Websites for £250? Is that too good to be true?
How does the idea of having your very own custom-designed website for just £250 sound? If you’re a charity or community group just getting started, or your current website needs an overhaul, this offer is just for you. For just £250, I will work with you to create a professionally-built WordPress website with five pages,…
Ten Ways to Make Your Website More Accessible
What is web accessibility? According to The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), who are an international community that develops open standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web, and who also define the standards for making websites more accessible, “Web accessibility means that websites, tools, and technologies are designed and developed so that people with disabilities can…
Does Your Website Need to Adhere to Accessibility Legislation?
Jackie Latham, founder of Jackdaw Web Design, is an expert in accessibility for websites. And here she discusses whether your website falls into the legislation that says you must have accessibility features. “As you will have read in my previous blog, accessible websites work better for everyone. They are often faster, easier to use and…
Accessibility benefits everyone
The Right Place for Accessibility Jackie Latham, founder of Jackdaw Web Design, is an expert in accessibility for websites. And here she airs a recent bug bear from speaking to people about improving their website. “Accessibility is something that is applicable to every website. In a world that is moving forward driven by diversity, engagement…
What’s the problem with accessibility overlays?
What are overlays? Accessibility overlays are a type of accessibility tool that can be added to a website to provide features such as increased font size, contrast, and text-to-speech. However, an accessibility overlay doesn’t make an accessible website. Why are they not fully accessible? The main concern with overlays is that they may not address…
Keeping your IT secure
It goes without saying that we are living in very uncertain times. The last two years plus the terrible situation in Ukraine have left us all feeling, at best, unsettled and, at worst, terrified. None of us know what the future will hold or how the world will change in coming months, and much of…
What it’s like to work with Jackdaw Web Design.
The brief: Turn thingumies and whatsits from a self-confessed technophobe with a vision for an inclusive and accessible website into a real thing. Sandra Coulter from Silverline Memories gives us an insight into working with Jackdaw Web Design to transform their service to be pandemic proof and a lifeline for their service users. What is…
Making your website work better with screen readers
My last post was all about getting text to look clear for people with visual impairments, so this time I’m going to take it one step further and talk about making your website work better with screen readers, and with virtually no technical knowledge. I should qualify that by saying that there are techy things…
How to make your website more legible
When it comes to website accessibility, most people’s first thought is that it means catering for visitors who use screen readers. Whilst this is true (and will be something I discuss in another post), designing for accessibility also includes designing for those with more minor visual impairments. For example: Most people are visually impaired…
What sort of people is web accessibility for?
Website accessibility is usually (at least in the UK) seen as an optional, and often expensive, add-on that website owners think doesn’t apply to them because they don’t supply products or services to the “disabled” community. The official WCAG definition of web accessibility is making sure that “websites and web tools are properly designed and…
Five of the best WordPress plugins for accessibility, but are they a magic fix?
A whopping 20% of the population have a disability of some kind or another. Some may use screen readers, some may need specific colour contrast between different elements of the page. Others will have cognitive disabilities or mobility disabilities. Whatever their need, you do not want to alienate One in Five of your target audience…
Are Your Usernames Just As Important As Passwords – Or More So?
Each time you set up a new account, you probably spend some time coming up with a strong password for it (or use a password generator). But how much thought do you dedicate to your username? Chances are, you’ve been using the same one for years. Some kind of nickname or a combination of your…