As a web designer, one of my jobs is to understand people’s design preferences before I put pencil to paper and mouse to screen. Looking at other websites as examples of design is important but provide misleading reactions when it comes to make decisions. Using Example Sites to Guide Design Projects Looking at examples of … Continue reading ““Engaging” “Interactive” Websites & The Pepsi Challenge”
This is post 2 of 2 in the series “Learning JavaScript” After sharing some thoughts a while back as I got started with Codeacademy’s Learn JavaScript course, I wrapped things up yesterday. Then I cancelled my subscription. Let’s start with the good stuff first though. The Good Parts of My Codeacademy Experience I was motivated … Continue reading “Final Thoughts on Codeacademy’s Learn JavaScript Course”
This is post 1 of 2 in the series “Learning JavaScript” One of the hardest things as a freelancer is keeping your skills up. This year, I’m trying to invest time getting better at the JavaScript programming language. While I’ve tinkered with JavaScript for years, I’ve never been comfortable with it and have usually turned … Continue reading “Thoughts on Starting Codeacademy’s Learn JavaScript Course”
Even when making a change to a website is fast, the startup and wrapup work adds a significant amount of time. Here’s why.
A while back, I wrote about how I’m a “web conservative.” Recently, I was reading “The inaccessible web: how we got into this mess” by Mischa Andrews, and it perfectly described what I was getting at: When clients and executives and developers and — anyone, really — talk about digital innovation, do they always mean it? Or is ‘innovation’ also used to … Continue reading “Conservative Design & Development in “The inaccessible web” [link]”
Websites can be really expensive or really cheap. Do you know what the difference is? It can be hard when you don’t understand the technical requirements to build a feature. Here’s an attempt at summarizing some things to watch out for.
How building a porch is like building a website.
The New York Times published a troubling-but-not-surprising article today on the effect of the “digital divide” on school children in the United States.
Google has guidelines for webmasters about the technical and content requirements sites must follow to stay in their good graces. You’ll probably be surprised how obvious their recommendations are.
It’s hard to get a good cheap website. To understand why, think of website pricing like making a pizza.
Saturday, October 24, 2015, I was at McCaw Hall at Seattle Center, presenting at WordCamp Seattle: Beginner Edition about web accessibility’s importance for all website users and four specific techniques that beginning WordPress users could implement on their sites.
I don’t know why it took me so long, but it just hit me that requests for controlling website design are feature requests just like just like an events calendar or Twitter widget.
Every idea you have for your website has to meet these four criteria.
To understand web accessibility, it’s important to understand all the ways a computer can be used to visit your website. Here are six short videos of “assistive technology.”
What percentage of users view a home page? Is it as high as the name might imply?
The dangers of a DIY website and a suggestion for making better websites on the cheap.
