Kristina is a software designer who began volunteering with the Neil Squire Society’s Computer Comfort program three years ago. At work, she felt she was mostly interfacing with computers and wanted to “do something more human oriented” with them. That desire, coupled with a general interest in computer accessibility, led her to volunteer with the Neil Squire Society.

Kristina volunteers weekly in the Computer Comfort program classroom at the Society’s Western Regional office in Burnaby, British Columbia, but also tutors clients from across Canada via the Distance Computer Comfort program. She is currently tutoring a client in Regina, Saskatchewan (new window). Of the two programs, she prefers the slightly more regimented Distance program. She has even created over a dozen lessons which are now available for use by every Distance Computer Comfort program client.

The experience of working with people with disabilities has given Kristina a few things to think about in her professional life as well. “From the perspective of software development, tutoring clients with limited previous computer experience has underlined the need to strive for clean and simple interfaces when doing design,” she says. “The last time I developed an application from scratch I did try to improve my knowledge with making forms and web pages accessible. In part, the reading I’ve done at this time led me to a greater interest in accessible computing.”

We are thrilled to have Kristina and her expertise in our Computer Comfort program program!