Not long after finishing Google’s User Experience Design Certificate course, I found myself in a familiar place: energized by learning, but unsure where to go next. I loved UX. I just didn’t yet have a clear sense of how—or where—I wanted to apply it.
Somewhere along the way, I came across a link to a website accessibility review run by Maigen Thomas 
. It was a multi-hour session, styled like a live audit, and it cost $25. That alone made it feel approachable, so I signed up and listened in.
I didn’t realize at the time that it would change the direction of my work.
The review was thorough and unapologetically detailed. Maigen walked through everything she was doing behind the scenes—code, structure, testing tools, patterns I hadn’t encountered before. At first, there was a lot to take in. I could follow the why of the work immediately, even if I didn’t yet understand all the mechanics of how it was being done.
What stayed with me was the clarity of purpose. It was obvious that this work mattered. It had real consequences, real users, and real value. Rather than feeling discouraged, I felt pulled toward understanding it more deeply—enough to be able to do the work properly myself.
That first review led me to take HTML and CSS courses. Those courses led to building my first website. That led to learning WordPress. And as I gained more experience, I kept coming back to Maigen’s accessibility reviews. Each time, I walked away with something useful. Over time, the same tools and techniques that once felt dense began to feel familiar, not because they had changed, but because I had.
Maigen’s company, Level 11 Technology, does more than client work. She actively creates space for early-career UX professionals to learn accessibility in a way that’s practical, rigorous, and connected to real projects. She’s generous with her knowledge, her resources, and her time, and she has a rare ability to make complex systems feel learnable without making them feel simple.
She’s also the author of Practical UX: A Hands-on Guide to Getting Industry-Recognized Experience , which reflects the same philosophy I saw in those early reviews: learning by doing, with honesty about what the work actually requires.
Looking back, it’s clear how much those early exposures shaped my path. At the time, I was just trying to figure out what came next. Now, I find myself doing work I once only hoped I might understand well enough to attempt.
I’m deeply grateful to Maigen—for the work she does, for how openly she shares it, and for the nudge that helped me find my way into accessibility.