A majority of my time over the last 12 years, say, has been spent “working” away, poking the various keys on a computer keyboard. Doing everything from fooling around to perfecting a craft. That craft has been, more or less, building websites.
Now, granted, it hasn’t been a primary focus of mine, that is, up until very recently. That’s largely why I haven’t been blogging with a familiar frequency as of late. And last month, especially. However, the need to have the web I use be accessible to the widest possible audiences imaginable, has constantly been an interest of mine, throughout my computing career.
After all my “career,” if you will, started with a giant computer screen and a single head switch, which I used for access, in a lonely hospital room a long 13 years ago. So, at the very least, not being interested in the subject would be mighty irresponsible of me, but not learning and implementing everything I could, toward such an involved practice such as web accessibility, would be even worse…
So, with that said, I won’t pretend my efforts, up to and including yesterday, are in anyway perfect, or even acceptable — I’m not sure they are — but please be aware I’m trying my best to do better, all the time. And, very soon, I’ll be launching a second project, in addition to this of course — in conjunction with a very talented artist and dear friend of mine — a design and development outfit, we have simply labelled, Felthammer.
It’s a little soon to be providing detail, except;
“Felthammer [is looking to] provide design services for print, web, and identity applications, with an aim toward levelling as many playing fields as we can. We specialize in working personally and thoughtfully with individuals, small businesses, and organizations to help them build their brand and their voice.”
Detail will be forthcoming. Sit tight. We have tons to figure out before we start frothing off at the mouth. Please, bear with us.
In the meantime, I’m wondering, now that the olympics are over and “we” (“Canadians”) have won hockey gold, exactly how your life is any better? Because Joe Clark has documented, quite extensively, how a certain segment of the population’s lives were, unnecessarily (and quite arrogantly), complicated these past two weeks. It is truly my honour — you have absolutely no idea — to point you towards an “study” I stumbled upon today that is, in no small part, related to the main subject I touched on today, being web accessibility. Vancouver Olympics Web sites are inaccessible to disabled people.
“In 2004, Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) CEO John Furlong promised that the Web sites for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games would be accessible to disabled people. […] Six years ago, then, Furlong made a high-minded promise about Web accessibility, one that took into account the failings of previous Olympic Web sites. The Olympic movement should have known that Web accessibility would be under scrutiny…”
Shame on you VANOC, and, to a lesser extent, but equally responsible, CTV!