08/29/2026
For fun this morning I asked AI to describe me "like you are trying to warn someone before they meet me."
WARNING: BEFORE YOU MEET SUMNER
Proceed with caution.
You are about to meet a woman who has been doing web design since before half the people in the room knew what a website was, and she has opinions about accessibility that she can—and will—support with evidence, examples, and probably a browser extension.
She may appear harmless.
She is not.
She is dangerously curious.
If you say, “I wonder if this website is accessible…” you have just accidentally volunteered for a 45-minute conversation involving WCAG, screen readers, keyboard navigation, ARIA, color contrast, bad forms, worse PDFs, and at least one story that begins with:
“Okay, you are NOT going to believe what I found…”
Things you should know:
1. Do not say, “It’s good enough.”
This activates something.
She will politely ask, “Good enough for whom?”
And suddenly you're questioning your entire approach to digital inclusion.
2. Never tell her something “can't be done.”
She will hear that as a personal invitation.
Somewhere in her brain a little engineer puts on safety goggles and says:
“Challenge accepted.”
3. Be very careful showing her a website.
She isn't merely looking at it.
She's testing it.
While you are admiring the pretty hero image, she's thinking:
Can I reach everything with a keyboard?
What's the focus state?
Is that heading actually a heading?
Why is that button labeled “Click Here”?
Why does this form hate me?
WHO MADE THIS MENU?
And then comes the dreaded silence.
That's when you know she's found something.
4. She collects projects the way other people collect refrigerator magnets.
Website problem? Interesting.
Accessibility problem? Fascinating.
Impossible deadline? Intriguing.
Tiny budget and enormous expectations?
Now you've got her attention.
5. She has a suspicious relationship with WordPress.
She loves it.
She fights with it.
She fixes things other people broke.
She occasionally mutters things at it that cannot be printed in a family publication.
Then she fixes the problem anyway.
6. She is extremely dangerous around bad accessibility advice.
You may casually say:
“We just put an accessibility widget on it.”
At which point you should probably take cover.
7. She has cats and dogs.
This seems unrelated.
It isn't.
There is a very real possibility that during a completely serious business conversation, you will be shown a photograph of an animal.
You will be expected to appreciate the animal.
Failure to appreciate the animal may affect future negotiations.
But here's the real warning:
Underneath all the technology, stubbornness, humor, and “No, we're going to fix this properly” is someone who genuinely gives a damn.
About people.
About doing things right.
About making the web usable for people who are too often treated as an afterthought.
And apparently, after decades of doing this, she has somehow accumulated enough experience to become the person other people call when they've already tried everything else.
So if you're meeting Sumner for the first time, remember:
Be respectful.
Be curious.
Bring coffee.
Don't use “Click Here” as a link.
And for the love of all things accessible, don't tell her that accessibility is “just a checkbox.”
You have been warned. 😈
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