About

I notice who gets overlooked.

I’m Tani, a digital accessibility specialist in Houston. I find the accessibility barriers that hinder people in everyday digital life. This work guides how I direct AI to build software, so that a product reaches the people it was built to serve. Growing up between Tokyo and Houston, I have spent my life interpreting between several ways of seeing the same thing.

My Story

My grandfather worked until he was 101. He stayed sharp the whole way through, and somewhere along the line he picked up glasses, then hearing aids, then a little help getting around. While he adapted each time, the everyday things around him drifted a little further out of easy reach. I recognized what was happening, yet did not have the right words to translate it to the digital space.

After many professional twists I arrived at accessibility through a UX design immersive program in 2024. The accessibility coursework deeply resonated with me. It connected a lifelong interest in technology to the way I was raised, which was to move through the world with consideration for the people in it. Both lead to the same question: how do I make this easier for the person using it?

Since then I have evaluated many websites, helped build an accessibility apprenticeship program, and spent this year directing AI to build software I specified and reviewed. I am also writing a children’s series about online safety, which spurred me to create this space to share all of my work.

I bring a cross-cultural lens, a close attention to detail, and a healthy habit of documenting processes. When I am not evaluating a website for accessibility, I am reading children’s books and obscure ones, building tools to solve problems my friends and I share, or attending AI meetups to stay in the loop on the latest tech.

Work Approach

Quality over quantity

I am thorough with every evaluation and every tool.

User centered

Whether it is a client report or a children’s book, I build for the user’s convenience and benefit.

Grey over absolutes

Many perspectives are valid. I present what I find with clarity and depth, and leave the reader room to reach their own conclusion.

Selected Background

Education · Practice · Languages

Certifications: Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC) coursework · CareerFoundry UX Design Immersive · ATD Instructional Design · Manousso Basic Mediation
Recent role: Associate Director of Operations, Level 11 Technology (2024 – 2025). Helped build the accessibility apprenticeship program. Nonprofit client delivery.
Résumé: Résumé (PDF)
Education: M.L.A. International Studies, University of St. Thomas. B.A. International Relations & French, Scripps College.
Languages: English (native), Japanese (conversational, professional working proficiency), French (reading proficiency, conversational).
Methods: WCAG 2.1 / 2.2 evaluation, Section 508, EN 301 549, manual auditing with screen readers and keyboard navigation, automated tooling with SilkTide, WAVE, Axe DevTools, Lighthouse.
Standards background: Supported ISO 27001 audit preparation and evidence collection, with risk assessment work from a prior eDiscovery role.

Colophon

Display: Instrument Serif by Rodrigo Fuenzalida and Jordan Egstad, served via Google Fonts.
Body: Inter Tight by Rasmus Andersson, set between 300 and 500 weight.
Mono: Geist Mono, used sparingly for small labels and meta text.
Built with: Astro, with hand-written HTML, CSS, and JavaScript kept from the original static prototype. Hosted as a static site, built to load quietly and degrade gracefully.
Tested with: NVDA and VoiceOver, keyboard-only navigation, and axe DevTools. Each page was also read start to finish as if arriving at it for the first time.

With thanks to the readers who treat accessibility as a craft.