I thought I’d throw out a question, and encourage people to submit comments or respond via Twitter (which I’ll submit here). If this proves to be successful, I’ll have found a nice theme for weekend blogging!

This weekend’s question:
What are your favorite, go-to accessibility blogs and web sites?

Feel free to submit one choice, or 100. Any and all comments are welcome.

If you’re new to accessibility and still figuring it all out, but are a devotee to user experience, sharing general user experience blogs is just dandy too.

I’ve maintained my Related Links page here and there, but would like to do a better job showcasing the many great accessibility resources out there. I’d love to hear the sites other people frequent.

Thanks in advance!

Tags: a11y, accessibility, AxS, blogging, ux

I’m quite happy with how this blog has evolved over the past year and a half.

But I’ve definitely learned that blogging is a challenge on many levels. Making the commitment to post often — but with quality — is harder than you’d think.

As I look back at the first year and a half of this site, I can see my voice has changed…and I think for the better.

When I first started, I felt this need to be more formal and “professional”. I tried to be conversational and casual, but I don’t think I was entirely successful. I also tried to keep a neutral ground of everything, like an impartial reporter just reporting the news (okay, maybe that’s a bad example these days).

Along those lines, I tended to recap news items and headlines too often. I’ve really tried to steer away from doing that, and I think I’ve been successful. I find it infinitely more valuable to express my own opinions, take stands, or share insights I’ve gleaned while reading up on web accessibility.

What’s really driven it home for me is that some of the posts I thought were just random ramblings that would fall flat, like the first “True Tales of Accessibility Ignorance“, resonated the most with people. I got the most retweets on Twitter, and actual comments from readers! And, at least by my own modest standards, my site traffic spiked.

Now, whether a topic is specifically about web accessibility or not, I’m comfortable and confident just expressing opinions – about my journey as a blogger, about my decade plus of experience in web design, about my foray into user experience, about my interest in video games, on and on…

In short, I’ve learned that effective blogging is being yourself. Take a stance on something. Share something compelling. Respond to comments and further the conversation. Say interesting things.

Tags: blogging, web content

I just realized that I’m fast approaching my one year anniversary of blogging about web accessibility. Time sure flies! I’ve learned a lot about the subject, discovered many very impressive, admirable figures through other blogs and social media like Twitter, and all around have had a lot of fun.

Here are just a couple of the lessons and insights I’ve gained about web accessibility, blogging, and developing a web presence in general. I’ll be posting more over the days leading up to November 12th, one year after I made my first entry.

Blogging is not as easy as it sounds
I figured that getting into a routine and blog-blog-blogging away would be a breeze. I’ve since learned  that effective, consistent blogging is a commitment. The challenge of posting often — but posting quality material — can be overwhelming.

I asked a few bloggers what the magic number is for volume of posting. I got one answer that 2-3 per week was a good, realistic goal. Another answer was 2-3 per month. The former struck me as too much; the latter too infrequent.

I set my own goal to be one post per week. There have been stretches of time I’ve been really good about it; there have been plenty in which I’ve faltered. In particular, since late July I’ve really slowed down. Life, work, and all that good stuff gets in the way.

WordPress is awesome
My foray into blogging showed me firsthand how great WordPress is. From the easy-as-can-be dashboard to slick plugins like Akismet (holy cow does the spam come pounding at the gates!), All in One SEO Pack, Sociable and Bookmarkify, WordPress really has impressed me.

All I did was find a simple enough theme, and work my own design into the markup and CSS. In the matter of a couple days, my blog was designed and ready to go. Using GoDaddy as hosting made it even easier, since WordPress is one of many applications they have an auto-download feature for.

Currently, I’m trying WordPress as a CMS for a non-blog site I’m designing and creating, for a freelance project. In that scenario, it’s been easy going as well.

Google Analytics offers a whole lot for a free product
Despite never having been a “math guy”, I’ve always had a weird fascination with stats and numbers. When I was a kid, I used to run entire seasons of a made-up 30-team baseball league with Micro League Baseball II on my Mac Plus. Not only that, I manually kept track of all the stats for  every team, every game! Similarly, to this day, one of the aspects I dig most about games like Madden NFL is the tracking of stats season to season

I’m glad that I set up Google Analytics right away on this blog. My traffic has been modest, and goes up and down (currently down because of the aforementioned mini-hiatus I’ve taken!), but it’s always interesting to track how many visitors I’m getting, what countries they hail from, what keywords they are using, and what browsers and operating systems power their journey.

“web accessibility iphone” and “expedia accessibility” have by far been my top keywords, but 664 total have enabled visitors to reach this neck of the woods.

More thoughts and insights to come soon. For those of you reading this entry, I give tremendous thanks for the time, attention and interest!

Tags: blogging, google analytics, web accessibility, WordPress