Zwinkyness

I have always considered myself to be a fair, honest (and sometimes even blunt) person. In order not to deny my true self, I will have to state here, openly and directly, my opinion. When searching for a review-site to review Zwinkyness, I stumbled upon certain websites that surprised me, shocked me, freaked me out and nearly gave me a stroke. What is up with reviewing standards nowadays? Where has the capability of writing long, thorough, in-depth reviews gone off too? Are certain people just so thick-headed or has anyone got the recent idea that he or she, even though incapable of creating any decent webdesign or website, has the right and knowledge to review other peoples websites?

Forgive me to come up with some examples that might shock you. I warned you. Take a look at Emo Reviews. Close that website down and ban its owners from the World Wide Web, please. This review-site offers by far the worst layout I have ever come across, lacking everything (web standards, an actual design, valid coding, cross-browser compatibility) and looking like it was done in about five minutes. How can a webmaster, who is unaware of the fact his layout is a total failure and a disgrace for the webreviewing gang, ever decide to run a review website? What has the world gone off too? They should keep people like that as far away from the World Wide Web as possible. Have you ever heard of the word ‘design’? (And then I did not actually say anything about their reviews yet…which mostly involve the words ‘I hate…I hate’ .

Moving on to a website that offers a somewhat more decent layout, but chooses to completely ignore the point of web reviews. My dear friends, I invite you to take a look at this review over at Silence Reviews. Apart from the fact the reviewer advises someone to create a coloured scrollbar (When is everyone finally going to understand coloured scrollbars are INVALID CSS and work only in Internet Explorer and are therefore totally unnecessary, overdone and plain horrid?) she actually gives advise regarding how the reviewee, Amy, should name her pages too. No, apparently we can no longer give our ‘webmaster pages’ the name of the actual webmaster; we must name it ‘about me’. And, this is truly the most creative and useful thought ever: do not call your page Competitions, call it Contests. Perhaps it is my knowledge of English lacking, but the last time I checked those words were two synonyms.
Moving on, the reviewer has totally ignored any spelling errors made during the entire review. Notice the spelling of, what should be “preview” and “remember”. Apart from the fact we, webmasters, no longer have the right to name our pages whatever the hell we want, we also have to abide by the fact that, even though we may not find it necessary, anyone using our content SHOULD link us back! Lets throw away freedom on the World Wide Web, destroy the statue of liberty of all webmasters and refrain ourselves from making any decisions about our own website and the way we handle things all together!

Since they are so damn hilarious and lack any reviewing skills, here is another one over at Silence Reviews: Shinning Heart Review. Apparently, according to this reviewer, freewebs does not support PHP, divs or tables. Maybe I missed out on something here, but what exactly have divs and tables to do with php? Last time I checked, all you needed for those were a bunch of HTML-coding and preferably some CSS.

Perhaps I am old-fashioned, a web-guru or an insane standardista, but I always thought reviews were about other things than what I have seen around. What bothers me the most is that these wanna-be webreviewers, who put together a review in a matter of seconds, DEMAND a link back to there website. Please excuse me for being so blunt, but why the hell would I link you back if you spend five times talking crap that is completely useless, sometimes even plain wrong and just a waste of my time? Here, I’ll give you a couple of more review sites you can laugh at: Bubbly Chica writes reviews of at maximum ten lines and demands to be linked back in a visible area on a website (I think she probably is talking about a navigation bar. I’m amazed people even DO link her back sometimes. Has the IQ of half of the Internet’s population dropped below zero?), SR Reviews has unreadable content (I don’t need glasses, yet I cannot read it so I doubt anyone can, without hurting their eyes incredibly), Toxic Kiss claims to give the BEST reviews out there, yet her design made my internet connection hide in shame and me cry in despair (not only is the colour hideous, it also takes approximately ten minutes to download) and features, of course, STOLEN pictures (lets all head over to whatiscopyright.org and sue her).

I will try to be as clear as possible to the owners of all sites mentioned above in this article. Please, in the name of all that is right and good and nice on the World Wide Web, close your review sites down. You cannot review websites for the sake of it. Either your review site itself sucks (awful layouts, invalid coding, only working in IE) or your reviews are short, meaningless and totally pointless. No, I do not hate you. No, I am not just some bitch who wants to hurt your feelings. This is an advice to you. I am saving you from eternal doom here. No, you do not have to listen to me (no matter how much I’d like to, I am not God) but for your own sake, you better should.

Reviews should give valid advice. They should talk about valid coding, tidy CSS, cross-browser compatibility, different screen resolutions, text-only versions of the content, originality, usability, accessibility (at least make sure the fonts are readable!) and things along those lines. The reviews you people currently give are pointless. “I like your layout, especially the colours. Well done!” is of no help to anyone. And please, stop demanding people to put a link to your website up. Rather spend your time writing reviews with some content: webmasters might be more eager to link back to you then.

I will end it here, but there is a lot more I can say about clumsy review sites. Maybe you can expect this article to have a part 2 in the near future.

Sorry, the articles regarding accessibility had to be postponed for a short while since I really needed to get this off my chest.

Nowadays, everyone who is anyone is all about accessibility. However, most people do not even know what ‘exactly’ having an accessible website means and why every single website out there should be accessible. Most people try fulfilling the WCAG Guidelines 1.0 but do not even know why they do it. Since accessibility has become the new trend, Accessibility Statements turn up everywhere: even on blogs. But is it really necessary? And why should anyone bother? This article was meant to help you answer those questions and get you started.

Accessibility is important and not only for governmental websites (that usually fail every accessibility test too) but also for smaller, personal websites. The main question that rises is: why? Well, it is kind of like checking for browser compatibility. Nowadays, every webdesigner checkes whether or not his design works in more than one browser, and preferably a design is checked in about four browsers in different resolutions. We do this so that people using another browser than the popular Internet Explorer can view our websites properly too. Seeing as there are more Firefox users every year; we might be able to go without lets say 10 percent of our visitors nowadays, but when that percent goes up to about 50 within the next 3 or 4 years, then it will become a real burden. By checking for browser compatibility, we are in fact already working on the ‘accessibility’ of our website. Because, all in all, making a website accessible does not only help people with disabilities when it comes to health and movement, but also people who have ‘disabilities’ when it comes to browser upgrading, small screens, etc.

Because the amount of people having certain ‘disabilities’ who are using the world wide web anyway is rising every year, accessibility has become important. It is not just a matter of showing off to the world: “Hey Looky, I’ve got myself an accessible website!”, it is a matter of principle. We do not lock out Firefox users, because we code for more than one browser. So why should we lock out a deaf, a blinde or any other disabled person when a little bit of extra coding could help them understand our website so much better? Webmasters ought to think of the future: if by now the percent of surfers with disabilities ranges between 10 and 20 percent, what can happen within five years then, if computers turn even more accessible to the disabled? Do not just go all the way to ‘an accessible website’ because it is what the popular crew does, join in the fun because it is a just goal to strive for.

You may have already heard of websites such as Watchfire WebXAct, which is basically a programme that tests whether or not your website complies with the Guidelines. Now, it might sound cool to get Bobby AAA Approval (wow, fully accessible website!) but it is not always necessary and it can even afect the quality of your website. Guidelines are what they are: guidelines, not rules. You do not have to aim at full approval, you have to aim at full accessibility. And those two things aren’t always the same.

Now, before we are going to start making our website more accessible, we’re going to take a look at the WCAG Guidelines 1.0. There are a lot of things wrong when it comes to those guidelines: they are written in such abstract, difficult matter that non-native English speakers might have a very hard time understanding them. So, forget them. Most of them will come forward in this ten step tutorial anyway, without all the unnecessary abstract ways of explaining things that are in fact quite simple.

Firstly, lets take a look at the weblog/personal website we are going to accessify. In my case, that would be Zwinkyness.  By default, the design of my weblog was built using an external stylesheet and CSS. This is very important, and not only when it comes to accessibility terms. Suppose that, for some reason, my stylesheet url broke down or a user has a browser that does not support stylesheet, he/she will still be able to read my content. So, I will not have to bother about that. There are however certain things that can, logically seen, be a problem for disabled people. For instance, the top banner of Zwinkyness or my XML Sitemap button in the navigation bar: blinde people cannot know what I am showcasing, since they cannot see the button or the banner. Also, links could become a problem for people who cannot really distinguish colours, unless they have any other decoration that can show them off as links.

By this quick analyzis, I hope you have already noticed that accessibility is more a fact of thinking logically than following any strict guidelines. Every problem has a logical solution: for instance, if a user cannot use a mouse, but he can use a keyboard, we have to make sure keyboard shortcuts can bring that user to other locations too. If we have images on our website, we have to define what they mean so blinde people can also know what is being said or being linked to. This is, in fact, the core of accessibility, rather than a bunch of guidelines that really say nothing and try to make simple things nearly impossible to do.

A quick rundown of what we are going to handle in each step:

• Step 2 : Images; to have or not to have?
• Step 3: The Importance of Useful Titles
• Step 4: Skipping to the core of our page
• Step 5: Assigning Accesskeys
• Step 6: Links; how to distinguish them
• Step 7: Why acronyms should be obligatory
• Step 8: Fonts made resizable
• Step 9: A bunch of other tips on accessibility
• Step 10: Writing our very own Accessibility Statement

I hope you enjoy these ten articles and learn something from them. Soon, the list above will be replaced by links to said post, so the steps are easy to follow. If, for now, you want more information, I advice you to head over to Dive Into Accessibility.

Hello everyone. Firstly, I sincerely apologise to all off you for abandoning this website for so long. I must admit, it is completely my fault and I have no excuse. I could blame it on school or on work, on having to write a NaNoWriMo novel (which I failed at too) or having to throw a party or fifty the last couple of months. The truth is: I don’t know. I don’t know why I abandoned you guys, I don’t know why I abandoned this website. It simply happened. Although it is not an excuse, accept my apologies anyway.

Second of all, as you might have already noticed by the new (and hopefully more professional look) things are going to change around here. Zwinkyness is going all Web 2.0 and not only that, it’s also going to change when it comes to accessibility and purpose. Although still a personal website, I will also offer visitor content in the near future. Please don’t go start clicking around though, most links aren’t working yet.

The next updates of Zwinkyness, apart from details on my personal life, will mostly include ten articles or so on how to make a website more accessible for disabled users. Amongst uploading pages, that will be what I’ll mostly be up to anyway. My goal is to make Zwinkyness approve to all (or as many as possible!) guidelines concerning accessibility. More coming in future articles.

Zwinkyness will still write paid posts once in a while, and you may always offer me a certain amounts of money in order to write about your product or website.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas.