John Rochford
Director, Software Engineer, and Public Speaker in Worcester, MA
My Passion
I help make the web usable by people with disabilities. I focus on people with intellectual disabilities and/or Autistics. I research and develop artificial intelligence (AI) powered web text simplification on a mass scale. Easy-to-understand text is great for people with cognitive disabilities, non-native language speakers, people with low literacy, seniors, and really everyone.
My Dreams
Make it easy for people to login to websites. Done! I am the first author of a new web accessibility guideline. (See Accessible Authentication, published on 2023-10-05, and the issue paper I published about it on 2014-09-02. Yes, it took 9 years for my wonderful W3C colleagues and I to do it, but we did it!)
Make web text so simple we understand it the first time we read it. (See EasyText.AI.)
Help everyone be safe and healthy. (See EasyCOVID-19.)
My Positions
- Director, INDEX Program, Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, University of Massachusetts Medical School
- Faculty, Family Medicine & Community Health and Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center; University of Massachusetts Medical School
- Invited Expert, Worldwide Web Consortium
- Member, American Expert Speaker Program, U.S. Department of State
- Director of Technology (Assistive Technology, Information/Dissemination, Online Learning) for:
- Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD)
- Interdisciplinary Technical Assistance Center (ITAC) on Autism and Developmental Disabilities
- University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD)
My Work
Discover more about my work via the 14 icons below.
Accessibility Note
This page has a few accessibility errors I cannot fix. (See WAVE report.) However, About.Me is the most accessible profile website I have found.