Product Over Ego: Lessons from Building Accessibility Checker

November 24, 2024

You may not know this about me, but I’m a musician and songwriter. Over the years, I’ve spent a good amount of time crafting melodies and lyrics, pouring myself into each song. Sometimes, I feel these songs are ready to share through a performance or with a close friend. Sharing them is both exciting and a bit terrifying. You think you’ve crafted a unique melody, and perfected every lyric, and then the feedback rolls in. A fellow musician may notice missing chords. A friend suggested the lyrics don’t make sense. At first, this feedback stings and can even feel embarrassing. A song is a deeply personal creation, how could it not be perfect?

After the initial sting wore off I sat down with my guitar and gave the suggestions a try. The missed chord got fixed, and the melody came alive in a way it hadn’t before. The lyrics got tweaked, and suddenly, the song resonated on a whole new level. That’s the power of setting aside your pride and letting feedback shape your work.

Building Accessibility Checker: Lessons in Growth and Collaboration

Building the Accessibility Checker plugin has been a lot like that. When I started developing the plugin, I thought I knew what needed to be done, how it should function, and the proper code implementation. I was confident in my vision and skills. But just like performing a new song for an audience, the moment the plugin was released to the world, the feedback began to roll in and some of it was hard to hear.

The Feedback

Enterprise hosting companies audited the plugin and pointed out inefficiencies that needed fixing. Developers from larger well-known companies would bluntly share feedback. When NASA (yes, NASA) became a client, it was both exciting and daunting. They pushed the plugin to its limits, and exposed anticipated weaknesses, like handling extremely large websites with tens of thousands of pages. And then there was the feedback from one of the top plugin creators in the WordPress space who ultimately invested in our company Equalize Digital. Their insights and criticisms challenged some of my core assumptions about WordPress plugin development and product development in general.

Putting Ego Aside

Each piece of feedback forced me to take a step back, put my ego aside, and act in the best interest of the product. It wasn’t always easy. As developers and creators, we put so much of ourselves into our work that it’s hard not to take criticism personally. But I’ve come to learn that every critique, tough conversation, support request, and feature request is an opportunity to make the product better.

Turning Feedback Into Growth

I channeled all of the feedback into actionable improvements, and in many cases, the very source of the feedback was happy to work alongside me to come up with a solution, a true testament to the WordPress community. Together, we optimized database queries to make the plugin faster and more scalable. We added features to better meet the needs of enterprise clients, rethought parts of the user interface to improve user experience and performance, and implemented better processes around code readability, testing, and standards. In the process, the plugin became something far greater than what I could have built on my own.

Lessons Learned

This journey has been about more than improving a product; it has been a path of growth as a developer, leader, and business owner. Embracing collaboration over control has allowed me to build something I’m truly proud of while evolving in all of these areas. Listening, adapting, and improving have shaped both the Accessibility Checker and my development as a professional.

My Advice to Creators

My advice to anyone creating something, whether it’s a song, a plugin, or anything else. Don’t let your pride get in the way of your progress. Listen to your audience, your peers, and even your critics. Their insights just might be the key to turning your good work into something truly great.