The following entries were made in the “Access Counts” category.
Archive for “Access Counts”
Not Quite Black and White
I have to hand it to Roger Johansson for being a master of coming up with interesting topics on his web log. His article, Light text on a dark background vs. readbility really generated a lot of feedback. And in that feedback there was of course myriad opinions about what’s best and what people prefer. The short answer is there’s no perfect way to do it. The saying, you can’t please all the people all the time, pretty much sums it up. Some like light text on a dark background, while others prefer dark text on a light background. It’s not easy.
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Offset Class Jump Links
I have written about these before under the post name Hidden Focal Navigation, but that was back in November of 2005. I have refined my technique and would like to share with you this more semantic method of hiding-by-offset “jump links” or “skip links,” all while they remain “visible” to those who really need them. The who in this case — the beneficiaries — refers to the following user groups.
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The Power of Natural SEO
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a critical component of a properly developed website. Or, rather, it is if you want to be found and indexed. You see, there are approximately two billion websites on the Internet, so being found by those who may be looking for you or what you have to offer, if that’s what you want, can be a huge challenge. But it is doable and is actually quite simple. There are two basic methods of getting this done: The crappy way and the good way. I will discuss the latter.
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WAT is Up with GrayBit?
It’s been a while since I brought up GrayBit. No news is often good news, but sometimes it just means no news. The online grayscale conversion tool made by Jona and I has been in active use since it was first announced, and then later updated. Since that time the tool has seen 111,471 page views, 32,541 conversions, made by 18,094 unique visitors. But that’s not why I’m writing about it today. Yesterday the WAT or Web Accessibility Toolbar was released for Opera, and guess what? Yep, GrayBit is on it.
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The One-Click Accessibility Self-Test
Everybody and their brother has CSS and X/HTML links on their site(s) nowadays. These, in case you don’t know, are for self-testing your site’s style sheet(s) and mark-up validation (on the page tested). These links are coded to use an absolute URI or the “Referrer,” but for testing page accessibility I know of no such thing. We used to have links that led to various sites that showed the results of previous testing, but that was before Bobby became WebXact. Rarely do I see those links now. Nowadays people rely on a web developers’ or web accessibility tool bar for their browser.
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Accessible SeaBeast Theme for WordPress
I’ve just released a new WordPress theme I’m calling “SeaBeast” to which I’ve gotten good feedback on so far. I’m pretty happy with it. It represents a ton of work that’s for sure. The reason is while on the surface it may seem simple, there are a host of features and added functionality built right in. And there’s more. I created it in such a way that you don’t have to make any of the usual files writable — the ones some people have problems with, like sidebar.php for example — because they don’t need editing. Everything is done via the well-commented configuration files I created. Oh, and it’s quite accessible.
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Built like a House
I was explaining web standards, compliant mark-up, and web accessibility to my wife. I used a “house” analogy. Not “House MD” like the television show (which is very good by the way), but like the structure some people live in. I equated a house to a website. I told my wife some sites can look great on the outside yet be very poorly built on the inside. The outer walls can be nothing more than a thin veneer. A website can have a great looking design, yet it may be built of straw on the inside and not able to withstand the huffs and puffs of the big, bad wolf of technology. It’s hard to tell by just looking I explained.
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GrayBit Turns Thirty
Read Important GrayBit Update!
GrayBit, the online contrast accessibility testing tool I mentioned and described in a previous post, is now thirty days old. Happy Birthday to GrayBit. So, what happened over the course of its so far short life? Let’s see…
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Let’s Focus on Focus
I surf around the web and check out all sorts of cool sites on any given day. And gladly I report I do see a greater number of accessible, usable sites that look great — a beneficial trend. I visit some really fine websites that qualify for an A or two. Being so, you might understand when I say that it strikes me as a bit of an oddity when I see no link focus. What’s up with that? I ask myself. It’s so simple to do.
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