
Oli Legat
Oli started his career crafting virtual worlds as a video game developer, driven by a love for immersive experiences and creative problem-solving. That journey led him to Google, where he honed his engineering skills at scale. Eventually, his focus shifted toward the web—specifically front-end development—where he found a new passion: building fast, accessible, and user-friendly interfaces.
Now, Oli channels that passion into refining enterprise-grade libraries at AG Grid. He cares deeply about accessibility (a11y) and user experience, always striving to make the web a more inclusive and intuitive place for everyone.
Why Writing a Pinch-to-Zoom Component Is Harder Than You Think
React Summit US 2025

Upcoming
Why Writing a Pinch-to-Zoom Component Is Harder Than You Think

At first glance, building a pinch-to-zoom and pan component in React seems simple. After all, the browser’s gesture events are already there. But when you need realistic, design-friendly motion and the ability to zoom axes independently, the problem gets much trickier. In this talk, I’ll share how we approached this challenge in our AG Charts React component: from the pitfalls of naïve implementations, to the realisation that pan and zoom are mathematically identical problems. You’ll see how some pen & paper algebra unlocked a precise and intuitive gesture system where X and Y scales update independently—kept in sync with React state—delivering smooth interactions beyond what you get in maps or images.
a11y & Interactive Canvases
JSNation 2025

28 min
a11y & Interactive Canvases

Thinking of using <canvas> to render your UI? Great idea! But let’s make it accessible. Learn how to leverage the DOM tree structure to allow users to interact with your canvas using the keyboard and a screen reader. Find out about tricky gotchas and how to work around these.