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fuzzy-robot · 2 years ago

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I love this post! If I may, I also wanted to add something on--

ACCESSIBILITY!

It's a personal webdev passion of mine and it's been frustrating seeing a lot of newer websites adopting fancier or more mobile-focused design at the cost of accessibility to a wider userbase. Whether you're new to web design or not, making sites more universally user-friendly is pretty simple imo!

Users To Consider:

Visually impaired people

Hard-of-hearing people

Neurodivergent people

People who don't navigate solely by visual screen plus mouse or touchscreen device (e.g. keyboard-only users, other assistive technology users)

People with older/less powerful devices or poor internet service

And many more!

Overview!

Current accessibility principles can be summed up with the POUR acronym: content should be Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust.

Perceivable: content is easy for the user to see or hear. One example of this is that images/video/audio should have alt text or transcripts where applicable. For sighted users, text and backgrounds should have enough contrast to be readable (more on that below) and you shouldn't alter the site in a way that makes visually impaired people unable to enlarge text.

Operable: the user should be able to navigate the page by mouse/touchscreen/keyboard--any simple HTML site will have basic keyboard navigation options provided by the browser, just be mindful of whether adding advanced features could alter that. Also, if your navigation buttons are images, make sure to use alt text or provide an alternative!

Understandable: both the content and controls should be understandable and easy to read. This means that as well as being Perceivable, they should be organized consistently and placed on the same part of the page. Also consider making plaintext links more obvious with your color choice and/or formatting.

Robust: content should work with current and future technologies. This means it can be accessed by different browsers and operating systems, but most importantly for this level of design, it means being accessible to screen readers and other assistive technologies!

QUICK TIPS!!

Use alt text!!! Here's a w3schools page showing where you put alt text in the html code, and here is a w3c decision-tree on where and how to use alt text. ABSOLUTELY use it if you're using images as links!!

Color usage! When picking out background/text/link colors, check the color contrasts here or here to see how well they match up to the W3C's accessibility guidelines! -Write meaningful link text! Here is one guide on that, including stuff like keeping links descriptive for screen readers, not making urls into link texts, and keeping them short and informative

In-Depth Guidelines

WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind) is a site with a ton of content on different aspects of web accessibility. Here is a direct link to a page of their most-used tools and guides.

Right here is a nice, simple rundown of universal design when it comes to web accessibility. The tone is a bit more academic but I think it's a nice overview.

Much more in-depth is W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines document! It's long and not necessarily exciting, but it's comprehensive AND has a nicely organized and linked table of contents that can lead you to suggestions for improving any features you're considering, meaning you can read the whole thing or just jump around to relevant or interesting parts.

I don't think I followed all of these tips in my own blog HTML or even the body of this post (oops) because I put it together on the fly, but if you can, I think these are all principles that are good to keep in mind🌟

neocities guide - why you should build your own html website

do you miss the charm of the 90s/00s web where sites had actual personality instead of the same minimalistic theme? are you feeling drained by social media and the constant corporate monopoly of your data and time? do you want to be excited about the internet again? try neocities!!

what is neocities?

neocities is a free hosting website that lets you build your own html website from scratch, with total creative control. in their own words: "we are tired of living in an online world where people are isolated from each other on boring, generic social networks that don't let us truly express ourselves. it's time we took back our personalities from these sterilized, lifeless, monetized, data mined, monitored addiction machines and let our creativity flourish again."

why should I make my own website?

web3 has been overtaken by capitalism & conformity. websites that once were meant to be fun online social spaces now exist solely to steal your data and sell you things. it sucks!! building a personal site is a great way to express yourself and take control of your online experience.

what would I even put on a website?

the best part about making your own site is that you can do literally whatever the hell you want! focus on a specific subject or make it a wild collection of all your interests. share your art! make a shrine for one of your interests! post a picture of every bird you see when you step outside! make a collection of your favorite blinkies! the world is your oyster !! here are some cool example sites to inspire you: recently updated neocities sites | it can be fun to just look through these and browse people's content! space bar | local interstellar dive bar creature feature | halloween & monsters big gulp supreme peanutbuttaz | personal site dragodiluna linwood | personal site patho grove | personal site

getting started: neocities/html guide

sound interesting? here are some guides to help you get started, especially if you aren't familiar with html/css sadgrl.online webmastery | a fantastic resource for getting started with html & web revival. also has a layout builder that you can use to start with in case starting from scratch is too intimidating web design in 4 minutes | good for learning coding basics w3schools | html tutorials templaterr | demo & html for basic web elements eggramen test pages | css page templates to get started with sadgrl background tiles | bg tiles rivendell background tiles | more free bg tiles

fun stuff to add to your site

web revival manifestos & communities

also, there's actually a pretty cool community of people out there who want to bring joy back to the web! melonland project | web project/community celebrating individual & joyful online experiences. Also has an online forum melonland intro to web revival | what is web revival? melonking manifesto | status cafe | share your current status nightfall city | online community onio.cafe | leave a message and enjoy the ambiance sadgrl internet manifesto | yesterweb internet manifesto | sadly defunct, still a great resource reclaiming online social spaces | great manifesto on cultivating your online experience

in conclusion

i want everyone to make a neocities site because it's fun af and i love seeing everyone's weird personal sites that they made outside of the control of capitalism :) say hi to me on neocities

#gif #internet #links #resources #ooh I was just thinking about a little freeform hub website #the conflict between a linktree I can set and forget #vs the opportunity to go full obsessive mode and sink all my time into weaving an ever changing tapestry of css #I don't even want to think of what I'll become if I let myself fold javascript into the mix #maybe I want that #maybe I want to succumb to the temptations of code #work my fingers into the interlocking languages until they can no longer be extricated and I myself am enmeshed in the script #oh right anyway. hey check out these links #long post #I added the tags first and the post second and this has gotten wildly out of control #fucking help me #not even assuming this is going further than my own blog but when I see the opportunity to write about web accessibility I feel Compelled #important

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