Courses courses courses

Posted on October 30th, 2006 by caroline.
Categories: General.

So I’ve just been booked on courses over the next few months.  GOOD STUFF!

Firstly I’ll be attending Eric Meyer’s two day workshop run by Carson Workshops in December.  I’ve attended workshops by the Carson clan before, and it has always been very smooth and informative, so cannot wait.

Next Tuesday I’ll be donning my usability hat and attending the User Experience 2006 Conference, listening to all the gurus that care about user interaction.  Its something that I’ve often just skimmed over so it should be an interesting time.

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Here here!

Posted on October 19th, 2006 by caroline.
Categories: Geek talk, General, humour.

Eric Meyer’s post in Think Vitamin made me chuckle.

It is difficult for some to get into a job and suddenly be bombarded with things they never thought they’d have to take on board.

Spookily it kinda goes hand in hand with Molly Holzschlag’s post on specialization in the web as well as my very own post.

Specialisation in these fields is a tiresome and often long process which can take its toll, especially when the industry is constantly moving into new areas faster than we can manage!

If you’re gonna delve into other areas, do it properly…that’s what I say!

1 comment.

Flash sites…they are great…for those that can see them!

Posted on October 9th, 2006 by caroline.
Categories: Accessibility, Geek talk.

A few days ago, Roger Johansson made a post which brought me to the attention of the flash website flowchart.

Russ’ (thegooglecache) genius confirms many people’s thoughts that flash sites these days are not accessible.

From my intial encounter with flash 5 years ago, it would appear that every common site would have a splash page, some funky motion tweening, some swanky actionscripting that would make you want to learn more. You saw the likes of 2advanced, yugop, and many more making their stand in the web world. It looked like everybody was jumping on the flash/actionscripting bandwagon!

Now that accessibility has made such an impact in the web industry, how things change. Now we surf the web with the hopes of quick loading, search friendly, and cross browser/cross platform friendly sites, that do not deny access to ANYBODY.

For those that attended Robin Christopherson’s talk at @media this year, you will recall his macromedia flash example in which he couldn’t get passed the first slide with his screen reader, despite the presentation being on “Designing Accessible Flash”.

I’ve always been a fan of flash, but only when it is used in the right way. For many entertainment sites, it coincides with the content. You want something cool, something funky, yet you cannot sacrifice that for obtainable content. There has to be a balance.

I believe that flash should be used for subtle effects, what I like to call the niceities of a site. As well as animations such as A Break in the Road, and games such as those created by ferry halim. These sites are created for entertainment value to a particular type of target audience.

For those companies/organisations that wish to reach out to all users, use flash sparingly.

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Where’d the year go?

Posted on October 3rd, 2006 by caroline.
Categories: General.

Its October already?

Crazy!!!!!

I swear it was only just the new year, and now I’m walking around the stores and work and finding Christmas trees coming out of the woodwork, Christmas pudding being stocked on shelves…madness I tell you…madness!!!

No doubt this month will fly by like anything…and hopefully things should calm down a bit at work.  Its been somewhat chaotic recently, but due to the freeze on the site for any new applications to go up before Christmas, it should all hopefully ease off pretty soon.

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