On Friday Jeff Croft posted a piece titled Web Standards Killed the HTML Star where he makes the argument that just knowing HTML and CSS is no longer enough to get a job. He states that the web standards movement has effectively rendered the need for specialized knowledge of browser…
I’m a bit behind on my reading. There is always some new wiz article on web technologies and it’s hard to keep up. Since any chummer can write one, sometimes you have to approach them with caution even if they’ve survived the meat grinder of public review for as long…
Today my second article at Web Standards Sherpa has been posted, Tracking Printed Pages (or How to Validate Assumptions). I fit a lot in there, but the gist is that I show you how to track when and what pages from a site are printed so you can make a…
Ganesha may or may not be stealing chocolate from the advent calendar. For a few years now web developers around the world have celebrated Saturnalia Christmas with advent calendars covering topics related to the web. Some come and go, but you’ll probably recognize a few regulars on this list. I…
This post is an unexpected follow-up to my post Image alt Exception Change Re-Re-Requested (note one fewer “re-”) from June 2012. Back then, some had called into question the need for alt attributes to be required and ubiquitous on all img tags. Well, guess what — alt is back under…
Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting the University at Buffalo (my alma mater) to give a presentation for its CIT professional development series. I got to talk about responsive design. Knowing in advance that the room would have technical and non-technical users I went for a code-free presentation. One…
Yesterday Matt Cutts from Google tweeted that Google search results for users on smartphones may be adjusted based on the kinds of errors a web site produces (of course I was excited): Important: if your website has smartphone errors, we may change rankings for smartphone users: goo.gl/x8R4A #smx— Matt Cutts…
This post isn’t proposing any solutions (although I do toss out a hack). This post is a rant that I hope helps influence browser makers. Background Much of my web work isn’t for public facing web sites. Often it’s for enterprise-level software that is deployed via the web and used…
On Friday, May 17 I had the pleasure of speaking for the first time at Stir Trek, a one-day conference in Columbus, Ohio, that drew over 1,200 attendees (and I understand sold out in just a few minutes). Apparently the name is a reference to the MIX developer conference, for…
As of today I am an author over at Web Standards Sherpa. I wrote an article discussing the process of juggling a no-budget, tight-timeframe web site for Buffalo Soccer Club while still trying to adhere to best practices. The article is titled “Balancing Act: Features, Budgets & Timelines.” I get a…
Last week I spent my Friday afternoon trying to get my head around how to apply ARIA properly to a tabbed interface. I even got so far as to map it out on my whiteboard and snap a photo so I could mull it over during the weekend. And then…
I have no illusions that accessibility on the web can be tricky. It’s primarily tricky because of the way developers choose to implement it. Web Axe nicely sums it up: Most people don’t realize that the web IS accessible. The problem is that designers and developers break it.— Web Axe…