Demystifying Web Accessibility

It’s bright and early Friday morning, and I’m getting ready for the first day of WCUS (WordCamp US for anyone who doesn’t follow all things WordPress). I’m so excited to be here and able to meet all of the awesome people attending. It’s supposed to be nearly 2000 (eek!).

I’m also speaking this morning, hence the very early wakeup call 🙂 I’ll be talking about web accessibility, something that I’ve been getting more and more interested in over the last year or so. Here’s the official description of today’s talk:

Accessibility is so much more than just catering to screen readers. What goes into making a website accessible? Many government contracts require websites to be accessible. A variety of companies and brands want them. It can affect the “magic” of SEO (ranking, search-ability, search engine karma, etc). How can you determine whether or not your website is?

Ultimately, it’s really not that hard, doing even one thing is better than nothing at all, and it’s never too late to start thinking about it. This presentation will discuss both tools and techniques that can help you build accessible websites.

If you’re into this sorta thing and want to come geek out about it with another person, or you have any questions or want to talk about the awesomeness of dogs or finding the perfect veggie philly cheesesteak, please come find me! In case anyone would like to follow along, I’ve posted the slides below as well as through SlideShare.

WordCamp Seattle 2014

As you may have gathered, I do a bit of website design and photography. This past weekend was spent in Seattle at WordCamp Seattle on the University of Washington. Yes it really is that beautiful. I was quite a bit envious of their campus 🙂

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This post serves two purposes, one to show off my presentation so those that were there have access to my slides:

The other is to attempt to convince anyone who is not already convinced that the Pacific Northwest is absolutely stunning.

This is the first time I’ve ever been on the West Coast. It has been an amazing experience so far! I’ve been warned of the rainy weather, but it was actually really nice. A bit cloudy/misty in the morning/early afternoon, but it was absolutely beautiful the second half of every day!

There was an amazing wind that blew off of the water and it was never over 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The views on the water are striking and it’s basically a photographer’s paradise. My hundreds of photos are proof, though I won’t bore you or strain my server with all of them. I’ll add some when I have a bit more access to internet. Now off to Amtrack bound for San Francisco!

P.S. Photography credits to Curtis Cronn and Patrick Gage Kelly. Thanks guys!

New Travels

So I just got back from India. And by just…I mean exactly 3 weeks ago.

Now where oh where are those amazing photos that I keep harping about? You know, those ones that show off how beautifully amazing my family is, show off my birthplace, and are just all around awe-inspiring and breath-taking?

…yeah about that…

I took like 7000 of them. And I was only there for like 3 weeks. So like 3-400 a day. A day. Yeah I’m kinda kicking myself for that. Not because they’re not amazing and captured moments that I will treasure forever. But because I got so snap happy that it’s kinda ridiculous to go through them all now after the fact because sometimes there’s 6 photos of the same thing, just varying degrees of the depth of field aka what’s in focus the most.

So to make a long-ish story short. Here are some photos. There are many MANY more to come, but I have got to get back to this whole actually posting regularly thing…more soon 🙂

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PS. A bit of a self-promotion thing…If you’re a WordPress user you should check out WordCamp, an event held across tons of cities around the world that allow WordPress community to come together to learn and meet and grow (and eat good food with great company). They’re popping up everywhere from Portland to Copenhagen to Austin to Chicago to London to wherever WP users are and want to hold one next! And if you happen to be in Asheville/Seattle, come check out WordCamp [insert respective city here] to see yours truly give a talk about images and colors and how to make your site look pretty 🙂