November 21st, 2006
Well, Sunday night I was poohing my pants waiting to speak at 20×2. Besides my random drivel about the history of my name, there were some pretty interesting answers to the question of the evening: Where Am I?
Some that stuck out for me were… Diego and his trumpet playing fairy; David Frew’s 2 minute speed read of no less than two sides of A4 of his prose. Not only a cleaver chap but a thoroughly nice bloke; Steve Marshall’s answer which saw the entire audience standing up and sitting down on cue thanks to a cleverly written presentation.
So, cheers to Kevin and the rest of the guys who put on a superb event which was enjoyed by every single last person in the room - and probably warmed the lives of those around just by it’s pure existence.
Oh, and you can find the original image used in this post here… Thanks to agsystems, cos some di*k didn’t take his camera. Oh, and the flickr pool here.
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November 3rd, 2006
The DDA is the UK governments legislation that governs all sorts of businesses and services to ensure that people with disabilities can access the same services as everyone else.
(un)Fortunately for web designers this legislation covers web services too! At Trinity we’ve developed certain working practices that ensure all our client sites are DDA compliant as possible. So what are these requirements, and what can be done to ensure that your next project isn’t going to get your clients sued?
We’ll it’s not actually that difficult, thanks to our friends at the W3C who’ve drawn up a Checklist of Checkpoints for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. In general It’s acceptable to ensure all your pages meet at least the Priority 1 checkpoints (or provide an alternative page that does) and as far as possible follow the Priority 2 checkpoints - especially so if your site is intended for the wider EU user-base.
So, getting back to basics, what do you really need to do to ensure your website is compliant? (remember, these are the bare minimum, always refer back to the W3C guidelines).
- Use (x)HTML and CSS to separate content and design. That way users can turn-off the styling and control the size and colour of the text as they wish
- Use alt tags on images to describe their content and title tags on links and abbr items to give an extended explanation of what these elements are.
- The use of accesskeys to offer an alternative way of navigation on all main navigation, and any sub-navigation possible
- Use Javascript to replace any Flash elements, so you’re providing an html alternative
These four things will not only cover many of the guidelines, but also increase you’re chances of getting listed in the search engines too. It’s worth investing a little more time investigation exactly what the DDA requires of web sites, an good staring place may be to Google “DDA” and read up on some of the official (and not so official) documents you find. Don’t underestimate the good that following the guidelines will do your website, it’s well worth investing the time to find out more.
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October 9th, 2006
Next month sees a popular sxsw event get it’s UK premier in London. 20×2 is 20 people given two minutes each to answer the same question, and I’ve taken the plunge and agreed to speak.
So “where am I?”… To be honest I haven’t got the first idea of what to say (or even if they’ll understand the Brummy dribble that will fall from my mouth). I’m excited, but know it could be brown trousers time on the night. Maybe that’s where i’ll be… on the loo.
If you’re free on Sunday, 19th November and in the London area, come along to Madame JoJo’s at 7pm, should be a good night (at least the other guy’s will be entertaining).
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August 15th, 2006
Ah, there’s nothing quite like basking in the warm glow of making a comment that stuns everyone in the room into silence. So it was one rainy October day in 2003, as Ross, Colin and I were trying to decide on whatever entertainment our dwindling student loans would allow. When, for some reason, my brain engaged my mouth without even asking me if it was OK and I herd myself say…
I know, lets play the hello world game! You know, where you have to think of as many ways as you can that you could write “hello world” in a programming language. Then the others have to guess what language you’re writing in!
It was a shameful moment for me. I knew as soon as I said it that it was a mistake. It was half meant as a joke, but there was no getting away from the disdainful looks that the others gave me. There was no choice, I had committed myself to this, and now I had to see it through, so I opened my and out flew this gem…
I’ll go first. What language is this… “Response dot write ‘hello world’ ?”
Needless to say Colin and Ross have taken the p*** ever since.
The Century!
On a completely unrelated matter, this is my 100th post. Hopefully it wont take another year and eight months to write another 100. I might even get myself a little cake to celebrate!
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