Adam Scott on ethical web development

In this episode of the O’Reilly Programming Podcast, I talk with Adam Scott, who has authored a series of ebooks on the topic of ethical web development, the most recent of which is Collaborative Web Development. He is also the presenter of the video Introduction to Modern Front-End Development. Scott is the web development lead at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he focuses on building open source tools.

Discussion points:

• How ethical web development encourages developers to make user-centered decisions
• Scott’s principles for ethical web development, including: building applications that work everywhere, work for everyone, and respect users’ privacy and security
• Why developers should consider accessibility from the start of a project, not just at the end of the development process
• Scott says that web developers represent “the first line of defense” in protecting users’ privacy and security; he stresses awareness of attack vectors, and the use of only well-tested options for authentication and encryption.
• The importance of open source in achieving the goals of ethical web development

Other links:

• The Learning Path Introduction to the Modern Front-End Web
• Scott’s free ebook Building Web Apps That Work Everywhere
• The web accessibility checklists from the A11Y Project and WebAIM
• Open source web accessibility tools from Pa11y