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Everybody struggles

Weeks 1 and 2 of my Outreachy Internship with JupyterHub

Ogoh Blessing Onyowoicho's photo
Ogoh Blessing Onyowoicho
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3 min read

Table of contents

previous Outreachy article: Introducing myself

Progress:

It has been two amazing weeks working with the JupyterHub community to improve the accessibility of its pages. In the past two weeks, I have been:

  • Evaluating JupyterHub's pages using accessibility testing tools like WAVE and axe DevTools.

  • Researching to find out ways to fix accessibility issues noted by WAVE. Some of these accessibility issues include:

    1. Language missing or invalid

    2. Missing alt text in images

    3. Missing first level heading

    4. Very low contrast

      <html>
<!--Language missing or invalid-->

<img src="" />
<!--Missing alt text-->

<h2> ---> <h4>
<!--Missing first level heading or skipped level in hierachy-->

  • Discussing which solutions would best fix these issues when implemented with the guidance of Min (my mentor) and JupyterHub's accessibility team.

Highlights:

So far, one of my highlights has been meeting project Jupyter's accessibility team. They were welcoming and offered to guide me as I continue working with JupyterHub. The team is doing amazing work improving JupyterLab's accessibility and I am looking forward to learning from and possibly working with them.

Another highlight was meeting my mentors and fellow interns. JupyterHub's Internship is structured so all three interns get to collaborate in the coming months hence the meeting. I sure am looking forward to this also.

Things I have struggled with:

  • Understanding the codebase: At the start of the internship, one of my greatest fears was the fact that I did not understand the entire codebase. Luckily, I came across a blog with info that has kept me going.

    The open-source project you are working on took more than a hundred people to write in months - years. It'd be almost impossible for you to go through the code in weeks and understand everything.

    Having this in mind, I break the code into bits and understand what I need at a particular time.

  • Communication: This was my greatest challenge. With this internship, I got an opportunity that over 4000 people applied for. The thought of this always made me feel I had to prove myself to my mentors. I felt I had to prove that I was worth the opportunity given to me so I tried to solve problems myself. LOL

    I was only robbing myself of the opportunity to LEARN(which is the essence of Outreachy). Now, when I have issues, I research how they can be solved and if I get stuck, I ASK QUESTIONS.

    My mentors have been very present and friendly so asking questions is very easy.

  • Feeling overwhelmed: At the start of the internship, I always looked at tasks as a whole then I'd feel overwhelmed. Along the line, I learned how to break tasks into bits. I'd insert breaks in between so I don't feel worn out also.

Conclusion:

I am learning to take things easy and not be too hard on myself as I am more productive this way. I see problems as opportunities to learn new things rather than blockages so I keep growing.

You can reach out to me on twitter or check out my work on github

OutreachyInternshipoutreachyOpen Sourcejupyterhub