fine Acts @wildlogic