A List Apart is possibly the blog I’ve read continuously for the longest period of time. Its 2-4 articles a month are always good and they take a long-term, broad view of web design and website building. It’s not uncommon for me to read or come back to an article of theirs two years later and find that much of it is still relevant. That can’t be said about many tech blogs. Among other concepts, A List Apart introduced me to universal design which comes up from time to time on my site.

And with all that said, the two most recent articles are particularly good.

The first article I read this month was “Universal Design IRL.” ((For those who don’t know, “IRL” stands for “in real life.”)) The author makes a clear case for the need to make tech events and communities more inclusive. As a member of the Seattle WordPress Meetup, among others, this was an important article to reflect on. Tech communities are frequently—bordering on always—white and male, and the frequent presenters are ever whiter and male-r. This article calls out that fact and puts forth some really simple ideas to begin to take on this issue. I hope others take it as seriously as it deserves.

Read “Universal Design IRL” on A List Apart.

The second article, “Becoming Better Communicators,” discusses consultant-client and team communication. Almost every freelancer, consultant, project manager, etc. has at one time or another “blamed the client.” At times, they deserve it, but those times are much less frequent than we’d like to believe. I strive to make the content on this website and all others I build accessible to everyone who reads it, and it’s a great idea to think of client interactions and communications in a similar way.

Read “Becoming Better Communicators” on A List Apart.

Talk Back

If you read either of these articles, what spoke to you most?